Sanctuary Fighting back the darkness with style.

"Supernatural:
Sacrifices and Regrets" by Chris McWilliams

The
deal was done and there was no going back, not that John would want to go back,
that would cost Dean his life and regardless of the high price the demon
demanded he pay, John would pay it.

As
John sat on the edge of his hospital bed he thought about it and that was when
the regrets started to set in.

They
had always been there of course, it's just John had become a master at pushing
them aside and not letting the weight of his regrets weigh him down. If he had done that he wouldn't be able to
move. He had felt the weight of those
regrets early on and it had made him virtually immobile. He’d had to learn how to fight them and push
them away.

He
regretted so much, even sitting on that hospital bed, that sometimes it was a
lot of effort to not dwell on them.

Dean. He had made this deal to save his very life
but what kind of life was it? John
played such a huge part in shaping the life that Dean has today and it pained
him to think about it. How he took a
young child and turned him, virtually overnight, into an adult and how poor
Dean was unwilling, or maybe unable, to fight against it.

Dean
simply allowed John to thoughtlessly pile one responsibility upon another on
his back. At the time John thought that
what he was doing was right, was necessary, but he had come to see that maybe
there had been another way.... Was Sammy right all along? Would it have been better to keep them away
from the hunting? Keep them at a
distance, give them as normal a life as possible and then later give them the
choice?

No. John regretted what he had done but that
would have been worse. He had to make
sure they were able to care for themselves, and not just in the day-to-day way
that they’d learned because he was gone so much and they were always on the
road, but also in case the bastard that killed Mary came back.

In
those days they didn't know what they were dealing with, it could have been
anything. Dean had already taken the
task of protecting Sammy on all by himself.
It was his first instinct, it was want he wanted to do and John simply
added to that, used - some would say exploited, some would even say callously
exploited - it to his own needs.

Dean
fell into the role of Sammy's protector and primary care taker and as time
passed other things just sort of ended up falling in Dean's lap. To his credit Dean never complained, never
resisted the added responsibility, even after Missouri Mosley helped him to
regain his ability (or maybe willingness) to speak.

All
of that regret and it only scratched the surface. There was so much more he regretted about
the way he treated Dean as he grew up.
It was more than just the added responsibility; responsibility that far
outstretched his years, it was the training.

He
treated Dean much the way his Marine Drill Sergeant had treated him when he
first showed up for Basic Training. He
had put his role as father on the back burner and instead barked orders and
trained Dean like a young Marine.

Sure
there were times his fatherly side shone through, there were times when he was
so proud of Dean and what he was accomplishing, especially at his age, that he
couldn't help but smile and be proud, but then a nagging voice in the back of
his head, sometimes his own, sometimes Mary's would remind him, he's doing it
for you, he's doing it to get that smile and that approval because that's what
it takes.

Sammy. Now there was a landfill worth of regrets
right there. At first, in the early
days it was all about protecting him, watching out for him. John may not have known much about what had
taken Mary and ruined their lives but he did know one thing: it was in Sammy's
nursery.

John
never had any doubt that this wasn't an accident. Sammy had been what the thing was after, so
it fell onto John and Dean to protect the littlest Winchester.
Dean must have, on some level, realized it too because he became hyper
protective of his little brother.

Then
Sammy got older and started to resent the protection, started to resent the
training, started to resent making friends and then having to move on, never
staying in one place long enough to keep them, never having a normal home or a
normal life.

On
the surface Dean handled this better than Sammy did. Dean
was always much less social than Sammy was.
Dean was content to spend time with his mom and dad, and later, baby
brother even before the fire. After it
was much more extreme.

Even
when they stayed in one place long enough to bother enrolling them in school
Sammy would be out there making friends, getting involved in school plays and
whatever else he could manage to do (and John tried to support him in that as
long as it didn't conflict with training and hunting) but Dean was different.

Dean
did just what he had to do to keep his teachers from asking too many
questions. He put as much effort in his
school work as was required to be left alone and poured the bulk of his energy
into hunting.

It
was only later that John fully realized that the only reason he kept going to
school, even well past the age where he could drop out, was to keep an eye on
Sammy. That was all it was ever about
for him, a way to watch Sammy and that was all.

That
thought made John sad as well. What
would Dean have become if not for the demon, if not for Mary's death, if not
for the life of a hunter? Would he have
followed John's footsteps and gone in the Marines? Would he have turned his natural interest in
cars into a mechanic’s job, maybe work in the shop that John used to co-own in Lawrence? What did Dean want out of life?

John
wondered, not for the first time, if he should have asked himself that and
considered that question more carefully a long time ago, before the die was
cast.

He
couldn't have. He always came to that
conclusion. If he had left Sammy and
Dean alone, let them make their own choice they would have been at risk. It was only by arming them, preparing them,
that they could defend themselves.

John
had tried to shield them, protect them as best as he could from the full truth
of what he knew. The horrible burden of
knowledge.

When
he thought of all the times Sammy had called him on that, called him on his
'need to know' way of handling things he had to laugh a bitter laugh.

If
he had told Sammy, or even Dean, what he knew, the full extent of his
knowledge, they would be as pained by it, as haunted by it has he had
been. He didn't want to visit that on
his children. Better they only knew a
little of it, only what he thought they could handle at any given time.

Of
course the irony was that now... now the demon and his demand - the deal John
had to strike with him - that all forced him into a position he had hoped to
never be in: he had no choice but to
burden Dean with the awful truth.

He
would only tell him what he had to, to spare Dean the pain of full
knowledge. He knew that Dean would
grapple with that much, but he also knew Dean would be determined to find a way
out, a way to deal with the situation that would avoid tragedy. He would uncover the rest of the story on
his own and be stronger and thus better able to cope.

Beside,
time was short. The demon made good on
his word to save Dean's life and now the ball, as they say, was in John's
court. He would hand the Colt over to
him and shortly thereafter the demon would take his life.

The
only thing stalling the whole thing, for what little time he could, was John
going to see Dean. He had stipulated
that he would get to see Dean alive and well with his own eyes. Once he did that the whole thing would go
down very quickly.

It
had to or the demon might take it out on Dean, the last time the demon attacked
Dean - inside John's own body - was bad enough, John didn't want to risk that
sort of attack again.

The
only reason he hadn't been in to seen Dean yet was because he wanted to take
some time to collect his thoughts, figure out what he was going to say.

This
would be the last time he would be seeing Dean and he had to make sure he
managed to repair at least some of the emotional harm the demon had caused, he
had to till the soil of Dean's mind and make sure it was ready for the horrible
seed he was now forced to plant.

He
had to be sure... sure as he could be... that Dean was in a mental state to
handle the information, to be able to process it, to be able to deal.

Deal. That word had never stuck out in John's mind
so much as it did now. Making a deal
with a demon, especially that
demon, was something John would never normally dream of doing. In truth he had always had a secret
revulsion for people who resorted to such means to get what they wanted. He had never fully understood the
desperation that drove them until he decided to call up the Yellow Eyed bastard
himself.

Now
that he understood he felt pity for those who barter with demons, some of them
at least, and couldn't help but regret the way he had treated some of the ones
he’d encountered in his travels. Yet
another regret.

Looking
at a nearby clock John realized that time was growing short. He had made a deal with the demon and he had
to keep up his end of it or Dean would pay.
He was sure if he tried to renege now that the demon wouldn't just make
sure Dean died, as he would have surely done normally, but that he died
screaming in pain unlike anything he had experienced before.

He
had to go and check on Dean, then shortly there after he had to bring the demon
the Colt and surrender himself to death.
He was the demon's now and he just had to hope that Dean realized, deep down inside, that he had the
strength to carry on their quest and see it through to the end, no matter what
that end looked like.

Not
for the first time John wished he had more time, more time to really sit Dean
down and tell him more, but he knew that Dean wasn't ready for the whole
picture. Hell John wasn't even sure some
days if he had been ready when he’d found it all out, and the demon wasn't
going to give him time to get Dean ready either.

John
knew he had little choice. He had to
tell Dean what he knew he could handle, even if Dean himself wouldn't be sure
he could handle it, then hope he had what it took to find out the rest and to
make sure things worked out in the end.

John
had confidence that Dean would... could do it, he just wasn't sure Dean felt
the same way. John's eyes started to
tear up slightly. He wished things
could have been different. That things
could have worked out so that he could have been around, continued to carry the
burden of the truth alone as he had done from the time he learned it.

At
very least he wished he could be there to help Dean figure it all out. To help him deal with the truth and to find
a way to protect Sammy, to protect him and make it all better.

Of
course John knew, in his heart of hearts, that Dean was really the one to do
all that. Dean had really been more of
a father to Sammy growing up than John had been. John hated to admit that but it was true
and, yet another regret: He wasn't much of a father to
either of them. Not in the conventional
sense anyway.

The boys turned out fine...
as good as anyone could hope given the situation, a voice said in John's
head and he was surprised. It sounded
like Mary. Since the visit to Lawrence, the poltergeist
in their old home, Mary's spirit destroying itself to save the boys, John had
thought more and more that he could hear Mary's voice in his head.

John
wasn't sure if it was just his imagination.
Wishful thinking that some part of her still existed, maybe inside his
heart somewhere, or something else but it comforted him.

I guess they did at that, John thought in his own
voice. They're strong, independent and they love and care about each
other. They’ve had their differences in
the past and they don't always see eye to eye but the loyalty and the love is
always there. They can take on the
world as long as they stand shoulder to shoulder and never waver.

Still,
Sammy has darkness in him. What if he
turned? Would Dean's love become a
weakness? Would he be able to kill
Sammy if it came to it? John wasn't
sure but he was sure of one thing: Dean had the capacity to reach him. He had it in him to prevent it from getting
that far and that's why things had to be the way they were.

Dean
was important, not just as a son he loved dearly but also as a brother who
could save his little brother from becoming a monster. John had to make this deal to save them
both, Dean in the short run and Sammy in the long run.

John
took a deep breath, stood up and retrieved the colt and it’s last bullet from their hiding place. It was time.