Part 10
Kansas, Spring 2011
Liz sat on the counter. Miss Carter allowed it. Carter didn't care as long as the rest of the place was clean. It was. It was a slow day. One or the other of them would send her home probably if no one came in for the next hour. Miss Carter had already given up on trying to warn Liz off of John. Liz couldn't really explain it to the older woman. It was probably true that Liz could have a man her own age but the enormity of who John was… and despite what the angel said, John was a flame and Liz just a lowly moth. She knew that she was bound to get burned. She wasn't sure that she hadn't been burned yet. If someone like him could look at her that way... Her middle melted in seconds just thinking about his stare.
Sometimes he would catch her staring. It would be on the tip of her tongue to tell him who he was but… She saw him in her visions, wrote about him in her gospel but that man hadn't touched this man yet. She wanted him to stay that way as long as possible. His joys in life were to watch a football game at the bar, drink a few beers, have a shot of whiskey and see how fast he could talk her into bed. Protesting only got his engine revved faster. And that was the other joy in his life. Working on cars made him tired and filthy and made his joints creak but he hadn't tried to find anything else to do with his new life. He complained about his nosy boss but never about the work. He liked the work.
They hadn't told anyone they were dating, fucking, or whatever, exactly. They just spent their down time with each other and everyone else could take a flying leap. Besides, they weren't hurting anyone at all. If they hurt each other, that was their own fault because they both did know better. Castiel hadn't told her another word about it since the night… well, Liz didn't like to think about it. She and John had dealt with it and moved on. Like it never happened. She preferred it that way.
The day was coming. She was running out of things to write. She felt bad that she knew John so well and couldn't tell him. She did watch him though. Blondes made his head turn. Especially tall thin ones. Ones that looked sturdy. Compact was the word that Liz had decided on. Five foot nine inches, asses like steel, abs on the soft side of flat. He looked away sharply if they had green eyes but those eyes always wandered back over.
She greeted him with a broad smile when he walked in for dinner. It was getting dark out already. Liz called the order back without rising from her perch. John took his seat next to her legs, resting his elbow on her thigh, his fingers dipping below the edge of her uniform's skirt as he sipped his water with his other hand. She was wearing hose because of the chill outside but she felt his fingers rubbing lightly while he examined the dessert menu. Miss Carter dropped his plate in front of him and wandered away. Liz sighed heavily and nearly kicked him when he wedged his elbow between her thighs. He ignored her and stuffed a big piece of meatloaf into his mouth, gravy dribbling down his beard. She picked up a napkin and wiped it off. The bells sounded. She kissed his forehead, took a final swipe with the napkin and followed the newcomers to a booth in the back behind John.
The broad shoulders seemed familiar but she let it go and took their orders. A salad with grilled chicken and a bacon cheeseburger with fries. When she turned to go and tack up the order, the shorter of the two touched her hand. She looked up and met his eyes, there was recognition in his, too. He was the one with the balls to ask about it. "Do I know you?" She shrugged. "I don't forget a face."
"Don't know, dude. My memory can be kind of sketchy these days." She shrugged again and tacked the order up, knocking on the sill to wake up Carter. Miss Carter was watching TV in the break-room and probably half-asleep.
"Liz? Got any of that hot sauce?" John called back to her.
"Sure thing, Jack." She grabbed the almost empty bottle and shook it. There was enough. John would just pour out a little bit and smear a thin layer on everything anyway. She grabbed the napkin to attack his beard once more after passing him the bottle. "Shave this thing."
"You love this thing."
"Handsome with a beard, yes, but you're getting more food in it than in your mouth." She laughed. When the voice called out the orders, she retrieved the plates and set them down in front of her weary travelers. "One grilled chicken Caesar and one heart attack waiting to happen. Can I get you boys anything else?"
"You got um…" The taller one shut his eyes. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm tired."
"The words he's looking for are 'his balls.' He dropped his man card about seven hundred miles back." The other one snorted as he took a huge bite out of his burger.
"Mind watching your mouth in front of the lady?" John's voice cut in. Liz glanced back at him but he had never looked up from his plate. The line of his shoulders was relaxed, he was just being chivalrous.
"Dude, you're not my dad. Can it." The guy sat up straight to glance over at the voice but couldn't see him. His buddy made a face at him.
Then the taller guy rushed to smooth things over before they got hairy. "He's sorry. We've been on the road a while. No one but each other for company and we can't stand each other on the best of days. I was looking for… it's a thing that goes on salad but… I'm tired. I can't think."
"A topping?" She frowned.
"Not… bacos or anything like that but um… it's dried." He sighed. "Never mind."
"I've got croutons and some sunflower seeds."
"Soybeans!" He blurted out.
"Dude." The other guy made a face. "You are not my brother. You have got to be adopted."
"I like healthy things. I cannot eat four burgers a day like you."
"I don't have dried soybeans." Liz cut in. "I have those two other things."
"Never mind. But thanks for trying." He gave her an earnest smile and kicked his brother under the table.
"Don't kick me because you're a little bitch." His brother kicked him back.
"Would you stop being such a jerk? We're in public."
Liz walked away and resumed her seat on the counter next to John's plate. He had gravy all over his beard again. John looked up at her, rolled his eyes and jerked his head behind him. "Remind me of my boys."
"Really." She dabbed at his beard.
"Yeah, one always calls the other a jerk, who calls the other a bitch."
"Lovely." She laughed and watched as he sopped up some gravy with his roll. "Want another one?" He nodded. She hopped down and checked on her customers. They waved her off. Liz retrieved the rolls from the warmer where Carter was dozing. She set two on a plate and slid them next to John's plate.
"Hey darling, I didn't know this was a full service diner. Can I get my chin wiped, too?"
Liz tilted her head at the cheesy bastard. "Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners?"
"No, he was raised in a barn." His brother raised his hand in a placating gesture to both her and his brother.
"I was raised by wolves. Get the story straight."
Liz rolled her eyes and began pulling out the coffee carafe and some cups. She poured John's first. He kissed her hand, the back, then the palm for just the briefest of moments. She cupped his chin for a moment, scratching under his chin before moving on. Then she offered a cup to each of her other two customers. Both nodded and handed over their empty plates and gave orders for pie. Liz cut the slices a little wide. The pie was due for the trash if it didn't get eaten. She dropped one off with John before sliding the little plates onto the table. "You boys just let me know when you're ready to settle up."
The rude one nodded as he tucked into his pie. Something about the way he took a breath and groaned when he tasted the pie struck a chord. He caught her staring. "It's because I'm handsome right?"
She shook her head and turned to lay a hand on John's shoulder. That groan was… familiar. She listened to the brothers argue with each other. John tapped his plate for a second, glancing back at her while he chewed. She knew what that meant. They met eyes and nodded. Liz got him another slice. It was a pretty good pie. Liz looked at the sad piece left and brought it around to the table. "Got room for more? This slice is on the house, IF you can behave yourself."
"Darling, I could eat your pie all night." Such enthusiasm.
It wasn't meant to be dirty. His eyes were on the pie. He took it from her and dug in. His fingers brushed hers and it clicked. She did know this guy. She all but dropped the tin like it had burned her but he'd already taken hold of it. Another one of those groans sent a shiver up her spine. She took a step back, a hand on her stomach while she fought to control her emotions.
"Hey, you okay?" The taller one had watched the blood drain out of her face.
"Liz? You okay?" John turned slightly but all he could see was her back. "You feel a seizure coming on?"
He looked up, his mouth full of pie. Eyes hooded and looking just like the cat that got the canary. He ran his tongue over his teeth as he looked at her. "That's it! You look just like this girl I fucked into a fucking seizure. Did I tell you about that, Sammy?"
"Listen, punk!" John was turning and Liz couldn't stop any of it.
John was on his feet and facing the table. The look on the tall guy's face got the other one's attention and Liz was standing there, staring at him, her hands on her stomach because she didn't know what else to do with them. She wanted to cover her face but then she might miss something. It was the train wreck waiting to happen and impossible to tear her eyes from.
Liz watched Dean's face as he recognized his father underneath the thick beard and pea coat. She figured on shock but not on the knives that were whipped out of pockets. Hands reached for her, as everyone wanted her out of the way for the same reason. John was quickest but furthest. His arm slipped around her waist and he yanked her backward, brandishing his butter knife against the two young guys. He spun Liz away. Liz screamed and covered her head. Then the wings swept over everything. Dead silence. Liz looked up to see Castiel standing in the middle of it all. The three men were frozen in place. Dean's knife about to enter John's ribcage. John's butter knife about to slice across Dean's face, his other fist inches from Sam's face, who had a knife at John's knee.
"This is why I told you to make sure they didn't meet."
"Like I knew they would just walk into the diner." Liz exclaimed just before she blacked out.
When Liz came to, she was at home and puking on her kitchen floor. John was slumped on the floor. He came to a moment later, swinging both arms as if he'd been in the middle of the diner about to stab a fellow and punch another. He jumped to his feet and looked her over. "What happened? How did we get here?"
She watched him fall to his knees and puke on her rug. She sat on her bed and put her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry." For once the words didn't stick in her throat. "They know who you are."
"Those men in the diner." He demanded, his voice low and mean. She nodded. "Who are they?"
Liz covered her mouth while she stared up at him. He gripped her hands, pulled them away from her face. All the questions were in his eyes. Who were they? How do they know me? How do you know who they are? Do you know who I am? "You are John Eric Winchester. You were born in Lawrence, Kansas. You married Mary Campbell when you got home from Vietnam. You had two sons with her. When the baby was six months old, something killed her. You swore you would hunt it down until your last breath. You didn't but your oldest son did."
"What?!" John roared at her. "You knew all that and you didn't tell me?"
"I tried but the words wouldn't come out. Literally." She pleaded with him. "Those men in the diner, they're your sons."
That threw him for a loop. He backed away from her and wiped a hand over his face. "My sons."
"They think you're dead." She stood from the bed and stepped toward him.
"Why would they think that?"
"You… a few years ago, Dean was injured. He's your oldest son. He… wasn't going to make it. You traded your life for his."
"You can't do that. I can't just decide to die for someone else."
"When you know who to talk to about the deal, you can." Liz stepped toward him again but he was already turning and covering his head with his hands. "And you did. That's what you do. You know about the things that people shouldn't know about. You fight the things that people have nightmares about."
"You couldn't tell me before they walked in?"
"I didn't know. I…" She took a breath. She almost told him but that was something she'd keep to herself. "It's complicated. I don't see them in my visions. I see you."
"Do you know how crazy you sound?"
"But you believe me?"
John stared at her for a long moment and nodded. "I… was remembering more. Things felt off. Like I was living this life but it wasn't… like I was slacking off." It felt true. Like when Liz had started calling him John because that was what his name was and not because he was a John Doe. He knew the difference but not what it was. "Why can you tell me now?"
"Because the cat is already out of the bag. I was supposed to stop you from seeing them and them from seeing you until you remembered but I didn't think they'd just walk into the diner. I didn't even know what your boys looked like as adults."
"Tall order, huh." John breathed and turned over everything that she said. "They tried to kill me because I'm supposed to be dead already."
"Yeah." She touched his hands, he flinched. She let her hands fall. "Are we okay?"
"I don't know." He looked down to the puddle on the ground. "How did we get here?"
Liz went back to work in street clothes after she washed the smell of vomit off her body and the taste out of her mouth. Carter and Miss Carter had missed the whole thing. The table was a mess but the Winchester boys were gone. She cleaned up and let the Carters know she was leaving. She stopped by John's place to get him some clothes and to grab the whiskey bottle. She kept her eye out but didn't see them. She was halfway there when she saw Castiel in an alley. She veered sharply into the alley and found them all. Castiel and the Winchester men in the alley. She got out of the car without thinking.
Two guns were fixed on her head. She lifted her hands, scared out of her mind. Two pairs of hazel eyes fixed a stare on her. The older strode to her, gun unwavering. "And just who the fuck are you?"
"Liz Parker." She awkwardly held her hand out. He just stared at it. She looked to the angel. "Castiel… what the hell? No warning?"
"I gave you orders. My Father made it so you could refuse to follow them. That is not my fault." The angel barely turned his head to her.
"So, what now?" She demanded.
"How do we know that you're really a prophet?" Dean demanded, his gun getting dangerously close to her head.
"How do I know you're really his son?" Liz's nostrils flared.
"What's my middle name?"
"How the hell should I know?" Liz bit out. "I'm not writing the gospel of… what's your name again?"
"Seriously?" Dean threw up his hands and walked away from her.
"How do we really know that it's our dad?" Sam pressed, gun holstered for the moment.
"I raised him from perdition, just as I did you." Castiel pointed to Dean.
"We helped him escape Hell. He wasn't in hell." Dean growled and whirled around.
Liz stepped back when Dean whirled on the angel. She knew how he felt. Castiel was an infuriating being. "He wasn't in heaven either." She waved at them. "Come on, guys. Give me something. John is freaking out and he's pissed at me."
"I need a drink." Dean grabbed Liz's arm and guided her to her car. "And a story. Castiel's not talking. I need you to fill in the blanks."
The bar was nearly empty. It was Tuesday night after all. He pounded whiskey while she tried to talk to him. "John woke up naked in a field or the woods or someplace. He… doesn't remember anything and I do mean anything. He'd been wandering around as a John Doe. Just looking for anything to put himself to rights."
"So, what? You took him in?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Just out of the goodness of your heart."
"Kind of." She nodded. "He… looked so lost. I fed him, warmed him up, found him a place to crash. I was the first person who gave him a chance. He didn't make that easy. So we got him some clothes, a job and a place to call his own. He couldn't remember anything for a long time. We were calling him Jack for a while just to call him something." She stared at him. He looked so different from John but the intensity was so familiar. "I was given a task and I didn't agree with it but Castiel didn't give me much option."
"What's that?" He tipped his glass back to catch the last few drops of whiskey.
"Write his story down but don't tell him."
"How are you going to do that if he's using a clean slate?"
"Visions."
Dean nodded to himself. Sounded like what he knew of prophets. "If he didn't remember anything, why'd he come at me with a silver knife?"
Liz took a breath. "He'd started getting memories, little ones. He saved me from a mugger one night. Pretty efficiently. He'd figured military. Then he'd get these feelings of déjà vu. Conversations he'd had in another lifetime. The knife just happened to be silver. He was mostly ticked at your mouth for talking that way in front of me." She lifted her hands to him to placate and move on. "Today, when you and your brother came into the diner, the bickering started to do something to him. He had this feeling before that he might have kids. Today, he said he could remember feeling annoyed by the bickering from the backseat."
"If he thought he had kids, why didn't he come looking?"
"Cause's almost 60 and no one came looking for him. No bulletins, and he was actually kind of afraid of an APB. John reads papers religiously. He looked for people that were looking for him… He figured that maybe he didn't have anything to do with his kids."
"Maybe. Maybe I believe that. Why didn't you tell him?"
"Every time I opened my mouth to say the words, they would get stuck. It was the one order he gave me that I had to obey." She rubbed her throat, remembering the feeling of stuck words.
"What other orders did you have?"
Liz dropped her eyes to her hands. "Don't tell him. Don't let him meet his children before he remembers… and don't fall in love with him."
She looked up to find his eyes on her, more green than just hazel. Eyebrow ticked into his hairline. He held his hand up and motioned for a refill with the other. He kept his hand to her as he waited for all four of his glasses to be refilled. When he'd tossed one of them back, he cleared his throat. "You fell in love with my dad."
"It was hard not to. I wrote down everything he ever did. I saw it through the rose colored glasses that an angel gave me. It's hard not to find the cause and devote yourself to it. I see him every day and he has no clue the hero he was." She saw him relax. He thought his dad was a hero. "He loved your family so fiercely. So proud. Even now. He can't remember you but when he gets those feelings. His whole body language changes. He's so proud."
The green eyes looked away, he ran a hand against his eyebrows. "So, it just so happens that a prophet was dropped in the same town he washed up in?"
"I was chosen."
"Why?"
"Now that I know what you all do… I think I was attacked by a demon that wanted to possess me. It couldn't. That got the angels' attention. I was sent here… to meet him."
"How long ago?"
"It's been a good while. A year and change?"
"And you just happened to be in a bar in another state." He gestured to himself. "It was you. I know it was you." She nodded. "That was a coincidence?" She nodded again. Took one of his glasses and emptied it. "You didn't know who I was?"
"No. I don't see you in the visions. I know who you are. The only time I saw you and remembered your face was when you were young. Really young." She breathed out and tapped the glass for a refill when the waitress walked past. "The night you left, Castiel came to me and told me who you were. After they let me go and I could slip away from that bulldog you met at the hospital, I came back here. The seizures sometimes make my memory fuzzy."
"That's why you kept looking at me and protesting that you knew me."
"I didn't think I did." She admitted.
"I don't think I've ever fucked a girl that was also fucking my dad." He stared at her. "You are… right." She didn't answer at first. "I saw the way he was touching you when we were at the diner."
"Yeah." She nodded. "We fuck."
"Take me to him."
"He's not the dad you remember, right now." Liz warned, she waited until her glass was refilled and the waitress walked off. "His memories, the ones he has. They're the good ones. He doesn't remember the drunk spells or the… hard times."
"When I think of my dad. All I remember are the good times. Sammy's the one who harps on the hard times."
