Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all The WB's Supernatural.

Author's Note: Two in one day, yay! And I didn't think it could be done. Anywho, this is a flashback, obviously, so you'll just have to wait for more to be explained. I'll try to update again sometime this week, but it all depends on how often I get called into work. Until then, review, review, review!

Cambridge, Minnesota - December 1995

"Dean!" He calls out his name as soon as he can make out his form. Down at the end of the hallway, even with his back turned and a heavy hospital blanket thrown over his shoulders, his son is easily recognizable. He turns when John calls his name and waits as his father races toward him.

"Dad!" Before he can reach Dean, Sam jumps into his path, throwing his arms around him. John squeezes him tight, less as a reassuring fatherly act and more as a means to steady himself so that he doesn't lose his balance completely. He pulls the boy off of him and looks him in the eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asks, his fingers trembling as they grip his son's shoulders. Sam nods and wipes the back of his hand over his face. He knows how his father feels about crying and he's not about to let him see what a baby he's been.

"Mr. Winchester?" He looks up and sees that the man Dean was talking to, the one standing next to him now, is a police officer, and he is immediately overcome with the fear that they've been found out, caught, and he's here now to arrest to him for credit fraud or impersonating a federal agent or some other such thing. But the officer doesn't look angry, only sad. And he makes no attempt to read him his rights or cuff him, so it must be something else.

"What happened?" he asks, still out of breath from running all the way from the far off parking garage. "What's going on?" No one had told him anything, not really. The message was relayed to him from Walt, the guy who owned the property he'd been hunting on. This was the second job he had done for Walt, who told him flat out that no matter what kind of problems he'd run into he would never give up his land, even if part of it used to be sacred Indian ground. Dean had his number just in case, for an absolute emergency only. And John figured this must be one since he was told to come to the hospital. That's all Walt had said, Dean called, said it was an emergency, meet him at Mercy Hospital.

"Mr. Winchester," the officer repeats. "You're daughter was in an accident, out at Hyde Lake."

"What kind of accident?" he asks calmly, finally catching his breath. He expects him to say something trivial. She fell and broke her arm. She got hit with a hockey puck, few stitches. She sprained her ankle, no big deal really.

"She was skating on the lake when she and another boy fell through."

"Fell through," he says, the words not making any sense from either of their mouths.

"Fell through the ice."

"Okay," he says simply as though waiting for some sort of punch line.

"She was under for a pretty long time."

"Under water."

"Yes."

"She's alive, Dad," Sam says as he sidles closer to his father's side. John looks down at him and sees the look of utter sincerity on his face. It's a look so mature that seeing his son wearing it strikes a cord of fear in his heart. She's alive. What a bizarre thing to say. Of course she's alive, what else would she be?

"As I understand it," the officer continues, "they're working to bring her body temperature up right now. Hypothermia. I'm sure the doctor will be out to speak with you soon. In fact, I should go let them know that you're here." He turns and walks away, leaving the Winchesters alone in the long quiet hallway.

John looks up at Dean, a shivering mess standing before him. "Did you fall in too?" he asks, noticing the wet hair, the lips tinged with blue. He shakes his head no.

"He pulled Jeremy out," Sam says. "Saved his life."

"Okay," he says again as he absently pats Dean on the arm. "Okay." He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and then reaches into his pocket, pulls out his keys and presses them into his son's hand. "You should get changed. Go home and get warmed up before you catch pneumonia."

Dean's jaw drops, stopping his teeth from chattering, and he stares at his father incredulously. "I'm not leaving," he says slowly, as if he were talking to a child, someone who, for whatever reason, was unable to grasp the most simple concepts.

"You're freezing, look at you. You need to get home and change. Take you're brother with you."

"Dad," he protests.

"This is not a debate, Dean. It's not even a discussion. I told you to take your brother home, that's an order."

"But Tessa…"

"Don't worry about your sister, she's fine."

Dean's expression changes, no longer disbelieving. He understands. He understands that his father does not understand. His moves his head side to side as he speaks, "No, Dad. She's not fine."

It is another hour before John finally manages to get his sons to return to their little rented house. Dean refused to go until he saw Tessa, so they let him in, though only briefly. Sam was told he was too young, you have to be at least 16 to visit someone in the ICU. He scoffed and mumbled under his breath how stupid it was. If someone his same age could be admitted there then surely he should be allowed in just to visit. Once they left, John sat in the waiting room in silence. A nurse offered him coffee, he declined. Another visitor asked him if wanted a cigarette, he said no. Someone came along and turned on the TV, though they only sat and watched it for a minute, but he couldn't concentrate on any bit of the program playing. So he simply sat and waited until the doctor returned and asked him to follow him to his office.

Once there he explained to John that when Tessa's temperature had returned to normal, the rest of her vitals should have followed suit. But they didn't. Her blood pressure was still dangerously low. Her heart rate was unsteady and she was still not able to breathe on her own. He explained that they had run a number of different tests, all the required ones, and the results all pointed to the same thing. No response to external stimuli. No response to pain. EEG virtually flat lined. She was brain dead.

"Do you understand what that means, Mr. Winchester?" the doctor asks. John does not respond. The doctor leans back in his chair and lets out a long breath. "What that means is that your daughter is only being kept alive by machines. Her brain is no longer functioning and soon the rest of her won't be either. It's only a matter of time before her organ systems begin to fail. Days, a week at the most. Do you understand?"

He nods his head yes.

"If you're comfortable, I would like to discuss organ donation with you. That decision of course would have to be made soon – "

"No," he blurts out, then more calmly, "Not yet, no."

"Okay, then, whenever you're ready." He rises from behind his desk and waits for John to stand as well. He pats him on the back as they start through the door. "I'm very sorry," he says in a voice that reeks of practiced sincerity, and he leaves him standing alone outside a stranger's office in a strange hospital hallway.

Slowly he makes his way back to the pediatric ICU and his daughter's tiny room. And he sits in the horribly uncomfortable wooden chair beside her bed. And he takes her hand in his, feels how cold her skin has become and bends down to breathe on it, huff his hot breath onto her flesh and he rubs it in. But her hand doesn't warm, and it doesn't move. And all that he can hear as he sits by his daughter's side is the piercing beep beep beep of the heart monitor and the steady whoosh of the ventilator. And he tries to think back, to remember what her breathing sounded like all those years ago, when she was still a baby lying in a crib not two feet away from her brother. He would stand and watch them both, with his arm draped around his wife's waist. He would stand there in the dim light and stare at his babies' chests as they steadily rose and fell, every breath in unison. He hadn't done that in a long time, taken the time to watch his children sleep, taken the opportunity to thank God for every breath he saw them take. He hadn't thanked God for anything in fact, not since Mary died, and he now regretted it. Now, as he sits and listens to the machines surrounding his little girl, he realizes just how much he had taken for granted over the last several years. He realizes how much he wants to hear her breathe. And he cries.

It's not until he senses a presence in the room with him that he looks up, half expecting to see some sort of spirit, half expecting to see some young nurse. What he finds instead is a priest, a young man standing straight and tall in his dark suit and white collar. "Go away," he says tersely, not even wanting to be polite yet alone gregarious. "We don't want any," he says, smiling to himself at his oh so clever comment.

"Are you sure about that?" the priest asks.

John stares coldly at him. "Yes."

"Such hostility. Let me guess, you're one of those people who blames God for everything wrong in their lives."

"No. In fact, I don't. I can't very well blame God for the things that go wrong in my life if he's not even in my life at all, now can I?"

The priest laughs slightly and moves further into the room. "John, really. All of the things you see and you can't believe in God?"

"How do you know my name?" he asks, sitting upright.

"There's a theme that's present in nearly every faith, every field of thought. Where's there's good there's also bad. And vice versa. Yet you never let yourself see the good through the bad, do you?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Where's the good here?"

"Maybe you just have to work a little harder to see it."

"What? Who are you?" he says angrily.

"I'm someone who can help."

"I don't want your help, father."

He laughs again and shoots John a smirk. "You can call me Baz. Just don't ask me what it stands for because I won't tell you." John turns away in disgust. Why won't this person just leave already? The priest moves closer and stands on the opposite side of Tessa's bed. "I know what happened to your wife," he says, barely above a whisper. "It was horrible, just horrible."

John glares up at him. "What do you know?" he asks, both rage and curiosity filling his words.

"I know that it was evil. And I know that you think that evil still plagues your family. That's really why you're always on the move. The excuse is that you're helping others, taking on any bad thing you can find so that the world will be a better place. But the truth is you're just running. You're so scared that the bad things in life will catch up to you once again."

"Was I wrong?" he asks, fresh tears leaking from his eyes. He looks down at his little girl and back up at Baz and asks again, "Was I wrong?"

"This is not evil, John. This is life."

"No." He shakes his head sternly. "No, this is not life."

"You're right, it's death, which just happens to be a part of life. A natural, not at all unusual or evil part of life."

"She is twelve years old."

"I know." He pauses, looks away and when he speaks again it is in a very different tone, one of sadness and longing. "My mother has lost many children. She allowed it to happen, that's true, but it pained her just the same."

"Who is your mother?" John asks, suddenly deeply curious. This is not merely some hospital chaplain, that much he knew once the man used his name. But it was more than that, he had a feeling that this man may not even be a man at all.

"She let her pain turn into anger," he says, ignoring the question. "And now she takes it out on others. She makes them suffer, but it makes no difference. Her children are still dead, and more die each day and they always will. And the people she takes her anger out on, people like you…they don't deserve it of course. It's horrible, just horrible."

John sits wide-eyed. He knows that what's being said is important, he knows that this person has answers to so many of questions. But he can't think of what questions to ask him. He can't get his mind to slow down enough for him to even craft the words. So he is left speechless.

"I wish I could take back those awful things my mother does, I do. But I can't. I wish I could fix them." He looks John in the eyes. "I'm not like her. I'm not like so many of my siblings either. I'm not."

"I believe you," he says, though he's not sure why. He can't even really understand what this…this…Baz is telling him. But as soon as the words come out he knows it's true, he does believe him.

"I can make it up to you. I shouldn't, I'm not supposed to, no one is. What's done is done. But…it never should have been done, you see?"

"What can you do?" he asks urgently.

Baz looks down at Tessa and touches her forehead, softly runs his fingers down the length of her face. "She's beautiful," he says, seemingly lost in thought. "I should have let things be." He shakes his head and looks back at John. "It really isn't fair, is it?"

"No," he says, choking on the word as though it's a sob.

"No, it really isn't," he says again.

"What can you do?" John repeats anxiously.

"You have to understand – "

"I don't care. I don't care who you are, or why you're here. Or even what you know. If you can…fix her, if you can bring her back…then I don't care about the rest."

"There would be consequences. Do you care about those, John?"

He is silent for a moment as he thinks, or tries to anyway. But the only thought that flows through his mind is the same one he had before, I want to hear my daughter breathe. "My children are all I have, they're it." He looks at Tessa's face, her pale skin, her long eyelashes. He lets his index finger twirl a section of her hair, wrapping it around itself until it disappears into the tangle of curls. "I can't lose her. After Mary…I can't lose my daughter too. My children…"

Baz places his hand over John's and for a moment he is surprised at how real it feels. This is no spirit, his hand is warm, he is flesh and blood. "I can help," he says simply, and he moves his hand down to Tessa's, squeezes it as he leans over and places a kiss above her brow. When he straightens up again he smiles contentedly at John before turning and leaving.

"Wait," he starts, but finds himself stopping suddenly, distracted by the sight of his daughter's fluttering eyelids.