blue_icy_rose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blue_icy_rose) wrote2008-06-21 10:16 pm
blue_icy_rose) wrote2008-06-21 10:16 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: A Chance To Live (PG) Joyce, Dean, Sam, Bobby, Buffy, OFC
Title: A Chance To Live
Rating: PG - if I decide to expand on this, maybe it'll go up for language
Word Count: 2,583
Warnings/Spoilers: Buffy - through Graduation. SPN - early season 1, but no specific episodes besides the pilot. After that it goes AU. It goes oh so very AU. And, well, I suppose OFC is a warning. And good Lord, I'm hoping they're in character. If not, there's another warning for you!
Summary: Joyce makes a wish that changes everything.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. They belong to Joss Whedon and Eric Kripke.
Notes: I give up! I just give up on even trying to figure out where these ideas come from and trying to not write them. *frowns* At this rate, I'll be writing a few Charmed crossovers too. *facepalm* Anyway, this was written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tamingthemuse (prompt: any past prompts - I chose promise for mine).
Joyce stared at the grave in front of her, unable to believe that it was her little girl they were putting in the ground. She let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes against the thought before resolutely opening them again.
Buffy had always been strong for her, even when she was getting in trouble with teachers. The least she could do was be strong enough to keep her eyes open.
She shifted away when she felt Giles touch her shoulder, a flash of resentment going through her. Maybe it wasn’t rational to be so angry at him but she couldn’t help it. Part of her still felt that it was his fault that her daughter led this life.
Her eyes moved over the others, noting the way Willow stared at the casket as if she couldn’t believe it. Every now and then, she’d shake her head in denial. Xander’s expression was mostly blank with only some of the grief and anger he felt coming through. Oz had his arm around Willow and Joyce didn’t think she’d ever seen the young man ever look as shaken as he did today. Cordelia didn’t look at anyone else, her eyes never leaving the casket, as she wrapped her arms around herself.
She trembled, in anger rather than grief, as she thought of how long it had taken to get a hold of Hank. She knew the anger was misdirected because she could feel the grief coming off of him in waves as he stood, still as a statue next to her.
No, the one she was angry at wasn’t there.
He couldn’t go into the sunlight after all.
~*~*~
She stroked a hand over the picture, breath hitching at the sight of Buffy laughing. Her hand tightened on the frame as the grief and anger that had been building all day finally overcame her. For the first time since she’d heard the news, Joyce allowed herself to break. She didn’t bother wiping away the tears, just stared at the picture.
Thinking of what Buffy’s life had been like, she wished with everything she was that it could have been different. That Buffy could have known not just the love of a mother but also one of a father who would never walk away from her. She wanted Buffy to have a life where she wasn’t considered just another soldier out of many, where she wasn’t a weapon to a group of men. She wanted Buffy to have had a life where she knew she came first.
She wanted it all for Buffy.
~*~*~
“You’re insane.”
She shook her head. “No, my brother, I’m not. We can grant her wish.”
“What makes you so sure that there was enough power behind the wish? She’s nothing more than a mortal woman,” he said.
“And what’s more powerful than the wish of someone who has lost the most important person in their life?” she demanded, turning to face him. “You felt it.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Finally, he sighed. “I did.”
“Then you agree that we can grant her wish.” She turned back to watch Joyce Summers grieve, a look of sympathy on her face. “Good.”
“We can’t do it right away. You know that. We have to find the right people and I can already tell you that they’ve never even met.”
She nodded. “They will. Soon.”
Six Years Later
His phone ringing is what woke him up. Swearing, he reached out and blindly answered it. “What?”
“Don’t snarl at me, Dean. You need to get over here.”
Dean’s eyes snapped open at the voice on the other end. He pushed himself up, glancing over at Sam, who had lifted himself up on his elbows. “Bobby? What is it?”
“Not something I can tell you over the phone, that’s for sure.” Bobby paused. “And it’s something that’s going to impact your whole family. So get moving.”
Dean swallowed and closed his eyes. He knew that there wasn’t any use in asking questions. Bobby wouldn’t say anything else until he saw them. “We’ll be there,” he said, hanging up.
“Dean?” Sam sat up.
“Better get moving, Sammy. Looks like Bobby’s got something important to tell us.”
“Is it the demon?” he asked as he swung his legs to the side and stood. Dean glanced over as he grabbed a pair of jeans.
“He didn’t say.” Before Sam could get another word out, Dean continued, “But he said it would impact the whole family and it wasn’t something that he could talk about over the phone so it’s big.”
Sam watched as Dean went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and then began pulling out clean clothes for the day.
~*~*~
It took them almost three days to get to Bobby’s and when they did, Dean got out of the car and headed straight for the door with Sam right behind him. He knocked loudly on the door.
“You knock any harder and the door’s going to fall off,” was how Bobby greeted them as he opened the door and gestured them inside. Dean’s lips twitched.
“Good to see you too, Bobby.” Dean walked into the hallway and turned. “Now what the hell was so important that you couldn’t talk about it over the phone?”
Bobby nodded towards the kitchen. “Why don’t you go find out yourself?”
Dean stared at him, a bit suspiciously, before glancing at Sam. Some sort of silent conversation passed between them as they stared at each other before Sam nodded once. Only then did Dean go into the other room.
“Sam.” Bobby looked at him for a moment and seemed to consider something. “Sorry to hear about your girl.”
Sam sucked in a breath and nodded, knowing that Bobby didn’t like talking about these things any more than his dad or Dean did. The fact that he’d said something at all told Sam just how sorry Bobby was.
“Yeah,” he said, knowing that Bobby understood what he couldn’t say.
“Come on, I’ve got a few new books you’d probably be interested in and then we’ll go make sure your brother hasn’t had a heart attack.”
~*~*~
Dean stared at the woman standing at the counter, his eyes moving from her to the little girl coloring at the table and back again.
“Kelly,” he said.
Her smile was hesitant. “Hi, Dean.”
There was an awkward silence and then he shifted. “It’s been a while.”
She nodded. “Almost five years.” She paused. “I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
Dean glanced at the little girl, whose blonde hair was a little darker than Kelly’s, again. “I think I can guess that actually.”
“No, not exactly.” Off of his look, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “Okay, this isn’t coming out right. I mean, yes, that’s the main reason but it’s only part of it.” She frowned. “That better have made sense because it did in my head.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the familiar way she spoke. “It made sense.”
“Good.” She glanced back at the little girl and then turned to him. “Can we talk? In the hallway?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
She didn’t reply, just smiled in thanks before going towards the little girl and whispering something he couldn’t hear. The little girl looked up at him, curiosity clear on her face, and Dean sucked in a breath. Kelly whispered something else and the little girl turned back to her and nodded before going back to coloring.
Once they were in the hallway, Dean let out a breath. “You look good.”
Kelly shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “Considering your line of work, Dean, you’re kind of a crap liar. I know what I look like.”
Dean couldn’t deny that she did look different. She looked smaller somehow, thinner. Hell, even her hair didn’t look as bright as he remembered it. The only thing that really looked the same to him was her eyes.
“Kelly, what happened?”
“You once told me that if I ever needed your help, I could come here to Bobby’s and he’d make sure I got it, remember?”
Dean nodded. He remembered the few weeks that he’d spent with Kelly very well. He’d been twenty-one and only up here to help Bobby with a hunt – the closest thing his dad had let him get to hunting on his own back then. She’d been the first girl he’d seriously fallen for while working on a case. There’d been others that he’d flirted with but there’d been something about Kelly that had drawn him in.
He’d always thought it was the way she’d held out her hand and told him to hand her a weapon of some sort because there was no way in hell she was letting him go inside while she waited in the car like a child and he was crazy if he thought she was going in unarmed. He’d smirked, handed her a shotgun, and told her that if she was going in with him she better be able to keep up.
A small smile crossed his face as he remembered that day. He’d stayed longer than he was supposed to after that hunt was over before he’d eventually gone back despite the fact that he’d wanted to stay.
“I remember. What happened?” he asked again. She let out a breath.
“I need you now.” She glanced back at the kitchen doorway before turning back to him and lowering her voice. “I’m sick, Dean.”
An uneasy feeling began to come over him. “Sick how?”
“Cancer.”
It felt like she’d sucker punched him in the gut. He closed his eyes and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, clenching them into fists. When she put a hand on his arm, he tensed for a moment before relaxing and opening his eyes.
“What stage?”
“The doctors said I don’t have much longer.” She lifted a shoulder. “And, well, you know normally I think doctors don’t actually know what they’re talking about but I can feel it. They’re right. I had to stop for the night to get here,” she said. “Should have only taken me a day.”
Dean’s jaw clenched at the news before he forced himself to relax his jaw. He nodded at the kitchen, raising an eyebrow in a silent question.
“She’s yours.”
“I figured.” He didn’t question the statement. He’d known the second he’d looked into the little girl’s eyes, which were too much like his to mean anything else, and even if he hadn’t, Kelly had never been the type to sleep around. “What’s her name?”
“Summer.” Kelly looked up at him and grinned, wondering if he’d realize the significance of her first name. “Summer Winchester.”
Dean couldn’t stop the shock from showing on his face at that. “Winchester?”
“I wanted her to have her father’s last name.”
He stared at the kitchen doorway and then turned back to look at her with a grin on his face that matched the one she’d given him. “Summer.” He nodded to let her know he understood – summer had been when they’d met.
“I don’t have any other family, Dean.” She swallowed. “I don’t want her to be lost in the system.”
“You know what kind of life I lead,” he said. “Even if we found someplace to stay for most of the year, there’s no guarantee she’d be safe. When we were kids, there were some demons that came after me and Sam just to try and get the better of Dad.”
“I know. But I also know you’d protect her the way you always protected Sam back then.” Kelly raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing that hasn’t changed.”
Dean snorted. “No.”
“Good.” She looked up at him. “Will you raise her?”
He looked down at her for a few moments and then nodded. “Yeah. I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said, smirking a bit. She knew he didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep, not that she’d needed the extra assurance but he knew why she’d had him say the actual words. “She’ll have Sam wrapped around her finger in no time, I bet.” They laughed and then she bit her lip.
“Will you be able to take her with you in a few weeks?”
Dean frowned. “Kelly?”
“I don’t want her to remember me being so weak that I can’t even get out of bed, Dean. I want her to remember me the way I am.”
He let out a breath. “I don’t think Sam will mind taking a bit of a break,” he said. And he didn’t think Sam would. Not for this at least. Any other reason and he knew Sam would insist on trying to find Dad but Dean knew Sam wouldn’t say no for this.
He watched as Kelly’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Really.” Dean tilted his head towards the kitchen. “How about an introduction?”
“That would be helpful, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, little bit.”
He hung back when Kelly walked up to Summer and ran a hand over her hair as she sat down next to her. She smiled when Summer looked up at her. “Summer, do you think you could put your crayons to the side for a bit?”
“Is it time to meet Daddy?”
Dean’s eyes flew to Kelly at that and she grinned at him. “Yeah, remember how I told you he’d be here? Well, now you get to meet him.” She turned towards Dean and waved him forward, waiting until he’d started towards them to continue speaking. “Summer, this is your daddy, Dean.”
Dean crouched down so that he wasn’t towering over her. “Hi, Summer.”
She tilted her head to the side and stared at him for a couple moments before she smiled. “Hi. Momma has a picture of you in a book.”
“Her baby book,” Kelly said. “So she’d know what you looked like.”
He nodded, realizing that Kelly had made sure that Summer would know who he was, and then looked at the crayons. “You like to color?”
Summer’s eyes lit up and she nodded. “I always make pictures for Momma.” She pulled the paper and crayons towards her and showed the top one to Dean. “See?”
“I like it.” He moved to sit in the chair on the other side of her. “You’re way better at this than I am,” he added.
“Can I call you Daddy?”
Dean looked back up at her, thrown for a moment, and nodded. “Yeah, you can.” He glanced at Kelly and raised both eyebrows before looking back at Summer. “Did your mom tell you I have a brother?”
Summer nodded. “Yup.”
“Want to meet him?”
Her eyes widened even as Kelly covered her eyes once she realized what Dean was going to do. “Can I?” She looked from Dean to Kelly and swung her legs when they both nodded.
“Sure you can. And you can call him Uncle Sammy.” He stood up and waited until Summer had slid out of her chair and Kelly had stood up as well before turning towards the door that would lead to what used to be a living room but was now full of books. He paused when he felt a small hand slip into his and he looked down at Summer before looking at Kelly. When she only nodded, he grinned and looked back down at his daughter.
“Come on, let’s go make your Uncle Sammy fall on the floor.”
Rating: PG - if I decide to expand on this, maybe it'll go up for language
Word Count: 2,583
Warnings/Spoilers: Buffy - through Graduation. SPN - early season 1, but no specific episodes besides the pilot. After that it goes AU. It goes oh so very AU. And, well, I suppose OFC is a warning. And good Lord, I'm hoping they're in character. If not, there's another warning for you!
Summary: Joyce makes a wish that changes everything.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. They belong to Joss Whedon and Eric Kripke.
Notes: I give up! I just give up on even trying to figure out where these ideas come from and trying to not write them. *frowns* At this rate, I'll be writing a few Charmed crossovers too. *facepalm* Anyway, this was written for
tamingthemuse (prompt: any past prompts - I chose promise for mine).Joyce stared at the grave in front of her, unable to believe that it was her little girl they were putting in the ground. She let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes against the thought before resolutely opening them again.
Buffy had always been strong for her, even when she was getting in trouble with teachers. The least she could do was be strong enough to keep her eyes open.
She shifted away when she felt Giles touch her shoulder, a flash of resentment going through her. Maybe it wasn’t rational to be so angry at him but she couldn’t help it. Part of her still felt that it was his fault that her daughter led this life.
Her eyes moved over the others, noting the way Willow stared at the casket as if she couldn’t believe it. Every now and then, she’d shake her head in denial. Xander’s expression was mostly blank with only some of the grief and anger he felt coming through. Oz had his arm around Willow and Joyce didn’t think she’d ever seen the young man ever look as shaken as he did today. Cordelia didn’t look at anyone else, her eyes never leaving the casket, as she wrapped her arms around herself.
She trembled, in anger rather than grief, as she thought of how long it had taken to get a hold of Hank. She knew the anger was misdirected because she could feel the grief coming off of him in waves as he stood, still as a statue next to her.
No, the one she was angry at wasn’t there.
He couldn’t go into the sunlight after all.
She stroked a hand over the picture, breath hitching at the sight of Buffy laughing. Her hand tightened on the frame as the grief and anger that had been building all day finally overcame her. For the first time since she’d heard the news, Joyce allowed herself to break. She didn’t bother wiping away the tears, just stared at the picture.
Thinking of what Buffy’s life had been like, she wished with everything she was that it could have been different. That Buffy could have known not just the love of a mother but also one of a father who would never walk away from her. She wanted Buffy to have a life where she wasn’t considered just another soldier out of many, where she wasn’t a weapon to a group of men. She wanted Buffy to have had a life where she knew she came first.
She wanted it all for Buffy.
“You’re insane.”
She shook her head. “No, my brother, I’m not. We can grant her wish.”
“What makes you so sure that there was enough power behind the wish? She’s nothing more than a mortal woman,” he said.
“And what’s more powerful than the wish of someone who has lost the most important person in their life?” she demanded, turning to face him. “You felt it.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Finally, he sighed. “I did.”
“Then you agree that we can grant her wish.” She turned back to watch Joyce Summers grieve, a look of sympathy on her face. “Good.”
“We can’t do it right away. You know that. We have to find the right people and I can already tell you that they’ve never even met.”
She nodded. “They will. Soon.”
Six Years Later
His phone ringing is what woke him up. Swearing, he reached out and blindly answered it. “What?”
“Don’t snarl at me, Dean. You need to get over here.”
Dean’s eyes snapped open at the voice on the other end. He pushed himself up, glancing over at Sam, who had lifted himself up on his elbows. “Bobby? What is it?”
“Not something I can tell you over the phone, that’s for sure.” Bobby paused. “And it’s something that’s going to impact your whole family. So get moving.”
Dean swallowed and closed his eyes. He knew that there wasn’t any use in asking questions. Bobby wouldn’t say anything else until he saw them. “We’ll be there,” he said, hanging up.
“Dean?” Sam sat up.
“Better get moving, Sammy. Looks like Bobby’s got something important to tell us.”
“Is it the demon?” he asked as he swung his legs to the side and stood. Dean glanced over as he grabbed a pair of jeans.
“He didn’t say.” Before Sam could get another word out, Dean continued, “But he said it would impact the whole family and it wasn’t something that he could talk about over the phone so it’s big.”
Sam watched as Dean went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and then began pulling out clean clothes for the day.
It took them almost three days to get to Bobby’s and when they did, Dean got out of the car and headed straight for the door with Sam right behind him. He knocked loudly on the door.
“You knock any harder and the door’s going to fall off,” was how Bobby greeted them as he opened the door and gestured them inside. Dean’s lips twitched.
“Good to see you too, Bobby.” Dean walked into the hallway and turned. “Now what the hell was so important that you couldn’t talk about it over the phone?”
Bobby nodded towards the kitchen. “Why don’t you go find out yourself?”
Dean stared at him, a bit suspiciously, before glancing at Sam. Some sort of silent conversation passed between them as they stared at each other before Sam nodded once. Only then did Dean go into the other room.
“Sam.” Bobby looked at him for a moment and seemed to consider something. “Sorry to hear about your girl.”
Sam sucked in a breath and nodded, knowing that Bobby didn’t like talking about these things any more than his dad or Dean did. The fact that he’d said something at all told Sam just how sorry Bobby was.
“Yeah,” he said, knowing that Bobby understood what he couldn’t say.
“Come on, I’ve got a few new books you’d probably be interested in and then we’ll go make sure your brother hasn’t had a heart attack.”
Dean stared at the woman standing at the counter, his eyes moving from her to the little girl coloring at the table and back again.
“Kelly,” he said.
Her smile was hesitant. “Hi, Dean.”
There was an awkward silence and then he shifted. “It’s been a while.”
She nodded. “Almost five years.” She paused. “I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
Dean glanced at the little girl, whose blonde hair was a little darker than Kelly’s, again. “I think I can guess that actually.”
“No, not exactly.” Off of his look, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “Okay, this isn’t coming out right. I mean, yes, that’s the main reason but it’s only part of it.” She frowned. “That better have made sense because it did in my head.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the familiar way she spoke. “It made sense.”
“Good.” She glanced back at the little girl and then turned to him. “Can we talk? In the hallway?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
She didn’t reply, just smiled in thanks before going towards the little girl and whispering something he couldn’t hear. The little girl looked up at him, curiosity clear on her face, and Dean sucked in a breath. Kelly whispered something else and the little girl turned back to her and nodded before going back to coloring.
Once they were in the hallway, Dean let out a breath. “You look good.”
Kelly shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “Considering your line of work, Dean, you’re kind of a crap liar. I know what I look like.”
Dean couldn’t deny that she did look different. She looked smaller somehow, thinner. Hell, even her hair didn’t look as bright as he remembered it. The only thing that really looked the same to him was her eyes.
“Kelly, what happened?”
“You once told me that if I ever needed your help, I could come here to Bobby’s and he’d make sure I got it, remember?”
Dean nodded. He remembered the few weeks that he’d spent with Kelly very well. He’d been twenty-one and only up here to help Bobby with a hunt – the closest thing his dad had let him get to hunting on his own back then. She’d been the first girl he’d seriously fallen for while working on a case. There’d been others that he’d flirted with but there’d been something about Kelly that had drawn him in.
He’d always thought it was the way she’d held out her hand and told him to hand her a weapon of some sort because there was no way in hell she was letting him go inside while she waited in the car like a child and he was crazy if he thought she was going in unarmed. He’d smirked, handed her a shotgun, and told her that if she was going in with him she better be able to keep up.
A small smile crossed his face as he remembered that day. He’d stayed longer than he was supposed to after that hunt was over before he’d eventually gone back despite the fact that he’d wanted to stay.
“I remember. What happened?” he asked again. She let out a breath.
“I need you now.” She glanced back at the kitchen doorway before turning back to him and lowering her voice. “I’m sick, Dean.”
An uneasy feeling began to come over him. “Sick how?”
“Cancer.”
It felt like she’d sucker punched him in the gut. He closed his eyes and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, clenching them into fists. When she put a hand on his arm, he tensed for a moment before relaxing and opening his eyes.
“What stage?”
“The doctors said I don’t have much longer.” She lifted a shoulder. “And, well, you know normally I think doctors don’t actually know what they’re talking about but I can feel it. They’re right. I had to stop for the night to get here,” she said. “Should have only taken me a day.”
Dean’s jaw clenched at the news before he forced himself to relax his jaw. He nodded at the kitchen, raising an eyebrow in a silent question.
“She’s yours.”
“I figured.” He didn’t question the statement. He’d known the second he’d looked into the little girl’s eyes, which were too much like his to mean anything else, and even if he hadn’t, Kelly had never been the type to sleep around. “What’s her name?”
“Summer.” Kelly looked up at him and grinned, wondering if he’d realize the significance of her first name. “Summer Winchester.”
Dean couldn’t stop the shock from showing on his face at that. “Winchester?”
“I wanted her to have her father’s last name.”
He stared at the kitchen doorway and then turned back to look at her with a grin on his face that matched the one she’d given him. “Summer.” He nodded to let her know he understood – summer had been when they’d met.
“I don’t have any other family, Dean.” She swallowed. “I don’t want her to be lost in the system.”
“You know what kind of life I lead,” he said. “Even if we found someplace to stay for most of the year, there’s no guarantee she’d be safe. When we were kids, there were some demons that came after me and Sam just to try and get the better of Dad.”
“I know. But I also know you’d protect her the way you always protected Sam back then.” Kelly raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing that hasn’t changed.”
Dean snorted. “No.”
“Good.” She looked up at him. “Will you raise her?”
He looked down at her for a few moments and then nodded. “Yeah. I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said, smirking a bit. She knew he didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep, not that she’d needed the extra assurance but he knew why she’d had him say the actual words. “She’ll have Sam wrapped around her finger in no time, I bet.” They laughed and then she bit her lip.
“Will you be able to take her with you in a few weeks?”
Dean frowned. “Kelly?”
“I don’t want her to remember me being so weak that I can’t even get out of bed, Dean. I want her to remember me the way I am.”
He let out a breath. “I don’t think Sam will mind taking a bit of a break,” he said. And he didn’t think Sam would. Not for this at least. Any other reason and he knew Sam would insist on trying to find Dad but Dean knew Sam wouldn’t say no for this.
He watched as Kelly’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Really.” Dean tilted his head towards the kitchen. “How about an introduction?”
“That would be helpful, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, little bit.”
He hung back when Kelly walked up to Summer and ran a hand over her hair as she sat down next to her. She smiled when Summer looked up at her. “Summer, do you think you could put your crayons to the side for a bit?”
“Is it time to meet Daddy?”
Dean’s eyes flew to Kelly at that and she grinned at him. “Yeah, remember how I told you he’d be here? Well, now you get to meet him.” She turned towards Dean and waved him forward, waiting until he’d started towards them to continue speaking. “Summer, this is your daddy, Dean.”
Dean crouched down so that he wasn’t towering over her. “Hi, Summer.”
She tilted her head to the side and stared at him for a couple moments before she smiled. “Hi. Momma has a picture of you in a book.”
“Her baby book,” Kelly said. “So she’d know what you looked like.”
He nodded, realizing that Kelly had made sure that Summer would know who he was, and then looked at the crayons. “You like to color?”
Summer’s eyes lit up and she nodded. “I always make pictures for Momma.” She pulled the paper and crayons towards her and showed the top one to Dean. “See?”
“I like it.” He moved to sit in the chair on the other side of her. “You’re way better at this than I am,” he added.
“Can I call you Daddy?”
Dean looked back up at her, thrown for a moment, and nodded. “Yeah, you can.” He glanced at Kelly and raised both eyebrows before looking back at Summer. “Did your mom tell you I have a brother?”
Summer nodded. “Yup.”
“Want to meet him?”
Her eyes widened even as Kelly covered her eyes once she realized what Dean was going to do. “Can I?” She looked from Dean to Kelly and swung her legs when they both nodded.
“Sure you can. And you can call him Uncle Sammy.” He stood up and waited until Summer had slid out of her chair and Kelly had stood up as well before turning towards the door that would lead to what used to be a living room but was now full of books. He paused when he felt a small hand slip into his and he looked down at Summer before looking at Kelly. When she only nodded, he grinned and looked back down at his daughter.
“Come on, let’s go make your Uncle Sammy fall on the floor.”