Disclaimer: I don't own SPN.

Two updates in one day! Don't get used to this, especially since my Phoebe story is on a tight schedule of one chapter a week. But this fic is actually complete (confetti, it's a parade!) so I'm clamouring to get it out.

Thanks to EmilyAnnMcGarrett-Winchester for their review :) It was a nice surprise to wake up to!

There was no response.

"Please, time is of the essence!" Henry insisted. "Are you John Winchester?"

"Who's asking?" the man – John, Henry was absolutely certain, there was no way he couldn't be what with the nature of the spell – growled.

"Don't you know me?" Henry said desperately. Didn't he make it back to his time after this? Didn't John know him?

"Tell me who you are," John snarled. Henry saw the gleam of silver in his hands and knew that John was either holding a silver dagger or a flask, hopefully with holy water. That was good. John knew about this stuff, then. But why was he living in a motel room with two young boys and why did he have two guns sitting nearby and another one in the doorway? That was the sort of uncivilised stuff that hunters did…

A bad feeling started to blossom in Henry's gut.

"Are you John?" he asked again. Why didn't John get it? He had a task of grave importance and he couldn't let Abaddon get her hands on the box!

"Listen here, whoever you are." John stood up and advanced on Henry and the two boys nearby ducked down into their chair, still watching the confrontation. "When I fall out of your closet then you can ask the questions. Got it?"

He shoved Henry into the wall, his silver knife at Henry's throat. Henry gulped, hoping that John wouldn't slit his throat before allowing him to explain the situation. How far into the future had he gone?

"Yes, my apologies," Henry said quickly. "Is it absolutely necessary that you keep that thing at my throat?"

John glowered. He stepped back from Henry, grabbed the man's arm and roughly dragged him over to the chair he had been sitting in, forcing him down onto it. Before Henry could do anything, John produced a length of rope, wrenched his hands behind his back and tied them tightly.

"Tell me exactly who you are and why you're in my closet," he demanded, his knife back at Henry's throat.

"First, please tell me if you're John or not," Henry requested. "I promise that I will explain the whole situation afterwards."

"Fine." John pressed the knife deeper into Henry's throat. "Yes. I'm John. Now, who the hell are you?"

"Henry. My name is Henry Winchester."

-ATGB-

John didn't know what to believe. This creature, which looked exactly like his dad and even had the same outfit he had been wearing on the night he'd disappeared, had burst out of his closet, asked multiple times if he was John and then claimed to be his missing father? John didn't believe it. If it really was his father, he wouldn't look exactly the same as when he had gone missing!

"Yeah, right," John spat. "Tell me who you really are and why you're wearing my dad's face before I gut you!"

"Dad? What's going on?" Dean said quietly.

"Not now, Dean!" John growled. The last thing he needed was for Dean to draw the attention of the creature calling itself Henry Winchester to him and Sam!

"Please, I assure you that I am in fact Henry Winchester!" Henry insisted. John scowled, pulled out a flask of holy water and splashed the contents into Henry's face. He just spluttered and said, "I am not possessed, you know."

"Maybe not," John acknowledged, moving his knife away from Henry's throat and down to his arm, just above the elbow. With a flick of his wrist, Henry's jacket and shirt had been sliced open and a scarlet line appeared on his arm before blood welled up and oozed out. But he hadn't reacted abnormally, so he wasn't a shifter.

"I'm not a shapeshifter, either." John's blood boiled at Henry's bored tone.

"So if you're human, how the hell did you fall out of my closet over thirty years after you left me and Mom?" he spat.

"What does it sound like?" Henry said.

"Time travel!" Sam piped up.

"Shut up, Sam!" John snapped. Sam blinked and sank back down into his chair, his eyes watering. John briefly felt bad for talking to Sam like that but this wasn't a normal situation and he wanted to keep Sam and Dean out of it! Suddenly, there was a loud rattling noise and the room began to shake.

"What is that?" John demanded. "Tell me!"

"Oh my God," Henry whispered. He began to tug at his bindings. "Please! Release me! You have to run!"

"Why?" John said suspiciously. Despite himself, he quickly cut Henry free and the man claiming to be his missing father sprang to his feet. "What's going on?"

"Run!" a wide-eyed Henry said.

But it was too late. The closet door burst open again with another flash of bright light and a redheaded woman in a pretty grey evening gown strode out.

"Henry," she laughed amicably. John would have believed that she was just another pretty woman if: she hadn't just walked out of his closet, her dress wasn't covered in blood, Henry wasn't looking at her with a terrified expression and he wasn't such a paranoid bastard.

"Who is that?" John hissed to Henry.

"Silly man, you forgot to lock the door," the woman chuckled before Henry could reply. "But then, spells never were your best subject, were they? Why don't you be a doll and give me what I want? And then I promise to kill you and your friends here quickly."

She smiled widely at Sam and Dean, who shrunk down even further into their chair. John felt a boiling anger begin to coarse through his veins. Suspicious as he was of Henry, this woman appeared to be an enemy of his and at the moment, John was going to go with the man who hadn't made a move against him rather than the woman who had just threatened to kill him and his sons!

"Back off, sweetheart," John threatened. The woman just ignored him.

"You know I can't do that," Henry said firmly.

"Henry, you're not a fighter," the woman sighed. John raised his gun to shoot whatever she was but she just lifted an arm and sent him flying into the wall as though it was nothing. She then immobilised Henry with a wave of her hand. Groaning, John turned his head to see his sons hiding in their chair and he wrenched and struggled furiously to get free but to no avail.

"Stay where you are, Dean!" he ordered Dean quietly. Dean nodded and pulled Sam down, hiding him completely from view. John felt a brief surge of pride. Dean may have screwed up with the shtriga those few years ago but he would rather die than let anything happen to his little brother!

"Josie, I know you're still in there!" Henry was saying desperately. "You must fight this!"

So it was demonic possession, was it? John hadn't encountered too many demons in the years he'd been hunting – there were only around five possessions in a good year – but he'd come across enough to know what to do and what demonic possession did to a person. And Henry seemed to know the demon's meat suit, judging by how he was trying to reason with her.

"I'm afraid Josie's indisposed at the moment," the demon said, her red-painted lips curving into a cruel smile. "Looks like it's just you and me."

She advanced on Henry, who backed away towards the motel room door. However, before she could do anything, a shot rang out and the demon stumbled back with a surprised cry. Dean had managed to reach the shotgun by the door, with its salt-filled iron rounds, and though the two rounds Dean managed to fire into the demon's heart barely affected her, it was enough to make her lose concentration for a moment. A moment was all John needed; he snatched up his guns, ran over to Sam's chair to scoop up his youngest son and fled the motel room, dragging Dean along behind him. Henry followed them to the Impala parked outside, flinging himself into the front while Dean and Sam clambered into the back seat. As soon as the last door shut, John slammed on the gas and the car sped off out of the parking lot with screeching tyres.

-ATGB-

An hour later, John was still speeding down the highway while a nauseous Henry clutched his stomach and Sam and Dean huddled sleepily in the back. John had refused to pull over so that Henry could spew the contents of his stomach, not wanting to give the demon any chance of catching up, and so Henry had had to vomit into a ratty old bag of John's as the shock of his adventure set in.

"You done?" John said when Henry had managed to stop puking for ten minutes.

"I believe so." Henry wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. "It's just that all the adventures I enjoy are usually of the literary nature."

'Great. A nerd,' John thought derisively. Out loud, he said, "Good. Mind telling me who Princess was?"

"Abaddon. She's a demon."

"I think we figured that out," Dean spoke up.

"Dean," John said sternly, though he had to fight the urge to snort. "Where'd she come from? Where'd you come from? You can't be my father. Henry Winchester ran out on me and my mom nearly thirty four years ago, never came back."

"So it's 1992," Henry whispered. He shook his head. "I apologise. I'm from Normal, Illinois, 1958." He even pulled out his licence to prove it. John blinked. How could this man have known that they used to live in Normal and when Henry disappeared?

"Absent fathers time-travelling through motel room closets," he muttered. "Now I've seen everything."

"Dad? Is this Grandpa?" Sam said.

"Are they yours?" Henry said. John gave a short, sharp nod and Henry turned and smiled wanly at the boys. "My name is Henry Winchester and I believe that I'm your grandfather."

"I'm Sam and this is my big brother, Dean!" Sam said.

"Great work, Sammy," Dean scowled. "Just tell a complete stranger who we are, why don't you?"

"I just did," Sam said cheekily. "Dad, I'm hungry. Can we get food?"

"We're not stopping, Sammy," John said sharply. "Not with that demon after us."

"I believe we're far enough away from Abaddon that she won't find us if we stop for a short while," Henry said. And by God, that was such a Henry way of talking! John felt his chest constrict in pain before fiercely clamping down on his emotions. He couldn't appear weak! Not in front of his boys and his father! John was certain now that this was his long-lost father. There was a feeling in his gut that told him that this was Henry Winchester. The question now was how had he burst out of a closet thirty four years after his disappearance and why did he have a demon bitch after him?

-ATGB-

After another hour of driving, John finally gave in to Sam's complaints and pulled over at a small diner. While Dean took Sam to take care of business and Henry stared at old photographs he had with him, John went to order the food and returned with a tray of sandwiches, drinks and a treat each for the boys: apple pie for Dean and a fruit salad for Sam. He didn't often treat his boys but after the events of that night, John felt that they deserved a break.

Sliding in next to Henry and watching him stare forlornly at his photographs gave John pangs of pain. At first, he hadn't wanted kids and he'd told Mary as much, which only served to annoy her. But after his father had disappeared on him when he was four years old, John had always been terrified that he would treat any kids of his just as badly, a fear that he hadn't been able to shake until Dean had been born. Holding baby Dean in his arms had made him resolve to try and be the best father possible and he had tried – at least, for a while. Sure, he often walked out whenever he and Mary had a particularly bad argument but he always came back – he wasn't going to be like his father!

But then when Mary had been killed and John had slowly fallen into his obsession of tracking down her killer, he had begun to treat Dean as more of a soldier than a son. He was well aware of the burden he'd put on poor Dean in making him primary caretaker of Sam, meaning that Dean had had no parental figure of his own. John bitterly regretted the weight he'd put on Dean's shoulders and he knew that there were plenty of opportunities for him to have left Sam and Dean with friends rather than drag them along from place to place, uprooting their lives every few weeks – hell, Bobby Singer was fast becoming a surrogate uncle to the boys in the few weeks they'd known him. But John wanted his boys to be protected and to be able to take care of themselves and if that meant that they had to endure a few hardships then that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

"You got pie! Thanks, Dad!" Dean's voice snapped John out of his thoughts and John quickly snatched up a sandwich as Sam and Dean climbed onto the seats across from him and Henry and grabbed at food.

"Eat up," he said, relieved that his voice didn't crack. "We're back on the road in fifteen minutes."

Sam and Dean dug in but Henry didn't move.

"Eat." It came out sharper than John intended. "I'm not stopping for food again."

Henry let out a sad sigh, put the photo on the table and hesitantly reached out for a sandwich. Despite himself, John was curious as to what Henry had been looking at and he craned his neck for a glimpse at the picture. Henry caught him staring.

"Do you want to see?" he said. Before John could say no, Henry handed him the picture: a black and white photograph of Henry kneeling next to a small boy with a baseball. John's chest constricted painfully as he continued to stare at it. That was him with his father…just before Henry had disappeared…

This more than anything convinced John that the man sitting next to him was Henry Winchester.

"What is it?" Sam said curiously, chewing a sandwich.

"It's your father and I, Sam," Henry said with a small smile, studying John intently as though he was examining his son was under a microscope. "When John was a small boy…he was only four years old."

John put the photo down, unable to look at it any longer. Dean and Sam immediately snatched it up and gazed at it with open mouths.

"How old are they?" Henry asked quietly, scrutinising his grandsons.

"Twelve and eight," John replied, nodding at Dean and Sam as he said their respective ages. They lapsed into silence for a moment and then John tugged the photo from Dean's grasp and handed it back to Henry. "Now, how about we figure out how to off that demonic bitch?"

"Abaddon," Henry said. "Yes, she must be stopped."

"How?" John retorted. "Exorcise her?"

"No," Henry said. "Before I came here, one of the elders tried to exorcise her. He failed." John shot him a curious look. Elders? What elders? "We have to kill her."

"Good luck," John muttered. "Demons can't be killed."

"They can," Henry said. John felt a spark of hope start to flare in his chest. "If you have an ancient demon-killing knife of the Kurds." There went John's hope. "I take it from your expression that you've never heard of one of these."

"Nope," John said grouchily.

"The Colt would also be effective in stopping Abaddon – if we knew where it was."

"The Colt?" John said dismissively. "No chance of finding it. I've asked around – nobody knows where it is. How do you know what that is, anyway?"

"I specialise in knowledge of the extraordinary, the supernatural – that which ordinary men have no knowledge or understanding of."

"So you're a hunter?" John said. Henry stared.

"A hunter?" he exclaimed. "My God, no! Hunters are brutal apes!"

"Hey!" Dean scowled. "That's our dad you're talkin' about!"

"Dean," John said warningly but he too was pissed. How dare his father criticise him after not being around for most of his life?

"I apologise," Henry said placatingly. "I just – a hunter? John, you're a legacy!"

"Legacy of what?" John said suspiciously.

"The Men of Letters, of course."