"Dean, I'm sorry."
Apologizing wasn't something that came easily to John Winchester. He learned to stop saying sorry the night Mary died. However, before he handed himself and the Colt over to that yellow-eyed son of a bitch, he wanted to say some of the things he never got around to saying. All the years where he didn't say or do the things he knew he should have, haunted him. Of his two boys, it was Dean he felt he failed the most.
Sure, he tried to be a good father. He tried to give both his boys the best he could. Looking back, however, showed him that teaching them about the monsters in the darkness wasn't nearly as important as playing ball with them in the front yard. Had they had a front yard, he thought, face twisting into a pained grimace. Truth was, his boys had mostly grown up nomads. That 1967 Chevy was the closest thing to a home either boy had.
It never occurred to him that what Dean might have wanted wasn't what he wanted. No more than it occurred to him that the life Sam wanted wasn't the one he gave him. For the longest time, he blamed his problems with Sammy on the fact they were just two different men. Him and Dean, though? They were almost carbon copies of the other. They shared a similar taste in clothes, music, food, booze. Even their choices in weapons and women tended to follow a similar vein.
And that, John knew, was because he had turned his oldest son into a mirror image of himself. He drilled into Dean from day one that evil was everywhere. Monsters were all around them. And he needed to be ready for whenever they decided to attack. He stopped being the father his son needed the night Mary died and became the drill sergeant he didn't.
"What?" Dean's eyes reflected his confusion and concern. "Dad?"
"You shouldn't have been the one apologizing to me," he told Dean in a thick voice. "I should have been the one apologizing to you."
"Dad...?" He shook his head. "What are you talkin' about? What should you be apologizin' to me for? I'm the one who-"
"I should be apologizing for everything, son."
"For everything?" Dean's brow furrowed. "Dad, I'm not following. What-"
"When you were little, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen, I'd be." He breathed out a soft, humorless chuckle. "Hell, I'd be wrecked. And you, you'd come up to me and you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd..." The memories stuck in his throat and made speaking difficult. John swallowed them back, same as he swallowed back everything else that happened over the last twenty some odd years. When he again felt settled he said, "You'd stand there and say, 'It's okay, Dad.'" He lifted anguished eyes to Dean's. "I put too much on your shoulders. I made you grow up too fast."
"No, dad..."
"You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once. I just..." He pushed down the regret swirling in his veins. Set aside the guilt burning a hole in his heart. Told himself there were no tomorrows to make any of those missed opportunities up. There was only that moment. And he had to make it count. "I just want you to know I am so proud of you. Of the man you've become."
"Dad?" The skepticism in Dean's voice hurt to hear. It was even more evidence about how much he failed to be the father that his son needed. "Is this really you talkin'?"
"Yeah." He nodded, smiling softly. "Yeah, it's really me talking, Dean."
"Why are you saying this stuff?" Worry darkened the green of Dean's eyes. And drained what little color there was in his face. "What's going on?"
John could feel his time running out. Even now he could see the shadows in the corners of the hospital room stirring. Any moment and the yellow-eyed demon would come to collect the last part of their devil's bargain. He had to hurry. He stepped close to the bed and laid a gentle hand on Dean's shoulder. Shoulders that already carried too much. "Look, I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay?"
"Yeah, Dad, you know I will." Uncertainty replaced the worry now. "You're starting to scare me..."
"Don't be scared, Dean." He gave his son what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Everything is gonna be all right."
I promise that everything will be all right, he added as he leaned over to whisper something - a burden he wished he did not have to place upon him - into Dean's ear. Dean stared up at him with eyes wide and mouth agape.
"You understand what I'm telling you, son?"
A nod was all Dean could manage. John smiled at him one more time before slowly turning to walk into the hospital room next to Dean's. The shadows were already there, waiting to take possession of him, to pull him from this world, from his boys. He accepted his fate, considered it his due and set the Colt on the table before telling them simply, "Okay."
The last thing he recalls is Dean pleading, "Come on, come on," before another voice, one he doesn't recognize and which he suspects does not belong to a doctor on staff, breaks through the nothing to say, "Time of death: 10:41."
A/N: Hello, all! Hope life has been good to all of you!
This is tagged to episode 2x01.