The Constancy of Pain

Author: dodger_winslow
Fandom: Supernatural

Genre: Gen
Word Count: 18,050
Pairings: None
Rating: R for language 
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.

Summary: Sometimes it’s the constancy of pain, not the intensity of it, that’s the enemy. And in the fight to overcome such an enemy, finding even a small respite from that constancy can be the only way to make it out alive.

John knew the moment he saw her it was the hair. He should have realized it earlier – should have known it by how hard Dean was watching her – but he didn’t. He didn’t even notice the woman until Dean walked up and stopped right in front of her.

He didn’t notice her because his mind was on other things.

Like how close he’d come to buying the farm tonight, and what would have happened to his sons if he had. Jim was a good friend and a responsible man, but he wasn’t in any position to raise two boys orphaned by their own father’s bullheaded stupidity. He would have made sure the boys were placed with good people, would have done his best to make sure they were placed together. But beyond that, there wouldn’t have been much he could do.

And it wouldn’t have been enough.

Not enough to protect either one of them. And not enough to save Dean.

Even after more than two years, his son was still so fragile; still so raw and wounded and broken by the continuing absence of everything stolen from him for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. It took him months to talk at all after Mary’s murder; almost a year to talk to anyone who wasn’t his father or his little brother.

Dean was talking now – had been talking for a while – but not the way a child his age should talk. And not about the things a child his age should be talking about. Nothing seemed to interest him. Nothing intrigued him, made him curious, made him want to know. He never asked questions about why things happened, or what they meant, or if they were going to happen again. He just accepted things the way they went down.

And not just some things. Everything. No questions, no protests, no appeals on the grounds of injustice. Just acceptance. It was as if he thought he had no power at all to control what happened to him, what happened to others; no power to change them for better or worse, or to change them just for the sake of change itself.

When Mary was alive, he’d been so interactive, so engaged with the world around him, so interested in everything he saw or heard or touched or tasted or smelled. Everything he thought, everything he felt, everything that was anything, and even things that were nothing: Dean was fascinated by it all.

But everything changed when Mary died … when Mary was murdered.

Dean changed.

Now he was only interested in Sammy. It was all he seemed to care about, the only thing that really mattered to him. That and his old man: The two of them had become Dean’s entire world.

They’d always been close, he and Dean; but as close as they were before, they were closer now. He’d become the only thing Dean trusted in the aftermath, Dean’s only perception of safe refuge in a world gone suddenly, utterly mad.

And he’d become Dean’s only source of input, too. What he said, what it meant and why he said it were the only things Dean ever really asked questions about, ever really wanted to know just because he wanted to know. By the time he started talking again, Dean had already begun to re-define the world he lost into one that was whatever John said it should be.

If John said it, Dean believed it. If John said something he didn’t understand, Dean asked about it, and he kept asking until he understood it, and once he understood it, he believed it. For Dean, life after Mary’s murder became just as simple as that: It was whatever his father said it was.

But it wasn’t only Dean who changed. He changed, too. He changed so much he hardly recognized himself any more. He wasn’t the man Mary loved and hadn’t been for a while now. He wasn’t even a shadow of that man any more. Sometimes he wondered if she would even know him if he met her on the street.

If she hadn’t been murdered.

If everything hadn’t changed.

Dean was the only thing that kept John going those first months after it happened. Once he got his feet back under him, Sammy became important again, too; but those first few months, the only thing that mattered was Dean. The only thing he cared about was how much Dean needed him. It was all that kept him on his feet and moving; the only thing that kept him alive and breathing and going through the motions of a life he no longer wanted.

A life that no longer wanted him.

It was only the faith in Dean’s eyes – the fear in Dean’s eyes – that reminded him he had to stay alive, if not for his own sake, then for his son’s.

Sammy would have been fine. He was so young, he would have never known the difference. But Dean was different. Dean needed him. Not somebody. Not anybody. Him. Specifically him. And only him.

And that was still true – as true now as it had been then – but John forgot it sometimes, lost it in the haze of his own need to punish things for stealing Mary away from them. He lost it in the pain that burned him ugly with the boys at times; lost it in the lonely that left him drowning in a bottle, or just foundered in his own misery to such a degree he was willing to let his son carry them all for a while, do his father’s job, take on his father’s burdens, make the world go away by taking care of his little brother until the pitiful excuse of a man his father had become could find his way back again. Until John could pick his shit up, get it together, soldier through it, be a man instead of whatever it was those times made of him.

But when that happened, when John lost track of what his son needed and who the only person was who could give it to him, Dean had his ways of reminding him.

Tucking Sammy into bed when he was home from the hunt – home from the Roadhouse, home from the library, home from this research trip or the other, home from those or any of a dozen other places he had a bad habit of being when it came time for his boys to go to bed – Dean would hover near his shoulder like some worried nanny who felt displaced by the return of a parent to the fold; who felt unneeded and worthless and utterly without purpose while he watched someone else do the job he’d taken on as his own. Once Sammy was safely asleep without suffering any mishap at the hands of a father who wasn’t as adept, or as practiced, at handling a two year old as his older brother was; Dean would crawl into his own bed, or sometimes into the bed beside his brother, to suffer the same ritualistic tucking as if it was some sort of family tradition to which he was accustomed; an acknowledgment of the passing of normal days into normal nights that was commonplace, ordinary, familiar, routine.

He would say his prayers dutifully while John sat on the edge of his bed and listened; he’d always remember to ask God to look after his mother even though neither of them were sure they really believed in God any more. He’d suffer the kiss John felt a need to put to his forehead as if sleep wouldn’t come without the benediction of a parental blessing; and he’d offer the ‘see you later, alligators’ and the ‘in awhile, crocodiles’ and the ‘not to soon, you big baboons’ that had been his favorite bedtime silliness when Mary was still alive, but were only words now.

Empty words. Hollow words.

But when John stood up, when John moved to walk away from the bed and leave his son behind to dream the dreams they both still dreamed, Dean would remind him what it was he needed and who it was who had it to give. Without a single word, without touching him or even reaching out for him, Dean would remind his old man why he had to stay alive, if not for his own sake, then for his son’s. Dean would look at him through the dark – just look at him – and in his eyes would be what John needed to remember to keep himself going.

His son needed him. For John, life after Mary’s murder became just as simple as that: Dean needed him.

When Dean looked at him in the confederacy of renunciation of a darkened room, his eyes said he believed in one thing. He trusted one thing. He was okay as long as one thing stayed where he could see it, where he could touch it.

Just that one thing.

It was at those times John remembered what a fragile child his son was. How much Dean hadn’t recovered, hadn’t healed; how much he was only hanging on by a thread, and even that one thread was in constant danger of breaking. He remembered how much Dean had only scarred over the worst of the wounds so he could keep going, keep tucking his little brother into bed at night, keep dragging his dad out of the morass of bottomless grief with a thousand little things he did every day, always thinking about what else he could do, always trying to put his dad back together again, or at least keep him from falling apart until nothing else was left.

It’ll be okay, Dad.

John couldn’t count the number of times Dean said that to him, his little voice quiet, calm, steady, comforting; one hand on John’s shoulder like he was the one who had to be strong about this, who had to soldier through it, pick up his shit, get it together, be a man, damnit.

Just be a man.

But at night, when Dean was tired and the room was dark and his Dad was there with him rather than off God knows where doing God knows what because he was under some stupid ass impression, God only knows why, that it was more important than this was; Dean would look at him with eyes that reminded John who his son was and what he still needed. Eyes that lived and died by the ferocity of the faith in them that tried so hard to hide a much deeper, much darker fear: the fear that when he closed them at night, he’d open them again to a world stripped of everything he knew, everything he loved, everything that mattered.

It was seeing that fear in Dean’s eyes – that fear coupled with a singular belief that there was only one person who could stop it from happening, who could keep his world safe, keep it sane, keep it there – that kept John going. It peeled him to the core like acid put to flesh when he saw it; but it kept him going, kept him moving, kept him putting one foot in front of the other for no better reason than because he had no other choice; no other choice but to let his child lose the last thing he believed in, the last thing he trusted, the last thing that made him feel safe.

And in losing that, lose himself.

Lose Dean.

The way he’d almost lost Dean tonight. The way he’d almost let Dean down in the only thing the boy really, truly needed.

It hadn’t been that dangerous. He shouldn’t have gotten hurt; certainly shouldn’t have almost gotten himself killed. But he had. And he had because he was careless. He didn’t pay enough attention to the details, didn’t make sure his I’s were dotted and his T’s were crossed. And it nearly cost him everything.

Nearly cost Dean everything.

The boys were already in bed when John showed up at the door, face caked with half-dry blood, cradling his left arm against his body with his right. Jim’s well-practiced expression of benign tolerance when it came to the failings of his fellow man darkened to something more akin to disapproval, an affect that intensified when he looked past John to see the Impala parked catawampus in the driveway, half on the cement and half on the grass.

It was as close to straight as he could manage, John said as he half-stumbled his way to Jim’s couch; and he should consider himself lucky it didn’t end up half in the garage, too, the garage door being down at the time as it was. Jim closed the door behind him without asking why, or how, or what in God’s name he was thinking; and retrieved the first aid kit that was never far from hand.

Jim resisted the urge to lecture as he checked the head wound first – "I don’t like this, John. It’s deep; you could have worse than a concussion. A lot worse." – then the wrist – "I’m pretty sure it’s broken. I’ll set an arm for you; but you don’t want me screwing around with a wrist. Too many moving parts that won’t move if you don’t know what you’re doing when you set it … which I don’t, in case I haven’t told you that, or in case you weren’t listening when I did."

John laughed, said it could have been worse. Softening dried blood with a wet towel to get a better look at the gash that laid his cheek open to the bone and the shiner that was already puffing his eye to near closed, Jim told him that was a damn comforting thought: Damn comforting to know John hadn’t done as much damage to himself as he could have done with a little well planned effort.

John assured Jim he wasn’t trying to get thrown down a flight of stairs headfirst, that’s just the way things played out. Poltergeists can be thoughtlessly unpredictable like that, he said.

Jim impugned his mental capacity and told him if he kept playing with fire, sooner or later he was going to get burned.

Bad.

Perhaps even fatally.

Wincing as Jim peeled his hair away from a second head wound – the one doing most of the bleeding despite the fact that it was, by far, the lesser of two evils when it came to walking a straight line … or driving one, for that matter – John said it would take a hell of a lot more than some punk ass poltergeist to kill him; then cursed at Jim for being punitively uncharitable in the way his examination was proceeding.

Jim grunted, noting the obvious in announcing the bleeder wasn’t much more than just a deep gash, then re-iterating his feelings that the less ostentatious injury was something due some serious consideration if John wanted to assure he was going to continue doing his sleeping above ground instead of six feet under. John laughed, said he’d sleep on it. Jim didn’t find that particularly funny and said as much, adding a pointed reminder that falling asleep with a serious head wound was a good way to wake up in a coma or dead or worse.

John asked what was worse than waking up dead. Then he smiled at Jim with a bitterness he could feel in his teeth as he said never mind, he already knew the answer to that one.

Jim did lecture him then, telling him he needed to pull his head out of his ass; he had a lot to live for, a lot to be thankful for. John thanked him for his concern by closing his eyes and dropping his head back against the couch cushions, doing his best to look like he didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything Jim had to say.

When Jim was finished wasting his breath on that subject, he went back to wasting it on the other one. "You need to see a doctor," he said, making it sound like an order in the way men of God liked to make their edicts concerning the welfare of others sound like orders. "Tonight, John; not tomorrow. I’ll drive you. The boys will be fine here until I get back."

John said it would wait until morning, that he was too tired to be filling out forms and sitting in some over-taxed, under-staffed ER all night; but Jim was already standing, pulling on his jacket as he said, "If it’s a fracture, it could kill you. I’m not willing to take that chance, and someone should kick your ass if you are."

John started to argue – started to point out the odds of a pastor successfully kicking a Marine’s anything, let alone his ass, even if it was a skull fracture and even if both arms were broken and tied behind his back, and even if Jim had been a Marine before he gave up his gun for the good book – when he heard a noise behind him that froze his tongue to silence in his mouth.

Jim heard it, too. Turned. Winced.

John could tell by the look on Jim’s face it was Dean. He could tell by the tone of Jim’s voice when he told Dean everything was okay and he needed to go back to bed that Dean had been standing there long enough to hear every word they said.

"Dad?"

The tremor in Dean’s voice made it impossible for John to do anything other than twist around on the couch and try to smile it back to sleepy. His son was standing in the half dark at the end of the hallway. The look in his eyes said he was finally seeing what he always knew he was going to see. The end of the world. The end of his world.

"It’s just a scalp wound, son," John assured him easily. "They always bleed more than they need to. They’re the big babies of the bumps and bruises world: fall down and bellow like a cat that’s been stepped on before they figure out they’re not even really hurt."

Dean looked to Jim.

"Everything will be okay, Dean," Jim said. "Go back to bed. Keep an eye out for Sammy until I get back."

"We’re not going anywhere, Dean," John corrected. "Pastor Jim’s just a real girl when it comes to blood. It’s no big deal. Go to bed, and I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. Pretty good story, actually. I think you’ll like it."

"What if you wake up dead?" Dean whispered.

Which is how they ended up here, sitting in a jam-packed ER waiting room on a Saturday night, his wrist iced and aching and his head so full of jagged shards of glassy pain he could have had one hell of a good time if he were only more masochistically inclined. The place was swamped with a baseline clientele that made him look almost respectable by comparison. He might have gotten more attention if Jim hadn’t cleaned away the blood to get a better look at the head wound; but as it was, he looked more like a drunk who got in a bar room brawl than a fool who went head-to-head with a pissy spirit bent on breaking his fucking neck, so they gave him a number, told him to have a seat, and said they’d get to him when they got to him.

That was more than two hours ago, and there were still at least a dozen people who’d been here longer than he had.

The constant mill of noise and confusion was wearing on John’s nerves, making him crabby and vaguely nauseous. The ice had long since melted, and his wrist was bruising up now, swollen, throbbing with every beat of his heart. Not to be outdone by lesser injury, his head ached as if something had tried to cave his skull in – odd coincidence that, considering that was pretty much exactly what happened.

Uncomfortable as he might be, however, neither complaint was deemed eminently dangerous enough to move him up the triage list in a county hospital that handled gunshot wounds, knife fights and car accidents in addition to hunters too stupid to remember where their salt lines were and where they weren’t. As far as he could tell, for all practical purposes, unless you were bleeding out, having a heart attack you could prove without benefit of an EKG or dropping a baby right there on the waiting room floor, you had your number, you had your chair, and you had the choice to wait or leave as you saw fit.

While John would have much preferred to leave, he waited because he promised Dean he would. And only because he promised Dean he would.

And because Dean was sitting right there beside him, making sure he did.

Glued to his side like they shared a common rib or three, Dean was sitting sentry on his father, making sure John stayed, making sure he followed through with promises made. Silent and uncommunicative, he responded with nods or glances to anything John said, sparing him single-word answers when the question or comment couldn’t be answered without actually speaking.

He was there instead of back at Jim’s because even at six, when Dean took a stance, he really took a stance.

And the stance Dean took this time was accompanying his old man to the ER. He was going. Period. He made that clear by refusing to be left behind when John finally agreed – grudgingly, and only under the duress of his son’s overtly disquietous anxiety; something both Jim and Dean wielded like a weapon against him, albeit Dean unwittingly, but Jim as wittingly as wittingly could be – to go get his damn head examined. Both John and Jim tried to talk Dean out of going, but neither of them succeeded. Jim did a much better job with the reasoning approach than John did, but he didn’t make as much impact as John made when he ordered Dean back to bed, starching his tone with enough unwarranted anger to bring tears to his son’s belligerent eyes, but not enough to actually make him go. Accomplishing that would have required shedding blood and breaking bones, and a lot more energy than John had to spare.

So in the end, Dean won simply because Dean refused not to win. He stood there in his pajamas, waiting out two grown men by refusing to budge until they agreed to let him do what he was going to do, come hell or high water: go to the ER with his old man. Even the necessity of waking Sammy for the trip didn’t dissuade him. And as it turned out, the mere fact that both Jim and John thought it would only went to show how much better Dean understood his little brother’s sleep habits than either of them did.

Sammy didn’t even wake up when Jim carried him to the car. He was still curled up on the back seat, snoring like a miniature buzz saw, when Jim dropped he and Dean off at the ER entrance, waiting to leave until he was sure John was steady enough to make it inside without falling on his ass and taking the boy trying to hold him up with him.

The triage nurse asked enough questions to make John’s headache escalate by a factor of ten, then gave them a handful of forms to fill out and directions where to go and how to get there. He would have reciprocated in kind; but she didn’t deserve his pissy attitude any more than Dean did, so he refrained from making comment to that effect by just shutting the hell up and going where she told them to go.

Dean took the forms as soon as they sat down, printing very carefully as he filled them out, taking great pains to keep all his letters inside the admit form’s neat little boxes without ever realizing being six and writing well enough to put down what John told him was something that made his old man just as proud as watching how easily he mastered the physical tasks of precision and dexterity John set for him when they were training in the guise of playing.

Once the forms were finished and Dean returned them to the admit desk so John didn’t have to, he came back to resume his place at John’s side. Sitting there still and silent, he presented a stark contrast to the other dozen or so kids in the place, virtually all of whom were grumpy, bitchy, sneezy, squealy, whiney, shrieky or dead alseepy … or some combination thereof.

But Dean was none of those. Rather, he was a six-year-old soldier on duty, his spine straight, his demeanor calm and respectful, his eyes fixed straight ahead when he wasn’t studying his shoes or his hands, or scanning the crowded room every ten minutes to update his perception of where the exits were, who might present a danger and what kind, and how best to fight if it came to a fight, or escape if it came to an escape.

Six years old, and this was the child John’s son was.

Dean only looked at John when he had to; only said anything when his father asked him something directly, or when John touched him in a way that required an acknowledgement before he shrugged it off like he had no use for the kind of contact he normally craved like other kids craved candy. To the casual observer – an outsider to their world – Dean no doubt looked like a startlingly well-behaved boy. To someone who knew him – someone like Jim, or Missouri, or maybe even Bobby – he would have looked angry. But to John – to his father and the one person who knew who Dean was beneath the way he tried so hard to be – he looked something else all together.

He looked terrified.

Bone-deep terrified.

On the one hour anniversary of their arrival, Dean took it upon himself to stand, walk to the admissions counter and inform the nurse there his father had been waiting too long and they needed to see a doctor. Now, please. The nurse was patient with him, smiling as she assured Dean it wouldn’t be too much longer.

He didn’t like her answer; but he accepted it by nodding and returning to his chair to continue with the quiet of a small soldier sitting vigil at his father’s side. John tried to talk to him again, tried to say something that would help; but Dean wouldn’t respond.

So he tried a little harder, equating the nurse to a storm trooper, but with better legs. Dean didn’t answer. He suggested Dean might have had better luck if he’d tried to Obi Wan her instead of reasoning with her. Dean said nothing. He told Dean to quit worrying so much or it would stunt his growth, and he had to consider things like that now because Sammy was already going to be at least four inches taller than he was, and a guy didn’t like being looked down on by his geeky, little brother.

Dean turned his head then, looked at John, and didn’t answer.

"It’ll be okay, Dean," John assured him gently. "I’d tell you if it wasn’t."

"No you wouldn’t," Dean said. Then he shut John down, shut him out, shut him up by going back to a studied focus on his shoes, Dean’s sigil of choice when it came to amplifying the ferocity of his concentration to the level required to successfully hide inside himself so deeply no one else could see the fear eating him from the inside out.

John sighed, closed his eyes. The constancy of the pain was wearing him down, so he let his senses go dull to the continual barrage of noise and light, let himself sink below the surface of his own instinctive awareness. He counted the passing of time in pulses of ache through his arm, or skitters of icy pain that bounced around inside his skull, focusing on the pain rather than trying to ignore it.

"Don’t go to sleep, Dad," Dean said, his voice quiet but firm.

"I’m not asleep," John returned without opening his eyes.

Dean didn’t say anything else, but John could feel the weight of his son’s unrelenting gaze. He suffered it for several minutes simply because the respite of darkness did more to back the pain cutting through his head off than anything else did; but when Dean began to fidget, when he began to lose the battle to control his own fear, John opened them again, gave Dean a wan smile.

"Pastor Jim’s was just being cautious, Dean," he said. "It isn’t as bad as he made it sound."

Dean nodded, but his eyes didn’t believe him. John sighed and kept his eyes open.

On the second hour anniversary of their arrival, Dean went back to the nurse and told her the same thing he’d told her an hour earlier. She responded in a very similar manner. Dean believed her the first time. He didn’t the second. He argued this time, calling her a liar and asking who her boss was. When the nurse chuckled at that, Dean’s hands balled to fists at his side.

"Dean," John called, his voice quiet but authoritative enough to interrupt whatever response Dean was about to make.

Dean didn’t answer him, but he didn’t answer the nurse either. All in all, that was more or less what John was looking to accomplish. But it wasn’t quite enough in the long run, so he said again, pushing the command in his tone just a little harder, "Dean."

Dean stayed where he was for a moment longer, staring at the nurse with a look that changed her chuckle of amusement to an expression of vague surprise. When she stopped laughing at him, Dean turned his back on her and walked away without another word. It was as much insult as his old man was going to let him express, so he made the best of it, his pivot military precise and pointed as all hell.

When he got back to his chair, he crawled up into it and settled at John’s side, his small body literally vibrating with anger.

"Step it back, son," John said quietly. "You can’t take your frustrations out on other people."

"She’s a liar," Dean said. He was speaking to his dad, but he said it loud enough for the admit nurse – and everyone else in the crowded room – to hear. He was still glaring at her like she was the personification of all things evil, still focused on her as if she’d slapped him rather than simply laughing at him, still punishing her for failing him when he’d believed her an hour ago in saying she’d do something she obviously wasn’t going to do.

"She’s just doing her job," John returned. "We have to wait our turn like everybody else."

"It doesn’t work that way," Dean informed him. "She’s let a bunch of people see the doctor that came in after you."

A bunch was a bit of an exaggeration. There’d been a man with a knife sticking out of his back, and a woman who was so far into having her baby she was just about done by the time her fool husband got her to the ER door: They’d been put on the fast track for obvious reasons. In addition, three ambulances had screamed through, getting the kind of attention screaming ambulances always got when they pulled up into an ER’s ambulance bay. But other than that, the admit nurse had been very diligent about calling people up in a very orderly fashion: first come, first served; first in, first out.

"Those people were hurt worse than I am," John explained patiently.

Dean looked at him then, looked him dead in the eyes with that expression of rotting, bone-deep fear that he was losing everything. Losing it right here, losing it right now. John could see it in his son’s eyes that Dean thought it was all being stripped away from him, and there was nothing he could do but sit and watch.

And there was nothing John could do for him but sit here and watch him think it.

"It’ll be okay, Dean," he said yet again, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference but trying anyway. He gave his son a smile, reached out to put a hand to the side of his face. Dean shrugged the gesture off. He turned away to face forward in his chair again, resuming his silent vigil as he waited for his world to end.

John sighed. He leaned back in his chair, watching as Dean went back to staring at the nurse again, his focus singular and ferocious in a way most children reserved for video games or cartoons. Because it wasn’t hurting anyone, and because the nurse likely didn’t even notice the furious attention of one small boy in a room over crowded with grumpy people as impatient for their turn at the doors she protected as Dean was, John didn’t try to explain it again, or even tell him to stop.

He just let it go. He let Dean do what Dean wanted to do, let him do what he needed to do – or at least what he thought he needed to do – to make the time go by.

The harsh glare of the ER lighting was kicking John’s ass again, so he closed his eyes, took a moment to concentrate on quieting the harsh roar of blood pulsing through his veins, the deafening thunder of every thought he indulged charging through his head like a herd of horses on the stampede. It was a futile effort, just as comforting Dean right now was a futile effort; but it was still one he made, just as he made the effort with his son, knowing he would fail before he even tried.

But he had to try.

The pain possessed him for a while, and he let it; giving in to the pound of it through his battered body rather than fighting against it as he had been for what seemed so long now he could hardly remember the actual fall itself.

Sometimes it’s the constancy of pain that’s the enemy, not the intensity of it.

Any man can endure even the most horrific wound short term. It’s the way we’re designed: to withstand even grievous injury long enough to fight your way free of the danger zone, or to run and hide until it gives up and goes away. But once the initial shock wears off, once the initial pain is past and the ramifications of the damage you’ve taken settles in for the long haul, then it becomes a battle of wills. A test of endurance. A fight to keep going, to carry on, to soldier up, to simply make it through.

To just exist.

To simply survive.

And in the task of surviving, the injury is the thing, not the pain. Pain is just the body’s way to keep you engaged. To keep you conscious. To keep you awake enough to the danger of dying to keep you fighting.

But when the pain becomes more than a man can take, more than you can bear, more than you can continue to take and still survive; sometimes the only way to keep fighting is to give in for a while. To let it have you. To let it own you. To let it pass through you so you can get over it and get on with it.

Get on with living. Get on with healing the injury itself instead of spending all your resources managing the pain the injury has become.

Sometimes it’s the constancy of pain that’s the enemy, not the intensity of it. And in that, sometimes finding even a small respite from that constancy is the only way to make it out alive.

It was something John learned in the Marines, and it had saved his life more than once. He used it now, willing himself to surrender to the struggle, to give in, to let it win for a while as he concentrated on just sitting there and taking it like a man.

Like a battered man looking to survive the long haul. Like a smart Marine looking to live to fight another day.

So John relaxed, let it have him. He allowed himself to feel every bruise on his body, every rattle in his bones, every twist of joint and wrench of muscle that comes from being thrown half way across a room and headfirst down a flight of stairs. He felt them, endured them, and let them pass.

His perception of sound and sensation dulled to a less brutal intensity. The cut of pain through his every thought lost its edge a bit, becoming soft, becoming bleary. Time passed differently than before, more like warm syrup now than cold ketchup so thick it took a knife in the bottle to pry the flow of it into motion.

The injury itself, once again, became the thing. And in that, the only war a man had to fight was resisting the sometimes overwhelming urge to wake up dead.

More than half an hour passed. And John let it. He let it pass until he felt Dean shift beside him in a way that was more than random fidget, until he felt Dean push out of his chair and heard him walk away.

John wanted to ignore it – wanted desperately to ignore it – but he couldn’t afford to, so he didn’t. Even at six and even in the less-than-optimum environment of a late night ER, Dean was capable of handling himself or calling for help if he needed it; but the admit nurse was harried enough without him escalating his objections from every hour to every half hour. If only for that reason, he needed to find Dean and call him back before someone got frustrated enough with his badgering to respond to him in a way Dean didn’t deserve.

He was just trying to help. Just trying to be an advocate for his old man, trying to save them both from the fate fear had written as the inevitable outcome of every moment that passed without a real doctor assuring him Jim’s prognosis of "it could kill you" was full of shit. Or at least somewhat overstated.

Stirring himself out of the cocoon of half-dazed stupor into which he’d fallen, John forced his eyes open and worked to focus through pain that intensified exponentially as soon as he resumed his abandoned struggle against it. He scanned the crowded room and found his son where he didn’t expect to see him.

Dean wasn’t heading for the admit counter again, and he wasn’t walking toward the bathroom, or making his way to the drinking fountain for a drink. Instead, he was threading his way through the scatter of waiting room chairs, every line of his body language clear with purpose as he stopped directly in front of another patient: a woman with long, blonde hair and a child playing quietly near her feet.

John knew the moment he saw her it was the hair. He should have realized it earlier – should have known it by how hard Dean was watching her – but he didn’t. He didn’t even notice the woman until Dean walked up and stopped right in front of her.

She didn’t look like Mary at all – didn’t resemble her even in passing – but her hair was the same length, and almost the same color, and she wore it the same way. It was only when Dean was standing in front of her that John realized it hadn’t been the nurse his son spent the last half hour watching. It was her. Her and the long, soft blonde of her almost-Mary hair.

"Hi," Dean said, his voice firm, calm, composed. Purposeful. "My name’s Dean."

Startled out of the book she was reading by the nearness of an unexpected voice, the woman looked up, blinking in surprise. For just a moment, she didn’t look like she knew how to respond to the little boy standing before her; but then she smiled, relaxing into the realization that her addresser was a child and his proximity posed no threat to her, or to the toddler at her feet. "Well, hello, Dean," she said, closing her book with her thumb on the page to keep her place. "It’s very nice to meet you."

"What’s your name?" Dean asked.

Though she seemed taken aback a little by the directness of his question, she answered it easily, speaking to him like a mother speaks to any child who seeks her attention in a way that reminds her of her own. "My name’s Janet," she said, smiling.

Dean nodded. "That’s a good name," he told her. Then, almost as a revision, he added, "It’s pretty. I like it." He looked her straight in the eyes then and said, "I like your hair, too. Can I touch it, please?"

For just a moment, John considered calling him back. He would have if the woman had balked, or acted as if she was unduly bothered by Dean’s sudden and specific attentions. But she didn’t. She seemed surprised. A little puzzled, maybe. But not angry, or unnerved, or even more than passingly disturbed to have a strange child walk up to her and begin asking bold questions while she killed time between the pages of a book.

Because the woman seemed amenable to the exchange, and because it was the first time Dean had voluntarily spoken to a stranger – any stranger – since Mary died, John let the interaction play. He was loathe to interrupt whatever was going through his son’s head right now; and even more loathe to discourage Dean from seeking something that reminded him of his mother rather than turning away from it as he normally did; hiding from it, pretending it didn’t exist for fear or pain of remembering how much he missed what he no longer had.

The woman made a quick scan of the crowded waiting room. Unaware she was speaking to a motherless child, she was looking for a childless mother she wasn’t going to find. "Where’s your mommy, honey?" she asked rather than answering Dean’s request.

"My mother’s dead," Dean said simply.

His statement was a slap, more to the woman than to John; but in some ways, to them both. The calm, cold, informative inflection of his tone was so stark, so lacking in childish affect it was jarring. Heartbreaking. Horrifying.

To them both.

"Oh," the woman said after a long beat. "I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know."

"Can I touch your hair please?" Dean asked again.

"Uh … okay. Sure." She smiled at him, a consolation prize offered to balance out the cosmic injustice of his mother’s murder. "You can touch my hair if you want to."

Dean reached out, ran his hand down the side of the woman’s hair like he was touching something reverent, something precious. Completely focused on what he was doing, he was almost in a trance of sorts; stroking her hair again, and then a third time; oblivious to the crowded room around him, equally oblivious that the woman wearing his mother’s hair was watching him with an expression that indicated she thought he might spontaneously combust at any moment.

Watching them from across the waiting room, John was as focused on what his son was doing as Dean was on touching the woman’s hair.

Dean ran his hand the length of her hair several more times, then took some to rub between his fingertips like he was testing to make sure it was real, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. "It feels just like her hair," Dean said finally, his voice more wistful than awed. "But it smells different." He put a piece up to his nose, inhaling deeply to verify what he was saying before he clarified, "It smells like cantaloupe."

The blonde woman had no idea what to do with that. John knew he should rescue her, but he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to interrupt yet, couldn’t bring himself to shut Dean down when Dean so rarely let himself open up. He was touching someone he didn’t know, talking to her about his mother, about something he remembered of a life he hadn’t spoken of since the night it burned to death in his little brother’s nursery. John couldn’t interfere with that. He wouldn’t interfere with that.

"Uh, yeah," the woman said finally. "Honey melon, actually. And …" she hesitated like she had no idea why she was telling him what she was, then finished, "… and kiwi."

Dean nodded. "Different," he repeated definitively.

"Different from …?" the woman prompted.

"From the way it’s supposed to smell," Dean clarified.

She frowned, trying to figure him out. "How is it supposed to smell, honey?"

"Like strawberries," Dean said. "Or sometimes like flowers. But I don’t know what kind of flowers." He hesitated for a beat, then added more quietly. "I don’t remember what kind." He looked up then, stared straight into her eyes again to ask, his voice strong and firm like it had been when he first started talking to her, "Can you call me Dean instead of honey, please? My name is Dean."

"Um. Sure, hon – I mean, Dean."

"Thank you. Is that your little boy?"

The woman glanced down at the child playing at her feet. "Yes. It is."

"How old is he?"

"He’s two."

"Does he have a brother?"

She cocked her head to the side a little, still trying to figure Dean out. Trying to understand where he was going with his questions and why. Or if he was going anywhere with them, or just asking her things because he was bored, and she was available and willing to answer him. "No, Dean. He doesn’t. Why do you ask?"

"My brother’s two," Dean told her. "His name’s Sammy. What’s your little boy’s name?"

"His name’s Bobby."

"Bobby." Dean nodded his approval. "That’s a good name, too. You can call him Bob when he gets bigger. Did you name him that?"

The woman leaned forward a little. She smiled at Dean, asking, "What’s your last name, Dean?"

"Winchester. Did you name him that?"

She tried to ask it gently: "Dean, are you here by yourself, sweetie?"

"No. Did you name him that?"

The insistence of Dean’s tone startled the woman, made her frown. "Uh. Yes. I named him that. Who are you here with, Dean? Can you show me who you’re here with?"

"Yes. Does Bobby have a dad?"

She looked around the crowded room again, starting to show signs she was thinking about involving someone else in their conversation. "Bobby’s daddy is home with his sisters right now. Who are you here with, Dean? Is your daddy here?"

"Yes," Dean said. "He’s here." And then he just looked at her.

It was the first response he gave that didn’t involve a question of his own. She seemed to understand there was a significance to that, but she didn’t look like she had any idea what the significance could be.

Neither did John.

She smiled encouragement, prompting, "He is?"

"Yes," Dean repeated. "My dad’s here." But he didn’t offer anything else. Or ask another question. He just looked at her. Just stood there and looked at her like he was waiting for her to ask him the right question.

The woman sighed, gave in and asked, "Where is your daddy, Dean?"

That was the right question. Dean took a step closer to her, staring intently into her eyes as he lowered his voice to a near whisper John could only half hear to tell her in a rush of words that came out of his mouth as fast as he could push them, "My dad’s hurt, and I think he’s going to die, but the doctor won’t help him even though the whole reason we came here was because he needs a doctor to fix his head because it was bleeding really bad before and even Pastor Jim thinks he needs a doctor, too; but they won’t let him see a doctor, and I think his arm’s broke, and he keeps closing his eyes, and he’s not supposed to go to sleep with a head wound or he’ll wake up dead, and can you make them bring a doctor out for him because they won’t listen to me, but they’ll listen to you if you tell them they have to get a doctor for him because if they don’t get a doctor he could die, and I don’t want him to die because me and Sammy don’t have anybody if he dies, and he’s my dad, and I don’t want him to die, please, because I’m afraid he’s going to die, and he can’t die; he can’t die because my mom is dead because something killed her, and he can’t die, too; so can you please just make them go get a doctor for him, please, because I need someone to help me so can you help me, can you make them, please, can you, please, can you just, please —"

It took John several seconds to find his voice in the vacuum his chest had become, but when he did, he called, "Dean." It came out sharper than he intended. Dean flinched and stopped talking, but he didn’t turn around.

Looking over Dean’s head, the woman located John by his voice. Her expression asked what he wanted her to do. John would have liked to tell her, but he had no idea what to do with this. No idea at all.

His heart was pounding at how much information Dean downloaded in the few seconds he spent confessing his most precious secrets to this complete stranger. He’d opened himself like a gutted deer to this woman, spilling it all in her lap in a blind hope she wouldn’t destroy him with what he was saying, but would instead help him. Show mercy to him. Take pity on him.

Save him.

Dean didn’t believe in mercy. He didn’t believe in pity. Those concepts were burned out of him, along with hope, when a demon ignited his mother to a funeral pyre in his own home, reducing the spirit of the trusting child he’d been to ash as surely as John destroyed the spirits of vengeful entities with the application of fire and salt.

Wincing a little as he sat up, John leaned forward in his chair, calling to his son again, his voice low, quiet, personal: "Dean. Come here, son."

But Dean didn’t turn. He didn’t come. For the first time since Mary’s murder, in an arena outside the safety of John’s immediate proximity, Dean didn’t do exactly what his dad told him to do, the moment he told him to do it. As he had in the hallway of Jim’s house – a place he felt safe enough to think rather than obey, protected enough to respond rather than react – Dean defied him.

He chose the mercy of a stranger over the protection of his father. He chose something he didn’t believe over something that defined his very existence.

"Please?" Dean whispered, staring at the blonde woman like she was his last hope in the whole, entire world. "Please help me. Please."

"Honey …"

"Dean," John said again, making his voice a little harder, a little more of an order with a little less room to consider it anything else.

And just that quickly, Dean gave up. The desperation that drove him to such a dramatically self-sacrificial act broke, and he collapsed back into the hollow shell he’d become after Mary’s murder. Turning away from the woman he approached as if he’d never confided in her – never begged her for help, never thrown himself at her feet in a last ditch effort to earn mercy he no longer even believed existed – Dean walked back to his chair, crawl into it and sat there like he’d never abandoned it at all.

Like he’d never left his father to approach a total stranger and beg her to stop the end of his world from coming.

The woman was watching him, her eyes worried; but Dean was done with her. He wouldn’t look at her, wouldn’t look at anyone. Not her, not John, not anyone. All he would look at was his shoes. He stared at them like they were all that existed right now, his shoulders trembling, both of his hands clenched to such tight fists the fingers were white all the way to the second knuckle.

"Jesus, Dean," John whispered.

He reached out, put a hand on the back of Dean’s neck. Dean tried to shrug it off, but John didn’t let him this time, pulling him close instead, bowing his own head to rest his forehead against Dean’s skull.

Dean resisted him, his body stiff as a board as he refused comfort he didn’t believe, rebelled against being told everything was fine when he knew it wasn’t. He was still staring at his shoes – glaring at his shoes – both hands still clenched to fists, still glued to his thighs like they were spot welded there and never intended to move again.

"It’s okay, Dean," John said. He spoke into his son’s hair, his lips against Dean’s skull and his voice so low no one but Dean could possibly hear what he was saying. But Dean could hear it. Dean could feel it. "Everything’s going to be okay, son. I promise. Everything’s going to be okay."

It took three minutes for Dean to give in; three minutes for the resistance in his body to begin to fail. Over the next five, he collapsed in increments, capitulating by degrees to the pressure of John’s hand on the back of his neck, allowing himself to be pulled closer, letting himself be drawn in until he was huddled against John’s side, trembling there, his face turned to the comforting warm of his father’s shirt.

John shifted his grip, pulled Dean into his lap. His son’s body was boneless now, folding in on itself as he settled against John’s chest, his hands twisting into John’s shirt, his face pressing into the lee of John’s shoulder. "I’ve got you, bud," John said as he tucked Dean in close, held on to him as best he could with only one hand, spreading his fingers where that hand rested between Dean’s shoulder blades, creating as much contact between them as possible in an effort to compensate for not being a mother who could wrap Dean up in her arms and rock him until the world was safe again.

Sane again.

Dean started to cry. He didn’t sniffle, didn’t sob, didn’t make any noise at all in fact. He just broke. Crumbled. Shattered.

In complete silence.

Hiding against the shelter of John’s body, he came apart, trembling, gasping in small huffs of desperation as the warm, salty wet of his tears soaked through John’s shirt and into his skin. "It’s okay, Dean," John whispered to him. "Everything’s going to be okay. I promise it’s going to be okay."

He moved the hand on Dean’s back, rubbing small circles while he talked, soothing his son like he had when Dean was a colicky baby, and Mary needed rest so badly she was nearly frantic with exhaustion before it occurred to him Dean could cry on his father’s shoulder as easily as he could cry on his mother’s. Dean’s hands dug deeper into the folds of John’s shirt, hanging on like he was terrified someone was going to snatch his dad away at any second.

Like he believed that more than he believed anything John was saying.

"It’s okay, buddy," John murmured, his lips against the top of Dean’s head. "It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay."

"Don’t leave me," Dean whispered when he’d finished crying; when his breathing was no longer tearing through him in small, silent sobs; when he was hiding against John’s chest instead of breaking there.

"I won’t. I’m not going anywhere."

"You promised," Dean breathed.

"I promise, Dean. I promise."

"You said you wouldn’t leave me. When I said I didn’t want to live with Pastor Jim, I wanted to go wherever you were going, you said you wouldn’t leave me. You promised, Dad. Do you remember? You promised. You promised you wouldn’t leave me."

"I remember," John whispered to him.

"Don’t leave me," he said again, his voice cracking.

"I won’t, Dean. I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I’m not going anywhere, son. I’m not going anywhere."

"You promise?" It was a question this time.

"I promise," John promised.

"You swear?"

"I swear," John swore.

"Okay," Dean whispered. He sniffed, snuggling deeper into the sheltering bulk of his father’s body. "I believe you."

His son’s words were a sacrament. He spoke them quietly, reverently, the smallness of his voice quavering a little with the intensity of their conviction as he offered up everything he had left to give.

The last piece of faith he had left to offer.

It was three more hours before they finally got John in to see a doctor. Dean was asleep by then, his body a knot of trust against his father’s chest. He was snoring softly, his face peaceful in sleep, his hand’s still twisted into John’s shirt, but no longer frantic so much as they were simply possessive. He didn’t wake when John stood, didn’t wake when John shifted him a little higher against his shoulder so he could carry the weight more effectively with only one arm to put to the task.

He stirred when a nurse put hands on him, offering to take him to relieve John of the burden.

"No," John said. "I’ve got him."

When the nurse removed her hands, Dean settled again, sinking back against his father’s chest, mumbling something John couldn’t understand.

"I’ve got you, bud," John said, speaking to Dean this time. "I’ve got you."

Dean slept through the examination, and the x-rays. He slept through the doctor stitching John’s cheek back together and asking questions about Dean: if he’d been there when John took the tumble down the stairs, if seeing something like that might have traumatized him enough to require counseling, or to need some kind of medication to ease any residual anxiety seeing something so frightening might leave behind. He slept through the cast they applied to John’s wrist, and through the admitting process as they transferred him from the ER to a room for overnight observation just to be safe, something John agreed was probably a good idea, head wounds being unpredictable the way they were and his son not needing the extra anxiety of having to deal with anything unexpected that might arise.

He woke briefly when John called to update Jim on what was going on, sitting up in the hospital bed beside his dad and rubbing at his eyes as he asked, "Is Sammy okay?"

"Sammy’s fine. Go back to sleep, Dean."

Dean blinked at him, eyes bleary like a puppy newly introduced to the world. "Where are we?" he asked, not looking around to see for himself, but rather looking to John to tell him the way it was.

"We’re in a hospital room. They’re keeping me overnight to keep an eye on me. Just to be safe, make sure everything’s okay before they send me back home."

"I’m staying here," Dean said. Then, almost hesitantly, he added, "Right?"

"Lie back down, Dean. Go back to sleep."

"But I’m staying here," Dean repeated. "Right?"

"Yes. You’re staying with me. Pastor Jim will come pick us up in the morning. Now go back to sleep."

"Tell Pastor Jim Sammy likes toast for breakfast, with grape jelly, not strawberry," Dean said.

"You let Jim and I worry about Sammy. You do what you’re told, and don’t make me tell you again."

Dean looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded. "Okay," he mumbled, sinking back into the bed. "Night, Dad." He was asleep again almost before his head hit the pillow.

"How’s he doing?" Jim asked from the other end of the phone line.

"Better," John said.

"Than?"

"I don’t know, Jim. Better than before, I guess. Better than a six year old who thinks it’s okay to stand in the hall in his pjs and tell his old man to piss off when he tells the little mutt he’s not going to the hospital with him."

"You scared him, John."

"I know I did."

Jim waited a beat, then asked, "Is there anything I say here that makes a difference?"

"No. Dean pretty much covered it."

"You’re all he has," Jim said gently. "The only thing he believes in any more."

"I’m not an idiot," John said.

"Not to piss in your cornflakes there, pal," Jim returned easily, "but opinions on that one vary."

John snorted. "Yeah. I suppose they do. And maybe they should. I’m just saying I know how much he needs me. More than anyone, I know it."

"You might want to try to remember it," Jim suggested.

"I’m trying."

"Are you?"

John didn’t answer for a moment, watching Dean sleep, studying the way his son’s small body was twisted into a knot of protection against the world around him. "I’m doing the best I can, Jim." he said finally.

"Doesn’t sound like that’s good enough any more."

"Gonna have to be. It’s all I’ve got to offer."

Jim snorted.

"What?" John asked.

"May sound harsh, but what you have to offer doesn’t really matter," Jim said. "What matters is what your son needs. So if you don’t have it, you’d better figure out a way to get it, and you better do it fast."

"Oh fuck you and your existential bullshit," John said.

"I’m serious."

"So am I."

Jim sighed.

"Don’t even," John warned.

"Don’t even what?"

"Don’t even tell me to pray for strength, or I swear to God, I will crawl though this phone line and kick your ass."

Jim chuckled. "Am I getting that predictable in my old age?"

"You preachers are all the same. Gets out of your range of expertise, and you pull the God card."

"Sometimes the God card works."

"The God card’s a joker."

Jim didn’t say anything for a moment. "That a play on words there, John? God’s a joke? The God card’s a joker?"

"Take it however you want."

"How ’bout I take it this way: You don’t have what your son needs, maybe you’d better take any card you can get to shore up that weak-ass hand you’re holding."

"Jokers don’t mean jack shit a real game," John said. "In a real game, they aren’t even part of the deck in play. And I’ve got what Dean needs, I just have to do a better job of not letting it get itself killed. Or thrown down the stairs by pissy spirits, for that matter."

"Do I get to vote on that one?" Jim asked.

"No."

"Okay."

Neither of them spoke for almost a minute.

"I’m not trying to get myself killed," John said finally. "Things just go wrong sometimes. Shit happens. It’s part of the job."

"They go wrong more often with you than they should," Jim returned. "And this isn’t your job, John. It’s your mission. Maybe even your cross."

"You’re not equating me to Jesus Christ are you, Pastor Jim?"

Jim snorted. "God, no. Jesus didn’t look to get himself nailed to the cross. Hell, he even asked His Old Man once or twice if it was really the only way to get it done. Compared to you, that makes Him a fucking survivalist."

John didn’t say anything for a long moment. When he did speak, it was to say, "Damn, Jim. Be a bitch about it, why don’t you?"

"Truth hurts," Jim said.

"The way you tell it, it does."

"Not trying to hurt you, John. Trying to keep you alive."

"I’m alive."

"Are you?"

John sighed. "I hate it when you do that," he noted.

"Everybody does. And yet, I still do it."

"So … what? You’re trying to say I’m not alive?"

"What do you think?"

"I think I hate it when you do that, too."

"You’re alive, John. I’m just not sure you always realize that."

"Huh," John said. "Profound."

"That’s why I prefer to let you come to answers like that on your own."

"Why?" John asked. "So you won’t get called profound?"

"So you’ll listen to them instead of making fun of them," Jim countered.

"I’m listening to you."

"Are you?"

John laughed. "Fuck you," he said. "I have a concussion, a busted wrist, three bruised ribs, a smashing new ten-stitch scar on my pretty mug and one hell of a lot of stair dents in my ass, so I’m going to hang up on you and go to sleep now. I just called to say they’re going to release me around ten tomorrow. It would be nice if you showed up some time in that vicinity so we can blow this popsicle stand."

"I’ll check my calendar and get back to you. Did you say those stair dents are on your ugly mug or your pretty ass? Or I guess it doesn’t really matter does it, both of them looking pretty much the same anyway."

"Did you just tell me I have a pretty ass, Jim?" John asked. "Because you really need to buy me a drink before you start talking like that."

"No. I called you an assface, John. And I’ll consider buying you a drink when you consider not getting that assface of yours thrown down a flight of stairs just to prove me wrong when I say it can’t get any damn uglier than it already is. Go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow."

"Hey," John said quietly.

"What?"

"Dean talked to some woman about Mary tonight."

That stopped Jim cold. "He did?" he asked after a long beat of stunned silence. "Who?"

"Some stranger. Just walked up to her and started talking."

"Seriously? Your Dean?"

"She had blonde hair. Same length as Mary’s. Wore it the same way."

"She look like her?"

"No. Not at all. Just the hair."

Jim thought about that for a moment. "What do you make of that?" he asked finally.

"What do I make of it?" John repeated.

"Yeah. Obviously you’ve got something to say about it, or you wouldn’t have brought it up."

"I just thought you’d want to know."

"Bullshit, Assface. Tell me what you’re thinking."

"I’m thinking I’ve fucked him, Jim," John said quietly. "That I’ve really, truly fucked him."

"How so?"

"How so?" John repeated.

"Damnit, John. Don’t just parrot me. Tell me what you’re thinking."

"You want to know what I’m thinking?" John snapped. "Fine. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking my son was down to his last fucking dime. I think he was so fucking scared he found someone who looked like a mommy to him so he could ask her to save me from myself. That’s what I’m thinking."

Jim didn’t say anything. John gave him several beats to respond. When he didn’t, John demanded, "What? You’ve got nothing to say to that?"

"What do you want me to say?" Jim asked.

"I don’t know. Something profound. Maybe you can tell me to pray about it or something. That would be really helpful right now. I could absolutely use some advice like that if you’ve got any laying around those holier-than-thou digs of yours."

"You’re looking for advice now?"

"Fuck no, Jim. I’m looking for answers. How in the hell did I get here? I’ve been trying to get him to talk about Mary for two years; and when he finally does, it’s to a stranger because he’s so convinced I’m going to leave him he can’t think of anything else to do? Any other way to stop it? That’s fucked. That is so totally fucked. He picked her because she looked like a mommy to him; someone who would help him. But I guaran-God-damn-tee you he also picked her because he thought if she looked enough like Mary, I might listen to her. That’s why he picked her, Jim. I know Dean. I know the way he thinks. And he picked her so I’d listen. He picked someone he thought looked like Mary so I’d fucking listen to her. Jesus Christ, Jim. How did I do that to him? And how do I undo it? How the fuck do I undo it? And don’t tell me to ask God that one. Don’t you fucking tell me that, or I will hang the fuck up."

Jim waited for several moments. John waited with him.

"You finished?" Jim asked finally.

"Yes."

"Are you really looking for an answer, or did you just want to get that off your chest?"

"I’m looking for an answer."

"Quit trying to kill yourself," Jim said.

John didn’t respond to that.

"That’s my answer, John," Jim said quietly. "Quit trying to kill yourself. That’s what I’ve got for you. So are you going to hang the fuck up on me now?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Don’t be an ass."

"I’m not being an ass. I’m giving you an out so you can keep not hearing something you’ve been doing everything you can not to hear for a while now."

"I don’t need an out. And I don’t need you giving me grief for not listening."

"You don’t listen, John. Not when you don’t want to hear what I’m saying."

"I listen to you, Jim," John said again.

"But?"

"But I don’t always want to hear what you’re saying. That doesn’t mean I’m not listening. It just means I don’t want to hear it."

"Because you don’t agree with it? Because you don’t believe it? What, John? Why don’t you want to hear it?"

"Because I can’t do it."

"Can’t do what?"

"Stop hunting."

"Who said anything about not hunting? I didn’t say you have to stop hunting. Were you listening to me, John? Did you hear a fucking word I said?"

"I heard what you said. You said stop hunting."

"I said stop trying to get yourself killed."

"What the difference?"

"If there’s not a difference for you between hunting and trying to get yourself killed; then you’re right, I said stop hunting."

"You want me to pretend it never happened? Just go on with life like Mary got hit by a drunk driver, or died in childbirth? Pretend whatever murdered her wasn’t after Sammy, too? Or Dean? Or all of us?"

"No, John. That isn’t what I want. And even if it was, what I want doesn’t matter. What you want matters."

"I want to hunt. I need to hunt, Jim. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me any more. The only thing that makes the world make sense."

"Then don’t quit hunting. Just do it differently."

"Differently how?"

"Differently in a way that doesn’t end up with you dead."

"Hunting’s dangerous. I can’t promise I won’t get killed if I keep doing it."

"You already did that, didn’t you?"

"Did what?"

"Promised. To Dean. He told me more than a year ago he wasn’t going to live with me no matter what, and I couldn’t make him. He said if you left him here, he was going to run away and find you again, and he’d take Sammy with him."

"He told you that?"

"Yeah. He did. He said he wanted me to know it wasn’t anything personal, he just wasn’t going to let you leave him. So if you tried, he was going to run away; and he didn’t want me to think it was anything I’d done, I should just understand that was the way it had to be; because you’re his dad, not me, although I’d probably be a good dad if I ever decided I didn’t want to be a pastor any more."

John snorted, shaking his head. He studied Dean curled up on the bed beside him, watching him sleep as he said, "Son of a bitch, that boy is my son, isn’t he?"

"Yes, John. He is."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him that isn’t what you had in mind. That you weren’t planning to leave him. He came back a week later and told me I was right, and he was sorry if he hurt my feelings by saying what he said. When I asked him what changed his mind on the subject, he said you promised him you wouldn’t leave. That you promised him, and he believed you."

"I did."

"Then you’ve already made the promise, John. And he’s already taken you at your word. So unless you want to break that boy’s soul, you only really have one option: keep your promise. Don’t leave him."

"I’m trying, Jim."

"No you’re not. You say you’re trying, but you’re not."

"I don’t know what else I can do. Except quit hunting all together. And I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can. Not and still be any use to him, or to Sammy." John reached up, rubbed at his forehead, trying to find a way to say what he didn’t want to say. "I need the hunt," he admitted finally. "It’s the only thing that helps, the only thing that bleeds off enough pressure so I don’t … so I don’t turn it back on them. On you. On anybody else close enough to reach when it hits me again."

"When what hits you?" Jim asked. "The pain?"

"The anger." John’s voice broke a little on the confession. He hadn’t told anyone this, hadn’t spoken about it at all. "It’s blinding. Worse than anything I ever felt over there. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt period. I can’t control it. I’ve tried, but I can’t. I can’t even see when it hits me. I can’t think: I can’t breathe. All I can do is kill. That’s all I want to do, Jim. Just kill. Kill something. Kill anything."

His chest had gone tight. His head was pounding, his heart working harder than it had to. He’d locked this up inside for so long it was hard to get it out. Hard to actually say it, hard to admit how far he’d fallen away from the civilized man Mary’d made of him once, hard to concede that the mechanic she’d reclaimed from a Marine who spent too long killing to keep from being killed no longer existed, that it was just a charade John played in the sham of a life he tried to live between hunts.

"The hunt makes that sane for me," John said, trying to explain it to the only man he knew who might possibly understand what he was saying. "It gives me a pressure valve, a way to let it off without hurting something that doesn’t deserve hurting. And I need it, Jim. God help me, but I need it. If I didn’t have it, I’d blow and take everyone with me."

He stopped for a moment, gritting his teeth against the urge to lie, to make himself sound stronger than he was by pretending he could control this when he knew he couldn’t. "If I try to give up hunting," he said when he could go on, "I’ll have to leave them. It’s the only way to protect them from who I am without that pressure valve. And I can’t do that. I can’t do that to Dean; I don’t think I can even do it to me. I know hunting is dangerous. I know how easy it would be to screw up and get myself killed. But I can’t give it up. Not without giving them up, too. And I can’t do that. I just can’t. I’ve gotten myself boxed into a corner, and I can’t see any way out of it."

"The way out is the same as the way in, John," Jim said.

"What the hell does that mean? Don’t talk to me in riddles right now, Jim. I need help. I need help, or Dean will be the one who suffers when I screw up again."

"You’ve got to come home," Jim said.

"What?"

"Come home," Jim repeated. "You know what it means. You had it once with Mary, and you’ve got to find it again. You don’t have any choice any more. You’ve been out too long. If you don’t come home soon, there won’t be any home left to come to."

"I’m not on deployment," John argued. "This isn’t over there. The same rules don’t apply."

"Yes they do, John. Those rules always apply."

"I have a son now —" John said.

"You have two sons," Jim interrupted quietly.

"Sammy would be fine. It’s Dean I have to protect."

"You have to protect them both," Jim countered. "And the only way to do that is to protect yourself. You’ve been gone too long. You’ve got to come back home. You’ve got to get back to the world soon or you never will."

"That’s just your existential bullshit again," John said. "I’m not gone. I’m still here."

"I’ve known you for ten years, John," Jim said. "I know when you’re gone and when you’re home, the same way I know when you’re hunting and when you’re trying to die."

John closed his eyes, listened to the sound of his heartbeat. He was having trouble breathing, having trouble listening, having trouble hearing.

"Talk to me, John," Jim said when John hadn’t spoken for several minutes.

"How can I find my way home if I don’t even know when I’m gone?" John asked.

"You know," Jim returned. "You just don’t want to hear it."

"I can’t hear it any more, Jim. Maybe that’s the problem. I can’t hear anything any more except the sound of my own fucking pain. I try to be better than that, but I’m not. There are times it gets so bad I just have to let it have me for a while. It just takes over, and I let it."

"It’s the constancy of pain that’s the enemy, not the intensity of it," Jim said. "Finding refuge from that constancy is the only way to make it out alive. To make it back home. To make it back to the world."

John laughed quietly, almost bitterly. "I was thinking about that earlier," he said. "Thinking about Brody and his Philosophy of Pain."

"Brody was an idiot. You used to know that."

"He was right about giving in to it, though. Right about letting it have you for a while in order to get through it."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. I am."

"Wow." Jim said. Then he added, "Christo."

"Oh, fuck you."

"Just making sure. I never though I’d hear you say anything about Brody that didn’t predicate itself on the lack of branches in his family tree and the consequent degradation of his mental capacity, so when I hear you quoting him chapter and fucking verse, I’ve got to cover all the bases before I take it as something I’m actually hearing from John Winchester."

"I didn’t say he wasn’t a moron with the mental capacity of a brain-damaged cabbage," John retorted impatiently. "I said he had a point about giving in to the pain to get past it. To relieve the constancy of it. To just get a fucking break from it."

"It wasn’t Brody who said you have to take a break from it. It was Brody who said giving in to it is how you get that break. And if I recall correctly, it was you who dubbed him a categorical fucking idiot for preaching that philosophy to a new crop of FNGs before they ever even got their feet wet in actual combat."

"That was before Mary," John said. "Before I actually understood what constancy of pain meant. And what it takes to survive it because you have a child who lives and dies on your survival."

"It takes relief, John. Refuge. Not surrender."

"There is no refuge. No relief. Sometimes surrender is all you’ve got. All I’ve got, at least."

"Surrender. You’re actually saying surrender is the choice here?"

"A temporary choice, but yeah. Sometimes surrender is the only way to live to fight another day."

"Christo," Jim said again.

"I have a son," John said. "It’s different now."

"You still have two sons," Jim reminded him again. "And it isn’t different."

"How can you say that, Jim?" John was tired suddenly; so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open. "How can you say it’s not different after everything that’s happened? Everything we never believed in that turned out to be true? Do you remember Ramos and his protection rituals? Tell me that doesn’t haunt you now. Tell me us giving him so much grief over his pig-gutting, rabbit-eye hedonism that he finally quit doing it doesn’t make you feel like we’re at least partially to blame for him dying over there instead of coming back home with us?"

"As far as I know, pig intestines still aren’t capable of protecting a man from sniper fire," Jim said.

"But blessing tap water with a rosary and a few lines of Latin is?" John challenged.

"Not that I know of. Seems to work pretty well against low-level demons though."

John shook his head, didn’t answer.

"Whether it works or not, surrender isn’t something you’re good at," Jim said after a moment. "It isn’t something you’ve ever been able to do no matter what the stakes were."

"I have children to consider now."

"Your sons need who you are, not who you can’t be."

"That’s good in theory," John said quietly. "But in practice, I have to find relief from it sometimes. The hunt gives me what I need to get through the anger. But the only relief I find from the pain is giving in to it on occasion. Letting it have me. I hate who that makes of me when it happens. I hate what it requires of my six-year-old to cover for me until I’m finished. But as much as I’ve tried to fight against it, that’s the only thing that gets me through it. The only thing that lets me survive it. The only way I can stay here for Dean; the only way I can be here for him so he doesn’t fall apart the way I have to every once in a while if either one of us is going to make it through this. I wish it were different, but it isn’t. The simple truth of it is that it isn’t. There is no relief without surrender. And I have to have relief. I have to, Jim. I wish I didn’t, but I do."

"I want you to listen to me, John," Jim said. "Don’t argue with me; just listen." He waited a beat and then asked, "Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"You’re right: You do have to find a way to get some relief from the constancy of this pain. But surrender is not that way. Maybe it was for Brody, but it isn’t for you. It never has been, and it never will be. You aren’t capable of it. There are only two things in this world I can tell you for absolute certain: 1) The Joker is part of the deck in play for this game and 2) John Winchester is incapable of surrender. Are you listening to me?"

"Yes."

"Good. Because I’ve been listening to you, too. And what I’m hearing makes me think the way you’re trying to find refuge from the pain of Mary’s murder may be why you can’t find your way home again. You can’t surrender your way back to the world. You have to fight. That’s who you are. That’s who you’ll always be. Your sons don’t change that. Nothing changes that. Are you still listening to me?"

"Yes."

"Then hear this: Dean. Dean is the only thing that has ever given you any refuge from the pain. I saw it in those first weeks after Mary was murdered. When you came to me after you left Mike’s, I didn’t even recognize the man you’d become. I saw you worse than dead more than once over there, but I never saw you broken the way you were then. Not once. When you first showed up at the rectory, I honestly didn’t think you’d survive. I thought you were already gone. But then I saw you with Dean. That was the only time I recognized you those first weeks, John. Only when you were with Dean. That was it. Only then. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?"

"No."

"Dean," Jim repeated. "I’m saying Dean. He’s your relief. He’s your refuge. He’s the road home for you, John; and you’d better find a way to use him to get there before it’s too later or it’s going to break you both."

John waited for him to go on, but Jim was finished. He didn’t say anything more.

"That’s what you’ve got for me?" John asked finally. "I call the smartest man I know for advice on how to keep from self-destructing at the cost of my six-year-old son, and what you’ve got for me is Dean?"

"Yeah," Jim said. "That’s what I’ve got."

"You’re over-rated, Preacher," he said.

"Pastor," Jim corrected.

"Over there you were The Preacher," John reminded him. "Over there, you put the fear of God into more men than the Inquisition and the Crusades combined."

"Over there, I was a Marine," Jim said. "But I came home, John. I found my refuge from the constancy of pain."

"Dean?" John asked dryly.

"God," Jim returned.

John didn’t say anything to that.

"Come home," Jim said. "You did it once. You can do it again."

"It was different then," John said.

"Only if you let it be," Jim returned.

John studied his son, watching him sleep. "All right," he said finally. "A lot to think about. I’m going to call it a night. Dean wanted me to tell you Sammy prefers his toast with grape jelly, not strawberry."

"Huh," Jim said. "Damn shame he’s getting Fruit Loops then, isn’t it? I’ll see you at ten. Say your prayers before you go to sleep."

"God may be your refuge," John said quietly, "but he’s not mine."

"That why you say prayers with Dean every night?" Jim asked.

"Who says I do?"

"Dean."

"Oh, you mean My Refuge?"

"Yeah."

"He lies."

"Does he?"

"Yeah. He’s six. And he’s mine."

"Of that, there is little doubt."

"The prayers are for his sake, and for Mary’s. Not for mine."

"Really."

"Yeah. Really. Me and God? Not so close. He hasn’t been a very good friend to me."

"Look at your son," Jim instructed.

"I am."

"What do you see?"

"My son."

"Exactly. Say your fucking prayers, John. You have a lot to be thankful for."

The phone clicked in John’s ear before he could answer. John snorted, then hung the receiver up and turned out the light over the bed before leaning back into the pillows and closing his eyes.

As soon as it went dark, Dean stirred. "Dad?" he called, his voice a small panic in the making as he woke.

John reached out, put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. "I’m right here, son."

The anxiety in Dean’s tone eased as he asked, "Where are we?"

"We’re in the hospital. We’re staying the night, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Dean said, lying his ass of and trying to sound like he wasn’t.

John smiled. "Go back to sleep, Dean," he said.

"Are you going to sleep?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. Thought I would."

"Did the doctor say that was okay?"

John’s smile deepened. "You must get that from your mother," he observed dryly.

"What?"

"Being a worry wart."

"What’s a worry wart?"

"What does it sound like?"

"Um … something to do with worrying too much?"

"There you go."

"I’m not a worry wart," Dean said. "But did the doctor say it was okay for you to go to sleep?"

John chuckled. He patted Dean’s shoulder in the darkness and said, "Yes, son. He said it was fine as long as I don’t go chasing any poltergeists in my dreams."

"Is that what happened? You fell down chasing a poltergeist?"

"More or less."

"You must have been running really fast," Dean observed. That was his way of calling his old man a liar.

"There might have been some stairs involved," John allowed easily. "And I might have been doing a little more flying than running."

Dean considered that for a moment. "Oh," he said finally, pronouncing his father’s revision more believable. "Okay. Did you catch it?"

"Might be a little more accurate to say it caught me. But that was all part of my plan."

"It was?"

"Absolutely."

"Your plan was to fly down some stairs and get caught?" Dean asked doubtfully, not quite calling him a liar, but not quite believing him either.

"It was a very sneaky plan," John said.

"How did you get hurt then?" Dean asked, back to calling him a liar.

"I didn’t say it was a good plan, just a sneaky one."

"Oooooooh." Dean nodded, completely on board with that as the truth. "But you got it in the end, right?"

"Absolutely. That part of my plan worked perfectly."

"Which part?"

"The letting it catch me part."

"Is that when you got hurt? When it caught you?"

John smiled a little. His six-year-old was trying to trip him up. "What do you think?" he asked.

Dean hesitated for just a beat, then said, "I think if you got hurt when it caught you then it didn’t work all that good."

"But I said that part worked perfectly, didn’t I?"

"Yeah."

"So what does that make you think?"

Dean thought about that one for much longer. John could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. "That you got hurt in a different part?" he ventured finally.

"And which part do you think that was?" John pressed.

"Um. The part that didn’t work very good?"

"And that would be?"

"Um. The … part you didn’t tell me about?"

"I told you about it."

"You did?"

"Sure did."

Dean thought about it. John waited. His son was a bulldog when it came to puzzles. He’d keep worrying it until he shook it to death or figured it out. "Oh!" Dean said suddenly. "The flying part, right?"

John grinned. "That would be the part that didn’t work so well," he verified.

"So you’re not going to do that part again, right?"

"Well, at least not until I learn how to do the landing part of the flying part better. And now that you’ve debriefed me on my mission, what do you say we get a little shuteye?"

"Okay," Dean agreed. "Are we going to say our prayers?"

John hesitated.

"Or we don’t have to," Dean said quickly.

"No. That’s okay. We can say your prayers if you want to."

"It’s okay. We don’t have to."

"Do you want to?" John asked.

This time, it was Dean who hesitated. "I don’t know," he said after a long beat. "Do you?"

"Probably wouldn’t hurt to thank Him for looking after me tonight," John allowed.

"And for giving you a hard head," Dean added.

John huffed a little in surprise. "What?" he asked, trying to make out Dean’s expression in the dark room.

"We should thank Him for giving you a hard head," Dean repeated.

John thought about that for a second, then asked, not really sure he wanted to know the answer, "Is that a crack, son?"

"Huh?"

John chuckled. "Nothing. Never mind. Yes, maybe we should thank Him for that, too."

"I just mean for giving you a hard head so it didn’t break during the flying part of your plan," Dean clarified. "Or the landing part, either."

"Right," John agreed. "A pretty good thing to have if you’re going to do some of the things I do, huh?"

"What did you think I meant?" Dean asked after a moment of silence.

"That’s what I thought you meant," John lied.

"Then why did you ask me if it was a crack?"

"Why don’t you say your prayers, and I’ll just listen," John suggested.

"Pastor Jim says you have a harder head than anyone he’s ever met," Dean offered.

"Oh he does, does he?"

"Yeah." Dean waited a moment, then asked, "Is that a crack?"

John chuckled again. "Yes, Dean. I’m pretty sure that is a crack."

"He’s making fun of you?"

"Not really. More making an observation, I think."

"Is it a crack for him to say you have a good head, too?"

"No. That’s a compliment. Like when I tell you that you have a good head on your shoulders. That means you think things through, make the right decisions."

"Then I don’t think he meant you having a hard head as a crack," Dean said.

"Why not?"

"Because he said them at the same time."

"When?"

Dean shrugged. "I don’t remember. I just remember he said it. He and I talk sometimes. He said it then."

"What did he say?"

"That I shouldn’t worry about you so much because you have a really good head, and it’s harder than anyone else’s he’s ever met. So I don’t think he meant it as a crack."

"You’re probably right," John said.

"And he didn’t say I was a worry wart," Dean added. "He just said I shouldn’t worry. Not that I do. Or that I worry too much."

"That’s good, because I wouldn’t want Pastor Jim cracking wise about my boy," John said seriously.

"Is that a crack, too, then?" Dean asked.

"What?"

"Saying I’m a worry wart?"

"No, Dean. That’s not a crack. That’s more of an observation, too."

"Then what does cracking wise mean?"

"What else do you and Pastor Jim talk about?" John asked, more to derail his son from the train of thought on which he was riding than out of any desire to know.

"Things."

"Me?"

"Sometimes."

"Your mother?"

Dean didn’t answer for so long John didn’t think he was going to. Then finally, quietly, he said, "No. I don’t talk to him about Mom."

"Why not?"

"’Cause he doesn’t know."

"Doesn’t know what?"

"He just doesn’t know." Dean’s mood had changed. He shifted, snuggling closer to John, burrowing into his father’s side, looking for comfort. His voice was confessional in the darkness when he said, "Not like us."

John dropped his arm around Dean. He pulled Dean in, held him close. "No, he doesn’t, does he? Not like us."

"Nobody knows like us," Dean said.

John nodded. He didn’t say anything for a while, then asked, "Do you want to talk about her with me?"

Again, Dean didn’t answer for so long John wasn’t sure he was going to. And again, when he did answer, it was so quiet his words were mere whispers in the dark. "I don’t know. Do you?"

"Sometimes I think it would help," John said. "You?"

"Maybe."

"We should do that then," John said quietly. "Sometime. When you want to."

"You don’t want to then?"

"I didn’t say that."

"Yes, you did."

John frowned, looked down at Dean in the darkness. His son was watching him, his eyes glistening in what little light filtered in through the closed blinds from the well-lit parking lot outside. "When did I say that, Dean?"

"You say it all the time."

John’s frown deepened. "No, I don’t. I’ve never said that to you, have I?"

"Yes, you do. Maybe not in words, but you say it."

"How do I say it?"

Dean shrugged then, looked away. "You just do," he muttered.

John sighed. He closed his eyes, let the sedation in his system work on the tension that was tying knots into his neck and shoulders. The conversation with Jim had drained him. The one starting up with Dean looked like it might be headed the same direction.

"But it’s okay, because I don’t want to talk about her either," Dean said quietly.

"You don’t?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don’t know. Just ’cause I don’t, I guess."

"Maybe we should talk about her anyway," John suggested.

"Why?"

"I don’t know. Just ’cause we should, I guess."

"But you don’t want to," Dean said. Then, almost like it was an afterthought, he added, "but that’s okay, because I don’t either."

"Did that woman remind you of her earlier?" John asked after a moment.

"No."

"She had the same color hair," John noted. "And your mother used to wear her hair that way. I remember it used to smell like strawberries. I loved the way her hair smelled like strawberries. I remember that about her all the time. Sometimes I even smell strawberries in the grocery store, and it makes me think of her."

"It does?" Dean asked quietly.

"Yeah. It does."

"It smelled like flowers sometimes, too," Dean ventured after several seconds.

"What kind of flowers? Do you remember?"

"Purple ones," Dean said.

"That’s right. I remember now. She liked purple flowers. They were her favorite kind."

"There were purple flowers on the bottle of her hair soap," Dean offered. "She washed my hair with it once when we were out of boy hair soap. She said it wouldn’t make any difference, but I smelled like a girl for a week."

John smiled. "I think it might have been a little longer than a week, son."

"You made fun of me," Dean reminded him. "Every time I walked by your chair, you said it made you hope the baby turned out to be a girl instead of a boy when it was born. Him, I mean. Sammy. But before he was born. Do you remember that? Mom thought it was pretty funny, but I didn’t."

John chuckled. "Sorry about that."

"No you’re not."

"Yeah. You’re right. I’m not."

"Is that cracking wise?" Dean asked.

"What?" John teased. "Me not being sorry?"

"No. You saying me smelling like a girl made you hope Sammy turned out to be a girl."

"Yes, Dean. That is very much cracking wise."

"I thought so."

"You did, huh?"

"Uh huh. So it’s like teasing then."

"Right."

"So why don’t you just say teasing?"

"Because cracking wise sounds much cooler, doesn’t it?"

Dean thought about that for a moment. "Yeah," he said finally. "I guess."

"So that’s why I say it that way."

"And a crack is what you do when you’re cracking wise?" Dean pursued, back on the track and running for the station.

"Exactly."

"So you thought I was teasing you about having a hard head?"

"I thought you might be cracking wise about it, yes."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would I crack about you having a hard head?"

"Crack wise," John corrected.

"Why would I crack wise about you having a hard head?" Dean revised.

"I have no idea, Dean."

"Then why did you ask me if it was a crack?"

John laughed. "You do have a one-track mind, don’t you, son," he observed dryly.

"I do?"

"Yes, you do."

"Do I get that from Mom, too?"

The question jarred John. He was so used to Dean avoiding the topic of his mother it threw him for a moment to have him ask something about her so directly.

"What does one-track mean?" Dean asked, trying to cover for John’s fumble.

"Yes, Dean. You get that from your mother, too."

"Oh. What does one-track mean?"

"Just like being a worry wart," John added.

"It’s okay, Dad. What does one-track mean?"

"It means once you get on a subject it’s very hard to distract you from it. Your mother was like that, too."

"Why is it called one-track?" Dean asked.

"Dean."

"Yeah?"

John didn’t say anything.

"What?" Dean asked again.

John still didn’t say anything.

"It’s okay, Dad," Dean said.

"What’s okay?"

"You know."

"Do I?"

"Pastor Jim does that all the time."

John chuckled. "Yes, he does, doesn’t he?"

"It kind of makes me crazy when he does," Dean added.

"You’re not alone in that, son."

"We talk about trains sometimes," Dean offered. "Is that the kind of track you mean?"

"Dean."

"What?"

John sighed. "Weren’t we talking about your mother?"

"That’s okay. I’d rather talk about trains."

"No you wouldn’t."

Dean hesitated. "It’s okay, Dad," he said for the third time.

"No, it isn’t."

"Yes, it is. It’s okay. Really. It is."

"Who’s the dad here?" John asked.

"You are."

"Then how about you letting me decide what’s okay and what isn’t?"

Dean didn’t answer that.

"Okay?" John pressed.

"I guess," Dean said.

"You guess? Is that what Marines do? Guess?"

"I guess, sir?" Dean suggested. And then he snickered.

"Now that is cracking wise," John said.

"Did I do it right?"

"Yes, you did."

"Because of the ‘sir,’ right?"

"If you have to explain a joke, it isn’t a very good joke," John told him.

"Is a joke the same thing as cracking wise?"

"Do you not want to talk about your mom?" John asked.

This time it was Dean who got thrown. He hesitated so long John pressed him, saying, "Well?"

"I don’t know. Do you?"

"Yes."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"No you don’t."

"Yes I do, Dean."

"You do?"

"How many times do I have to answer that one before you believe me?" John asked.

"I don’t know."

"How ’bout once more. Does that sound good to you?"

"I guess."

"Good. Then here we go: Yes, Dean, I do want to talk about your mother."

"Okay," Dean said quietly. But he didn’t say anything else.

"It’s your turn," John said after several moments.

"Huh?"

"I told you about the strawberries," John clarified. "So it’s your turn to tell me something about her."

"I told you about the purple flowers," Dean said, his voice little more than a whisper.

"I told you she had a one-track mind and that she was a worry wart."

"I told you … um … okay, so it’s my turn then?"

John smiled. "Sounds like."

"Okay." Dean thought about it for a long moment, then said, "She liked chocolate. I remember that."

"Oh no she didn’t," John said. Then before Dean had a chance to protest, he clarified, "She loved chocolate. She loved chocolate more than anything. Sometimes I think she loved it more than you and me and purple flowers all put together."

"Uh uh," Dean said.

"Yeah, okay, maybe not that much. But she sure loved it, didn’t she?"

"She made the best chocolate chip cookies ever," Dean said.

"What? You don’t like mine?"

"Yours suck, Dad."

"They do?"

"Yeah. Big time."

"Well you sure pack them away for them sucking," John noted. "You and Sammy both."

"They still suck."

"Sammy doesn’t like them either?"

"He loves them. But he eats crayons, too."

John laughed. "There you go, cracking wise again."

"I’m practicing."

"For what?"

"To use it on Pastor Jim."

"I like that idea."

"He started it by cracking wise about your head," Dean pointed out.

"Yes, he did. But we were talking about your mother’s chocolate chip cookies, weren’t we?"

"They were awesome," Dean said. Then he added, "But we were talking about how much your chocolate chip cookies suck."

"Well, I guess I’m just not all that good at the girl stuff, huh?"

"That’s okay. You’re good at other stuff."

"Why didn’t you ever tell me they sucked?"

"Because if I told you they sucked, you wouldn’t make them any more," Dean said reasonably.

"And that would be a bad thing how?"

"Yeah."

"I mean why, Dean. If they really suck so bad and all, how would it be a bad thing for me to stop making them?"

Dean didn’t answer.

"Dean?" John prompted after a beat.

"Because they remind me of her," Dean said quietly. "Is that okay to say?"

"You can say anything you want to about your mother, son. You can talk about anything you remember about her or ask me anything you want to know."

"Without making you sad, I mean."

"Talking about your mother doesn’t make me sad."

"Yes it does."

"What about my cookies reminded you of her?" John asked.

"Not very much. Is that a good one?"

"I’m being serious, Dean," John said gently.

"Oh. Okay. Sorry."

"You didn’t do anything to apologize for. I’d just like to know what it is that reminds you of her. Do you mind telling me?"

John could see his son struggling in the darkness, trying to figure out a way to answer the question without saying something he thought might hurt his old man.

"I don’t know," Dean said finally. "I guess when you make them, it makes the whole house smell that way, so it doesn’t really matter what they taste like. Just the smell reminds me of her. And you let me lick the bowl. Mom always let me lick the bowl, so that reminds me of her, too. Only hers tasted better."

John nodded. "Yeah. That’s kind of why I started making them … the whole smell thing."

"To remind me of her?" Dean asked.

"No, son. To remind me of her."

"Oh." Dean didn’t say anything for some time, then he ventured, "I thought you didn’t want to be reminded of her."

"What made you think that?"

"Because you never talk about her."

"Yeah," John said quietly. "I guess I don’t, do I?"

"That’s okay, Dad," Dean said almost automatically.

"No it isn’t, son. It isn’t at all."

Dean hesitated, then asked, "Because of you or because of me?"

"It’s not okay for either one of us. We loved her. We should talk about her."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Lying side by side in the hospital bed, Dean tucked up under John’s arm, pressed in close to his side, his head on John’s chest now rather than the pillow he’d pushed away, they just listened to the quiet and remembered a woman neither of them had spoken about since the night she died.

Not really spoken about. Not about who she was, instead of how she died.

"What else reminds you of her?" Dean asked finally.

"Pink bikinis," John said. Dean snickered in a way that sounded ten instead of six. "No, really. Your mom looked like dynamite in a pink bikini. Not that I should probably be telling you that; but she did, and I remember that about her. I remember it every day."

"I remember those stupid slippers she used to wear," Dean offered.

"The fuzzy ones?"

"Yeah. They were pink, too, weren’t they?"

"Yellow, I think," John said.

"She liked yellow."

"Yes she did. Reminded her of sunshine, she said."

Dean snorted. "Girls," he said, his tone clear with his opinion of that.

"Give it a few years, bud. You’ll think girls are the best thing since sliced bread."

"She liked purple, too," Dean said. "What did that remind her of?"

They talked until Dean dozed off again, revisiting a hundred memories, John telling Dean stories he’d never heard, telling him some he probably shouldn’t have heard until he was much older; and even then, ones he probably shouldn’t have heard about his mother.

But it wasn’t just about Dean. It was about him, too. About what he remembered. About what he wanted to remember.

Lying in the dark, the warmth of his son against his side, the smell of hospital antiseptic strong and biting in his nose and the memory of Mary fresh in his mind like strawberries and sex and chocolate chip cookies baking on a Saturday afternoon, John listened to the quiet and found himself coming home.

finis