A Time to Collect
Chapter 2
Sam woke up feeling groggy and disoriented at first then he straightened abruptly when the memory of where he had been and what he had seen there rushed into his mind. Dean was being tortured. He looked around and he was in a room, but not the room where he had been with the demon and Dean. There were only a few pieces of furniture, a chair, a small table, and the bare floor he had been lying on. Suddenly, his finely trained senses felt something shift in the darkness and he became hyperaware. He saw the darkness warp and keyed his sight to it, his other senses keeping watch around the rest of the room. When the darkness moved again, Sam stood up and backed away from it. When the moving ebb disengaged from the rest of the darkness, Sam could then identify what it was or more accurately, who it was.
"Dad?" He uttered, his emotions teetering dangerously on a precipice that he was barely keeping under control.
"Sam," John said as his smile grew.
Sam didn't know what to believe, his eyes or his feelings. When he last saw his father, he had been an apparition who had saved him and Dean from the yellow-eyed demon, then disappeared into a flash of light. He had seen tears in his father's eyes then, just as he was seeing them now.
"No, you're a trick. It's the demon," Sam said, his logic warring with his feelings.
"No, Sam. I'm really here."
"You can't be my dad. He would have saved Dean, not me," Sam said, his voice trembling with a sob.
John looked over at his sobbing youngest son and recalled the many times he had seen him that way throughout his childhood and a pang of regret hit him. Sam had every reason to doubt him. John had never given him a reason to believe in him.
"Sam –"
"No, I won't believe anything you say until I see Dean, until I know he's safe!" Sam demanded.
John found himself smiling. This was Sam. He was always rebelling, resisting authority, resisting him.
Suddenly, a door swung open and Bobby rushed in. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a ghost from the past.
"Bobby," John said, nodding at him.
"My God. John?"
"It's good to see you again."
Sam watched with surreal fascination as his father talked to Bobby as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing had changed, though he knew by looking at Bobby's face, whatever had brought John back, it hadn't been Bobby.
"What's happening and where's Dean?" Sam asked confused.
Bobby turned to Sam.
"When I found both you boys gone and the smell of sulfur and brimstone, I knew what had happened so I went looking for a spell to get you out."
"But why didn't it work for Dean?"
Bobby swallowed hard, unable to find the words to tell Sam the truth.
"Because you weren't supposed to be in Hell and Dean –" John said, hoping to help Bobby, willing to be the bearer of the harsh reality.
Much as John hated to admit it, Sam was used to him doing that.
"NO! He's not supposed to be there either. We have to help him!" Sam yelled.
John looked at Bobby and understood that he had to be a father to Sam now because it was what Sam needed and something that he had denied him all his life.
"I know, son," John tried to soothe.
Sam then shook himself, realizing that there was still an unanswered question he needed an answer to.
"Wait! What are you doing here? You can't be real. You're –"
John nodded.
"I know and I can explain."
Sam silently waited.
"Several months ago, Dean did a little research on his own. He didn't tell you or Bobby. He was looking for a way –"
"To bring you back? No, that's not possible, Dean would never do that."
"You're right. He wouldn't. He didn't," John said with a fondness in his voice.
Bobby's eyes then lit up with recognition.
"A binding spell?"
John nodded again.
"How the hell did he –" Bobby said.
"Like I said, he didn't want either of you to know because he knew you'd stop him and -"
"If it went south, he wouldn't want anyone else to get hurt," Sam finished. "But why would he do it at all?"
"To protect you," John said.
"What? How do you know that?"
"Because he told me."
Sam just stared at his father.
"Let me explain…" John started.
"Dad…" Dean whispered under his breath as he watched his father materialize after reciting the spell.
"Dean? What are you doing?" John asked, worry in his voice that Dean had crossed over into something risky and deadly.
"I need you, Dad. Sam needs you."
"You know this is dangerous, if anything goes wrong –"
"It's only me who gets hurt. I did my homework, Dad. I know what I'm doing."
"What are you doing?" John said, his voice lightly scolding from concern.
"You know about the deal?" Dean asked, his eyes filled with tears as he felt a mix of joy and sadness at seeing his father again.
John could only nod, a serious and concerned look on his face.
"I'm sorry if you're disappointed about what I did. I know everyone else seems to be, but I had to, Dad. It was the only choice I had and I couldn't leave Sam like that. I failed him and I had to make it right. I wouldn't take it back for anything."
"Dean –"
"Look, I don't have much time. I have to tell you why I'm doing this."
John just watched his son's face. It was lined with worry and torment that John knew had come from hating the idea of leaving Sam alone. John felt Dean's pain and exhaustion; a weariness for a life that he didn't want to live anymore. It broke John's heart to see Dean, his oldest, the one who had taken care of him and Sam single-handedly all their lives, completely resigned to his fate in Hell. John hated that he had driven his loving and devoted son to the brink like this. Still, despite all that, there was also purpose in his eyes and John knew what that purpose was. He knew that Dean felt he had just one more job to do before he met his end; one last act for his family.
"I'm going to bind you to Sam. I need you to protect him, Dad. I know that he's strong, that he can defeat anything, but he's so scared, scared of losing me, but he's also scared of what he's becoming. The super human strength, the acceptance that sometimes you have to kill humans, it's scaring him and I won't be there to keep him from doubting himself. That's all it is, Dad, just doubt. He's not evil."
Dean's testimonial about his little brother gave John a feeling of pride he didn't think he could feel anymore.
"I know," John reaffirmed.
"When I go to Hell, please, be with him. Help him through it. And please, Dad, I'm begging you, don't fight with him anymore. I know he'll make it hard because he'll be hurting, but please don't buy into it. Do that for me, okay?"
John looked at Dean and understood what he was asking of him between the lines. He was telling him to act like a father, to be the responsible adult he should have been when they were kids.
"I can't be there to fix it for you two anymore."
And though John knew that Dean hadn't meant to say them to hurt him, the words stung nevertheless. The truth often did.
"I know and I'll be there for Sam. I promise."
John watched as Dean nodded his head, at a loss for anything more to say. He smiled at him.
"Dean, I want you to know that I could never be disappointed in you. You've never failed me and you've never failed Sam. I haven't been the kind of father who's earned the right to say that to you, but I can't let you believe that you failed us. You didn't. You're taking the blame for something that wasn't your fault and I can't let you do that. I taught you too much about responsibility, made you carry it when you were too young and shouldn't have had to, but you knew that someone had to for Sam, that he needed someone to guide him, to love him and you gave it without complaint. Sam is the man he is because of you. I can never make that up to you, but I promise you that I'll protect him, that I'll take care of him for as long as he needs me. I only hope I can make you as proud as you have always made me."
Dean just swallowed hard and looked at his father, wanting to etch his image into his mind to carry with him into Hell.
John found tears in his eyes recalling the moment, again, something he thought he could never do again yet there they were. John couldn't tell Sam everything, knowing that there were some things that Dean had wanted to keep between the two of them and also knowing that telling Sam about their fights would only make Sam defensive. He had to keep Sam together. He had promised Dean that.
"Dad, we have to find a way to get Dean out of Hell. I can't leave him there. We can't just leave him there."
John was at a loss as to what to tell Sam. He had no solutions for him.
Bobby then spoke up.
"Sam, I found this on the end table at the motel," Bobby said, as he held up Dean's amulet.
"That's –" Sam started.
"His amulet, the one I made for you when you were a kid," Bobby said.
"He never takes that off," Sam said. "Why did he?"
"I think I know," Bobby said with a smile.
oooo
TBC