Jamie

Dean woke up, which was a problem, because he didn't remember going to bed.

He sat up.

This wasn't their hotel room. This wasn't even a hotel room. This was a bare room with twin beds, a couple of chairs, a table, and a bright overhead light that made the room look bleached, an impression not helped by white paint and pale wooden floors. There was a window in the wall beyond the other bed that looked out into darkness, and it had white curtains, though they were sheer and probably not worth much when it came to blocking out sunlight.

He looked at the other bed, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Sam sprawled out in it. No, on it. They'd just been dropped on top of the covers. Still wearing their boots, even.

What the hell—

No, wait. There had been the fog— The Valley's mail-picker-upper had been tailgating in the parking lot, watching them, and Sam had seen the friends in an SUV, and then there had been the fog that somehow accomplished breaking-and-entering despite the salt line and the herbs Sam had thrown at it. Then—

Nothing. Just blackness. Apparently, they'd been whammied and carted off to God knew where.

This was hardly the first time Dean had been knocked out by magic. So where was the headache? Magic either left you feeling like your head was about to explode or like you had a sinus infection from hell. He felt disturbingly normal. Rested, even, in a way that he hadn't really felt since Sam vanished out of that diner. Maybe even longer.

More remarkably, he didn't feel like there was a countdown clock installed somewhere in his guts.

He got up and went to the other bed. "Sam, wake up." He gave his brother a shake.

Sam came awake with a full-body spasm that Dean would have teased him over any other time. "What the—" He blinked, looked around. "Dean?" he asked, sounding confused.

"Yeah, Sammy, right here."

Sam sat up gingerly, as if expecting his head to explode. No surprise there; he was as familiar with magical knockouts as Dean. "Where are we?"

"No idea. But if I had to make a bet, I'd say the Valley." He couldn't resist adding, "I don't think Troy could manage magic."

Bitchface, right on cue. "I'm still surprised Troy can breathe and walk at the same time."

Dean chuckled, and then thought to check for his weapons. His gun and knives were gone, all of them, and his phone, but everything else was here, down to the change in his pocket. It was still dark outside. Same night? Had to be. If it had been a day or so, wouldn't he be starving or dehydrated? "You got weapons?"

Sam did a quick once-over of his own. "No. No phone, either. Wonder where—"

"We didn't think you should have your weapons when you woke," a strange male voice, oddly hoarse, said. "A matter of safety, you understand. Yours and ours."

Dean whirled around. He could have sworn they were alone in here.

"Your weapons and other belongings are safe."

Past the ends of the beds, in a chair between them and the door, sat an older man, face half gone—claw marks, it looked like. The only mundane thing on the continent that could have done that kind of damage was an extremely pissed-off bear, and for some reason, Dean didn't think those scars were the result of Yogi gone berserk. Wendigo, maybe, or werewolf. The hoarseness was probably due to the scar across his throat, a gash that should have killed him, unless he'd had a partner right there to stop the bleeding.

The man levered himself up on a heavy cane. His right arm hung immobile at his side, and the awkward way he moved made it clear that there were more scars that couldn't be seen. Dean would be surprised if the man could even use most of his right side. His clothes were ordinary enough, nothing with any of the old witch signs. He did, however, wear one of the silver rings.

"Who are you?" Sam demanded, scrambling out of his bed in case Dean needed backup.

"Ask your brother." The man's good eye—blue like Mom's—bored into him. "Don't you remember me, D'herran?"

D'herran.

Something clicked in the back of Dean's head—literally; he heard a clicking noise, a heartbeat before long-buried memories flooded his brain and left him staring at the old man in shock.

No. Not old man.

"Uncle Jamie," he whispered. Behind him, Sam swore in language that would have made Dad smack him, even now, and Dad had never been a stickler about language. "You— Sam, he's the uncle—the uncle—Mom's headstone—"

"Dean, he can't be—"

The man—Jamie—took a lurching step forward. "He's right, Samuel," he said, and the voice triggered more memories: a long drive, a sprawling building, a playful dog and crooked salt lines and crayon pentagrams. "Your mother was my niece. I am Jamalan Sorayavil. In the wider world, I was known as Jamie Seville. You remember me now, don't you, D'herran?"

"The game," he said softly, only half aware of it.

"Dean." Sam was beside him now, and his fingers dug into Dean's arm. "Dean, what is he—"

"It—it was a story Mom told me. A game." It was coming out in bits and pieces and he knew it didn't make sense, but he couldn't do any better. "About Marjeya and D'herran. Mother and son. I—I used to pretend I was D'herran, and she'd play along, she'd be—" The world spun, and Sam grabbed him, kept him from falling. "Sam, we drew salt lines. Around the house. She made me promise not to tell Dad. It—" He stopped, trying to make sense of the chaos in his head, and looked at Jamie. "It wasn't just a game, was it?"

"No."

"She was teaching me to do protections."

"Yes."

"What are you two talking about?" Sam demanded. "Dean, who—"

"He's the uncle. The one who bought Mom's headstone."

Sam gave them both a glare. "You never said you met him. Dad said he only met him a couple of times."

"Dean was barely more than a toddler. I suspect he buried his memories under the trauma of your mother's death." What was left of the man's face became sad. "At the funeral, you didn't know me. I did not visit often, because your mother asked, but we had met, and—well—"

"You're kinda memorable," Dean said flatly.

Jamie's only reply was an awkward, crippled shrug.

"Why didn't you help Dad, then?" Sam demanded. "You could have—"

"He would not accept help, Samuel."

"It's Sam," Sam snapped, but he couldn't argue the point. If Dad had been the kind to accept help, he would have listened to everyone who told him not to take two boys on the road and raise them as hunters.

"I did what I could," Jamie went on, "little though it was. The gravestone, so you would have a focus for your grief, the way the wider world demands. And when your father found his—quest—I arranged for some of his teachers to find him. But I had my own grief. I had only chosen to run the stihora to be near Marjeya as it was. Without her, there was no reason to remain there, so I returned here, where I was born. Where your mother was born."

"Our mother's name—"

"In the wider world, her name was Mary Winchester, yes. But her true name, the name she was born to, was Marjeya Rilanen."

"That's impossible." Sam sounded very sure. How could he sound so damned sure? Dean couldn't get his brain to settle on one name right now, so how could Sam possibly be sure about anything? "Mom was from—" He stopped, like he just now realized that they didn't actually know where Mom was from. On those rare occasions when Dad had been drunk enough to talk about her, he'd never said anything more specific than We met when her truck needed repairs.

"Here. Neya Midaron. The wider world calls it Sister Valley. We are the stac'he." That word again. "We are charged with guarding the Valley, protecting it from the wider world, and with fighting the creatures born of twisted magic. These are the mark of the stac'he," Jamie added, holding up his hand to show them the wide silver band there. Sam glanced from Jamie's ring to Dean's. "Yes. The one Dean wears belonged to your mother."

"Stac'he," Dean repeated softly. "Stac'he are hunters. They're hunters, Sam."

"How—"

"Mom's stories." He'd loved those stories, loved them as much as he loved working on the Impala with Dad, but Mom had never given any hint that they might be based on something real. They'd always been just stories, a game—cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, stac'he and monsters—until she took him one day to meet Uncle Jamie. Now that he thought about it, it hadn't been very long after that visit when Mom and Dad had sat him down and explained that he'd be getting a baby brother or sister. Had that had something to do with it?

But all of it— So much was rushing back now, things he'd buried so deeply that he was surprised he could still remember them. He'd taught Dad about salt lines, not the other way around; while they were staying at Mike's, every night after dinner, he'd stolen the salt shaker off the table and snuck it to their room and poured a line around Sammy's donated crib before he climbed into it. Mike's wife hadn't appreciated it, to the point that she insisted that John get Dean some help or they could just find another place to live. And the symbols Mom had taught him to draw, all the same ones he'd re-learned later, from Dad and Pastor Jim and Bobby, and things she'd taught him to recite that had been buried under later lessons in Latin incantations that served the same purpose—

Jesus. How much of the stuff that he thought he'd learned from Dad had he first learned from Mom?

"What you're saying," Sam said, like he still couldn't wrap that oversized brain around it, "is that Mom was a hunter." Dean nodded, not sure if Sam was asking him or Jamie. "That— Jesus. Did Dad know?"

"As far as I know, your mother kept him safely ignorant. He found the world of hunters on his own."

"Why didn't you help him?" Sam demanded. "He had two kids! You could've—"

"Do you think I didn't try?" Jamie asked. "You knew your father better than I ever did. Do you think he would have trusted a stranger, a cripple, with his sons?"

"But you were family—"

"I was your mother's family, and the only way she was able to keep her past a secret was by telling him that I was the only one still willing to speak to her. He thought I had failed her, that I hadn't tried hard enough to make the rest of the family accept her. He had no idea of the real reasons."

"Which were?"

"Samuel—"

"Sam."

"Sam. I will answer your questions, all of them, but in the morning. Dean has had a shock, and I'm an old man who needs his sleep. You are safe here. Safer than you would ever have been in that motel."

Dean had had a shock, all right, but it was starting to wear off. Or he was at least collecting his wits. "Where's here? The Valley?"

"Not quite, not yet. This is a stac'mir—one of the houses of the stac'he. It's in the borderland between the Valley and the wider world. They also serve as guest houses. Now, questions tomorrow, and—"

"There's one question you're going to answer now."

"There is?" Jamie replied mildly.

"Yeah. Where the hell's my car?"

"The car?" The good side of Jamie's mouth twitched, and he shook his head. "Your mother said there was magic between you and that thing. I should have believed her." There was a suspicious snorting noise from Sam's vicinity. Dean chose not to dignify it with a glare. He'd take it out of Sam's hide later. "It's parked where we keep our own vehicles. On the mountain, near the driveway you were stalking earlier. I assure you that it's safe. Much safer than it would be at the motel where you were staying. It even has shelter."

"Somebody drove my car?"

"Dean!" Sam hissed.

"I'm sure they gave it the proper love and attention," Jamie said dryly, sounding freakily like Sam for a second. "Now, that door leads to a bathroom. Your clothes are being taken care of—"

"What does that mean?"

"It means that some very nice people are doing your laundry." Jamie was starting to sound a little like Bobby, when Bobby was reaching the end of his patience. "But they will be here in the morning, so you may bathe if you wish. Rest. Sleep. Tomorrow—"

"What stops us from leaving now?"

"Oh, you can try to leave, if you wish," Jamie said indifferently. "I would advise against it. There are guards on your door, and if you are too much trouble, Malachi will just knock you out again."

"So we're prisoners."

"For the night, yes. I apologize, but there are matters that must be settled before we release you back into the wider world."

"What kind of—"

"Tomorrow."

"Right," Sam said wearily. "Everything tomorrow."

"Rest well, nephews." Jamie limped out.

Dean caught a glimpse of two burly shadows that looked as tall as Sam and twice as wide before the door closed again. "Nephews," he spat. "This isn't how you treat family, for fuck's sake!" he shouted.

"Dean—" Sam began hesitantly.

"I'll behave, I'll behave!" The last thing he wanted was to get knocked out again. Just because his head didn't hurt now didn't mean a second round wouldn't make him miserable. But dammit—

His memory was all scrambled, and it was making him cranky. He wanted—needed—more answers, and he really didn't want to wait for them. There was no telling how these people would be delivering those answers, and with magic involved— Mom's stories had painted the stac'he as good guys, but that didn't mean they still were. She'd had to lie about her family to Dad. There had to be reasons for that.

Sam bent to pull off his shoes. "What the hell are you doing?"

Sam shrugged. "Breaking out of here won't get us answers any quicker," he pointed out, "and we don't have any books or the laptop or anything, so I'm going to get some sleep."

"Sam!"

Sam sat down on his bed. "Or here's a radical idea—you could talk to me."

"About what?"

"About Mom. About this game and what you remember."

"There's nothing to tell!" Dean snapped. "It was just a stupid game! I forgot about it until now!"

"Clearly, since you're yelling at me." He paused, then added, deliberately, "D'herran."

"Don't call me that!"

"Mom did."

"No, she didn't! It was part of a game! We never, ever used it any other time! It was a secret! Dad couldn't know!"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "So you two had this game, and she made you keep it from Dad?"

"God, Sam, you make it sound like it was something perverted!"

Sam just gave him the Sincere Puppy Eyes, possibly with a side of tell me where the bad person touched you. "That is one of the warning signs, you know."

"Jesus Christ! She didn't make me, it just— It was just our thing, okay? Me and Dad had stuff too, and she never wanted to hear about that, so I guess I thought that was just how it worked or something. I was a little kid, Sam, I wasn't analyzing it!"

"It's just— I don't see how you kept it a secret. Dad didn't miss much. He had to have some idea."

"Not back then." Dad hadn't been the hunter back then, hadn't learned how to observe everything the way he did later. Those had been his easy years, between the war and the hunt, when he let those soldier-hunter reflexes rust. Sam couldn't remember those days. "Not...before."

Sam didn't have an answer for that, so he just bent down to take off his other shoe. Dean swore under his breath and went to the window. The night outside was black as sin, broken only by the light shining from the windows of this house and the stars above. They had to be at least four stories up. Was this window on the outer side, facing away from the Valley?

"There is one thing that bothers me," Sam said into the silence.

Dean snorted, and turned back to the too-bright room. "Just one?"

"If Jamie was there in Lawrence, before Mom died..."

"He wasn't in Lawrence, he was outside To—"

"He was close enough to visit. That means..."

"Means what?"

"Whatever the thing with Mom was, the thing that made her leave, these people have always known about us. This thing about leaving us with Dad— Look what they did to us tonight. Before Dad found out about hunting, he would have been an even easier target."

"Is there a point here, Sam?"

"It's been almost twenty-five years. They left Dad and us alone, not even giving us a hint that they existed. They've known where we are all this time. Depending on what that ring can do, they may even have known when Dad died." His eyes were dark. "Dean, what's changed? What made them decide to find us now?"