Titanium

Eight

They were back in another motel room. Sam was looking through a worn looking journal while Dean studied the screen of Sam's laptop. Henry sat on the couch whistling and Heaven had shut herself in the bathroom.

"What is that? I know that tune," Dean looked up from the laptop at Henry.

"'As Time Goes By.' I hope so. It's from 'Casablanca.'"

"Right," Sam nodded. "Dad used to whistle it from time to time."

"Your father saw 'Abbott and Castello Meet the Mummy' at the drive-in one night," Henry explained. "It scared the beeswax out of him. So I got him this little music box that played that song to help him sleep at night. Worked like a charm."

"Wow, it's hard to believe Dad was ever scared of anything," Sam scoffed.

Heaven came out of the bathroom then, dark hair damp and pulled back in a French braid and wearing cotton shorts and a tank top. Sam noticed Dean look over at her again before turning back to the laptop.

"Hey, uh, according to county records, Tom Carey lives in Lebanon, Kansas, and is a very happy 127-year-old."

He shut the laptop with a snap.

"I say we get some shut eye, head over first thing in the morning."

"Wait, wait, wait," Sam interrupted. "Listen to this. According to Dad's journal, he once tortured a demon that said he made his bones working for Abaddon, who, it turns out, is a Knight of Hell."

"What does that even mean?" Heaven piped up from where she sat on the edge of one of the beds.

"Knights of Hell are hand picked by Lucifer himself," Henry supplied. "They are the first-fallen, first-born demons."

"So, very pure, very strong," Sam added.

"Legend has it, the Archangels had killed all of them," Henry stood, "which, as we have witnessed, is not the case."

"Unless she's the last of her kind," Dean pointed out.

"You say that belonged to your father?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded.

"May I?"

Sam slid the journal across the table to Henry, who took it gingerly in his hands.

"It's a hunter's journal. I assume Men of Letters- you guys use journals too?"

"I intended to," Henry admitted, flipping through the pages almost lovingly. "I sent away for one the day before my initiation."

He lifted a photograph tucked into the inside cover to reveal the initials "HW" stamped into the leather.

"As a matter of fact, judging from my initials, this one, I believe."

"That was yours?" Dean asked.

"It must have arrived after... I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time, do I?"

"We don't know for sure," Sam admitted. "All we know is Dad never saw you again."

"What did he think happened to me?"

"He thought you ran out on him," Dean informed his grandfather.

"John was a legacy. I was supposed to teach him the ways of the Letters."

"Well, he learned things a little differently."

"How?" Henry looked up from the journal.

"The hard way," Dean responded bitterly. "Surviving a lonely childhood, a stinking war... only to get married and have his wife taken by a demon... and later killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn. But you know what? He kept going. And in the end, he did a hell of a lot more good than bad."