Title: Baby Car
Fandom: Supernatural FPS
Characters: John, Dean, Sam
Rating: G
Summary: The first Christmas after Mary died.
AN: My greatest thanks to heavenli24for the wonderful beta.

December 25, 1983

Christmas without my wife seemed unreal. Our celebration was clumsy... a crooked two foot tall plastic tree, a bunch of junk food stuffed in the stockings and a pile of sports equipment for the boys... football, basketball, soccer.

John Winchester's Journal

John hefted Dean out the passenger's side before standing him on the pavement right beside the still heated, dusty hood of the Impala. Dean knew not to go to the apartment building before being told to, while John picked up Sammy, along with his baby seat, from the back and held it as he went to the back of the car.

John unlocked the trunk and opened it.

"Dean," he summoned. "Give me a hand."

The tiny feet and legs of the four-year-old jogged a little toward him. John handed him a brown paper bag of Mac and Cheese.

"Can you take another one?" he asked.

Dean nodded frantically and it almost made John smile. The bag looked too heavy for the boy, but John knew Dean wouldn't back off once he'd agreed to do something and John wouldn't have asked him if he hadn't had another plastic bag to carry himself.

Shopping for Christmas gifts and dinner. A thick lump filled John's throat as the memory of last year's happiness-filled shopping came into mind, with Mary four months pregnant with Sammy and non-stop jumping and talking Dean by her side, sometimes grasping his mom's hand so tight and other times slipping away, with John having to whistle loudly to call him back. It had been three weeks before Christmas and they shopped for gifts at the mall and ingredients for cakes and cookies at the supermarket. Mary's ginger and cinnamon cookies were John's favorite, but Dean loved her almond-sprinkled chocolate chip cookies.

John had not wanted to do anything for Christmas this year. There was no Mary by his side and she had left a huge hole in his soul. But there was still Dean and he knew that Dean, after meeting Missouri and behaving almost like his old self about a week ago, would be hoping they'd have Christmas this year. Dean hadn't said anything when he'd stopped at McDonald's and told the kid they'd buy some burgers and apple pies for their Christmas dinner and seen Dean's eyes shine either from joy or unshed tears. John hadn't dared to ask.

John rang them in and Dean pushed inside, running upstairs ahead of his dad to their apartment on the second floor.

"Watch the bags!" John shouted, fumbling with Sam and the plastic bag.

"Sure, dad," replied Dean, half shouting, before he vanished after the landing.

John found him walking back and forth in the hall in front of the door whose brown paint had never been cleaned and was almost black. The number 23had also almost lost its golden color.

John put the plastic bag onto the carpeted floor and fished for the key in his pants pocket. He watched how Dean was trying to clutch the two paper bags with one arm in order to be able to carry the plastic bag too.

"Uh-uh." John shook his head, bending to snatch the bag. "It's okay. Just take care of those two. Get in."

Dean mumbled something like a "Sure, Dad"before he dashed inside and John followed him.

This was the first cheap, available apartment he had come across when he'd begun to think they should move out of his friends' house. Mike and Kate were good to them and it was obvious they were concerned about Dean and Sammy, but Dean hadn't fared too well during their stay there, Sammy hadn't stopped crying every night and every time John closed his eyes he had seen Mary smiling down at him, so that was when he'd decided they should go. Mike's house was only a couple of blocks from his, so he looked for one out of town. Three days after he and Missouri had gone to see their old house, and had left both feeling very shaken when they left, John had packed the boys in the back of the Impala and drove off to their new home.

Their new apartment had looked a bit sadder when they got in in the late afternoon than when John had seen it with the morning sun generously pouring through the glass panel. The rooms had been dark with small table lamps and as cold as a witch's titties in this winter without any heating on. The first thing John did was talk to the caretaker, but with Sammy in one arm and Dean clutching his other hand, he couldn't do much, despite his desire to punch the teeth out of the man's mouth.

It had been relatively better after that. He'd bought high-watt light bulbs and fixed them to available features in the ceiling, fixed the heating, rolled up the old carpets and spent the whole day scrubbing the floor. The apartment was warm and clean now except for Sammy's baby bottles, cloths and clean diapers, and Dean's toy cars, colored pencils and sports equipment. He couldn't help but admire how Mary had been able to keep their old house neat and shiny every day. He'd told Dean over and over to put things back in their place after he was finished with them, but it was not that easy with a four-year-old boy.

John swept aside several things on the black-and-white-checkered plastic tablecloth-covered dining table, including the two McDonald's brown paper bags, to make space for the baby seat Sammy was lying awake in. He hung the plastic bag he'd been carrying over the back of a wooden chair and turned to Dean who was standing beside him, waiting patiently, hands gripping the head of the chair. John tousled the boy's hair.

"What is it, Dean?"

"May I have the dough?" he asked, eyes barely meeting his.

John hated to see Dean turn timid like this. He'd been such a bouncy and lively boy. Now he seemed afraid simply to talk, as if John would lash out at him for that, for disrupting the quiet that had stayed after his mom had gone. John wished he could tell him that Dean was free to talk, to jump around, to behave the way he used to behave. That Dean was free to cry. He'd been so close to normal around Missouri, so why couldn't he be open around his own dad?

John fished around in the plastic bag and found a small package of colorful play dough.

"Here you go."

"And the gift box?"

John remembered a tiny red-and-green gift box Dean had handed to him in the store that he'd wordlessly put on top of a small pile on the checkout counter. He hadn't asked and he didn't ask now. All he knew was that Dean looked happy and that was enough for him.

The boy sneaked into his bedroom with his two precious things and closed the door. John lifted an eyebrow and felt a twitch at a corner of his mouth. A boy with the biggest secret in the world.

He still had a lot to do though, food to serve, gifts to wrap. And Sammy to look after - a cooing sound whined softly from the table and John smiled as he reached out beneath the baby's rear. The diaper felt heavy.

John grimaced. "Don't feel good, does it, buddy?"

He scooped Sammy up and sidelined the dining table to a low drawer next to the television set, reaching for a spare diaper there. Then he carried Sammy in one arm to the kitchen where he could clean him up. The food and gifts could wait.

###

Dean's bedroom door creaked as John opened it, but neither of the inhabitants of the room heard it. Dean was still curled up, burrowed under the blanket with only his soft, longish hair peeking out of it, and Sam next to him was not much different. When realizing that Dean still didn't want to be separated from his brother, John had pushed the king-sized bed all the way against the wall so Sam could take the side next to it, with Dean on the other side as some kind of a barrier.

His boys looked warm and peaceful in their sleep. John thought he would have given them more time to sleep if not for Dean's reminding him over and over the previous night how they'd always exchanged gifts before they had breakfast when his mom was still around. John had gone completely still when Dean had said that. It was not that John didn't want to. No. He'd been shaking inside because that was the single thing he wanted in his life, to have Mary by his side again.

After dinner last night, Dean had slipped his small gift box into one of the red and green socks when he'd thought John wasn't looking. He'd acted so secretive that John almost couldn't hide his smile.

"Dean. Hey, Dean? It's morning."

John grimaced, listening to his own sing-song voice. He shook Dean slowly, smoothed his hair back and shook him once more a little harder. Dean stirred, turning his head to face John and sliding his eyes open.

"Dad?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Time to open your gifts."

Like magic, Dean was suddenly wide awake and scrambled up.

"Sammy?" He turned sideways.

"Hush. Let your brother sleep, okay?"

"No. I got a gift for him."

So that was for Sam. John watched how Dean pouted and how his hair fluttered as he shook his head frantically. It painfully reminded John of Mary.

"Sammy, wake up."

"Dean," John softly scolded him, a little lost for what was best to do himself.

He was saved when baby Sammy woke up anyway. Dean smiled then and John thought that it was the first time he truly smiled since that night.

Sam began whining and squirming and when John felt his diaper he figured out the real reason why he woke up. But Dean barely cared for what had happened. He climbed down off the bed and took John's hand.

"C'mon, Dad."

John chuckled, "Let me change Sammy's diaper first, kid."

"Aw, Sammy." Dean scrunched up his nose.

###

That smile Dean had given him earlier was nothing compared to his gushing over the gifts he got. John rubbed his eyes as they suddenly got damp.

"Dean, what about Sammy?" he tapped the little arm. Dean bounced up and fished into one of the socks.

"Sammy, open it up."

Sam looked at the box Dean put on his palm with interest as if he knew what he was supposed to do. John laughed and helped lift the lid. He was curious, too.

Inside he found a replica of the Impala. Or that was the intention. Dean must have made it that night from play dough. John suppressed his total awe as he picked it up from the box carefully.

"Sammy, look what your brother gave you," he whispered. "Ain't it a cool thing?"

Sam cooed and Dean flushed.

"Sam has his own baby car now," Dean murmured after he'd seemed to overcome his feeling.

John gave Sam his gift and reached out to tousle Dean's hair.

"Good job, son. Sammy got his car and you'll get the real thing when you're big, okay?" John watched Dean with a small smile as the boy played with the baseball gloves he'd gotten for Christmas. Maybe his son would be all right after all.

Fin