A/N: Hi again! Thanks to spnfanforlife, hectatess, CeCe Away, and Sallyannerenee for reviewing! You know it means a lot. Okay, last reminder that I'm not updating this coming Tuesday. I will not be in the area, and will probably be way too busy to even try. So please enjoy!

This chapter is tagged to 1x21, Salvation. The title was inspired by the lyric "What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see" from Hamilton: An American Musical. John never did get to see his boys save the world over and over and over again, but they are his legacy, and I think he would be proud of them.

Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, you can bet my vacation would have been longer than one week.

Legacy

"I want you to go to school, I want Dean to have a home. I want…I want Mary alive. It's just…I just want this to be over."

When Mary had first told John that he was going to be a father, he'd almost passed out. All the blood had rushed out of his head, and he'd had to lean against the wall of their little house in Lawrence. She'd crowded into his space, holding his face in her hands to make sure he was okay as he stood there gaping at the news. When he'd finally come back to his senses, he picked her up and swung her around in his arms, shoving down the thought that he hadn't had a father, and that his step-father was a prick, and that he had no idea what to do in nine months' time, and focusing instead on the knowledge that a little human life was growing contentedly inside of his radiant wife.

Over the next few months, John committed himself to being there for Mary. He held her hair back during morning sickness, made midnight runs to the local gas station whenever she wanted salty barbecue chips, and painted the walls in their spare bedroom light yellow because they couldn't agree on a colour (she was convinced it was a little girl; John, on the other hand, just knew that they were having a son). He lovingly stroked her pregnant belly and whispered to his precious son after she had fallen asleep.

On January 23rd, 1979, he raced his wife to the hospital in the trusty black Impala that had never let him down, just like that stranger had said all those years ago. Sitting next to Mary, letting her squeeze the life out of his hand, he decided that he would happily go trek through all the jungles in Vietnam if it meant not having to see his wife in so much pain. But at 1:17 a.m. the next morning, he would have given anything to never have to leave his son's side. Dean Henry Winchester made his loud, outraged entrance at a time when everyone else in Kansas was dead to the world. Looking back, the situation was pretty telling.

He spent night after night just sitting in Dean's nursery, watching his newborn son sleep, dreaming about all the things they would do together. He'd teach Dean how to play catch, ride a bike, go fishing. He'd teach him how to take care of the Impala, then teach him how to drive her when he turned 16. He'd watch his son grow into a man, go to college with the savings account that his father so diligently deposited $100 a month into, then go on to have his own little slice of paradise with his own radiant wife and his own little newborn to dream and fret and cry over.

Four years later when Mary got pregnant again, John got to watch little Dean take care of his mother, and it was then that John realized just how much of a caretaker Dean was. John smiled, knowing that his son would grow up to be a fine man one day, and that he would be an excellent husband to whatever lucky woman was able to nail him down.

Samuel Alexander Winchester arrived mid-morning on May 2nd, 1983 with far less fanfare than his brother. He cried, but did not scream. He settled right down against his mother, and fought against being transferred into his father's arms. John once again paid a visit to the bank, and started Sam a savings account so that he could go to school and become just as great a man as his brother.

After Sam was born, he and Mary started having more fights. She was exhausted over taking care of two kids, though she maintained that Dean did all he could to help her take care of Sam. He and a buddy of his had taken over the local garage, so he was putting in more hours than he had been, meaning he wasn't home as often as he used to be. They fought over little things, like who would do the grocery shopping or take Dean to play at the park. Then they fought over bigger things, like work and money and parenting. Then John moved out for a week, opting to sleep on the couch in his office at the garage rather than fight with the woman he would happily die for. But he had never stopped loving her, or his quickly growing Dean-O, or his precious little Sammy.

Somewhere along the line, he had forgotten what that warmth felt like. The warmth of love and home and happiness. He'd replaced it with the cold of early morning training sessions and the chill that came with digging up graves in November in Chicago at 3 a.m. He'd become a drill sergeant instead of a father, and he cursed himself every time his boys addressed him as sir instead of Dad.

But he still had those dreams for his boys. He wanted Dean to have a wife, and kids, and a two-car garage. He wanted Sam to go to school and succeed in his intellectual pursuits, even if he had thrown a fit about it the first time. But most of all, he wanted his boys to be there for each other, as they always have been.

Watching them together over the past couple of days, he realized just how wrong he had been to kick Sam out, not only for Sam's sake but also for Dean's. The way Dean valiantly defended his brother when the topic of Sam's visions came up showed John that, despite all of his failings when it came to being a father, their brotherly bond was one thing that he had been unable to break. He had feared that, when he forced Sam to go out on his own, he had done irreparable damage to the love and respect they had for each other. He had never been so happy to be so wrong.

Seeing the way his boys still jumped to each other's aid, knowing that Sam had searched so thoroughly for a cure to Dean's heart condition, and watching the way Dean seemed to know exactly what Sam needed when coming out of one his visions, John knew that he would never have to worry about either of them, so long as they were together. He hated being an outsider in his boys' lives, but he felt that preparing them for this life was worth that sacrifice. He'd told Sam as much a few days previous, but he knew that neither of his sons fully understood the depth of the pride he had for both of his kids.

They may not have turned out the way he expected them to, with educations and homes and families, but they were so strong and fiercely protective of each other, and so unwaveringly good that he could not bring himself to completely regret his decisions.

In the end, it wasn't all the hunts he had finished or all the monsters he had killed that mattered. His sons were his legacy, and he couldn't be prouder.

A/N: Okay guys, I'm gonna go rush to the airport! Have a good week and I'll see you when I see you! Please review!