Season 2, Episode 3: Let's Get To The Point

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Read Season One from the beginning here.

Dean was relaxing in his room when he heard a knock at the door.

"Hey, Dad."   It was still something of a jolt to see his father.  John had been dead for more than thirteen years, but here they were, reunited in the afterlife.

"Dean.  Mind if I come in?"  

"Come on in, take a load off,"  Dean said, and led the way into the room, taking a seat himself.  

"I'd offer you a drink, but this room doesn't have a mini bar,"  he quipped.

"Nah, that's okay,"  John said, sitting down across from Dean.  He looked around.

"Quite the place you've got here.  Looks like something out of an old Western movie,"  John said.   

Dean noticed his dad's eyes lingering on the framed picture of him and Sam flanking Bobby Singer.  The photo had been snapped some time after John's death, when Bobby had stepped up as a father figure to Sam and Dean.  

John didn't say anything about the picture, so Dean didn't either.  

"It's awesome, isn't it?"  he enthused over the Old West theme instead.  "I even have my own llama."

John chuckled and picked up the stuffed animal Dean had indicated.  "Cute,"  he said, looking it over.  

It was almost comical, Dean thought, the bemused expression on his dad's face, as if the plush toy was some kind of clue that had to be figured out.  Sure enough,  

"What's the significance?"  John asked. 

"Nothing.  It's just a toy."  Dean got a little thrill of rebellion out of saying it.  He'd been too old for toys long before most kids would even think of giving them up.  He almost expected John to point out the childishness of hanging on to the stuffed llama, but John just set it down again.

"Mom won it for me at that carnival we went to.  It was a fun time,"  Dean said, pushing for a reaction.

He got one.  John looked away, the clench of his jaw obvious to his son, who'd spent years reading his mood.  Hell, Dean thought, he could almost hear his dad's teeth grinding.   But again, John didn't make any comment.

"I hear you've been meeting some of the neighbors.  I wanted to warn you about that hippy chick next door, Morgan."

"I met her.  She brought over some 'special' brownies.  What about her, Dad?"  

Dean was genuinely interested to hear what he had to say.

"She's a witch, Dean.   A powerful one, from what I've seen, and don't buy Bobby's bullshit that she's just a harmless Wiccan,"  John said.  "This Morgan character has really gotten to him."

"I think she's managed to cast some kind of spell over the entire house,"  John went on.  

"Maybe hidden hex bags.  I don't know.  I haven't been able to find anything.  I just know she's dangerous.  I want you to keep away from her."

"Okay, Dad.  I'll be careful around her."  

"You misunderstood.  I wasn't asking,"  John snapped back.  "I forbid you to have anything to do with her."  

Dean resisted the urge to flinch.   His instinctive reaction immediately annoyed him.  Of course, John had never hit him.  He hadn't had to;  that tone of voice struck like a lash.  But he was an adult now, Dean reminded himself.  

"Dad.  You don't give me orders any more,"  he told John, his own voice quiet but firm.

John sat back with an audible exhale, clearly holding his temper in check.  

"Is this about the money?  You think I'm beholden to you now?"  

"The money?"  John seemed to have taken the topic and done an about face.  For a moment, Dean was baffled.  

Oh, right.  He was a billionaire now.  

"I don't think you're, what,  beholden--who even uses that word?  I don't care about the money.  You're all welcome to it, Dad.  You,  Mom, Bobby, Missouri.  Everybody."

"Oh."  John seemed to deflate.  "It just feels wrong, like I'm mooching off of you.  I know I wasn't always the best father--"

"It's okay, Dad.  You did the best you could."  

Unlike the way he'd felt the other day with Mary, John's failings as a parent weren't an open wound.  Dean had had years for that hurt to scab over, if not exactly heal clean.  He didn't feel the need to hug it out with his dad.    

"I'd probably feel weird about the money, too, but you don't have to,"  he added.  "As far as I'm concerned, it belongs to all of us."

"Then listen to me when I tell you that Morgan Magenta is a witch!"  John's voice rose to a shout.  

Dean had seen his father hollowed out with grief.  He'd seen him enraged, obsessed, blind drunk... But he'd never seen him like this.  Irrational, his emotions see-sawing all over the place.  Suddenly, Dean understood.  John had been the first Winchester to be condemned to hell.  In fact, he was the original 'righteous man' foretold by prophecy...Except the demons had never been able to break him.  

Those same demons had just loved reminding Dean of that fact, during his own stint on hell's torture racks. John Winchester's superhuman strength and resolve was legend.  Dean was so used to thinking of him in those terms:  his big, strong, heroic father.  

But John Winchester was human, too.   He'd escaped hell more than a decade ago, but from John's perspective, Dean realized, it had only been a few short weeks.  Dean remembered what a wreck he'd been, after he'd been brought back from hell.   But unlike him, John didn't have a brother like Sam to help him find his way back into the light.  He didn't have a father figure like Bobby.

But you've got me, Dad, Dean thought.

He scooted his chair closer and grabbed John's hand in a firm grip.  

"Dad.  I believe you.  You gotta know I respect your instincts.   But you gotta believe me:  we are safe here."   

Dean felt John grip his hand back, clinging to him desperately.  It was the same way Sam had clung to him when his brother's own memories of hell had left him not knowing what was real and what was hallucination.  

"That's right, Dad.  Hang on to me.  This is my heaven.  There's nothing here we can't handle."

John gave Dean's hand a final squeeze before letting go, letting Dean know was back on solid ground.  

"You believe me?   You're not just trying to humor your old man?"

"I believe you.  There's a whole world out there that we know almost nothing about,"  Dean said.  

"Is this a different version of heaven?  An alternate reality?  How did we even get here?"

"It's all way above my pay grade."  John chuckled.  "I just tracked down a demon, remember?  But you--you saved the world."

"You're still my hero.  You and Mom, both."

"We're not discussing your mother."  John turned away with a wave of his hand, indicating the subject was closed.  

At one time, Dean thought, that would have been that.  Another thing his dad was going to have to get used to:  Dean was an adult.  He hadn't taken orders in a long, long time.  In fact, he'd become used to being the one who gave the orders himself.  

"Dad--"  

"No, Dean.  What she did?  She tore our family apart."

"She did.  Believe me, Dad, I know what she did.  But I also know she paid with her life."  

"I feel as though I never knew her,"  John said, plaintive.  All the anger had gone out of him as soon as Dean had acknowledged that he was right.  

"You knew the real Mary Campbell, Dad.  You just have to get to know her again, just like I did."  

John had idolized Mary after her death, turning her into a beautiful fantasy:  the perfect wife, the perfect mother.  

"She's not perfect, but she's real, and she's here.  That's better than any dream woman."

"I'll try,"  John said.  

"Thanks, Dad."  It was enough, Dean thought.  They'd work things out.

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