"And I Learned The Truth", Supernatural, PG-13, gen.

[gorgeousnerd]

Title: And I Learned The Truth
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 for strong language.
Length: 4565 words.
Characters/Pairings: John, Missouri, Dean.
Spoilers: 4x03 and various episodes in other seasons.

Summary: John Winchester isn't sure what he wants more: the truth, or to make his next decision.

Notes: This story takes place in the period of time following the pilot's teaser. I wrote it before reading John Winchester's Journal, so any similarities (and dissimilarities, for that matter) are purely coincidental. Special thanks to rahnekat for helping me with Missouri's story.


And I Learned The Truth
John slammed the door of the Impala shut. He put most of his weight into it, which didn't result in anything impressive considering how sturdy the car was, but he thought he saw the glass shiver with the impact. For good measure, he kicked the tire, and banged his fist on the roof.

What would they say, if they saw him like this? Probably nothing. They never said anything. It was nothing but looks from them. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if they'd been the “that-guy-has-lost-it” sort of expressions. Maybe. But it didn't matter because he got nothing but pity, nothing but those wide-eyed glances that told him that everyone in Lawrence and their goddamned mother knew that he was the man who'd lost his wife in the fire.

And it wasn't as if he wasn't giving them some good material for talk. He knew, he just knew that what they were saying behind his back. But he only saw watery eyes and blank faces, and oh boy, if everyone knew how mad that made him, they'd never look twice at him again.

John Winchester wasn't crazy. He'd hoped, in those first hours when everything around him smelled of smoke, that he was. But he'd been numb enough to be able to evaluate the situation with a cool head, and the facts remained. Mary had been stuck on the ceiling of Sammy's nursery with a tear in her gut, and she was set on fire. It was that simple, and that difficult.

He'd been there, and he knew he wasn't seeing things. He used the same eyes later that night when he'd seen Dean curled up in the back of the car next to Sammy as they drove to his parents' house, and as he scrubbed the ash off of his skin in his mom's bathroom sink. His boys had been sleeping in that house when the sun rose just a couple hours later, and his skin had been nearly raw.

The facts. Mary had been killed – murdered – by something, and nobody would listen.

“Something.” His voice was nearly a growl. “I need more than something.”

Bells rang. Quiet ones.

He pulled his gaze away from his snarling reflection in roof of the car and set it upon his parents' house. Besides the bells, there wasn't a single sound coming from it. Too quiet for a house with two small kids in the winter. Dean could raise Hell when he wanted, but he'd barely breathed since they'd stayed there. And God, out of all the things to go wrong, John thanked whatever luck had remained for keeping Sammy safe, but he'd barely fussed since leaving. Maybe he took his cues from his brother.

The front curtains parted. They fell back into place as he inhaled, and the front door creaked open as he blew his breath into a cloud in the air.

“Johnny,” a woman said. His mom was the only one who could get away with calling him that. “It's for you.”

–

A couple of hours later, John was sitting in his parents' living room with a cardboard box sitting beside him. He hadn't told his mom why he'd been called down to the police station, but she took one look at the box he'd carried inside when he came back and grabbed the boys' coats. The three had left within five minutes, quiet as the dead.

He looked at the side of the box...or, actually, at the big letters drawn on the side in permanent marker. “Effects”, it said. He bit his lip, then leaned forward and poked around inside.

Turned out, “effects” was a nice way of saying “garbage”. There were some scraps of fabric that he could almost match to old pieces of clothing, or possibly furniture if he squinted a certain way...hell, they could be the carpet or the curtains for all he knew. Mary would know right away, even through the thick and flaking layers of gray. It's not that she cares about the stuff in their house; it's just that she bought it.

Cared. Past. She didn't care now, and wouldn't care at all anymore.

A drop of water slid from his face into the box, and John heard it hit with a firm sound. He put his whole hand inside before he had a chance to think about what he was doing. But purely by accident, the tips of his fingers brushed against something neither box nor fabric. He drew it out, and the box left a streak of ash behind on his hand.

The scrap of paper was covered with gray as well, but not as badly as the clothes. In fact, he could see Mary's sharp handwriting driven into the paper – the pen left dents on the other side so deep it nearly tore through – and a combination of letters.

“ourri Moseley”, it said, and he was guessing that the first letter was an o; the paper was singed and torn in a way that made it hard to be sure.

And then, a word he can read, with a tail on the front almost like it was connected to another word.

truth

It was only when his mom's clock in the kitchen chimed that he broke his gaze. He shook himself, then looked at the words above.

Moseley looked like a last name.

It was easy enough to check on, but he couldn't help shaking his head as he pulled the phone book out from underneath his mom's rotary dial phone. Easy to check on, sure, but it wasn't likely to come to anything. It was just a piece of paper, or it had been, before the fire. It wasn't even whole anymore.

“What is?” he murmured, then flipped open the book to the M section.

He mouthed the last names to himself as he went through the alphabet in his head, and stopped at the Moseleys. There was no one listed.

“Damn it!”

John threw the book to the other end of the couch, and it hooked over the arm. He clenched his jaw and balled his hands into fists, then sniffed and stood. He picked up the phone book again, and he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with it until he spotted the yellow page it had opened to.

The paper was still in his hand. He rubbed his thumb over the letters that Mary wrote, and wondered when he stopped believing in coincidence.

–

“Missouri Moseley,” she said. “Nice to see you face-to-face, Mr. Winchester.”

“It's John.”

He extended his hand, but she looked at it and shook her head. “Sorry. I can't, not this soon.”

“What?”

She stepped aside from the door. “You'd better come in.”

He crossed his arms and didn't move. “Why did Mary leave me a note?”

Missouri was shorter by several inches, but the look she gave him at that point could have been enough to make some men back down. John wasn't one of those men. If anything, it just pissed him off more.

“If you don't want my help, that's fine,” she said. “But get off my step one way or another.”

“Tell me why first.”

It was her turn to cross her arms, but as she did so, she said, “Mary left some things here, and she wanted to make sure you got them.”

John's knees shook a little. He did his best to ignore it, and gave a curt nod. Missouri turned around and walked further into the apartment, which he couldn't see much of from the doorway; there was a narrow hallway for several feet that seemed to open into a living room.

Something about the whole thing seemed shady, but John Winchester was no coward. He stepped inside, but he left the door open behind him. Even with a small breeze coming in, the entry smelled like lemons.

There was a thump over his head, and he froze. Missouri didn't look over shoulder as she said, “Kids up there bang at all hours.”

“Great,” John said. “I'm inside, so give me what she left.”

She turned, then gestured into what was indeed a living area to John's right. He spotted linoleum on the floor to the left up against the wall, and a carpeted gap with a wall that probably led to a bedroom and bathroom area. Probably windows that way, too.

“Have a seat on the couch,” she said.

The couch in question was faded and a gross green color. He grimaced. “I don't much want to.”

“Suit yourself,” Missouri said. She crossed her arms again and gave him a nasty scowl for his trouble. “It's the case.”

For some reason, when she said “case”, he got the image of something wooden, with metal accents. Just like Mary...just like him, for that matter. Solid, with hard edges, but natural.

What was sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch was nothing like his mental picture. It was leather with gold-painted edges, and nearly as big as his torso. It wasn't really a case, like Missouri said. Something that large could only be a trunk, or luggage. Luggage didn't seem right either, since it probably wasn't something anyone would take on a trip, so he settled on trunk.

He nodded in its direction. “This?”

“Yeah.”

John moved forward and found it harder than he expected. His gut was twisting every which way, and he wasn't sure why. He didn't think it was because this was Mary's; he had some things of hers, things that he knew a lot better. No, this was something else entirely.

“It's okay,” Missouri said. “It won't bite.”

“Can I have a minute?” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

She didn't answer right away. He turned to look at her straight in the face, and she blinked. As far as he could tell, that was nearly a full flinch, coming from her.

Missouri inhaled sharply. “I'll be in the back when you're done.”

She padded down the hall, shifting her weight from hip to hip as she moved, and John watched her for a moment. It wasn't until he heard a click down the hall that he lowered himself onto the couch, then opened the clasps on the trunk and pushed it up. It sloshed as he did so.

The first thing that caught the light was the barrel of a handgun. It had a pearl handle and sat in the bottom of the case with another gun and clips of various calibers. Then, he saw rosary beads hanging out of a pocket in the top of the case, swinging gently. They were wrapped around a bottle of clear liquid, and there were two more, which had caused the sloshing.

John clasped his hands together in front of his mouth and leaned on them. This was hardly the first time he'd seen weapons – he'd handled and used more than a few in 'Nam – but this...this wasn't military issue. This was the former property of a civilian, and not just any civilian. They were Mary's. His Mary's.

He could understand a person owning a gun for personal protection. Hell, he'd had a couple until Mary had been pregnant with Dean, at which point he'd gotten rid of everything except his hunting rifles, and those he'd kept at his parents' house. But Mary had never touched his guns. She'd pretended they didn't exist, but when he'd asked her if she wanted him to get rid of them when they first got married, she told him to hang on to them. He'd thought it was just practicality on her part, something she saw as a necessity but didn't like.

Reaching out, he took the pearl-handled gun in hand. It felt good. The barrel of the gun looked clean from an eyeball check. He inspected the clips in the box; it looked like a .45, unless he was actually out of his head and imagining this whole thing.

John put the gun back into the case, then pulled out the bottle with the rosary dangling off of it. It didn't look like anything special, and when he unscrewed the top, a sniff test proved it was water.

As he was widening the pocket to put the bottle back in, the tips of his fingers brushed paper, and his slid it out. An envelope, with his name on the front in the same handwriting that had had the scrap of Missouri's name. He brushed his thumb over it, then opened the envelope's flap and pulled out the paper inside.

It read:

1-12-74

John.

I'm sorry. You need to know that if you're reading this. I don't know what's going to happen, not specifically, but I know that we're both in danger unless I manage to stop it. And if you're reading this, I may or may not have stopped it, but I'm not around to tell you if I did.

It's best if you plan like I didn't.

What you see in this case is the life I left behind when I married you. Or tried to leave behind. My family raised me to track and kill things that should only exist in stories: ghosts, demons, way more than I can list here. I should have told you this a long time ago, but I couldn't. I screwed up, and I couldn't tell you that I did, and I can only hope you aren't paying for it.

Missouri knew my family, and me, as a child. We grew up together in hard times. It might be hard, but trust her. She knows the truth, or as much of it as I ever did.

No matter what you'll think about me, I love you. Stay safe, and stay hidden.

M.

–

Missouri was standing in front of the closed front door when John approached it, case in hand. Apparently, she'd come out again when he'd been distracted. Stupid to let his guard down like that, and now, he was going to pay for it.

“She told me to talk to you if this happened,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “And that's what I'm going to do.”

“You just talked to me,” John said in a low voice. “Now let me through.”

“You're just going to ignore the last wish of your wife, boy?”

He grit his teeth. “Call me that again, and I'll make you move from the door.”

“I know it's hard to believe, but what she wrote to you is the truth.”

Missouri's eyes grew wide as John laughed, a quiet chuckle at first, then spiraling into a louder explosion. “Some psychic you are,” he managed to get out.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, “that I believed it the minute I read the letter. And if you were really as good as that ad of yours in the phone book, you would have known.”

“I knew you were going to leave, didn't I?”

“Sure. And others might buy it. You might even get some skeptics thinking it was real lucky of you. But I've met your type before.”

Her face softened. “My type?”

“Yeah,” John said. “The type that can read a man's face and body. And I bet you say a lot of bull about them hating their jobs and wanting more money when you read your crystal ball. Bull that could work with anyone.”

For the first time, Missouri broke from his gaze and stared at the floor, and he knew he had her.

“It was her idea,” she said quietly.

“Her?”

“Mary's. I wasn't getting any work last year, and she had contacts...we blew up the psychic angle.”

It had the ring of truth, but there was no way of knowing whether or not she was trying to work him again.

It might be hard, but trust her.

Except that Mary had warned him.

“I'll hear you out,” he said finally. “But it doesn't mean I believe you.”

Missouri sighed. “I can't make you.”

-

“It's called hunting,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Common around these parts. It's common enough everywhere, but the spirits and demons can get away with a lot more where there's less people to see.”

“Her note,” John said, tapping his foot on the linoleum, “said that you grew up in hard times.”

Missouri nodded. “My mother was a psychic. Better than me; she worked with hunters sometimes. But she got killed by a shapeshifter that passed through when I was a little girl. Mary's parents killed it after.”

“And you kept in touch?”

“I moved in with my grandma. She worked at the diner, and Deanna watched me some afternoons when Nana couldn't. I was around when Mary was born, and...after.”

After her parents died, he thought. “So you know what killed Mary.”

“Not exactly. But it started the night her parents were murdered.”

If she wanted to make John nervous, she'd picked the right date. Nothing about that night had ever sat right with him. Deanna with a broken neck in her home, Samuel with a knife wound to the gut, and Mary cradling him after he'd blacked out. She'd said that they'd been attacked by a prowler, and the police had bought it, but none of the pieces ever fit.

Why had he let it go? It had nagged at him for years, and Mary died just when he had started to forget it. Just when she'd stopped having the haunted look every day that reminded him.

“What happened?” he asked, and he winced. It had sounded eager, and he couldn't afford to be eager. Not with a professional con.

“She said she made a deal with the devil that night. And no, not Satan, if that's what you're thinking.”

“You can't tell what I'm thinking?”

She waved a hand. “It was the thing that killed her parents. And you.”

John laughed, and it echoed off the tile in the kitchen. Startled him a little, but he wasn't about to admit it. “It killed me? Yeah.”

“What do you remember about that night?”

“Not much,” he said. He could feel a smile twist across his face. It was as free of mirth as the laugh had been. “We were in my car, and I...”

“Fainted?”

“Got hit in the head. Came to with Samuel dead not ten feet away.”

Missouri leaned forward again. To his surprise, her tone was the softest it had been all night. “She never told me what happened, exactly. Just that you were dead, and she made a deal to bring you back.”

“A deal?” The words were simple enough, but he felt his insides chill regardless.

“Think about it, John. What happened ten years after that night?”

He did the math, then did it again. The day Sam was born? No, that couldn't be right.

“And then, six months after that...” Missouri trailed off, then sighed. “The devil came to collect.”

“What...” John's voice broke. He put his fist to his mouth in an attempt to cover it while he cleared his throat, but it still felt constricted. Like his own body was trying to kill him.

“You want to know what this has to do with Sam.”

He nodded.

“Maybe nothing. Maybe...maybe everything.”

–

Missouri's eyes grew wide as the Impala slowed, then stopped. John could feel her tremble in the seat beside him.

“What?”

“It's fine,” she said. “It's just...”

She didn't finish, and as John cut the engine and looked toward the house, he knew she didn't need to. He'd been here several times since the fire, and even so, he hadn't gotten used to the sight.

Missouri opened her door and stepped into the street. Every step she took was firm and measured, but John saw her ball up her fists as he unlatched his seat belt.

He noticed the tape was gone as he approached the lawn. It wasn't surprising, since he got the box, but the whole thing seemed more exposed that way. Less safe. But he didn't know why he felt that way, and that bothered him more than the way he was feeling.

“John.”

Missouri was gesturing for him to come forward, so he made his way over. “Yeah.”

She was clenching her hands together. “I have to go in.”

“I figured,” he said, although it wasn't completely true. He'd hoped that she'd be able to do what she needed to – what he needed her to do, if she wasn't lying about her talent for it – without having to take another step forward; the house wasn't completely stable. Missouri raised an eyebrow at him, but turned to allow him to pass.

The keys jingled in his hand, and he could almost hear Mary's hello, the unique brand of sarcasm and cheer she brought to every word. He could certainly see her smile and the way it made the skin around her eyes crinkle. He could feel his own face pulling into a smile, a much smaller one than hers, but a smile nonetheless.

The key slid in the lock and turned in the lock. From the moment the door swung open, the warm tinges of his memory faded into the gloom.

He had to break up the silence. "Don't know if it's safe to go upstairs. The floor's weaker."

"I have to go upstairs," Missouri said, "and it will hold."

She gave him a quick look, one like the one everyone had been giving him. He felt every muscle in his body tighten and waited for her to say something about being sorry or asking if he was okay. But she made her way to the stairs, and he realized that she just wanted to know if he was going to follow. So he did.

The stairs groaned a little with their combined weights, and the hard soles of John's boots made the surface flake if he dragged his steps at all, but it didn't seem inclined to give at any point. That was the first test passed. Missouri waited at the edge of the landing, and John moved past her, lifting the flashlight he was carrying in his left hand as he did so.

As he clicked the button, a beam of light showed the edges of the hallway. The walls were so covered in soot and ash that they swallowed most of the illumination. Moving was kicking up particles into the air, too.

John started breathing more shallow, and he looked back. "You okay?"

Missouri nodded. She had a hand to her face, keeping a handkerchief in place.

He stepped forward, purposely making sure he put his weight into each movement as much as possible. The floor didn't creak when he did this; it shrieked. But it held, just like Missouri said it would.

Still, they didn't even have to make it all the way down the hall.

"I feel it."

He didn't turn to look at her. "What?"

"What killed Mary."

"Where?"

Missouri stepped up to his side and pointed toward the charred remains of the nursery. "There."

It didn't take a psychic to know that this was the source of the disaster. The wall had been burned through further down the hall, enough that there were holes and parts missing completely. But even if it was impossible to see -- which, when you came to it, it was close -- there was a draft coming from the blown-out window across the hall and from the now-missing ceiling in the nursery.

"You're not impressed."

He shook his head.

"Good. Haven't really done anything impressive yet."

They stepped into the doorway of the nursery. John wasn't going inside, but Missouri walked in without hesitation and looked up.

"It pinned her to the ceiling," she said. "Cut her up, let the blood drip. It's his blood that's important."

"His? It was a he?"

Missouri shook her head. "I don't know."

"What do you know, then?"

She walked up to him. "You don't believe me, and you won't believe me, at least right now, but that won't stop you."

"Stop me."

"From keeping your boys safe."

"They are safe."

"If you believed that," she said, "we wouldn't have come here."

John turned the flashlight off. They didn't need it to see. "If Mary hadn't screamed like she did, Sammy would be dead. Dean might be dead. I might have died, too."

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can't read it off me?"

She crossed her arms. "Answer my question."

"Fine."

"We both know something killed Mary. But why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did it kill her here?"

Bad luck was what came to mind, as it had when it had happened, but then, he wondered. Had it come into the nursery because Mary was here?

Or because Sam was?

No, that was stupid. Mary thought it was specifically her fault; she'd said so in her note. She probably got up in the middle of the night because Sam was fussing, and...and...

And he had no fucking clue.

He put a hand through his hair. "Shit."

"Yeah," she said. "I know."

-

John had the Impala packed before the sun rose.

His mom was asleep in her room, with Sam's crib next to her, and Dean in the living room in a sleeping bag. He usually stayed on the couch to keep an eye on Dean, but last night, the couch only had the effects box. And it was only there because he hadn't gotten a chance to take it to the trash.

Dean woke up as John put the last of their things in the trunk. He stood in the doorway and rubbed at his eyes. “Daddy?”

John stopped in front of him. Just a few weeks ago, he would have ruffled his hair and put him back to bed, but today, he knelt in front of him.

“We're going to go on a trip, buddy.”

“A trip?”

“Yeah. We're going to go to Colorado for a while and stay with a Mr. Elkins. And we get to ride in the car when we do it.”

Dean nodded. A couple of weeks ago, the idea of a car trip would have made him clap, or laugh, but now, he was sober as the grave.

“Is Sammy coming?”

John did his best to smile. “Yeah, Sammy's coming.”

Dean stepped forward and threw his arms around John. He pulled Dean closer.

“Don't be sad, Daddy,” Dean said.

John's eyes stung, but he did nothing but blink hard. He was strong, and he would be nothing but strong for his boys. After all, he had to keep them safe.