Title: Out of Darkness Into Light
Rating: K+ for descriptions of torture and hell
Genre: Supernatural, Hurt/Comfort
Character(s): John Winchester
Setting: Episode 2.22, "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II"
Disclaimer: This story is for fan purposes only. I do not own Supernatural or its characters.
A/N: Anyone else wonder why John said nothing during those final moments he shared with the boys?

He had long ago lost track of anything so trivial as time. It had very little meaning here - each torment was followed by a new torture, worse than the last. There was no point in marking it by the passage of time. On occasion, they left him alone to recover, so that the renewed agony would hurt that much more, and the anticipation of it would be a torment in and of itself.

During one of these periods of respite, he perched, alone and naked, on a rock above a pool of lava. His entire being ached from the last round they had inflicted on him. His tortured soul barely maintained the semblance of humanity anymore; he couldn't even remember the name he had borne in life now. Such things danced like wisps of smoke through his grasp. He felt weak, so very weak, but for some reason, he turn his gaze upwards.

All he could see was darkness above him, not even the faintest speck of light to be found. But something was drawing his attention away from the pain in his spirit, focusing it on something he couldn't even put words to, even if he had remembered how to form words. Evan as he stared upwards, he heard a rising whisper, growing to a clamor, from the indefinable realm around him.

The Door Is Open!

For some reason, this excited them greatly. There was an odd pull inside him, some tiny spark that told him this was important, though he didn't know why. Finally, his straining gaze spotted it: high, high above him, infinitely far away, he saw starlight. The Door is open! that spark inside him whispered. And that part of him understood: somewhere, it was night. He remembered night. Go to it! that phantom voice urged him.

Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to get closer to that scrap of night sky. But to do that, he would need to climb the walls, and to get to the walls, he would need to cross the boiling lava that surrounded his precarious perch. And if they caught him, there was no telling what new tortures they would inflict on him. A strange feeling swelled inside him: he didn't care what they did, or how much pain he would have to endure. All that mattered was that, for the first time in this timeless abyss, he remembered. And he was not going to give that up.

Without hesitation, he gathered the tattered remains of his soul and dove into the liquid fire. The searing pain that tore through him made all the previous torments seem trivial. But despite the agony, he forced his spirit through it, even as it burned parts of him away. Finally, he reached the walls. Reaching out an appendage that might once have been a hand, he grasped the hard rock and pulled himself free from the lava. Each movement was a new agony as he climbed, inch by bloody inch, but he kept his sight fixed upwards. And through the haze of pain he realized that he was moving closer to the distant starlight.

And as he came ever closer to that fleeting thing called night, he felt a glimmer of memory from that tiny, precious bit of humanity that remained to him. Not of a memory of an image, but a memory of a feeling, the same feeling that had induced him to brave the lava grew, and now lent itself to him as he crawled up the wall of Hell. He had felt that way before.

He let that feeling flow through him, and his spirit seemed to take on renewed shape and strength from it. As the semblance of life returned to him, the pain receded and his determination grew.

Finally, after an eternity, he reached the crack in the Walls of Hell. Beyond the slim opening, he could see a rush of foul, hellish creatures pouring through a door and out into the night, where the stars glittered in breathtaking majesty in the sky above. He forced himself through the crack and was swept up in the stream of demonic beasts. As he passed through the door, he heard a scream of frustration from far away. He ignored it in favor of the scene before him.

He saw a strangely familiar young man on the ground, being held at gunpoint by a yellow-eyed demon. That strange feeling inside him now threatened to burst him apart at the seams. He charged the demon and wrapped his arms around it, actually pulling it free of its vessel momentarily before it threw him off and reoccupied the vessel. But the brief distraction had been enough to allow the other man, the one who evoked this profound strength in him, to take the gun and fire it, and the yellow-eyed demon was finally, irrevocably dead, its empty vessel collapsing lifeless to the ground. Standing up, the spirit felt a wave of satisfaction roll over him.

The door to Hell shut and locked with a clang, but he was only distantly aware of it. All he saw was the freckled, green-eyed young man now standing before him, and the tall one standing off to the side. Both were staring at him with expressions of such emotion he couldn't even begin to define. But he understood it, because he felt it himself. Overwhelmed, he placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, gripping it tightly and reveling in the thrum of life that vibrated under his touch. And he looked at the other one, wishing he could express what he felt at that moment. There were no words, but he saw it in their eyes.

Ethereal tears trickled down his cheek as he stepped back a few paces. He couldn't speak their names any more than he could give voice to his own, but he suddenly remembered the word for that singular, overpowering feeling that had taken hold of him and gave him the strength to escape. And as this realization engulfed him, there came a glorious, brilliant light that seemed to both surround him and come from him, and he knew that this was the light that had guided him out from the very depths of Hell.

John, John! a voice called from the light.

And his spirit answered joyfully, finally shedding all the pain and darkness it had endured for the love of his family.