Spoilers for 2x01 "In My Time of Dying." Written for SiriusMarauderFan's Family Relations Challenge. Assigned relationship was John and Sam (father/son). I don't really know how to explain whether or not this is AU, so I just won't specify...go on, just read. =).

Atonement

"Hey Sam."

For a long moment, Sam couldn't do anything. Couldn't speak, couldn't blink, couldn't breathe. He just stood there in the doorway, staring dumbly at the man in front of him. Words from another life echoed inside his head, and they still made him ache.

If you walk out that door, don't you dare come back.

Sam had walked out the door. He hadn't come back. That was the deal. The plan. So then why? How?

"You gonna let me in?"

Sam cleared his throat, stepping back and opening the door a bit wider to let the older man slide past him into the room. He cleared his throat again and tried to find something to say as the other man's eyes scanned the room with practiced efficiency. By the time his gaze slid back around to Sam, the youngest Winchester thought he might've thought of something to say.

"H...why are you...here?" It didn't come out smooth, but Sam was just grateful to get the words out.

The man smiled at him.

"Just wanted to check on ya. See how you were doing out here. Glad I did, too." The man's tone hardened to one that Sam was more familiar with. "Don't see any salt lines laid out."

Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes and settled for crossing his arms over his chest. "Gotta be a little sneakier about that stuff seeing as I have a roommate," he replied. And then, because he couldn't stand the look he was still getting. "Dropped inside the window frames and painted onto the doorframe."

The other man's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Good," was all he said.

"Why are you really here?" Sam asked after a pause. Because there was no way this was a casual visit. No way. The silence stretched again, and Sam was beginning to think he wouldn't get an answer. The older man sighed and turned his back to Sam again, walking further into the room to stop beside the small counter of the kitchenette. He slid his hand along the surface of it and then pulled it back, examining his calloused palm.

"Is everything okay?" Sam prodded, worried now. "Is it D…?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. He's fine Sam, I promise."

"So then what?"

"Why does there have to be a reason?" It was a gruff whisper, and Sam was caught off guard by the unfamiliar inflection in that simple sentence. And the next words were even more difficult to process. "Why can't I just come visit you? Maybe even…" he choked around a sigh. "Maybe even tell you that I'm sorry? For the way things ended, or hell, for the way things began. You never had a choice in any of this Sam, just got taken along for the ride. And I knew, deep down I always knew it wouldn't be enough for you. This kind of life. This...I understand why you had to leave it. Find something else, start something better."

Sam was speechless. Frozen with both feet glued onto the floorboards of his small apartment, not daring to move and risk breaking this...whatever this was. The other man blew out a breath and finally turned to face Sam again, swiping a hand over his mouth and shooting Sam an uneasy, hesitant smile. Sam returned it.

"You mean that?" Sam asked.

A nod.

Another long pause.

"So uh...how're things? How's school? Are you happy?"

Sam's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He's asking me about school. About me.

"It's...I love it here. I really do. And I uh," Sam paused, unsure if this was something he wanted to share. But then he swallowed and continued. "I actually...I met someone. She's the roommate I was talking about."

A big, wide grin stretched the other man's face, the kind of smile Sam could never remember seeing before. "Yeah?" he asked. "I'm...that's great news, Sam. That's...wow. Is she...will she be here later? Can I meet her?"

Sam thought he was done with the earth-shattering comments in this conversation, but this one sent him reeling. "You want to meet her?"

"Of course." Said so matter-of-fact, as if this were the way things went in their family.

"Okay, yeah," Sam said. "She's got class until five if you're...if you'll still be here."

"I've got time."

"No lives to save today?" He hadn't meant to sound bitter, but that's how it came out, hard-edged and ugly.

Silence again.

Sam's lips formed an apology, but he didn't speak it aloud. The older man cleared his throat.

"You know all I've ever done is try to protect you, right Sam?" he asked, running a hand through his hair. It was slightly longer than the last time Sam had seen him, but the man himself still exuded an air of no-nonsense military stature all the way from his posture down to the way his socks were tucked into his boots. His words were gravelly. "I need you to understand that one thing, if nothing else. That everything I've ever done, it's been for you. I know I made mistakes and I know you hate me more often than not, but you're alive and that's all I care about."

"D…"

"No. Look Sam, just listen to me. We've never seen eye-to-eye. We've had more fights than I can count and we've torn at each other's nerves and there's been times when I just...when I wish you could've been more like Dean." The words stung, coming from his father's mouth, but Sam took it all in silence, waiting for the punchline. When it came, it wasn't what he expected.

"But here's the thing, Sam," John Winchester continued. "I'm glad you're different. I'm so damn grateful for it, every single day. I mean, Stanford? That's huge. That's…and I know Mary would've been proud of you. I know, because I am. I am proud of you, even if it doesn't seem that way."

"Y...you're being serious right now?" Sam stuttered. "I mean this is really you, this is really…?"

John smiled and it reached his eyes, though the edges of his mouth were turned down. It was a sad smile, one filled with about a million different emotions, most of which Sam couldn't quite wrap his head around. Because this was Dad, and Dad didn't do this. Didn't drive across the country to visit his kid at college after two years of silence, after don't you dare come back, and then ask to meet his girlfriend and tell him he was proud, for god's sake. That's not how things happened.

And that is because this never did.

This visit, this conversation.

It plays now, inside John Winchester's head, as he stands in an empty hospital room with a sling on his shoulder and a gun in his hand. The day that never was, the words that never left his lips. How he wishes he had said it all back when he had the chance. He thought about it so many times, took cases close to Palo Alto whenever he could, tried to build up the courage (yes the courage, for god's sake, because somehow the prospect of it was more terrifying than a werewolf or shapeshifter ever could be), and yet he never had. And now it was too late.

He had tried, with Dean. To leave his eldest son with something concrete, with the words he'd never felt the need to say aloud because he'd just assumed that Dean had known, had realized how important he was.

"You took care of Sammy and you took care of me. And you didn't complain, not once."

But the look in Dean's eyes...John had been wrong.

Dean had never understood.

John thinks maybe he might've gotten through to Sam not long ago when he'd told him about the college fund he'd set up. When he told him he was afraid of Sam being on his own, of not having anyone to watch his six. That's why Sam, don't you see? That's why I never wanted to let you go. But those brief conversations, those small barely-clear apologies, they could never explain away all the bad decisions, the bad nights, the bad things still left to destroy. There is so much his boys don't understand yet, so much more he wants to tell them.

I love you.

I'm proud of you.

I'm sorry for the way things were.

There is danger ahead and I don't know if I can protect you from it.

I think I did all I could, but maybe there was more…maybe there was more.

Hold onto each other.

Never let go.

I love you.

There inside his head, mixed in with so many different scenarios, so many different scenes that never played out, he says it all to the both of them and wonders if it would've changed anything, if only he had said it aloud. But he'll never know, and it's too late to change it now.

No more words.

No more time.

John slowly lowers the Colt onto the table and sighs.

"Okay," he says. I'm not ready.

I named this story "Atonement" mostly because it was inspired by a scene in that movie in which the main character, Briony, goes to visit her sister. If you've seen the movie, you'll know which scene I'm talking about and if you haven't, I highly recommend watching it, because it really is a gorgeously tragic film.

I also wanted to play with the idea of not necessarily making it clear who came to visit Sam because most of my stories are about the brothers, so I figured taking it in a different direction and throwing a bit of mystery in there would be fun.

Let me know what you thought with a review if you're so inclined, and thank you for reading!