Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort, Angst
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: I have no rights to any of the copyrighted characters/material in this fic, and I make no profit from it.
Rating: PG
Summary: Post Season 7. An outsider catches a glimpse into the bond between the Winchester brothers, the wars they've fought - and how the love of a family keeps them going.

Fae Carouthers hated late-season cold.

It seemed to come around a lot, these days, an unnatural chill that liked to settle into the tender spots in her joints and wake her up with aches and pains all hours of the night. It was the sort of discomfort her doctor told her she'd have all the rest of her life; she'd pushed herself too hard, on the farm, after her Charlie had passed. After Dekk had died, too, she'd thrust herself full-body into tossing hay and planting potatoes, and with the ripening of age came the individual tick-tock of every hurt against the clock of her arthritic bones and silvering hair.

At sixty-two, Fae was too old to be running a farm all by herself; she knew it, had had dozens of people including some very jawing businessmen in suits come along asking to buy the acreage. But Fae was content with her milk cow, her horse, her chickens and her ducks. She didn't want to leave, she wanted to be buried on the land beside her husband and son.

Eventually, the businessmen stopped asking, and that was just as well. Fae wasn't a fan of theirs, anyway. She heard reports on her small snow-static television set of commercialized food creating health risks around the nation; stories like that only came once in a blue moon, but they unsettled her, too. Made her unduly grateful to be eating her own home-grown everything. Fae started to sleep with Dekk's old shotgun propped against the wall beside her bed.

The morning her life changed was a particularly bad one to begin with, where every pressure point between her shoulders and the soles of her feet was in righteous agony. Fae stormed out to the barn to feed the chickens, and found she had no patience for their nonsense when they cavorted and gaggled their way toward the old beater truck parked in a vacated horse stall. Fae hooted and clicked her tongue to rally them, and so doing nearly missed the cough of sound from inside the truck.

Fae stopped, and listened, old ears perked; she'd had her fair share of wanderers cross the land in her time, stray dogs and mangy cats, even her horse had been a runaway from some neighboring pasture whose breeder had never come to claim him. That was how Fae knew, intrinsically, that the sound she'd heard just now had been human in nature. Male, by the gruffness of it.

She backed toward the wall, took down her nearest pitchfork and settled it to one knobby hip. "All right, no games, mister. You come on out of there or I'll…I'll shoot ya!" She hoped that would be enough, at least, to stall any combative measures on this man's part.

The truck door popped, at length, and a tall lanky body slid out, boots kicking up a scuff on the floor. Both hands were up, she could see that through window-glass frosted by dirt and straw-dust. "I'm not armed."

"I don't believe you."

"I'm gonna shut the door," He said, tentatively, and then he hooked two fingers around the rusted frame and pulled it shut.

He was a wallop of a man, had almost two feet solid on Fae, his hair in that indecently long fashion of today's youth. Chestnut-brown, the same color as her horse. He seemed to be telling the truth at being unarmed; at least, there was no easy place for him to conceal a weapon under his thin gray, short-sleeved shirt and muddy denims. There was a punch-red bruise across his cheekbone, and his eyes—Lord bless her soul, those eyes. Deep as any well Fae had ever seen, with just a hundred or more stories to tell.

They regarded one another in tentative silence, the man with his hands crossed behind his head. He pointed with his elbow, turning his whole body in half a pivot. "You sure that thing's loaded?"

"Scared you straight, didn't it?" Fae settled the butt of the pitchfork on the floor. "What're you sleepin' in my truck for, son?"

The man dropped his arms to his sides, didn't seem to know what to do with them, perched his hands loose and easy on his hips, then thought better of it and crossed his arms instead. "I was…" He trailed off. "I don't know."

"Don't know?"

"That's right. Last thing I remember I was following a dirt road…then I was staggering in here. Middle of the night. Beat to hell."

There was more to the man's story than that, and Fae could read it on every line of him. He had the build of a hard worker, a man buffered and strained with long hard hours of strenuous work. More than that, there were brackets in his face, deep furrows in his brow and shadows behind clear eyes. He reminded her, some ways, of Dekker, after he'd come home that first, and last, time.

"Where'd you serve?" She asked, and the man blinked.

"I'm," He chuckled, awkwardly. "I wasn't…wasn't military. My dad, he was Marine Corps, though."

"So was my husband. Fought away in World War Two." Fae tapped the pitchfork's handle thoughtfully against the floor. "What were you doin' on that dirt road?"

There, again, a shadow fell across his face. "Looking for my brother."

"Brother, eh. Where'd you see him last?"

The man's shoulders slumped, a puppet with its cords severed. "Purgatory."

The word held a spark of the surreal, the crazy to it; but Fae could sense a threat in a horse before it bucked, and this boy was giving off no such vibes.

"Bacon's on the menu," She turned for the door. "Feed yourself, help me catch my chickens, and you can be on my way."

"I—wait, you serious?"

"I don't make a joke of hospitality." Fae strode for the house. "Mister—?"

"Uh, it's, uh, John," He scrambled. "John. Winchester?"

"Well, John. That bacon ain't gonna eat itself."

-X-

John stayed.

If that was really his name; Fae came to doubt it. He never responded to her when she called him by it. That first day, he ate the food off her table and wouldn't lie down for a spell until he'd helped her with the dishes, wiped down the table and taken her at her word to catch the chickens. A sweaty, dust-muddled and chicken-feathered mess, he collapsed on her old sofa, stuffing leaking out at all odd angles, and he was asleep in minutes.

He had a good face, Fae decided, on her way out to tend the cow. Awake, there was a hint of a secret beneath every mole and beauty-mark, even buried under the freckle just beside his left eyebrow. Not the sort of secret that could make her watch him with a loaded weapon; just the sort that made her think the boy's trip down the long winding drive to her house had been no accident.

That was all right by her; John was allowed to have his secrets. And anyway, back to that face, she liked how vulnerable he looked asleep. Over breakfast, he'd guessed at his own birthday, seemed a bit hedgy on the details, like that bump to the cheekbone had rattled him inside a bit. He added years when he tried to factor in from eighty-three; eventually, he'd settled on twenty-nine.

Twenty-nine years old, but she'd be damned if he didn't look not a day older than five when he lay down on her couch.

John stayed, and as days worn on, proved himself useful. He was always up before she was, sometimes clocking in less than four hours of sleep. She'd find him awake when she made her nightly cup of tea to take upstairs, to drink over an old Dickens novel; he'd watch the television religiously, and seemed to grow tense and then to relax by increments. Fae never knew what he was watching for, nor did she ask. By morning, he'd have already fed the chickens, the way he'd watched her do; he'd make coffee, put out mugs for two. When Fae asked him each time which one was for her, he'd always look at her a bit funny, like he hadn't poured one for her at all and wondered why she asked.

Eventually, he'd tell her to take whichever.

She sensed that this John fellow was missing something important, and didn't trust him in saying he'd never done a tour for the armed forces. He had too many scars, she'd seen him when he worked, too many scars and too many silences and too many bouts inside the silences when he'd listen with half-curl smile that was both reminiscent and glad and also, somehow, infinitely sad; all at once.

He never spoke of Purgatory again, or where his brother really was; but she'd catch him staring out the window sometimes, his forehead whorled in a perfect crook of sadness, and all she wanted to do was take his hands in hers and tell him he'd be all right.

Which seemed a silly thing to say to a man she'd only known a week; but John had that about him, entreating eyes and the sort of dimples that angels wore in old Catholic art, and he greeted her every morning with, "Sleep well?"

Fae had been alone a long time, near fifteen years; the house had been quiet aside from the occasional neighbor or those nosy businessmen. In some ways, having this John fella around was a lot like having Dekk back; only Dekk had been a real hardhead, like his daddy, all about the labor and nothing about pleasure.

The first time Fae found John raiding her bookshelves, setting aside Lovecraft books, she about laughed her head off at him. "You don't strike me as the horror type, hun."

"Guess there's a lot you don't know about me," John replied, affably. "Anyway, Lovecraft's a pretty far cry from Dickens, don't you think?"

After that, they had tea together in the evenings, and they talked about books; books that John read, books that Fae read. He was a lovely conversationalist, the more he unfurled from that shell of his, wisdom and intelligence buried somewhere under all that scuffed skin and bloody knuckles. He said he'd been to Stanford, once-upon-a-time, but never went anywhere with that. Family business, that was why he'd gotten out.

"Family business ends two ways, Johnny," Fae told him one night over a cup of earl gray. "Either you end up filthy rich or you end up dirt poor. What you gotta decide is which means which."

It was an old epitaph passed down from Fae's grandmother to Fae's mother, and lauded at Fae when she'd married out of money and into Charlie's family's farm. It had taken her decades and losing an awful lot to learn what it meant; something told her that John would understand a long while before it was too late.

His private, heartbreaking smile into the dredges of his cup told her that he did, in fact, understand.

Days turned into weeks, and John became a permanent fixture; as much as Fae liked to complain, aloud and in private about all the vast quantities of food he consumed, he more than earned his keep. The heavy lifting was never left wanting, and Fae had to admit there was some comfort in having someone around. Just in case there was another stroke; she'd recovered from the first, five years ago. Her doctor hadn't been optimistic at the thought of a second.

But this John fella, he took care of her, in the most dignified and quietly inconspicuous ways. Not such that made it seem like he was earning his room and board; but like he cared, like he was a good and unassuming soul simply looking out for someone he respected. He moved on to cooking breakfast and bringing tea to her instead of being served, feeding the animals when cold mornings left Fae abed.

One morning, to the quiet sonata of birds and the guttural roar of some mammoth beast, John rolled up to her doorstep in a sleek black car. She hadn't heard him leave in the night, but Fae hobbled down the stairs to the stoop and watched him climb out, unfolding that tall body from behind the wheel, and she realized with a jolt that she knew this car.

"Well, won't I be damned," Fae murmured. "That car have a VIN number, hun?"

John rattled it off like a Social Security code or his own date of birth, so she knew he knew this car; and she threw her head back and laughed, long and loud. John smiled, too, approaching her with his hands tucked secret-like behind his back, hiding something.

"What's so funny?"

Fae wiped her eyes with another guffaw. "This car here belonged to my uncle Sal, way-back-when. It was his little tool of spreadin' the gospel. He loved that thing into the dirt until he died."

"Funny," John's eyes flickered with interest. "What year was that?"

"Oh, roundabout nineteen-seventy-two."

"My dad bought her in seventy-three." John shot a fond look over his shoulder. "She's a great car."

"Don't say. I start to think your coming to me was no coincidence, John." Fae leaned heavy against the porch railing, a twinge snaking up her leg. "What'd you bring me, boy?"

John produced the thing from around his back. "It's just some ointment stuff that my, um. My brother used to get. He got beat up on the job a lot. Thought it might help with your," He gestured to her in a vague motion. "You know."

Fae smiled, because she'd never complained of her ailments in front of him. He was just observant that way. "Well, my you know appreciates the concern. Let's have coffee."

The tincture John brought did wonders for Fae's joints, but on the coldest days it still wasn't enough. On days she stayed under the sheets, John always told her never to worry about it, he'd make sure the horse was worked and the cow milked and the other animals tended to. He never complained. Not once.

It was the domestic things he had trouble with; and sleeping, he didn't sleep well. He didn't seem to know how to react when she bought him a bottle of his own manly shampoo and a change of clothes a month after he came to stay with her. He always went to sleep in the same shirt anyway, which was a size too small for him but which he liked to tuck his nose into, and refused to ever wash.

The concept of really having a place to lay his head seemed foreign to him, as did drinking fresh water and eating home-cooked meals. Fae was a fair cook, not an exceptional one, but the pot roasts and potatoes and egg scrambles she managed to whip up without disaster were always met with reverent, childlike wonder; the meal that followed was usually full of quiet absorption as John savored every bite.

It was the way he carried himself that concerned Fae; far from seeming a threat, now, he struck her the way that Dekk always had. A little loose, seen a bit too much, maybe done things he shouldn't have. He moved with repose and refrain, like he didn't trust the world around him the same as most folks did. Fae noticed, her cans of salt disappeared frequently; John was odd, but he never explained why.

One night, after a luxurious dish of Shepherd's Pie served between them, John offered to prepare the tea after he'd finished the dishes. While he was occupied, Fae limped to the china cabinet in the sitting room and retrieved a photograph from its shelf. She sat at the table and slid it across to John when he joined her with a mug for each of them. He tapped his fingertips over the gilt frame, and offered her a beguiling smile.

"He's a beautiful boy. Is he yours?"

"He was. That was my Dekker." Fae tapped her long nails against her teacup. "He was active in the Cold War, went overseas to vouch for peace. A great many things happened to him that I'll never understand, John. He went abroad, saw things and did things he'd never breathe of to us. When he came back to our borders, he had the same look as you."

John's teeth tugged at the corner of his bottom lip, worrying at it. He studied the picture, of Dekker in his much younger years, top of his class in his middle school.

"It wasn't," He began, restlessly. "Wasn't exactly a war. I went through some…some really bad crap. I was messed up, in the head, for a long time," He did something strange, then, pressing his thumb into the soft fleshy center of his opposite palm, hard enough to make himself wince and squirm in the chair. "I used to hear voices. A voice, really. I figured I was a goner. But I got better. I thought I did. And then," He stopped, couldn't seem to find decent words.

"Lost something?" Fae asked, and John looked to her, quickly. "I lost my boy after that war. Hung himself from the rafters of that same barn where I found you. Charlie died not long after. I know the look of loss."

"Well. Yeah. I lost my," He couldn't seem to manage that one, either, but Fae thought she understood.

"That brother you talked about. The one in Purgatory."

John nodded, faintly. "Six months ago."

"Well, hun, I don't claim to know what this Purgatory business is all about. But if your brother's out there roundabouts, and you need him, I suggest you get your duff in gear and find him out. Ain't nothin' so bad a lot of love can't make it right, you mark my words."

"I'm not sure the power of love can help me right now," John slid the portrait back toward her with another dimpled smile. "But, thanks."

"You bury your head enough in your books, you lose sight of the things you already know." Fae did something, then, that she'd refrained from doing for the spell John had been with her; she'd always had the sense he didn't like to be touched, that quick movements were startling to him. But she reached out, anyway, and laid her hand over his. When he allowed it, fixated on the contact, Fae clasped his massive, warm hand in her dry smaller ones. "You already know what you gotta do, hun. I can see that in your eyes. Now go do it."

John met her eyes with a kind of longing sadness in his. "I remember."

"Remember what, now?"

"Why I was coming out this way when I…when I got attacked by the Leviathans." John covered her hands, now, with his. She could feel the abrasion of an old brown scar on his palm, against her knuckles. "I found out they'd been watching your place. There was something here that they wanted."

"Boy, you don't make any sense. Leviathans? What nonsense is that?"

"It's okay, Fae. I'm working on it, I'm gonna be okay. I know how to get him back. I know why those suits tried to buy your farm and, I promise you, no one will ever trying to take your land from you again." His smile was worth a million dollars, bright and hopeful. "I promise."

None of it was making sense, still, and Fae's eyes began to feel heavy. "What are you getting on about, Johnny—?"

"You've been really good to me, Fae. Thanks. I mean it."

Her cheek fell to rest over their joined hands, and Fae slept.

-X-

Fae woke to a powerful storm raging against her bedroom window.

She sat up at once, crackles of lightning and rolls of thunder rattling through the house; she could hear the horse in his padlock, first whickering, then screaming; the cow lowed, a long and miserable sound. Fae's memory after dinner was dim; she didn't remember coming up to bed, didn't remember if she'd seen John go out to tend the animals. She didn't know if they were safe, and they were all she had left.

Fae leaped from the bed, feeling spry and springy beyond her years, dragging a terrycloth bathrobe over her flannel pajamas as she hurried down the stairs. The couch was set up for occupation, but John was nowhere in sight.

"John!" Fae called, into the breach of silence between lightning strikes. "John!"

Another sizzling, purple flash, and the horse screamed again; Fae ran to the door, wrenching it open against a gale-force wind.

Fae could seen a halo of light issuing from her acreage beyond the edge of the barn, like a spotlight reaching straight up to black clouds. She cinched her robe tight around her thin middle, staring in awestruck wonder at a storm of such violence, she'd never witnessed its like before. There was no rain, but the wind was so fierce, and the lightning so frequent and the thunder so loud it seemed to ring in echoes between her ears. The animals still bleated, and Fae couldn't bring herself to budge from the step.

And then, with an almighty white-violet flash, lightning struck the field like a fist from heaven, shaking the ground and knocking Fae to her seat in the doorway. The thunder that followed was all-consuming, roaring like the dirge of a freight train through the house; china dishes fell and shattered and pictures rattled from the walls and fell, glass shattering inside the frames.

And then, with an awful sucking rush, everything went dark and quiet again.

Fae sat for several dumbstruck minutes, mouth agape, as the storm seemed to roll on. The wind died back to a murmur.

Then Fae got to her feet, shaking like a newborn baby deer, taking her first steps down the porch and toward the field. It was morbid curiosity that drew her, curiosity and fascination.

She found a wonder, there; but it wasn't in the scorched, blackened thigh-high grass, the strange crop-circle carvings or that Impala parked with headlights switched on and glaring out over the acre.

It was in John.

He knelt with his back to her, but she knew him by his tall profile and long, feathery hair. She liked that hair, even if it was ridiculous, and she didn't know how he remained untouched, how he hadn't been burnt to a crisp by that lightning, or his car destroyed.

But he knelt, and Fae watched, shivering. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, to realize that John wasn't alone.

There was a body stretched out in his arms, a head nestled in the crook of John's arm, a cowboy's bowlegs splayed out on the seared grass. John's hand rested on the chest of this other man, this man with a short, bristly 'do, and he was shaking him, slightly. John's voice was as scorched as the grass when he spoke.

"Dean—hey, man. Wake up. Dean?"

This storm-born son of nothing seemed to rouse at John's touch, and Fae could see his head turn over and up, toward John's face. "Where—where'm I—it's night?" He sounded vaguely disappointed. "It's always night."

"Hey," John said, hastily, sitting the man up, one arm still curled around his back. "You're not in Purgatory anymore. I got you back. I got you back," He repeated it, like it was a miracle of all miracles, as the man shoved the heel of his hand to his forehead, and looked around at John.

There was something static that happened, then, that Fae would never understand; something that raised the hair all along her body and chased the ghost of gooseflesh along her arms. Something charged passed between the eyes of the two men when their gazes met. Fae pulled her bathrobe tighter.

"Sammy?" This Dean fella said, and there was such awestruck wonder in his tone, Fae believed she really was seeing a miracle.

And then John folded over the man's shoulder, hands fisted in the front of this man's leather jacket, and this man, this Dean slung an arm around John's back and fixed a hand to his shoulderblade and held him close, his cheek resting on John's arm.

And then John started to shake, at first Fae thought with zealous laughter and then, she realized, it was sobs; John was sobbing like the child that lived behind his eyes only could, and Dean shifted his chin up to the groove where John's shoulder met his neck. In the light of the car's glow, Fae could see tears in his eyes, too, and his fingertips carded with a learned reassurance through the hair at the base of John's scalp.

Fae watched, unseen, and thought of her Charlie. She'd loved him all her life, but she didn't think she'd ever seen a love quite like this one before.

-X-

When Fae woke the next morning, and went downstairs, she found all of the damage from the night before had been cleared away. John was on his hands and knees, scrubbing the last of the spilled honey from a broken jar off the kitchen floor, and Fae cleared her throat in the doorway. He looked up, some of the shadows gone from his hollow cheeks.

"Pretty bad storm last night, huh?" He grinned, ringing the rag out into the frothy bucket at his side. "I almost slept through it."

"Did you, now?" Fae cocked an eyebrow. "And would you like to explain to me why there's another strange man on my couch?"

John colored rewardingly, then. "It's not what you think—I did what you told me to, Fae, I got my brother back. Last night. I found him."

"Mm," Fae hummed. "And how in the world did you manage that?"

John's smile didn't waver a notch. "It's complicated. Had to pay off some people, call in some old favors, but there were a few people who knew where to find him. One thing led to another and…yeah."

"I don't claim to know what you're mixed up in, John. But I'll mind my business, and you mind yours."

"Actually, uh," He said, as she turned away. "It's Sam."

And so Sam and Dean Winchester came to stay with her; and at first that Dean figure was as useful as an udder on a dry bovine. He slept, mostly, except for when he was floundering awake with all sorts of swearwords and dictions flying off his barbed tongue. It took John—Sam, rather—touching him and talking to him low to get him back into a semblance of control.

That one, he'd seen war; no matter what Sam could say, Fae could see the fight hadn't left this Dean all the way. He was flighty and jumpy and hated the night, and Sam would give him something to help him sleep every day an hour before sunset.

It humored her, that Sam never missed a beat; seemed to shoulder it well, caring for her and her land and her animals, and Dean as well. Not that Dean was a challenge. He was quiet and inverted in many ways and always looked hunted, whenever Fae saw him. So much like her Dekker, they both were. But this one was all the bad and Sam, he was all the good.

Fae avoided Dean, some, but one day when she came downstairs he was sitting up with one hand pressed over his mouth, and when she asked him if he was all right he favored her with a smile just as childlike as his brother's, warm and crinkling the edges of his eyes. "I'm good. Thanks for asking."

It was her pleasure, and Fae told him as much.

Sam only offered to take his brother and leave, just once. Fae rebutted that she would tie him to the fence posts long before she let him go back to wherever he'd come from, and Sam acquiesced to that.

He was John to her, still, sometimes Sam, but never Sammy; that was the name Dean called, forlornly, at night. The name that seemed to bring Sam from whatever corner of the yard he was tending, to the house in a matter of seconds, if Dean seemed to lose his balance of reality. Dean didn't like the animals, but after the first week he'd wander out to the barn to keep Sam company while he worked.

Whatever prison or warzone or personal hell the man had been through, Fae was assured that Sam was his anchor, his reason to pry himself off the couch and eat cold eggs hours after they'd been tossed; to try and swirl down coffee and get dressed in the morning. Most mornings, he didn't make it much farther than the couch to the kitchen, a brief trip outside, and back again.

But days went on, and Dean's strength returned to him and he stuck close to Sam; not a shadow anymore, but a companion at Sam's side. They'd walk out to the field and sit and just talk, or sit on the car, or sit in the kitchen. The Lovecraft books returned to their tombs on the shelves, and Sam replaced them with Dean's company.

One night, Fae brought in popcorn, and It's a Wonderful Life, and she sat between those boys on the couch and propped her feet up on Sam's knee and told him to get to rubbing. He laughed, ignored Dean's wicked eye-rolling, and massaged the aches from Fae's joints while they laughed over angels without wings. There was something faintly reminiscent, almost sad in Sam's eyes, in Dean's. Fae didn't ask.

The day she found them cleaning the barn together, mopping sweat from their foreheads and raking hay over the cow's coop, Fae knew their days with her were numbered. Dean rallied his wits more and more every day, slept longer and slept deeper during the night, and rose with the sun. He joined them for breakfast, with a drawl of southern charm but a quick attitude that Fae squashed a few times.

From the porch, she watched Dean dig the hilt of the pitchfork into Sam's ribs, watched Sam dance back out of reach. Dean whirled on him, got him into a headlock, knuckled his shaggy head and they dissolved into a kick-dust whirlwind of wrestling, setting the chickens to squawking. She watched the wars melt away from the moment, and realized that, while she'd allowed Sam into her world, she'd never really been a part of his. His world was all wrapped up in the brother he'd gotten back, and that was all right. He was just a veteran, just a drifter passing through.

She broached the subject with him that evening, while Dean showered; and with sympathetic eyes he told her he couldn't stay, once Dean was back on his feet. They had a job to do. Back to the war, Fae thought, but she didn't say it; whatever battle these boys were a part of, it was far from over.

Sam sat on the couch, then hunkered down and fell asleep early that night, so it was Dean whom Fae had tea with. They sat across from each other, him drumming a jazzy beat on the tabletop with his fingertips, she in perfect stillness, regarding him.

"You love that boy, don't you?" She said, finally, and Dean looked at her with an arrogant half-smile that melted, suddenly, when he saw the stoniness of her eyes.

He shrugged. "Sam's my family."

Family, Fae thought, seemed to mean something more to these two than it did for her. For anyone else. Something sacred and religious and insurmountably precious. Something you'd go back to the frontlines for, give your life for.

"Then you take care of him when you two leave. You hear?" Fae chided.

"Well, yes, ma'am," Dean smiled broadly, took a swig of tea. "Hey. I've been meaning to…say thanks. For taking him in while I was gone. Y'know, Sam, he, uh," Dean snorted, shrugged. "He can get a little obsessed when bad stuff happens to me. Coulda gone a whole other way, if you hadn't been here for him. So, I mean it. Thanks for looking out for the kid."

There was something final, to that. I can take it from here.

They were gone come morning, gone with their car and taking no provisions, no rations but the clothes on their backs. Fae stood there in the kitchen, in the silence, and read the note Sam had left her. He'd thanked her for her hospitality, for taking him under her wing and helping him, for keeping his secrets. On a side note, he'd already taken care of the animals for the day, and there was another bottle of tincture in the cupboard. He left her the number for a doctor in Chinatown district, a town in the middle of somewhere, who could get her more for cheap, if she just used Sam's name.

The kindness of a strange boy in her barn overwhelmed her, and for the first time since her stroke Fae felt tears budding in the corners of her eyes.

Not tears of missing. Tears of gladness. Because she'd been allowed to see a bit through the looking glass, to see a love so purely selfless that it was filthy, that it was dirty in all the right ways, that it was obsessive and cultist and fanatical and, under all that, simple.

Sam had said, "He's my brother," and Dean had said, "He's my family." Such singularity. Such all-consuming ownership. Such love.

Just once in her life, Fae had gotten to see it. And that was more than enough.

A boy from town visited her the following week, said a man named Winchester had paid him to help bale her hay and make sure the farm stayed on its feet.

Sam Winchester had promised her, in a dream it seemed, that no one would ever try to take her property again.

Fae Carouthers lived out the rest of her years in the quiet peace of her homestead, passing in her sleep with tincture on her sore joints and a Dickensbook beside her bed; they buried her on the land beside her husband and son, and in the twilight years of her life, she never saw the chilly days the same way again.