#he's too obsessed with this apocalypse prophecy thing!!!!!! we need to remind him of his hobbies!!!!!!

[hivepixels]

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[mittensmorgul]

The more I watch 1.01, the more I see how 14.13 speaks directly back to SO MUCH from it.

-Sam’s shot at the Apple Pie Life with Jess and Law School, but only one of those things would’ve survived. Even without Jess dying due to the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t in the alternate timeline, Sam ends up alone, too devoted to his work to think he could have hobbies or a family. And how awful is that?

-the moment Mary died and their lives took this turn, THIS was the ultimate resolution John could’ve hoped for. In fact, it’s so far BEYOND what he could’ve hoped for he couldn’t even really wrap his whole mind around it. Mary was ALIVE again, because of what his sons had done in service to the universe. She got a second chance, because of the sacrifices he’d made, AND HE WAS CONTENT. While also acknowledging he’d totally screwed up his kids. But here, 13 years after he died (and heck, what a shock of a thing to hear), they’ve let that baggage go and built their own lives, and their own family. It might not be what John ever hoped for them, but like Mary realizing this in s12, it’s who they are, and they’re good with it. Talk about a catharsis for everyone from what we began learning in 1.01.

-Several conversations from 1.01 seem to be the basis for showing us JUST HOW FAR Sam and Dean have come. Yes, we’ve been getting a lot of 4.01 reminders to demonstrate just how far Cas has come since he first pulled Dean from Hell, but Sam and Dean’s journey started long before they ever met Cas. And I feel this is why they needed to separate out their stories here. Because the 300th loops perfectly back to 1.01. Right down to a key scene taking place outside of a shuttered and out-of-business movie theater, to a confrontation with a murderous ghost taking place in an abandoned house.

SAM: Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45. DEAN: Well, what was he supposed to do? SAM: I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark. DEAN: Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there. SAM: Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. SAM: But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find. DEAN: We save a lot of people doing it, too. SAM: You think Mom would have wanted this for us? The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors. DEAN: So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it? SAM: No. Not normal. Safe. DEAN: And that's why you ran away. SAM: I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing. DEAN: Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it. DEAN: I can't do this alone. SAM: Yes you can. DEAN: Yeah, well, I don't want to.

Sam didn’t want normal, he wanted SAFE. And to him, in that alternate timeline, would’ve meant having no family, nobody who could ever possibly hurt him, and living only for his work and his super-healthy raw vegan diet. Don’t love anything, and nothing can hurt you. And just... wow that’s horrible. D:

SAM: I have this...I have an interview. DEAN: What, a job interview? Skip it. SAM: It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate.

in the AU, it literally became his whole future. He had literally nothing else except a douchey black turtleneck.

But also DEAN is clearly still hunting, but ends up wanted for murder, still running from the law, never having had to take dealing with law enforcement any more seriously, the way Sam began pushing him to in 1.01 after Dean was dismissive of the cops at the murder scene on the bridge:

SAM: Ow! What was that for? DEAN: Why'd you have to step on my foot? SAM: Why do you have to talk to the police like that? DEAN: Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves.

They talk with two girls in a diner, Amy (who they first met outside the movie theater, like the kids in 14.13) and Rachel, who they sort of ease into discussing the supernatural with, Sam informing them that Amy’s pentagram necklace is actually a protection symbol, rather than a demonic one. They tell Sam and Dean about a local legend, a woman murdered out on that highway that supposedly still haunts the bridge. It’s a nice parallel to the way the kids in 14.13 see the supernatural thing first hand, and Sam tells them there just isn’t a way to sugar-coat that or explain it away, and they’re just... completely straightforward about who they are and what they do.

I mean, they are the guys who save the world, after all. And Dean’s perfectly capable of admitting that they’re very good at what they do, no swagger or joking at all. He just says it, because he knows it’s true. Which is ALSO about 1000000 miles from how he felt in 1.01 about... everything. When he was falling apart every few minutes wondering if they could even get through the case at all without John... this was their training wheels case that sent them both on down the highway to where they are now, and this was paralleled beautifully in every way, giving Sam and Dean both a crystal-clear lens to see right back to the beginning again, and recognize their lives for what they’ve made of them.

DEAN: You're one of us. SAM: No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life. DEAN: You have a responsibility to— SAM: To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back. DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause. DEAN: Don't talk about her like that.

Incredible, yes?

We’re also fresh off the heavy-handed dark mirror to John, his revenge quest, and his wife who was murdered to further the “prophecy” of the apocalypse, via Nick’s final rejection of his stated motive to find justice for her. John proves that despite everything, his motives really were honorable. He really WAS out for justice, and was more than happy to stand down knowing that it was finally served to his children... and then some, even if he made a ton of mistakes and was blatantly awful to them along the way. And even if they all suffered for it in the short-term.

And while no, Sam and Dean haven’t really forgotten any of that awful stuff, they have let it go. They haven’t shoved it all down deep and held on to it in bitterness. Unlike the children of the Woman in White, they survived it all, and they were able to move on. They may never be able to go home again, to go back to how things were before the universe painted targets on them all, but they’ve built a new home with a solid foundation, centered around the people they love and the family they’ve chosen along the way.

And honestly isn’t that the point of the whole damn series, since day one?

I can never go home is literally the ghost of their past. They’ve rejected that message with both hands, and instead have chosen, “I AM home.”

great I’m gonna cry again now