Song Remains the Same

Chapter 124: Like a Rolling Stone

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Live in the question."
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Deep inside of the bunker, utterly stifling silence was punctuated by a heart rate monitor. The machine was old but still worked, doing its job of representing every heartbeat with a soulless, jarring beep.

Dean hadn't left his dad's side. It was now sometime in the morning and the oldest Winchester still couldn't believe everything that had happened last night. But especially this.

Here was the man he had idolized and adored. The man he had followed blindly after his entire life. The man who had raised him and conditioned him and some might argue abused him. The man whose footsteps Dean was echoing almost blow for blow.

Until last night, John Winchester had been dead and left behind—a closed book, a shadow that loomed in the edge of the past. And now... he was suddenly flesh and blood and here again. Dean's stomach churned as he wondered continuously if his father would wake up or not and what that meant if he did. What impact that would have. It's not that Dean didn't want his dad back, it was just... this threw a huge wrench into everything. This changed everything. And Dean had no clue if Dad was even the same guy anymore. Hell might have turned him into a monster for all they knew. He might be close to being demonized. He might be stripped of all hope and joy and light. He might be a shell of who he'd been... an empty, vacated house that would never be lived in again.

John looked grayer and more haggard than he had before, maybe a touch more wild and grizzled, definitely a little thinner. But other than that... he looked the same.

When John had died, Dean had been forced to really step up and take ownership of the Winchester family in a way he'd never had to before. He'd been compelled to carry Dad's work on and keep the family unit together. It had given him more mission and responsibility. Dean had become more of a man because of Dad's death. And now with Dad alive again, Dean automatically felt younger again... less certain. Less capable. And let's face it: lately, especially since Jamie's death, Dean was feeling like he was powerless and trapped. Like nothing he did would really amount to much in the end. Like fate was fate, death was guaranteed, and nothing he did would really change anything for the better.

It was hard for Dean to know how to process this. Twenty-four hours ago, he had been worrying about the trials, Kevin, this Metatron guy, Sammy, Alex being 'missing'... and then out of the blue Cas had shown up looking like death and then quickly announced Alex had sold her soul and was not missing... she was in Hell. That had basically shattered any ground remaining under Dean's feet and plunged him to utter rock bottom. He'd barely had time to take in what Cas had said before Alex had been pulled out of the ground. The entire thing left him traumatized.

Dean really didn't even want to believe that it had even happened. Hell was the worst possible imaginable torture he could ever conceive of and he didn't want his sister to have been there—ever—at all—even for a second. And she'd been there for what he could only sum up as being around ten years. God knows what had happened to her during that amount of time or how many demons had tortured her in ways he couldn't even bring himself to think about. It made him feel so horrified that he wanted to vomit. How could she have done that to herself? Signed herself up for that? And told no one about it? The entire scenario sickened him as much as it outraged him. Didn't she get that her life was valuable to the extreme? That she couldn't just throw it around and make deals to bring back people who, yes, he loved, but no, didn't have to have back? If it had been Sam's life or Cas's life on the line or something, Dean might have understood better. But Bobby? Now, make no mistake. Dean loved Bobby. A lot. And he knew Alex did too. But he didn't understand why Alex would suddenly up and trade her life for his like she had. If he had to pick, Dean would have never traded his sister for his uncle. That was just the bare, ugly truth of it. His sister and brother were the two most important people in the world to him. The end. He would always choose them over anyone else. He would do just about anything to protect them—and maybe that was why Dean felt so angry and helpless and even feeling betrayed at his sister's actions. If he had known her plans, Dean would have never let Alex do that deal. He would have tied her up and locked her in the basement until she came to her senses or he would have done the deal in her place if she was that set on having Bobby back.