If Yesterday Was Never There and Tomorrow Never Comes Chapter 5
"Did we ever find out why he was so adamant that we stay at the old house?" Sam asks.
Dean shakes his head. "No. Cas still doesn't speak our language even if he likes to think that he does. He's never really given us a real answer to that."
"But you've asked him right?"
"Of course I have," Dean replies. "But it's difficult talking to him; half the time I'm not even sure that he knows what he's on about."
"So how exactly has he been able to help us?" Sam wants to know. "It doesn't sound like he's done a hell of a lot."
Dean shrugs his shoulders. "He's done what he can, I guess. There's only so much that any of us can do. He's a good guy, Sammy; he's done right by us."
"Even though you don't understand anything he says?"
"Yeah well, there is that," Dean tells him. "But he's become a good friend to us and he was there when a lot of tough shit happened.”
“Was he there when Dad died, or did he show up after?"
"A few years after Dad died."
"What happened to Dad? Exactly, I mean. Were we there when he died?" Sam wants to know.
Dean draws in a deep breath and nods back at his brother. "Yeah, we were there. Kind of."
"What do you mean, kind of?"
Dean still feels the pain of losing their father, like it had only happened weeks ago and not years. "Sam, I dunno if I should tell you about that, at least not yet."
"No, you have to." Sam replies. "I need to hear it. Maybe something about Dad will help me remember."
"I cannot believe that we are traipsing through these damn woods again," Jo says. "Has no one learnt their lesson from the last time?"
"Lessons were learnt, trust me," Dean replies. "Turns out we don't have a choice."
"Would you lot quit bickering and bitching?"
Dean rolls his eyes and glances over at his brother and they share a look before Dean turns his attention back to the man walking in front of them.
"Dad, what the hell is the point of coming out here. If you want our asses torn to shreds by Walkers then yeah I get it, otherwise this is a really bad idea."
"Dean."
"Yeah, Dad?"
"Shut up."
Sam looks away so that Dean can't see that he's smiling.
They keep walking for another thirty minutes before John finally stops and Dean almost crashes right into him.
"We're here," he announces.
"Great, where is here exactly?" Sam wants to know.
"A cabin in the woods," Dean says. "This will end well."
John turns to look at his son. "I don't know if you remember or not but when you were both really young, we lived here for about six months."
Dean and Sam look at each other; neither one remembers it at all because up until a few minutes ago, they didn't even know this place existed.
"Uh okay, so why did we stop living here then?"
"Because William had been killed," Ellen tells them. "That's when Jo and I came to live with you."
"So obviously I wouldn't remember," Sam says. "I was barely three years old when that happened."
"How come you didn't tell us about this before now?" Dean wants to know. "Why wait so long?"
John doesn't answer him. Instead he pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the front door which he holds open for the others to go inside.
Dean looks around the room; it looks a little nicer inside than it does outside. The kitchen and living room are quite spacious and he can see two doors on the far side of the room and a set of stairs sits off to his right.
"We'll be staying here for a few days," John tells him. "Until we work out our next move."
"Someone want to help me with this?"
Dean and Sam turn around and see Bobby standing in the doorway where he's struggling with a crate and Dean rushes over to help him before he drops it.
Sam watches as John picks up one of the other bags, heads across the room and disappears through one of the doors.
"What's his problem?" Sam asks.
"What isn't his problem?" Dean replies. "Don't worry about him. I'm going to do a boundary check. Are you coming with me?"
"Yes," Jo chimes in. "I'm going as well."
“Fine,” Dean replies. He knows that there is no point in arguing with her because if he says now she would just follow them anyway.
He gathers up a few guns and hands one of them to Jo. Sam grabs his owns guns from his bag.
"How long?" Ellen asks. "I need to know how long you're going to be gone for."
"Mom, we'll be fine," Jo tells her. "And two hours."
"Okay, good. I expect you back here at 8pm and if you're not then you know damn well I'm gonna come looking for you."
"Mom, we'll be okay. We've been doing this for a while now."
"I'm aware of that, you smartass," Ellen replies. "Just be careful, you know how it is."
"I know, Mom, and we will be."
The three of them leave a minute later and Ellen stands at the front door and watches them until they disappear out of sight.
When they're gone she closes the door and locks it. Just for her own peace of mind she pushes one of the crates in front of the door.
"I thought the point of being here was that we didn't need to barricade ourselves inside," Bobby says.
Ellen glances over her shoulder to where he's standing near the kitchen table.
"I'm cautious, so sue me."
"If you're that worried about the kids, you should have gone with them," he tells her. "Maybe we all should have gone."
"They'll be alright."
Bobby narrows his eyes at her. "Keep saying that, you might eventually convince yourself of it."
"Okay, is it just me or did this place get a hell of a lot creepier?" Jo says. "I really don't like it."
Sam looks over at his brother who is just a few feet ahead of him.
"Yeah, you're not the only one," Sam tells her. "Can we keep this short?"
Dean glances over his shoulder to his brother. "Are you seriously creeped out by a few dead trees and some leaves?"
Sam narrows his eyes at Dean. "Hell yes, how could you not be? And on top of that the temperature has dropped like crazy."
"Fine, I'll give you that but the rest of it get over it, you baby," Dean says. "We haven't even been out here for half an hour."
"I know that, you jerk," Sam snaps at him. "But it's not worth being out here if we're gonna freeze to death."
"What was that?" Dean replies.
"We're gonna freeze to death?" Sam says. "What part didn't you hear?"
"I'm not talking about what you said; what was that as in what the hell was that noise?"
"I didn't hear anything over you two bickering like an old married couple," Jo smirks at him.
"Bite me," Sam tells his brother. "Stop messing around so we can get this over with."
“I’m not messing around,” Dean says. “Does it look like I’m not taking this seriously?” He waves the gun in the air and gestures towards the woods. “I don’t want my ass turning into one of those disgusting sons of bitches. I hear a noise then I’m going to take it seriously.”
"Fine, then what did this noise sound like?" Sam wants to know.
"Uh, kinda like that," Jo replies. She points behind the brothers to where the noise is coming from.
It sounds like a deep growling sound and it scares the hell out of Jo, but as the noise grows a little louder the brothers head towards it.
"What is it? Can you see anything?" Jo calls out.
"Not yet," Dean replies.
They disappear behind a thick grouping of trees and not wanting to be on her own, she runs after them to catch up.
"Oh my God!" Sam cries out.
"What is it?" Jo asks, her breath catching in her throat.
"Take a look and find out," Dean tells her. "Haven't seen this in a while."
Jo steps around the trees and her eyes grow wide at what she sees. "Oh wow, the poor thing looks terrible."
"How long do you reckon it's been out here?" She asks. "It must be starving."
Dean steps around the tree and picks up the rope that was caught around a broken branch.
"I have no idea but I always wanted a dog when I was a kid."
"You know that Dad is never gonna let us keep this thing, right?" Sam points out.
"Whatever," Dean says. "I'm a grown ass man, I don't need my father telling me what I can and can't do."
Jo and Sam both laugh and Dean just shakes his head.
"You better hope that dog doesn't make a damn sound," Sam tells his brother. "’Cos if it does and draws attention to the fact that we're here, Dad will kill you."
"Bite me," Dean replies. "Finders keepers and all that bullshit."
"It's your problem then," Sam tells him. "Damn it, Dean, what are you going to do with it? We can't take it with us."
"I'll leave it here until we come back."
"That's if it's still there," Sam points out. "I wouldn't hold my breath."
"Can we please just get on with this?" Jo pleads with him. "I want to get out of these damn woods."
"Fine," Dean grumbles. "Let's go."
"How long has it been?" Ellen asks.
"Five minutes since you last asked me that," Bobby points out. "They've only been gone an hour. Stop worrying so much ’cos you're starting to drive me nuts."
"I shouldn't have let them go by themselves," Ellen tells him. She walks across the room and knocks on the door. "John, what the hell is wrong with you? You should be out there with those kids making sure they're alright."
There's no answer and that annoys her so she knocks again.
"Damn it, John, answer me."
She opens the door and steps into the room; she's more than surprised to see that it's empty.
"Bobby, did you see him leave?" She asks. "I never saw him, so where the hell did he go?"
"Dean, watch out!" Sam calls out to his brother.
Dean spins around and pulls the trigger. He hits the Walker square in the chest and it stumbles backwards but it doesn't drop.
"Damn it, where the hell did they even come from?" He cries out. "I thought that Dad said this place would be safe."
Jo sees another three Walkers heading their way and she checks her gun. "I've only got two bullets left."
"How the hell did you use all your ammo already?" Sam asks her.
"’Cos there are damn Walkers everywhere!" She screams at him.
Another series of shots echo around them and Sam spins around to see John standing there; he takes down four Walkers before he moves up beside his sons.
"What the hell did you do?" He asks them.
"We didn't do anything and I thought you said this would be safe here?" Dean replies. "We haven't even been here for two hours and we're being overrun."
John shoots another Walker and has to duck out of the way for how close he’s standing to his Dad.
"Go back to the house; now," he tells them.
Dean and Sam share a look of concern. John is about to do something stupid, they just know it.
"I said go back to the house."
Dean shakes his head. "Not without you. We're not leaving you out here to play some sort of damn hero."
"Dean, I ain't gonna tell you again. Go back to the damn house and tell Ellen and Bobby to lock it down."
"I'll go," Jo says.
"You're all going," he replies. "I'll be right behind you."
Dean angrily shakes his head and takes a few steps forward. Sam and Jo soon follow.
"No, screw this," Dean says. "I'm not just going to leave him there to get himself killed."
Dean spins around just in time to see at least another five Walkers headed towards them. John is already shooting at them but Dean knows that he must be running low on ammo.
He runs back to where John is standing and starts firing.
"Dean, I told you to leave."
"Yeah, well get over it," Dean replies.
They know that the gunfire has drawn more Walkers; Dean knew that as soon as he started firing but they didn't have much of a choice, there were too many of them and now there were even more.
“This isn’t working,” Sam calls out. “We need to get out of here; we need to get back to the house.”
John finally relents and instructs the others to retreat back to the safety of the cabin.
John had hoped that this would be a safer place for them. They had been running for so long that he just wanted somewhere where they could sit and breathe for a while.
For more than twenty years now he had been trying to protect his sons and he had done everything he could to keep them safe.
Sometimes he was surprised that he had managed to do so for so long; there had been moments where he thought that they would all be dead by now.
There weren't many survivors out there anymore and what would happen to the world once they were gone? It wouldn't be a world anymore, the Walkers would have won and then they too would eventually be gone and then there would be nothing.
He wanted nothing more than the peace and quiet of a normal life, for things to be how they once were. He wanted his normal family back. He wanted peace for his sons. One were they weren't hunters of the undead and being hunted.
They're almost back to the house when Dean remembers the dog that was still tied to the tree. He wants to go back for it but knows that it would be a stupid idea right now.
"What the hell is that?" Sam asks pointing to the house.
A cloud of smoke is pouring up through the trees.
John and Dean start running towards the house but before he can even get there there's an explosion and Sam and Jo watch as the two of them are knocked to the ground.
Sam runs over to them while Jo is left to fight off the Walkers who have started to show up from all the gunfire and now the explosion.
"Dean!"
Sam reaches his brother first and is glad to see that he's alright. A few scratches here and there but nothing he couldn't handle.
He sees out of the corner of his eye that John is already pulling himself to his feet. "Did anyone see Bobby or Ellen?"
Sam shakes his head. "No, not yet."
After helping Dean up Sam runs toward the house. He doesn't look over his shoulder when he hears gunfire, he just needs to focus on finding Bobby and Ellen.
The entire left side of the house is on fire. Sam knows that all of their belongings are in there, all of the supplies they had gathered up to take to the Cabin.
He runs around the other side. There's a small shed with a stack of firewood piled up but he still can't see anything, the smoke is getting worse and the heat from the fire is getting stronger.
"Bobby!" Sam calls out.
There's still no answer and Sam is starting to panic; if anything has happened to them, he's not sure that he would be able to deal with that.
He keeps searching and the sound of shots being fired gets louder and closer.
When he turns back to the house, he's surprised to see several Walkers flailing about in the flames that have now spread even further.
"Sam."
He spins around and sees Ellen standing at the end of the house. She's clutching her right arm to her chest and she has a deep cut on her forehead.
"Oh my god, I thought you were still inside," he says as he makes his way over to her. "Where's Bobby?"
"He's out as well," she tells him. "What the hell happened? We were just sitting there and then the place seemed to be overrun with Walkers. Bobby blew the house up, it was the only way we could get out."
She leads the way to where Bobby is leaning against a tree about thirty feet away from the house. He's trying to load several guns.
"This was all we could grab," he says when he looks up and sees Sam. "Where are the others?"
"Fighting off the damn Walkers. They just keep coming."
"Saaaaaaaam!"
Sam spins around when he hears his name being screamed. He knows that it's Dean calling out to him and the seriousness in Dean's voice scares the hell out of him.
The three of them take off running. They soon see Dean and Jo leaning over John who is lying on the ground.
They are surrounded by at least twenty Walkers who are scattered across the ground riddled with bullets.
Bobby and Ellen start shooting but no matter how many bullets they use it doesn't seem to help.
Sam fears the worst. When he reaches their side, he can see that Jo has tears streaming down her face and Dean doesn't look much better.
"What... Dean, what went…what happened?" Sam stutters.
He drops to his knees in the dirt beside his father. John is grabbing at his jacket screaming incoherently at Dean and all Sam can see is the blood.
Dean’s hands are covered in it and a small puddle of what he knows to be John’s blood has formed on the ground.
“Oh my God,” Sam whispers. “Dad, no.”
“You have to do it,” John cries out. “Just do it now.”
Dean angrily shakes his head. “No fucking way, Dad. I’m not doing it.”
“What’s he talking about? What happened?” Sam asks again.
“A Walker,” Jo tells him. “He got too close.” Her tears are falling thick and fast now. “It bit him Sam; I couldn’t stop it because it happened so quick. I’m so sorry.”
Sam's eyes grow wide at the realization of what this means. His father was bitten. There was no going back from that.
The brothers look at each other, tears filling their eyes because they know what this means and they know what they have to do.
John starts to lose some of his fight and he sinks even further into the mud. Sam grabs his hand and silently pleads for him to be alright but he knows that he won't be.
Ellen and Jo are now firing at the Walkers and Bobby falls to his knees beside Sam.
"God damn it, John," he curses at his friend. "What the hell have you done?"
"You have to do it, Bobby," John manages to choke out.
Bobby shakes his head. He really didn't want this to be happening right now; they had already been through so much. The boys were losing their father now, and he wasn't sure that given everything else they would be able to deal with this.
"Get out of here now," Bobby tells them. "I'm so sorry but there's nothing that we can do. There are too many Walkers, we need to get out of here."
Sam and Dean don't even move an inch and Bobby has to shove Sam in the chest to get him to pay attention.
"Go; now."
Sam shakes his head. "I can't leave him."
"We're not leaving," Dean adds. "No way in hell."
A moment later, Dean can feel one of the girls pulling at his jacket. They're trying to pull him away but he refuses to leave his father like this.
"Damn it, Dean, get up, we have to go!" Ellen screams at him.
Jo somehow manages to pull Sam to his feet. He's full on crying now and so distraught that he doesn't really fight against her so they start running with Ellen following close behind.
"Dean, go be with your brother," John chokes out. "He needs you."
"Dad, stop being a stubborn son of a bitch," Dean tells him. "I'm not leaving you."
"Get the hell out of here, son," John says. "Please, I'm begging you."
Dean shakes his head and tightens his grip on his father's hand. "Dad, I'm not leaving you."
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry that I didn’t do better by you. I tried to keep you and your brother safe. I promised your mother that I wouldn’t let this happen to you; don’t make me a liar to her.”
Dean narrows his eyes. He isn’t really sure what John means by that. He had always understood that their mother had been killed not long before the Zombie outbreak started. So surely John was just referring to something else.
He had to have been, right?
"Dean, please, I don't want you to see this."
Dean stands up and takes a few steps back. He knows that there is no way that he would be able to do it. He couldn’t kill his father because he would never be able to live with that.
The Walkers are getting closer and Dean tries to hold them off but he's running low on bullets.
He's turned away from Bobby and John when it happens, when that shot fires out and the sound of it echoes around him.
A moment later he can feel Bobby's hand on his shoulder. Dean turns around, his face lined with tears.
"I'm sorry, kid," Bobby tells him. "I really am but we have to go."
Dean sucks in a deep breath and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. A moment later they’re making their way towards the others but for some reason Dean stops and turns back to look over his shoulder.
It was never supposed to be like this. When their father died, he was supposed to be an old man who had lived his life without fear and without worrying about his sons; he was supposed to have a proper burial with a proper goodbye.
Dean feels sick to his stomach that this has happened and now what was even worse were the damn Walkers who were surrounding his father, tearing him to shreds.
The sight of it causes the bile in his stomach to rise and he doubles over, throwing up until he feels like he might pass out.
Bobby gives him just a moment to recover before they’re both running.
When they're gathered together again back on the main road, Jo and Ellen are doing their best to comfort Sam while Dean takes his anger out on the remains of the metal railing that had once made up the barrier on the highway.
None of them can quite believe what had just happened. It didn't seem real that John was really gone. An hour ago, everything was fine; well at least as fine as it could get but now, John Winchester was dead.
And the brothers would never quite be the same again after that. They both knew it but there was little that could be done about it.
Dean looks over at Sam. His cheeks are stained with tears and for a moment there Dean is sure that Sam remembers everything but he doesn't want to get his hopes up.
"Sammy?"
Sam looks up at him. "Dean?"
"Yeah, what is it Sammy?"
"I know what happened," Sam tells him. "I know everything."
Dean's eyes grow wide and he feels relief more than anything else. He has Sam back. The past three days of reliving memory lane has worked and he has his brother back.
"I know how this all started," Sam continues. "I know what Dad meant when he told you that he promised Mom that he wouldn't let this happen to us."
Dean stares back at him. He wasn't really sure what Sam was getting at because what John had said hadn't made any sense to him, so how could it to Sam?
"What are you talking about?" Dean wants to know. "How could you know?"
Sam shakes his head. "I'm not sure, but I do. Dean, all of this, it started with Mom."
Chapter 6