"Mary's spirit..." He had to pause to allow the never quite gone grief to pass before he could continue. "Do you…?" He swallowed down the hurt and anger and fear to do backflips in his gut and lifted bleary eyes to the woman standing in the entryway of her living room. "Do you think she actually saved our boys from whatever was in our old house?"

Missouri Mosely gave him a look that told him louder than words about how thick-witted she thought him at that moment. Hell, he knew he was acting like a dim-wit but dammit he needed to know for sure. Missouri heaved a soft sigh and muttered something he assumed was unflattering beneath her breath.

"I do think it was Mary's spirit that protected them, boys, yes," she said finally. "And so do you."

"Yeah." He heaved a sigh. "I do know it was Mary. I just needed to hear that someone else believed it, too."

"Them boys know it was their mother who saved them."

"I know they do."

On the outside, he appeared to be cool, calm and collected. Everything a hunter was supposed to be. On the inside, however, he felt like a man caught in the middle of a blizzard. It was how a father felt when his children were being hunted by something he didn't know how to protect them from. There was an audible sigh. Then Missouri broke the silence they had lapsed into by announcing, "John Winchester, I could just slap you."

"I wish you would." He didn't mean to sound like such an asshole. "It might provide me with the clarity I am lacking right now."

"Why won't you just go and talk to them boys?"

She fisted her hands on her ample hips and fixed him with her most reproving look. John knew she was waiting for him to say something, anything, that would explain why he was sitting here in her living room rather than going and meeting up with his boys. He just didn't have an explanation that would satisfy her. "Well?" she demanded when he remained silent.

John ran a callused hand over his face, hearing the thick bristles rasp against his fingers and palm. It had been days since he bothered to worry about things like shaving and sleeping. Or eating. He felt like hell and knew he musta looked like it, too. He told himself there would be plenty of time for those things when he got his answers. Until then…

"I wanna go and see 'em," he finally admitted in a voice that throbbed with his want, with his need to see his boys. To speak with them. To hold them for just a fraction of a second. To make sure they were alright. "Dammit, Missouri, you have no idea how much I wanna go and see 'em."

Missouri sat beside him on the couch. "Then why don't you?"

"Because I can't," he told her quietly. "Not yet. Not until I know the truth about what happened the night Mary died."

Not until I know how to protect them from this damn thing, he added silently as he looked down at the hands curled around his knees. Because there was one thing he promised himself and Mary on the night she died: he wasn't going to lose their boys.

Not like he lost her.

He would sacrifice himself before he would ever let that yellow-eyed son of a bitch have their boys.


A/N: Hello, all! Hope you're well!

This is tagged to episode 1x09