John was preparing dinner for himself and Mary. John had married Mary for many reasons, but none of those had including her cooking skills. John himself wasn't the best cook, but Mary was a hazard in the kitchen. He remembered one time when he was with the boys and Dean had tried to copy her cooking skills, making that 'Winchester surprise' of hers. All it did was remind him of Mary and he threw the entire thing out. While John and Sam had never been too skilled in the kitchen, the food they made was edible. Dean was the cook of the family, and a fairly good one when he figured out how to do it. Another regret John felt, the fact that Dean had to learn how to cook for them all.
The sound of the door opening again made John pause. He looked over at Mary who was sitting at the table, now fully alert as well. John tightened his hold around the knife in his hand as he moved into the living room, Mary at his side. A young man stood in their living room, sporting a mullet of all things! The man looked over at them and broke out into a huge grin. "It's true then! I finally found you!" he said. John looked at Mary, thinking maybe she knew who this intruder was like the last one, but she looked just as confused as him. John looked back at the man when a thought occurred to him. When Mary and the angel came into their home, they had come through the front door. This man was in front of the closet!
"Who are you?" John asked. The young man turned and started drawing on the closet door, as if John hadn't spoken. "Hey!" John called, wanting an answer.
"My name is Ash, I'm a friend of Sam and Dean's." the man answered as he continued to draw on the door. John and Mary looked at each other. John turned back to him.
"Are you another angel?" John asked. After all Mary and Cas said Dean was Cas' best friend, so it seemed like Dean had a habit of befriending angels. To his surprise the young man snorted.
"Angels are dicks. I'm just a badass." the man said. John gave Mary a confused look and Mary looked up for a moment before nodding. It was a movement he recognized from watching Dean do it over the years. It was one that said that after thinking about it for a moment they agreed with what they were hearing. If angels were 'dicks' as they put it, why was Dean friends with one? Now that he was thinking about Cas again, John wanted to know how Dean was friends with an angel. If Cas knew his family so well, then it was clear that he wasn't in Heaven anymore. So did that mean Cas had been kicked out of Heaven? If so then what was Dean and the others connection to a fallen angel?
"What are you doing?" Mary asked finally. The man ignored her for a moment, then he stopped drawing.
"That should do it." he said before turning to Mary and John. "Come with me if you want answers." he said, then he pulled open the door. John and Mary were both expecting to see the inside of the closet. A few coats hanging in the back, maybe Dean's old car set sitting on the floor. Instead what they saw was in the inside of a bar. They looked at each other again, not sure what to do. When they turned back to the door, the man was already gone, having gone through the door. Hunter instincts told them to stay where they were, to just close the door and pretend like it never happened. However the guy had said he was a friend of Sam and Dean's, and he did promise answers. The two went inside.
John was stunned. He didn't understand how, but there was no mistaking that they were in Harvell's Roadhouse. And they weren't alone either. The place was packed! There were hunters everywhere, drinking, watching small televisions that were on the tables, playing pool, and just carrying on like normal. "Where are we?" Mary asked from next to him.
"The Harvelle Roadhouse." The young man, Ash, said from the door. John winced at the confirmation. He hasn't been here in many years.
"Who's all here?" he found himself asking. Ash looked around, putting his hands on his hips in a sign of pride.
"Well Bill and Ellen moved in a while ago. Jo and Charlie started helpin' me with getting' folks here. Pretty much every one." he said. John didn't know what 'everyone' meant, or how they all mixed together, but he did know that he was currently in the bar of a man who he had killed. John wanted to turn and run, to get as far away from there as possible. He couldn't bare it if Bill saw him and accused him of destroying his family in front of Mary, who's children he practically destroyed by raising them as hunters.
"John! Well, it's about time you made it." John felt the ability to use words fail him as Bill approached them. This reaction didn't make any sense to him. He was the one who asked Bill to go on the hunt with him. He was the one who made the mistake of jumping too soon, leaving Bill vulnerable. It was him who told Bill he should be the bait, it was him who gave all of Bill's advantages away, and it was him who put the bullet in Bill's head when it became apparent there was no way to save him. Bill however just came up behind him, slapping an arm onto John's shoulder and looking over at Mary. "And who's this lovely lady?" he asked.
"Mary, I'm his wife." Mary explained, seeing how upset John looked. She didn't understand what was wrong. From looking at this man's reaction, they were long time friends, but John seemed terrified of him. "And you are?" she asked. Clearly John wasn't up to making the introductions.
"Bill Harvelle. The Roadhouse, the real Roadhouse, was owned by me and my wife Ellen. It was a place open to hunters and used to help make connections and friends for hunts. John here is a long time patron and he's like family to mine." Bill said. John felt his throat go dry. He wanted to tell Bill to stop lying, to say what he really felt. There was no way Bill could still think that. Bill started steering John toward the bar with Mary walking beside them.
"Well, look who finally made they're way here." a man at the bar said. John felt like the bottom of his stomach fell out. Jim Murphy and Caleb were sitting at the bar, smiling at him.
"Hey John, it's been a while." Caleb said. John looked between the three men who's lives were over because of him. He looked at Mary, wondering just what she was going to say.
"I'm s…I'm so sorry." John finally found his voice. The three actually looked surprised. Bill pulled out two glasses and began to fill them with draft beer.
"Well, never thought I'd see the day where John Winchester is apologizing." he said, finishing with the first glass and moving to the second. John couldn't read what he was thinking, so he tried again.
"I mean it you know. I never meant for…" he started, very aware of Mary's gaze on him.
"John, we're hunters. It's part of the job." Bill said, turning to John and Mary with the full glasses and set them down in front of them. John shook his head.
"You died because of me. You missed all of Jo's life. Jim, Caleb, you were killed by a demon just because you were my friend." John croaked out. Even breathing felt hard right now. He had never really considered the possibility he would have to face them all again. Jim sighed.
"John, if that demon had found you it would have found Sam and Dean too. I wasn't about to let her go after you all. Those boys are like my own sons too." Jim said, and John knew that was true. In the beginning when Dean was still very young, Jim Murphy had already started backing off from hunting so much and started working more at his church. He started doing more of a guiding and mentoring role. John had lost track of the number of times he dropped Sam and Dean off at Jim's or Bobby's to watch them while John went on a hunt. It wasn't until Dean was six and John had started training him in weapons that he started to cart the boys around with him more. Even then there were days he would take just Dean and leave Sam with Jim so he could teach Dean how to hunt while Sam still had no idea what truly was out there.
"John…" Bill leaned over the bar so John could see him. He glanced over to a blonde woman serving drinks and John realized it was Jo. Then he turned back to John. "I wanted to hate you. I really did. I never got to see my daughter grow up. I missed her whole life, but you know what? I can't hate you. Because even if I had been there, even if I had been by Jo's side every day, nothing would have changed. Me, Ellen, and Jo would all still be right here, right now." he said. John felt an unsettled feeling in him. The entire Harvelle family was dead, including Jo. Jo was around Sam's age, far too young to be dead.
"How….how'd they die?" John found himself asking. He had an idea already. Jo had always looked up to hunters, and Ellen probably hadn't been able to just walk away like she wanted to. Bill gave him a small smile.
"They were on a job, helping Sam, Dean, and their friend Castiel hunt down the devil himself." Bill said. John was stunned, for more reasons than just one. He was shocked that Sam and Dean had been with Ellen and Jo when they died, just like he had been with Bill. But even more shocking was not only the confirmation that Sam and Dean truly were still hunting, but they were hunting things like the devil! "Don't look too upset. Neither of them are upset about it. We've all made out peace with what happened." Bill said, then he leaned back before picking up a rag and starting to wipe down the bar. Caleb and Jim both nodded to show they agreed.
"So, when did you bite it?" Caleb asked after a few minutes. John glanced over at Mary, not sure how much the boys told her. Knowing Dean, he probably glossed it over or made John out to be some great hero. Sam could either go one of two ways. Sam would demonize him as much as possible or he would make it as simple as possible.
"A few days after you two." John admitted. Jim, Caleb, and Bill all looked unfazed.
"Ellen figured as much. She said Sam and Dean came to the Roadhouse and told her." Bill said. John was surprised as that. He had kept Sam and Dean away from other hunters for many reasons. One was he didn't want the boys to make friends with hunters because he didn't want them to stay in life. Friends meant contacts. Contacts meant people who called you to ask for backup. He didn't want Sam and Dean to feel obligated to return to hunting because someone asked them for help. Then there was the fact that every hunter had killed monsters, and those monsters had families too. Some would go off for revenge. Trouble followed hunters wherever they went, and John didn't want Sam and Dean to get mixed up in that. Yet it seemed fate didn't care what John wanted and sure enough Sam and Dean had found they're way to the Roadhouse and that meant all the things John had tried to shelter them from over the years.
"So, who is the lady with you?" Jim asked with a smile. John seemed to recall that not only did the three not know who Mary was, she didn't know them either.
"Oh, this is my wife Mary. Mary, this is Jim Murphy, Caleb, and you met Bill. They were all hunting partners of mine." John said. He almost winced, knowing exactly where Dean had picked up the bad habit of saying only what needed to be said without elaborating.
"What creature finally got the great John Winchester?" Caleb asked with a playful smirk. John frowned.
"The demon. The one I was hunting." he admitted. The three all looked surprised.
"So the female demon that was looking for you…." Jim started.
"The boys called her Meg. Apparently she was Azazel's daughter." John said. Caleb and Bill looked confused but Jim looked thoughtful.
"Azazel, as in the Prince of Hell?" he asked. John nodded.
"It was the same demon that we hunted together Bill, the girl Meg. Apparently he had another kid, a boy named Tom. They set a trap for me and the Colt, but I went with a fake and left the real colt with the boys. They captured me and called the boys to tell them what happened. Yellow eyes…Azazel…he possessed me while the boys exorcised Meg back to Hell. When they were trying to rescue me, Dean used the Colt to kill the other kid. Azazel was pissed at him, so when he let the boys know that he was in me…he tore Dean apart." John knew he had to come clean about this, that they deserved to know. The looks of horror on all their faces, including Mary's, told him the boys hadn't explained what happened.
"Dean...he didn't die did he?" Caleb asked. John frowned.
"When Azazel was using me to torture Dean, I managed to restrain him from inside. It gave Sam enough time to grab the Colt and shoot me in the leg. I tried to hold the demon in me and have Sam shoot me, to kill me and the demon together, but Dean wouldn't have it." John said. Jim nodded.
"Dean was always loyal to a fault." he agreed. John knew most hunters that did see his son in action had always likened Dean to John's personal soldier.
"Sam refused and Azazel got away. Sam was taking us to the hospital but a demon crashed a semi into the car. Me and Sam were alright, just a little banged up but….Dean was already in bad shape to begin with and he was in a coma. He wasn't going to wake up." John said. He heard his own voice crack so he picked up his beer and took a long drink, anything to buy him a few seconds. The others were giving him looks of sympathy. For him, watching his kids suffer, for Dean and the pain he went through, and for Sam and how afraid Sam must have been watching his brother lay in a hospital unconscious. "I summoned the demon and made a deal, my soul for Dean's. He healed Dean and gave me a chance to say good bye to the boys, then he took both my soul and the Colt." John said. The three men and Mary looked thoughtful at that.
"You went to Hell?" Caleb asked. John nodded.
"Yeah. I went to Hell." he confirmed. He didn't have any desire to elaborate on that. He spent a hundred and twenty years under the knife of Alistair, the greatest torturer and tormentor that Hell had ever created. John couldn't even put the horrors of what had been done to him, of what he had seen, into words.
"And now you're here?" Jim asked. It was more curiosity than anything. John nodded.
"I'm not really sure what happened, but a door opened. I fought my way off the rack and crawled out of Hell. It was in a graveyard, and I saw my boys. Sam was off to the side and Azazel was standing over Dean, about to shot him with the Colt. I distracted him long enough for Dean to kill the bastard. I don't really know what happened after that. I guess just knowing that the boys were safe and it was all over was enough to let my soul cross over." John said.
"I can tell you what happened." John looked up to see Ellen coming behind the bar with a case of beer. He was surprised. Bill smirked and Jim, Caleb, and Mary looked at her, expecting her to explain more. Ellen started putting the bottles into the fridge. "That yellow eyed demon of yours, he was making all those gifted children he created fight to the death." she said. John was surprised, but so was Mary. That was one of those things Sam and Dean had glossed over. "I think one of those kids are hanging around. Andrew Gallagher, he's a friend of Sam's." Ellen said, looking around to see if he was in the bar at the moment. Not seeing him she turned back to her audience. "He was going to use which ever one was left standing to open a door to Hell." Ellen said. John scowled.
"And that was Sam." he concluded. To his surprise Ellen shook her head.
"No, it was some kid named Jake. He killed Sam." she said. John felt like he couldn't breathe.
"What?! That's….that's not possible." he said. Mary had implied that Sam was still with Dean, so there was no way Sam was killed before he crawled out of Hell. Hell, Sam had been right there when he did it! He looked at Mary to see she looked just as surprised as he did.
"Dean couldn't let Sam die though, so he went and made a deal with a crossroads demon. His soul for Sam." Ellen said. John shook his head. Dean couldn't do something so reckless! Dean was usually the voice of reason on their hunts, the one that pulled John back when he got too reckless or did something that he would regret. However in the back of his mind John knew it was true. When he or Sam was involved Dean had no restrictions, no parameters. He would do anything to protect them, to protect Sam.
"So he got ten years." John realized. He quickly tried to do the math. He had died in 2006 and the escaped Hell in 2007. He wasn't exactly sure what the year was anymore, but that meant Dean had until around 2017 before Dean would be subjected to the same torment he had been. Ellen sighed, clearly not wanting to tell him what she had to next.
"Actually they gave him one year." she said. Jim, Caleb, and Mary all shifted uneasily, like they had known about this part.
"What year is it?" John asked, looking at Mary. Mary tilted her head to the side in confusion.
"2019." she said. So Dean went to Hell in 2008, and that was…god it was eleven years ago! John didn't know how to feel. Yet somehow his brain was telling him that couldn't be right. That angel Cas had said 'Sam and Dean are worried', as in both of his boys were alive and well.
"And Dean?" he asked.
"He was pulled out of Hell after four months." Ellen said. John closed his eyes. Those that had not been to Hell didn't understand. Time in Hell worked differently. His son, his oldest child, was in Hell being tortured every day for forty years. He would just be turning forty this year, meaning he spent exactly half his existence being tortured in Hell. How was that fair?
"I see." he said. He had questions, like how Dean got out, what the price was, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to ask. There was just too much information. He had missed so much, had been absent from so much of his boys lives. To hear they had been hunting for the last thirteen years hurt more than he could admit.
"Do you want to see them?" Ellen asked. John looked up at her, surprised.
"You can do that?" he asked. In all the time he had been in Heaven, he hadn't found any way to view the world below. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't thought it was possible to see anyone else either, but somehow the Roadhouse existed. Ellen smiled.
"That boy Ash, when he first died and came to Heaven the first thing he did was tap into the angel's communication. He quickly became fluent in enochian and started figuring out how to travel from one heaven to another." Ellen said. Mary and John both turned to look at Ash. The kid sure as hell didn't look like the genius Ellen was describing, sleeping stretched out on a pool table. "After he brought Pamelia here and Sam and Dean told him me and Jo were dead…" Ellen started.
"Sam and Dean have been here?" John didn't mean to interrupt her, but he didn't like the implication that his boys were in Heaven. Ellen nodded.
"Sam and Dean have died more times than any of us can count, but they keep getting brought back. They still have some things to do. Neither of them have made it back to Heaven in a while though. But Ash had started working on ways for us to watch people who are still alive. After he brought me, Jo, and Bill here he hacked into the televisions in the bar and made it so we can watch people who are alive. Each channel is a different person. Jo usually keeps the main one on Dean." Ellen said with a smirk. Jo happened to be walking by at the time and glared at her mother, turning a little red before hurrying off. Mary chuckled. "We had a hard time finding people. Heaven used to be a bit of a mess, people's personal heaven's popping up everywhere and Ash had to use all kinds of strange formulas just to locate people. Then a few years ago all the angels were expelled from Heaven. When they retook it, the one angel Hannah took over and made some reforms, including a major reorganization. Now it's actually pretty easy to find others. Ash and another genius named Charlie started working on making permeate doors between peoples personal heaven's and Ash's, which is the Roadhouse. Now people can come and go whenever they want without Ash needing to help them. Jo and Charlie keep an eye on the list of new arrivals into Heaven so Ash and Charlie can make the portals for friends and family. It's gotten easier since we can see people down there too and know when they die." Ellen explained.
While Ellen was explaining how all this came to be, Bill was already turning on the television. Mary was surprised when she saw Cas, Sam, and Dean standing in the bunker in front of a large group of hunters. John was floored. His boys looked so grown up. A voice in the back of him mind reminded him that they didn't just look grown up, they were with Dean at forty and Sam about to turn thirty-six. Then there was that angel again, Cas. It was clear that it was Mary's wake. They watched in awe as Dean made a heart wrenching speech, and true to Dean Winchester fashion there was a few jokes thrown in there too. Then an axe came flying into the room and one of the guests fell dead. Mary recognized the man who had gone down, a wraith that her and Bobby hunted. She actually laughed. There was nothing that she wanted more than a monster hunt in the middle of her wake. "Who is that man? Cas you called him, and angel." John finally had to know. From what he was seeing, Cas was close to his boys, important to them.
"Cas is the angel that pulled Dean out of Hell." Ellen explained. John looked back at the screen as the wake continued on, like no one cared about the dead monster on the floor. "He was charged by Heaven to protect Dean. Honestly that's the only order he's ever kept." Ellen said with a laugh. John looked at Mary before looking back at the screen. "He cares a lot for Sam and Dean. They are his family. And the boys care for him."
John went back to his drink. It was hard seeing his boys in so much pain, the idea that they had to lose their mother a second time. For Sam this was the first time he truly lost his mother. Before that Mary was just a person Sam had heard about but never met. A woman he only knew through stories and pictures. This time, he had a relationship with her. He knew who she was as a person. For Dean it was different. Dean knew her before she died. He had a relationship with her then, and his four year old watched her die that November night. When she came back they had to create a new relationship, as the one they had before would no longer work. And then he lost her again.
"And Jack?" he asked. Everyone suddenly shifted, as if they didn't want to be the one to explain it.
"He's Cas, Sam, and Dean's son. They adopted him after he was born." Mary said. John scowled, recalling Mary and Cas's conversation.
"I thought you said Jack killed you." he said. Mary nodded.
"Jack is a Nephilim. The son of Lucifer and the human Kelly Kline. When he was born two years ago he used his powers to grow into a teenager because the world wanted him dead and he couldn't stay as a baby. He's still just a child, and he is probably the most powerful thing I've ever seen." Mary said. John took another long drink of his beer. "He can't control his powers, and I know he didn't mean to kill me." she said.
"Do they know that?" John asked, looking back at the screen. He wondered how many people could see it. Just how messed up the boys were. He didn't know Cas, but even he could read the sorrow on the angel's face. And Sam, the open and easy to read son of his was clearly holding on by a thread. Then there was Dean. To most people it looked like Dean was fine, better than they would expect for a man who just salted and burned his own mother, but John knew him. He could see that Dean wasn't holding on anymore, Dean had already snapped. Dean was getting ready to do something, and John wasn't sure they would like the outcome. It was like Dean was standing on a cliff and someone pushed him over the edge. He had no idea what put Dean on that edge though.
"I'm sure they…" Mary started, but then she trailed off. He knew she wasn't sure either. Cas knew for sure, he had said that. Sam would probably think it over, but would Dean? John really hoped so.
"They'll be alright." Ellen said, cutting over them. She knew they couldn't let the conversation continue like this. John snorted.
"And how do you know that?" he challenged. He didn't know what kind of relationship Ellen had with his boys, but he knew them well enough to know they were not fine. Ellen frowned, a challenge.
"Because they always are, and they've been through things like this before. When you start watching instead of living you see patterns." Ellen said.
"Like?" John hissed. Ellen sighed.
"They'll do something stupid, they all will, and then they'll pull their heads out of their asses and fix it. Because that's what those boys do." Ellen said. John looked back at the screen. He found that hard to believe, but the fact that he learned Dean had been through Hell, been tortured just as long as he had been alive and was still standing there, not having gone insane and being locked in a mental institution was enough to tell him that his boys were stronger than he thought they were. Bill reached up and turned off the t.v. And for a second John wanted to hit him. He looked over at Mary who seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"I think we're going to head back. This is a lot for one day." John mused, chugging down what was left of his beer. Bill, Ellen, Jim, and Caleb all nodded, like they understood what he meant. Mary stood up, her beer mostly untouched, and she slid the glass over to Caleb.
"Come back whenever. The door's always open." Ellen called, and the two Winchesters nodded as they returned to their own personal Heaven.