SUMMARY: A glimpse into Alyson's future. The Winchesters had split up when she left for college, and Aly has received news that John Winchester has had a stroke. She has started to visit him in the hospital to try and repair their relationship. Same AU as 'The Adventures of Alyson Winchester'. Rated M for language.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A while ago, a reviewer had suggested that I write a one-shot about Aly as an adult, telling her children about when she was younger. I've been fascinated by the idea, but my muse decided that she liked this idea instead. I actually wrote the majority of this late last year and have been sitting on it all this time, and decided to take it out and dust it off to publish. Read with a tissue or three handy; I cried while writing it. Please let me know if you like it- there may be more to come!

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I pushed the wheelchair and turned it so that it was facing the bench, locked the wheels, and sat down.

"You hungry?" I asked Dad. I looked at him-he had wrinkles where previously he'd had none, his temples were going gray, and the scruff on his chin was salt-and-pepper now. His face had a funny look on it. "What's wrong?"

He picked up the pad of paper and pen that were on his lap and wrote something, then passed the pad to me. He still refused to talk a lot, because of the aphasia. The stroke had damaged the part of his brain that dealt with language and speech, and sometimes he couldn't think of the right word, or the words got mixed up when he said them and didn't make sense. It was very frustrating and humiliating for him. He preferred to write on a pad of paper most of the time, especially to doctors and nurses.

Sorry it said.

"You're sorry? For what?" I asked.

raised you he scrawled.

"You're sorry for how you raised me?" I asked, and he gave a short nod.

"Dad, that's all water under the bridge now, it doesn't- it doesn't matter any more," I told him.

shoud hve done bettr he wrote, and tapped his chest.

"You should have done better?" I looked at him. "Well, under the circumstances you did the best you could. I mean-"

He shook his head hard, and then wrote again, nicer

more undrstandng

been there insted of hunt

"You're saying you should have been nicer and more understanding? And been there instead of out hunting?"

He nodded.

"None of us asked for that life, Dad," I said, "It just happened, and it was... unfortunate. But we got through it, you know?" I opened the bag that the nurse had given me and took out two small cardboard boxes. "Let's see what they gave us-"

He was writing again. Treat you difrent he had written, and he pointed at me.

"You treated me different?" I said.

He nodded, and then bent his head to write again, and then lifted the pad to show me.

scared he had written.

"I wasn't scared," I said, "Well, most of the time, I mean you guys were there to protect me-"

He shook his head.

"What?" I asked.

He pointed to himself.

"You? You were scared?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Of what?" I asked.

He pointed at me.

"Of me?" I was surprised, "Why were you scared of me?"

Didnt know wht to do with

how to rais girl he wrote.

"Oh...well, um," I didn't know what to say.

He wrote, so difrent from boys and showed it to me.

"Well, Dad, it's- it's okay..." I didn't know what to say.

He shook his head violently back and forth. Sorry

can't say sory enoug he wrote, would have been difrent

if you knew about demons

if I had talkd to you

done thngs difrent

"Dad, we got through it, remember? It did make us closer for a while."

He gave me a small smile but then all of a sudden tears were slipping down his cheeks.

He put the pad on his lap and gave me a look filled with sorrow.

I leaned forward and hugged him tightly. He hugged me with his right arm, and I could feel him clutching the back of my shirt. His left arm was still very weak.

"Sorry," he said hoarsely, "I'm so... sorry."

Even though the nurses had told me that mood swings and being more emotional were part of the way Dad was right now, because of his stage of recovery from the stroke, it was still hard to see. John Winchester rarely, rarely cried, and if he did it was a couple of tears in the eyes.

"Daddy, it's okay," I said again, "What can I say to make you feel better?"

"It's not... okay, Alyson, I... fucked up... so much-with... you, can't s-say- say sorry...e-enough..." his voice was still hoarse, and his speech halting as he thought out what to say. I felt his chest hitch against me.

"Dad, please, it's okay," I repeated, "I forgive you, does that make you feel better? Whatever you did, however you think you screwed up with me, I forgive you. All right? Does that help?" I just wanted him to feel better, I wanted him to stop being so down on himself. All the things that had happened in the past didn't seem to matter so much any more now.

His shoulders shook a couple of times, and then he took a deep breath and patted my back. "All right," he said, "I'm-all...r-right."

I let him go, and he wiped his face with his palms, seeming embarrassed now, "Guess... you never thought...you'd see... your old man...crying like a ...a baby," he smiled ruefully.

"It's okay," I took a napkin out of one of the boxes and gave it to him.

"Are you hungry?" I asked him. I opened the boxes and took out the food, setting it on the bench next to me. They had given us dry turkey sandwiches and baked low-salt potato chips that tasted like cardboard and apple slices.

"When you were...toddler...you choked...on..." he paused and frowned as if he was trying to think of something. He held up an apple slice.

"An apple slice?"

He nodded. "Do you... remember?"

I shook my head no.

"Took you with...to meet.. Bobby and other- hunter...at a coffee..." he paused and snapped his fingers, "res- rest-" he frowned, again, and I knew he couldn't find the word.

"I choked on an apple slice at a coffee shop?" I asked.

He nodded again. "Scared...the shit...outta me...I got, pulled it out, you cried...scared you too," he gave me a sad smile.

My phone chimed and I pulled it out to look at it. Charlie had sent me a text and a picture:

"two girls asleep FINALLY" and a photo of the girls nestled in bed next to each other.

And then a second text and photo:

"This girl needs to hit the computer" and a photo of herself with her headset on, in front of her monitor.

"That Dean?" Dad asked.

"Uh, no, my friend Charlie, she's watching the girls," I told him, "She finally got them down for their afternoon nap. Want to see?"

I leaned over and showed him the photo of the girls.

He leaned forward and peered at the phone, then smiled. "Cute. Are they... yours?"

He asked me this every time I saw him. Short-term memory loss was still a thing.

"No, well, I didn't give birth to them," I explained again. It didn't do to say, "I already told you about them" because all that did was make him feel bad and frustrated.

"You remember Jody? Jody Mills, the sheriff in Bobby's town? She got in touch with me, these two little girls lost their parents, they were hunters. She didn't know who else to ask...everyone else is either... gone... or too far away, or out of the country altogether. So I took them in. They're adorable, I can't wait for you to meet them."

I had been in my third year of college, and had kind of been losing interest, when Jody had called. Sam had left to travel and "find himself", so it was just me and my best friend, Charlie, a computer geek who was an orphan. I had agreed to take the girls and had subsequently had to drop out of school when it got to be too much to deal with. Charlie still helped me out with the girls while finishing her degree.

I scrolled down through my photos and showed him a couple. "That's Amalia, we call her Molly, she's 9 months old, and she is quite taken with Dean already. He can somehow get her to go to sleep really quickly," I chuckled, "I never would have thought to see Dean holding a baby on his shoulder and getting her to sleep within 5 minutes."

Dad looked at me. "He did... with you... all... the time," he told me, with another sad smile,"Hell, he was... better...than me... for a while. Your first... word was... 'De'."

"Oh, that's right," I said. That made me feel a little bit sad but I shook it off. I showed him another photo, "This is Catriona, her nickname is Cat, she's almost 4 years old. We're going to have a birthday party for her soon, would you come? If you can get out?"

He nodded, but then got a cautious look on his face. "Who...be there?" he asked.

"Charlie, maybe a couple of our college friends, Dean, Jody's going to come out."

"Not..."

I shook my head. "He's still out of the country," I said.

I looked at Dad's face- he was looking worn out.

"Are you finished eating?" I asked him. He had managed one half of the sandwich and a couple of potato chips.

He nodded. "Tired now..." he murmured. I put the food back in the boxes, because I knew the nurses would want to see exactly how much he'd eaten. There was a concern about him becoming diabetic too and they were tracking what he ate and his blood sugar.

I wheeled him back to his room, just as a nurse was coming out. "Oh, there you are, Colonel," she smiled, "We were just coming to find you for your afternoon meds."

"He's tired," I told her.

"All righty, let's get you situated back in bed, and get your meds, and you can rest. Did you have a good visit?"

Dad nodded, and handed me the pad. I tore the pages off and stuck them in my purse. He was embarassed by writing and also didn't want anyone reading what he had written.

"Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?" I asked him.

"No, you go...to your babies..." he said faintly. His eyelids were already fluttering as the nurse handed him the small cup with pills in it and a cup of water.

I leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Have a good rest, Dad, I'll see you later. I love you." I was hesitant to leave him, but I knew he'd just be asleep for the next several hours.

"Love.. you... back," he said, and his voice was hoarse again. The nurse lowered the head of the bed as I walked out of the room.

As I drove back to the hotel, I thought about when he had asked about Sam. There had been hope on his face but also fear. They hadn't spoken since the night I had left for college, a little over three and a half years ago.

Sam had left with me, because it had been a repeat of when he had left for college, and Dad had all but thrown me out of the house. Sam swore that he'd never see or speak to Dad again, and he had dropped everything and come with me, living in the same town, near the college. He'd done a little bit of hunting at first but had soon dropped that too, and instead survived on odd jobs. His little hole-in-the-wall apartment became a respite from the loud party atmosphere of the dorms, and my friends and I would hole up there to study and get away from all the noise and drama that goes with living on campus. Sam became everyone's adopted "big brother" and my friends loved how protective and yet easygoing he could be.

Sam had refused to even speak to Dean at first. Dean had called me to let me know that after I'd left, Dad had had chest pains and shortness of breath and he had rushed Dad to the hospital thinking he was having a heart attack. Dad had been pissed at him and reamed him out, but it had been discovered that Dad had high blood pressure and needed to lower his cholesterol and quit drinking. Dean called me once a week at first, and then once every couple of weeks, then once a month, then every so often. It had hurt at first, leaving Dad and Dean had hurt a lot, but Dad had hurt me immensely when he'd said I wasn't to go to college.

In my teen years, I had finally gotten some hunter training under my belt even though I still couldn't shoot for anything. Although I could give Sam a run for his money as far as researching and putting together clues to figure out a pattern quickly. So I wasn't exactly in the hunting life, I wasn't out of it either. I think Dad had just wanted me nearby to know that I was safe. He had never completely stopped worrying about me after I'd been kidnapped by Azazel, even though Dad had killed him with the Colt.

Sam had always claimed that Dad wanted to control all of us, but I understood now, that him losing Mom had made him so afraid of losing the rest of us that that was why he raised us the way he did- to be hunters, and to stick together. He didn't want any of us leaving because he was too afraid of what could happen when we weren't with him, when we weren't together.

I eased the rental car into the space outside of the hotel and pulled out my phone, thinking I had heard it buzz. I was hoping that Sam would at least respond to my texts- I hadn't heard from him in 4 days now and I was starting to get worried. I had to figure out a way to get him here, and a way to get all of us back together. We needed to be a family again.