Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, or the characters, and chances are that I never will.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Glad that people are enjoying this fic so far. Sorry for the delay, life's been crazy.
Enjoy!
Flashback
30th of October, 2005
Sam and Dean were standing outside Sam's apartment building on Stanford University's campus in Palo Alto. "No. Not normal, safe."
"And that's why you ran away?" Dean questioned, scoffing.
"I was just going to college." Sam replied, before bitterly adding. "It was dad who said if I was gonna go, I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."
Dean wasn't giving up easily though. "Yeah well dad's in real trouble if he's not dead already, I can feel it. I can't do this alone."
"Yes you can." Sam pointed out, he knew where this was heading, and the last thing he wanted was to hit the road again.
"Yeah. Well, I don't want to."
Sam sighed before resigning himself, and asking. "What was he hunting?"
Dean opened the trunk of his car and opened a case of guns and knives as he said. "All right, let's see. Where the hell did I put that thing?" Not coming close to answering Sam's question.
"So when dad left, why didn't you go with him?"
"I was working my own gig. This voodoo thing down in New Orleans."
Sam was surprised. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"
"I'm 26, dude." Dean replied indignantly, as he found what he was looking for, a book, and from that the pulled out a piece of paper. "All right, here we go." Dean declared before he told Sam. "So dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago this guy" He pulled out a newspaper clipping and handed it to Sam "they found his car but he'd vanished, completely M.I.A."
"So maybe he was kidnapped." Sam suggested logically, but Dean was prepared for that.
"Yeah well, here's another one in April" He handed Sam another article "another one in December '04" Another article "'03" Another article "'98" And yet another article "'92. Ten of them over the past 20 years, all men, all same 5-mile stretch of road. Started happening more and more so dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." Dean took out his cell phone, and started a voicemail playing. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday."
They listened to the voicemail recording of their father, despite the severe static. "Dean, something is starting to happen, I think it's serious. I need to try to figure out what's going on" There was a break in the recording where whatever John had said was inaudible, as the static had taken over. "Be very careful Dean, we're all in danger."
Present time
21st of February, 2006
"So what? Was this why you disappeared in the middle of that gig?"
"No, son, I left because I knew you could handle it." John told his eldest son with pride in his voice, only to solemnly add. "I thought I could keep hunting, and I couldn't ignore the omens I found."
"Okay then, but how'd you end up here? What happened?"
"It started about two weeks before I got on that job."
Flashback
10th of September, 2005
John had just left the doctor's office, in San Antonio. To some degree he was still in shock as he drove away. Cancer, the big C, everything he's faced, and it'll be cancer that takes him out, it didn't seem right.
He'd only gone to the local clinic for a cough he couldn't shake, coughing up a bit of blood sometimes, nothing too major, and now he was faced with a six month survival, a year tops.
What was he supposed to do? Go to this specialist the doctor had referred him to, and get treated so he might live a bit longer, or keep on the hunt, at least for as long as he could.
There was no cure of his cancer, and as it was clear to John that death was inevitable, and he knew that whatever else happened, he wouldn't spend his last months hooked up to machines and drips, no, he would go out the way he had lived.
Hunting. It was all he had, it was his only future.
He hunted nonstop for the next two months, at first it was just the run of the mill jobs, but then by accident more than anything else started to piece together some omens and signs, pointing towards whatever had murdered his wife so many years before, it was a demon. From there he handed off the hunt he had been working on to Dean, and unbeknown to him, Sam as well, and moved on, intent to find this demon, to kill it and have his revenge before he died.
John spent the next month and a half searching for the demon, but then he started to get worse, it started getting harder to get around, just climbing a flight of stairs became a major task, he was losing weight, and it seemed like every day it was getting harder to breathe. He went to the nearest clinic, a few towns over; they said that the cancer was now stage four, he probably only had a few months left, they drained the fluid that had accumulated in his chest, a plural effusion, and said that he should strongly reconsider his decision not to seek treatment, that maybe he should consider moving into a hospice, so that the remainder of his time was comfortable.
He signed out AMA, and was gone the next day.
That was on New Years Eve, it was only another week before John found himself back in a hospital, he'd had a seizure and crashed his truck into a lamp pole, he'd only gotten scrapes and bruises, but this time the doctors had been insistent, he needed to stay in the hospital, at least until they'd started him on a medication to prevent further seizures.
He stole a couple of packets of the medication they'd prescribed, along with some painkillers, and slipped out the back way, he left town within the hour.
After that he didn't have a car, and he knew he shouldn't drive even if he did, despite the medication he still had a couple of seizures a week. He booked into a motel in Detroit, and that was where the paramedics found him over a month later, barely breathing, and having near constant seizures because he hadn't been able to get out of bed to take his meds in days.
Present time
21st of February, 2006
"Okay, so you were sick, and too stubborn to get help. What else is new?" Sam asked sarcastically, his tone was a thin veil against the agonizing fear he was feeling.
TBC...
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