Where did John disappear to at the beginning of the series? How did he find out the truth about Sam? How much did he know about Mary and her deal? This is my backstory for that time. Hope you enjoy!

It's a woman in white. John has the thought processes that led him to that conclusion pinned on every available space on his hotel room wall and from his recently concluded interview with Constance Welch's husband he has this case pretty well wrapped up. Now he just has to locate the plot where Constance was buried, dig her up, salt and burn the bones and move on to his next hunt. John sighed and rubbed his hand across his tired eyes. He and Dean had split up after a successful ghoul hunt in Colorado just over three weeks ago. Dean headed for New Orleans to tackle what sounded like the spirit of a pissed off voodoo practitioner and John first to Oregon after a poltergeist that turned out to be a spoiled teenage girl, then to Jericho. He's not really sorry that he sent Dean off on his own. His son's a damn good hunter in his own right and it's time to see what he can do without his father in his back pocket all the time. But sometimes, sometimes John misses him. He'd hunted alone for years when the boys were young and they had only accompanied him sporadically in their teen years. Since Sam left for Stanford, though, he and Dean have hunted as a team. It's hard now, not having Dean snarking at him in the motel room, not having him to bounce ideas off of and most of all not having anyone to share the backbreaking job of digging up graves.

John took a bite of his burger and relaxed back onto the bed, the lines of salt and crushed cat's eye he placed on the floor intact around him. He'd run into Constance while investigating the bridge she'd taken her dive off of and even for an angry spirit, the woman was a bitch. She'd managed to take control of his truck and had damn near run him down. It had been close, but the thought that he was getting older, had maybe lost a step wasn't one he would dwell on. He'd laid down protective lines in case she'd gotten the idea to follow him home and had made sure his truck was loaded with iron and salt in case she showed up there while he was in it. After making a few notes in his journal, John opened his laptop and began his weekly check of weather patterns across the continental U.S. He smiled to himself as he pictured his boys surprise at his sophisticated system. Sam had always said his father didn't have the technological knowhow to operate a toaster but the programming that tracked the weather and certain keywords was as up to date as anything his youngest could have put together.

John clicked open his program and began to scan the items listed. His burger dropped to the table, only one or two bites gone. There had been more and more of the distinctive weather patterns that signaled demonic activity over the last month or so, but he had long since realized the futility of trying to personally check all of them out. In the ten years since he had figured out what he was looking for, none of them had had the one factor that would bring him from wherever in the world he happened to be. Until now. One of the weather patterns had centered around a small town in Texas and now the local news was reporting a fire. A fire that had started in a nursery. A fire in which there had been fatalities, but the infant and his father had survived. John's heart started to pound and he closed his eyes and took deep breaths until he had brought himself back under control. Finally, finally the thing that had killed his Mary was showing itself again. John grabbed his journal and put Dean's name and the coordinates for the next hunt he had been planning on the back page before putting it down and throwing his things together. Dean knew he was here, would come looking for him. The journal was his now. John had just one thing he was interested in hunting from this point on and he had a separate journal for that. One that the boys had never seen. As if he needed it. All the information he needed for this hunt was burned into his mind.

A few minutes later, John was throwing his duffles into the truck and pulling out of the parking lot. The room was paid for for another week and he had made it clear early on that he would be in and out and that his room was not to be disturbed. Dean should be here and gone before the credit card fraud was discovered. He would follow John's layout without much trouble, finish the hunt and clean up John's research before anyone would be the wiser. John pressed #1 on his speed dial and sighed in relief as he got Dean's voice mail. Speaking to him live would lead to all sorts of questions John didn't want to answer now.

"Dean," he began, "something big is starting to happen. Can't tell you what right now. I need to try to figure out what's going on. Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger." He hung up and glanced sideways at Constance sitting next to him on the seat. "I so don't have time for your shit right now." he growled as he showered her with salt and swung the iron bar he'd kept handy for just this occasion. Say what you want about her, Constance wasn't a quitter and she kept on trying to get to John until they were twenty miles past her usual hunting grounds and she vanished from the truck with her last "I can never go home." lingering after her.

"Tough shit, lady." John replied to the empty air. "Me either."

John hadn't spoken to Dean for several weeks before his warning phone call. Hadn't wanted to look like he was checking up on him, though Dean had called him and left messages. He had done well in New Orleans and was now in Arizona hunting a black dog. It was good that he was fairly close. Dean would be able to make it to Jericho in just a day or two and hopefully he would be able to check on Sam while he was in the area. John had stopped by Stanford before heading to Jericho and had stayed long enough to see Sam on the quad with a beautiful blonde who had been looking at Sam the way Mary used to look at John. John's heart twisted. He wanted Sam to have a long and happy life with his gorgeous girlfriend, while at the same time knowing that if what had happened twenty-two years ago was starting up again, Sam was likely not going to get that chance. John hit the gas and started the long journey to Texas. He would get as far as he could tonight and then research the fire and survivors. It might not be the same thing it was before, but if it was? This time John would kill the son of a bitch dead.

*********************************************************

Three days later John walked into his hotel room and ripped the tie from his neck. His pose as an F.B.I. agent had gotten him an interview with Thomas Watkins, the survivor he had come all this way to talk to and talking to the grief stricken man had been like a punch in the gut. Watkins had sat on the couch at his sister's house, cradling his infant son like he would never let him go again. His story matched most of those John had managed to collect his first time through this. A noise in the nursery, maybe a scream. Running in to see the room burst into flames. Grabbing his son. When questioned as to the whereabouts of his wife during the fire, the man only gave him a haunted look, opened his mouth as if to say something and then shut it again.

"She's dead. Burned. With my baby," was all he managed. When John pointed out, as gently as he could, that his baby was alive, had made it out of the fire, the man gave a pained moan. "My other baby. My other son. He was four. I looked, but I couldn't find him. Had to get Evan out before I lost him too."

"Do you think your wife was with your other son?" John tried to keep his voice level past the bile that was threatening to choke him. He had thought he was past this reaction to the thought of how much more he could have lost that night.

The crazed, fearful look the man shot him made John pretty sure he knew exactly where Watkins' wife had been during the fire, but his leading questions only made the man more frantic.

"On the ceiling? That would be crazy!" The man looked down at his sleeping son and hugged him tighter. He looked back at John and tried to calm himself. "I'm not crazy."

John could sympathize with his reluctance to tell the truth to authorities. His own attempts to explain what he had seen had been put down to post traumatic stress, and when he had persisted with them Child Protective Services had been called. In order to keep his children, he had to lie about what had happened in Sammy's nursery. John nodded, thanked Watkins for his time and headed back to his hotel.

John's jacket followed his tie and he threw himself onto the bed, lying back and staring at the ceiling. He remembered far too clearly his own introduction into the world of crazy. He knew what he had seen that night, knew that no one would believe him. Hell if anyone had come to him with a story like that, he would have worried for their children too. But he was a Marine, damn it. He'd seen a lot in his life, had been trained to trust his eyes and his instincts. None of his training had helped though. Not then. Needing help to try to figure out what he had seen, he had called a psychic in Lawrence. That had been his introduction to Missouri Mosely. He was past being skeptical when he went to meet her and it didn't take much to convince him she was the real deal. She gave him the intro to Spirits 101 and led him into the world he had inhabited ever since. He had expressed disbelief at some of the things that she had told him though. Werewolves, vampires, demons- fairy tales.

"You know what you saw, John Winchester. If you think you were hallucinating, you'd best leave now, because I got no time for fools. You think what killed your Mary is the only evil thing out there in the dark? Let me tell you, there's a lot more where that thing came from." She had stared at him challengingly, her dark eyes serious. "You want to protect those boys of yours? Better find out what you're dealing with."

With that she had pointed him in the direction of Jim Murphy, who connected him with other hunters. What he learned from Daniel Elkins, Bobby Singer, Bill Harvelle and a multitude of others, combined with his military skills had made him a formidable hunter and he had trained his boys from childhood to kill evil wherever they found it.

It had taken him years to put together the weather patterns, but the nursery fires had been easier. It had been four years after the fires that he had begun his odyssey to find out if the other survivors had seen what he had. He had hit dead end after dead end. No one had seen anything unusual or would admit it if they had. John had been discouraged, but hadn't given up. None of the people he talked to could or would help him. Then he had gone to Saginaw and met Jim Miller.

When investigating the other fire victims, John always started with intensive background checks. Most of them had turned out to be exactly what they seemed. Grieving husbands or wives. Loving parents to their children. Some had remarried, some were raising their children single handed. None had given him any indication of any dark secret in their past. Until Michigan. Until the Millers.

Jim Miller wasn't from Saginaw, he had moved there in 1975, from an unknown location, bringing his younger brother Roger along with him. His past was a very good fabrication. John had learned a lot about fake identities in the last few years and Jim Miller's was solid. No matter how deep John dug, he couldn't
uncover the man's real name or where he was from. Giving up for now on discovering the man's distant past, John concerned himself with digging into his more recent doings.

Jim Miller lived in a neat house in a neat neighborhood with his brother living next door. He had remarried to a pretty blonde and had a four year old named Max. The Millers were very religious, the lady down the street had informed John. At church every Sunday and having the priests over for dinner at least twice a month. According the the neighbor across the street, Jim Miller was a vicious drunk and a child abuser and his brother wasn't any better. According to him, the first Mrs. Miller had died in a car accident. The barkeep at the neighborhood tavern where Miller spent his evenings said he was basically a good guy, but when he was drunk... well, he'd just say that JIm had some wild tales to tell. When John had asked him to repeat some of the stories, the man had backed off a little. Apparently Jim Miller wasn't that good of a guy and if John wanted to hear the stories, he should show up on Friday. That was usually the night Jim got drunk enough to tell them.

John had left the boys with Pastor Jim so he was free to do what he liked while waiting for Friday to roll around. He was torn between posing as a priest with expertise in devils and demons and just going and getting drunk with Miller. He decided that he'd at least talk to the Miller's parish priest. Men of the cloth didn't usually open up about their what their parishoners told them in confidence, but hey, it never hurt to ask and John could be very persistent.

The next morning, John had walked into the small neighborhood church the Millers attended where a priest of about his own age was saying Mass to twenty elderly parishoners. John sat in the back and waited impatiently to speak privately to the priest. When Mass was over and the church had cleared the priest came over and sat next to John.

"Welcome to St. Augustine's. It is welcome isn't it? I don't recall seeing you here before." The priest's eyes were calm and direct and he reminded John favorably of Pastor Jim.

"It's my first time here," John confirmed. "I was hoping you could help me out by answering some questions."

The priest smiled. "Sometimes there are no answers where faith is involved, but ask your questions and I'll see what I can do."

"Do you believe in evil Father?"

"I do. Where there is good, something must balance it. There is God and he is the source of all that is good. But there is also Satan and he is always active in his efforts to undo God's work."

"But do you believe in evil that's only supposed to be real in stories? Spirits, hellhounds, demons?" John's voice was low and intense and the priest's gaze grew more serious.

"My faith is all about things I have never seen. I believe completely in God and angels. I also believe in the Devil and that his minions walk the earth doing his bidding. I have never encountered that kind of evil myself, but I hope that if I ever do I will be up to the challenge of defeating it."

John took a deep breath. Now came the questions that he really needed answered. "But you do know someone who has run into that kind of evil, don't you Father? What can you tell me about Jim Miller?"

The priest's gaze became less open, more wary. "Jim and his family are members of my parish."

"How long have you known them?"

"Are you with law enforcement, Mr..?" the priest's voice was now as guarded as his gaze.

"My name is John Winchester. And no I'm not a cop."

"Then can you tell me what your interest is in the Millers? I'm not in the habit of discussing my parishoners with anyone, never mind a total stranger." The priest's voice was hard now and John knew he'd have to be particularly persuasive here. Hell, he'd already told the truth about his name. Might as well go all in.

"Four years ago, my wife died. In a fire. In the room where my six month old son was. I was downstairs. Sleeping." John's voice faltered a little. "Sleeping. I heard my wife scream and I ran upstairs. She wasn't in our room so I went to the nursery, but she wasn't there either. I thought for a minute that I had been dreaming, but then a drop of blood fell into my son's crib." He looked up and met the priest's eyes. They showed a dawning horror and understanding. "Do you know what happened next, Father?"

"No," the priest said, but John wasn't convinced.

"Neither do I. Not really. My wife was on the ceiling, bleeding from a slash across her stomach. Then she just burst into flames and the fire started to engulf the room. I grabbed my son from his crib and thank God my four year old had already come out of his room. I handed him his brother and told him to get out of the house. I tried to go back for my wife, but she was gone. Since that night, I've found out a lot about things I thought were just stories. Met people whose lives have been ruined by myths. Met people who hunt evil things and wipe them off the face of the earth. I tracked down a few other people who lost loved ones in a fire that started in a nursery, but none of them saw anything unusual. I've heard that Jim Miller did. I need to know what he saw, if he can help me understand what happened. If he knows what killed our wives. Why the nursery? Did it do something to the babies? Please Father. I need to know."

"I may have heard a similar story, but I can't give you any more details than that. I can, however, talk to the person who told me this story and see if I can get him to tell it to you too. I can't guarantee anything, and even if he does agree to talk to you... well you'll see. Where can I reach you?"

John smiled. "I told you my real name and my real story, when I had believable substitutes ready for both. That's way further than my trust usually goes, padre. I'll get in touch with you tomorrow. Will you be here?"

"I'm saying Mass at 7 and 10 tomorrow morning. I'll be in the church until 1p.m., and then I have some appointments. I'll see if I can get you an appointment with the man you need to talk to." The priest stood and started toward the front of the church, hesitating after a few steps and stopping John before he got out the door. "Mr. Winchester, if you don't mind answering a question for me." At John's nod he continued. "Where are your children? Are they all right?"

John's eyes narrowed and now his voice was the one that was hard. "They're fine. I left them with a friend. A pastor, in fact. Is there a reason you think they wouldn't be fine?"

"No. I just... No. I'm sorry. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

John turned to walk out of the church and somewhere in the distance a phone was ringing. No one had his number, hell he didn't even have a cell phone then, and with a start he woke up, no longer in Michigan, but back in Texas.

The display window on the phone read Dean, and John sighed and let it go to voice mail. Dean had called about forty times in the days since John left his message. His boy was nothing if not persistent. John had listened to the first few, but since he had no intention of calling Dean to let him know what was going on, he had ignored the rest. No way he was giving Dean a cell phone to track. Boy'd be on his doorstep before he knew it.

John hadn't gotten much sleep since he'd left Jericho, and the dream he had had during his brief nap had made it anything but restful. He decided he'd take a shower, get into some more comfortable clothes and get himself something to eat before continuing his research on Thomas Watkins and his late wife.

Two hours later, John left the diner and began to run down his list of friends and family of Meredith Watkins.
By the time he'd eliminated all of them who hadn't known her for more than ten years, he still had a long list of people to interview. He wasn't sure why he would bother, most people wouldn't have a clue about what had actually happened, and if they did they probably wouldn't tell him about it anyway. Maybe she wasn't the only one in this area. Hell, that had happened at least once before.

By ten o'clock Sunday night, he was less than halfway through his list and it had gone pretty much like he had expected. If Meredith Watkins had had an amazing, life changing experience ten years ago, no one was talking about it. Exhausted, John went back to his room, ignored five more messages from Dean on his phone and went to bed.

After ten hours of sleep and a good breakfast, John booted up his laptop, feeling one hundred percent better. He decided he'd check up on things in Jericho before doing anything else. He'd hacked into better protected computers than those of a tiny police department plenty of times and it was no trouble getting into their files on the investigation into the missing men. His mouth tightened as he read the report on the supposed evidence found in a motel room that had been paid for with a fraudulent credit card. His whole body tensed as he continued on to the description of the suspect who had been taken into custody outside that room. Mid twenties, six one, green eyes, brown hair, leather jacket, cocky son of a bitch, possible first name Dean. Had been seen earlier at a crime scene posing as a federal marshal. John relaxed at the information that the suspect had escaped, taking a journal out of evidence, after being left alone at the station while the police went out to investigate a report of gunshots. The call was later found to be a fake probably perpetrated by the man's accomplice. The accomplice had also been posing as a marshal at the crime scene and was described as in his early twenties, six four, brown hair, hazel eyes.

Sam? Sam had come looking for him with Dean? Dean must have gone straight to Palo Alto after getting John's message and had somehow convinced his brother to come with him to Jericho. John tried to picture the conversation and couldn't see anything that Dean could have said to accomplish that. John kept close tabs on Sam and he knew all about the law school interview. It was today for God's sake and he knew that Sam wouldn't miss that for anything. Without contacting Dean there was no way to know if they had finished the job in Jericho and even if they hadn't Sam would insist that Dean have him back well before this morning. John sighed and shored up his resolve to keep his boys away from him while he tracked the demon that had killed their mother. He opened his weather tracking program to see if the bastard had been anywhere else since he had killed Meredith Watkins and his heart froze at what he saw. The damned thing had been in Palo Alto last night.

John found a link to the local news and his hand shook over opening the one blaring that a Stanford student had been killed last night in a suspicious fire. The link took him to a televised clip of a reporter standing in front of a burned out building. Sam's building. Updates were coming in that twenty one year old Jessica Moore had been killed last night in a fire in her apartment. The fire had apparently started minutes after her boyfriend, Sam Winchester, had returned from a weekend trip. Mr. Winchester had been pulled out of the burning apartment by his older brother who had just dropped him off and had seen the smoke from the street. The police were investigating, but foul play was not suspected.

God, Sam. I'm so, so sorry. And Dean, thank you, you did good son. John's head dropped into his hands and he fought the urge to just jump in his truck and go to his boys. That wouldn't help them. What John needed to do now was find that fucking thing and kill it before it could do his boys or anyone else any more harm. John picked up his phone and stared at it for a minute before deleting Dean's messages. If he listened to the ones from last night he knew he wouldn't be able to resist going to them. Putting his phone away he looked at his weather program again. If the demon had plans after killing Sam's girlfriend, it hadn't gotten to them yet. When it had gone on its country wide trip in 1983, it had hit a new place once or twice a week. Sometimes the weather pattern would last a few hours, sometimes a few days. John had figured it depended on how many visits it had to make in the area. It seemed the only visit it had planned in this area was Meredith Watkins. John sighed and reconsidered his plans to finish talking to Meredith Watkins' friends and family. The demon had targeted his family again and he needed to do something about that.

John's phone rang again and he swore as he dug it out of his pocket. "God damn it, Dean, stop fucking calling me!" He looked at the number on the screen and flipped the phone open. Not Dean.

"Hello Jim," he said, knowing full well why the pastor was calling him.

"John, where are you? Dean's going crazy because you won't answer his calls. Do you know about Sam?"

"I know." John's voice was low and pained as he answered his friend. "It's starting again, Jim. There was another nursery fire in Texas last week. I'm on the trail of the damned thing and I don't want my boys anywhere near me when I find it."

"John," Jim's tone managed to convey sympathy and disapproval at the same time. "I know how hard this is for you, but just disappearing on Dean? Letting Sam think you don't care that he's suffered this horrible loss? They'll look for you, you know."

"And you know they won't find me. I don't expect to walk away from this, Jim. And if I can take the son of a bitch that killed Mary down with me, I'm fine with that. But I can't risk them getting hurt. I won't."

"They're not stupid, John. They know this is the same thing that killed their mother and they'll be looking for it too. What if they find it first? Wouldn't it be better if you were with them?"

"They don't know what I know. How to track it. That we're not the only ones it targeted. They won't find it. But I will. Don't you tell them any of this Jim."

The warning in John's voice didn't disturb his friend. "Don't worry, John." he sighed. "You made damn sure that everything you told me about this was in confession. Your secrets are safe with me. Even if I think you're an idiot for keeping them. And what makes you think you'll find this thing. Your tracking system tells you where it is or where it's been, not where it's going to be. Your luck doesn't run to you being in the same place at the same time by accident."

"Well, that's something I was planning to talk to you about. Demons are your area of interest. Is there any lower demon type activity showing up anywhere?"

"Actually, I was just about to head out on a hunt. There's been demon sign two counties over. Been building up for a couple of weeks and I'm going to check it out. No deaths yet, but something's definitely going on." Jim's voice was resigned. He'd been hunting evil for much longer than John and never seeming to really get anywhere was disheartening.

"Can you wait for me? I can be there in a few days. Two hunters are better than one, especially if you don't know what's going on. I'm going to need your Key of Solomon too. We need to trap one of those things and ask it a few questions."

"Trap one." Jim's voice was flat.

"Yup."

"Great. All right, I'll wait. But come as fast as you can. Who knows what those Hell spawn are up to."

"I'm leaving Texas now. Be there as soon as I can. And Jim? Thank you." John hung up and started to pack. Jim was right. His luck didn't run to just happening to be in the same town as the demon at the same time. He needed a heads up as to what was actually going on and one of the damned things was going to give it to him.

Chapter two up soon!