Season 1, Episode 4: Bat out of Hell

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John  walked cautiously through the building.  When he reached a modest but comfortable living room area, he trained his pistol on the figure seated there.

"John Winchester, you better point that thing away from me.   You're in no state of mind to have your finger on a trigger."   

"Missouri?   Missouri Moseley?"   John blurted, clearly shocked, but quickly recovering his stoicism.  "You think wearing her face will stop me from shooting you?"  he scoffed.  

"I'm not a demon, John.  It's really me.   Please, put the gun down."  

"You seem awfully concerned about this pistol, for a demon.  Bullets can't do any real harm to your kind.  Normal bullets from a normal weapon, that is."   John kept the gun aimed right at Missouri's face.  "You must recognize the Colt."  

"If this really was hell, John, do you think they'd leave the Colt just lying around for you to find?"   Missouri's tone was reasonable.  

Slowly, with obvious reluctance, John lowered the Colt.  "You can't be Missouri.  She's a good woman.   One of the best!  She would never wind up here. Whatever mind game you're trying to play, you bitch, it won't work."

She felt a moment of affront at being called a bitch, but reminded herself that it wasn't personal.   He really believed she was a demon.  "Think, John.   No, don't think,  feel.  You can feel the difference between this place and hell,"  Missouri said.  

"What is this place, then?"  

She could tell he wasn't ready to believe her yet.   He was playing along, trying to get information.  She just had to trust that John would take her advice and let his gut instinct guide his mind out of the nightmare of fear and despair he'd trapped himself in.

We're not sure yet what this place is, or where.   Some sort of afterlife.   Oh yes, I'm dead,"  Missouri said, responding to John's inward wince of disbelief.  Outwardly, the man didn't react.  "I went to heaven.  Just like you would have, if you hadn't traded your soul for Dean's life.  But something happened, and I woke up here."  Missouri quirked a rueful smile at John.  "Don't suppose it would help if you ran the standard tests on me?  You know, salt, holy water?" 

"Couldn't trust the results,"  John said promptly.  "All right, let's pretend I believe you, 'Missouri'," he said, sarcasm thick in his tone when he said her name.  "So we woke up here.   You, me, who else?  Caleb?  Bill Harvelle?  Jim Murphy?"

All three men he named were hunters whose deaths John felt personally responsible for, Missouri knew, and the guilt and pain he hid made her heart ache, but she kept her response matter-of-fact.   Try and push John Winchester, he'd just dig in his heels and be even more stubborn.  "You, me, Caleb, Pastor Jim, Bobby Singer, a couple of others.  Bill, no, not yet, but his wife Ellen is here."  

"Uh-huh,"  John drawled, all skepticism, but Missouri could feel him wavering.   "And you're the lucky one who gets to welcome me to, what?  Hunter's Paradise?   Drew the short straw, huh?"  

"Well, I was the one who introduced you to the supernatural when we were alive."   She flashed another brief smile.  "Seems fitting I'd be the one to clue you in to what we know about this place."

"Caleb and Jim.   Those deaths were recent.   Bill was a good ten years ago.  I'm not seeing a pattern,"  John mused.   "When did you die?"  

"2017,"  Missouri told him.  She watched  closely as he processed the information.

"You're lying.  I've been gone more than ten years?"  John snorted out a humorless laugh.  "I'm not a newly damned soul.  I know time runs differently in hell; it feels like ages.   I'm not fooled.  I've been dead more like ten months."

"John, you believe me, I know you do.   You can feel it.  You're confused, frustrated, frightened, but tell me, does it feel like hell?   Complete and total despair?"  He kept that poker face intact, giving nothing away on the outside, but Missouri could read the emotions churning on the inside.  Stubborn denial at war with the hope that insisted on growing, against his will.   He'd suffered so long in the pit.  He was terrified of giving in, allowing himself to hope.  He was so sure it was a trick,  afraid that if he allowed himself to hope, the betrayal would break him so badly he wouldn't be able to hold up under the torture he expected to resume at any moment.   She found herself holding her breath.  Finally, she felt his resignation.  Acceptance, though he still didn't trust it.  

"I believe you, Missouri."  He sighed.  "What now?"

"Like I said, we're just not sure yet.   I wish I had more to tell you.  Why don't you tell me what you remember about your escape through the Devil's Gate?"

For a moment, John's memories of hell spewed out, battering her psyche and leaving her with an intense urge to vomit, but mercifully, he focused on the Devil's Gate.  

"All hell was talking about it.   Azazel's big plan to take over the world.   Even the souls on the racks had heard bits and pieces of gossip.   I knew it was the only chance I'd have, so I watched for my break.   When that gate opened, there was chaos, a wild rush to get out of the pit.  I was left unattended.  I got myself down off the rack.   Nobody noticed me in the dash to get through the gate."

"My soul rose up out of the pit.  I made it to the gate!   I couldn't believe it when I saw Bobby Singer and Ellen Harvelle, fighting to close those doors.  And my son, Sam!  I wanted to help them."

"But I was nothing but spirit, incorporeal, helpless to affect the material world.  I burst out past Bobby and Ellen.   I burst through them.   I was free."

"Azazel attacked!   I saw Sam thrown across the cemetery, pinned against the trunk of a tree."  

"I saw Dean crumpled against a gravestone, wounded and dazed.  And I saw that yellow-eyed bastard, Azazel, kneeling beside him.   Taunting him!   I wanted to join the fight, but I had no way of affecting the living world.  I was nothing but a ghost."  

"Then, I saw something that made me angrier than I've ever been in my life.  Rage like I've never felt before."

"Yellow-Eyes had the Colt, and he was aiming it point-blank at Dean!  After all we'd suffered, all we'd sacrificed, to have it end this way?   Mary's death unavenged?   Dean losing his life?   Azazel winning?"

"That fury gave me strength.   I grabbed the bastard from behind.   I swear I would have crushed the life right out of him--"

"--but in moments, I was holding nothing but a cloud of smoke."

"Yellow-Eyes abandoned the poor bastard he'd been possessing."

"Azazel didn't count on me being incorporeal, too.  Somehow, I kept a hold on him, but the son of a bitch was strong."

"He threw me off, sending me flying.  I hit the ground, knocked out cold."

"The demon flew across the cemetery, back into his meatsuit."

"I came to in time to see Azazel back on his feet.  I hadn't been any help at all!"

"Then I realized, Dean had the Colt!  I couldn't stop Yellow-Eyes, but I did manage to buy my son time.  He was on his feet, aiming the Colt at Azazel, and my boy is a crack shot.   Always has been, since the very first time I took him out target shooting."

"My son did it!  Dean killed the bastard that murdered Mary!  I tried to let him know how proud I was, of him and his brother, too, but I could feel what little physical form I had fading, floating away.  I felt myself rising."

"And then, nothing."  John's voice was flat.  "I woke up wherever this place is.   'Hunter's Heaven'."   His sarcastic tone made it clear what he thought of that.

"John, I know it's hard for you to trust, but try and have a little faith."   Missouri reached for a pile of books and blueprints on the coffee table.  "Bobby and Ellen have been doing some research on this house.  The history, who owned it, when it was built, things like that."

"This house has only ever had just the one owner,"  Missouri said.  "The same as the land the house stands on, just one owner, as far back as there are records.  Bobby Singer traced it back to colonial times."  

"Okay, Missouri, I'll bite,"  John said.  "Whose name is on the deed?"

"Dean Winchester."

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