SPN Fic: To Everything A Season (11/14) (Gen, R, FutureFic)

[dodger_winslow]

 Sorry this took me longer to get posted than I thought it would. Sucker took another crazy Ivan on me. Sheesh. Can nothing be easy? Anyways ... here 'tis:

Title: To Everything A Season (Part 11/14)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Memory
Genre: Gen (some het, not graphic), FutureFic
Word Count: 110,000 (total)
Pairings/Characters: John/OFC, Dean/OFC, Sam/OFC (hey, did I mention it was Future Fic?)
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sexual situations (not graphic)
Spoilers: Oh yeah. Everything S1
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Timeline Note: Set seven years after the events of Devil's Trap. John, Dean and Sam all survived the crash to hunt down and destroy the Demon. For Sam, life goes on. For Dean, life stalls. For John, life has no more meaning, and he begins to self destruct.

Summary: A little piece of good advice: Never hunt a wendigo when you're drunk.

Part 11

John’s heart cramped in his chest. "Get him? Dean’s here?"

"Yes. He’s in the living room; he has been for several hours."

"Here?" John repeated, disbelieving.

"Yes."

For a minute, he couldn’t force his mind to comprehend it. The darkening haze of his awareness ignited to fire, an agitation of pure adrenaline running his veins in the guise of blood. He didn’t think Dean would ever talk to him again. He’d put his bridges to such a torch this time he’d been sure Dean was done with him. Even Dean had his limits. Or at least, one would have to assume he did, not that the damn kid had ever given any evidence to indicate as much.

But the way she was looking at him, the gentleness in her eyes, the way she saw the desperate hope in him and smiled reassurance that she wasn’t lying, that he wasn’t misunderstanding her ….

He was afraid believe it, but he wasn’t afraid to believe her.

His eyes teared up, making it hard to see. He felt a bit like an idiot, near crying in front of a complete stranger, but he couldn’t help it. When he tried to blink the tears away, they wouldn’t go back to where they came from, running down the side of his face instead, trickling into his ears until he reached up with the back of one hand to wipe them off his skin. "You’re sure?" he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. "That it’s Dean, I mean?"

"Yes, John. I’m sure."

He had to look away from her, look at a wall to keep himself from breaking down all together. Dean would think that was funny. He would think it was hilarious. A real chick flick moment with his jackass of an old man in the starring role. "Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch," he said finally. "How did he know I was here? Did you call him?"

"Sam did."

His gaze flicked back to her, his eyes narrowing with the effort of trying to make sense of something that made no sense. "Sam? Did you say Sam?"

"Yes. Your son, Sam. He’s here, too."

"I know who the fu-hell Sam is," he said more sharply than he intended. "But he’s not here. There’s no way he’s here. Sam wouldn’t be caught dead here … or anywhere else I am, for that matter."

"He’s been looking for you," she said. Insisted.

John laughed again. This time, instead of coarse, it sounded bitter, even to him. He shouldn’t have believed her. How stupid was he to have believed her? "You’re lying," he said. "Sam gave up on me a long time ago. He always was the smart one of us. The only one who knew when to cut his losses and run."

"I’m not lying, John." Her hand touched his forearm. It was a tender gesture, an intimate re-assurance. He recognized the feel of it, even as it seemed wholly unfamiliar. "Sam’s here. And so is Dean. They’re both in the living room, waiting to see you."

He found himself trusting her again. Even knowing it made him a wishful-thinking fool to do so - to believe something so utterly ludicrous as Sam being here, as Sam giving a damn about him - he still did. Still believed it.

Maybe it was because she was the one saying it. Or maybe it was just because he wanted to believe it so much. But for whatever reason, he found himself believing his sons were here - both of his sons were here - even though he knew he was setting himself up for a fall just by allowing himself to think it was even possible for such a thing to still happen.

Because it wasn’t. Not after all he’d done. People had limits, and he was an expert at finding them and pushing them until they broke. Shattered. Irrevocably. Irretrievably.

So maybe Sam was here … but more likely he really wasn’t. And maybe Dean was here … maybe Dean really was. Maybe that much of what she was saying was true.

"I want to see Dean," he said.

"I’ll get him for you," she agreed. "I’m going to step outside for just a moment. You rest here; I’ll be right back."

"With Dean?"

"Yes. With Dean."

Her tone was soothing, comforting. He recognized it from when Mary used to speak to him that way, usually when he was sick; and once when he was in the hospital, having been damned near fool enough to get himself killed in the garage when he didn’t brace a jack properly - a mistake that cost him four broken ribs and a bruised heart when some bitch-ass foreign piece of crap slipped off and pinned him against concrete, trapping him there for almost an hour before Mike came back from lunch and found him, lips blue, barely breathing.

Thinking of Mary made the pain in his head worse again. Remembering her slipping into the hospital bed beside him, snuggling in close and getting him in trouble with his nurses when they found the two of them that way hours later, both of them sound asleep, made his whole body ache with an intensity that rivaled being trapped between the undercarriage of a Saab and cold concrete for the eternity of a single lunch hour.

He wanted to close his eyes again, but he didn’t. He wanted a drink, but he didn’t ask for one.

Not with Dean outside, waiting for him.

Right now, that was all that mattered. Dean simply being here outranked everything else. It outranked the pain of Mary’s memory pulsing through him with every beat of his heart. It outranked the twist of dread in his belly that demanded whiskey to buffer him against the very real possibility that Dean wasn’t here to take him home so much as he was to tell him to fuck off and die. It outranked how much his body hurt, how familiar and safe this woman felt - Julie … how familiar and safe Julie felt - how confused he was about where he was and how he got here.

Compared to Dean coming for him, Dean not hating him, Dean not having walked away from him as he thought Dean had done, finished, through with taking his dad’s shit so completely that he no longer gave a damn whether or not the old man drank himself into a hole so black he’d never find his way out again … compared to that, nothing else meant anything.

John pushed to his elbows again with an effort, saying, "No, wait. I’ll go with you. I’m not at the top of Dean’s daddy list this week, so if he bothered to come down here at all - where ever the hell here is - I need to get my ass out there before he changes his mind and leaves again."

She was already to the door, already had it open and was half way through it when she saw him swing his legs over the edge of the bed, pull himself to a sitting position. "No. John, don’t sit up …"

"Where are my shoes?" he asked as the room began to spin: tipping, wobbling, turning his perspective inside out. Nausea bucked in his gullet. He swallow, swallowed again. He tried to blink the room back to steady and failed. His skin went clammy like a cold front was crawling up his spine, spreading chill through him in the biological equivalent of Jack Fucking Frost nipping at his every extremity.

He knew he should lie back down, but he didn’t. Dean was waiting. He didn’t want to keep Dean waiting.

When he tried to stand, the pressure in his head imploded. A rush of pain blindsided him, disconnecting the input from every sense all at once, plunging him into darkness, turning off the world. It became hard to breathe, harder to think, impossible to speak. He lost his balance, collapsed in on himself, panicking a bit at the unexpected onslaught of darkness, of silence, of nothingness.

Dean

His sense of self in relation to the world around him shattered. He couldn’t tell up from down, left from right. His skin blanched; his belly cramped. He didn’t know he was falling until his knees hit the floor, jarring him, setting off a scream of alarms through every bone, every muscle, every nerve.

Dean

"Dean?" He reached out blindly, but there was no one there. The panic escalated. His heart began to pound, his pulse throbbing in his temples, in his throat, in his wrists. He tried to stand, to get his back to a wall, but he never made it off his knees. Just the thought of moving was enough to cripple him, to make him sick and dizzy and weak. "Dean?" he called again, more desperately.

"I’m right here, John."

It was a woman’s voice - calm, supportive. Her hands were on his arm, holding on to him, stabilizing him. He realized as much - that she was there, that she was holding on to him, talking to him - like waking up, the sensation of her fingers pressing into his biceps just becoming in his awareness. It made him wonder how long she’d been touching him, and the need to wonder such a thing terrified him with its ramifications.

He didn’t know who she was, but he grabbed at the stability she offered, clung to her, saying again, his voice barely audible through the clench of panic his throat had become, "Dean?"

"It’s Julie," she said gently. "I’m right here, John. It’s Julie."

"Julie," he repeated. His head hurt. It felt like it was going to crack open any second. Julie. Julie. Julie. She seemed so familiar. He tried to place her, but he couldn’t. "Where’s Dean?" he whispered.

"Dean’s right outside," she said, her voice a gentle reassurance. "Just try to relax. Just breathe, okay?"

Maybe she was a shelter worker: someone who’d agreed to take him in when the cops asked, agreed to spare him another night in the drunk tank, or on the streets. She seemed to know who Dean was. He must have told her about Dean. Or Dean called her. Maybe Dean called her, looking for him.

The thought of that made him giddy.

"Don’t let Dean leave," John pleaded. "Tell him I’m not in here just fucking around. Tell him I’m trying; that I’ll be there in a minute."

"He’s not going anywhere, John."

"Don’t let him leave," John repeated, the words so desperate in the way they sounded it shamed him even though he knew, as a shelter worker, she’d no doubt seen much worse, perhaps even from him.

"Hey, Johnny," a man’s voice said from the other side of him. "Trying to go for a walk there, Big Guy?"

John jolted with surprise. The voice was close - startlingly so - and he quailed from the intrusion of the unexpected nearness, feeling threatened again, feeling defensive. "What the … who are you?" he demanded. Then, even knowing it wasn’t, he asked, "Dean? Is that you?"

"It’s just Danny, John," Julie said. "It’s all right. Let us get you back on the bed, okay?"

"Danny?" The name tasted strange on his tongue. Like her name, it seemed oddly familiar, like he knew it and just couldn’t remember; or like he should know it, and should remember.

But he couldn’t. All he could remember was Dean.

Dean was here. Dean was out there, waiting for him; and if he didn’t get his ass in gear, he might leave.

Dean might leave.

Just the thought of it panicked him. He tried to stand again; but the man to his left - Danny, the man’s name was Danny - had a grip on him now, stabilizing him, restraining him.

"I’m a doctor, John," Danny said calmly. "We’re going to try and get you back to the bed, okay? I need your help on this, so I want you to focus. Can you do that for me, John?"

"Doctor?" John repeated, confused. "Am I in a hospital?"

"I need you to relax," Danny instructed. "I need you to breathe. Focus on what I’m saying, John. Quit trying to figure out where you are, what’s going on. I promise, I’ll explain everything to you once we get you back to your bed. That’s what we need to concentrate on right now, John. Getting you back to bed. Can you do that for me, John?"

"Do what?"

"Help me get you back into bed," Danny answer. Then to Julie, he said, "Step back. Let me do it." Then again to John, "Come on, John. Help me out here, buddy. I need you to try and get your feet under you."

When she let him go it was like losing something. Something he couldn’t explain, but something he needed as much as he needed to get to Dean. He lost track of where he was, couldn’t find himself in a haze of confusion that was getting worse by the moment. "Julie?" He reached out to find her again, but she wasn’t where she’d been.

Julie. Her name was Julie. He remembered that now, remembered her name was Julie.

"You’re too heavy for her, John," Danny said. He was repeating John’s name every time he spoke, using it like tape to tack his instructions to John’s brain. "She’s pregnant, remember? You need to let me help you back to the bed. You and I can do this, John. You just need to let me help you, okay?" Then, to someone else, "No. Stay out of it unless I tell you otherwise."

"Who’s there?" John demanded. He tried to open his eyes again, but the pain wouldn’t hear of it. The moment his eyelids exposed him, the glare blinded him, agonizing in how it cut through his head like a bullet through flesh, easing only when he gave in and closed his eyes again, and only negligibly then.

"I’m right here, John. It’s Danny. I’m right here."

John grabbed at the man who was speaking, found him, held on, not because he had any idea who he was, but because the man was there, and he needed something to hold on to, something to use as a marker in the enormousness of the nothing around him just to keep from getting lost in it.

He was getting lost in it.

"Where am I?" he asked again, feeling he should know but having no idea where he was. The world had gone grey around him. Intangible. He’d lost his bearings completely. If not for the hands and voices of strangers, he wouldn’t be sure he still existed.

A woman’s voice. He remembered a woman’s voice. "Julie?"

"Stay with me, John," Danny instructed. "I need you to focus. Help me get you to your feet."

With Danny’s help, he struggled to his feet.

"There you go, Johnny. Now help me get you back to the bed."

He staggered two steps. His knees jarred against the mattress, and he collapsed into the bed, falling for a moment through nothingness until he hit the soft down of a comforter and remembered what it was.

The pressure in his head was blinding, pulsing in time to his heart. He felt disconnected, unreal. He tried to open his eyes again but couldn’t manage it.

"Holy fuck," he whispered.

"Just relax, John," Danny said. "You’re fine now. Try and breathe normally." He put two fingers on John’s neck at the pulse point.

"Where’s Dean?" he demanded.

"It’s all right, John," Julie said, sitting down beside him. She picked up his hands, held them, saying, "It’s all right, John. It’s all right." He remembered what she looked like. That she loved the feel of rain on her face, and the smell of new mown grass.

"Julie?"

"I’m right here, John."

His knuckles were against her belly. The baby kicked. He moved his hand, put the palm flat where the baby could kick it again. It did.

He laughed.

The moment seemed so real to him: so normal, so familiar, so right. It was like waking up from a nightmare to find there was no war, no gunshots, no screams; that you’d just fallen asleep in front of the TV and all the blood shed and pain suffered were dark illusions played out places that don’t exist. "Damn, Mary," he said when the baby kicked a third time. "Boy’s going to be an asskicker, just like his old man."

She didn’t answer. The silence scared him. The moment frayed, twisted, became more danger than comfort. "Mary?" he demanded.

"Shut up for a minute, John," Danny said. "Let me finish taking your vitals."

Danny’s voice was calm, authoritarian. It eased the twist of panic in John’s gut. He knew Danny, trusted Danny. "Where’s Mary?" he asked. "Is Mary okay?"

"Mary’s fine," Danny said.

Taking the reassurance as the truth, John settled back into the bed, let Danny finish what he was doing. He lost track of what he was thinking, slipped away while he was waiting.

"Can you tell me where you are?" Danny asked after almost a minute of not speaking.

The question startled John, woke him out of the space in his head to which he’d fallen.

Disoriented, he listened to the silence, unsure exactly what had jerked him from the still in which he’d been sleeping.

"John?" an unfamiliar voice prompted.

He ignored it, not really caring who it was, or why they said his name like they thought he should be answering them. He wanted a drink … needed a drink. His body ached. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t untangle the fucked up way his mind had knotted the world up into a big ball of indecipherable in his head.

It hurt just to breathe, hurt more to try and make sense out of the jumble of his senses. He needed a drink to calm his nerves, to help sort out reality from unreality, to make demons real and Mary dead and find some kind of fucking sense to that.

Find some kind of fucking sense to any of this.

"Where’s my bottle?" he demanded.

"Do you know where you are?" a man asked.

"In bed," John grunted.

"How do you feel?"

"How the fuck do I look like I feel?" he snapped. His lips were stiff on the words. It was a struggle to form them, a struggle to push them past his teeth with a tongue that felt suddenly thick, unwieldy.

God, he wanted a drink.

"Julie says you’re a little confused. Says you’re not quite sure where you are. Would you say that’s accurate?"

"Who the fuck is Julie?"

"Tell me what you know right now, John. Where you are. Who I am."

"Fuck you. Where’s Dean? I thought Dean was here. How long does it take him to crawl off some woman and get the fuck down here to pick me up? You called him, right? Someone called him and told him I was here, didn’t they?"

His voice was slurred. It surprised him. He wasn’t drunk; he hurt too much to be drunk.

He’d been hunting. He remembered that now: a vague recollection of the smell of pine and fresh air. He focused on that but couldn’t remember anything else. Not what he was hunting. Not where, or with whom. So a head injury, maybe. Thrown into a tree, down a slope, onto a rock. He tried to track his own thoughts and failed. He couldn’t follow an intention to an action, couldn’t find the origin or destination of a single thing swimming around in his head.

Concussion maybe, or worse. The static of confusion made it hard to concentrate.

"Where am I?" he asked. "What’s going on?" He had to focus just to remember he needed to focus. If he lost that intention for even a fraction of a second, he began to drift. It felt dangerous to him, made him worry about where he was, about who might be depending on him to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

"Where’s Dean?" he asked. "Is Dean okay?" He couldn’t remember what they were hunting. Couldn’t remember for sure whether or not Dean had even been hunting with him.

"I’m going to check your eyes now, John. Try not to anticipate, okay?" A thumb pulled his eyelids up, one at a time, and flashed a bright pinpoint light across his line of sight.

The track of it burned like fire. He flinched, swearing; but the pain clarified things a bit. "Son of a bitch, Danny. Watch where you’re pointing that thing, will you?"

"That hurt?" Danny asked.

"No. It fucking tickles. What are you doing? Where’s Julie?"

"Just shut up and hold still," Danny ordered in lieu of an answer.

John remembered Dean suddenly, remembered his son was waiting for him somewhere, probably wondering why it was taking so long to roust a drunk out of bed and get him moving. The thought of Dean getting tired of waiting, leaving because he thought his father wasn’t interested enough in getting bailed out to get his ass in gear, scared John, cramped his gut again in panic.

"Where’s Dean?" he demanded, opening his eyes, squinting them against the pain. "I want to talk to him. Where is he?"

"Do you know who Dean is?"

"What kind of stupid ass question is that? Of course I know who Dean is. Let me talk to him. I want to talk to him."

"Why don’t you talk to me for a while first?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I’m Danny, John."

"Well, no offense, Doctor Danny," John said, "but fuck you. I want to talk to my son."

John could see now, just barely, but enough to make out the expression on the man sitting beside him, to judge the way that man was looking at him. He didn’t like it; didn’t like the way he seemed to be assessing every move John made.

"Who are you?" John demanded suspiciously. "Where’s Dean?"

"I’m going to give you a little something for your headache, John," the man said. He was wearing a smile John had seen a thousand times and never once believed.

Something cold and wet swabbed the inside of his elbow. John jerked back, knowing there was a needle in that promise somewhere. "Fuck that! Get that shit away from me." He tried and failed to pull out of the grip the man had on his arm.

"Relax, John." The professional placation of the tone made John angry, made him feel more threatened than he already felt.

Which, truth be told, was pretty fucking threatened.

"You relax," he snapped. "You put a needle in my arm, and it will be the last thing you ever do, friend. Trust me on this."

"It’s just something for the pain, John. Something to help you calm down."

"You can take your calm down and shove it up your ass."

He reached out, his hand fast and accurate despite the fact that he could barely see through the glare of light washing the room to fades of white and burned out color . He caught the man by the throat, closed his fingers just enough to make the grip a threat.

"Where’s Dean?" he demanded. "I want to talk to Dean, right now."

He was angry. Frightened. Feeling vulnerable. He knew he was in trouble, he just didn’t know what kind of trouble it was yet. He tried to look around the room, but most of what he could see was swashes of color and glaring light. He couldn’t make out anything past the man he had by the throat, and barely even him.

"Dad. Let him go, Dad."

"Dean?" John released the man he was holding. He turned toward the sound of Dean’s voice, but there was no one there. His heart lurched. He thought he’d heard Dean’s voice - he was so sure he’d heard Dean’s voice - but he couldn’t find him now.

"Dean?!" he called again. The force of his own voice ran through his head like a pike. The pain was galvanizing, but the escalation of fear was worse. He was hallucinating now: Hearing Dean when Dean wasn’t here. The head injury must be bad … bad enough to leave him utterly defenseless. He called again, louder, more insistently, more out of hope of an answer than out of any real expectation of as much: "Dean!?!"

Dean would know what was happening. Dean would have the whole situation assayed, and a plan already in play.

He wanted to talk to Dean. He needed to talk to Dean.

"Okay," someone said. "Go ahead." It wasn’t Dean, and he wasn’t talking to John. The sound of an unfamiliar voice so close to him ampped John’s adrenaline tenfold. "Who the fuck are you?!?" he demanded. "Who the fuck are you talking to?"

"He’s talking to me, Dad," Dean said from only few feet away. "I’m right here."

"Dean?"

"Yeah. It’s me, Dad. I’m right here."

The effect of Dean’s voice was almost instantaneous. The fear building in his chest eased. The pain in his head lessened. He squinted, trying to find his son through the blinding glare of light cutting into his head. "Dean?" he called. "Where are you, son?"

"I’m right here," Dean said again. John turned his head in the direction of his son’s voice, still trying to find him, still failing.

"Tell him to let me give him the shot."

"What?" John asked.

"I said let him give you the shot," Dean said. "He’s a doctor. He’s trying to help, so just relax and let him do his job."

The panic that had been building in him settled. "A doctor," he repeated. That made sense. Dean must have brought him here. He must have gotten himself thrown far enough or hard enough for Dean to think a hospital was a good idea.

Someone took his arm, slipped a needle into the flesh on the inside of his elbow. Liquid fire tracked his veins like acid, but he didn’t care. If Dean thought it was necessary, it probably was. His son wasn’t much for panic, wasn’t much for unnecessary precaution. If anything, he was prone the opposite direction, taking too many risks if he thought it might save a life, too willing to risk his own if someone else’s was on the line.

"Where are you, Dean?" he asked, ignoring the doctor who was taking his pulse now. "I can’t see you, son."

"Can I go to him?" Dean asked.

John frowned. "What?"

"Go ahead. Try and keep him calm."

"Who are you talking to?" John demanded.

"I’m talking to you, Dad," Dean said. "I said you need to try and keep calm."

The doctor holding onto his wrist surrendered it and moved away. Dean slipped in to take his place. The shadow of his son lacked all detail, just a darkened movement in the blur the room around him had become. Blinking in an effort to clear his vision, John shoved the heels of both hands against his eyes and rubbed.

It didn’t help.

"Calm, huh? I can do calm," John said. Then, rubbing harder, he muttered, "Son of a bitch …"

"Don’t let him do that."

"Dad. Dad." Dean took one of his hands, held it like he used to when he was a kid, like he had after they killed the Demon, when John woke up not dead the way he expected to be. "That’s not going to help. It’s not your eyes."

"Concussion?" he surmised, accepting Dean’s gesture of support, of comfort. Dean wasn’t much for touchy-feely. If he felt like holding his old man’s hand, his skull must have taken a pretty good shot.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Something like that."

John nodded, regretted it. "Figures. Hell of a headache. Can’t see for shit; straight line of thought is out of the question. What about you? You okay?"

"I’m fine."

"Sammy?"

"Sammy’s fine."

John felt something slip inside himself. He felt sick again, suddenly and overwhelmingly. It was like having the floor dropped out from under him, jerked away to leave him falling through darkness without any point of stability to use as a frame of reference.

He held on tighter to Dean’s hand, asking "Where is she? Is she home from school yet?"

"Uh. Yeah. I guess."

"What do you mean, you guess?" His heart started pounding. Something was wrong. Dean sounded wrong; he sounded off. Blinking harder, John struggled to peer through the haze, to get a look at his son’s expression, to see what he wasn’t saying. "Is she okay, Dean? Did something happen to Sammy?"

"Nothing happened to Sammy, John," Danny said from nearby. "She’s fine. She’s with Sarah."

"Who the fuck is Sarah?" John demanded. He was scared now, glaring at Danny, trying to figure out what was going on. "Where’s my kid, Danny? What the fuck did you do with my kid?"

He was losing track of where he was again, losing his bearings, losing his sense of equilibrium. The pressure of Dean’s hand in his became his only point of consistent reference. Everything else was shifting, moving. It was a game of blind man’s bluff to remember who was where, who was even here.

He felt drugged. His every thought was cocooned in a muzz of confusion. They kept slipping in and out of focus as he tried to hold on to them, kept peeling away, shedding like dead skin, leaving him exposed, wounded, raw. He struggled against a growing attrition of awareness, trying to keep his mind above water. The sense of losing himself was at once familiar and devastatingly frightening. He fought it with everything he had.

"Dean?"

"Right here, Dad."

"Can’t … think. Keep losing track of … track of things."

"Just relax, John," Danny said. "Let it happen."

"Feel drugged."

"It’s okay, Dad. I’m right here. You’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you."

"Where’s Sammy? I told you to stay with him. Why aren’t you with him?"

"Just relax, Dad."

"Where’s your mother?" It felt like a dream. Like a bad dream.

Dean hesitated. "What?"

"Your mother," John repeated. "Where’s your mother?"

"I’m not sure what you’re asking," Dean said after a beat.

Something was wrong. John could feel it in the way the air lay heavy on his skin, the way the room felt like it was closing in around him. The blinding glare had faded into darkness. A TV droned only a few feet away.

He heard her scream.

"Mary?"

He was confused, disoriented. Something woke him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. His heart was pounding, rising into his throat. Blood pulsed behind his eyes, thundered in his ears. He smelled smoke, heard the baby crying. "Mary?" he demanded.

"I’m right here, Dad." There was a hand in his. It held on to him, gave him a place to focus.

There was a war movie playing on TBS. Old. Black and white. He’d heard something - something more disturbing than Hollywood mortar fire - and it jolted him out of a deep sleep. Disoriented, he tried to figure out what woke him.

"Mary?" he called more frantically, half remembering the echo of a half-heard scream. She’d screamed. That’s what woke him. Mary screamed. He remembered it now. He remembered Mary screaming. "Mary?" he called again, trying to push out of his chair to go upstairs and see what was the matter.

"It’s me, Dad," Dean said. "I’m right here."

John clutched at Dean’s hand. "Dean. Take Sammy and go outside. Go, Dean. Don’t look back."

"No," Dean said. "I’m not leaving you."

"Don’t argue with me," he raged. "Son of a bitch, Sammy! Can’t anything ever be easy with you? Just do what I tell you to. Go. Now!"

"It’s me, Dad. It’s Dean."

"Dean?"

"Yeah. It’s me. I’m right here."

"I can’t get to her, Dean." The realization cut through him like a bouncing betty detonating waist high. "I can’t reach her. It’s too hot. Too fucking hot." The air was sharp and bitter. He couldn’t breathe through it, could barely see. Everything had gone orange and black, shadows and fire. He could hear her burning in his head. "Oh, God. Mary. Mary!"

"You’ve got to relax, John," Danny said, his fingers on a pulse point again, his voice calm but terse. "I gave you something to help with that. You’ve got to quit fighting it."

John recognized it, understood who he was. "Danny?"

"Yeah, John. I’m right here."

"Where’s Julie? Is Julie okay?"

"Julie’s fine," Danny said. Then, more quietly, "No, don’t move Dean. I’ll work around you. Just keep holding on to him. Talk to him so he knows you’re there."

"I thought I heard her scream," John said to Danny.

"Nobody screamed, Dad," Dean said.

"I heard her scream," John insisted. "I know I heard her scream."

"John, I’m going to give you another shot. Do you understand? Hold on to him, Dean."

"Trust me, Dad. Okay? Just trust me right now."

John couldn’t tell who was speaking from where. Gunshots and explosions ricocheted off the walls, peppering the room with shrapnel. He was hit. His arm burned like fire. He grabbed at it; but someone blocked him, brushed his hand away. A mine went off under the humvee; metal and marines screamed as they came apart.

Someone whispered to him in Latin, their voice profane with a resonance that wasn’t Human.

Your Dad’s in here with me. Trapped in his own meatsuit. He says hi, by the way. He’s going to tear you apart. He’s going to taste the iron in your blood.

He was more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. Dean was hit, bleeding. His son was begging him to save him and there wasn’t anything he could do. He was trapped. Trapped in his own meatsuit. Helpless to do anything but watch as Dean’s eyes lost focus and his head dropped forward, blood glistening black on his shirt.

"Dean!"

"I’m okay, Dad. I’m right here."

"It’s here." John was frantic. "Get your brother and go. Leave me and go." He could feel It laughing, torturing him with how easy it would be to tear his son apart while Dean leaned over him in the backseat of the Impala, tending his wounds. Checking his eyes, taking his vitals. It showed him flashes of the Impala’s leather, gory with blood and flesh, as Dean told him it would be okay, Sammy navigating Missouri back roads like a moonshiner with revenuers up his ass, both of them thinking they were safe, thinking they’d escaped.

They trust you, John. You’re their greatest weakness. Without you, I wouldn’t ever be able to get this close to them.

"Don’t wait for me, Dean. Go. Go!"

He can’t even tell it isn’t you, John. Your precious boy doesn’t know his daddy well enough to see me in your eyes. Look at him, John. So desperate for your approval he’ll believe anything I say. I’m going to tear him apart, and he’s going to die thinking it was you.

Blackness. Terror. Smoke. Fire.

She was screaming. It echoed in his head, coming from everywhere at once. Frantic, desperate, he scavenged through the wreckage, pushing body parts aside, looking for someone still alive as the bodies around him began to burn.

Metal. Marines. Mary.

The mine detonated, flipping the humvee on its back like a beetle. He crawled out of the wreckage, choking, retching. An RPG slammed into metal near his face, spraying shrapnel everywhere. A shard of debris scored his flesh to bone just centimeters from his right eye.

He could hear them screaming inside the nursery. Begging. He tried to go back, to get to them, but the heat was too intense. It drove him to his knees. He crawled along the carpet, desperate to get back in to see if anyone was still alive.

Tony’s uniform caught fire, started to burn. Beyond it, Berto was screaming, half his right arm gone, blown away, black with the char of the explosion. John tried to get to him, but Sammy’s toys were exploding like mortar rounds as the heat expanded the air inside them, combusting them to deadly Hasbro projectiles of indiscriminate aim in the claustrophobic vehicle.

He crawled to another vantage, trying to find another way in, trying to find a way back to Mary. Reaching through the humvee’s shattered windshield, he twisted one hand into Berto’s uniform and braced himself against the crib, struggling to pull the screaming man out from under bodies of men they both knew. A roil of soot-black smoke overcame him, invading his body, poisoning his lungs. He heard it whispering profanities as his mind shut down from lack of oxygen, asking him what he and God were going to do as the humvee’s reserve gas tank exploded, hurling him clear of the nursery to listen as they burned.

To listen as Mary burned.

"Oh, Jesus," he moaned. "Sweet Jesus, no."

It was winning, sucking him under. He could feel it deadening him with every moment passing, subjugating him, trying to own him, to trap him in his own meatsuit and make him watch. The fun for It was in making him watch. He fought with everything he had, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough: not to save them, not even to get back to them, to die with them.

"You’re safe, John. Right here with us, okay? But I need you to relax. I want you to stop fighting the drugs."

"Stop it!" John raged. "Stop it! Leave him alone, you mother fucker!"

"Dad. I’m okay. You’re not hurting me."

"I’m sorry, Dean. I’m so sorry." Dean was begging him, believing in him, and he couldn’t make it stop. The Demon was laughing, tearing him apart as surely as he was tearing his son apart, but he couldn’t make it stop. He couldn’t make it stop. All he could do was watch. He couldn’t make it stop.

God, just make it stop.

"Mary," he whispered, praying now, pleading. "Help me. Please help me, Mary. God, help me."

"I’m all right, Dad. We killed it. I’m all right."

"Help me, Mary."

He was losing the fight. It was winning, taking him over. He could feel it creeping through him, turning everything dark in its wake. "Shoot me," he moaned. "I’m begging you, son. Shoot me." His voice was slurred. His words ran into one another, jumbling together as he spoke.

"It isn’t him, Dad. It’s not the Demon. You’ve got to let go. Let go. Trust me, Dad. Please. Just let go."

He let go. It took over, pulled him down. Pulled him under.

He had no idea where he was. The smoke and fire made everything look the same, feel the same. He knew Mary was here, but he couldn’t find her, couldn’t get back to her, couldn’t save her.

Fire crawled across the ceiling, a sea of roiling orange. Her body was charring to ash. He could hear it. He could smell it. He felt his way through the choke of Sammy’s nursery, trying to get back to her, fighting his way through the heat, unwilling to leave her behind, unable to leave her behind.

He had to find her.

She was already gone, and he knew it; but he couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave her. He needed to find her, stay with her, be with her, die with her. The fire was calling for him. It whispered his name, wanting him to watch.

He pushed deeper into the nursery, fell to his knees under the pyre her body had become. The ceiling was buckling. In another moment, it would come down, taking him with her, charring him to ash and memory and peace.

He wanted that now. Needed it. Prayed for it.

For it to just be over. God, let it just be over.

The fire licked at his skin. It roared at him, Its breath hellfire and brimstone. It spoke profanities in a voice he remembered from a charred humvee in the desert, profanities about love, about loyalty, about commitment. About children and wives and brothers-in-arms. About failing those who believe in you, who need you, who trust you.

He listened, and he believed.

A cold wind blew through the room. For just a moment, he was somewhere else: someplace safe, someplace happy. The weight of his son rested against his chest, small arms wrapped possessively around his neck. Mary leaned in. She pressed her lips to his, looking at him the way she did that made him feel whole. Alive. Needed.

Go John. Go, now. Don’t look back.

And then it was gone. Everything was gone. The room was fire and char and death. All that remained of Mary burned on the ceiling above him. Only the faith in her eyes still existed, frozen in his memory by the way it lived in the eyes of her son, accepting the burden of his little brother, terrified but believing in him.

Believing in his daddy.

Love, loyalty, commitment. Children, wives, brothers-in-arms. Those who believed in him, needed him, trusted him.

They were everything that was important to him. His source of strength, the foundations of his faith. God, in the eyes of a man, a soldier, a father.

His sons.

John staggered to his feet, fell back to the door. The ceiling cracked. The fire reached out for him, calling him back. He turned away. Stumbling out of the nursery, he felt his way down the staircase, blinded by smoke, choking, gagging, dying as he made his way out of the house, leaving her behind.

Leaving himself behind by not looking back.

*

Dean was sitting on the couch again, his head in his hands, shut down, unable or unwilling to talk. Mary and Meredith were hours gone, well south of Portland and unaware that anything had changed. The small house was quiet, almost as if it was waiting for something to happen.

Sam looked up as the door to his father’s room opened, then closed again.

Danny walked down the hall, joined them in the living room. "He’ll sleep for several hours," he said without requiring Sam to ask. "His blood pressure’s back to normal. His vitals have evened out. Julie’s going to stay with him in case he wakes up again, but he won’t. I’ve given him enough to knock an elephant out, so he’s down for a while, which is good."

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"He’s remembering," Danny said simply.

"Remembering what?" Sam asked.

"Remembering Mom." Dean’s head was still in his hands. The words were a raw abrasion on his voice.

Sam closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "Can’t you stop that from happening?" he asked Danny.

"No. I can’t. And I’m not sure I’d want to, even if I could."

Dean laughed hollowly. It was a bitter sound, devoid of any emotion except pain.

"He doesn’t need to remember that," Sam said, putting Dean’s point to words. "Of all the things he could forget, that’s the one he needs to forget the most."

Sighing, Danny sank into a chair, rubbing at his eyes. He was tired. Exhausted. Watching John burn in the fire of his own personal hell was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and much more than John’s sons, he understood how far it was from over. He wanted to tell them some things - explain to them the realities of memory and how it worked, how it failed to work - but he wasn’t sure that served any purpose.

Or more accurately, he wasn’t sure it served his purpose.

Or John’s best interests.

He’d walked some fine lines over the past six years, both as a doctor and as a man. Lines between loyalty and ethics, between responsibility and friendship, between what Danny knew about his best friend’s life and what John and Julie knew about that life.

Sitting here, looking at John’s sons, he realized how tired he was of the weight of that responsibility, how tired he was of being the one charged to make the call between what John deserved to know about the things that broke him and what he could handle knowing. It had become overwhelming to him, this task of judging how much pressure from those things could help John in the long run - help him find himself, help him remember himself - and how much would destroy him, ruin him forever, lose the fractured-but-functional man he was now in a vain effort to reclaim the man he might otherwise be (if that man still even existed) from a mind determined to protect itself from memories he, on some fundamental subconscious level, considered too painful to be endured.

Having witnessed first-hand what John could endure - would endure, refused not to endure - Danny was scared of those memories. Scared not only for John, but for himself, and for Julie, and for Sammy, and for soon-to-be Danny.

With everything that meant anything to John on the line, the man in charge of making the call to hold ’em or fold ’em didn’t know enough about the players on the field to do much more than make an educated guess. He was supposed to know whether to go all in or put the cards face-down to the felt by virtue of gut instinct alone; to gamble with the stakes of everything - everything for John, everything for Julie, everything for everyone Danny, himself, loved - and just hope God was on his side this time. That God wouldn’t betray them all by letting Danny make a choice that didn’t consider something he didn’t know existed to be considered. That God wouldn’t turn out to be the fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch He’d thus far proven to be whenever push came to shove in Danny’s life, whenever Danny needed something he couldn’t accomplish on his own so he turned to faith as a last resort, only to be told by his God to go fuck himself.

Go fuck himself; but still believe in Me, for I am the light and the way.

It was an untenable game with untenable stakes: Everything Danny had feared he would one day be forced to play.

Never gamble with what you can’t afford to lose. His father taught him that when he was eight, and poker was the strategy du jour to find his son and re-connect. But his father was a conservative man. A quiet man. A man who took the losses he suffered and made the best of them. Went on. Lived the best he could with what was left.

Danny was not that man. And he never would be.

He wished he was. He wished he was a man who could take he and Julie’s survival and praise God, rather than taking his mother’s death and damning Him. He wished he could take a hundred patients saved and praise God, rather than taking one patient lost and damning Him. He wished he could take finding John and praise God, rather than taking losing his dad and damning Him.

But he couldn’t. And he never would.

He wouldn’t because he didn’t have the capacity to forgive even the small failures, not in himself, and not in his God. It was what Danny knew about himself, and what he knew about a God who forgave him anew every day for considering Him a fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch who made bad things happen to good people, rather than seeing a God who turned a miracle in the simple choice of a man who’d lost his faith, if not his belief, choosing to pray for the sake of someone else, be that prayer said in a church parking lot or a crappy motel room, or in some other venue not sanctified by organized religion but graced, none the less, merely because it was His.

He and God had their ways of seeing one another, and it wasn’t always something even Sarah could understand; but even in his darkest rages, Danny knew he was afforded graces he didn’t deserve; not deserving them simply for the sin of not seeing those graces as anything other than failures by a fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch who presumed to call Himself a savior. He’d considered John one of those graces for almost six years now: the only tangible one he’d ever been willing to acknowledge.

It scared him more than he was willing to admit that perhaps he’d somehow mistaken God’s greatest intent to fail him as a grace never given.

So now, with the bet on the table and the stakes lying in a room at the end of the hall, drugged into oblivion to delay the kind of break from which a man does not ever recover, watched over by a woman who would give everything she had to save him and then take the losses she suffered and live the best she could with what was left; Danny had no choice but to gamble with something he couldn't afford to lose.

To have faith. To believe in the fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch he called God in the hopes that, in His wisdom of fucking good people to bad end, He’d allowed one more moment of undeserved grace for the profaner in the parking lot who took eight minutes to ask a favor he didn’t deserve: to ask for whatever luck, wisdom, skill or simple fucking miracle it took to heal the one man he needed to continue considering a grace from God rather than a curse levied on himself and his sister for him being the man he was.

In answer to that prayer, Danny had been given John’s de-construction: his descent from the man he was into the man he’d been and beyond, falling to the sources of his pain, of his fracture, and settling there, ready to be re-built or abandoned. Ready to be saved or destroyed. Ready to be won or lost.

It was all-or -nothing time, and that was Danny’s game. No middle ground, no safety belt, no extenuating circumstances to mitigate his own inability to accept failure as anything less than failure. He was in the God seat now, the full weight of the choices to be made riding on his shoulders so heavily they threatened to crush him. And as a counterbalance to omniscience, he’d been given John’s sons: the keys to his past, the two people who knew the man he’d been as well as Danny knew the man he’d become.

It was God’s idea of a lesson, Danny was sure. He was left to decide on his own if it was a reward or a punishment for years of unwillingness to capitulate to judging what he perceived to be God’s betrayals within the context of His greater mercies, and mitigate them accordingly.

God works in mysterious ways. It’s God’s will. Who are we to question God’s plan?

Danny had never accepted those excuses on God behalf, any more than he’d ever allowed similar ones to be offered on his.

Doctors are only Human. There was nothing anyone could have done. He’s saved so many and lost so few.

For as long as he could remember, Danny believed He and God were alike in that way, if in no other. They were both accountable for their failures, as well as their successes. It was his greatest failing, as well as his greatest asset.

And in that context, he chose to view John’s condition as a reward; as an opportunity to heal John if he excavated the right information, made the right choices, came to the right conclusions and acted on them in the right way. His greatest fear was that somehow, by failure of his own hand, he would turn his reward to a punishment.

But neither that fear, nor the weight of that fear bearing down on him under the pretext of responsibility, would keep Danny from doing everything he could to save John.

And saving John meant knowing John. Knowing the man he was and the things that broke him to the man he became. If he was going to have any chance of protecting John from himself - either protecting him from seeking his memories or protect him from the ramifications of avoiding them - Danny had to find out the things John had never been able to tell him in confessions made in states of fugue that assaulted him, did their best to destroy him, then left him as he had been when he first wandered out of the Ochoco: erased.

Erased of not only parts of his old life, but parts of his new one as well. Absent the memory of Sammy’s birth, the memory of her first birthday party, the memory of her Christmas pageant camel spitting on a different manger occupant every couple of minutes to the distress of one pre-school teacher and the thunderous applause of an appreciative audience laughing so hard that the joy of Christmas took on a whole new meaning that year. Absent those memories of this life and a hundred more, erased as if they’d never happened, forgotten as penance paid on the sacrificial altar of confessions offered on subjects John couldn’t touch without self-destructing.

On the subjects of fire, of Sam, of his wife, of Dean.

Those were the players Danny needed to know. Who they were and how they played in the context of John’s life. What they meant. How much they’d damaged him. How much potential they had to save him.

It was the task he set for himself in the war to save John from the teaching agenda of a fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch who, when the fancy took Him, could be merciful. Who could offer a miracle in the guise of a lesson to learn, offering the key of salvation to a man He knew would turn that key to good end, moving heaven and earth and hell itself, if that’s what it took, to find the answers he needed in order to know the questions to ask to open John’s devastating shadows to the cleansing light of day.

To save him.

To bring him home.

To that end, Danny turned his attentions to John’s waiting sons. "Unfortunately," he told them, "that’s not the way traumatic amnesia works."

"How does it work?" Sam asked.

"We’re not really sure. Not completely. The closest I can come to articulating it for you is a breaker effect. At some point in time, your dad’s mind had a choice to trip a breaker or burn out. It chose to trip the breaker."

"Doesn’t sound like Dad," Dean said. He sat up, lifting his head out of his hands, leaning back into the couch, his eyes empty, dark, lacking emotion that could be identified, even if it could be seen. "He’s more the type to turn up the power and stick his hands in the tub."

Danny studied the younger man for a moment before asking, "Are you saying he’s suicidal?"

One corner of Dean’s mouth quirked to a humorless smile. "Yeah. I think that would be fair to say."

"Not suicidal so much as self destructive," Sam qualified. "He makes some pretty stupid choices - dangerous choices - you’d think a grown man would know better than to make."

Dean didn’t comment.

"Dean?" Danny prompted after a beat.

"What."

"Do you agree with that?"

"I said what I meant."

Sam frowned at his brother, surprised. "You think he’s suicidal? Dad?"

"I don’t think it, Sam. I know it."

Sam made a small sound of amazed disbelief, shaking his head and saying, "You’re out of your mind, Dean. Dad’s the least suicidal man I’ve ever met. The only reason he’s still alive is because he refuses to die. If he wanted to kill himself, he’s had a thousand opportunities over the years. For Christ’s sake, a winde- damn grizzly gutted him in the middle of nowhere, and he still managed to survive simply because he’s too damn stubborn to lie down and give in."

"How many bottles were in his truck, Sam?" Dean asked. "And remind me again - where, exactly, was his tent pitched? You think he didn’t see it, Sammy? That he was so drunk he pitched his tent right in the middle of the highway without realizing he was doing it? That he didn’t know what would be coming down the road just about the time the sun went down, and what it would do to him when it got there?"

Sam’s eyes narrowed. He cocked his head to one side, trying to see what Dean was saying and failing. Or, if not failing to see it, at least failing to buy it.

"He was drunk," he said finally. "He’d been drunk for the better part of a decade."

"A little piece of good advice," Dean said. "Never hunt a grizzly when you’re drunk. Good way to get yourself killed. The old man taught me that. He was hell on wheels with good advice."

Sam opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again, leaving whatever he was going to say unspoken. "No," he said finally. "Self destructive? Definitely. Negligent. Stupid even. But not suicidal. Not dad. I don’t buy it. I never saw that in him. Never."

Dean looked at his brother, eyes still full of texture, of emotion, but closed to any sort of actual expression, any sort of revelation of what he was thinking. "I told you, you didn’t know," he said quietly. "That you hadn’t been around enough to see what he was doing."

"I was around enough to see him drinking himself into a bottle because he didn’t feel like there was any purpose to his life any more."

"You saw what he wanted you to see," Dean said, "because it’s easier to walk away from a man who won’t save himself than a man who can’t."

"That’s bullshit, Dean, and you know it." Sam was angry, and his tone showed it. "We were both there for him for years. He’s the one who decided he’d rather crawl into a bottle and drink himself into oblivion than try to figure out a way to live with what was left. That was his choice, not ours; and it was a selfish one, especially in terms of how it affected you. He didn’t give a shit what he was doing to your life, what you were giving up to babysit him so he wouldn’t drown in the choices he was making because he wouldn’t let us be a reason for him to keep on living."

Dean just looked at him. Finally, almost as if he was too tired to actually say it, he allowed, "For someone as smart as you are, Sammy; you’re a fucking idiot."

Sam was outraged. "I’m a fucking idiot? Me?!?"

"Yes," Dean said. "You are. He was supposed to die in Phoenix. He always planned to die there: To trade himself for it. He was a kamikaze, but he survived his mission, and he’s been trying to kill himself every since."

"No," Sam said, shaking his head. "You’re wrong."

"I’m not wrong, Sam. I’ve been the one who’s been running interference all these years." Dean pushed to a stand, asking Danny, "I need a drink. Does she have a beer around here anywhere? Or something stronger?"

"They don’t keep alcohol in the house," Danny said. Then, after a beat, he added, "I’m sure Del next door has a few spares, or I can have my wife bring over a six pack if you want. Or something stronger."

Dean just looked at him. For three long, silent beats, he just looked at him. Then, shaking his head, he turned away. He ended up standing at the bay window, staring out at the Impala still parked in front of the house. "Fuck," he said.

"It’s not a problem, Dean," Danny assured the younger man. "There are times I drink around him. Times Julie does, too. He’s a recovering alcoholic, not an altar boy. They just don’t keep it around the house."

"Of course they don’t," Dean said quietly. "What kind of ass am I to think they would?"

"You haven’t been around him for a while. You aren’t used to him the way he is now. That doesn’t make you an ass. It just means you’re not psychic."

"No. That’s Sam."

Sam tensed. Danny frowned.

"He’s the psychic one," Dean went on, still staring at the Impala. "He just intuits things like a recovering alcoholic not keeping alcohol in his house. It’s really kind of spooky. You should see him do it sometime. He can tell you when it’s going to rain, too; just by looking at the gathering clouds. And when it’s going to get dark by nothing more than the position of the sun in the sky."

He turned away from the window then, met Danny’s gaze. "How ‘bout coffee? Do they keep that around the house?"

Danny smiled a little. "The way your dad drinks coffee gets them on Juan Valdez’s Feliz Navidad card list every year."

"Yeah. Me and Juan are tight, too. Sam and I put his kids through college when we were younger. Where does she keep it? I’ll make a pot."

"Pot already made in the kitchen," Danny said. "But it’s been sitting there, brewing on itself, long enough it should be just about the right strength to strip paint by now. So if you want something that won’t kill you on the way down, you might try the cabinet right above it."

"Actually, paint stripper is right in the zone for me. It’s Sammy who likes the half-caf mocha latte cappuccino with a cherry on top crap. You want any?"

"No thanks. I prefer my turpentine straight up, no grounds."

"Sam?"

"I’m fine," Sam said quietly.

Dean disappeared into the kitchen. He came back a couple of minutes later, sipping at a cup of coffee, and resumed his seat on the couch.

"So what happened in Phoenix?" Danny asked as if the question was nothing more than a continuation of their earlier conversation.

Sam shifted uncomfortably. Dean just looked at him. "Dad didn’t die," he said after a beat.

Danny nodded. "And a wendigo?"

Dean took another sip of coffee before saying, "Something you don’t hunt when you’re drunk unless you’re looking to die."

Again, Danny nodded. "Then I should assume assuring your dad you don’t have to shoot him because it’s not a demon isn’t going to be something you’re going to explain either?"

"That’s what I’d assume," Dean agreed.

Sam was looking between them, from Dean, to Danny and back to Dean again. "What the fuck went on in there, Dean?" he asked finally.

"I told you," Dean said without looking at him. "He was remembering Mom."

"Sounds like he was remembering more than just Mom."

"He was remembering Lawrence. Jefferson City. Phoenix. It was all pretty much a hash omelet in his head, but you know the basic ingredients. They were all there."

"Son of a bitch," Sam whispered.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "At the very least."

*
..