This was lovely. A very nice moment of commiseration and comfort between John and Sam. I loved this: “The pain doesn't go away. Not completely. But the love doesn't either.” *sniffle*

Congrats on the nomination in the UnGen awards! It's well-deserved!

Wow, really interesting take, Sue, on what might've been going through Sam's mind just then. I never would've thought flashback to the shape-shifter, but it makes sense. Great idea!

I had to giggle a little though, cuz everytime I saw "SkinDean" I couldn't help but think of the Skins on Roswell. LOL

Happy Birthday!! :)

Intriguing beginning to this. I'm going to have to look up the location and see if I can find some pictures. I love when authors choose real places for stories. Is this place supposed to be haunted for real? Sounds cool anyway.

LOVED the Indy-500 themed motel room. LOL And Dean calling Sam a neon sign to the supernatural made me laugh. The geek in me also enjoyed the little history lesson on kudzu--that stuff is a little creepy, sometimes.

Great start!

I think I would've liked some more backstory on the ghost, and he and his brother's relationship. That part of it seemed to end more quickly than I wanted. It was a cool twist though, to have it be a Union ghost. And to have a set of brothers involved. Loved that Dean understood exactly why the ghost would've been tormented with guilt. Especially apt at this point in the series, right after John's death.

I liked that Sam got to visit with his grandma and we got the background on what happened that drove John from his family and from Lawrence. You worked it  in very nicely with canon, and the snippets from John's journal. I especially liked that Sam understood the distinction between "relative" and "family" at the end.

I was a little sad that Dean didn't get to reconcile with his grandma, or at least hear her side of the story and realize that she really loved him, but it was understandable and he might not have been willing to forgive her anyway, with how it all affected him all those years ago.

I did find myself wishing there was a bit more with Sam and Dean at the end, maybe Sam telling Dean what he'd talked about with their grandma--I'm sure Dean would've loved the stories about wee!John just as much as Sam.

The ending was cute though, with the "good day at the office" bit, and Dean planning to introduce Sam to southern cooking. LOL

Nice story. Good characterization, really interesting location, well-written, cool twist. Nicely done.

I was a little confused with the deviation, POV-wise, from one of the Winchesters to an outsider POV. Still, an interesting chapter. It would be really good to label them according to whose POV it is, though, especially since they're all in first-person.It makes it a little confusing.

Oooh, the vision Sam had was just heartbreaking--I think I cried, a little. So sad. Glad it was able to be prevented, and that Sam got someone to listen to him about Dean's allergy. Nice tie-in with Pontiac, too.

Wow. I was just thinking about this very thing--what if one of the boys was holding on to the other off a cliff and chose to go over with him when he couldn't pull him up? I was tickled to find out you'd had the same thought. Cool!

Congrats on the nomination in the UnGen awards, by the way! Good luck!

I'm glad John finally figured out something was wrong with Dean, too. Holy crap! I figure he's probably hurt even more than Sam, since he took the brunt of the fall.

I was a bit surprised at how much Pastor Jim cussed. You wouldn't think a man of God would use all that bad language.

This was a very emotional chapter. I love that Sam was so frantic at the idea of losing Dean, so desperate to keep him with him.

I kinda hated that you brought Stanford into it, and had Sam deliberately lie to Dean, promising to never leave him when he knows full well that he will. It made me mad at Sam, and I didn't want to be.

I wanted this close call to make Sam determined to never lose his brother, to make him realize how important Dean is to him. If, down the road, he decides to go to school and cuts Dean out of his life (and I hate that it happens that way), I'd at least like to believe he truly meant what he was saying to Dean here--that he didn't intend to leave him, it was just something that happened. This makes it seem so much more callous. He'll tell Dean what he thinks Dean wants to hear to get him to do what Sam wants (fight to live), but break whatever promises he's made to Dean when it's inconvenient for him to keep them. It really bothers me.

That said, I am glad that Sam got Dean to fight to live, even though I hate the methods he used. And I was glad that John made it clear to Sam that he shouldn't have threatened to leave Dean--poor boy has enough abandonment issues. I loved that Sam fought so hard to keep Dean with him, that Pastor Jim and John were both so concerned, and that you ended it with Dean saying he'd never let go.

Really good fic! Tense, suspenseful, emotionally compelling, very in character. Nicely done! Good luck in the awards!

Very cute! Clever idea. I liked this:

"Biting his lip, he kept working, brow furrowed as he tried to come up with more ridiculous creatures for his list. He had to come up with the-most-unlikely-myths-that-could-never-possibly-in-a-million-years-be-true. Dean didn't want Sam to laugh it up later on if any of these turned out to be true. He would just have to make sure his B.C. list was reality-proof." LOL Sounds like something Dean'd do.

Nice bit of irony that several of those things ended up being ones they later encountered (though I'm still unsure as to whether they've actually met up with #14, appearances aside). LOVE that Dean included "darkside Sammy" on his list, and that Sam added onto it.

Really cute! I'm putting this in my favorites. 

This was really good, don't know why no one's reviewed it yet. Then again, I write wee!Chester stuff myself, so I may be a little biased toward it. ;)

But I really loved seeing Dean taking care of Sammy, getting him ready for school, teaching him things. LOVED the memory of their mom getting John out of trouble. And it does provide a nice beginning to what we see Dean doing all the time--using his looks to get what they need. Loved that John was fighting over some guy smacking Mary's butt.

I love a protective Sammy. The last line was great, Sam telling Dean he'd have his back.

Author's Response: Thank you for that. I'm happy that you enjoyed it. I love a protective Sammy, too, even though I'm a Dean gal at heart. But there's just something rather special about little brother's protective streak....Jules