He couldn't bring himself to be disappointed as he hung up the phone. When he'd called information and requested a number for Singer Salvage, or Bobby Singer, in the hopes that the yard had simply been relocated rather than just non-exsistant, he hadn't allowed himself to get his hopes up. It would have been too easy, and when the hell was anything ever that easy? He could put it down as a dead lead and move on.

Before checking into the latest in a long line of temporary homes he had finally taken the time to hit some stores to equip some essentials. It was a long way from knowing that Baby was right outside the door, her trunk packed with an extensive arsenal that would cover most usual situations, nine times out of ten, but it was a step up from a plastic shopping back holding a spiral notebook and a couple of off brand twinkies, that's for sure.

He moved awkwardly, trying to work the stiffness out of the new jeans. Stiff from being new, however, felt so much better than stiff due to an ever increasing level of ground in filth that he was much happier not thinking about now that he'd been able to shower and change.

Taking a seat at the table, he pulled out his new journal. He'd intentionally chosen one as close to John's as he could find. He ran his fingers over the surface of the new leather cover letting his mind drift over all the times he'd handled its predecessor. It was a pale copy of Dad's at best.

Dad's journal had been a treasure trove of information, filled with clues, advice, leads, contacts, even incites into John himself. This one, while it looked very much the same was new, young like a rookie hunter waiting to be honed to the skill that only experience could bring. It was empty, a poor copy of John's, and yet it helped Dean feel a connection to his absent father. After all, how had Dean ever viewed himself but as an empty, poor copy of John? It all made a painful sort of sense.

The journal was a hunter's tradition that Dean had never really bothered with. John as the head of the family had had it covered at first. Later, Sam had maintained an ever growing database of all the case research he did. Dean used to tease him about the OCD way that he had everything cataloged and cross referenced.

Things were different now. Dean was on his own until he could figure this thing out, so he was going to have to do his own homework. No more copying off the smart kid.

He opened the book to its first page, which taunted him with its stark, white, blankness. He wondered if this was how John had felt that first time, looking at a vast emptiness, waiting to be filled with timeless wisdoms and unearthed secrets, knowing that it was he himself that would have to provide them.

He had been, Dean realized, the same age that Dean was now. For the first time, he saw his father, not as he knew him, a legend among hunters, but as the untrained, know nothing rookie he certainly must have been at the beginning, in a time that Dean had still been too young to have any real understanding of what their lives had become. He'd never thought of Dad that way, a young man, broken by grief, facing a world where everything he thought he had known had turned out to be wrong, and unlike Dean, with two kids along for the ride in the bargain. He must, despite motivation to the point of obsession, been scared to death.

I went to Missouri, and I learned the truth.

Now that Dean thought about it, that sentence read like it had just been written for the sake of writing something, anything to destroy the daunting blankness of the page and begin the process. They were the words of a man, not yet a hunter, unskilled and naive, just figuring out a confusing new world as best he could as he went along.

Dean picked up the pen.

My name is Dean Winchester.

I am a hunter.

Looking at the words, the blankness of the page destroyed, he remembered that he had first written those words because Dad had told him to. Well not Dad exactly, but close enough considering that he didn't know how real anything was right now, including himself.

Over two decades apart, two men about the leave their 20s behind them forever, facing new worlds they didn't understand had performed the same ritual, taking the first step with essentially pointless declarations that translated effectively to: It has begun.

Dean just looked at the words for a long time, because he knew he would never again be able to read them without feeling John right there beside him.