AN 1: This started out as a multi-chapter, 100-word Drabble, but my dear friend and beta Kailene insisted that it be longer. Two years and over 50 *thousand* words later... Yikes. So much thanks and appreciation to Kailene, and to my other beta and dear friend LoveThemWinchesters for all your support and encouragement.

AN 2: This story diverges from Season 8, episode 22: Clip Show simply because canon no longer worked with what I was trying to do with this story.

AN 3: WARNINGS: While it's not a primary focus, the underlying theme of this story does deal with grief over the loss of a spouse, which is something I know about first hand, and the loss of a child, which is something I (thankfully) do not. I tried to be respectful and sensitive with the subject matter, but if these themes are upsetting to you, please don't read. If you do decide to read, which I obviously hope you do, please be kind and respectful in your comments. Everyone deals with grief differently and in their own time. I have tried to stay true to Jody's amazing character as I have seen her in the show.

A Moment Like Forever

~~~~~Chapter 1~~~~~

(Friday 6:10 AM)

He'd called her first, and as jarring as the sound of her phone ringing at 2:48 in the morning had been, the sound of Dean's voice on the other end of the line had been so much worse.

Frantic, desperate: his, 'Sheriff, I—I need your help,' had punched her square in the chest.

Those two never asked anyone for the kind of help she'd heard in his voice, not since Bobby had died and taken with him all rights and privileges to that level of trust. God knows she'd tried to offer, but the most those two would ever accept from her was the occasional home-cooked meal and a place to crash for the night—and then only because a snowstorm had proved far more persuasive than she.

Sure, she'd helped them on a few cases. She supposed that had to count for something. No, she knew it counted, and it had meant the world to her because she knew they didn't ask too many people for that kind of help either. They were simply too accustomed to having to rely on each other, and only on each other, to think they could look anywhere else.

What she'd heard in his voice... hell, the words themselves: "I need your help." I, not we. Only one thing could have put that tone into Dean Winchester's voice, and if he was only an I...

"Are you heading here or am I heading there?"

"You don't even..." he'd said, and if he'd been within swatting distance, both her hand and the back of his head would have been smarting.

Sweet Jesus! What kind of life had those two had that they didn't get that there were people out there who gave a crap about them? It didn't matter what the problem was. It would never matter what the problem was. She'd made a promise to Bobby's memory that she'd look after his boys whether they wanted her to or not.

And Jody Mills didn't make promises she didn't intend to keep.

He'd been holed up in a motel about four hours away when he'd finally come to his senses to call, and the only thing that had kept her from throwing a coat over her pajamas and tear-assing out to where he was with sirens blazing had been his relieved, "We'll come to you."

We, not I.

So, not the end of his world, not if he was a we, but still something pretty dire. It had been a long, worry-filled four hours before she'd heard the distinct rumble of the Impala pull up outside. She'd spent most of it mainlining coffee and pacing holes in her floorboards, all the while talking herself out of getting into her car and meeting him halfway. He'd told her nothing, so her mind had been busy running through all the possible scenarios that would greet her when she finally opened her door.

Not a single one had even come close to preparing her for what stood in her doorway.

Dean looked exhausted: dark circles under lack-luster eyes and several days' worth of beard over a tense jaw and grim mouth. He was alone except for the small, sleeping child he held bundled in his arms.

"I'm sorry, Sheriff," he said, and his voice sounded as wrecked as he looked.

"You should be sorry, young man," she quipped back. "How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jody?"

A muscle twitched in his unshaven jaw, but it was more tension than humor. "I'm sorry, Jody. I—I didn't know who else to call. I just..."

The child stirred in his arms, a mop of dark curls poking out from beneath the blanket Dean had wrapped around the small body to protect her...him—Jody couldn't tell—from the cold March air. Dean soothed the child, cupping his hand behind its head to keep its face against his chest.

"Get your ass in here, Dean Winchester."

She pushed the storm door open and he stepped past her so she could close the door behind him. She cast an uneasy glance at the Impala and its conspicuously empty passenger seat, then slowly pushed the front door closed. She leaned her back against the jamb, her hand fisted around the doorknob at the small of her back. Her heart was a lead weight in her gut.

"Dean? Where is Sam?"

Dean stood in the foyer, looking more lost than she'd ever seen him look. He glanced down at the child in his arms and the strangest expression washed over his face. She'd seen that expression before. It had been a lifetime ago, and she'd thought she'd never see it on the face of any man standing in her living room ever again. It was fierce and it was gentle with no conflict between the two. Dean smiled even as tears filled his eyes.

And she knew.

"Oh my God," she gasped.

Dean nodded. "This is Sam."

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN~~~~~

The child looked to be around three years old, with a riot of soft, sable curls framing a chubby, rosy-cheeked face. He was sound asleep on Dean's shoulder, one tiny hand fisted in the collar of Dean's flannel shirt and the other tucked into the folds of the battered, olive-green army blanket around him, so Jody couldn't see the color of his eyes. She wasn't sure why she wanted to, other than the fact that she had noticed Sam's multi-colored eyes in the past and remembered thinking how remarkable they were.

Why she was even thinking about his eyes was anybody's guess, and she shook her head. This whole situation was insane and yet, she didn't question it. Not really. She'd seen a lot of strange and inexplicable things since the first time Sam and Dean Winchester had rolled into her life. Her own son...

She shoved that thought back into its box and slammed the lid closed. She pushed herself away from the door and headed toward her living room, sweeping her hand before her to indicate that he should follow her.

"Coffee?" she asked casually, as though he'd just swung by on his way through town, as though he wasn't claiming the three-year-old in his arms was really his 31-year-old, not-so-little, little brother.

"Ah... yeah. Sure. Thanks."

She nodded and continued on her way to the kitchen. She pulled a mug out of her cupboard and filled it with coffee from the pot she'd made after the pot she'd made when she'd decided there was no way she was going back to sleep. That first pot she'd drained herself.

"Did you eat?" she called out to him as she pulled open her refrigerator and scanned the shelves. She could make him an omelet if he wasn't too particular about what went in it, or scrambled eggs. There was silence from the other room. She shook her head and closed the door.

"That wasn't a trick question," she said as she carried the mug into the living room. Just as she'd thought, Dean was still standing in the middle of the room and he met her entrance with a look of such exasperation she almost laughed. She set the mug down on the coffee table then folded her hands in front of her chest defiantly. "What?"

"Did I eat?" he repeated incredulously.

"Dean, when you called me at 2:48 this morning..." He opened his mouth to protest, but she raised her hand in warning. "I make it a point to look at the clock when my phone wakes me up out of a dead sleep, in case I need to make a statement in court, so yes, it was exactly 2:48. You said you were about four hours away. Well, it's ten after six, which is less than four hours, by the way, so I'm guessing you didn't so much as swing through a drive-thru on your way."

She gave him a pointed look, all but daring him to try lying to her. To her surprise, he looked away first.

"No," he admitted. "It's just... I tell you my Sasquatch of a brother has been turned into a three-year-old, and..."

"And I don't want you passing out from low blood sugar before you can tell me how the hell you two get into these messes."

She left him in the living room while she put together a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and ham, toast, and fruit. He'd moved over to the couch, careful not to jostle the child in his arms as he lowered himself into the cushion and reached for his coffee, and it was all she could do not to stand there and watch him.

Bobby had told her how close those two boys were, when they weren't gettin' all up in each other's face or buttin' heads like a coupl'a jackasses. What she'd always seen of them had spoken of something so complex that it was unlikely there was a word strong enough to describe it. It begged scrutiny, and maybe that was why they never allowed themselves to stick around in one place for too long.

Already, Dean had the look of someone who might bolt out the back door if left unsupervised for too long. There was a wildness in his eyes, lurking just beneath the exhaustion, a sense of urgency or fear or… She wasn't quite sure what it was. Every dealing she'd ever had with him, even when they'd been neck deep in it and drowning fast, he'd been cocky and irreverent and charmingly infuriating. Now, he just looked lost.

She made her way back into the living room, and stopped at the sight that greeted her. Dean was slouched on the couch, more horizontal than vertical really, his head tipped back against the back cushion. His eyes were closed and his face was slack, and yet he still held the child—Sam—in his arms in a manner that was as protective as it was comforting.

The child's eyes were open and alert above the chubby thumb he had stuffed in his mouth, yet he seemed so content to just stay there and be held, his head resting on Dean's shoulder and the index finger of his other hand twirling in a curl at the nape of his own neck.

She gave him a smile—how could she not—and he smiled back around his thumb. A deep crater formed in his cheek: those damned Sam Winchester dimples, every bit as devastating at three as they were at 30. His eyes were darker, seeming closer to the brown end of the hazel spectrum than the green, but they were Sam's eyes, watching, assessing.

A thought surfaced: was the Sam she knew still in there, a grown, strong-willed young man trapped in the body of a toddler?

She must have made a noise because Dean jerked awake, his arms tightening around Sam's body. Sam startled terribly. He made a little gasping hiccup sound and buried his face in Dean's neck. To Jody's amazement, he didn't start to cry.

"Sh—" Dean bit back whatever he'd been about to say as he sat up and rubbed the child's back. "Sorry, Tiger. It's okay. Sshhh…" He looked up at Jody. "Sorry, I… It's been a long couple a' days."

"I'll bet," she said. "You think you can drag yourself to the table? I'd rather not have to pick eggs out of my upholstery." She pointedly did not look at Sam as she said that, craning an eyebrow.

As she'd hoped, Dean smirked. "I am capable of eating with my mouth closed, ya know."

He pushed himself to his feet as if it took effort, then reached down to retrieve his empty coffee cup. Sam clung to him the whole time, his face hidden.

Seated at the table, Sam seemed as content to stay in Dean's lap while they ate as Dean seemed to have him there, occasionally taking small clumps of fluffy egg from Dean's plate with his fingers and stuffing them in his mouth. He completely ignored the small plate of eggs Jody had placed on the table for him. Finally, when it seemed Sam had had his fill of Dean's portion, Dean just dumped Sam's untouched plate onto his own and finished it off with the rest of his.

All in all, he didn't eat much, just a few bites of egg and pieces of apple. The one piece of toast Dean had offered had been met with firmly sealed lips and a sharp turn of his head. Dean hadn't pushed.

Jody hadn't pushed either. She'd eaten her own breakfast in silence, stealing serendipitous—and sometimes, blatant—glances at the two of them while they ate. The curiosity was killing her, and so as soon as she'd cleared away the empty plates and refilled their coffee mugs, she'd had enough.

"Okay, Winchester," she said as she placed a small bowl of dry Cheerios in front of Sam and sat back in her seat, "start talkin'."

Dean didn't say anything at first. He pulled a small amount of cereal out of the bowl and dropped it on the table in front of Sam, then proceeded to figure-eight one piece on the table with his finger in a gesture that seemed like an automatic and absent stalling tactic if she'd ever seen one.

"Dean." It was all she could do not to grab his hand to stop the motion—and not just because Sam was watching him intently and probably was going to start playing with the cereal instead of eating it.

He looked up at her, then sat himself a little straighter in his seat and took a deep breath.

"We were on a case just outside Grand Island, Nebraska," he said softly. "Rash of disappearances. Five of them in under a month. All men in their late twenties, early thirties; healthy, athlete types." He huffed out a bitter-sounding laugh and looked down at Sam. "Yeah, I know. I'da left him in friggin' Cleveland, except…"

He shook his head. "About a week after the third disappearance, a local off-duty badge is out snowshoeing through some nature trail with his K9 when Fido starts digging in the snow and barking up a storm. Naturally, the badge called in a team.

"They found the body of a child: a boy about three years old."

His eyes flicked down to Sam—Jody still couldn't bring herself to think of the little boy quietly sliding Cheerios across her table with his fingers as Dean's brother—and that same lost, frantic look crept back into his eyes. Jody couldn't blame him.

"The only mark on him was a single, shallow puncture wound in his chest over his heart," Dean continued, sounding very detached, "but according to the ME report, it wasn't what killed him. Tox screens were clean. Blood levels were normal. There were no bruises or abrasions, no internal injuries of any kind, no indication of oxygen deficiency or mal-nutrition or disease or anything to warrant that kid being de—gone.

"What's more, that boy wasn't pinging anywhere on the missing children registries. Not local or national." He looked up at her and his expression made her catch her breath. "And neither are the two kids they've found since. Same M.O., same unknown C.O.D. Cops are stumped, of course. Fibby are swarming the area like ants on a Coke spill, and they don't have a clue. And of course, they don't see a connection between the five missing men and the three little John Does."

Jody felt her eyes go wide. "Wait, are you saying…?" She looked at Sam then back up at Dean.

Dean nodded. "Sammy figured it out." And, damn, the pride in his voice was tangible. "Took him all of a day to put it together, the brainiac."

The child suddenly looked up at Dean and gave him a big smile, all dimples and bright eyes and tiny, white milk teeth. Dean laughed and ruffled his hair. "Hey, Sammy. You gonna eat those or play with them?" He picked up a Cheerio and popped it into his mouth, then picked up another one and held it out to him. "Sorry, this is Sammy," he said as though reminding himself of the distinction. The child, Sammy, gave him another big smile then opened his mouth wide so Dean could feed him the Cheerio.

"It confuses him," Dean explained. "He doesn't make the connection between Sam and…" He made a gesture with his hand and his head that Jody interpreted to mean Sammy, and she nodded.

"Anyway, Sam figured out the connection between the first three missing persons and the three kids they'd found." Dean continued, as he popped another Cheerio in Sammy's mouth. "We figured we were dealing with a witch of some kind, probably performing a longevity or immortality ritual. Ya know, start with a strong, healthy adult in his prime, and steal years from him by presto-ka'zamming him back to the age of a toddler, then sever the link so the vic can't take 'em back.

"Problem is, with somethin' like this, it's not just the type of victim that's important. It's how many, too, and without knowing the origin of the spell…" He shrugged.

He plucked another Cheerio off the table and put it in Sammy's mouth. "Long story, short: we knew what we were looking for, but we didn't know who it was. We'd spoken to maybe a half dozen people, already, and we had a couple of possibles, but nothing definitive. And, for all we knew, we were running outta time. So, we changed our game plan and decided on a little B and E.

"It was plain, dumb luck. First house we checked, we found a black altar in the basement. It must have been keyed, because I was a step or two in front of Sam when it went off. There was a flash of light, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor with my ears ringing and my chest feeling like I'd been hit by a linebacker. And this little guy was out cold in a pile of Sam's clothes."

A subtle crease formed in the center of Dean's forehead, and his gaze skived off the child in his lap to fix onto the floor. "I thought he was—"

The words seemed to catch in his throat and Jody felt her own throat tighten. Her hand drifted up to her mouth and she looked down at the table while Dean marshalled back control of his expression.

"I…uhm." Dean took a deep breath and shifted in his seat. "I just grabbed him, laundry and all, and I booked." He flicked a glance at her, and she read shame in every line of his body.

She couldn't imagine what he was thinking to warrant that look. What other course of action did he think he should have taken besides grabbing his baby brother and getting him the hell out of there?

"Dean," she started but he shook his head sharply.

As if he could sense the sudden tension, Sammy twisted in Dean's lap and looked up at him with an expression that was far too serious for one so young. He grabbed a fistful of Dean's shirt and yanked himself onto his feet, heedless of where he was stepping or what else might have made it into his hand. Dean winced and grunted as the less-yielding parts of that little body connected with the less-forgiving parts of his anatomy and just let Sammy squirm back into his arms.

"Easy there, Tiger," he warned, but there was no real threat behind it. Sammy made a little huff of distress, then stuffed his thumb back into his mouth and dropped his head onto Dean's shoulder.

Dean met Jody's eyes across the table as he rubbed Sammy's back. "He woke up about six hours later," he said softly, "and he didn't remember any of it. That was three days ago."

Jody didn't know what to say. She certainly hadn't included anything even remotely similar to A witch de-aged my brother to that list of possible reasons for Dean to be calling her at 2:48 in the morning. Not that it would have helped her all that much if her imagination had gone to such an unlikely place. She had a million questions swirling around her head—the least of which being, how the hell do these two get into these messes? Seriously!—but really, there was only one question that made any real difference to her at that moment.

She set her coffee mug down on the table, crossed her hands in front of her, and leaned in close. "Dean, why are you here?"

There it was again, that ready-to-take-flight mien that was telegraphed as much in his body language as it was in his expression. She certainly was no stranger to it, and she probably could have handed him a cue card with the words he was about to say printed out in big, block letters:

I'M SORRY.

I SHOULDN'T HAVE COME HERE.

THANKS FOR BREAKFAST.

I'M JUST GONNA…

"Let me save you the trouble, young man," she said firmly. "You didn't call me in the middle of the night, then drive four hours to get here just for my cooking."

Dean seemed to deflate a bit. "No, I didn't."

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN~~~~~