Birds squawked above me, leaves seemed to whistle in the wind. I cautiously opened my eyes and found myself suprised. I lay in a feild, lush dark green grass surrounded me as I lay on the ground. How could I.. was this heaven? Had I rejoined earth somehow? Looking around me as I sat up, I watched trees sway in the wind, a lake to my left rippled as the water washed against the shore. Then I realised.
This was where my father would take me when he came home after hunting trips. Once his wounds were taken care of, he'd pack the car and take my mother and I down to the lake near the Roadhouse. He'd sit in the shade beneath an oak tree where we'd picnic, a rod in his hand as he calmly fished. Tears threatened to fall as I looked around and realised I really wasn't on Earth. This was something else. But it couldn't be Heaven, I always read and heard that Heaven was bright lights and harps playing. This felt real.
As I looked around I noticed a figure sitting under the oak tree beside the lake. Curiously wandering over, my steps felt light, and even though the oak tree was a hundred feet away, in just a few steps I was there. I guess time was different here. Wherever here was. The stranger chuckled as he faced me. I was beside him now, noticing how familiar the stranger seemed. I couldn't place the laugh, the smell or clothes he wore. But as he tipped his fishing hat up, the tears fell and I sunk to my knees.
"Dad?" One lone word was all that came out. I could barely breathe, could barely speak. "Yes sweetheart. It's me" Came his deep reply. Last time I saw my father, I was a child and the memories I seemed to remember of him, or made up in my own mind, did him no justice. He was broad shouldered and seemed tall, even as he sat. "Where am I? Where is this? What is this?" I took in his features, the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. He ran a hand through his short dirty blonde hair as he contemplated his answer. "Well, this is Heaven. Our shared heaven. This is my Heaven, Your Heaven and your mom's Heaven. We share one Heaven" He sat back against the tree and pulled me against him in an awkward hug. "I always thought this lake was Heaven. Didn't think it would be my Heaven one day though" Dad grinned "Your mom's on her way here too".
My dad, William Anthony Harvelle was killed on April 15th, 1986 at Devil's Gate Reservoir. John Winchester and my dad went there to turn the Devil's Gate into a devil's trap. John made a mistake and Dad died. John's mistake was scuffing the salt he had just laid on the ground with his foot by accident, so when something came out of the opening of the tunnel nothing stopped it.
John once described my dad's death to me, in an attempt to make me understand.
"It looked like smoke and sounded like a million flies. Bill looked down from the stars just in time for it to flow right into him. He started jerking like a condemned man in the electric chair, and two voices were coming out of his mouth. One was the thing, the hellspawn. I don't know what language it was speaking, but its voice was horrible. It was the sound cancer would make if it could talk. And Bill, he kept saying over and over again, John, shoot me, shoot me, John. So I did. It was the worse mistake I ever made. It was careless and stupid and it got a good man killed. A husband and father, and a damned good hunter, and I don't know how I'm going to explain this to Ellen. And Jo, poor Jo. She's four years old. How am I doing to tell her? I can't just let Ellen do it. I'm responsible. It was over in less than a minute, Bill Harvelle dead and me standing there with a gun in my hand listening to the echo of the gunshots in the hills and the echo of the awful hellspawn voice in my head."
I was still in pigtails when my dad died, but I remember him coming home from a hunt. He'd burst through that door like, like Steve McQueen or something. And he'd sweep me up in his arms, and I'd breathe in that old leather jacket of his. And my mom, who was sour and pissed from the minute he left, she started smiling again. And we were a family.
John's story of my dad's death was the only consolement I had over his death, and now here he was. Free from Hellspawn and he was happy, calm. At peace.
Instantly after Dad stated Mom was on her way, I felt a weight in my pocket. Curiously I pulled it out, It was my hunting knife, small but effective. It had belonged to my Dad, engraved with W.A.H. I showed it to Dad, he gave me a warm smile "I always knew you'd follow in my footsteps. And I'm proud of you"
AN: Next chapter is going to be her mom in Heaven.