The Baptism of John

-This chapter was inspired by I See Fire by Ed Sheeran-

By the time they had reached this part of the story, Dean was cracking. His hand shot out to Sam's and took it and clutched at it hard until his knuckles were white as he talked. It was a completely subconscious move until Dean became too emotional to talk much more.

"We were in the bush, for an hour, when Pele, he transformed into his goddess form. And he...He looked like…"Dean's eyes fluttered and he looked down.

"She looked like you." Sam swallowed. Mary's eyes opened wider, understanding.

"Like I did at the end?" Mary bit her lip.

Dean gasped. Sam reached his arm around his brother's shoulders and pushed his face into the small of his chest. Sam leaned his head down into Dean's hair and cupped his chin like someone does when they hold a lamb.

"She cast fire with her every step. And she was screaming, God, the screaming. The cliff slipped out and gave its way. Dad, he had one last chance. To save us. It would probably cost him too. But he took our rifles and stashed them in the rock bed. Then he took us, one under each arm and he made for the creek." Sam took a shaky breath. But Dean had gathered him and he told the next part.

"When I hit the water, I was half out of my head."

Dean wasn't aware until he was flying through mid-air that this was the end. All he saw was all the broken boy had ever seen. His mother in the middle of her halo. And the end. The end of the end of the end of the-

His chest hit the water. But his head, his head was tucked tightly against a man's shoulder. His hand went up and pressed firmly over Sammy's beating heart.

Dean's eyes snapped open. He was in a creek, 15 feet of water or so. He was tucked like a little kid under his Dad's arm. Sam was under the other arm, leaning over his shoulder to sling the sopping hair out of his eyes.

"God….Please, God…"John's voice. The only time that Dean ever remembered hearing him pray. Only once. And then Dean wondered after it. The baptism of John by fire and water and the blood running from his face as the shrapnel had hit him and not his boys. Dean had to wonder if there was a God or if there were angels or if Mom was really back there in Pele's fire.

"God, if you're out there...Then there's got to be a way to put an end to gods and monsters. Okay, so you want me to believe you're the number one? Prove it. Give me something I can use...to save my family." John held his sons closer. Dean felt it. Felt his heart nearly bursting, beating against his chest. He looked up into Sam's wide young eyes that were looking on at a landscape ablaze.

Strangely enough, there in his father's arms, he couldn't look away from Sam's eyes. They were alive. For this one moment, they were alive. Now in a moment, that might change. In a breath, it would end in fire. Tonight, they might die, but they would all die together. The Winchesters. A family for once, here in the blazes.

"Dean?" Sam smiled. And that smile...quiet and resolved, and the slight tremor of laughter with it, brought John's eyes open.

"Boys?" John put his hands in each of his sons' hair. Dean sputtered. Sam's hand reached out and his fingers curled in the amulet he'd given Dean when they were little. Dean could feel it. The bond between them ran from the breath in his throat straight up Sam's fingers. Stronger than cords or symbols, it would outlast the burning trees, the splitting rocks that tore like teeth from bleeding gums of the mountain.

"We're here, Dad." Dean reached up to the amulet, closing his fist over Sam's hand. Sam grinned. A tree collapsed in the background, casting up a shadow. John drew them closer, pushing them down the river with steady swimming feet, even as debris and ashes peppered the current. The waters ran the color of blood and broken tiger lilies.

Dean felt tears in his eyes unbidden, hidden only by the smoke. This was the last time. It was the last time they would all be together like this, so he thought. But it wasn't the first time. It wasn't the first time they'd watched the world burn. This wasn't the first time Dad held him or his little brother while he looked on at desolation. One dark night, long ago, he remembered….

Dean cried. He hadn't in years in years, but he cried for Mary as the world burned down. And John cried and Sam cried, but no one ever spoke about it again.

"Only time I ever remembered hearing Dad pray. But that...That moment...That amazing grace where we burned together. You have to understand, Dean, that's why. Why I believed. That was amazing, that was enough. And I had faith... For so long. That there were angels, a higher power…" Sam smiled, eyes looking off into oblivion.

"But there were...There were angels! God was real all along. Your father when he prayed was heard in heaven…"Cas' mouth had fallen open.

Sam looked sadly at Cas, bottom lip trembling.

"Don't you see? I believed, but when the day came for the truth to reach me it was already too late. There was no salvation. Not for me." Sam swallowed. Dean nodded and looked up.

"You...You always said they were watching out for us. Angels…"Dean smiled at Mary. Mary whose eyes were running now with the tears of holy baptism, with the final proofs of understanding.

"I believed you. So, when they came for us. When you were right and I found out that angels had been watching….Had been watching and doing nothing! Like they had been waiting for the world to change or worse. There was a time...Damn it, there was a time that I hated you…Both of you..."Dean swallowed eyes watering a bit. He wouldn't look at Cas or Mary. He turned to Sam again.

"There were three of us once. The world consisted of three people once. Two boys and their mentally broken Dad. We climbed out of that river and walked right into Pele's lair. Now, she had stirred up an inferno around us, but her cave was empty. And I wouldn't know, not for years, that God actually heard Dad pray. There was a carving in that cave, a rune code, that eventually led Dad to a legit spell. One that was used to make the Colt. He thought, if he couldn't find the gun, he could make the spell. Whichever came first." Dean cleared his throat.

Sam smiled and then he nodded.

"We came to learn the truth about mothers and angels. It seems that God paid us back in the end. He gave us back the first angel that ever looked over us and then he gave us one with wings for a while." Sam put a hand on both Mary and Cas' shoulders.

Mary, to her amazement, burst into tears. And now, at last, the wayward mother was crying for her family. To think of them alone at the end of days, washing away down the mountainside, like tears from the earth's own eyes.

It was Dean then. Dean who had cried and languished on that day long ago. Dean, whose role now as the oldest biological Winchester man gave him the power of forgiveness. He reached out and gathered her to his chest. He pushed her face to his shoulder as protectively as he'd been pressed when amazing grace had saved him.

Sam reached around Mary from behind, smoothing her hair. She should be the one comforting them. She was the reason why they'd been lost, wasn't she? And yet, here they were again, baptized in compassion, just like their father had led them to be.

"If I...If I could ever pay back the debt that my kind owes…" Cas shook himself. Sam laid one side of his face in his mother's hair like he'd never gotten to do and turned to smile at Cas.

"You've paid in blood and sweat and tears and worse. You're one of us and don't owe angels or men anything."Sam nodded and traced his thumb over Cas' drawn face. And for the first time, Cas could understand. He was looking back into the eyes of all of them who prayed. And now he knew who men were and why they believed.