Disclaimer: I don't own SPN.
This story was honestly meant to be from Henry's POV but I find myself writing more and more in John's POV because honestly, I love exploring the complex relationship he would have with his father if he ever met him again and it seems…I dunno, easier to do it from his POV. Maybe because we've already had Henry's perspective on things but not John's.
Thanks to LaughingLadybug, Kaleesh and EmilyAnnMcGarrett-Winchester for their reviews! They're really the best thing to wake up to the next day! :D
John honestly couldn't believe that a man who could barely wield a shovel for long periods of time had managed to survive a homicidal demon hell-bent on killing him for this long. Hell, even Dean was digging faster than Henry and he was a kid! But, finally, they managed to dig up the bones in Larry Ganem's grave and John frowned down at them once the coffin lid was off.
"Was Larry a World War I vet?" he said, flashbacks to his time in the Vietnam War jumping into his head unbidden.
"No," Henry said. "And I don't know who that is."
Dean flattened himself on the ground to peer into the grave.
"Captain Thomas J. Carey III," he read off the metal tag on the skeleton's clothes. He looked up at Henry. "That mean anything to you, Gramps?"
Henry shook his head, disliking the new nickname that his grandson had given him. It sounded…insulting somehow.
"Well, someone wanted you to see this," John said. "Maybe Larry survived the attack, took the guy's identity and planted his bones here for you to find."
"So, what are we waiting for?" Henry said. "Cover this up. Let's be on our way."
He tried to walk off but John stopped him. Rolling his eyes, Henry turned back to the grave and helped John and Dean to fill it in while Sam watched.
-ATGB-
Once they had filled in Tom's grave, the four of them packed up their gear and then headed off out of the cemetery and back into town, pulling in to the first motel they found. John went to pay for a room with two queen beds and then once they had settled into their room he immediately left, claiming he was going to hunt down records on Tom Carey. This left Henry to look after Sam and Dean, who couldn't stop staring at him.
"Dad hated you, you know," Dean said suddenly. Henry blinked.
"Pardon me?" he said. Dean shrugged.
"He hated you. Always thought you ditched him. So don't think I'm gonna get all cosy with my grandpa and eat cookies while you tell me a bedtime story. That's not happening."
"I wasn't expecting that," Henry said patiently, though he was unable to mask the hurt he felt. "But I will make it up to your father. I'm going to be the best grandfather I can be."
"Well, I think you're cool!" Sam declared. "You time-travelled to protect Dad! Time travel's awesome! And you didn't mean to leave Dad!"
Henry smiled at Sam, glad that one of his grandsons was on his side. Sam seemed to be a very bright and intelligent child – if John allowed him to, Henry could easily train Sam up to be a very proficient Man of Letters. He hoped that John would let him do that. Dean seemed to lean more towards the uncultured hunter life but Sam…Sam, he hoped he could train and revive the Men of Letters with!
Taking off his blue suit coat, Henry unconsciously began to whistle as he relaxed back into the sofa. He didn't realise that he was whistling until he saw Sam and Dean staring at him.
"I know that tune!" Dean said.
"As Time Goes By, from Casablanca," Henry said. Dean and Sam nodded.
"Dad whistles it sometimes," Sam said. Henry felt a spark of happiness that John still clung to a happy memory from their time together and he leaned forward to share the story behind the tune with his grandsons. Just then, the doorknob twisted and John entered the room.
"Well," he declared, "according to the records, Tom Carey lives in Lebanon, Kansas, and is a happy, healthy one hundred and six year old. Let's get some shut-eye and head out first thing in the morning. Get to bed, boys."
"Wait a minute, John," Henry said. "I was just about to tell them the story behind As Time Goes By."
John froze, staring at Henry, and then he nodded and sank onto one of the beds. Henry took this as assent to continue.
"Your father saw Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy at the drive-in one night," he began. Sam and Dean leaned forward, hooked. "It scared the beeswax out of him, so I got him a little music box that played that song to help him sleep at night. Worked like a charm." He smiled sadly at John. "I'm just glad that you kept it, John."
"Wow," Sam said. "Dad, it's hard to believe that you were scared of anything!"
Henry saw a flurry of emotions pass through John's face before he got up and sat back down next to Sam.
"Course I'm scared of things, Sammy," he said. "Everyone's scared of something. But you gotta be brave. You have to ignore those fears and do what's right anyway or you can do the easy thing and curl up and cry and then get killed."
He sent a significant look at Henry, who felt his insides soar. Had John just started to forgive him for leaving him? It hadn't been easy, travelling through time to the future, but Henry knew that it had been the right thing to do in the fight against Abaddon and he hoped that John was beginning to see that too.
"So," John said, effectively shattering the moment. "Tell us about Abaddon, Henry. What do you Men of Letters know about her?"
"She's a Knight of Hell," Henry replied. "The Knights of Hell are handpicked by Lucifer himself."
"The Devil?" Dean blinked. Henry nodded.
"They are of the first-fallen, first-born demons," he said. "Legend has it that the archangels had killed them all which, as we have witnessed, is not the case."
"Archangels? Angels exist?" Sam said in wonder. Henry noticed John quickly recover from his shock out of the corner of his eye.
"Of course, Sam," he said. "If demons and Hell exist then why not angels and Heaven?"
"Right," John said sternly. "Bed, both of you."
Sam and Dean clambered across the bed they were on and under the blankets. In a move that Henry was certain was uncharacteristic for his son, John pulled the blankets up over the boys and lightly brushed his fingers across their foreheads as Henry had once done to him, making them smile and snuggle deeper into the bed. John sat back down on the other bed and, out of his bag, pulled out a brown, leather-bound book.
"My journal," he said in response to Henry's questioning look.
"May I?" Henry held out his hand.
"No," John replied. "No one looks in this thing. It's my hunter's journal. Well, it is now."
"Men of Letters also use journals," Henry said. "I intended to use one. I sent away for one the day before my initiation. Is that –?" He crossed over to the bed and sat down next to John. John tensed and shifted away but Henry simply opened the cover of the book and lifted a photograph of a younger John in military uniform to reveal the initials H.W. "Judging by the initials, this one, I believe."
"Came a week after you disappeared," John said. "I kept it and used it and when I started hunting, it became my hunter's journal."
"I'm sorry," Henry said sadly. "I should have been there for you. You should have been trained in the ways of the Letters."
"Well, I learned things a bit differently after my life went to hell," John said tensely. Henry sensed that their moment had passed. "And if you apologise one more time, I'll put a bullet through you. You can apologise all you want but at the end of the day, your responsibility was to me and Mom! Not some glorified book club!"
Henry was truly sorry about the situation but he was also mad. Why did John get to yell at him all the time? He wasn't perfect either!
"Well, John, maybe you should take a better look at yourself!" he retorted. John reeled back, his eyes blazing. "I'm sorry but you are being quite the hypocrite right now!"
"Please elaborate," John hissed through clenched teeth.
"You say that my family should have been my first priority and the Men of Letters my second." Henry was now getting fired up. "You're mad that I put the Men of Letters before you. Take a look at yourself, son! Your first priority is hunting and Sam and Dean are your second! I may have only been here for a short while but I can tell that you place hunting over giving your children a proper, normal life! You say that I need to straighten out my priorities? Well, maybe you should do the same!"
Henry dimly registered that he and John were standing up chest-to-chest and Sam and Dean were watching from their bed. But he didn't care. He loved his son and he was truly sorry for abandoning him but this needed to be said, since there clearly seemed to be no one else to do so! John shifted and, for a wild moment, Henry thought that his son was going to hit him. But the next moment, John turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
"Wow," Dean said in awe. "I've never seen someone stand up to Dad like that."
"Someone had to," Henry said firmly. He relaxed and collapsed onto Sam and Dean's bed, smiling softly at them. "I failed John. The least I can do now is care for you and Sam. Go to sleep, you two. I'll watch over you."
"Will you sing As Time Goes By, Grandpa?" Sam murmured sleepily. Henry chuckled.
"My singing leaves a lot to be desired," he said. "But I can hum it to you if you want."
Sam nodded, so Henry began to hum the song, stroking Sam's hair as he did so. By the end of it, Sam was snoozing but Dean was stubbornly refusing to sleep. Henry stood up and picked up John's journal.
"Dad won't be happy," Dean warned, yawning.
"I don't care," Henry said. "He's my son. I have a right to know."
Henry settled down on the sofa with John's journal and began to read. Each page he turned sent his stomach spiralling deeper and deeper and deeper. Had his son really had this hard a life? Not only had he had to grow up without his father, his mother had died ten years ago and then he'd lost his wife to a demon eight years ago, back in 1983! From there, Henry read detailed entry after entry about John's hunter life; how he'd met a psychic who had told him about the supernatural then packed up and left his home with Sam and Dean, raising them on the road as hunters while he trained himself. Though Henry was not happy at Sam and Dean being raised into this harsh lifestyle and the weight that John constantly put on Dean's shoulders (the shtriga entry both horrified and maddened him), he couldn't deny that John had done the best he could after being thrust into this world and he couldn't help but feel a small sliver of pride at how his son had coped and adapted.
By the time he had finished, Henry was reeling. He couldn't believe that his disappearance had really helped lead to such a crappy life for John! And even though John had told him that he wasn't to go jumping back to his own time, he had to. He couldn't let John grow up like this!
He was going to make it right if it was the last thing he did.