Under normal circumstances, where John's head was clear and he wasn't paranoid that everyone on the street was going to go black-eyed and try to kill him, it would have taken two days driving fourteen hours each to get from Maine to Blue Earth. But these circumstances were anything but normal, and the journey took almost a week and a half. He only took local roads and side streets, and made sure he was off the roads an hour before sundown. He ditched the stolen car from Perry when he reached Boston (but had already swapped the license plates several times by then), and stayed in the city for a day and a half to buy new clothes and a limited number of supplies to replace what he'd lost in the truck before taking a Greyhound to Philadelphia to throw off anyone following him. Instead of hitch-hiking like he normally would, John decided to walk to the last town before he hit farmland, stole the nicest car he could find (which was a lot of fun to drive, he had to admit) and drove it to the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio before switching cars again and taking it to Jim Murphy's church. Good luck to any demons following that trail.

It was around three in the afternoon on a Saturday when John walked into Jim Murphy's church, and he found it mercifully empty. Not knowing where Jim had gone or how long it would take for someone to notice him, he sat in a middle pew closest to the wall of votive candles and found himself with time to think without any distractions for the first time since Jericho. Had that really been three weeks ago? It felt like a lifetime… and yet the events since then seemed jumbled together so that they only felt a day or two long. And John still didn't know anything new since he left Maine – he lost his computer when the demons took his truck, he hadn't had any time to hit a library or a church on his way even if he wasn't being extremely careful, and he'd ditched his phone. John's blood froze when he realized he'd thrown his phone away before listening to any of the voicemails Dean had left him. It wasn't the first time he'd gone missing, and unfortunately John knew that Dean would manage, but the urgency with which his eldest son had been calling him left John feeling guilty and scared. His worst fear was Dean ending up in trouble with demons because John hadn't been paying attention.

"Your boys have been looking for you," Pastor Jim's somber voice from behind him interrupted John's reverie.

"Both of them?" he turned around, and Jim nodded. John raked a hand tiredly across his face and into his hair. Something's wrong, something is very wrong…

"I don't usually say this, especially to you," Jim walked forward and clapped a hand on John's shoulder, "but you look like you could use a drink."

"Well… Shit." Jim said, after John went over everything, two hours, every demon test in the book, and half a bottle of Jack later. John simply nodded and took another swallow, and Jim leaned back in his chair, concentrating. "Yellow Eyes… Yellow Eyes…"

"Jim, I don't mean to derail your train of thought, but can you tell me what you know about my boys?" It came out with more emotion than John meant it to.

"Um… Well… When was the last time you spoke to Sam?"

John looked down, ashamed at how their last conversation went south, and how much time he'd allowed to pass since then. "Not since he left for school," he answered, barely a step above a whisper.

"Are you serious? You haven't had any contact with your own son for three years?" Jim, by contrast, was shouting now. "Was everything you told me about Sam at school just made up, then?" Jim remembered how John would swing by if he was hunting in the area, and he claimed Sam was doing fine whenever he was asked. Sam made the Dean's list. Sam was doing an internship at a paralegal's office. Sam had gotten a paper published in a law journal.

"No! I kept tabs on him, made sure he was safe! I just… I didn't want to…" John sighed and looked back down. "I was waiting until I was sure he would want to talk to me again."

Jim shook his head. "We both know that means you wouldn't have talked to him until you were dead. You and your boys are just too stubborn for your own good." John couldn't help but smile. "Well you're not going to like what you missed, that's for sure." The smile disappeared, and John leaned forward, face drawn, bracing himself for what he was about to hear.

"Dean got your voicemail that you left in California – or at least bits and pieces of it. You didn't even realize you were driving through that woman's hunting ground, did you? Well Dean panicked a little, and drove up to Stanford to get Sam, and the two of them took care of your Woman in White. When they got back…" Jim shook his head again, this time more mournful than judgemental. "Sam's life was really coming together for him, you know. He got a 174 on his LSATs, he had an interview for a full ride to law school that was supposed to be the Monday after he and Dean got back from Jericho – "

"What the hell do you mean, supposed to?" John interrupted in spite of himself. "What happened?"

Jim poured each of them another glass of the whiskey before continuing. "His girlfriend died. Sam got to their apartment… She was dead on the ceiling, John. She burned up, Sam only made it out because Dean came back and dragged him away."

John forgot how to breathe. He forgot everything but Jim's words echoing in his brain, "dead on the ceiling… dead on the ceiling…" He couldn't hear anything over the pounding of his heart, but the glass of whiskey flew into the wall and shattered, and now nothing was safe from John's whirlwind of rage as he swept books off of Jim's desk and threw anything that would break. Mary was dead, now Sam's girlfriend was dead by the same hand… I should have been there, I should have found Sam right when I left Jefferson, I should have known, I should have done something, anything! It's my fault… It's my fault… It's my fault… Not everyone can be saved, John knew from experience, but Sam and his girlfriend deserved better than that.

Soon though, John's fit of rage ran out of steam, and he sank back into his chair and put his face in his hands, mumbling something along the lines of an apology and a promise to pay for the damage. Jim, during this whole time, hadn't moved an inch.

"John, this isn't your fault… Yeah, you said all that out loud," Jim amended when John's head snapped up. "This isn't anyone's fault but that demon, and you know it. We'll find that damned sonovabitch, and we'll take care of it. You're not alone in this, okay?"

John sighed, "Okay. But not tonight. I just… Let's give the girl a night of respect, yeah?" Jim nodded. "What was her name?"

"Jessica Moore. The way Dean tells it, she was smart, and she was pretty, and she loved Sam a lot."

With sad smiles and tears in their eyes, the two hunters toasted Sam's dead girlfriend, and prayed she had a nice afterlife.

Ultimately, it took six days of research to find the identity of Yellow Eyes. That afternoon, Jim was skimming through an ancient, weathered tome of Christian Bible parables in Latin, while John was scouring websites for ancient Aztec lore. Jim was muttering to himself and flipping pages; John was dead silent except for the occasional mouse click. Books and papers and printouts of rejected theories were scattered everywhere.

"Holy crap."

John looked up from the computer. "What?"

Jim just shook his head a little and shuffled around the discarded papers on the floor to the bookshelf, scanning briefly until he found what he was looking for. The Holy Bible.

"That's what you needed? Did you actually find something or did you think of your next sermon, preacher?" John was never the most patient of men.

"Shut up, I'm looking… Enoch… Enoch… Here!" Jim pointed at a passage triumphantly, and John stepped over to get a better look.

"…Azazel?"

"I think so," Jim snatched up the Latin book again. "We weren't going to get anywhere just by looking for demons, so I tried a different angle. Your story got me thinking that demons have been after Sam pretty much from the get-go, which in this case would be Mary's death. So I looked for references to demons that went after kids and their mothers… And I found a reference to 'Azazel's yellow eyes' in here," he pointed to the phrase in the Latin book, "So I went to the Book of Enoch and, yeah, he's the leader of the Grigori - a host of fallen angels that marry mortal women and have kids with them. Assuming the real target of these attacks was Sam, I think it fits."

John was quiet. He'd always suspected that Sam was the true target of the attack that killed Mary, but to have it confirmed like this… Suddenly, his attention snapped back. "Wait… Fallen angels that marry and have kids with mortal women? Does that mean – I mean, you don't think – Mary wouldn't… Sam…?" he sputtered. What the hell?

Jim's eyes went wide. "No! No, well, not exactly… Look, Sam looks and acts so much like you it's impossible for him to be anyone's kid but yours. I think maybe this is one of those things that gets mistranslated and no one really catches it. If we can get a copy in the original Hebrew, or maybe even Latin, we'll probably get a better understanding of what this is."

"So you don't have one?" John was more than a little perplexed that a research-focused hunter like Jim wouldn't have a damn Latin Bible lying around.

"Lent it to some hunter named Gordon," was the wan reply. "Don't worry, we'll just go to the library."

Unfortunately, Blue Earth, Minnesota was not actually that large of a place, and the library in town didn't have any copies of the Bible in a language other than English. Empty-handed, the hunters returned to Jim's study and looked again through the volumes that were already there. Jim went back to his bible, and John found an encyclopedia, and they got to work. It took all of the rest of the day and into the next afternoon before John was satisfied he had a good base of research. They never did find a copy of the lore in Latin, but they did find a news article from the seventies about a preacher who slaughtered his parish a little outside of Baltimore who claimed to have been possessed by a demon with the same name. John figured with everything they had, investigating what was left of the church was the best thing to do next.

"John, I can't come with you. I have a lot of things going on here, and some hunters that might need help," Jim said as they were packing the research into boxes.

"Jim, I don't even have my truck! I can't take all this on a bus!"

"So we'll call someone, is what I'm saying. You and Bobby still aren't speaking, right?" John nodded. "Okay, how about Elkins?"

"Elkins?" John had only worked with him once, years ago, on a vampire hunt he'd kept secret from the boys. He wasn't sure if Elkins remembered him, but he could see them working together again. "Can we trust him with something this big?"

"That hunter has saved most of the asses in this community more than once. I've taken to calling him whenever shit really hits the fan lately – he's one of the only ones we can trust with something this big," was the stern reply.

"Damn, preacher, when did you get such a potty mouth?" John smirked.

Jim cuffed him on the back of the head, "Since I fell ass-backwards into this messed up life, that's when. I'll go make the call." The preacher almost made it out the door before turning around.

"You know, Sam and Dean are really worried about you. And there are plenty of people – hunters and civilians – that would enjoy knowing you're alive. It's just a suggestion, but maybe you should reactivate your phone? Just… Think about it," he put a hand on John's shoulder, and his friend nodded.

"Sprint store's down the street, right? I think I'll go for a walk," he smirked again, trying to save face in the wake of the hallmark moment they just had. They left the office together and split up to do their respective errands.

This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean at 866-907-3235. He can help.

He knew his sons were long past old enough to handle the family business. He only hoped that they would understand when he didn't answer their calls. He had no intention of answering that phone, not with the risk it carried.

AN: Writing is hard, and I apologize for the EXTREME lateness with this chapter.