TITLE: Looking After Sammy
AUTHOR: jennytork
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: about 700
WARNING: violence against children (by children)
SUMMARY: Ten year old Sam gets beaten up by three larger kids -- but he is well looked after.




Sometimes, John reflected as he let himself into the small apartment they were renting, he wondered if it wasn't easier to be hunting full-time.

He made a mental note to have Bob check his boss at the garage. There were times John wondered if he was human.

Why was the apartment dark? John couldn't smell coffee going. Surely the boys were back from school by now. "Dean? Sammy?"

He noticed the answering machine blinking and hit the playback button.

"Dad? At the nurse's office. She's called an ambulance -- Sammy was in a fight. we're headed to Mercy. Come get us, please!"

As John rocketed from the apartment, he heard the tinny female voice informing the thin air that there were no further messages.

When John arrived at the ER, he was sent directly to Sammy's berth. To his surprise, there was no social worker waiting for him, just the school nurse, the doctor, and one worried brother. "Dean," John acknowledged as his trembling 14 year old hugged him quickly. More than shock, this was Dean's silent way of confirming Yes, this is my father.

John turned his attention to the school nurse. "What happened? Dean's message said Sammy was in a fight?"

"I wasn't fighting," Sammy said from under the icepack he held to his broken nose.

"No, he wasn't," the nurse confirmed. "He was beaten by three eighth-graders in front of a whole playground's worth of witnesses."

John felt his shoulders sag in relief, then stiffen in anger. "Eighth graders? Sammy's ten! What in the he---"

Sammy interrupted from under the icepack again, while the doctor finished wrapping his right arm in strips of wet plaster. "They wanted to hurt me cause I wouldn't help them cheat."

Dean growled, "That math sh—crap you told me about?" The censorship was because there was a woman he respected present.

"Didn't think they'd follow through," Sam groaned. "Figured they were all talk."

"And it seems," John put in, "that you two didn't talk enough! Don't you think this was somethng I should have been made aware of?"

The nurse chuckled slightly, looking down.

"What?" John demanded. "What was that for?"

She met his eyes and the grin grew. "Welcome to life with teens and preteens, Mister Winchester," she chuckled. "They think they can handle the world alone!"

John gave a slight snort at that.

"There.' The doctor patted Sam gently on the shoulder. "I'm all done."

John nodded and shook both their hands. "Thank you for looking after my boy."

And the little family walked out of the hospital.

Neither Winchester boy returned to that school. John finished that week out at work and got his paycheck. The following Monday, he worked just long enough to finish Mrs Ball's brake job, then he shook his boss's hand and quit on the spot.

Two hours later, the Winchesters were on their way to Blue Earth, Minnesota, where Pastor Jim would help John care for the boys.

When they exited the Impala, besides Sam's broken nose and arm, Dean sported a shiner so bad his eye was swollen shut, several deep bruises, and a badly busted lip that started bleeding again when he smiled.

Sam was looking at Dean with nothing short of adoration, while John shot his oldest glances of fond exasperation.

"Can't wait to hear this one," Jim sighed.

In the town they left behind, three eighth-grade boys arrived for school on Monday beat all to hell. Each one had a broken nose and a broken right arm.

Comparing stories, they realised that each of them had been visited by a sandy-haired teenage boy in an oversized leather jacket. He had entered their bedrooms, woken each up with a fist to the face that broke their nose, and proceeded to whale the tar out of them. No matter how they tried to fight back, the leather-clad teen had bested them before taking something heavy from their bedrooms and breaking their right arms.

Only then, as they writhed in agony, did their assailant speak. And in one single sentence, he made it plain why he was there, why he had done this.

Revenge.

"Next time, do your own damned homework!"

END