As a child, Dean begged his parents for companionship, so when John and Mary Winchester brought home his baby brother, he was utterly determined on spending as much time with the kid as possible.

"Can I hold him?" he asked, looking up to his mother as she carefully rocked little Sammy in her arms, being more than careful not to drop him.

"I think you're a little too young, pal," his father chuckled from the rocking chair where he sat, one leg propped up on the other's knee. A sort of pride beamed in his face as he looked to his family, and he couldn't imagine that a man could be more content than he was in that moment.

"No I'm not! I'm already four and a half. Let me hold him. Please?" Dean pleaded and grabbed at his mother's skirt.

"Hey, stop that now—" he warned, and Mary gave John a disapproving stare. "Now don't look at me like that."

"He's your son," she said, placing Sam into his crib and pulling up the bars. The baby cooed and kicked his feet in protest, already missing the sound of his mother's heartbeat.

"He's only my son when you don't want to disappoint him," he looked down to the boy who was struggling to stand on the very tips of his toes, chubby hands grabbing and holding himself up by the bars. Mary dismissed him with a fling of the wrist and walked out of the room, leaving her boys behind. "Your mother sometimes, I swear."

"Dad, come on! I just want to hold him."

"I know you do." John stood up from the chair then came around the crib to his begging son. He placed his hands under his arms and began to lift. "Up we go," and Dean threw his arms into the air, imitating Superman lifting off. When he was all the way up, he hooked one around his father's neck.

"It's not fair that you and Mom get to hold him and not me."

"That's totally fair."

"No it isn't." Dean was never much a whiner, but in that moment he was even surpassing most children his age.

"Okay my boy," John began, walking over to the rocking chair and taking a seat, setting Dean down comfortably in his lap. "You know our family motto, the one I taught you?" He nodded his head and his eyes rolled up to search his brain.

"It's…"

"Go on," he urged him.

"Winchesters look after each other. That's it, right?"

"That's the one. Now Dean, you're too little to hold Sammy; you might drop him."

"I'll never drop him, I promise." Dean held his pinky out for his dad. John couldn't help but to smile and accept the offer. He wrapped his much larger finger around his son's, and Dean had a difficult time hanging on. But a promise is a promise, he told himself, so he hung on tight for a long while, and John waited until he let go to say anything.

"I know you'll never dream of letting Sammy get hurt," Dean nodded his head resolutely, "and I know you won't mean to, but sometimes bad things just happen, but eventually you'll be old enough to hold any baby you want."

"But I don't want to hold just any baby, I want to hold Sammy."

"And maybe one day you'll get to, but as of right now the answer is still no." Dean looked down to his father's lap, and tears began to collect in his eyes. "But I'll tell you what," John lifted Dean's chin up and swiped away a rolling tear with his thumb. He couldn't stand to see his little boy upset. "I'll let you sit with him for a while." Dean hugged him from around the neck and was carried happily away. John placed him in the bottom of the crib, not to far or too close to Sam.

Sam looked down at his feet, a curious look turned into a gurgle of joy as he seen his brother, and to John's surprise, Sam he was giggling for the first time in his young life. Dean noticed the significance of the moment too, and shot his head up to grin at his father.

"Did you see that?" he asked, and John was taken aback. Dean was never the type to show his affections so willingly, and the scene was Hallmark worthy. He watched as Dean lifted his hand, imitating an airplane crashing down slowly to tickle Sammy's belly. He was too engrossed in them to notice someone slip into the room, and he almost didn't take the time to look when he felt a pair of hands wrap around his waist. He could see from the crown of her blonde head that it was his wife.

"Now would you look at that," she said as Dean gave Sam a very light kiss on his forehead. "That baby must be something special to make Dean act like that."

"Yeah," he sighed contently, leaning into the kiss she was placing onto his neck, "or maybe all that boy needed was a brother to show his soft side."

"Either way, it's working," she said in a hush tone so she wouldn't disturb the boys. "He has all a kid really needs: a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and someone worth caring about."

"I think we're doing pretty great, you and me. Better than our parents," and that was their basic goal since the beginning. He felt her head nod as her warm breath hit his skin with every exhale. They stood there awhile in silence until they heard the clock in the hall chime nine times.

"Alright Dean, time to hit the hay," Mary announced and glided over to the crib, her white nightgown flowing after her.

"Can't you wait five more minutes?" Dean moaned.

"Don't test my patience, young man." The look in her eyes could have been enough to scare away a grown man, but it didn't faze Dean, and he only stopped tickling his brother when he felt himself being lifted away from him. With his arms spread out, he called to his brother: "Goodnight Sammy!"

As he was being carried out of the room and into his own, he heard Sam staring to wail, followed by the familiar sound of John singing the only song he ever did.

"Lay your weary head to rest," the song became muffled by the wall between his and the nursery, "Don't you cry no more". His mother ducked him into his own bed and under the covers. She left for a second to shut the door, muting the ruckus outside. Before returning to his side, she flicked on his race car night light and plucked a book off his shelf.

"Not tonight," he told her.

"What?"

"I don't you to read to me tonight."

"Alright," she said, hesitantly placing the book back in place. "I guess I'll just leave."

"No, I want a story, just told by you." She blinked at him. It was an odd request from Dean, especially since there wasn't a night that went by without him requesting a book.

"Um, okay." She strode over to his bed and sat down on the very edge of it just like she had always done. "Well, what would like to hear?"

"I had a question, actually," he muttered, playing with a loose string from his blanket. She motioned him to continue. "Where exactly did he come from? Sam, I mean."

"Well," she tried not to trip over her words, feeling flabbergasted and unprepared; she quickly decided to tell him what her parents had told her at his age. "All babies come from heaven."

"And where's that?"

"There," she pointed up.

"The ceiling?"

"No, don't be ridiculous. I meant in the sky. You know, where the angels I told you about live?" Dean nodded his head.

"And what do they do?"

"You mean besides sending babies down? They watch over us." She fidgeted with his blankets, tucking them in all around his body.

"That's creepy," he said, shifting further down into his pillow.

"No, it's supposed to be comforting. When I say 'watch over', I mean they make sure no harm comes to you."

"Why? What's going to happen to me?"

"Nothing, silly. Bad things just happen sometimes, but everyone has a guardian angel that protects them." She rubbed his forehead with the back of her hand, and Dean felt incredibly secure. He wondered if he would even need an angel as long as she was around. It seemed very unnecessary to him, but he figured a little extra protection would always be a good thing. "I want you to remember this, Dean. Angels are always watching over you." He yawned and pulled at his covers, a signal that he was finally tired enough to get a good night's rest. Mary subconsciously imitated her boy and put a balled fist up to her mouth, breathing out onto it and making a noise that Dean thought sounded like a lion's roar, only a lot softer. When she was finished, she made sure to tuck him in tighter, wrapping the covers around his body to form a cocoon. He liked to pretend that sometimes, crawling under his covers and feeling cut away from the world but safe, like someone was just outside a few feet away guarding him.

Mary pressed her lips to his forehead, kissing him and shuffling his long untidy hair before retreating to the doorway. Dean shut his eyes and pulled a stuffed animal close to his chest, hearing the familiar sound of the lights flick off followed by the click of the doorknob's hinge sliding into position, then somewhere in the next room he listened to his mother and father speaking in low tones before they too headed to their own bed. Then there was something else, a strange electric sound, like two wires coming into contact, but he paid no attention and instead let his dreams take over for a while.

He was yanked out shortly after by bolting up in his bed, something he hadn't meant to do. When he tried to open them, he discovered that his eyes were heavy and unfocused as well as his entire body dripping in sweat. He scanned the room squinted eyes to find what woke him, and he suddenly found the suspect. There was a cloud hovering above his head and seeping in through the bottom of his door, and for a second he wondered if he had dreamt that up too. He felt the burn from a room away, and his eyes stung to the touch of it. Nearly seconds after, he heard someone yelling from down the hall, almost like a ringing in his ears. He hopped down from his bed and strode for the door, his bare feet thrumming against the peculiarly cool wood. As he was reaching up to grab the knob, he heard Sammy's piercing scream next door. Getting to him was all that he could think in that moment, because what kind of a brother would he be if he couldn't?

He pushed the door open, and heat automatically blared at him. The smoke flooded his lungs as he inhaled deeply, but it cleared away once he let it all go in a scream for his parents. He turned his head away from it, and seen his mother running down the hallway from out of her room, her nightgown billowing behind her.

She called to him, her face contorted into something Dean had seen from a horror movie, "Go get your father!" she yelled over the sound of the blaze, "He's downstairs. Then get out of here."

"Mommy," his eyebrows arched and tears gathered in his eyes.

"Don't you worry about me, now go!" he turned to run, but was blocked by his father storming up the steps to get to them.

"Mary, the baby!" John grabbed Dean and pushed him behind, sheltering him from the fire.

"I know," she said, her voice trembling, and she plunged in with a determined expression, one that Dean would never forget. He heard his father scream after her before turning around and pushing him away.

"Go outside!" and he took the leap of faith following her heals. Dean knew that he should have listened and ran to safety, but something told him not to. He stood in place, arm thrown over his face as the smoke and flames surged out of the doorway. Before he realized what he was doing, he tasted something metallic in his mouth and brought a hand up to it. He pulled away and saw red. He had bit into his tongue so hard that it was bleeding, but he wiped his hand on his pajamas, pushing the pain to the back of his mind, and he anxiously waited for a familiar face to surface.

A minute passed by in what seemed to take years until he seen any movement. A hand broke free of the flames. It gripped the door way as it emerged, and Dean could see straight away that it was his father. To his relief, he had Sam wrapped up in his other arm, and as soon as John was completely free of danger, he glared Dean down.

"I told you—" He froze, the blood flowing from his face. There was a loud crash of wood followed by a shrill scream from the nursery. John looked to see flames wheeling out of the room, and then back to Dean. In a shaky motion, he cast the baby into his son's small arms. "Take your brother outside as fast as you can. Don't look back. Now, Dean! Go." And this time, Dean obeyed.

He ran all the way down the steps, gripping Sam as tight and as careful as he seen his mom do, and flew out the front door with such a ferocity that was unrepeatable, and he stood in his grassy front yard, staring up at his home in ruins. From three windows, flames blossomed ten feet high. Only the sound of sirens blaring in the distance brought him back down to earth, and he realized that Sammy was crying.

He moved Sam closer to his chest and sang the only song he knew the lyrics of, softly and mispronounced. "Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done," he stopped to wipe at his eyes with Sammy's blanket. "Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more." He repeated those words the best he could over and over again and pressed his face to his brother.

Without warning, he felt someone pick him up and pull him away from the house seconds before there was a ground-shaking explosion. The sirens were a few feet away then, and when his feet were finally on the earth once more, he opened his eyes. He found himself looking up to John, hopeful that his mother would appear behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist just like she always did. After a while of that not happening, Dean opened his mouth, ready to ask a question no child ever should, but his father saved him the trouble by slowly shaking his head.

Dean's bottom lip began to quiver, and he was hit with a wave of nausea. A paramedic had rushed over and grabbed Sam from out of his arms, and Dean instinctively strained to grasp for his brother. Another paramedic came from behind and lifted him by his stomach, and while this was happening he couldn't help but to wonder something.
Where was his guardian angel?