The Silent Stars Go By
Merry Christmas-in-July, and a very happy early birthday to my dear jennytork, whose fault it is forever and always! :D
Summary: Dean's retired. You hear that, universe? RE-TI-RED. Can you keep the long-lost grandfathers and Knights of Hell out of his living room, huh? Is that too much to ask?! (Oh, who is he kidding, the universe is as deaf as he is....)
The Silent Stars Go By
’Tis the night before Christmas-Dean’s second with Lisa and Ben-and Sam’s come over for popcorn and a movie and the first round of gift-giving. Nothing’s going to top last year’s Christmas in Winchester, but none of them really wanted a big deal this year. After everything that’s happened, with defeating Raphael and getting thrown into the clown factory alternate universe where their lives were a TV show and falling out with Samuel and all... they just need some down time. Bobby and Mark and Gwen came for Thanksgiving, and Cas might turn up for part of the day tomorrow, but Dean and Lisa both want it to be just the four of them tonight. Simple. Quiet. Peaceful.
Sam’s setting up the DVD. Lisa’s getting the popcorn.
Dean’s off in a corner running through the little speech he wants to give when he presents Lisa with the ring and pops the question.
She’s not pregnant that he knows of, though they’ve been... well, sort of trying. Nothing deliberate, just no protection. It’s only been a month or so, so it’s really too soon to tell, even if she did get pregnant right away. But that’s not really what’s behind his decision. He’s retired. He’s staying. There’s no real reason for them not to get married.
He’s still nervous, though he tries to tell himself it can’t possibly be as bad as having pizza with Death, even if she says no. He’s not flying. He’s not letting Sam jump back in the Cage. He’s just... asking her to let him spend the rest of his life with her and Ben.
Aside from Sam being whole and happy, which he is, this is the only thing Dean’s dared to want for himself in... well, a hell of a long time. And he’s trying hard to ignore that little voice in the back of his head that says he can’t have anything good, doesn’t deserve it, everything falls apart anyway-trying so hard his hands are shaking.
She didn’t laugh in his face when he suggested more kids. She won’t laugh at him for proposing... will she?
He swallows hard and takes a deep breath and turns around to see if Sam’s got the movie cued up yet.
Sam’s arguing with some tall guy in a blue suit-a guy who looks vaguely like Dad. What the hell?
Lisa knocks the stranger’s knees out from under him and puts her silver knife against his throat, nicks the skin just a bit while Ben throws holy water in the stranger’s face. Neither gets more reaction from the guy than an eyeroll. But he’s talking too fast, and Sam’s in the way, and Dean can’t get a good read from the guy’s lips.
Finally, he explodes, “Will someone tell me what the HELL is going on?!”
Sam doesn’t take his eyes off the stranger, just gives Dean a Wait signal at the same time Lisa looks right at him and mouths, We don’t know.
But the stranger looks at Dean with a confused frown for a second before looking at Sam again and asking something that looks like Dad’s name.
Dean blinks. “What-what about Dad?”
Sam signals Wait again more forcefully.
“Dammit, Sam-”
But something’s coming. Dean senses it a split second before he smells sulfur.
“Sam.”
Sam finally looks at Dean, but then everyone’s attention snaps to the closet under the stairs. The sulfur smell gets stronger as light starts to build up behind the door, and then the door flies open and Dean just about gags on the hell-scent that rolls into the room along with a tall red-haired she-demon.
Then the living room is swarming with angels, only a handful of which Dean recognizes. Lisa lets go of the stranger, and Sam hustles the lot of them over toward Dean, but Dean’s trying to get a fix on what’s happening with the demon and can’t until the demon opens her mouth and sends some kind of shockwave through the room. He can feel that hit his chest, make the wall vibrate behind him, and all the pictures and stuff on the other walls shake, and so does the Christmas tree. But the angels get the demon cornered-seriously, how many angels does it take to kill one damn demon?-and stab her enough times to get the job done. Then they take off with the corpse, although Rachel fixes the messed-up pictures and all with a wave of her hand and a tiny nod to the family before she leaves.
So. That happened.
The stranger who’s looking for Dad, apparently, is still there, only he’s running into the kitchen all of a sudden, and then Dean smells vomit. While Lisa goes to take care of the stranger, Sam takes pity on Dean and lights a candle with a really strong pine scent. And yeah, that helps, but Dean still doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on.
“Seriously, Sam,” he says. “What the hell?”
Don’t know, Sam signs. He asks for Dad, not say why. Demon followed, called Abaddon-he fingerspells that, but Dean doesn’t have a clue how it’s pronounced. Angels kill A-demon.
“Yeah, I got that part.”
Sam shrugs with his hands out-that’s all he knows.
“Wait, did he-come in through the closet?”
Sam grimaces and nods.
“How?!”
Sam shrugs again and then turns to look at the stranger and Lisa, who are coming back into the living room. But the guy’s got a towel over his face-Dean guesses he’s wiping his mouth-and Dean can’t see what he’s saying at all.
“Hey,” Sam says, “will you stop covering your mouth? My brother’s deaf.”
Startled, the stranger looks at Dean again and lowers the towel. “Oh,” he says and signs Sorry. “Look, I can explain everything if you’ll just take me to John-”
“Dad’s dead,” Dean interrupts.
And the stranger looks devastated. “No....”
Dean frowns. “What’s it to you?”
“Everything. He’s my son.”
Dean looks at Sam. Sam turns the TV off.
While Lisa gets Mystery Grandfather settled in the recliner, Dean sits down in the middle of the couch and calls Ben over to sit beside him. Did good, he signs close to his chest, nodding toward the holy water flask as Ben sets it on the coffee table.
Ben gives him a tight smile. Thanks.
“I interrupted your Christmas,” Mystery Grandfather is saying to Lisa when Dean looks at him again, and he looks miserable. “I’m so sorry.”
Dean can’t see what Lisa replies, but she comes over to the couch and sits down beside Dean, takes his hand in both of hers and holds it in her lap. Dean puts his other arm around Ben’s shoulders. Sam sits down on the floor and looks at Mystery Grandfather expectantly.
Sorry not introduce, Mystery Grandfather signs and pauses. “Do all of you know Sign?”
“We do,” Dean answers. “I’m Dean. This is Lisa, Ben, my brother Sam.”
My name Henry Winchester. Henry fingerspells the name.
Dean blinks. That’s the name of Dad’s father, all right, but Dad was convinced his father had run off with someone, abandoned the family. What the hell was he doing here-with a demon on his tail, no less?
I was trying to reach John, Henry continues. It was 1958. Attacked night of initiation... didn’t know Abaddon would follow me.
“Initiation into what?” Dean asks, and judging from the way Henry’s eyes move, Sam asks the same thing at the same time.
Henry frowns a little, like he’s confused about why they’re confused. You know. Men of Letters.
“Who?”
Henry’s frown deepens as he looks from Dean to Sam and back. Men of Letters, he signs again as if he still expects the name to mean something to them. Your father taught you our ways. You may be deaf, he adds, looking at Dean, but still-
Dean shakes his head. “I lost my ears last year on a hunt.”
Now it’s Henry’s turn to blink. Hunt? You do field work?
“Field-what? No, man, we’re retired from hunting.”
Henry looks horrified, incredulous. He actually laughs.
Dean looks over at Sam, who’s in mid-sentence. “-raised us as hunters, but now that we’ve stopped the Apocalypse, we’re done. I mean, with Dean deaf, it’s too dangerous for him, and I don’t want to hunt without him.” Then Sam looks annoyed. Henry must have laughed again, or said something stupid.
Lisa’s grip on Dean’s hand tightens, but he can’t see what she says. He can see that it’s wiped the smirk off Henry’s face. Not that Dean likes the anguished look any better, but at least it’s not mocking them for no reason that’s clear to anyone else.
Henry looks at Sam again, and again Dean misses the first part of Sam’s sentence. “-something about an urgent assignment.”
Not so urgent now, Henry signs. Abaddon dead, threat gone.
Maybe we can still help, Sam signs back, now that he knows Dean’s looking at him. What is it?
Henry pulls a brass box out of his pocket; it looks to be about the size of a pack of cards. Elder gave me this, said to keep safe.
“So what is it?” Dean asks.
No idea.
“Wait, you traveled through time to protect something you know nothing about from a demon you know nothing about?”
Henry looks sheepish.
Dean sighs heavily. “Sam?”
Sam stands. “Why don’t you come stay with me, Henry? We can get a good night’s sleep and figure out what to do in the morning.”
Henry nods and stands. Sorry, he signs to Dean and looks like he means it.
Dean just nods.
Good night, Sam signs and ushers Henry out of the house.
Dean and Ben and Lisa sit where they are for a while before Ben decides they should try to watch the movie anyway just so the popcorn doesn’t go to waste. Neither the popcorn (which kind of tastes like packing peanuts to Dean right now) nor anyone’s attention lasts beyond the half-hour mark. So Lisa declares it bedtime, and they all trudge up the stairs together.
So much for Dean’s big speech. He doesn’t know what to do about the proposal now, when will be a better time to pop the question or whether he should even bother. He should have known nothing ever goes right in his world.
He’s just about to start changing for bed when Lisa comes up to him with an expectant look on her face. He blinks at her, and she taps the pocket where the ring is hiding and signs, Yes.
He blinks faster. “What?”
I hear you practice, she admits with a shrug and a small smile. Yes.
“Are you-y-y-you will?”
She nods.
“You’re sure?”
She nods.
He hugs her tight and tries not to cry. She returns the hug and rubs his back. When he finally lets go, though, she taps his pocket again-he’s forgotten all about the ring. He chuckles, pulls the box out, and opens it.
She gasps, and her hands fly to her face.
“I know it isn’t much,” he says, and it isn’t really, not compared to a lot of the rings the jeweler had. It’s silver, not gold, and the stone’s just a smallish sapphire. He couldn’t afford a diamond, even if he’d hustled pool for a month.
But she’s crying and smiling as she signs, Beautiful, beautiful. Then she puts it on and kisses him.
They go to bed, but they don’t do more than cuddle and kiss. And that’s okay. That’s all he’s in the mood for-and honestly? There’s no rush anymore. Grandfathers be damned. He can take tonight just to relish the feeling of having her in his arms. They’ve got all the time in the world.
She said yes.
Sam’s car is silent most of the way back to his apartment. Henry’s staring out the window at the lights and the snow, and Sam’s trying not to be mad that Henry called hunters apes. Not until they hit a red light does Sam decide to say what he’s thinking. “Lisa’s pretty good at understatement.”
Henry inhales like he was almost asleep and turns to Sam. “What do you mean?”
“When she said we almost died saving the world. We did die. More than once. Before that, a demon killed our mom, my girlfriend, and Dad-not all at once, but it was all his doing. And at the end, Lucifer possessed me and beat Dean almost to death. That’s why he’s deaf.”
Henry gasps. “Sam. That’s... how did you survive?”
“Depending on how you look at it, I didn’t. Had to grab control and jump into Lucifer’s Cage. I have no memory of how I got out, or who got me out, but... something did. And then Dean and I helped the angels stop someone else who wanted to put the Apocalypse back on track. Just got that fixed last month.”
The light changes, and Sam resumes the trek to his apartment.
“And now I’ve brought my problems down on you,” Henry says quietly and turns back to his window. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, at least Castiel had told his garrison to keep up their guard around here, even with the Apocalypse threat stopped. If they hadn’t pounced on Abaddon like that, things would have been a whole lot worse.”
Henry looks back at Sam with a puzzled frown. “Why would the Angel of Thursday take an interest in you and Dean’s family? Do you know him?”
Sam smiles a little. “Pretty well, yeah. It’s a long story, and some of it’s not real good, but... weird as it sounds, even to me, we’re friends. Kind of have been ever since he pulled Dean out of Hell. Really have been since Cas started actively trying to help us stop Lucifer.”
“Well, can’t he....”
“Heal Dean? He tried. But since all that’s damaged are the auditory nerves, the most he could do has been a temporary patch. He couldn’t heal a friend of ours who was paraplegic, either. Apparently nerves are tricky.”
“Huh.”
“Honestly, though? We’re okay with it. I mean, we’ve learned Sign, and Dean’s learned to read lips, and... it gives us a reason to quit hunting. Dean never felt like he could, even though he wanted to after Dad died. I tried to, but then Jess was murdered, and by the time we’d avenged her, we were knee-deep in pre-Apocalypse stuff. Now Dean has to retire, and he can be my excuse. And it’s not like his life’s bad like this. He’s got a good, safe job, working at a garage; he’s got Ben and Lisa.”
“So... if I were able to get my hands on the ingredients for a healing spell... are you saying Dean wouldn’t want me to?”
Sam sighs as he turns into the parking lot of his apartment complex. “You’d have to ask him. But I think he’d have to think about it pretty hard. It’s like-” He breaks off before he can make the reference to Geordi’s choice in “Hide and Q,” since Henry doesn’t even know original-series Star Trek. Not coming up with another good example quickly, Sam shakes his head. “Never mind. Just... the fact that something’s wrong doesn’t automatically mean it has to be fixed. In fact, fixing it might make something else worse.”
Henry looks startled as Sam parks, like he’d never thought of that.
Now Sam’s got an example that doesn’t involve the treacherous road to the Apocalypse. “Like, some hauntings we’ve investigated, there’s one ghost who’s obvious, but it turns out that spirit stayed behind to keep a lid on another spirit-or several-who’ll go on a homicidal rampage if the first spirit’s dispatched too soon. I mean, Dean being able to hear might not cause something that bad... we just don’t know what will happen. And... for some things... the cost is just too high.”
Henry nods thoughtfully and follows Sam inside.
It’s not terribly far from the car to the building, but Henry’s summer-weight suit is no match for the snow. He’s shivering hard by the time they get to Sam’s door, and Sam feels sorry for him in spite of himself. So as soon as he gets the door open and the lights turned on, he asks, “Coffee?”
“M-m-maybe j-j-just t-t-tea,” Henry replies. “Th-th-this late... c-c-c-caffeine might not b-b-be a g-good id-d-dea.”
Sam nods, locks the door behind Henry, and heads into the kitchen to heat some water in his Hot Shot. That’ll be a lot faster than a kettle on the stove, and they probably won’t want more than one cup apiece.
Henry wanders through the living room, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet and looking at the décor. “No... C-Christmas tree?” he asks after a moment.
Sam shakes his head. “Felt kind of redundant. I’m at Dean and Lisa’s most of the time anyway, when I’m not at work.”
Henry nods, but he’s focused on the Stanford poster over the couch.
“My alma mater,” Sam explains, “if you can call it that considering that I didn’t actually graduate.”
Henry turns. “Wh-why not?”
“I was close, don’t get me wrong. I was just a month from finishing my classes, would have walked in January, probably gone on to law school. Then Dad disappeared, and Dean showed up to ask me to help him search. We were gone for two days-and the night I got back, Jess was murdered in front of me, and the demon set our apartment on fire. Same way Azazel killed Mom. Dean had to haul me out just like he’d done when we were kids.”
The Hot Shot turns off with a quiet pop, giving Sam an excuse to turn away from Henry’s horrified expression and concentrate on getting the tea brewing. “Milk or sugar?”
“Um. S-s-sugar, p-please.”
Sam sets a cup apiece on two saucers, spoons some sugar into each cup, adds a tea bag, and dispenses the hot water. He picked up some stroopwafels the other day at a little Dutch bakery in Indy, so on a whim, he puts one on top of each cup. Then he puts a spoon on each saucer and brings the whole kit and caboodle out to the living room. “Here,” he says, nodding for Henry to sit down on the couch and setting one cup in front of him as he does. “The waffle should be warm just about the time the tea’s brewed.”
Henry nods jerkily.
Before Sam can offer the throw from the back of the couch, though, his phone rings. Sorry, he signs with one hand as the other retrieves the phone from his pocket, and he barely has time to register Henry’s bemused look at his phone before he answers.
“Sam!” Samuel barks. “Tell me you and Dean are all right!”
“We’re fine,” Sam replies with a confused frown.
Samuel sighs in relief. “Avery just called me because he’d lost your number. His wife sensed some kind of major disturbance out your way.”
Sam rubs his forehead-he’d forgotten that Avery’s wife is psychic. “Well, she’s not wrong. But we’re fine. The angels took care of most of it.”
“Anything you need our help with, son?”
“N-well, actually, do you happen to know anything about a group called the Men of Letters?”
There’s a pause before Samuel says, “Son of a gun.”
Sam blinks. “Rings a bell?”
Samuel clears his throat. “Sam, is anybody there with you?”
Sam looks over at Henry, who’s availed himself of the throw and is trying to warm his trembling hands by holding them close to but not touching his teacup. “Um. Yes.”
“Put me on speaker, would you?”
With a shrug of his eyebrows, Sam does so and sets the phone on the coffee table. “Okay, you’re on speakerphone,” he announces as much for Henry’s benefit as for Samuel’s.
“So who all is there?” Samuel asks.
Henry looks at the phone with a start. “It can’t be... S-Samuel C-C-Campbell?”
Samuel lets out a low chuckle. “I should have known. I should have known John was your son.”
Sam looks from Henry to the phone and back. “Wait, you two know each other?!”
“Right after the war, I got a call from Cuthbert Sinclair wanting me to take this green kid, fresh out of high school, on a couple of hunts as part of his initial requirements for joining the Men of Letters. I took Henry on a relatively routine poltergeist, and he got all upset that we didn’t do more research before we wasted the thing or try to find out what had attracted it.”
Henry shoots the phone a very annoyed-Dad look that would have removed all doubt, had there been any, that he’s Dad’s father. “As I recall, that poltergeist wasn’t dispatched with the gris-gris bags you insisted on using the first time, which I warned you might be the case.” Either he’s warming up, or Samuel’s got his adrenaline going, because his teeth aren’t chattering anymore.
Sam can almost hear Samuel roll his eyes. “Where the hell did they dig you up from, Henry? And how’d you end up in Cicero? If you died in Normal-”
“I wasn’t dead.”
“Oh. Well, pardon me for assuming from personal experience and the news the Greenville Campbells passed on to us in Lawrence back in ’58 that a demon attack had wiped out the Men of Letters.”
Henry pales but snarls, “And what the blazes did you ever have to do with my son?”
“He married my daughter, against my wishes. But that was when I thought he was just a civilian. If I’d known he was your spawn, I’d have warned her more strongly.”
Henry looks ready to jump through the phone and send Samuel back to whatever corner of the afterlife Crowley pulled him out of.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Sam interrupts. “Guys, c’mon, it’s Christmas Eve. You can snipe at each other some other time. Thanks for checking on us, Samuel. Good night.” And he hangs up.
Henry sighs heavily and starts shaking again. “Is any of that true, Sam?” he asks quietly.
Sam nods. “About Mom, yeah. And he really was dead-Azazel killed him, too, but before Dean and I were born. That was in ’73. Long story short, another demon brought him back about a year and a half ago to do some dirty work, and after Dean and I killed the demon, Samuel got mixed up with the parties who were trying to restart the Apocalypse. We haven’t been on good terms since we found that out, but... he is still our grandfather.”
“I just can’t picture John married to a Campbell.”
“Mom wasn’t like Samuel. I don’t have many memories of her, but... she was amazing.”
“But still a hunter.”
“Not by choice. She married Dad to get out of the life.”
Henry buries his face in his hands.
Sam reaches over to rub one thin shoulder and glances at the teacups, where the stroopwafels are starting to sag a bit in the middle from the heat. In fact, Sam’s is already starting to drip a little syrup from the outside edges. “Your tea should be just about ready,” he says.
Henry drags in a ragged breath and drops his hands. “Thanks.” He’s still shaking like a leaf, but Sam has a hunch that emotion is as much the culprit as the cold, maybe more so.
They don’t talk as they eat their cookies and drink their tea. In fact, Henry doesn’t really look at Sam much, or at anything else, for that matter; his eyes are kind of vacant and unfocused, not sick or stoned, just shocky. And Sam can understand that. The time jump alone would be a wrench, but Henry’s had a hell of a lot dropped on him in the last few hours, lost a lot of friends and all of his family that he knew. And he really isn’t dressed for the weather, although that’s only an aggravating factor.
When Henry finally puts down his empty teacup with another heavy sigh, Sam asks, “Hot shower?”
Henry takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “No, thank you. The tea’s helped enough. I think I’ll be all right with just a hot water bottle.”
“Would an electric blanket be okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Pretty sure there’s one on the spare bed already. And I think Dean left a pair of his flannel pajamas over here; they’d probably fit you better than anything of mine.”
Henry nods and stands, though he looks pretty wobbly. “Trouble at home?”
Sam stands, too. “No, nothing like that. Last winter Dean’s immune system cratered on him; he was down with one virus after another. I got this place so I could take care of him and Lisa wouldn’t have to worry about Ben catching any of it. By the time he was back on his feet, I’d decided to stay.”
Henry raises an eyebrow at that. “So it wasn’t just Dean’s deafness.”
“Well, I was already trying to decide between this option and moving in with a friend in Sioux Falls. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last six years, it’s that family comes first.”
Henry winces a little and lets Sam steer him to the guest bedroom. Sam retrieves the pajamas and gives Henry directions to the bathroom.
Then he pauses in the doorway and looks back at his grandfather, who looks less like a grandfather and more like a guy Sam’s age whose world has just ended. “You gonna be okay?” he asks.
Henry nods absently.
“If... y’know, if you need anything, come wake me. Even if it’s just someone to talk to.”
Henry finally focuses on Sam again and smiles a little. “Thanks, Sam.” Then his smile turns wry. “Merry Christmas.”
Sam returns the smile. “Merry Christmas.”
Neither of them sleeps terribly well. Sam, specifically, dozes off but has trouble falling deeply asleep, so he hears a nightmare wake Henry around 4. Henry tries to be quiet about puttering around, and he mostly succeeds by not knocking anything over or turning on the TV or radio, but Sam’s ready to give up on sleep by 4:30. He starts smelling toast about that time anyway.
Henry starts guiltily and steps away from the pantry when Sam walks into the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Sam waves it off. “You didn’t. What are you looking for?”
“Oatmeal.”
Sam turns on the light. “Third shelf. You started coffee yet?”
“No, I wasn’t quite sure whether your coffee maker works like the ones I’m used to.”
Sam gets the coffee going while Henry starts a pot of oatmeal. They keep their conversation pretty light, mostly things like what year it is, where they are, who’s president, what Sam and Lisa do for a living, how Ben’s faring in school. Sam thinks maybe it’s best for Henry to get all those small-talk-ish catching-up questions out of the way with him, save Dean the trouble of explaining and also some of Henry’s knee-jerk reactions to information he finds shocking or disapproves of. They’re kind of talked out by the time they finish eating, but Sam’s wide awake now, and it looks like Henry is, too.
So Sam checks his watch and sighs. “There’s a store in Noblesville that’s open 24 hours. That’s only fifteen minutes or so from here. Why don’t we go get you some clothes and such? I’ve got some sweats and a jacket you could borrow for the time being.”
Henry looks skeptical. “You’re sure they’ll be open on Christmas Day?”
“Positive. That store never closes.”
“All right. I do need winter clothes; it was quite a shock to be dressed for August and step out into December. I’d even left my hat and raincoat behind.”
“Most people don’t wear hats anymore, not on a daily basis. Walmart may not have much of a selection. If you want one to keep your head warm, though, we can probably find you something.”
Henry nods. “We can see what they have.”
So Sam loans Henry a Stanford-era sweatsuit that’s been too small for years but he can’t bring himself to throw out, and after they’re both dressed, they’re off again. Sam finds a Christmas station on the radio, and that seems to brighten Henry’s spirit some-at least until they pull into the Walmart parking lot and Henry gapes at the sight of it.
“This is one store?”
“Yep,” Sam confirms as he parks. “Kind of a supersized version of the old general store idea. And I have to warn you, prices are probably a whole lot higher than you’re used to, but Walmart’s are about the most affordable.”
Henry shakes his head as they get out. “I’ve seen a few department stores this size, but those were all in New York-Tiffany’s, Macy’s, Saks.”
Sam chuckles. “Walmart’s not anywhere close to the size of Macy’s in New York.”
“But still, it’s huge for a town this size.” Henry pauses. “Do you think there’s one in Normal?”
“By now, yeah, probably.”
Henry lets out a low whistle and follows Sam inside.
They don’t succeed in finding Henry a hat, but they do get him set up with jeans and flannel shirts-which will make him look a lot more like a Winchester-as well as unmentionables and toiletries and a decent pair of sneakers. They both agree that he’ll continue to borrow Sam’s jacket for the time being. Sam also insists on getting him a phone for just in case, and while they’re in Electronics, Henry stares agog at the computers, cameras, CDs, DVDs, and flat-screen TVs. It’s a good thing they’re doing this shopping so early, when no one’s in the store to see... Henry’s almost as bad as Cas, and Sam keeps wanting to hum Brad Paisley’s “Welcome to the Future.”
Henry dashes back inside while Sam’s loading the car, claiming he forgot something, and comes back out with another bag a few minutes later. But he won’t let Sam see what’s in it. He’s smiling, though, so... Sam hopes it’s a good thing.
The sun still isn’t up yet by the time they get back to Sam’s apartment. They take Henry’s new clothes down to the laundry room to wash and go back upstairs to find something on TV to watch. Sam shoots Dean a text to let him know what’s going on, then settles in to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol-and promptly falls asleep.
He wakes to the TCM jingle, followed by an introduction leading into Miracle on 34th Street, and to Henry folding the laundry. The sun’s finally up. Henry’s changed into one of his new outfits, may even have showered but definitely shaved, and he really does look like one of the family now. Not that Sam plans to say so, or anything more than the groggy “Hey” that comes out when Henry looks over at him.
Henry smiles. “You sleep well?”
“Yeah, thanks. You sleep any?”
“No. I couldn’t relax. Lisa called,” Henry adds, looking pleased with himself for having figured out how to use Sam’s phone. “She said they won’t expect us until 11 or so.”
“What time is it?”
“Just after 10.”
Sam nods and yawns. “There any coffee left?”
“I think so. I haven’t had any more.”
“Okay. You want some?”
“Thanks, but I... think I’m jittery enough as it is.”
Sam nods again and helps himself to some coffee. By the time he’s more awake, Henry’s got the laundry finished and is putting his things away in the spare room. Sam puts his own things away quickly and goes back to the living room and the movie to kill time until time to go. But Henry wasn’t kidding about how restless he is, and Sam can’t help wondering if this is another side of his grief, part of the Winchester fix-it drive or something that won’t let him settle until he’s sure the family’s okay. Or maybe he’s uptight about this mysterious thing he’s brought with him, not knowing what it is or why he has to keep it secret and safe. (It can’t possibly be the One Ring, can it? That’s fictional.)
In any case, Sam gives up around 10:30 and calls Lisa. “You guys mind if we come on over?”
“No, not at all,” Lisa replies. “I can put you both to work on the potatoes.”
Sam laughs and tells Henry, “We’re on KP.”
Henry laughs heartily. Then he goes to get the mystery Walmart bag while Sam finishes his conversation with Lisa, and they go on to Lisa’s house.
When they get there, Dean’s wearing the kilt Lisa got him last year, and she’s wearing his ring, and Sam doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dean look happier.
Dean drags Sam into the office and shuts the door. “Don’t know what Henry’s assuming about me and Lis,” he says quietly, “but I didn’t think we ought to bust his bubble if he thinks we’re married... considering we will be this time Tuesday.”
Sam gasps. She said yes? He figured she must have because of the ring, but now he realizes he wanted to hear it from Dean. The speed’s kind of a shock, too.
Dean nods, beaming. “Said she didn’t see any point in putting it off, since we’re just goin’ to the courthouse anyway.”
Dude, awesome!
Dean’s smile gets brighter, if that’s possible. “Just about to call Bobby, figured I’d wait and let you fill him in about Henry.”
Sam nods and pulls up another chair to the desk as Dean sits down and pulls up Skype.
Bobby answers on the first ring. “Merry Christmas, idjits.”
They laugh and chorus, “Merry Christmas, Bobby.”
“Dean, how’d it go last night?”
“There were some complications we’ll tell you about here in a sec,” Dean replies. “But she still said yes. We’re going to the courthouse Tuesday.”
“Well, good for you, son. If the roads are clear enough, I’ll try to come down.”
“Awesome.” Dean looks at Sam, shifting a bit to be able to read his lips more easily.
“Hope you can,” Sam says, “and not just for that. We may need your help dealing with one of the complications.”
Bobby’s smile fades a little. “How so?”
“How much did Dad ever tell you about his father?”
Bobby’s smile fades even further. “We got another one?”
“Henry wasn’t dead,” Dean clarifies. “Time travel.”
Bobby swears.
Sam touches Dean’s arm to make sure he catches this part. “Speaking of Samuel, he called last night. Avery’s wife freaked out over Abaddon following Henry here. Turns out, he and Henry hate each other.”
Dean sighs.
“I didn’t tell Samuel any news or anything. But if you want....”
“Samuel,” Dean says flatly, “is not invited to the wedding. Or anything ever.”
Sam can’t help chuckling and signs, Okay. Mark, Gwen?
“If they’re in town, sure. Or maybe we can stick them with helping Henry figure out why the hell he’s here.”
Bobby waves a little to catch Dean’s eye before echoing, “He doesn’t know why he’s here?”
“He knows how he got here. Jumped by choice to try and escape Abaddon, who followed him here and promptly got jumped by Rachel and half the garrison. But he was part of this group called the Men of Letters, who were Abaddon’s target, and before Henry jumped, one of the elders shoved something into his hand and told him to keep it safe.”
“And here John thought his dad had run out on ’im.”
“We’ll do Christmas stuff today,” Sam says. “But probably tomorrow, we need to find out whether anyone else survived that attack who can tell Henry what he’s got. Normal’s about a three-hour drive, and I’d rather not have to go that far on a wild goose chase.”
“We’ve gone further for less,” Dean notes.
I not miss wedding, Sam insists.
And Dean nods. “Okay, that’s fair. Thanks, Sammy.”
“Rufus is comin’ for lunch,” Bobby tells them, “seein’ as how it’s Hanukkah as well. But I’ll try to head down that way after he leaves, probably stop in Madison for the night. We can figure all the rest of this out once I get down there, less’n you boys want to do your own research tomorrow.”
“We probably should,” says Sam. “Henry’s all uptight over something.”
“Gee, Sam,” Dean deadpans a little louder than he should, “I can’t imagine why.”
Sam snorts even as he motions for Dean to lower the volume.
And Dean gets the hint and continues more quietly and less sarcastically, “Hell, if Cas shows up, maybe he can help Henry. I know-he’s our grandfather; he’s our responsibility....”
Bobby waves to interrupt. “Isn’t it more like you’re his responsibility?”
At a loss, Dean looks over at Sam, who concedes the point with an eyebrow shrug and a head tilt. “But?”
Dean sighs wearily. “I’m retired. I’m out. I’m gettin’ married in two days. Why can’t....” He trails off, but Sam and Bobby hear the Why can’t they leave us alone?
Sam rubs Dean’s back as Bobby notes, “Nobody’s life is at stake here, son. As long as your family’s not in danger, I don’t see that you’re obligated to do more’n maybe help with research and let him borrow a vehicle for a couple days.”
Dean sighs again and nods. “Okay. Thanks, Bobby.”
Meanwhile, Lisa’s put Henry and Ben to work on peeling potatoes while they make small talk. She was understandably cool toward him earlier when he answered Sam’s-was something that tiny really a phone?-but he apologized for his behavior after his arrival, and now they’re... well, at least on better terms. Ben’s still a little boggled at having a great-grandfather at all, never mind one who’s barely thirty years old and literally crashed into his life the way Henry did, so he’s not speaking unless spoken to. Henry can’t blame him. For his own part, Henry’s grateful to have something to do with this nervous energy that seems to have come out of nowhere. Granted, the nightmare of what Abaddon did to the Letters makes sleep unappealing even now, but....
“Henry Winchester.”
Henry jumps at the unexpected, unfamiliar male voice and narrowly misses catching his thumbnail in the potato peeler’s blade. He looks up to find himself quite a bit too close to a man who’s probably in his forties, wearing a trench coat and suit, unruly dark hair crowning a head tilted in confusion as unblinking blue eyes stare into his soul.
“Cas,” Lisa and Ben chorus in warning.
Cas-Castiel?-blinks. “Oh. Sorry.” He falls back several steps.
“That’s Castiel,” Ben volunteers. “We call him Cas. He’s Dad’s angel.”
“Ben,” Lisa chides, amused.
Henry turns back to Cas and nods once, since his hands are full and since he doesn’t know the protocol for meeting an angel. “Castiel. I’m honored to meet you.”
“And I am surprised to meet you,” Cas replies. “Rachel informed me of last night’s events, but I don’t understand why you came here.”
“Neither do I,” Henry confesses. “I was trying to reach my son. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
Cas’ eyes light up in realization. “I don’t think you did. John was not to be a Man of Letters. The plan for Sam and Dean required him to be a hunter, without the benefit of the knowledge the Men of Letters possess.”
“The plan f-wait, do you mean the Apocalypse?”
Cas nods. “Much as it pains me to say it, certain parties in both Heaven and Hell tried to force your son and grandsons to adhere to a master plan to end the world as humans know it. But they had not reckoned with Sam and Dean’s commitment to making their own choices.”
That must be what Sam meant about the potential cost of fixing everything that’s wrong in this future. Henry feels lightheaded suddenly. He knows his soul needs another six days to recharge, but he thought that would be time enough for him to locate the surviving Letters and get what he’d need to go back to ’58 and stop everything. But if something powerful enough to manipulate time actually redirected him here to keep him from passing his knowledge on to John... would he even make it back to the right year? Would he survive the jump? And if he did, could he in fact change anything, or would even the attempt make matters incomparably worse?
Ben takes the potato and peeler from him, and Cas steers Henry over to a chair. Maybe he’s in worse shape than he thought. He really should have tried to sleep again after they got back from Walmart.
Suddenly somebody-two somebodies-come charging into the room, and Henry hears Dean’s rough voice ask, “Cas?!”
Cas turns away from Henry and signs, but Henry’s at the wrong angle to make sense of what’s being said. Besides, it’s so odd to see Dean in that beige henley and kilt-Black Watch, of course, Campbells, but neither boy looks much like Samuel to Henry, so maybe their mother favored her mother, and had Henry ever met her? He doesn’t think so, but he can’t remember, can’t think, can’t follow the boys’ hands as they talk to Cas, and what, why, how is he already calling an angel by his grandsons’ nickname, has he completely taken leave of his senses, is any of this real-
“Henry.”
Henry blinks at Dean’s green eyes boring into his own, their faces maybe a foot apart. Dean’s got a hand on his shoulder. Henry takes a deep breath, inhaling the rich scent of roasting turkey and baking dressing and boiling potatoes.
“You with me?”
Henry nods.
“You okay?”
This breath’s a little more ragged. But he’ll make it, if... if he doesn’t think too hard about....
It’s Christmas Day, and he’ll never see his son again.
Dean’s face softens. “No, you’re not okay. Just stay with me, man.”
Henry swallows hard and nods and tries to ignore the tear rolling down his cheek.
“It’s a hell of a lot, I know. Can I get you a drink?”
Henry shakes his head and signs, Thank you.
Ben appears at his elbow a moment later with a glass of water. Henry gives him a small grateful smile and accepts the glass, the cold liquid grounding him some as he takes a sip.
Dean looks up at Sam. Sam goes to the hall closet for something, and Dean guides Henry to the dining table while Sam sets up... a board game? Not until he gets closer does he see that the game in question is Risk.
Of course. A strategy game, one that will require his full attention, no time to drift while his opponent thinks as would be the case with chess. He smiles more broadly at Dean-this he can do.
Cas helps Ben finish the potatoes and then comes over to watch, but Henry doesn’t pay him much heed. He and the boys aren’t even talking much, aside from the occasional shout of victory or yelp of defeat. The play is that intensely competitive, and Henry finds it easy to lose himself in it until Lisa comes over to let them know it’s time to clear the table.
And then, ah, then Henry’s stomach reminds him that it’s been a long time since what Sam called second breakfast. It grumbles loudly as he helps set the table and carry in the dishes for the feast, including a gorgeous pumpkin pie and beautifully roasted turkey. The rest of the family doesn’t pray once they’re all assembled and seated, but Henry breathes a quick silent prayer of his own before handing his plate to Dean to be filled and digging in gratefully once Dean hands it back.
He burns his tongue slightly on the hot gravy, which suffices to remind him that this is real. But he can’t remain downcast, not with such good food and such pleasant company. Hunters or not, this is his family, and the more they laugh and joke, the more they ease his heart.
After the meal, everyone adjourns to the living room. Cas hasn’t brought any presents, aside from the excellent pie, but Henry has, and Dean looks a little surprised to find them under the tree.
I hope they’re okay, Henry signs when Dean looks at him. I know you not plan for me, and I not have much time, but... I needed to bring something.
Dean smiles a little at that and hands Henry’s gifts around-an issue of Car and Driver for Dean, a ladies’ fitness magazine for Lisa, a computer magazine for Sam, and a soccer-themed calendar for Ben. The kids-the adults-are delighted, and Ben actually hugs him.
Then, after all the other gifts are opened, Sam and Dean exchange a look, and Dean goes into the office and comes back out with a leather-bound book. “I need this back,” Dean says, “but you can read it if you want.” And he hands it to Henry. “It’s Dad’s journal.”
Henry’s breath hitches. Thank you.
Dean pats his shoulder and goes off in the direction of the garage, and Henry studies the volume in his hands for a moment.
“Do Men of Letters use journals?” Sam asks.
Henry nods. “I intended to. In fact, I sent away for one the day before my initiation. Might even be....” He finally dares to open the front cover, and sure enough, hidden behind a photo, are his initials. “This one. Guess it arrived after I disappeared.”
“Yeah. Must have.”
Henry takes a closer look at the photo, which appears to be John and his platoon in a muddy field-a rice paddy, perhaps. Below are pinned the Marine Expert Rifleman badge and some ribbons; one he doesn’t recognize, but the others he does... the Good Conduct Medal and Bronze Star don’t surprise him, but he sniffles a little over the Purple Heart. Behind the flap are two more photos. One shows John in Army-green coveralls with a blonde who doesn’t look at all like Samuel Campbell but does look a lot like Dean. John and Mary reads the faded inscription on the back. The other photo, also faded, shows John sitting on the hood of a big black car with two little boys, all dressed for the fall weather, and Henry doesn’t have to look at the back to know which is Dean and which is Sam.
John’s smiling in both of these pictures. Henry decides that’s the image he wants to hold onto for today. He knows there’s heartbreak and hardship written on these pages, but he’s mourned enough for one Christmas. The rest can wait.
He closes the journal and looks up to see Dean standing in front of him with another bundle of leather. “I ain’t been wearin’ this lately,” Dean says, his voice rougher than usual, “and Sam says you still need a jacket. This was Dad’s.”
Henry sets the journal aside and stands, willing himself not to cry as he takes the jacket from Dean. The leather’s worn but intact and smells of guns and sweat and cologne. Gingerly, Henry unfolds it and slips it on, and it fits like a glove. It must have been too big for Dean, but he’d worn it anyway.
Thank you, Henry signs and hugs his grandson.
By the time Dean gets Dad’s journal put back in the safe, Sam’s got the football game on, and Henry’s hung the jacket on a chair and gone to help Lisa and Cas put away the leftovers. Dean offers to help as well, but Lisa (who’s going to be the best wife ever) shoos him back into the living room. So he and Sam and Ben settle on the couch and eventually succumb to the pull of the tryptophan.
They’re still asleep when Dean wakes, and Lisa’s sacked out in the recliner, but Henry and Cas are sitting at the table with an old man who holds his head like he’s blind. The house still smells like turkey, but Dean doesn’t smell any sulfur in the mix. Cas is in the way of Dean being able to see the old man’s lips, but Henry doesn’t look happy about what he’s hearing. Whatever it is, though, the old man writes something on a notepad without looking down and slides the pad over to Henry. Henry says something Dean doesn’t quite catch, and then they all stand and shake hands, and Cas leaves with the old man. Henry’s chest moves like he’s sighing as he looks down at the notepad.
Dean levers himself up off the couch and goes over to the table. “Hey,” he whispers (he hopes).
Henry looks up and smiles.
“Who was that?”
Friend, Henry signs. Last survivor.
“Of-of the Men of Letters?”
Yes. Gave me this. Henry pulls the brass box out of his back pocket, shows it to Dean, and sets it on the notepad. Reason I came.
Dean glances down at the pad to see... “Coordinates?”
Box holds key, Henry explains. Main library, I guess. Larry wants me throw key inside and walk away, won’t believe even C-angel that A-demon dead.
Dean snorts. “You going to?”
Henry shakes his head.
“Gonna go check it out?”
Soon. Want you and Sam with me.
“Um. Sure. Why?”
Henry looks him in the eye. Your legacy, too.
Dean smiles slowly. “Guess Sammy’s got a new roommate, huh?”
Henry smiles back. Guess so, if he doesn’t mind.
Dean chuckles a little. He won’t speak for Sam, but he already knows the answer will be yes. And honestly, he thinks he minds having Henry around a whole lot less than he’d mind Samuel moving into town.
What? Henry asks.
“Guess it turned out to be a pretty merry Christmas after all.”
Henry’s smile brightens a lot.
Summary: Dean's retired. You hear that, universe? RE-TI-RED. Can you keep the long-lost grandfathers and Knights of Hell out of his living room, huh? Is that too much to ask?! (Oh, who is he kidding, the universe is as deaf as he is....)
The Silent Stars Go By
’Tis the night before Christmas-Dean’s second with Lisa and Ben-and Sam’s come over for popcorn and a movie and the first round of gift-giving. Nothing’s going to top last year’s Christmas in Winchester, but none of them really wanted a big deal this year. After everything that’s happened, with defeating Raphael and getting thrown into the clown factory alternate universe where their lives were a TV show and falling out with Samuel and all... they just need some down time. Bobby and Mark and Gwen came for Thanksgiving, and Cas might turn up for part of the day tomorrow, but Dean and Lisa both want it to be just the four of them tonight. Simple. Quiet. Peaceful.
Sam’s setting up the DVD. Lisa’s getting the popcorn.
Dean’s off in a corner running through the little speech he wants to give when he presents Lisa with the ring and pops the question.
She’s not pregnant that he knows of, though they’ve been... well, sort of trying. Nothing deliberate, just no protection. It’s only been a month or so, so it’s really too soon to tell, even if she did get pregnant right away. But that’s not really what’s behind his decision. He’s retired. He’s staying. There’s no real reason for them not to get married.
He’s still nervous, though he tries to tell himself it can’t possibly be as bad as having pizza with Death, even if she says no. He’s not flying. He’s not letting Sam jump back in the Cage. He’s just... asking her to let him spend the rest of his life with her and Ben.
Aside from Sam being whole and happy, which he is, this is the only thing Dean’s dared to want for himself in... well, a hell of a long time. And he’s trying hard to ignore that little voice in the back of his head that says he can’t have anything good, doesn’t deserve it, everything falls apart anyway-trying so hard his hands are shaking.
She didn’t laugh in his face when he suggested more kids. She won’t laugh at him for proposing... will she?
He swallows hard and takes a deep breath and turns around to see if Sam’s got the movie cued up yet.
Sam’s arguing with some tall guy in a blue suit-a guy who looks vaguely like Dad. What the hell?
Lisa knocks the stranger’s knees out from under him and puts her silver knife against his throat, nicks the skin just a bit while Ben throws holy water in the stranger’s face. Neither gets more reaction from the guy than an eyeroll. But he’s talking too fast, and Sam’s in the way, and Dean can’t get a good read from the guy’s lips.
Finally, he explodes, “Will someone tell me what the HELL is going on?!”
Sam doesn’t take his eyes off the stranger, just gives Dean a Wait signal at the same time Lisa looks right at him and mouths, We don’t know.
But the stranger looks at Dean with a confused frown for a second before looking at Sam again and asking something that looks like Dad’s name.
Dean blinks. “What-what about Dad?”
Sam signals Wait again more forcefully.
“Dammit, Sam-”
But something’s coming. Dean senses it a split second before he smells sulfur.
“Sam.”
Sam finally looks at Dean, but then everyone’s attention snaps to the closet under the stairs. The sulfur smell gets stronger as light starts to build up behind the door, and then the door flies open and Dean just about gags on the hell-scent that rolls into the room along with a tall red-haired she-demon.
Then the living room is swarming with angels, only a handful of which Dean recognizes. Lisa lets go of the stranger, and Sam hustles the lot of them over toward Dean, but Dean’s trying to get a fix on what’s happening with the demon and can’t until the demon opens her mouth and sends some kind of shockwave through the room. He can feel that hit his chest, make the wall vibrate behind him, and all the pictures and stuff on the other walls shake, and so does the Christmas tree. But the angels get the demon cornered-seriously, how many angels does it take to kill one damn demon?-and stab her enough times to get the job done. Then they take off with the corpse, although Rachel fixes the messed-up pictures and all with a wave of her hand and a tiny nod to the family before she leaves.
So. That happened.
The stranger who’s looking for Dad, apparently, is still there, only he’s running into the kitchen all of a sudden, and then Dean smells vomit. While Lisa goes to take care of the stranger, Sam takes pity on Dean and lights a candle with a really strong pine scent. And yeah, that helps, but Dean still doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on.
“Seriously, Sam,” he says. “What the hell?”
Don’t know, Sam signs. He asks for Dad, not say why. Demon followed, called Abaddon-he fingerspells that, but Dean doesn’t have a clue how it’s pronounced. Angels kill A-demon.
“Yeah, I got that part.”
Sam shrugs with his hands out-that’s all he knows.
“Wait, did he-come in through the closet?”
Sam grimaces and nods.
“How?!”
Sam shrugs again and then turns to look at the stranger and Lisa, who are coming back into the living room. But the guy’s got a towel over his face-Dean guesses he’s wiping his mouth-and Dean can’t see what he’s saying at all.
“Hey,” Sam says, “will you stop covering your mouth? My brother’s deaf.”
Startled, the stranger looks at Dean again and lowers the towel. “Oh,” he says and signs Sorry. “Look, I can explain everything if you’ll just take me to John-”
“Dad’s dead,” Dean interrupts.
And the stranger looks devastated. “No....”
Dean frowns. “What’s it to you?”
“Everything. He’s my son.”
Dean looks at Sam. Sam turns the TV off.
While Lisa gets Mystery Grandfather settled in the recliner, Dean sits down in the middle of the couch and calls Ben over to sit beside him. Did good, he signs close to his chest, nodding toward the holy water flask as Ben sets it on the coffee table.
Ben gives him a tight smile. Thanks.
“I interrupted your Christmas,” Mystery Grandfather is saying to Lisa when Dean looks at him again, and he looks miserable. “I’m so sorry.”
Dean can’t see what Lisa replies, but she comes over to the couch and sits down beside Dean, takes his hand in both of hers and holds it in her lap. Dean puts his other arm around Ben’s shoulders. Sam sits down on the floor and looks at Mystery Grandfather expectantly.
Sorry not introduce, Mystery Grandfather signs and pauses. “Do all of you know Sign?”
“We do,” Dean answers. “I’m Dean. This is Lisa, Ben, my brother Sam.”
My name Henry Winchester. Henry fingerspells the name.
Dean blinks. That’s the name of Dad’s father, all right, but Dad was convinced his father had run off with someone, abandoned the family. What the hell was he doing here-with a demon on his tail, no less?
I was trying to reach John, Henry continues. It was 1958. Attacked night of initiation... didn’t know Abaddon would follow me.
“Initiation into what?” Dean asks, and judging from the way Henry’s eyes move, Sam asks the same thing at the same time.
Henry frowns a little, like he’s confused about why they’re confused. You know. Men of Letters.
“Who?”
Henry’s frown deepens as he looks from Dean to Sam and back. Men of Letters, he signs again as if he still expects the name to mean something to them. Your father taught you our ways. You may be deaf, he adds, looking at Dean, but still-
Dean shakes his head. “I lost my ears last year on a hunt.”
Now it’s Henry’s turn to blink. Hunt? You do field work?
“Field-what? No, man, we’re retired from hunting.”
Henry looks horrified, incredulous. He actually laughs.
Dean looks over at Sam, who’s in mid-sentence. “-raised us as hunters, but now that we’ve stopped the Apocalypse, we’re done. I mean, with Dean deaf, it’s too dangerous for him, and I don’t want to hunt without him.” Then Sam looks annoyed. Henry must have laughed again, or said something stupid.
Lisa’s grip on Dean’s hand tightens, but he can’t see what she says. He can see that it’s wiped the smirk off Henry’s face. Not that Dean likes the anguished look any better, but at least it’s not mocking them for no reason that’s clear to anyone else.
Henry looks at Sam again, and again Dean misses the first part of Sam’s sentence. “-something about an urgent assignment.”
Not so urgent now, Henry signs. Abaddon dead, threat gone.
Maybe we can still help, Sam signs back, now that he knows Dean’s looking at him. What is it?
Henry pulls a brass box out of his pocket; it looks to be about the size of a pack of cards. Elder gave me this, said to keep safe.
“So what is it?” Dean asks.
No idea.
“Wait, you traveled through time to protect something you know nothing about from a demon you know nothing about?”
Henry looks sheepish.
Dean sighs heavily. “Sam?”
Sam stands. “Why don’t you come stay with me, Henry? We can get a good night’s sleep and figure out what to do in the morning.”
Henry nods and stands. Sorry, he signs to Dean and looks like he means it.
Dean just nods.
Good night, Sam signs and ushers Henry out of the house.
Dean and Ben and Lisa sit where they are for a while before Ben decides they should try to watch the movie anyway just so the popcorn doesn’t go to waste. Neither the popcorn (which kind of tastes like packing peanuts to Dean right now) nor anyone’s attention lasts beyond the half-hour mark. So Lisa declares it bedtime, and they all trudge up the stairs together.
So much for Dean’s big speech. He doesn’t know what to do about the proposal now, when will be a better time to pop the question or whether he should even bother. He should have known nothing ever goes right in his world.
He’s just about to start changing for bed when Lisa comes up to him with an expectant look on her face. He blinks at her, and she taps the pocket where the ring is hiding and signs, Yes.
He blinks faster. “What?”
I hear you practice, she admits with a shrug and a small smile. Yes.
“Are you-y-y-you will?”
She nods.
“You’re sure?”
She nods.
He hugs her tight and tries not to cry. She returns the hug and rubs his back. When he finally lets go, though, she taps his pocket again-he’s forgotten all about the ring. He chuckles, pulls the box out, and opens it.
She gasps, and her hands fly to her face.
“I know it isn’t much,” he says, and it isn’t really, not compared to a lot of the rings the jeweler had. It’s silver, not gold, and the stone’s just a smallish sapphire. He couldn’t afford a diamond, even if he’d hustled pool for a month.
But she’s crying and smiling as she signs, Beautiful, beautiful. Then she puts it on and kisses him.
They go to bed, but they don’t do more than cuddle and kiss. And that’s okay. That’s all he’s in the mood for-and honestly? There’s no rush anymore. Grandfathers be damned. He can take tonight just to relish the feeling of having her in his arms. They’ve got all the time in the world.
She said yes.
Sam’s car is silent most of the way back to his apartment. Henry’s staring out the window at the lights and the snow, and Sam’s trying not to be mad that Henry called hunters apes. Not until they hit a red light does Sam decide to say what he’s thinking. “Lisa’s pretty good at understatement.”
Henry inhales like he was almost asleep and turns to Sam. “What do you mean?”
“When she said we almost died saving the world. We did die. More than once. Before that, a demon killed our mom, my girlfriend, and Dad-not all at once, but it was all his doing. And at the end, Lucifer possessed me and beat Dean almost to death. That’s why he’s deaf.”
Henry gasps. “Sam. That’s... how did you survive?”
“Depending on how you look at it, I didn’t. Had to grab control and jump into Lucifer’s Cage. I have no memory of how I got out, or who got me out, but... something did. And then Dean and I helped the angels stop someone else who wanted to put the Apocalypse back on track. Just got that fixed last month.”
The light changes, and Sam resumes the trek to his apartment.
“And now I’ve brought my problems down on you,” Henry says quietly and turns back to his window. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, at least Castiel had told his garrison to keep up their guard around here, even with the Apocalypse threat stopped. If they hadn’t pounced on Abaddon like that, things would have been a whole lot worse.”
Henry looks back at Sam with a puzzled frown. “Why would the Angel of Thursday take an interest in you and Dean’s family? Do you know him?”
Sam smiles a little. “Pretty well, yeah. It’s a long story, and some of it’s not real good, but... weird as it sounds, even to me, we’re friends. Kind of have been ever since he pulled Dean out of Hell. Really have been since Cas started actively trying to help us stop Lucifer.”
“Well, can’t he....”
“Heal Dean? He tried. But since all that’s damaged are the auditory nerves, the most he could do has been a temporary patch. He couldn’t heal a friend of ours who was paraplegic, either. Apparently nerves are tricky.”
“Huh.”
“Honestly, though? We’re okay with it. I mean, we’ve learned Sign, and Dean’s learned to read lips, and... it gives us a reason to quit hunting. Dean never felt like he could, even though he wanted to after Dad died. I tried to, but then Jess was murdered, and by the time we’d avenged her, we were knee-deep in pre-Apocalypse stuff. Now Dean has to retire, and he can be my excuse. And it’s not like his life’s bad like this. He’s got a good, safe job, working at a garage; he’s got Ben and Lisa.”
“So... if I were able to get my hands on the ingredients for a healing spell... are you saying Dean wouldn’t want me to?”
Sam sighs as he turns into the parking lot of his apartment complex. “You’d have to ask him. But I think he’d have to think about it pretty hard. It’s like-” He breaks off before he can make the reference to Geordi’s choice in “Hide and Q,” since Henry doesn’t even know original-series Star Trek. Not coming up with another good example quickly, Sam shakes his head. “Never mind. Just... the fact that something’s wrong doesn’t automatically mean it has to be fixed. In fact, fixing it might make something else worse.”
Henry looks startled as Sam parks, like he’d never thought of that.
Now Sam’s got an example that doesn’t involve the treacherous road to the Apocalypse. “Like, some hauntings we’ve investigated, there’s one ghost who’s obvious, but it turns out that spirit stayed behind to keep a lid on another spirit-or several-who’ll go on a homicidal rampage if the first spirit’s dispatched too soon. I mean, Dean being able to hear might not cause something that bad... we just don’t know what will happen. And... for some things... the cost is just too high.”
Henry nods thoughtfully and follows Sam inside.
It’s not terribly far from the car to the building, but Henry’s summer-weight suit is no match for the snow. He’s shivering hard by the time they get to Sam’s door, and Sam feels sorry for him in spite of himself. So as soon as he gets the door open and the lights turned on, he asks, “Coffee?”
“M-m-maybe j-j-just t-t-tea,” Henry replies. “Th-th-this late... c-c-c-caffeine might not b-b-be a g-good id-d-dea.”
Sam nods, locks the door behind Henry, and heads into the kitchen to heat some water in his Hot Shot. That’ll be a lot faster than a kettle on the stove, and they probably won’t want more than one cup apiece.
Henry wanders through the living room, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet and looking at the décor. “No... C-Christmas tree?” he asks after a moment.
Sam shakes his head. “Felt kind of redundant. I’m at Dean and Lisa’s most of the time anyway, when I’m not at work.”
Henry nods, but he’s focused on the Stanford poster over the couch.
“My alma mater,” Sam explains, “if you can call it that considering that I didn’t actually graduate.”
Henry turns. “Wh-why not?”
“I was close, don’t get me wrong. I was just a month from finishing my classes, would have walked in January, probably gone on to law school. Then Dad disappeared, and Dean showed up to ask me to help him search. We were gone for two days-and the night I got back, Jess was murdered in front of me, and the demon set our apartment on fire. Same way Azazel killed Mom. Dean had to haul me out just like he’d done when we were kids.”
The Hot Shot turns off with a quiet pop, giving Sam an excuse to turn away from Henry’s horrified expression and concentrate on getting the tea brewing. “Milk or sugar?”
“Um. S-s-sugar, p-please.”
Sam sets a cup apiece on two saucers, spoons some sugar into each cup, adds a tea bag, and dispenses the hot water. He picked up some stroopwafels the other day at a little Dutch bakery in Indy, so on a whim, he puts one on top of each cup. Then he puts a spoon on each saucer and brings the whole kit and caboodle out to the living room. “Here,” he says, nodding for Henry to sit down on the couch and setting one cup in front of him as he does. “The waffle should be warm just about the time the tea’s brewed.”
Henry nods jerkily.
Before Sam can offer the throw from the back of the couch, though, his phone rings. Sorry, he signs with one hand as the other retrieves the phone from his pocket, and he barely has time to register Henry’s bemused look at his phone before he answers.
“Sam!” Samuel barks. “Tell me you and Dean are all right!”
“We’re fine,” Sam replies with a confused frown.
Samuel sighs in relief. “Avery just called me because he’d lost your number. His wife sensed some kind of major disturbance out your way.”
Sam rubs his forehead-he’d forgotten that Avery’s wife is psychic. “Well, she’s not wrong. But we’re fine. The angels took care of most of it.”
“Anything you need our help with, son?”
“N-well, actually, do you happen to know anything about a group called the Men of Letters?”
There’s a pause before Samuel says, “Son of a gun.”
Sam blinks. “Rings a bell?”
Samuel clears his throat. “Sam, is anybody there with you?”
Sam looks over at Henry, who’s availed himself of the throw and is trying to warm his trembling hands by holding them close to but not touching his teacup. “Um. Yes.”
“Put me on speaker, would you?”
With a shrug of his eyebrows, Sam does so and sets the phone on the coffee table. “Okay, you’re on speakerphone,” he announces as much for Henry’s benefit as for Samuel’s.
“So who all is there?” Samuel asks.
Henry looks at the phone with a start. “It can’t be... S-Samuel C-C-Campbell?”
Samuel lets out a low chuckle. “I should have known. I should have known John was your son.”
Sam looks from Henry to the phone and back. “Wait, you two know each other?!”
“Right after the war, I got a call from Cuthbert Sinclair wanting me to take this green kid, fresh out of high school, on a couple of hunts as part of his initial requirements for joining the Men of Letters. I took Henry on a relatively routine poltergeist, and he got all upset that we didn’t do more research before we wasted the thing or try to find out what had attracted it.”
Henry shoots the phone a very annoyed-Dad look that would have removed all doubt, had there been any, that he’s Dad’s father. “As I recall, that poltergeist wasn’t dispatched with the gris-gris bags you insisted on using the first time, which I warned you might be the case.” Either he’s warming up, or Samuel’s got his adrenaline going, because his teeth aren’t chattering anymore.
Sam can almost hear Samuel roll his eyes. “Where the hell did they dig you up from, Henry? And how’d you end up in Cicero? If you died in Normal-”
“I wasn’t dead.”
“Oh. Well, pardon me for assuming from personal experience and the news the Greenville Campbells passed on to us in Lawrence back in ’58 that a demon attack had wiped out the Men of Letters.”
Henry pales but snarls, “And what the blazes did you ever have to do with my son?”
“He married my daughter, against my wishes. But that was when I thought he was just a civilian. If I’d known he was your spawn, I’d have warned her more strongly.”
Henry looks ready to jump through the phone and send Samuel back to whatever corner of the afterlife Crowley pulled him out of.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Sam interrupts. “Guys, c’mon, it’s Christmas Eve. You can snipe at each other some other time. Thanks for checking on us, Samuel. Good night.” And he hangs up.
Henry sighs heavily and starts shaking again. “Is any of that true, Sam?” he asks quietly.
Sam nods. “About Mom, yeah. And he really was dead-Azazel killed him, too, but before Dean and I were born. That was in ’73. Long story short, another demon brought him back about a year and a half ago to do some dirty work, and after Dean and I killed the demon, Samuel got mixed up with the parties who were trying to restart the Apocalypse. We haven’t been on good terms since we found that out, but... he is still our grandfather.”
“I just can’t picture John married to a Campbell.”
“Mom wasn’t like Samuel. I don’t have many memories of her, but... she was amazing.”
“But still a hunter.”
“Not by choice. She married Dad to get out of the life.”
Henry buries his face in his hands.
Sam reaches over to rub one thin shoulder and glances at the teacups, where the stroopwafels are starting to sag a bit in the middle from the heat. In fact, Sam’s is already starting to drip a little syrup from the outside edges. “Your tea should be just about ready,” he says.
Henry drags in a ragged breath and drops his hands. “Thanks.” He’s still shaking like a leaf, but Sam has a hunch that emotion is as much the culprit as the cold, maybe more so.
They don’t talk as they eat their cookies and drink their tea. In fact, Henry doesn’t really look at Sam much, or at anything else, for that matter; his eyes are kind of vacant and unfocused, not sick or stoned, just shocky. And Sam can understand that. The time jump alone would be a wrench, but Henry’s had a hell of a lot dropped on him in the last few hours, lost a lot of friends and all of his family that he knew. And he really isn’t dressed for the weather, although that’s only an aggravating factor.
When Henry finally puts down his empty teacup with another heavy sigh, Sam asks, “Hot shower?”
Henry takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “No, thank you. The tea’s helped enough. I think I’ll be all right with just a hot water bottle.”
“Would an electric blanket be okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Pretty sure there’s one on the spare bed already. And I think Dean left a pair of his flannel pajamas over here; they’d probably fit you better than anything of mine.”
Henry nods and stands, though he looks pretty wobbly. “Trouble at home?”
Sam stands, too. “No, nothing like that. Last winter Dean’s immune system cratered on him; he was down with one virus after another. I got this place so I could take care of him and Lisa wouldn’t have to worry about Ben catching any of it. By the time he was back on his feet, I’d decided to stay.”
Henry raises an eyebrow at that. “So it wasn’t just Dean’s deafness.”
“Well, I was already trying to decide between this option and moving in with a friend in Sioux Falls. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last six years, it’s that family comes first.”
Henry winces a little and lets Sam steer him to the guest bedroom. Sam retrieves the pajamas and gives Henry directions to the bathroom.
Then he pauses in the doorway and looks back at his grandfather, who looks less like a grandfather and more like a guy Sam’s age whose world has just ended. “You gonna be okay?” he asks.
Henry nods absently.
“If... y’know, if you need anything, come wake me. Even if it’s just someone to talk to.”
Henry finally focuses on Sam again and smiles a little. “Thanks, Sam.” Then his smile turns wry. “Merry Christmas.”
Sam returns the smile. “Merry Christmas.”
Neither of them sleeps terribly well. Sam, specifically, dozes off but has trouble falling deeply asleep, so he hears a nightmare wake Henry around 4. Henry tries to be quiet about puttering around, and he mostly succeeds by not knocking anything over or turning on the TV or radio, but Sam’s ready to give up on sleep by 4:30. He starts smelling toast about that time anyway.
Henry starts guiltily and steps away from the pantry when Sam walks into the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Sam waves it off. “You didn’t. What are you looking for?”
“Oatmeal.”
Sam turns on the light. “Third shelf. You started coffee yet?”
“No, I wasn’t quite sure whether your coffee maker works like the ones I’m used to.”
Sam gets the coffee going while Henry starts a pot of oatmeal. They keep their conversation pretty light, mostly things like what year it is, where they are, who’s president, what Sam and Lisa do for a living, how Ben’s faring in school. Sam thinks maybe it’s best for Henry to get all those small-talk-ish catching-up questions out of the way with him, save Dean the trouble of explaining and also some of Henry’s knee-jerk reactions to information he finds shocking or disapproves of. They’re kind of talked out by the time they finish eating, but Sam’s wide awake now, and it looks like Henry is, too.
So Sam checks his watch and sighs. “There’s a store in Noblesville that’s open 24 hours. That’s only fifteen minutes or so from here. Why don’t we go get you some clothes and such? I’ve got some sweats and a jacket you could borrow for the time being.”
Henry looks skeptical. “You’re sure they’ll be open on Christmas Day?”
“Positive. That store never closes.”
“All right. I do need winter clothes; it was quite a shock to be dressed for August and step out into December. I’d even left my hat and raincoat behind.”
“Most people don’t wear hats anymore, not on a daily basis. Walmart may not have much of a selection. If you want one to keep your head warm, though, we can probably find you something.”
Henry nods. “We can see what they have.”
So Sam loans Henry a Stanford-era sweatsuit that’s been too small for years but he can’t bring himself to throw out, and after they’re both dressed, they’re off again. Sam finds a Christmas station on the radio, and that seems to brighten Henry’s spirit some-at least until they pull into the Walmart parking lot and Henry gapes at the sight of it.
“This is one store?”
“Yep,” Sam confirms as he parks. “Kind of a supersized version of the old general store idea. And I have to warn you, prices are probably a whole lot higher than you’re used to, but Walmart’s are about the most affordable.”
Henry shakes his head as they get out. “I’ve seen a few department stores this size, but those were all in New York-Tiffany’s, Macy’s, Saks.”
Sam chuckles. “Walmart’s not anywhere close to the size of Macy’s in New York.”
“But still, it’s huge for a town this size.” Henry pauses. “Do you think there’s one in Normal?”
“By now, yeah, probably.”
Henry lets out a low whistle and follows Sam inside.
They don’t succeed in finding Henry a hat, but they do get him set up with jeans and flannel shirts-which will make him look a lot more like a Winchester-as well as unmentionables and toiletries and a decent pair of sneakers. They both agree that he’ll continue to borrow Sam’s jacket for the time being. Sam also insists on getting him a phone for just in case, and while they’re in Electronics, Henry stares agog at the computers, cameras, CDs, DVDs, and flat-screen TVs. It’s a good thing they’re doing this shopping so early, when no one’s in the store to see... Henry’s almost as bad as Cas, and Sam keeps wanting to hum Brad Paisley’s “Welcome to the Future.”
Henry dashes back inside while Sam’s loading the car, claiming he forgot something, and comes back out with another bag a few minutes later. But he won’t let Sam see what’s in it. He’s smiling, though, so... Sam hopes it’s a good thing.
The sun still isn’t up yet by the time they get back to Sam’s apartment. They take Henry’s new clothes down to the laundry room to wash and go back upstairs to find something on TV to watch. Sam shoots Dean a text to let him know what’s going on, then settles in to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol-and promptly falls asleep.
He wakes to the TCM jingle, followed by an introduction leading into Miracle on 34th Street, and to Henry folding the laundry. The sun’s finally up. Henry’s changed into one of his new outfits, may even have showered but definitely shaved, and he really does look like one of the family now. Not that Sam plans to say so, or anything more than the groggy “Hey” that comes out when Henry looks over at him.
Henry smiles. “You sleep well?”
“Yeah, thanks. You sleep any?”
“No. I couldn’t relax. Lisa called,” Henry adds, looking pleased with himself for having figured out how to use Sam’s phone. “She said they won’t expect us until 11 or so.”
“What time is it?”
“Just after 10.”
Sam nods and yawns. “There any coffee left?”
“I think so. I haven’t had any more.”
“Okay. You want some?”
“Thanks, but I... think I’m jittery enough as it is.”
Sam nods again and helps himself to some coffee. By the time he’s more awake, Henry’s got the laundry finished and is putting his things away in the spare room. Sam puts his own things away quickly and goes back to the living room and the movie to kill time until time to go. But Henry wasn’t kidding about how restless he is, and Sam can’t help wondering if this is another side of his grief, part of the Winchester fix-it drive or something that won’t let him settle until he’s sure the family’s okay. Or maybe he’s uptight about this mysterious thing he’s brought with him, not knowing what it is or why he has to keep it secret and safe. (It can’t possibly be the One Ring, can it? That’s fictional.)
In any case, Sam gives up around 10:30 and calls Lisa. “You guys mind if we come on over?”
“No, not at all,” Lisa replies. “I can put you both to work on the potatoes.”
Sam laughs and tells Henry, “We’re on KP.”
Henry laughs heartily. Then he goes to get the mystery Walmart bag while Sam finishes his conversation with Lisa, and they go on to Lisa’s house.
When they get there, Dean’s wearing the kilt Lisa got him last year, and she’s wearing his ring, and Sam doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dean look happier.
Dean drags Sam into the office and shuts the door. “Don’t know what Henry’s assuming about me and Lis,” he says quietly, “but I didn’t think we ought to bust his bubble if he thinks we’re married... considering we will be this time Tuesday.”
Sam gasps. She said yes? He figured she must have because of the ring, but now he realizes he wanted to hear it from Dean. The speed’s kind of a shock, too.
Dean nods, beaming. “Said she didn’t see any point in putting it off, since we’re just goin’ to the courthouse anyway.”
Dude, awesome!
Dean’s smile gets brighter, if that’s possible. “Just about to call Bobby, figured I’d wait and let you fill him in about Henry.”
Sam nods and pulls up another chair to the desk as Dean sits down and pulls up Skype.
Bobby answers on the first ring. “Merry Christmas, idjits.”
They laugh and chorus, “Merry Christmas, Bobby.”
“Dean, how’d it go last night?”
“There were some complications we’ll tell you about here in a sec,” Dean replies. “But she still said yes. We’re going to the courthouse Tuesday.”
“Well, good for you, son. If the roads are clear enough, I’ll try to come down.”
“Awesome.” Dean looks at Sam, shifting a bit to be able to read his lips more easily.
“Hope you can,” Sam says, “and not just for that. We may need your help dealing with one of the complications.”
Bobby’s smile fades a little. “How so?”
“How much did Dad ever tell you about his father?”
Bobby’s smile fades even further. “We got another one?”
“Henry wasn’t dead,” Dean clarifies. “Time travel.”
Bobby swears.
Sam touches Dean’s arm to make sure he catches this part. “Speaking of Samuel, he called last night. Avery’s wife freaked out over Abaddon following Henry here. Turns out, he and Henry hate each other.”
Dean sighs.
“I didn’t tell Samuel any news or anything. But if you want....”
“Samuel,” Dean says flatly, “is not invited to the wedding. Or anything ever.”
Sam can’t help chuckling and signs, Okay. Mark, Gwen?
“If they’re in town, sure. Or maybe we can stick them with helping Henry figure out why the hell he’s here.”
Bobby waves a little to catch Dean’s eye before echoing, “He doesn’t know why he’s here?”
“He knows how he got here. Jumped by choice to try and escape Abaddon, who followed him here and promptly got jumped by Rachel and half the garrison. But he was part of this group called the Men of Letters, who were Abaddon’s target, and before Henry jumped, one of the elders shoved something into his hand and told him to keep it safe.”
“And here John thought his dad had run out on ’im.”
“We’ll do Christmas stuff today,” Sam says. “But probably tomorrow, we need to find out whether anyone else survived that attack who can tell Henry what he’s got. Normal’s about a three-hour drive, and I’d rather not have to go that far on a wild goose chase.”
“We’ve gone further for less,” Dean notes.
I not miss wedding, Sam insists.
And Dean nods. “Okay, that’s fair. Thanks, Sammy.”
“Rufus is comin’ for lunch,” Bobby tells them, “seein’ as how it’s Hanukkah as well. But I’ll try to head down that way after he leaves, probably stop in Madison for the night. We can figure all the rest of this out once I get down there, less’n you boys want to do your own research tomorrow.”
“We probably should,” says Sam. “Henry’s all uptight over something.”
“Gee, Sam,” Dean deadpans a little louder than he should, “I can’t imagine why.”
Sam snorts even as he motions for Dean to lower the volume.
And Dean gets the hint and continues more quietly and less sarcastically, “Hell, if Cas shows up, maybe he can help Henry. I know-he’s our grandfather; he’s our responsibility....”
Bobby waves to interrupt. “Isn’t it more like you’re his responsibility?”
At a loss, Dean looks over at Sam, who concedes the point with an eyebrow shrug and a head tilt. “But?”
Dean sighs wearily. “I’m retired. I’m out. I’m gettin’ married in two days. Why can’t....” He trails off, but Sam and Bobby hear the Why can’t they leave us alone?
Sam rubs Dean’s back as Bobby notes, “Nobody’s life is at stake here, son. As long as your family’s not in danger, I don’t see that you’re obligated to do more’n maybe help with research and let him borrow a vehicle for a couple days.”
Dean sighs again and nods. “Okay. Thanks, Bobby.”
Meanwhile, Lisa’s put Henry and Ben to work on peeling potatoes while they make small talk. She was understandably cool toward him earlier when he answered Sam’s-was something that tiny really a phone?-but he apologized for his behavior after his arrival, and now they’re... well, at least on better terms. Ben’s still a little boggled at having a great-grandfather at all, never mind one who’s barely thirty years old and literally crashed into his life the way Henry did, so he’s not speaking unless spoken to. Henry can’t blame him. For his own part, Henry’s grateful to have something to do with this nervous energy that seems to have come out of nowhere. Granted, the nightmare of what Abaddon did to the Letters makes sleep unappealing even now, but....
“Henry Winchester.”
Henry jumps at the unexpected, unfamiliar male voice and narrowly misses catching his thumbnail in the potato peeler’s blade. He looks up to find himself quite a bit too close to a man who’s probably in his forties, wearing a trench coat and suit, unruly dark hair crowning a head tilted in confusion as unblinking blue eyes stare into his soul.
“Cas,” Lisa and Ben chorus in warning.
Cas-Castiel?-blinks. “Oh. Sorry.” He falls back several steps.
“That’s Castiel,” Ben volunteers. “We call him Cas. He’s Dad’s angel.”
“Ben,” Lisa chides, amused.
Henry turns back to Cas and nods once, since his hands are full and since he doesn’t know the protocol for meeting an angel. “Castiel. I’m honored to meet you.”
“And I am surprised to meet you,” Cas replies. “Rachel informed me of last night’s events, but I don’t understand why you came here.”
“Neither do I,” Henry confesses. “I was trying to reach my son. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
Cas’ eyes light up in realization. “I don’t think you did. John was not to be a Man of Letters. The plan for Sam and Dean required him to be a hunter, without the benefit of the knowledge the Men of Letters possess.”
“The plan f-wait, do you mean the Apocalypse?”
Cas nods. “Much as it pains me to say it, certain parties in both Heaven and Hell tried to force your son and grandsons to adhere to a master plan to end the world as humans know it. But they had not reckoned with Sam and Dean’s commitment to making their own choices.”
That must be what Sam meant about the potential cost of fixing everything that’s wrong in this future. Henry feels lightheaded suddenly. He knows his soul needs another six days to recharge, but he thought that would be time enough for him to locate the surviving Letters and get what he’d need to go back to ’58 and stop everything. But if something powerful enough to manipulate time actually redirected him here to keep him from passing his knowledge on to John... would he even make it back to the right year? Would he survive the jump? And if he did, could he in fact change anything, or would even the attempt make matters incomparably worse?
Ben takes the potato and peeler from him, and Cas steers Henry over to a chair. Maybe he’s in worse shape than he thought. He really should have tried to sleep again after they got back from Walmart.
Suddenly somebody-two somebodies-come charging into the room, and Henry hears Dean’s rough voice ask, “Cas?!”
Cas turns away from Henry and signs, but Henry’s at the wrong angle to make sense of what’s being said. Besides, it’s so odd to see Dean in that beige henley and kilt-Black Watch, of course, Campbells, but neither boy looks much like Samuel to Henry, so maybe their mother favored her mother, and had Henry ever met her? He doesn’t think so, but he can’t remember, can’t think, can’t follow the boys’ hands as they talk to Cas, and what, why, how is he already calling an angel by his grandsons’ nickname, has he completely taken leave of his senses, is any of this real-
“Henry.”
Henry blinks at Dean’s green eyes boring into his own, their faces maybe a foot apart. Dean’s got a hand on his shoulder. Henry takes a deep breath, inhaling the rich scent of roasting turkey and baking dressing and boiling potatoes.
“You with me?”
Henry nods.
“You okay?”
This breath’s a little more ragged. But he’ll make it, if... if he doesn’t think too hard about....
It’s Christmas Day, and he’ll never see his son again.
Dean’s face softens. “No, you’re not okay. Just stay with me, man.”
Henry swallows hard and nods and tries to ignore the tear rolling down his cheek.
“It’s a hell of a lot, I know. Can I get you a drink?”
Henry shakes his head and signs, Thank you.
Ben appears at his elbow a moment later with a glass of water. Henry gives him a small grateful smile and accepts the glass, the cold liquid grounding him some as he takes a sip.
Dean looks up at Sam. Sam goes to the hall closet for something, and Dean guides Henry to the dining table while Sam sets up... a board game? Not until he gets closer does he see that the game in question is Risk.
Of course. A strategy game, one that will require his full attention, no time to drift while his opponent thinks as would be the case with chess. He smiles more broadly at Dean-this he can do.
Cas helps Ben finish the potatoes and then comes over to watch, but Henry doesn’t pay him much heed. He and the boys aren’t even talking much, aside from the occasional shout of victory or yelp of defeat. The play is that intensely competitive, and Henry finds it easy to lose himself in it until Lisa comes over to let them know it’s time to clear the table.
And then, ah, then Henry’s stomach reminds him that it’s been a long time since what Sam called second breakfast. It grumbles loudly as he helps set the table and carry in the dishes for the feast, including a gorgeous pumpkin pie and beautifully roasted turkey. The rest of the family doesn’t pray once they’re all assembled and seated, but Henry breathes a quick silent prayer of his own before handing his plate to Dean to be filled and digging in gratefully once Dean hands it back.
He burns his tongue slightly on the hot gravy, which suffices to remind him that this is real. But he can’t remain downcast, not with such good food and such pleasant company. Hunters or not, this is his family, and the more they laugh and joke, the more they ease his heart.
After the meal, everyone adjourns to the living room. Cas hasn’t brought any presents, aside from the excellent pie, but Henry has, and Dean looks a little surprised to find them under the tree.
I hope they’re okay, Henry signs when Dean looks at him. I know you not plan for me, and I not have much time, but... I needed to bring something.
Dean smiles a little at that and hands Henry’s gifts around-an issue of Car and Driver for Dean, a ladies’ fitness magazine for Lisa, a computer magazine for Sam, and a soccer-themed calendar for Ben. The kids-the adults-are delighted, and Ben actually hugs him.
Then, after all the other gifts are opened, Sam and Dean exchange a look, and Dean goes into the office and comes back out with a leather-bound book. “I need this back,” Dean says, “but you can read it if you want.” And he hands it to Henry. “It’s Dad’s journal.”
Henry’s breath hitches. Thank you.
Dean pats his shoulder and goes off in the direction of the garage, and Henry studies the volume in his hands for a moment.
“Do Men of Letters use journals?” Sam asks.
Henry nods. “I intended to. In fact, I sent away for one the day before my initiation. Might even be....” He finally dares to open the front cover, and sure enough, hidden behind a photo, are his initials. “This one. Guess it arrived after I disappeared.”
“Yeah. Must have.”
Henry takes a closer look at the photo, which appears to be John and his platoon in a muddy field-a rice paddy, perhaps. Below are pinned the Marine Expert Rifleman badge and some ribbons; one he doesn’t recognize, but the others he does... the Good Conduct Medal and Bronze Star don’t surprise him, but he sniffles a little over the Purple Heart. Behind the flap are two more photos. One shows John in Army-green coveralls with a blonde who doesn’t look at all like Samuel Campbell but does look a lot like Dean. John and Mary reads the faded inscription on the back. The other photo, also faded, shows John sitting on the hood of a big black car with two little boys, all dressed for the fall weather, and Henry doesn’t have to look at the back to know which is Dean and which is Sam.
John’s smiling in both of these pictures. Henry decides that’s the image he wants to hold onto for today. He knows there’s heartbreak and hardship written on these pages, but he’s mourned enough for one Christmas. The rest can wait.
He closes the journal and looks up to see Dean standing in front of him with another bundle of leather. “I ain’t been wearin’ this lately,” Dean says, his voice rougher than usual, “and Sam says you still need a jacket. This was Dad’s.”
Henry sets the journal aside and stands, willing himself not to cry as he takes the jacket from Dean. The leather’s worn but intact and smells of guns and sweat and cologne. Gingerly, Henry unfolds it and slips it on, and it fits like a glove. It must have been too big for Dean, but he’d worn it anyway.
Thank you, Henry signs and hugs his grandson.
By the time Dean gets Dad’s journal put back in the safe, Sam’s got the football game on, and Henry’s hung the jacket on a chair and gone to help Lisa and Cas put away the leftovers. Dean offers to help as well, but Lisa (who’s going to be the best wife ever) shoos him back into the living room. So he and Sam and Ben settle on the couch and eventually succumb to the pull of the tryptophan.
They’re still asleep when Dean wakes, and Lisa’s sacked out in the recliner, but Henry and Cas are sitting at the table with an old man who holds his head like he’s blind. The house still smells like turkey, but Dean doesn’t smell any sulfur in the mix. Cas is in the way of Dean being able to see the old man’s lips, but Henry doesn’t look happy about what he’s hearing. Whatever it is, though, the old man writes something on a notepad without looking down and slides the pad over to Henry. Henry says something Dean doesn’t quite catch, and then they all stand and shake hands, and Cas leaves with the old man. Henry’s chest moves like he’s sighing as he looks down at the notepad.
Dean levers himself up off the couch and goes over to the table. “Hey,” he whispers (he hopes).
Henry looks up and smiles.
“Who was that?”
Friend, Henry signs. Last survivor.
“Of-of the Men of Letters?”
Yes. Gave me this. Henry pulls the brass box out of his back pocket, shows it to Dean, and sets it on the notepad. Reason I came.
Dean glances down at the pad to see... “Coordinates?”
Box holds key, Henry explains. Main library, I guess. Larry wants me throw key inside and walk away, won’t believe even C-angel that A-demon dead.
Dean snorts. “You going to?”
Henry shakes his head.
“Gonna go check it out?”
Soon. Want you and Sam with me.
“Um. Sure. Why?”
Henry looks him in the eye. Your legacy, too.
Dean smiles slowly. “Guess Sammy’s got a new roommate, huh?”
Henry smiles back. Guess so, if he doesn’t mind.
Dean chuckles a little. He won’t speak for Sam, but he already knows the answer will be yes. And honestly, he thinks he minds having Henry around a whole lot less than he’d mind Samuel moving into town.
What? Henry asks.
“Guess it turned out to be a pretty merry Christmas after all.”
Henry’s smile brightens a lot.