A/N: All disclaimers, warnings, etc. posted in prologue. Thanks to all those who reviewed!
Chapter 2
Dean drove without speaking, his eyes fixed solely on the road. In the passenger's seat, Sam sat, staring into the darkness. At first, Sam had probed for details, but his questions were greeted with monosyllabic replies. He had tried to sleep, but it was elusive.
They were going to find it--the thing they'd been searching for. He'd always expected to feel more excitement, more anticipation--something. But he couldn't shake the growing uneasiness in the pit of his stomach.
He glanced at his brother. Dean showed nothing in his expression. He had reverted to soldier mode. Sam knew a conversation at this point would be futile.
After another few miles of growing angst, though, he could not keep himself from asking, "Dean, are you sure about this?"
"What do you mean, sure?"
"About just picking up and going to Dad without any information, without any details?"
The question seemed to annoy Dean. "Of course I'm sure. You're sure too."
"It's just--"
"Just what?"
In Dean's clipped reply, Sam could hear echoes of their father. Sam sighed. "I mean, after all this time, after all the times we've tried to find him, after all his warnings, he just up and calls us and tells us he's found it?"
"Sure, he's been looking for it and just waiting for the right time to tell us."
Sam shook his head uncertainly. "But he didn't tell you anything else? Just that he's found it and he needs to see us? I mean, come on, man, doesn't that seem just a little weird to you?"
"Look, Sam, it's Dad. You know he's not exactly a detail person. If he says he's found it, he has. He'll tell us what we need to know."
Sam clenched his teeth. Yeah, just like at the asylum. "Don't you think we should be just a little suspicious? He hasn't returned any of our phone calls--not even when you were dying, Dean."
The statement carried an unexpected emotional weight, but Dean refused to acknowledge the hint of betrayal in Sam's voice
Sam persisted. "He didn't leave as much as a voicemail to see if you were okay. The last time he talked to us he told us to stay as far away as possible."
"I thought you wanted to find him, find the thing that killed Mom, that killed Jessica."
"I do--"
"Then stop whining. Dad's found it. We're going to help him kill it," Dean said, looking at his brother. "We're finally going to kill this thing and get back at it for everything it's done to us."
Dean turned his gaze back to the road and Sam stared at his brother a minute longer, hoping that he was right. Reluctantly, Sam surrendered his argument and stared back out into the passing night.
The rest of the ride passed in silence. Neither of the boys were willing to give voice to their feelings. Dean had learned to suppress his too long ago to change now. And Sam . . . Sam was overwhelmed. His doubts about their destination grew with every passing mile. A sick feeling of dread that he couldn't shake uncoiled in his chest.
He couldn't deny that his initial misgivings stemmed from his father's outright ignoring him. There were plenty of issues hanging between them, years of resentment and miscommunication, scars that hadn't healed. But the last time they had spoken, John had sounded . . . well, for the first time in years, Sam had heard love in his voice. He had felt his father reaching out across the airwaves to try to console him, to protect him.
I heard about what happened to your girlfriend. I'm sorry, son. I would have given anything to protect you from that. The words had comforted Sam more than he would have thought possible, even though in almost the next breath, their father had ordered them to stay away.
Yet, this time, John had not even wanted to speak to him. Why wouldn't he talk to me? Why couldn't he tell me? The questions danced through Sam's brain with no good answer.
For the first time since they had started occurring, Sam wished for a vision. Dean would believe him then. The visions scared Dean almost as much as they scared Sam. Experience had taught them both to trust Sam's second sight, and if what he could see steered them away from where their father was directing, Sam was certain - well, pretty sure, anyway - that Dean would at least consider a backup plan.
But there was nothing. All Sam could see was the blackness of the road beneath them and the fields that spanned the horizon, haloed by the pale glow of the Impala's headlights. He kept his fears to himself. He still felt like he owed Dean so much, like he had so much to prove. Sam wasn't about to bail on him now, not when they were finally so close to laying their family demons to rest. He knew that kind of a breach would be irreparable. Even more, he wouldn't even entertain the thought of letting Dean go on alone. Whatever was coming, however wrong it might be, they would face it together.
As dawn finally crept over the hood of the car, rolling in through the dewy windows, Sam broke the silence. "So, where're we headed?"
"There's a house on Route 12 East. We should see a sign in the next twenty miles or so. Dad'll meet us there."
"Did he say exactly what he wanted us to do?"
"He'll tell us everything when we get there."
Sam nodded and turned back to the window, nervously tapping a fist against his thigh.
"Listen, Sam, I . . ." Dean stopped, seeming to search for the right words. "We've been waiting a long time for this. It's our chance to . . . make up for a lot of things."
Both boys fell silent. Neither looked at the other, but both felt the intensity of the moment.
Dean drew a breath and started again. "Dad knows what he's doing. He's been hunting this your entire life, you know? It's all he's done."
Sam felt Dean watching him now and brought his head up to meet Dean's gaze.
"You've got to trust him." Dean's need was a palpable thing. Please, be on board with this, Sammy. Please, don't fight him this time. We need to be united.
Slowly, Sam nodded. "I do." And if he didn't quite believe his own words, Dean's obvious relief made up for it. At this moment, nothing else mattered but Dean's confidence in him. He would not let his brother down again.
The sign for Route 12 appeared at last, and Dean turned onto the roughly paved county road.
00000000000000000000000
John waited.
He had been waiting for so long now, 23 long years of searching, hunting, killing, and cursing. But that time seemed like nothing to the long night that had slowly stretched by him while he waited for his sons.
He had known they would come; he had known Dean would drop everything and come straight to him. He had counted on that.
Sam would be suspicious--he counted on that too. He had regretted that Sam answered the phone. When he heard Sam's voice, the voice of his youngest son, his baby, he'd almost hung up right there and called the whole thing off.
There was such undeterred hope in Sam's voice. Sam had always been their reason to hope, their source of it. He was the one thing in life that seemed innocent enough to protect.
Had seemed innocent enough to protect. If he had only seen it then.
He had spent the night perched on an old dining room chair. He had spent the hours thinking and rethinking, checking and double-checking. All the years of his quest had brought him to this point. Every lead he followed brought him back to same reality. Now was the time to enact the endgame. Everything had to be in place. Everything had to be ready. There was no room for mistakes.
The falling of the darkness had shaken his resolve. The shadows taunted him. The whispering of the wind on the old house aroused the doubts in the back of his mind. He turned back to his research, trying to bolster his wavering convictions.
He stared at the pages before him. The diagrams, clippings, notes and speculations blurred together until only one word was visible. It was a word that drove the breath from his lungs and sparked tears in unblinking eyes. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, its pounding so forceful that he feared it might burst.
In some ways, he wished it would.
He reached out with unsteady fingers, tracing the too-familiar letters and remembering when he had taught another to do the same.
"This is you, son." He held the boy's tiny hand in his own, gripping the pointer finger like a pen.
"We start here. S - see? Like a snake." He slid the boy's finger slowly over the curves. "Then A. One side, two sides, and a line to hold them together."
"You, me, Dean!"
He said it so joyfully, so triumphantly, that John found himself matching the boy's broad grin. "Very good. You're a smart boy, Sammy. Now, this last letter is M. Long, short, short, long. Just like that."
"S. A. M. Sam!" The boy shouted, still gleeful.
"That's right. My little Sam." John squeezed his youngest to him briefly before the child demanded that they do it again, this time with his hand guiding his father's.
My Sam.
The word had been born from so much love then, a love that had fed John, warmed him, given him purpose.
But now . . .
S. A. M.
Now the letters mocked him.
Sam, the child John and Dean had raised and protected, despite the odds. Sam, the innocent who had been their only light in the darkness after Mary was taken. Sam, the reluctant warrior who had only followed them so far and then abandoned them.
Maybe I should have seen it then.
But John saw it now, spelled out so clearly after all this time. As clear as the name in blood red ink before him. Sam was the source, the reason, the evil.
And there was only one thing that could be done with evil. He had to kill it.
But can I kill my own son?
He remembered the day Sam was born. Mary's labor had been long and arduous, and she was tired. When the doctor finally told her to push, her energy was nearly spent. But she grabbed John's hand, held it, and looked at him in the eye. "This is it, John," she said. "We're going to be a family--me, you, Dean, and this baby. A perfect family."
He had cried that day, and he cried now.
What would Mary say?
Mary would never say anything because Mary was dead, burned alive above his head, above the crib of that child she cherished so dearly. She had never known, and part of him was grateful, relieved that she never realized how tainted her perfect family was.
John hadn't saved Mary then, but he would avenge her now. That had been his only quest for 23 years and as it approached its fruition, nothing could stop him. How many years had he wasted in the pursuit, when the answer was right under his own nose?
He had exhausted all other possibilities, all other explanations. Every lead took him nowhere, just circled back to the one, undeniable truth. All that was left was Sam. Everything started with Sam; it had to end with him too. He had to kill Sam.
Sam destroyed everyone who loved him. He had destroyed Mary. He had destroyed his girlfriend. Somehow John knew that Dean would be next, and that was a loss he could not afford to bear.
No, it was time for this to end. It had to end; 23 years was too long for evil to be free.
When he saw the headlights flash across the dingy windows and through the stained curtains, he was ready.
