So I have this headcanon—the timeline probably doesn’t fit with the finale (which I’ve still never watched)—that Dean Jr. is actually Dean’s kid.
Sam’s on his way to a hunt one day, like three weeks after Dean’s death and the glovebox starts ringing. He answers it with a lump in his throat because it’s one of Dean’s phones and he’s not ready for the first word he knows he’s gonna hear over the line. It’s a girl from two or three months ago, one night stand. She says it, says “Dean?”, when Sam answers the phone and his throat goes so tight he can’t even correct her. She doesn’t even realize the voice on the other end isn’t Dean. Tells him she’s pregnant.
Sam almost crashes the car.
Sam says, “where are you?”
She says “I don’t need anything from you, just wanted you to know.”
He repeats, “where are you? No, no, I wanna talk. We need to talk”
Turns out she recently moved to Lebanon, she gives him the address of the cafe across the street from the health food store he goes to.
Sam calls another hunter on the way, reassigns the case he was driving to. They meet, he tells her Dean is dead and she’s been talking to him on the phone. But he wants to be involved. And he says it in a way that’s too pushy; less “I want to” be involved and more “I will” be involved. And it’s weird and she leaves.
But she’s new in town and has no family around. So when she starts needing help with putting furniture together and buying baby things and carrying groceries in, Sam is the one she calls. And he is SO attentive. He will come immediately whenever she calls him. They spend so much time together that things start happening between them. And it’s pretty good. Sam isn’t faking anything, but it has almost nothing to do with her really, it’s about staying close to the only part of his brother that exists.
As real as their relationship becomes it was a necessary strategic move. Sam has no pull whatsoever as an uncle. “You can’t move away because I’m the kids uncle” is nonsense. “Let’s move together because we are a couple that coparents this child” is normal. I can just see Sam in the early days while she’s still pregnant just sitting in the bunker library strategizing. How can I make this stick? How can I make sure she stays nearby? What do I need to do to secure this?
And I think he doesn’t marry her until he gets the results of his (secret) paternity test back.
The staff are all gearing up for some insane blowout when he comes in to get the results that clearly show he’s related but not closely enough to be the father, but Sam walks in and actually breaks into a smile like he hasn’t in a long time. Tears up.
And so Sammy raises Dean’s son; in a very real way, DJ becomes their son. A part of Dean getting to grow up in a (semi)normal home? And Sam getting to be the one who provides that? Heaven. Absolutely heaven to Sam.
Anyway…blame @righteousriot for reminding me that I said this last week.