Family Secret

01.

"I never thought I would say that someday, but I think dad was a compulsive picker."

Time had stood still for Sam and Dean Winchester, who had just spent their day in of one of the many warehouses that John, their late father, had been able to hide from his sons during his lifetime.

Dean had to admit, despite himself, that he had learned a lot more about his father by rummaging through his paperwork and unnecessary things that lay in boxes scattered in all the corners of the room than during the past 26 years to follow him.

Sam, leaned against in an overcrowded shelf, had his hands on what appeared to be an old photograph. Leaving his bundle of incomprehensible bills and notes, Dean approached his little brother. He looked up at the cliche which interested his younger brother so much, than smiled sadly.

It must have been one of the rare family photos of the Winchesters that was not burned during that unfortunate fire which put an end to the innocence of the boy so abruptly that he was as well as the life of his mother. Mary, who remained eternally young in the eyes of the orphans, smiled with all her teeth, the little baby that had been Sam in her hands. John, one arm wrapped around his wife's shoulders, had put another hand on Deans little blond head, then no more than four years old.

"You think they're looking at us, from where there at?"

Sam had asked the question without reigning to look up at his brother, his pupils still riveted on the last fragment of the family they might have had. Of the family they had lost.

"I don't know, Sammy," The elder brother sighed. "Do you want them to look at us? That they saw us trigger the apocalypse and kill poor innocent people? They watched you while you were on demon blood? Whether they watched with helplessness that Lucifer take possession of your body or the blackmail of angels so that I agree to serve as Michel's vessel? That they could have watched us suffer martyrdom during all these years? No, if they rally met in paradise, I wish they would live their eternity in peace."

Dean returns to his post without even a last glance at the cliche that Sam still had in his hands. He suddenly felt empty of all energy, as if someone had slashed his chest to take hold of his heart. He thought for a brief moment of that vague memory he still had of his mother. A memory which seemed to darken a little more every day. A memory that would soon be no more than an abstract image, a face with jazzy features.

"We are more than the two of us, Sam it would be time to accept it."

With a sigh of resignation, the cadet dropped the photograph on the nearest desk and walked away.

Dean came to the conclusion that it was better to leave him alone to face the truth. Sam had perhaps never known his mother and could not remember that his many encounters with his father did not prevent the hunter from knowing that his son had as much, if not more difficulty than he did.

The young man continued to wander, going so far as to think of Bobby, their surrogate father, without him the two Winchester's could not even have reached their thirties. He didn't pay attention to what he was doing until he came across the envelope.

Without even thinking, he took it between his fingers, weighed it, then opened it. It contained only what appeared to be a simple letter with a photo. Dean glanced at it, frowning, then out to his brother.

"Hey, Sam! Do you know what it it?"

Sam dared a look over his shoulder then shrugged his shoulder.

"No, is it you?"

"No, the photo is too recent."

"So, it's not me either."

A baby, that is what their questions were about. The cliche of a small toddler, barely left the womb of his mother, who was crying in an incubator. Promoted by curiosity, Dean took hold of the letter.

It was all wrinkled, torn in places, as if it's owner had roughed it up with the idea of throwing it away, then changed their mind at the last moment. The hunter unfolded it with a thousand precautions to then read aloud the words which passed before his eyes.

*Dear John,

I hesitated to write to you, only to realize then how selfish and monstrous it would have been for me to take away your right to see your son, even if only once. I am not expecting an answer from you and it would be pointless to hope that you will be more present in the future of your child than during my pregnancy.

I decided to call him Mieczyslaw. Mieczyslaw 'Stiles' Stillinski. After much reflection, I came to the irreversible decision not to give it your name, considering the too many problems that could cause the fact of being associated with you.

You don't have to worry about us, John. I have already found a loving father to my little Mieczyslaw. A father who will know how to cherish him as if he were his own son. And then, if he is as strong, cunning and intelligent as the Winchester's, of whom he will eternally bear the mark, he is not in danger of wavering in the face of the obstacles that life will cause to our child.

I will never prevent you from stopping in Beacon Hills if you ever want to, but I would ask you, for our safety, to leave your name and your profession at the border of the town if you wish, to see him grow.

Sincerely,

Claudia*

For a moment, the two brothers died in a heavy silent, capable of making you shiver to the core no matter who passed by. Then, without warning, Dean threw himself on the pile of papers which he had so absently peeled a little earlier.

A photo. Two photos. Three photos. The young man managed to find five different pictures, all of them representing a kid with intelligent eyes and an Innocent smile. Five pictures showing the boy's during his first years of existence. Only five pictures. Then nothing. Sam and Dean turned the room upside down, classifying and declassifying the contents of all the crates, boxes, shelves and desks, but nothing helped. A letter and five photographs remaining the only proof of the existence of their brother. Or at least the one that had already been.

"Maybe she got bored when she saw that dad did not reply to any of her letters and that she simply stopped sending him," Sam tried to reassure them, but feigned the positivism.

"Or maybe the blood of the Winchester's is Really cursed and this kid paid the price."

Dean's eyes fixed on what seemed to be the most recent photo of the young Stiles Stillinski, he fell back despite himself in the labyrinth of his thoughts. If this child was really their brother, whether he was dead or alive, they had to find him, if only to make sure that he was not grappling with the same kind of problems who haunted the Winchester's for so many years.

As he grabbed his coat from a little further away, Claudia Stillinskis note poured into his mind. *I will never prevent you stepping into Beacon Hills, for our safety, to leave your name and profession at the border of the town if you wish, to see him grow.*

Deep down, Dean knew that it was a very bad decision to disturb the probable quiet life of the teenager that Stiles Stillinski must now have, but an intuition drove him all the same, without a single suspicion of doubt, to take the keys of the Impala out of his jeans pocket and towards the exit.

"Hurry up, Sammy!"

"Where are we going?"

The hunter, who had already left the warehouse, stuck his head into the doorway to hurry his little brother.

"We are going to Beacon Hills."