Chapter Text
Remember Us
Chapter One
Current: Birkshead, North Carolina:
Jared Padalecki rubbed a hand over his face, wincing as he touched the bruise on his jaw which was still deep and very visible. He was glad the swelling under his eyes had gone down, even if he still ached and had bruises and cracked ribs that he had to hide from his seven-year-old son.
“Damn it,” he muttered softly. He stood in the doorway of his son’s room and watched the little boy sleeping in his race car bed; the bed that he would soon be too big for. He felt a pang of regret that yet another thing from his little boy’s childhood would be packed away and be given to charity. Jared knew he’d never have another son, or any other children for that matter, so it was pointless to keep it.
Nicholas Ross Padalecki was the pride and joy of the 31-year-old single father’s life. He was also the only reminder left of a love Jared had nearly all his life and lost too suddenly.
Most people in their small town called him Nicky. Nicky had the same long limbs, energetic boyish enthusiasm, and dimpled smile as Jared. He also had a quiet, thoughtful side. He could sit for hours and his deep green eyes would just watch the world go by.
He had a head full of light, blond hair. Jared knew in his heart that one day it would turn dark blond instead of brown, like his. He also had a face full of light freckles that Jared used to spend hours counting when Nicky had been an infant, crying his little eyes out. Jared felt like doing that so often in those early days, too, when their world had been rocked.
Seven years later, it still confused and hurt him to think of that loss… Especially now that he knew the truth was even more hurtful than he’d allowed himself to believe.
Jared wasn’t sure what he should do now since his choices were limited, being a poor, small-town reporter living paycheck to paycheck. He didn’t want to place his son in danger by opening a can of worms that he knew he wouldn’t be able to win, and he knew he had no chance in hell of fighting the wealthy Texas family that had not only stolen his world but also an innocent man’s whole existence.
Closing the door to Nicky’s room, Jared walked downstairs and stared at the briefcase with his current assignment sitting in it. He’d taken the story on a possible political scandal back in his old hometown. Believe it or not, it wasn’t because he wanted to go back to the damn place that had never accepted him to begin with.
No, as far as the 6’4” broad-shouldered man was concerned, if he heard that whole damn place had burned to the ground after being struck with lightning, he wouldn’t give a damn—except for one thing. It was that one thing that kept him from turning in his report to Jeff so it could go to print.
He’d taken the story; demanded it, even. Even though politics wasn’t his area of expertise, it hit too close to home… A single look at the photo that day on the bulletin board had brought Jared’s painful past rushing back. It brought up a million questions and a lot of anger. He’d been determined to find the answers regardless of the cost. Now he just felt hurt, confused, and unsure.
Slumping down on the worn-out sofa, Jared scrubbed his face while staring over at an empty frame on the wall. He felt his eyes start to burn again. He had a copy, of course, and he knew he’d been acting out of anger when he’d thrown the photo in the face of the man who sent him from North Carolina to Texas. Still it didn’t stop him from feeling betrayed, hurt, confused, and angry. He closed his eyes as he remembered the moment that photo had been taken in the hospital.
It was the only photo of his complete family: Jared, Nicky, who was two days old, and…Jared’s head snapped up at the sound of his doorbell ringing. He stood up and warily walked over to look out the small opening to see who was at his door. It was nearly one in the damn morning.
Very few people, except for the friends he had here, ever visited. His own family had written him off years earlier and, considering how he’d left Texas, Jared was more than a little wary in case that hornet’s nest he’d knocked down decided to follow him home to complete the threats he’d been given back there.
Looking out, he frowned and blinked several times to be sure of what he was seeing. He jerked the door open and stared into deep, green eyes-so much like Nicky’s it made his heart hurt to keep his face neutral as he stared into the face of…
“Jensen… Sorry, I guess that’s Mr. Ackles still; until you win that Senate seat in a few months. Why are you on my doorstep?” Jared knew he sounded cold and angry and that might’ve been true but he also didn’t want this crap brought near the little sleeping boy upstairs. “Didn’t you say enough back in Shepherd’s Port? Or…That’s right, you didn’t say anything. Your damn racist father and his hired thugs said it all when he had them jump me that night.
“This is my home. This is where my son is sleeping upstairs with no idea of what I learned about back there. I won’t destroy his little heart any more than when he was a month old. I won’t let all the stories I told him about the person who gave birth to him be made into lies; lies told by bigoted assholes who believe how he was conceived is a sin. Or that he shouldn’t be here because I fell in love with someone I thought loved me and would fight for that love and our son as much as I would’ve fought for both of you… as much as I would still fight if I thought it was worth it.” Jared fought to keep his voice low in case Nicky woke up but it was hard. His heart hammered in his chest and his eyes burned as he battled back tears and a rush of emotion that had been buried for seven years. He looked back at the man who’d not only broken his heart but crushed his dreams. “I…” He shook his head and prepared to shut the door.
“I can’t do this here. I don’t know why you’re here or if your bodyguards are waiting to jump me if I step out my door but I just can’t do it, Jensen. I know I took the assignment to go to Texas and try to find out how you could run on that damn platform or who was really pulling the strings but… I’ll take the threats, the beatings, and the risk to my life but I can’t risk Nicky’s life or let him find out that his… that you… I can’t. I…” Jared needed to get away from this before he broke down and lost it. He’d almost had the door shut when a hand suddenly slapped against it and pushed slightly while a foot came forward enough to block him from shoving the door closed.
Jared’s control was wire thin right then. He knew he had strength enough to shove the man back and shut his door but something stopped him; a voice spoke up.
“Wait, please.” Jensen Ackles wasn’t sure what he was doing exactly or if it was a good move. He knew he might be bringing more trouble than what was worth it to Jared’s door, but he knew if he did nothing else with the now seemingly shambles of his life, it was this. He had to risk not only his so-called career but probably his very life by coming to this small North Carolina town and facing this man; the man who’d managed to turn his world upside down in just a few seconds with just a few words.
At first, Jensen wasn’t sure if he’d be given the time to speak, so he rushed forward while he could. Earlier, he’d seen his mother furiously toss something in a trash can, and he’d grabbed it and looked at it. He now held it out.
“I didn’t know,” he said quickly. He felt a little relieved when the door opened again; only a little, though, so he could only see the many emotions staring back at him from a tired eye;a tired hazel eye that he somehow knew would be flecked with gold and blue if the light was right. He knew he only had a moment of time, so after trying to remove the worst of the creases, he held the crinkled photo against the crack in the door. He saw Jared’s face change as he realized it was the same photo he’d thrown at Jensen in the middle of a press conference in Texas only a day or so earlier.
The photo had been damaged by his parents but Jensen had done what he could to salvage it. Once he’d been alone and looked at it, the photo as well as the words hurled at him, had brought back a rush of painful and confusing things. He’d collapsed sobbing in a corner of his office as the photo of the beautiful little baby with big green eyes, a soft layer of pale blond hair and the beginnings of dimples was held between this man in front of him and himself, and the man he used to be.
“I… I didn’t know,” he said, voice breaking. He watched Jared take the photo that had once hung in his house before looking back at him warily and with confusion. “I didn’t know…” he said again. His head started buzzing and his body felt hot and cold. Jensen knew he was falling. Strong hands, hands he somehow knew in his heart, reached out to catch him. “I didn’t know. Please…” He saw white and then nothing. Before darkness claimed him, he thought he heard something; something else that he realized he’d heard many times before.
“Jen.”
A Week Earlier:
“There’s something massively rotten in Texas or else I’ve been looking into scandals and crooked politicians too long and I’ve become jaded. This is a load of bullshit that stinks of something being covered up by someone and I want it looked into! There’re enough politicians in Washington that suck without sending someone who’s both a bigoted asshole and one who looks like he’s a puppet on a string to join them!”
For the past six years he’d worked at the local paper. He now entered the main newsroom, hearing the gruff, disgusted voice of his boss and editor, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He was yelling as he pinned a photo to the board where all the new stories went.
Birkshead was a small, friendly town on the coast of North Carolina. It had the small town feel without making a newcomer feel unwelcome or looked down upon for maybe being a little different.
As a single father of a seven year old son, Jared quickly learned that while a lot of old time prejudices didn’t exist so much these days, a few more certainly did in some places. Being a single man with a son, for example, still warranted him some odd looks before moving here.
It was important for Jared to raise Nicholas-or Nicky as he liked to be called-in a place without prejudice and hate or in a place where he might be looked at differently because he only had one parent or because Jared refused to speak too much regarding his son’s other parent.
Jared knew they’d been the talk of the small town when he first bought the run down two story house on the outskirts and enrolled his son in school.
Single parents weren’t unheard of but they were few and far between in smaller Southern towns. Still, Jared had been surprised at how easily people accepted them. After only a day of living there, the local kids started coming around, asking Nicky to play or ride bikes on the sidewalk; a friendly older woman appeared on the porch one day with a casserole. She’d seen Jared working outside the home all day and wanted to give them a home cooked meal.
Friendly people were a new thing for Jared. He’d grown up in a small rural Texas town on the wrong side of the tracks, so that was one strike against him. Then his father killed himself out of shame when he learned that his oldest son had a mild learning disability that would keep him from getting into a good college. That had marked Jared as different, but what had finished it was when he’d come out as gay at 16 rather than hide it.
Gay and lesbian rights had been accepted by the government for years but some places still fought it and still bullied and discriminated against those with the courage to come out openly. Shepherd’s Port, Texas had been such a town and had made Jared’s life a living hell. His only saving grace had been his best friend.
It was that friendship, the support and care that slowly turned into a deep and unending love that gave Jared the courage to come out so he could support his friend when he did. Of course then, neither of them had given much thought to how his friend’s wealthy and important family would react.
As Jared worked to make a life for himself and his son these days, he thought back to decisions he’d made when he was younger. He supposed he should’ve thought things through more but he’d been young and in love. He’d just wanted to make a life with who he loved and who loved him back… or he thought had loved him back.
Shaking himself out of those thoughts, he tossed his jacket over a chair by his desk. “What’s got Jeff all riled up?” he asked one of the other reporters in the room. “He doesn’t usually shoot flames out of his nose like this unless he smells a huge cover-up.”
“Elections always bring out his nose for a cover-up. It’s especially bad this year, with all the people running on anti-gay, anti-male pregnancy platforms and that always pisses him off,” Danneel Harris replied. She leaned back in her chair and eyed Jared like she always did.
Dani was one of the first reporters to take Jared under her wing when he first started at the paper as a simple runner or go-getter. It was the slender, pretty, redhead that caught onto Jared’s quick brain and love of writing even if he said he couldn’t be a reporter because he was mildly dyslexic. It was also Dani who’d managed to pull the truth out of Jared regarding why he didn’t date and why he tended to stay to himself even though he’d made friends in Birkshead.
Jared was friendly and polite. The young father with the dimpled smile was always quick to help out at PTA functions for the school, and he would help the summer soccer team that Nicky played on. However, he was also a private, reserved person who tended to shut down if anyone, male or female, got too close or began pressuring him in any way or if they happened to want to pull him into a conversation on one of the more hot button topics around those days.
While homosexuality had basically been made legal, the much more controversial topic of male pregnancy, while legalized, was still a sore topic in some states and sometimes even in some towns in states that had already accepted it.
More than 50 years ago, it was discovered that a rare gene existed in some men’s DNA that gave them an extra gene allowing them to not only conceive a child with another man but also give birth. This had immediately set off a firestorm of hate, bigotry, violence, and even shame.
Radical groups who still fought the gay rights bill now locked on those who carried the MPG or male pregnancy gene. The radical groups labeled them as sinful, creatures of sin, monsters, abnormal and all of the other foul names they could come up with. Churches and people fought to sterilize those who carried the gene so they couldn’t conceive or locked them away in hospitals. When the gene’s discovery was still new, several carriers had been locked away or been forcibly sterilized, especially if their family were well off and could afford to do it.
Over the years, some legislators in Washington began to see that those who had the gene weren’t any different than woman who carried babies and should be given the same rights, so laws were passed to protect them. States now battled to overturn the law or to have their state be exempt from it. Some towns and local counties tried to make it illegal for gays, or those who might carry the gene, to live in their towns. Some also wanted to force the carriers to sign a list so they can be labeled as such. They were banned from places who found it wrong and they couldn’t be hired or even allowed in particular places.
Birkshead and all of North Carolina were Pro-Life in all ways. While there were still a few bigots here and there, the local government had passed what they called ‘Safe’ Laws to protect all of its citizens while other states still looked to ban or destroy lives.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan was a staunch defender of everyone. He’d marched and fought for civil liberties in his youth. His newspaper, while small, was also developing a reputation for honesty and exposing scandals that other papers ignored.
Jared had immediately liked the gruff older man. He’d met him when he answered an ad for help at the paper. He’d needed a job to pay the bills and keep his son in clothes and with food. It wasn’t easy to find work as the new guy in a small town. One so private as Jared tended to always be the new guy, so he was happy when Jeff offered him a job on the spot.
Now, after six years, Jared was one of the paper’s better reporters after Dani helped get him over his own stumbling blocks. She introduced him to a computer program that helped him with his dyslexia. While he’d gotten over the worst of it, there were still moments when he would mess up; usually if he was rushed or nervous.
He mainly handled the local end of things; never any of the high profile stories like politics or scandals. Jared didn’t like the attention that could sometimes bring on to the reporters or their families. He was happy writing about local sports, or the Schuberts’ 65th Anniversary last weekend. He planned to ignore the new posting, knowing either Dani or one of the others would get it and do a great job with it. They had the fire for such things. Yes, Jared was passionate about both subjects and protecting the rights of all people but he felt he had too many secrets to risk taking that on.
So he would have bypassed the board altogether. However, he jerked his head up suddenly, as he heard something interesting.
“This guy out of bumfuck Texas is spouting crap that I haven’t heard in more than 20 years in this business,” Jeff was saying. He leaned on a desk while several of his reporters started gathering around. “When words like ‘sterilizing the sinners’ or ‘locking them away from normal folk’ start coming out of a politician’s mouth, it’s never good. But, never mind the fiery words and fancy suit, when the guy saying them looks like someone’s got their hand up his ass, pulling his strings, I want to know who exactly in Shepherd’s Port Texas is pulling Jensen Ackles’ strings and why.”
Jared felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He heard Dani’s concerned voice calling his name as he whirled around and walked over to the board. He saw an 8x10 of a young man; tall, trim, clean-cut, in his early 30’s. He had very short, dark blond hair, and a rugged face that looked distant, hard, and cold. Green eyes stared out at the camera from behind black wire-framed glasses.
“I want this one.” Jared heard the words come out of his mouth. He wondered if his voice really sounded as hard as he thought it did and he was fairly certain his hands were shaking when he reached up and jerked the photo off the bulletin board. He stared at the face even closer, needing to be certain he wasn’t seeing things.
Everyone in the room had gone silent at this. He was rarely demanding; in fact, Jared hardly spoke up at all unless he felt strongly for something. It was clear that this demand had taken his editor off guard.
“Jared… This is something that might be a little above you right now,” Jeff replied after a moment of thought. He appreciated the boy’s passion but he also knew Jared was still basically a great big goofy kid with big eyes and a soft heart; not the type of person to take on a hardcore political scandal or deal with what came from those types of stories. “I have something else I’d like you to-”
“No, I want this one, Jeff,” Jared turned to stare at the older, bearded man. “I need to do this story… Please?”
Dani had come over to look between Jared’s face and could see the emotion being barely contained. A muscle in his jaw twitched each time he looked down into the face in the glossy photo. She saw one of the other reporters, a new guy whose attitude didn’t quite fit the paper, start to sneer as he spoke. She stepped closer and eyed their boss. “Give it to Jared,” she said, offering a too sweet smile to the other man. “We all know this would’ve been my story. Jared wants it so let him have it. We all had to jump into the shark tank sometime, Jeff. I’ll even offer to watch Nicky while he’s gone.”
When Jared was demanding the story, it didn’t quite click in his mind that taking this story would not only mean going back to his hometown but also leaving his son for the first time ever. He almost backed out because of his own paranoia of something happening to his little boy while he wasn’t there. Another look reminded him however, that yes, he needed this not only for the paper or himself, but he also needed to do this for his son.
Jeff looked between his reporters before going back to Jared. He saw determination there but there was also something else in those big, deep eyes that caught his attention and made him not flat out refuse. “My office, Jared,” he said with a jerk of his head. To the others, he said, “The rest of you take a look. That board’s full of stories. Pick one and get to work.”
Jared stepped into the office with Jeff following close behind. Jeff shut the door and Jared took a slow breath to settle his nerves. He knew this was beyond his skills but he had to find a way to explain to Jeff why it was important to him to take this story, even if Danneel might be the better choice.
“Jeff, I… I’m sorry if I was out of line out there,” he began. He tried to sit down but was too on edge suddenly. He started pacing the small office. “I know Dani’s the better choice and has more experience but-”
“Why’s this got you so hot?” Jeff asked flat out. He sat on the edge of his desk rather than behind it and watched Jared’s nervous pacing. He noticed he was still clutching the photo that had set him off. “Jared, talk to me. We’ve had plenty of political stories come through this paper and you’ve steered clear. What is it about this one that makes you want to tackle it?”
Jared looked down at the photo in his hand again. “You’re right in guessing that something is wrong in Texas or at least something isn’t right about this campaign,” he turned and sat down, staring at the newspaper man. “Neither of those platforms are things he’d be a proponent for. He wouldn’t say those things about gays or guys who can have babies. He wouldn’t because…”
“How do you know that?” Jeff asked. He leaned forward more, realizing how serious Jared was taking this. He also needed to know exactly how he might know about what Jensen Ross Ackles would or wouldn’t say.
“I know it because it doesn’t make sense for him to be against either of these things when seven years ago, he gave birth to our son,” Jared said simply. He looked up at shocked eyes added. “Jensen Ackles is Nicky’s father and who gave birth to him.”
TBC