What the Righteous Man Wanted (1 of 3)

Chapter One

"Okay, Dean, can you tell me your address?" Mary's voice is soft, her smile, loving, her posture, open. Dean sits perched on her hip, his chubby five-year-old fingers running absently through his mother's hair. Mary thinks it's a nervous habit, a comfort during stressful times.

"One, two, two, six," Dean starts, nodding his head with every number he pops out. He's proud of knowing his address. He doesn't think many other five year olds know their address. "Double Springs..." Dean falters. He knows there are streets. He knows there are roads. He just doesn't know what his is. "Double Springs Street," he decides finally, and his mother smiles.

"Close," she says, and kisses his nose. "Double Springs Road." He groans and lays his head on his mother's shoulder. She smiles and opens the door, the smell of glue and Play-Doh hitting them both instantly.

"Mommy," he asks, tugging gently at her hair. "What if none of the other kids like me?" His voice is small, his green eyes, wide. Mary smiles softly.

"They're going to love you," she tells him before kneeling down before him. "Now listen. I know you're scared about your first day of school, but you're already so smart. You'll fit right in."

"I wish Sammy could come to school with me," Dean tells her softly, watching her blonde hair fall through his fingers. He shifts slightly, his backpack a weight between his small shoulders that he's not yet use to. Mary squats down and gently pulls him off her, brushing over his cheekbones with her thumbs.

"How about this? After school today, we'll go to get ice cream."

"Sammy too?" Dean asks excitedly, eyes wide in his request.

"Sammy too," Mary laughs, brushing her hands over his face again. Dean smiles and nods vigorously. "Good. Now go make some friends. I love you." Though she smiles as he runs off, she spends the day worrying, but he does not. He colors, and he giggles. He naps, and he plays. He does not, in any way, act like he is different from the rest of them, because he isn't. He's just Dean Winchester, freckle-faced, green-eyed, happy-hearted Dean Winchester, and when he goes home that day, his mother scribbles her husband a quick note of their whereabouts and loads her children into the car for ice cream.

Baby Sammy makes a mess. Big boy Dean makes a mess. Mary laughs at their sticky hands and their sugary kisses and takes them home to warm baths and clean beds. The second day of school begins much as the first. The mid-August air kisses Dean's sleepy cheeks and his half-closed eyes. Mary carries him through the door again and drops him at his seat with a soft kiss to his forehead.

"I love you, mommy," he says softly, and she tells him she loves him back before standing and leaving. The beginning of the school year passes in a blur for Dean. He learns his alphabet, all the way up to his P's with example words and silly songs for everyone. "A says ah or aye or ahh. Apple or alien, alligator too," follows his every step. He learns his colors. "My eyes are green," he tells baby Sam one night. "Your socks are blue. Mom's hair is yellow." He learns his numbers. "Onetwothreefourfivesixseven—mom look how fast I can count!—eightnineteneleven," becomes his favorite game. He is happy. He is normal, and as Mary puts him to sleep one night early November, no one has any idea that when he wakes, he will no longer be the normal and happy child he once was.

The fire burns the house to the ground. It leaves nothing but char and ash and the tiny lockbox that has the boys' birth certificates in it. It doesn't even leave a body for the widowed father and his two boys to bury. It takes everything from them, including their mother, and from that point on, Dean doesn't see a point in learning his letters or his colors or his numbers.