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Love and Duty	By : rae_roberts Category: Supernatural > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 3443 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural and make no profit from this story. Just borrowing Papa Winchester and his boys for fun.

Chapter List
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“Sam. Sam, wake up.”
Sam woke, his body tensing in the darkness.
“Sam,” the soft, urgent voice persisted. He rose and padded silently to the window, which was open in the hope of letting in a cool breeze. Even hours after sunset, the June night was sultry, the air heavy with the promise of rain.
“Mom?”   His eyes widened in confusion at the sight of Ellen perched in the branches of one of the big trees that flanked the house. “What are you doing out there?”
“Shh,” Ellen cautioned. “Keep your voice down. You don’t have to go through with this,” she told him, voice pitched low. “I’ve got provisions packed, horses saddled and ready to go. By morning we can be far away from ‘Winchester Territory’.”
“Mom!” Sam kept his voice quiet, but his tone betrayed his shock. “Do you know the penalty for aiding and abetting a fugitive slave?”
“I know, and I don’t give a damn,” Ellen fired back in a fierce whisper. “Besides, that’s only if they catch us, and they won’t.”
“Where’s Jo? Is she in on this?”
Ellen scoffed, a light huff of breath. “She’s asleep in her bed. Couldn’t risk her accidentally spilling the beans. We’ll wake her and be on our way. Come on.”
“I’m not going to turn fugitive,” Sam leaned his elbows on the windowsill and looked out at Ellen, a lump forming in his throat as the realization set in that she was willing to give up everything to help him escape the marriage that had been arranged for him. “A life on the run? I wouldn’t do that to you and Jo.”
“Joanna Beth will be a woman grown soon enough, free to make her own way,” Ellen retorted. “What kind of mother would I be, to condemn my son to a loveless marriage?”
“It’s not that bad, Mom,” Sam assured her, touched. “I’ll have a family of my own, you and Jo and my kids. That’s more than any boy back at the Academy ever dreamed of. And Dean’s not so bad,” he added with a grin.
“Oh, son, I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy, Mom.” The lump in his throat threatened to give way to tears, and Sam chuckled ruefully. “I’m happy. It’s all going to be just fine.   Now, please, climb down and put the horses back in the stable before John Winchester gets wind of this crazy scheme of yours.”
“If you’re sure, Sam. “ Ellen looked up at him, her face a pale oval in the darkness, and finally nodded acquiescence. “I love you, son.”
“Love you too, Mom.” He watched her climb down and slip away, blending in with the shadows at the base of the tree and disappearing from sight.

“Sam’s a bright boy, but I never figured he’d have more sense than his mother.”
The three horses Ellen had chosen for her family’s escape were back in their stalls. She’d just finished hanging the last piece of riding tack on its peg when John Winchester spoke up from the stable door. The petite cook froze for a moment, then turned to face him. “You’d do the same, John, if it was your boy. Don’t you deny it.”
“Not so sure I would, Ellen. From what I’ve seen of Sam in the short time that I’ve known him, he’ll make a fine husband. You’ve known Dean for just about his whole life. What makes you so set on the notion that he’s not good enough for your boy?” The Winchester patriarch’s tone was belligerent.
A sure sign, Ellen thought, that his feelings were hurt. Sighing heavily, she moved closer, reaching up to lay a hand against the stubble of his cheek. “I never said he wasn’t good enough. Dean will make someone a fine husband, too, one day. Just not my Sam. They’re not in love!   I keep telling you, marriage ought to be about love.”
“Love,” John scoffed. “At their age love isn’t anything more than infatuation. Real love comes with shared experience, good times and bad. Hardships endured.   Who’s to say Sam and Dean won’t grow to love one another, given time?”
Ellen’s shoulders slumped. She stepped away, turning her attention to a coil of rope hung on the stable wall, fingers adjusting the loops until they hung just so. “You’ve already figured out that Sam’s of a mind to stay and make the best of it. Maybe he sees it your way. Or maybe he’s just too scared to risk a shot at freedom. Poor kid’s never known anything but slavery, after all. Either way, he’s made his choice. You’ve won.”
“It’s not about winning or losing,” John protested roughly. “All I ever wanted was what’s best for this estate and the people on it. That includes Sam...Whether you want to believe it or not.”
“I know. You’re a good man, John,” Ellen said, relenting at the pain in his voice. She turned back to face him, eyes bright but dry, her stance defiant as she asked, “If Sam had chosen to run, would you have come after us?”
“I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “I told you, Ellen, I’d give you the moon if I could. If you and Sam both were so dead set against this marriage,” broad shoulders hitched up in a shrug, “I might have just had to let you go.”
“But…” Ellen prompted him.
“But I’m not so sure you could pull it off. I can offer Sam a safe, comfortable life here on the estate. You were thinking to hide out in the ruins of the old cities, that was your plan, wasn’t it?” John asked shrewdly. “Turn treasure hunter? I seem to remember not too long ago, you weren’t too keen on Sam tangling with the restless dead, but now you think you can keep him and Jo safe, not just from ghosts, but from bounty hunters, too?”
“I come from a long line of treasure hunters. Grew up in the business,” Ellen pointed out.
“Mary’s family were treasure hunters, too,” John reminisced. “She taught me.   Hunting the ruins for old tech and artifacts, that’s how we made enough money to buy our first few acres of land. But it’s a hard life,” he concluded.
“A hard life, but a free one,” she said, defiant.
“You talk as if I’m keeping your boy locked up in a cage,” John barked, exasperated.
Ellen felt as if they were arguing in circles. “No, I’m talking about the freedom to marry for love! Like you and Mary. Like me and Bill. Love, John, not comfort and safety.”
Of course, John thought, she’d compare Dean to Bill Harvelle and find fault. No man alive could stand up against the legendary treasure hunter as far as his widow was concerned. Nearly fifteen years after his death, and she still carried a torch for the man. He suppressed a sigh. “I’d hoped that seeing our grandkids grow up here on the estate would be enough for you, Ellen.”
“No. It’s not enough… Don’t get me wrong, John,” she rushed on at the stricken look on his face. “I’m grateful to you for taking me and Joanna Beth in, all those years ago. But now? I want adventure. Never been much for safe and comfortable,” she told him wryly.   “And maybe it’s greedy of me, but I want to experience love again.”
John stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. Not this side of her, he thought, his mind reeling. “Damn it, woman! Why didn’t you ever say so?”
Ellen blinked at the sudden outburst. “Well, dammit yourself, John Winchester!   I don’t see that my love life’s any of your business.”    He’d certainly never expressed an interest, Ellen thought, and no wonder, the way he still carried a torch for Mary.    She looked up at John, baffled. “What’s gotten into you? I swear, you look fit to burst.”
“Ellen...I love you!” John blurted.
Ellen thought she understood. “And I love you, too, John,” she soothed. “You and Bobby and Rufus.    You’re my oldest and dearest friends, you know that. Whatever happens with Sam and Dean, we’ll get through it--” Her assurances cut off in a startled intake of breath as John bent down to her eye level, cupping her face gently in his big, callused hands.
“I said, I love you,” he growled, and the kiss he gave her left no room for doubt in Ellen’s mind that it was true.

“Sam. You awake? Come on, Sammy. Wake up!”
Sam groaned and rolled over, tugging his pillow over his head to shut out the gray morning light, but the voice persisted.
“Sam Harvelle. Wake up, ya lazy idjit,” Dean’s voice mimicked Bobby’s sarcastic tones.
Resigned, Sam staggered to the window and blinked out blearily at his fiancé. Dean was perched on the same tree branch Ellen had used the night before, hair plastered to his forehead, drenched with rain. “What’s going on? I thought we weren’t supposed to see one another until the wedding ceremony.”
“Duh,” Dean scoffed.   “Why do you think I’m up in this tree? Bobby and Rufus banished me to the bunkhouse last night,” he informed Sam. “And Ellen wouldn’t let me in the door this morning.”
A heavy droplet fell from a branch above, hitting the back of Dean’s neck, or so Sam assumed from the way he grimaced and squirmed as the cold water rolled down between his shoulder blades. Squinting up at the cloudy sky, he grimaced, too. The weather certainly wasn’t cooperating with John Winchester's elaborate wedding plans. Sam chuckled in spite of himself. Leave it to Dean to be persistent. “What do you want, Dean? You’re not going to suggest we elope, are you?”
“And have my dad hunt us down to the ends of the earth? No thanks. Besides, why would you want to miss the wedding? There’s going to be cake! And pie…” Dean’s voice trailed off, his expression turning rapturous at the thought.
Sam ran a hand through his hair, pushing errant, sleep-mussed strands back off his forehead, and reached a long arm out the window to snap his fingers in front of Dean’s face, bringing his fiancé back from his reverie.
Green eyes blinked, then crinkled at the corners as Dean beamed up at him, producing a small package from behind his back and presenting it with a flourish. “Happy wedding day, Sammy.”
Sam took the handkerchief-wrapped object, skeptical at the rounded heft of it. What prank was Dean trying to play on him now? But then he opened it to find a perfectly ripe peach, and his expression took on something of that enraptured daze Dean’s had at the mention of pie.
“Well don’t just sit there mooning at it. Take a bite!” Dean demanded.
Sam turned the fruit in his hand, refusing to be rushed. The fuzzy texture surprised him, the origin of the term ‘peachfuzz’ suddenly becoming clear. He thought back to his first morning on the estate, when he and Dean had fled to the peach orchard... When the thought of their impending marriage had filled them both with nothing but dread. “You remembered.” Sam took a bite, and then another, blissful as the sweet, sticky juice ran unheeded down his chin.

“Who could forget you’d never had a real, fresh peach? City slicker.” Dean’s grin was ear to ear in the rain. He climbed down out of the tree, swinging from the last branch to drop lightly to the ground, where he offered a jaunty wave up at Sam’s window. “See you in church.”
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Love and Duty