## Dean
**Seven months old. Some motel in Ohio.**
Sam was in the shower. Johanna lay on her stomach on the bed, staring at a sock dangling over the edge. My sock. Dirty. Hadn't been washed since—whatever.
I sat at the table, cleaning the guns, keeping her in the corner of my eye. Always in the corner of my eye. Rule number one: never let Johanna out of my sight. Not because she was in danger. Because she was seven months old and put everything in her mouth. Everything. Bullet casings, salt shakers, Sam's laptop cable, and one time, almost a silver knife. Almost. I had quick hands.
So I sat there, cleaning the barrel of the nine-millimeter, and then—
Movement.
Not normal baby movement. Not kicking, rolling, or lying on her stomach and getting frustrated. No. This was—coordinated. Intentional. Johanna pushed herself forward. Knees under her belly. Hands on the mattress. And then she crawled. Just like that. Like she'd done it a hundred times already and had only been waiting for me to watch.
I set the gun down.
“Sam!”
Johanna crawled toward the sock. Grabbed it. Stuffed it in her mouth. Looked at me with this expression—triumphant. Absolutely triumphant. Like she'd just taken down a wendigo instead of conquering a dirty sock.
“SAM!”
The bathroom door opened. Sam stood there, a towel around his hips, hair dripping, face alarmed. “What? What's wrong? Is she—”
“She’s crawling.”
Sam blinked. “What?”
“She. Is. Crawling. Look.”
Johanna had spit the sock back out and was now heading toward the edge of the bed. Focused. Fast. Too fast. I jumped up and caught her before she fell. She squealed. Protesting. Like I'd ruined her fun.
Sam came closer. Dripping onto the carpet. He crouched down. “Hey, Jojo. Can you do that again?”
He set her down in the middle of the bed. Johanna looked at him. Looked at me. And then she took off crawling. Straight toward Sam. No detour. No hesitation.
Sam caught her. Lifted her up. And he laughed. That rare, genuine Sam laugh he almost never showed because the world was too heavy and he knew too much. But Johanna brought it out of him. Every time.
“You’re a natural,” he told her. “Crawling, stealing socks, almost killing your brother. All in one day.”
Johanna grabbed his wet hair and pulled. Sam winced. I grinned.
And for thirty seconds, everything was okay.
**Eleven months old. South Dakota. Bobby Singer’s junkyard.**
Bobby had said we could stay as long as we wanted. Bobby always said that. And he always meant it. And I hated that we needed it, but we did.
Sam was in the library, researching some case in Minnesota. I was in the kitchen, making Johanna some purée. Carrot. She hated carrots. She loved bananas, tolerated apples, and treated carrots like a personal insult. But carrots were healthy, and Sam had said she needed vitamins, and Sam had a degree from Stanford, so I made the damn carrot purée.
Johanna sat in the high chair Bobby had found somewhere. Probably from a dumpster. Probably cursed. But it stood, and she sat in it, and that was good enough.
I set the purée in front of her. She looked at it. Looked at me. Pushed the bowl away.
“Jojo. Eat.”
She shook her head. Eleven months old and already as stubborn as—as me. As Dad. As every damn Winchester since the beginning of time.
“Johanna Marie Winchester, you’re going to eat the—”
She reached for the edge of the table. Pulled herself up. Her little fingers clawed into the wood, her legs shaking, and then—she stood. Wobbly. Unsteady. But standing.
I forgot all about the purée.
She looked at me. Huge green eyes. Blonde hair sticking out in every direction by now because she refused to tolerate anything on her head. No hat. No headband. Nothing. Everything got yanked off and thrown on the floor. Winchester.
She stood there, holding on and looking at me like she was saying: Look. Look what I can do.
“Sam,” I called. Quieter this time. Like I might scare her away if I got too loud. “Sam, come here.”
Footsteps. Sam appeared in the doorway. Saw Johanna. His mouth fell open.
“Oh my—”
“Shh.”
Johanna let go of the table.
For one moment, she stood on her own. For one moment, she was simply there, on two feet in the middle of Bobby Singer’s kitchen, and the world held its breath.
Then she fell onto her butt. Hard. Her face crumpled. Her lower lip pushed out. Her chin trembled.
I was there before the first sound came out. Scooped her up. “Hey. Hey, hey, hey. That was great. That was amazing. You’re amazing.”
She sobbed once. Twice. Then stuck her thumb in her mouth and rested her head against my shoulder.
Bobby suddenly stood behind Sam. Cap, flannel shirt, whiskey in hand. “Did she just—”
“Yeah.”
Bobby took a drink. “Idjits. You’re raising a kid in a junkyard.”
“Yep.”
He took another drink. “Proud of you boys.”
He left before either of us could answer. That was Bobby. He said the important things and disappeared before it got awkward.
Sam came into the kitchen. Sat down beside me on the floor. Johanna between us, thumb in her mouth, eyes half-closed.
“She stood,” Sam said. Quietly. Disbelieving.
“Yep.”
“Without holding on.”
“For about two seconds, yeah.”
Sam smiled. The kind of smile that reached his eyes. “Dad should’ve seen that.”
I swallowed. “Yeah. He should’ve.”
Silence. Johanna breathed. Evenly. Calmly.
“She didn’t eat the carrot purée,” I said.
“No one likes your carrot purée, Dean.”
“Shut up.”
Sam laughed. Johanna made a sound that was almost a laugh. And I sat on the kitchen floor of Bobby Singer’s house and thought: This. Exactly this.
**Fourteen months old. Somewhere in Nebraska.**
It was three in the morning. Sam was asleep. Johanna wasn’t. Johanna never slept when I wanted her to sleep, and always slept when I wanted her awake. She had Dad’s timing. Or mine. Or the timing of someone who wanted to drive the world insane.
I carried her through the motel room. Back and forth. Back and forth. She was restless, whimpering, clutching at my T-shirt. Teething. She was teething, and it hurt, and there was nothing I could do except carry her and talk softly and hope it stopped.
“Shh, Jojo. I know. It sucks. Teething sucks.”
Sam turned over in bed. Mumbled, “Stop swearing in front of the baby.”
“She doesn’t understand.”
“She understands more than you think.”
Johanna looked at me. Green eyes, wet, tired, angry. Her mouth was open, cheeks red. She looked like a very small, very angry angel.
I sat down on the bed. Laid her on my chest. Her ear over my heart. That helped sometimes. My heartbeat. Not as steady as Sam’s, but familiar. Her heartbeat. Since the first day.
She grew quieter. The whimpering stopped. Her fingers held tight to my T-shirt, and her eyes grew heavy, and I thought she was falling asleep, and then—
“Da.”
I froze.
“Da.”
Clear. Distinct. A word. Her first word.
“Sam.”
“Hmm.”
“Sam, wake up.”
“What—”
“She said something.”
Silence. Then rustling. Sam sat up. “What?”
Johanna looked at Sam. Then at me. And then she said it again, louder this time, more certain, looking straight at me:
“Da.”
Sam was quiet. I was quiet. Johanna looked back and forth between us like she didn’t understand why we were staring at her like that.
“Da,” she said again. And reached her hand toward me.
Da. Not Mama. Not Papa. Da.
I didn’t know if she meant me. If “Da” was Dean or Dad or just a sound babies made. But she looked at me when she said it. At me. And her hand reached for my face, her fingers tiny and damp and warm, and she said “Da,” and I—
I couldn’t breathe.
Sam said softly, “I think she means you.”
“Shut up, Sam.”
But my voice was broken. Completely broken. And Sam didn’t say anything else, because he knew there were moments when nothing needed to be said.
Johanna laid her head back on my chest. Her fingers held tight to my T-shirt. And right before she fell asleep, she murmured it one more time. Softly. Almost too quiet to hear.
“Da.”
I stayed awake until morning. Held her close. Listened to her breathe.
And for the first time since Dad died, I didn’t think: I have to get through this.
I thought: I want to get through this.