Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Maybe it’s trauma. That’s what Mary tells herself when Dean disappears into Sam’s room instead of his own, late at night when both of them are far too tired to stay awake and talk in the war room. It makes sense, after all; Sam had just spent a considerable amount of time being tortured, all while thinking there was no rescue because Dean was dead. And Dean’s had quite the day too, having to see his little brother in that state. It makes sense that it’s taken a toll on them, that they would want to be close to each other while they deal with it. Dean’s barely scratched the surface of all the things that they’ve been through, but Mary knows enough to know that they’re all they’ve got.

Well, and her now.

Sam went to bed a while ago; now, a couple hours later, she follows Dean to a door labeled Room 16 – where she’s staying – which Dean opens to reveal a barely furnished, gray sort of room. It looks like something out of an institution from the early 20^th century – which, Mary supposes, is actually what it is. There’s a single bed in the corner, a dresser, and a desk. In the corner is a sink with a cabinet and mirror above it.

“I’ll, uh, get you some fresh sheets,” Dean says, tugging at one corner of the bedsheet until it untucks from the mattress. Dean gathers it into his arms. “Cas stays here sometimes, when he’s here. I’d offer you another room, but this is the only one that’s clean enough for someone to sleep in. I can help you pick a room of your own in the morning, if you want.”

The barely disguised hope on his face has something fluttering in her chest. Mary smiles. “Sounds great, Dean.”

Dean smiles back, bright and childlike, and then ducks out of the room to go get fresh sheets. They hadn’t had much time to do this stuff, when she first arrived here, what with Dean being too preoccupied with finding Sam while also taking care of her. While she waits for him to return, Mary looks around the room again. It is entirely bare, no sign that someone lives here, not so much as a book on the desk. The drawers, when she opens them, are empty; the same applies to the dresser. She’s going to have to go shopping for more clothes later. Maybe some personal effects for the room, to make it less depressing. Definitely a toothbrush, she thinks wryly as she glances over at the sink.

Dean returns with freshly washed sheets and she helps him spread them and tuck the edges in. The bedspread smells like detergent, a pleasant cottony sort of smell, and Mary is hit with a sudden burst of longing for the home she used to have with John. She’s got her boys back now, but they’re adults, not the children she remembers. And John – John.

“Mom?” Dean says hesitantly, and she quickly schools her expression back into pleasant neutrality before answering.

“I’m fine, Dean.”

He looks like he doesn’t believe her, but his expression softens, and he says, “Okay. Do you wanna, uh, come with me and check on Sammy before bed?”

She nods, putting her hands in her pockets. “Lead the way.”

Sam appears fast asleep but stirs when Dean opens the door. “Dee?” he asks, eyes still closed, face turning towards Dean.

“Hey,” Dean says softly, sitting down on the bed next to him. “It’s just me and Mom. How are you feeling?”

Sam mumbles something Mary doesn’t quite catch, turns his face into his pillow, and is asleep again within seconds. Dean chuckles fondly and brushes some of Sam’s hair out of his face, and Mary is abruptly left feeling like she’s intruding on something.

But that’s stupid. These are her boys. She has every right to be here, and if she’s feeling out of place, that’s only because she’s still not used to them as adults. Once she’s spent more time with them, the feeling will go away.

She hopes.

“He’s pretty out of it,” Dean reports, getting to his feet and putting his hands in his pockets too. “I put him on the strong stuff.”

Mary nods. “Probably for the best,” she murmurs. She can’t stop seeing his injuries on his body, even though they’ve been cleaned and bandaged. Her son, her little boy, her baby. The more she thinks about it the more her stomach revolts.

“He’ll be all right, though,” Dean tells her, correctly interpreting her expression. “He always is.” He punctuates that with a small smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, and Mary can see decades of experience in his face, all those years of looking after Sam and being there for him.

“Yeah,” is all she says, and doesn’t know why she feels choked up. “I’ll, um, just head to bed now. Been a day, huh?”

Dean chuckles as he follows her to the door. “Yeah, it has. D’you want me to walk you, or—?”

“No, that’s okay,” she says and smiles. “Thanks, anyway.” She stops and gives him a short hug that he returns fiercely. She tries not to think about how it feels like hugging a stranger. She tries not to miss her sweet four-year-old.

“Goodnight, Mom,” Dean says into her shoulder, stooped so he can bury himself in the hug.

“Goodnight,” Mary replies, and is thankful her guilt remains suppressed. Saying his name right now doesn’t feel right, like she’d be acknowledging the loss of that four-year-old if she called this version by his name.

Except she didn’t lose him, he’s right here, and she just needs to get used to it, she tells herself as they part.

She expects him to follow her outside the room and head off to his own, but he just smiles softly at her before closing the door. Surprised, she thinks maybe he’s just gone to say goodnight to Sam, and he’ll be out in a moment or so. So she stays outside, waiting.

“’M here now, Sammy,” she hears Dean says, muffled because of the door between them. “It’s all right, I’m here. I’m here.”

A few seconds more, and she understands that he’s not coming back out. Too tired to really analyze the weird sensation in her belly, Mary turns and heads back to Room 16.

She’s up early the next morning, out of bed at the crack of dawn because she’s barely slept. It’s so strange to be here in this underground bunker, when the last time she’d been in a bed had been over thirty years ago, in her own home, next to her husband. It’s so strange to think of her sons and remember they’re adults.

Give it time, she reminds herself, and decides to go check in on Sam.

She opens the door as quietly as she can. It’s dark inside, the only source of illumination being the lights in the hallway outside. It takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust, and then a few more for her brain to make sense of what she’s seeing.

Dean is in Sam’s bed with him, curled around him protectively, his back to the door. She can’t see much of Sam from where she’s standing, just one of his arms slung around Dean’s middle, and when she takes a few steps into the room, it becomes obvious how tightly they’re wound around each other.

Dean blinks awake and turns his head just slightly to look at her. There is no sleep in his eyes; for all intents and purposes, he looks alert, hunter’s instinct erasing the hazy interval between sleep and wakefulness. She stops in her tracks when their eyes meet.

There’s not a lot of light in the room, but there’s enough for her to identify what she’s seeing in Dean’s face. The fierce protectiveness in his eyes and in the hard set of his mouth takes her aback – he’s looking at Mary as if she’s an intruder, like she shouldn’t be here. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up a little. In this moment it’s impossible to reconcile the sharp-edged man in front of her with the four-year-old she left behind. It makes no sense that this is her Dean.

“Just checking in on Sam,” she whispers, holding her hands out reassuringly. She tries not to feel like she’s trapped in a cage with a predator; the door is right behind her, and these are her sons.

“He’s fine,” Dean tells her, so quiet he’s almost inaudible. Sam’s face is buried in his neck, Dean’s arms around him in a protective embrace, almost like he’s hiding Sam from her, and Mary feels her heart lodge in her throat.

“Okay,” she says, and hurries out of the room as quickly as she can.

It’s just protectiveness, she tells herself once she’s back in Room 16, breathing heavily as if she’s just run a marathon. Dean’s just looking out for Sam. Isn’t this what she’s always wanted, her boys watching out for each other, always having each other’s backs?

It feels twisted, like someone’s dissected everything she’s ever wanted and then put it back together all wrong. Nothing makes sense.

It’s been thirty years, she reminds herself. She’s been gone for such a huge portion of their lives. She has no idea what’s normal for them and what isn’t. Maybe this is just how they are after close calls. Maybe this is just how they cope. They’ve got to have something that stops them from losing their minds in the sort of lives they live, and Mary tries to feel glad that it’s each other.

She lies down and tries to catch some more sleep before she has to be up for the day. Dean and Sam don’t look like they’re getting out of bed any time soon, and Mary’s in no hurry either, and maybe some rest will be good for her. Maybe it will help her process everything better, because at the moment nothing makes sense to her fatigued brain.

It’s only when she’s back in bed that she realizes, with a heavy wrench of her gut, that Dean had been shirtless.

When Mary wakes up for the second time it’s around half past ten in the morning. Yawning, she stretches and gets out of bed, washing her face in the sink and rinsing her mouth before she heads out of the room. It’s only when she’s in the hallway does she remember, with a swoop of nausea, what she’d seen earlier in the morning.

For some reason, she finds herself going back in the direction of Sam’s room. She doesn’t know what it is; maybe she’s hoping that this time when she opens the door, Dean won’t be there. Maybe he will be but in a chair by the bed, or something like that. Something normal. Maybe this time she won’t feel like she shouldn’t be there.

She’s only just raised her hand to knock when the sound of Dean’s voice stops her cold. “Sammy,” he’s saying, but it sounds oddly breathless. “Sammy…” He trails off on a sigh.

A wave of something icy washes all over Mary, leaving her shuddering. She doesn’t know what Dean’s doing in there, but there’s no mistaking what it sounds like. She raises her hand to knock again, because she knows that she’s wrong, she has to be, and all she has to do is open the door and see for herself that they’re—

“Mm, Sammy…”

She swallows, lets her hand drop to her side, and turns on her heel, walking towards the kitchen. Maybe she can figure out where they keep the alcohol, she thinks, and then shakes her head. It’s mid-morning, and she’s still tired from the whole being dead for a few decades thing, and it’s quite possible she’s making it all up in her head. She just doesn’t know anything, and it wouldn’t make sense to be jumping to conclusions after barely a day back in the world of the living.

She makes breakfast. She puts the coffee on. She tries to think about something, anything, other than her boys, but that just takes her mind to John, and that’s hardly better.

Everything is so different.

It’s around eleven when she hears footsteps, waking her from her stupor. Her coffee has congealed in the cup, unpleasant and odorous, and her grilled cheese is half-eaten and cold. Huh, she thinks – she’d had no idea she’d been out of it for so long.

Dean enters the kitchen, thankfully wearing a shirt. He looks strangely chipper for this time of morning, and he grins brightly at her as he heads for the coffeemaker. “Morning,” he greets.

She attempts a smile. “Good morning, Dean.” She hesitates, and then asks, “How’s Sam?”

“Better, he says,” Dean reports, filling up his mug. “Said he wanted to come down to the kitchen, actually, but his foot’s still—” He breaks off, grimacing, and Mary winces too when she remembers the state of Sam’s foot when they’d found him.

“Bitch,” she murmurs at the same time as Dean, and then looks up at him, a little startled. He looks just as surprised, but then he grins at her.

“I see where I got it from,” he jokes.

“John didn’t curse around you?” Mary asks.

“Oh, he definitely did,” Dean says with a snort. “But he had a different… style, I guess you could call it. Egg?” he adds, as he opens the fridge door.

“No, thank you,” Mary answers, watching as Dean cracks two eggs in a bowl and begins whisking them. “That for Sam?”

“Yeah,” he says, adding salt and pepper. “Need to get his strength up, figured some protein would do him good.” He puts a skillet on the stove and melts some butter in it before adding the eggs. “Sure you don’t want any?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” She takes a bite of her sandwich, grimaces, and pushes her plate away. For a moment she debates with herself about whether she should just ask Dean, and then decides in the affirmative. “So, you, um, you stayed with Sam last night?”

“Yeah,” Dean says after a moment. His back is to her, but she can see his shoulders tense a little. He sounds careful when he continues. “He… he has nightmares. Sometimes. And after something like this…”

“Did he have any last night?” Mary asks quietly.

“One or two,” Dean tells her. He plates the eggs. “But it helps. If I’m there. And… having him nearby helps me too,” he adds.

“That’s… good,” Mary replies after a few awkward moments where she quietly flounders.

Dean puts the plate of eggs on a tray along with the coffee mug, and then fills another mug with coffee. “Anyway, I’m gonna take these to Sammy. You wanna come with?”

She blinks. “Oh.” She hadn’t been expecting him to ask. “Uh, yes, sure.”

Sam’s sitting up in bed when they enter, tapping away on his cell phone. Absently Mary thinks she’s got to get one of those. From what Dean tells her, it comes in real handy. “Hey, Mom,” Sam says when she enters, and gives her a small but genuine smile.

“Hi, Sammy,” she says, and smiles back. There’s a chair next to the bed and she sits down in it. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Sam tells her, and then shifts a little to make space for Dean to sit on the bed. “Thanks,” he adds to Dean.

“’S nothing,” Dean answers, handing him his coffee. “Any pain?”

“A little,” Sam tells him. “Um… two out of ten.”

“I’ll give you something after you’ve eaten,” Dean says. “Cas said he’ll be by later, maybe he can heal some of it.”

“Painkillers for a two?” Mary can’t help but ask. It seems a little excessive to her.

“Sammy’s two is very different from what you’d expect,” Dean answers after a moment. “It’s way higher.”

“Oh.” Sam, she notes, has his head down, not meeting eyes with either her or Dean, and suddenly she feels bad for asking. Dean knows what he’s doing here. It’s probably best to leave them to it, and not interfere.

It hits Mary that this is something they’ve done hundreds of times – patched each other up, looked after each other. It’s effortless, the way they communicate, with Sam anticipating Dean’s questions before he even asks them, and Dean knowing exactly what Sam’s going to say, too. She tries not to think about exactly how many times they must have done this, or what Sam must’ve gone through if his pain threshold is that high.

Instead, her eyes fall to Sam’s mouth. His lips are red – more so than normal – and Mary flushes a little as she tears her gaze away, Dean’s sighs from earlier echoing in her mind. Don’t be stupid, she tells herself. She’s overthinking it, reading way too much into it. There’s probably an explanation for it; there’s no way they were doing what they sounded like they were doing.

Dean gives Sam more painkillers after breakfast, and then Sam lies down again, turning on his uninjured side. It doesn’t escape Mary’s notice how he’s shifted to the far side of the bed, leaving enough space for someone else to get in with him. It’s because he has nightmares, she reminds herself. That’s what Dean told her, and it seems a plausible enough explanation for two grown men sharing a bed. Especially considering one of them is still pretty traumatized.

“I’ll be in the library,” she tells Dean as she stands. Sam looks like he wants to ask her to stay, but before he can say the words, she turns her back on him and leaves. She doesn’t know why, but she can’t stand to be in the room just then; it feels claustrophobic, suddenly, making her feel trapped.

“Hey,” she hears Dean say as she closes the door after herself. “Just give her some time, Sammy.”

Dean joins her twenty minutes later, taking the seat at the table across from her. She gives him a smile as he sits, and he takes it a little hesitantly, but returns it all the same. “He’s asleep,” he tells Mary. “Should be out for a while.”

“He needs the rest,” Mary says.

Dean nods. “Yeah.”

“He won’t have nightmares?” she asks.

“Hopefully not,” Dean says. “I stayed until he fell asleep. That helps, too. Sometimes.” His voice is a little hoarse, Mary notes.

“Were you singing?” she asks curiously.

To her surprise, Dean flushes. “Uh, yeah,” he says, ducking his head and scratching awkwardly at his collarbone. “Used to do it when we were kids, but every now and then… it helps.”

He doesn’t say who precisely it helps, but Mary knows the answer anyway.

“Let’s hope you inherited John’s singing talents, then, and not mine,” she says, and grins.

Dean laughs. “Yeah, Dad could carry a tune when he wanted to. But, uh… you used to sing me Hey Jude,” he adds quietly.

“You remember that?” she asks, surprised.

He nods. “Crystal clear. Always thought your voice was the best in the world.” He smiles warmly at her, and she swallows, trying not to tear up as she remembers the four-year-old that she used to sing to.

“Dad used to sing it to Sam, when he was a baby,” Dean continues after a second. “And I did too, once I knew the words. But I always used to wish you could do it, you know. That he’d get to hear it from you.”

“I – I’ll try,” Mary whispers, choked up. Dean reaches out over the table and squeezes her hand, and she gives him a watery sort of smile before clearing her throat. “So, um. Were you singing Hey Jude, just now?”

“Right now? No. Um, Rain Song.”

“Zeppelin,” she says approvingly. “Good choice.”

That makes him smile. “Still got all of yours and Dad’s tapes,” he tells her.

“Yeah? Maybe I’ll listen to them with you boys someday.”

His smile turns warmer. “That’d be nice, Mom.”

And just like that, something about the moment turns hard. Mary isn’t sure precisely what it is, but she thinks it might have to do with hearing the word mom in reference to herself from a grown man’s mouth. God. It’s so strange.

In a very transparent attempt to change the subject, she asks, “So, if you don’t mind me asking… Sam’s pain scale.”

Dean’s face falls immediately. She can’t tell if it’s because the moment was ruined, or the topic at hand. “What about it?” he asks carefully.

“You said his two is a lot higher than normal people’s,” she reminds him. “How come?”

Dean inhales slowly, holding his breath for a few seconds before releasing it. “Sammy’s been through some… stuff,” he answers vaguely. “Some really, really bad things. I mean, crap that would make you never want to sleep at night again. He doesn’t feel pain the same way anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Mary asks apprehensively. “What kind of things?”

“Maybe it’s best if he tells you,” Dean answers evasively. “As for the pain thing… it takes a lot for him to even register it, sometimes. It’s like…” He trails off. It’s clear he’s struggling to find words to explain what he means. “It’s like his body’s forgotten, sometimes,” he says in the end.

“Forgotten what?” Mary isn’t sure why she’s whispering.

“That pain is not the default,” Dean replies, just as quiet.

Mary’s stomach sinks. She doesn’t even want to think about what it could’ve been to make Sam like that. It doesn’t help that whenever she thinks of him, she still imagines a chubby six-month-old baby; her brain is still having trouble accepting that the six-foot-plus man sleeping a few rooms away is that same child.

“Sorry,” Dean says, and she looks up to find him grimacing. “I shouldn’t… I mean, you just got here, I shouldn’t be dumping our crap on you.”

“I asked, honey,” she reminds him gently, putting her hand over his. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I try,” Dean says after a few pensive moments. “But sometimes it feels like it’s my fault, anyway. That I couldn’t save him from any of it.”

“You did, Dean. You’re the reason he’s safe at home right now.” Mary smiles warmly at him when he looks up at her. “You’re there for him, Dean. That’s what matters.”

He tries to smile back. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

She squeezes his wrist once, and then lets go of his hand. He gives her a lopsided smile before taking his hand back, putting it in his lap. There is silence for a few minutes, awkward as both of them try to figure out what to say next. To Mary it seems as if they’re both still struggling to find a way to just exist around each other.

Then Dean stretches, and winces. “Fuck,” he groans, reaching up to grip his trapezius.

“Sore?” Mary asks.

Dean nods, grimacing as he massages it with the palm of one hand. “Got Sammy to get the knot out of it earlier, but shit, it still hurts. Must’ve slept funny.”

The sense of relief that washes over Mary is so strong and so absolutely overwhelming that she can’t help but laugh a little, despite the mildly offended look Dean throws her. Just a sore muscle. That’s all it was, the sounds she’d heard earlier this morning; Sam helping Dean with his trapezius. She’d been freaking out over nothing at all.

“Glad my shoulder amuses you,” Dean says, looking miffed.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, holding her palms out, trying not to smile. “Just… forget it, I was being silly. I hope it feels better soon.”

“Thanks,” mutters Dean, mollified. He gets to his feet. “Think I’m gonna go lie back down. What are you going to do?”

“Oh.” Mary shrugs as she considers it. “I don’t know.” She thinks about asking to borrow Sam’s computer, but then realizes it’s probably going to be too overwhelming for her right now. Deciding it’s safer to stick to something familiar, she says, “Maybe I’ll read, I think.”

“All right,” he says. “Any preferences?”

She shrugs. “Not really. Do you have any recommendations?”

“Depends on what you like,” he tells her. “If you’re okay with fiction, I could give you Sammy’s favorite.”

“What is it?” she asks, curious.

Instead of answering, Dean walks over to one of the bookshelves and pulls a book out. “Here,” he says, handing it to her. It’s so old it’s almost falling apart, the spine well-worn and the pages yellowed with age. The cover reads King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table.

“King Arthur?” Mary asks, surprised as she takes the book from Dean.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Dad got it for Sammy when he was a kid, and he and I used to take turns reading it to him till he was old enough to read on his own. No idea how it’s managed to survive all these years, honestly. Lucky for you he forgot to take it back to his room last time he was reading it.”

“He still reads it? A kids’ story?”

Dean shrugs. “He likes it,” he says simply. There’s a shuttered sort of expression on his face that Mary can’t read, and she gets the sense that there’s something he’s not telling her. But along with that there’s also pride, which she can’t explain, and in the end she figures it’s probably something between her boys and if Dean doesn’t want to share, she won’t pry.

“Thank you,” she says, holding the book up. “I’ll return it to him when I finish it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, and puts his hands in his pockets. “I’ll see you later?”

She smiles, settling back in her chair and putting her feet up on the table. “Yeah. Get some rest, Dean.”

He smiles back at her and then goes off down the hallway again. It should surprise her when he doesn’t turn into his room and instead continues on to Sam’s, but it doesn’t.

Castiel comes by later on, and manages to heal Sam’s foot. The rest, he says, he cannot manage, but Sam smiles and thanks him anyway, and Castiel pats Sam’s hand awkwardly before sitting down in one of the chairs by his bed. From the other one, Mary smiles at Sam, glad that at least he’ll be able to move comfortably now.

It seems to help immensely; Sam is out of bed and walking around by evening, despite Dean’s vocal protests and insistences that he should be resting. The three of them have their first meal together as a family that night, and Mary can’t help but notice the way Sam won’t take his eyes off her, as if he’s having trouble believing she’s real. It hasn’t skipped her notice, the way he’ll find excuses to touch her, as if seeking assurance of her existence. It makes her feel a little self-conscious, and then guilty for it, but she can’t help it. For all that he can’t stop looking at her, she can’t stop looking away from him.

He’s no longer her baby, that much is clear. He’s way taller than she could ever have imagined, and lean and strong, though he probably could do with a few more pounds. There’s a weight to his gaze that she doesn’t know what to do with; it feels like he can see right through her, can read every expression on her face. He used to smile easy as a baby, always giggling and laughing and cooing; that’s not the case now. He definitely does not smile as much, or as easily, as Dean does – but when it happens, his eyes light up (she has no idea where he got those lovely eyes from, nothing like hers or John’s) and for a moment, she can believe that this is her baby.

And he’s got John’s dimples, and John’s skin, but her hands, her slender fingers, and even though his hair is dark like John’s, it curls the same way hers does. His eyes still follow Dean around the room like they did when he was a baby, and most of his smiles are still reserved for his brother. That hasn’t changed.

This is my Sammy, Mary tells herself. My baby. And then, unbidden, her brain follows it up with, the boy I damned.

Her food tastes like ashes after that, as she tries not to wonder if he knows.

He comes into her room that night, and he hands her John’s journal, as if he’d somehow known that what she’d been craving all along but had been too afraid to say was this – a piece of John’s heart, something real he’d touched and held, something that could let her know, in his words, what his life had been like after her.

And then Sam says, “For me… just having you here fills in the biggest blank.” And she can’t help it; she puts her arms around him, pulls him to herself, and she holds him like she hasn’t in so damn long. And he hugs her back tightly, like he’s afraid to let go, and he’s crying a little, and so is she. He smells of Old Spice, hints of vanilla and musk, and she smells some of Dean’s smoke-and-gun-oil scent on him too… and underneath it all, if she inhales hard, he smells like he used to when he could still fit in her arms easily. He smells like her baby, and she can’t believe that she could ever have had any trouble accepting that.

Reading John’s journal helps. She stays up all night, devouring every word, running her fingers over the pages as she tries to imagine John’s hand scrawling them. She witnesses John discover all the things she’d grown up knowing, all the things she’d tried so hard to run away from. She eats up every word about Sam and Dean, and when she can’t bear it anymore, she puts the book aside and lets herself cry for the first time since she’s returned.

Her heart is breaking. Not just because of everything she’s read, but also because… her boys are hunters. Her boys grew up in the life despite everything she’d done to ensure they wouldn’t have to. They had the exact same kind of childhood she’d wanted to protect them from. Sam had a chance to get out, but he came back. And she doesn’t understand how he seems to have made peace with it. She doesn’t get how he can bear to stay in the life, having lived the alternative.

And John. Oh God, her dear, sweet John. She can barely recognize the man in the pages. Broken down and rough around the edges, growing into a hardened hunter, training his boys to be the same… she can’t reconcile that John with the one she’d known. Her John used to swing Dean through the air till he was squealing with laughter, and take pictures upon pictures of everything Dean did, and spoil him with pie and candy and soda. He used to tickle Sam until he was red in the face from laughing, and dress him up in the silliest onesies he could find, and spend all night rocking him to sleep whenever he was colicky. She remembers once, in an attempt to try and sit up, Sam had hit his head hard on the headboard of his cot, and begun bawling. Dean had begun crying too when Sammy wouldn’t stop, and then, to her surprise, John too, and in the end it had been up to her to first soothe Sam, and then Dean and John.

She can’t believe that that man, who’d been unable to bear his children’s tears, could let them grow up like that, practically homeless, deprived of everything their childhood should’ve had. And then she remembers the way Dean had gone quiet when she’d made an off-hand remark about how John had been such a good dad.

She corners him, one day after she’s finished the journal. Sam is off on a grocery run while Dean is in the kitchen, chopping up vegetables in preparation for his attempt at Chinese fried rice. “Hey, Mom,” he says brightly when he notices her walk in.

“Hi,” she says, sitting down at the table, John’s journal in her hands. Dean’s smile falters a little when he sees it, but he makes a valiant effort to bring it back, and something about that makes her heart ache. “You’ve read this, right?”

Dean nods, and then turns back to his vegetables. “Yeah,” he says shortly, all signs of cheer gone.

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath and puts the book down. “I just finished it, but Dean, I want to hear it from you. Was John… was he a good dad?”

Dean’s shoulders tense, his hands pausing for a moment. Mary watches as he takes a couple deep breaths. It’s clear that he’s conflicted.

“You don’t have to worry about sparing my feelings or anything,” she tells him gently. “I want the truth, Dean.”

“I used to think he was the best dad ever,” Dean says eventually. He still has his back to her. “Used to think he was a superhero. Even when I’d have to help patch him up after a hunt, or when he’d be gone for days on end. I used to defend him to Sam whenever they had a fight. Did every single thing he said, no questions asked.”

“And now?”

He shrugs, tight and controlled. “I don’t know. Sometimes it makes sense to me, the way he was. And sometimes it just pisses me off. But…” He turns around and looks Mary in the eye. “He did the best he could, Mom. Sammy and I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him.”

“What does Sam think?” Mary finds herself asking.

Dean grins, a bitter little thing. “Well, it’s there in the book, isn’t it?” he says. “They had their disagreements. Stanford was the biggest one. But, uh, you ask Sam now and he’ll tell you the same. That Dad did the best he could with us.”

And with that, he turns back to the vegetables, and she knows the conversation is over. Somehow, though, she can’t help but think there’s a lot he’s not saying, despite her asking him to be honest. Maybe it’s some admirable attempt not to taint her memories of John, but that just frustrates her. She doesn’t need to be coddled; she needs to know the truth. But one look at the tense line of Dean’s back, and she knows she won’t get it from him.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you, uh… not bring this up with Sam?”

“Why not?” she asks, surprised. It’s almost as if he’s read her mind and understood she’d been thinking about asking Sam.

“He… it upsets him,” Dean tells her, resuming his chopping. “Thinking about Dad, and all that. And he’s had a wild couple of days anyway, and he needs some stability now, you know? He needs to recover.”

She cannot for the life of her fathom how asking Sam about John would affect his recovery in any way, but Dean’s the expert here, and his tone brooks no arguments. Grudgingly she accepts, knowing that if there are answers here, she won’t find them with her boys.

“Sure, Dean.”

He sighs in relief. “Thanks, Mom.”

Mary finishes the King Arthur book later on that night, long after the boys have gone to bed. Remembering Dean’s words about how it’s Sam’s favorite, she decides to go return it to his room. If he’s awake, it’ll give her a chance to talk to him a little, maybe discuss the book, or even ask him about himself.

There is no answer when she knocks on his door, though, so she figures he’s probably asleep. Maybe she can sneak in quietly and put the book on his desk for him to find in the morning, she thinks. It’s so obviously dear to him, and she doesn’t want to leave it out on the library table or take it to Room 16 where she might forget about it, considering she only goes there to sleep.

So she turns the doorknob and silently pushes the door open, tilting her head to see into the room. It’s entirely dark, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, only for her to find it empty.

Huh.

The bed is made neatly, not looking slept in at all, and it’s apparent that Sam hasn’t been in his room since the morning. Curious, Mary steps back out and closes the door, wondering where he could be. She knows for sure he said he was going to go to bed, and going by how much he’d been yawning, she doesn’t think it’s possible for him to be elsewhere in the bunker either.

On a hunch, she turns and begins walking not towards Room 16, but towards Dean’s.

She is careful not to make a single sound when she turns the doorknob and pushes Dean’s door open. His bed is against the far wall of the room, foot facing the door, and his lamp is still on, bathing the room in a cozy orange glow. It’s not a lot of light, but just enough for the sight before her to be unmistakable.

Dean is asleep on his back, one arm under his head, hand disappearing underneath the pillow where she has no doubt he keeps a gun. And next to him, curled into his side, is Sam, his head on Dean’s chest and Dean’s other arm around him. Sam’s got one arm thrown over Dean’s middle, the other not visible, and though they’re both dressed, the scene is intimate in a way Mary cannot explain.

Her heart lodges in her throat. They’re both sound asleep, practically dead to the world, and there’s this weird sort of peace on their faces. They both look far younger than they do when they’re awake. Hunters, Mary knows, do not sleep like this, carefree and untroubled. This is one of the many luxuries denied to them by the lives they live. And yet – and yet here Sam and Dean are, curled into each other and completely relaxed.

Mary closes the door and walks back down the hallway, heart still lumpy in her throat. She knows that if she asks Dean in the morning, he’ll tell her something about nightmares. But the way they looked, soft in the lamplight… Mary would never believe that anything like a nightmare could ever touch them, could ever make a dent in that sort of peaceful slumber.

And just like that, the world is back to making no sense.

She puts the book back on Sam’s desk on the way to Room 16. She knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that its presence will tell Sam she was in his room, and therefore that she knows he didn’t sleep there… but she doesn’t care. All she can think of right now is getting in bed and trying to get some sleep, and all she can hope is that by morning her body will have forgotten this weird nauseous feeling.

They’re tiptoeing around her, she can feel it. Neither of them say or do anything in particular, but she can tell they’re trying to shield her as much as they can. While sometimes it does make her feel fond of them and their protectiveness, most of the time it just irritates her. She’s their mother, not the other way round. She doesn’t need protecting, or coddling.

So she finds a hunt.

What she didn’t expect was for Dean to decide he and Sam are coming too, but there’s not much she can say when he’s pretty much strong-armed his way onto the case. She relents, and so off they go, a mother and her sons on a hunt, the exact opposite of everything she’s ever wanted.

She hasn’t slept much lately, and the gentle, familiar rocking of the Impala works as a lullaby, and Mary finds herself dozing off in the back seat. Up front, Sam and Dean are arguing over something trivial in low tones, and Mary suppresses a smile as she settles more comfortable into the old, worn leather. Despite her more than occasional misgivings, this is… it’s nice. Feels good to be part of a family again, she has to admit to herself. The drives had always been her favorite part of going on hunts with her family, and this is making her feel nostalgic. If she closes her eyes and focuses particularly hard, she can almost imagine she’s in her parents’ car, listening to them discuss the case up front while she naps in the backseat.

“I’m just sayin’, Sammy,” Dean’s whispering, “science says three to four BJs a week are super beneficial for your overall health. Ain’t you always bitching about my cholesterol and crap?”

“Pretty sure that BJs won’t solve that,” Sam answers dryly. “And what science, exactly? PornHub?”

There’s a pause, and then Dean says, not sounding even a little bit ashamed of himself, “Yes.”

“Doesn’t count,” Sam says shortly.

“No harm in trying it out!” Dean insists. “I mean, I already got one, so I really just need two more, and then I guarantee you that you won’t have to worry about my cholesterol anymore.”

“Doesn’t work that way,” Sam informs him. “Shut up now, Mom’s asleep, man.”

A pause. Then, “Huh. So she is. Quit arguing with me, Sammy, you’ll wake Mom.”

“Oh my God you are such a dickhead.”

“Mm, you love it.”

 She’s not asleep, though. Mary hears every word, bile rising in her throat at the implications. It seems that a lot of the time she spends with her sons is spent fighting off nausea. Dean hasn’t left the bunker all week except for doing grocery, and he wasn’t gone long enough to have gotten laid on the same trip. That means…

And what set of brothers is this comfortable discussing their sex lives anyway? Mary understands they’ve been living in each other’s pockets their entire lives, and that sort of thing tends to wear down boundaries, but that doesn’t mean there don’t have to be any at all.

God, she needs out.

She fakes sleep all the way to the gas station they stop at for refueling, and then situates herself firmly in the front seat. It feels different to how it had when she used to sit in it with John, and it stings a little when she realizes that it’s because now it’s Sam’s body the seat is used to, not hers. Strange as it is, she tries not to feel like it’s something he took from her. That’s your baby, she reminds herself for the billionth time. It’s not a stranger. It’s your son.

Even Dean in the driver’s seat looks and feels wrong to her, but she keeps her mouth shut about that, pretending she’s fine and that her head isn’t spinning trying to make sense of these two men she’s with. Dean offers her his favorite snack; she pretends she loves it. She turns the music up when he tries to turn it down, partly because she likes the song, but mostly so they can’t really talk. She can see Dean smile out of the corner of her eye; she doesn’t turn to look.

She gets possessed. They save her. This did not go as planned.

Dean apologizes to her when they get back, tells her she kicked ass. She can tell that he’s not just saying it to make her feel better – he genuinely believes it. That, for some reason, makes her angry. And then he says, “You’re home now,” and it’s the last straw.

“No,” she tells him, and feels only a slight twinge at the look on his face. “I’m not,” she says with the kind of raw honesty she’s been trying to avoid this entire time. “I miss John. I miss my boys.”

“We’re right here, Mom,” comes Sam’s voice, sounding confused, and she turns around to watch as he joins them.

“I know,” she tells him, trying to be gentle. “In my head,” she clarifies. “But I’m still mourning them as I knew them.” It’s easy to refer to them separately from the boys she had. These men never really felt like her sons anyway, except for a couple of moments here and there. Still, she makes an effort, smiles at Sam, tries to remember a chubby-cheeked infant. “My baby Sam.” She turns to Dean, tries to see the four-year-old with floppy hair and buck teeth that should be standing there. “My little boy Dean. Just feels like yesterday we were together in heaven, and now… I’m here, and John is gone, and they’re gone. And every moment I spend with you reminds me of every moment I lost with them.”

God but it feels good to finally get it off her chest, even if her sons’ expressions are marring it a little bit.

“I thought hunting, working, would clear my head,” she tells them, looking between them as they both look at her with bewilderment – and in Dean’s case – hurt.

“Mom, what are you trying to say?” Sam asks, looking apprehensive.

She braces herself. “I have to go.” There, it’s out. She’s been thinking it for a while, and now she’s said it. Short and to the point.

Dean looks away from her. He doesn’t look surprised. Neither does Sam, though he does look hurt. She looks up at him again. “I’m sorry,” she says. She even means it. Not enough to stay, but enough for the departure to hurt a little. “I’m so, so sorry. I just need a little time,” she adds in what she hopes is a reassuring tone.

Sam’s looking at her like his heart is literally breaking, and she finds she can’t look at him for too long. It’s difficult. Instead she turns to Dean, taking a step forward so she can hug him – she’s always felt closer to him than Sam, it’s always been easier to imagine him as her son than Sam, and he loves her so endlessly – but he backs away. He takes a step back from her, and he ducks his head, and it’s clear that not only is he hurt, he’s angry. Still, she waits, just for a second, just to see if he’ll relent – but he refuses to meet her eyes, and in the end she has to accept that.

So she moves past him to pick up John’s journal, and then she turns to Sam. Turning her back on her eldest, she smiles at Sam, and says, “I love you,” before moving in to hug him.

He puts his arms around her, but it doesn’t feel like the hugs he usually gives. He doesn’t fold himself into her, doesn’t put his head on her shoulder like she’s expecting, and she doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s looking at Dean over her shoulder.

She steps out of the hug, and turns back to him. “I love you both,” she tells him. He should know that. It’s the truth, even if it’s meant for some other version of these boys.

He doesn’t acknowledge her. Sam, it seems, is heartbroken enough for both of them, but she doesn’t look at him for too long, either. Instead, she turns her back to them, puts John’s journal in her unpacked bag, and heads up the stairs. She doesn’t look back, and she pretends she doesn’t hear Sam’s shaky breathing or feel Dean’s anger behind her.

The bunker door clangs shut. Mary feels free for the first time since she came back here.

It’s a little easier to breathe after that. Mary takes one of the cars from the bunker’s garage and sets out to retrace her existence, and John’s, starting with Lawrence. She spends most of her time in the car, a tiny space, and it’s the freest she’s felt since she’s come back.

Sam texts her, the morning after she left. Hope you’re okay, Mom. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything you need.

She doesn’t answer. She tells herself it’s because she forgot, but the truth is that just for a few days, she wants to forget that her children are no longer her children. Maybe that makes her a bad mother, or a bad person. She doesn’t know. All she knows is that thinking of the boys she lost makes her chest feel tight, and it only gets worse when she thinks of their adult selves.

Dean does not message her until a whole week after she’s left, after his anger has presumably worn off. Sam has been messaging every now and then, just trying to check in with her, and she’s left all of them unanswered. Dean doesn’t do that, doesn’t ask how she is or where she’s headed. He just writes, the Plymouth you took has some brake trouble sometimes. Get that checked out.

She pulls over. Already did, she answers. She doesn’t know why she’s writing back to Dean when she doesn’t do the same for Sam.

He answers in a minute or so. Good. That’s it.

Mary smiles at her phone before merging back on to the highway.

Sam texts later that night. Dean said you got the Plymouth fixed. Hope you’re doing all right. It’s only words on a screen, but somehow his hurt is palpable, and Mary feels a little bad. The feeling dissipates, though, when she catches sight of a motel sign up ahead.

The Plymouth breaks down on the side of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, three days later. Mary pops the hood, tries to figure out what’s wrong, and fails. This had always been John’s thing, and she can’t make any sense of the engine block.

Standing there in the hot sun, sweating through her plaid, Mary debates who to call. Her contacts list is pitifully short, considering everyone she knows is dead. Somehow, she doesn’t think Castiel would know anything about cars, which just leaves—

She swallows her pride and her apprehension, and dials Dean.

He picks up on the fifth ring. “Yeah?” he asks, tone careful. Behind him, she can hear Sam ask who it is.

“Dean,” she says, and she can’t deny that relief that floods her body at his voice. “Do you, um, do you have a moment?”

“Yeah,” he repeats, still in that expressionless voice.

“Dean, who is it?” she hears Sam ask again.

“It’s Mom,” Dean tells him, and then adds, “I’ll put her on speaker.”

“Hi, Mom!” Sam says a second later. He sounds genuinely happy to hear from her. “How are you?”

“I’m good, Sam,” she answers, and suppresses a sigh. She doesn’t want chitchat, doesn’t think she’s got the mental energy for that just yet. She just wants to fix her damn car.

“What do you need?” Dean asks, as if he can read her mind. His tone remains neutral despite Sam’s enthusiasm.

“Um, I’ve got some car trouble,” she says, relieved.

“Brakes?” Dean asks. “Thought you got those fixed.”

“Are you all right?” Sam asks in the background.

His concern, though well-meaning, is suffocating, and she doesn’t know why. She’s the mother. He’s her baby. She doesn’t need his protectiveness. “Yeah, Sam, I’m fine.” It comes out a bit clipped, and she hopes he doesn’t notice. She may not want to talk to him right now but that doesn’t mean she wants to hurt his feelings.

“Okay,” he says quietly after a moment. It seems he’s gotten the message, and she suppresses another sigh.

“Sam—”

“What’s wrong with the car?” Dean interrupts.

“Um, the engine’s smoking,” Mary tells him after a second.

“What color is it?”

“Grayish,” Mary says. She’s standing a few yards from the car, watching as it emits smoke. “Is that bad?”

“Can’t say for sure without having a look,” Dean says. “Are you near any town?”

“We could come get you,” Sam adds.

“Um,” says Mary, racking her brains for a way to refuse without hurting him further.

“I’m sure Mom’s fine, Sammy,” Dean says neutrally.

“Yeah.” She jumps on the proffered chance. “I’m all right. Really.”

Sam says nothing to that, and she knows she’s succeeded in wounding him despite trying not to.

Could’ve tried harder, a voice in her head says derisively. It sounds disturbingly like Dean.

“I’m ten miles out from a town,” she says in the end in an effort to finish the conversation so she can hang up.

“Call a tow truck,” Dean tells her. “You’ll find numbers on Google.”

She’s half-expecting Sam to jump in and say he’ll find the numbers for her and text them to her. He remains silent. She suppresses a third sigh.

“Okay,” she says in the end.

“I’d help more if I knew what exactly was wrong,” Dean says, “but without having a look, I can’t really say.”

“It’s all right,” she tells him. “You, um, you do this a lot?”

“What, cars? Yeah,” he answers shortly.

“Like John,” she says, hoping his father’s name will open him up to conversation. It’s odd, hearing him talk to her in that stilted, emotionless tone.

“Yeah,” is all Dean says, not taking the bait.

She waits, hoping he’ll say something more. When he doesn’t, she says, “Okay, um, I’ll go look up those numbers now. You boys take care.”

“Yeah.” There’s a beep, indicating the conversation’s over.

Mary is just about to hang up when she hears Dean’s voice again. Putting the phone back to her ear, she’s just about to speak, when he says, “Told you she’d be calling ‘cause she needed something.” He sounds irritated.

“Don’t be like that,” Sam says, and Mary realizes that instead of hanging up, Dean’s accidentally just turned the speakerphone off. They probably have no idea she can hear them.

“Like what?” Dean retorts.

“Like that,” Sam repeats. “I told her she could call us if she needed anything. Texted her, actually.”

“And what did she say to that?” Dean asks after a moment.

A pause. Then, “Nothing.” Sam’s voice is taut.

“She didn’t text you back?”

“No.”

Dean sighs, the sound crinkly over the phone. “Man, I don’t get her. At all.”

“She just needs time, Dean,” Sam says softly. It sounds like it’s not the first time they’re having this discussion.

“Yeah, okay, but she could text you back every now and then,” Dean argues.

There is a short silence. Then Sam says, sounding brittle, “Well, as long as she’s all right.”

Dean exhales slowly. “Sammy,” he says, his voice softer than any tone he’s ever used with her. “Man… it’s okay. It’s okay, Sammy.”

She doesn’t know what warranted this sudden change in tone, and she doesn’t want to find out. Before she can hear anything else, Mary hangs up the phone herself. Those tow trucks won’t call themselves.

She doesn’t let herself think about this conversation – if it can even be called one – until she’s lying in bed later on that night. She knows it upsets Sam, the way she instantly responds to Dean but ignores his messages. She knows it hurt him that Dean’s the one she called when she needed help, instead of Sam who’s been offering constantly. It was clear in his voice when he spoke to her, though he was trying to be cheerful. And it was made clearer from Dean’s tone, when they thought she couldn’t hear them, just before she’d hung up.

Maybe it’s because she’s spent more time with Dean, in her old life. Maybe it’s because he’d been so angry with her when she left. Sam’s being understanding, and sympathetic, and despite her not reciprocating at all, he’s trying his best to be there for her. Dean’s not trying at all, not afraid to let her know he’s unhappy with her, and maybe that’s why she’s paying him more attention. Almost like she’s trying to win his love back. No one else has ever looked at her with such devotion as Dean has, and she didn’t realize it until it stopped. Sam looks at her like he’d move heaven and hell for her, and she knows he loves her as much as Dean does, but – but it’s easy with him. He’ll always forgive her, no matter what, because of how desperate he is just to have a mother.

It’s not that easy with Dean. She’s going to have to try harder, overcompensate if she has to. Sam’s going to be fine. He’s never going to stop loving her. It’s Dean who’s resisting, and maybe that’s why she feels more compelled to answer his messages than she does Sam’s.

She’s not being a bad mother, she tells herself in the dark hours of the night, lying awake and staring at the ceiling. She’s not. Even moms need breaks every now and then, and it’s not like she’s entirely cutting Sam off. She’s not. She just needs some space from his overwhelming love. That doesn’t make her a bad mother.

The thought is not as comforting as it should be.

Sam stops texting. Dean, too, not that he was doing a lot of it in the first place. Once or twice Mary puts her pride to the side and messages Dean, but receives only cold, one-word replies.

She doesn’t message Sam.

He doesn’t, either.

Mary sees her boys again, for the first time after leaving the bunker, at Asa Fox’s funeral. In hindsight, which she knows from bitter experience is always 20/20 and a bitch on top of it all, it really wasn’t surprising that they’d be there. Asa was a hunter; they’re hunters. It’s a small community, word gets around, and they probably showed up to pay their respects, just like she has.

Jody Mills is a surprise.

The boys say she’s a friend and a fellow hunter, but it’s obvious from their interactions that that’s not really how Jody sees them. She treats them with respect, with camaraderie… and also a mature, adult sort of motherliness. Mary sees how both Sam and Dean are comfortable around Jody, and she can tell that this is a familiar dynamic. It speaks of years of knowing each other, leaning on each other, of seeing some bad shit through with each other, and it stings because it’s something she should have with her boys, and she doesn’t. There are no war stories the three of them can tell together, no inside jokes that don’t involve Dean or Sam in diapers, no easy smiles or warm glances.

She doesn’t have long to dwell on it, though – the demon comes, and Dean is trapped outside for a hot minute, and Sam’s doing a great job of hiding it but she knows he has to be freaking out. They can barely handle being in different rooms even in the safety of their own home; right now, it must be maddening.

And then, just like that, Dean’s back inside, and she doesn’t miss how he makes a beeline straight for Sam, doesn’t even spare her a glance. Like she’s not even there. What makes it worse, somehow, is that he didn’t do it out of spite or anger.

He’d genuinely forgotten she was there.

Secrets come out. Bucky’s disgraced and exiled. The entire nightmare ends, even as Mary wonders if she can ever shake of the guilt of knowing all of this happened because of her. That Asa became a hunter because of her. That, she thinks, will stay even though Asa’s mother has absolved her.

She talks a little with Jody Mills, who still looks shaken but is valiantly trying to power through it. And the thing is… she’s not so different from Mary. They could be friends, maybe, if the circumstances permitted. They don’t, but it’s a nice thought. Jody has the same idea, maybe, because she feels comfortable enough to offer up some unsolicited advice.

“Mom to mom,” is what she says, and it’s in that moment that Mary understands that she’s lost her family too, that she’s also a mom to children that no longer exist. Maybe the bond she has with Sam and Dean is her way of finding that motherhood again, that feeling of wanting to nurture and protect that Mary just cannot seem to find again.

“They’re good men,” Jody tells her.

“I know,” Mary answers, pensive. “They’re not the problem.”

Jody gives her a half-smile that means she understands, and then she leaves Mary to it.

And then Mary meets a reaper. “You owe me one,” Billie tells Dean, referencing his deal. “This one.”

Mary knows it’s because she’s the odd one out, the third wheel, the one who should never have returned. She doesn’t belong, and it’s so, so tempting to take Billie’s offer, to go back to the comfort and familiarity of the heaven that she misses so fiercely. Sam’s looking at her like he can’t believe she would even consider it, while Dean looks… contemplative. Calculating, almost.

They’re men who should be boys, who should be her children, and she still struggles to feel like she belongs with them. But they opened up their home to her, and they made her a place in it, and made her feel welcome, and are still trying, even now. They’re not the problem – she is.

So she refuses, because she can’t go now that she knows she has to make it right with them. And Billie looks exasperated – “Winchesters” – but Sam looks relieved, and happy, and Dean’s offering her breakfast and bacon, and Sam’s got his arm around her and is opening the front passenger door for her, and for the first time, Mary thinks this might be okay.

She begins answering Sam’s texts more often. Somehow – not surprisingly – that leads to an increase in texting enthusiasm from Dean, too. She still doesn’t go home, and they don’t ask again, but this feels enough for now. Baby steps, she thinks. They can build up to it.

They’ve got time.

She’s wrong.

The next time she hears of her boys, it’s from Castiel, and he’s lost them. They’ve been arrested, he tells her, by the Secret Service or some equally clandestine group, because apparently they were trying to kill POTUS, who according to Castiel was being possessed by – sweet baby Jesus H. Christ – Lucifer, but, he reassures her, is not anymore.

It’s wild how he says it almost casually, like this is really not something so out of the ordinary for them. Not for the first time Mary is left to wonder at the sort of lives her boys lead.

She’s heard stories of them, on the road. Hunter bars and roadhouses, around dusty old wooden tables, over pints of beer and shots of whiskey, far-fetched tales of the deeds her sons have done, the monsters they’ve defeated, the things they’re capable of. Started the Apocalypse, then stopped it. Defeated Eve, defeated the Leviathans. Almost closed the gates of Hell. Defeated Abaddon, knight of Hell. Defeated Cain, father of murder. Taken on and survived his ancient curse. Killed Death himself. Faced and neutralized the Darkness.

She knows all of this directly from them, but they tend to downplay it, and it’s so surreal listening to it spoken with awe from the mouths of hardened, grizzled hunters who are not easily impressed. They respect her father and her family, and they respect John, but for her sons they are reverent. Not all of them like her boys, of course – but all of them respect them, and most importantly, all of them know not to cross them.

Alicia Banes calls Dean’s phone and Mary picks up. Not even a day later, she’s a hunter again. She revisits the cases Castiel could not close, and completes them with an ease she thought she no longer had. She finds cases of her own – not difficult, considering how bold the monsters have grown in Sam and Dean’s absence – and tackles those even more easily. She’s gotten the hang of the Internet now, and she can’t deny it makes her life so much easier.

She can’t help her boys, can’t reach them wherever they are now, but this, she can do. They’re lost to her, but that doesn’t mean she can’t help anyone anymore. She’s not entirely useless, and she clings to that feeling, to knowing that she can still do some good in the world.

 Until her boys are back – and she has no doubt that they will be – this is all she’s got.

Castiel calls her just as she’s finishing up a vampire hunt. They’re found, they’re found again, he tells her, sounding like he can’t believe it either, and they need help. They’re in Colorado, and they need Mary and Cas to be there at State Route 34.

The relief that floods her is almost overwhelming. She takes only a moment to indulge in it before throwing the car into drive and flooring it. It’s good to feel purposeful again, to have a mission. And she’ll have her boys back, finally, and she can start making amends, she can start fixing things and they can be family again.

And for that she’ll do anything – even work with the British Men of Letters. They hurt Sam and she hates them for it, wants nothing more than to punch Ketch in his smug face – but they’re a necessary evil for now. She needs them and their tech to get her boys back.

It’s late at night when their satellites manage to locate Sam and Dean. Cas and Mary park the car and get out, standing by the tree line in anticipation, and sure enough, seconds later, Sam emerges, followed closely by Dean.

They are a sight for sore eyes, and Mary can’t help but smile at the way Sam hugs Cas tightly. And then a second later he sees her, and calls out “Mom!” and it sounds so sweet, and he’s running to her and then he’s all but falling into her arms, and she hugs him back tight, her heart relaxing at the baby-Sam smell that’s still somehow there under the layers of dirt and blood and grime.

And then Dean hugs her, barely a second after Sam lets go, and Mary holds her son for the first time in months and months, and tries not to cry.

They’re going to be okay, they’re all going to be all right.

She should have known better.

She meets Billie for the second time. This time she doesn’t want to go, not even for a second, but her sons have made a deal, and she knows all too well that promises of this kind must be kept.

Her boys protest, of course they do, but she knows they can’t live without each other. Her, though – they’ve lived without her most of their lives. They can do it again. They can get each other through this loss.

She puts the gun to her head, and closes her eyes, and tries not to listen to Sam’s harsh, panicked breathing behind her, or Dean’s voice. She’s just got them back, and she wanted more time with them, she wanted to fix what she’d inadvertently broken – but this will have to do. It’s the least she can do for them. They’ve suffered enough, and the last thing she wants for them is to be without each other. They won’t be able to bear it, she knows. She’s heard enough stories about heaven and hell and deals and demons.

It doesn’t come to that, thanks to Castiel. And Mary won’t lie – she’s relieved. Cosmic consequences aside, she’d be a hell of a liar if she claimed she wasn’t desperately glad for the second chance. Despite herself, she begins thinking, cautiously, of hope again.

They pile back into her little car once more. If they were quiet before, it is nothing compared to the heavy silence that weighs on them now. Dean is not just angry, he is furious; that much is clear from the glimpse of his face she catches in the rearview mirror. Castiel is obstinate, jaw set as he looks out the window, refusing to acknowledge Dean.

Sam, in the front next to her, is just exhausted. He’s leaning against the window, body slumped into the seat, eyes staring unseeing outside. Mary pretends she can’t see how he’s got his hand in the gap between the door and his seat, or that Dean’s leaning forward, his hand in the same gap, their fingers intertwined. They’ve been apart for two months. In Dean’s own words, it had been worse than hell (and they’d know). The least they deserve right now is a little comfort.

Dean’s expression is softer the next time she looks in the rearview mirror. Castiel is still staring out the window. Sam looks half-asleep. Mary debates putting on some music to fill the silence, but it doesn’t seem right, somehow. Her head is spinning a little, trying to comprehend what the hell is going to happen now.

Castiel killed Billie and broke a deal. Cosmic consequences. It’s so much bigger than anything Mary has ever had to deal with before, and that includes her own deal and her own resurrection. She can’t even begin to wrap her head around it.

What she can do, she thinks, is maybe give her sons a talk on making outrageous deals when backed into corners. It seems to be a hobby, she notes wryly.

And then she remembers her own deal. Runs in the family, it seems. She chances a quick look over at Sam, the way he’s holding on to Dean’s hand like a lifeline, and she thinks of all the stories she’s heard about everything Sam’s been through.

I did that, she thinks.

Does he know? she wonders, not for the first time. Definitely not the last.

Sam falls asleep. Dean doesn’t. Their hands remain connected. Castiel hasn’t moved in hours, and it makes Mary a little uneasy. It’s one of the many small ways in which she’s reminded that he’s not human, and she wonders how long that takes to get used to. It feels rude to ask him directly, though, so she remains quiet.

“Should we stop?” she asks Dean quietly, somewhere around 4 AM.

He jolts awake from the stupor he was in, slumped forward with his head against the back of Sam’s headrest. “Huh?”

Mary repeats her question, smiling slightly at the groggy look on her son’s face.

“How far are we from home?” Dean asks her instead of replying, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.

Mary checks the GPS. “We’ll be passing through Joes soon,” she tells Dean. “So… around four hours after that.”

“Think you can make it?” he asks.

“I could drive,” Castiel says, speaking for the first time in hours.

“Um,” says Mary, recalling her one and only experience of Castiel’s driving, if it can be called that. “I think I’m okay, for now.”

“I could—” begins Dean, but she cuts him off.

“Dean, it’s all right,” she assures him. “If I feel tired I’ll let you know, I promise. Besides, I’ve gone longer distances on less sleep before.”

“You sure?” he asks, uncertain.

She has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Again with the coddling. “Yes, Dean. I’m sure.”

He settles a little at that. “All right. Guess you can always stop for coffee if you need it.”

“Yep,” she says, popping her p the same way she’s heard him do.

They drive on.

Half an hour after that, Sam stirs, murmuring something that Mary doesn’t quite catch. She turns to look over at him, but he’s still asleep, expression uneasy. “Sam?” she says quietly.

He doesn’t respond, not directly to her, but his voice gets louder. It takes Mary a moment to understand, and when she does, her hands grip the wheel tighter in horror – he’s begging, in English and another language she can’t make sense of, and with every passing second his voice gets more and more pained.

“Sam!” she repeats, louder this time.

Sam doesn’t wake, but Dean does; jolting upright, he reaches through the gap between the two front seats and grabs Sam’s shoulder, shaking. “Sam!” he barks. “Sammy, wake up!”

“What’s happening?” Mary asks.

“He’s having a nightmare,” Dean tells her, before shaking Sam’s shoulder again. “Sam!”

It doesn’t seem to be working – Sam’s eyes remain closed, though he continues talking. “What is he saying?” Mary asks, glancing over at him again.

“Enochian,” Castiel answers, voice stretched taut. “You do not want to know what he’s saying.”

“Enochian? He speaks Enochian?” Mary repeats in disbelief.

“Mom, stop the car,” Dean says instead of answering, his hand still on Sam’s shoulder.

“Why won’t he wake up?” Mary demands, taking her foot off the accelerator.

“Don’t know—Mom, pull over now!”

“I’m doing it, Dean—”

“Sammy, come on, man—”

Mary puts her foot on the brake and begins turning into the shoulder, slowing the car as quickly as she can. It hasn’t even completely stopped when Dean pushes his door open and all but throws himself out of the car. “What—” begins Mary, but then a second later Dean is pulling open the front passenger door with such force that for a moment she’s genuinely afraid it might come off its hinges.

“Sammy,” Dean says loudly, kneeling on the ground and putting both his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Sam, wake up, wake up—” He shakes Sam, hard.

Sam comes back to consciousness with a gasp, eyes wide, breathing hard as he looks around frantically. “What—”

“I’m right here,” Dean says before Sam can ask, grabbing Sam’s face and making sure they’re looking at each other. “Right here, Sammy. It’s okay. It’s okay, I swear.”

Sam stares at him wordlessly, still breathing hard.

“We’re on our way home,” Dean reminds him. “We got out, remember? Mom and Cas came to get us, and then Cas offed Billie. We’re okay, Sammy. We’re almost home.”

Sam reaches out with a shaky hand, and Dean grabs it at once, pulling it to his own chest. “I need you to breathe, Sam,” he tells his brother. “Nice and slow. Think you can do that for me, man?”

Sam swallows, and then nods, sliding out of his seat until he’s also on his knees on the ground next to Dean. Mary watches as Dean puts his arms around him and pulls him close until Sam’s leaning against him, trying to match his breathing to Dean’s and get himself under control.

She has never seen him like this, pale and trembling. He looks so lost, so afraid, so painfully young. Now she understands fully, she thinks, why Dean prefers to stay with him at night. They can’t be alone, her boys. Whatever they’ve been through, whatever they’ve seen – they can’t handle it without each other. These two months that they were apart must’ve done a number on their minds.

“That’s it, Sammy,” Dean says, voice low and soothing. “How you feeling? Better?”

Sam nods. “Yeah,” he says, voice hoarse. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dean answers fondly, ruffling Sam’s hair and making a bigger mess of it than it already was. “Think you’re okay to get back in the car?”

“Can we just stay out here for a few more minutes?” Sam asks, closing his eyes and letting his head fall on Dean’s shoulder.

“’Course,” Dean replies at once. “Take as long as you need, Sammy.”

They’ve been cooped up in a tiny space for so long, without any sun, any fresh air, anything at all. Mary’s not surprised that it’s manifesting in claustrophobia and nightmares, especially for Sam. She suspects that’s part of the reason Dean hasn’t let himself fall completely asleep in the car – he’s not the kind of person who’d let his walls down that easy around anyone but Sam. In fact, it’s actually a little surprising that Sam let himself fall asleep, considering that he’s usually more guarded than Dean. Mary supposes it means he must trust her enough, and feels a little warm at the thought despite the situation at hand.

She turns on the hazard lights and ensures the car is in park before taking off her seatbelt. She catches Dean’s eye just before she turns to open the door, though, and he shakes his head minutely. “Stay there,” he mouths. “I got this.”

“I know,” she mouths back, hand reaching for the door handle.

Dean shakes his head again. “I got this,” he repeats, expression brooking no argument.

Giving in, Mary sits back in her seat, frowning. She just wanted to be there for Sam, help him in any way that she can. He’s scaring her a little, the way that he is right now. It’s so different from the quietly resilient and brave man that she’s become accustomed to.

But he seems to be getting better by the minute, out in the cold night air with his brother’s arms around him, and Mary relaxes a little when she sees Sam separate himself from Dean a little, and smile at his big brother. “I’m okay,” he tells Dean, voice low. “Seriously.”

“We can stop for the night if you want,” Dean tells him, sitting back and giving Sam a once-over.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Sam says, and reaches out to squeeze Dean’s hand once before letting go. “Promise. How long till we’re home, anyway?”

“Four hours or so, according to Mom,” Dean says.

That seems to remind Sam that they’re not alone. He turns his head and offers Mary a sheepish smile. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, kiddo,” she says, and smiles back. “Doing all right?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Good,” she says. She doesn’t know what else to say.

Dean, it seems, does not have that problem. “Come on then,” he says, standing and holding a hand out to Sam.

Sam takes Dean’s hand, though he doesn’t really need the help, and lets himself be pulled to his feet. “Thanks,” he says, following Dean to the backseat instead of getting in the front like Mary expected him to.

Without waiting to be told Castiel gets out of the back and circles around to the front, getting in next to Mary. “Thank you,” Sam tells him softly as he gets in the back after Dean.

“It’s no problem at all, Sam,” Castiel tells him. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Sam reaches forward to pat him on the shoulder, and then settles back in his seat.

“We good to go?” Mary asks, looking at her sons in the rearview mirror.

Dean nods, and Sam says, “Yeah, Mom. We’re good.” So she puts the car back in drive, and turns back on to the highway.

The next time she glances in the rearview mirror, barely five minutes later, it’s to see that Sam has somehow managed to lie down in the cramped back seat, his head in Dean’s lap and legs curled so tightly they look contorted. He doesn’t look uncomfortable, though – his eyes are closed, head pillowed against Dean’s thigh, and Dean’s fingers are in his hair, running through them with a slow, practiced familiarity. He’s got a fond smile on his face as he looks down at Sam, and for the first time this entire night, he finally looks free.

Mary looks away. This is not for her to see.

She corners Castiel in the kitchen when she gets the chance, once they’re home. Sam’s gone off to shower, and Dean’s in his room (she’d double-checked, and then felt guilty about it), so for now she’s got some privacy. “Hey, Castiel?”

“Yes?” he asks, not looking away from where he’s standing in front of the fridge, staring into it like he expects the answers to every question in the universe to manifest inside.

“I thought angels don’t need food,” she says, inclining her head towards the open fridge door.

“We do not,” he agrees. “I am just ensuring that there is enough for Sam and Dean to eat, whenever they feel up to it.”

“Okay,” she accepts. “Castiel, I want to ask you something.”

“Yes.”

“Where did Sam learn Enochian?”

Castiel’s shoulders stiffen. It’s a very human gesture, one he’s no doubt picked up from her boys. For a second he remains still, and then he closes the fridge door before turning around, slow and deliberate. “Are you sure you want to know?” he asks quietly.

She frowns. “Yes, of course,” she says.

“You will not like the answer,” he warns her.

Mary sighs. “Castiel, I expect coddling from my sons. I do not like it, but I expect it. I do not appreciate it coming from you, too.”

“I’m not coddling you,” Castiel tells her. “I have no reason to. I am merely warning you. If you still want to know, I will tell you.”

She doesn’t have to think too long. “Yes,” she says, sitting down at the table in the kitchen.

Castiel considers her across the room for a few moments, and then crosses the room and slides in across from her. “He learned in the Cage,” he says, matter-of-factly like he’s delivering the evening news. “Lucifer’s Cage. He stopped the Apocalypse, and he saved the world, and this was the price he paid.”

“I knew he was in hell,” Mary says. “I didn’t know it was Lucifer’s Cage.” Just the thought has her feeling cold all over. Sam and the Devil. Satan himself. “How long was he down there?”

“Eighteen months, Earth time,” Castiel answers. “I don’t know how long it was down there. Time passes differently in Hell. Possibly it passes even slower in the Cage. I never asked. It stands to reason that he was forced to learn Enochian as a survival strategy.”

“And—” Mary stops, swallows. “Dean? How long was Dean down there?”

“Four months,” Castiel supplies. “Forty years for him.”

She does some quick math. “So eighteen months for Sam would be… a hundred and eighty years in the Cage?” The idea is horrifying.

“At the very least,” confirms Castiel. His eyes have not left Mary this entire time, nor has he blinked.

“H-how—” She’s not surprised to find that she can’t get her voice out right. “How are they still sane?”

She knows the answer even before Castiel gives it, though. “Because they have each other.” He smiles a little, looking fond. “They’ve survived things that would have driven anyone else to insanity in seconds. The only reason they’ve been able to do so is because they can survive anything as long as they’re together.”

It makes sense, she thinks. She’s observed them enough to know that every word Castiel is saying is true. Besides, the entire day they’ve had is testament to the lengths that her sons are willing to go to, just to be with each other. They’d traded their lives just for a few hours together, after a couple months of not being able to see each other. It seems extreme – maybe, in the case of anybody else, it would be.

“Were they always like this?” she asks eventually.

Castiel nods. “Yes,” he answers without hesitation. “They have always been like this. Not surprising,” he adds, “especially when you consider that they are soulmates.”

“Soulmates?” The word takes her by surprise. “That’s a thing?” And – more importantly, “Sam and Dean are soulmates?”

Castiel nods again. “Yes. They will share a heaven when they die.”

“Like me and John?”

“No.”

“No?” she repeats. “But when I was in heaven, he was there—”

“That was not John,” Castiel informs her. “It was your memory of him. Just like the Sam and Dean up there were just memories.”

“So where is he?” she asks, head spinning a little as she tries to keep up.

“I do not know,” the angel replies. “I presume he’s in his own heaven, with his own memories.”

“Why—” Mary stops, and clears her throat. “Why can’t I be with him? Why weren’t we together after he died?”

“Because only soulmates share heavens,” Castiel tells her, managing to look sympathetic. “And true soulmate pairs are extremely rare.”

“So let me get this straight,” Mary says after a moment. “John and I are not soulmates. But Sam and Dean are?”

Castiel nods.

“But – but they’re brothers—”

“Yes,” Castiel says. “They are.”

“So how can they be soulmates?” she asks, almost desperately.

“I do not really know how this works,” Castiel admits. “Souls were created far before I was, and there is no one left to ask.”

“And they know this?” she wants to know.

“Yes, they are aware.”

“And it doesn’t bother them?” It’s definitely bothering her a helluva lot.

“I don’t believe so,” Castiel tells her. “They’ve certainly never indicated that it does. In fact, neither of them was very surprised at the revelation.”

“Seriously?” she asks incredulously. “Not even a little bit?”

Castiel gives her that half-smile of his. “Why are you surprised?” he asks, infuriatingly calm. “You’ve spent time with them. You know how they are.”

“I—” She stops, considers. Castiel is looking at her like he’s reading her, those ageless blue eyes scanning her soul, and she wonders what it is he’s seeing. “I suppose it makes sense,” she admits grudgingly in the end. “I mean… seeing how they are… but also… are there platonic soulmates?”

“Plenty,” Castiel assures her. “A soul bond does not necessarily have anything to do with romantic or sexual love.”

The tension floods out of her so quickly that she sags a little, placing her elbows on the table to support herself. “Really?”

“Really,” Castiel tells her, and then gets to his feet. It’s the first time he’s broken eye contact since he first sat down, and Mary finds it odd instead of relieving. First he did not look away even for a second; now, though, he seems to be avoiding her gaze. “Mary, it has been lovely talking to you, but I must be going now. I have things to do, people to talk to… and I must investigate the possibility of these cosmic consequences we were warned about.”

“Oh. Right, yes, of course.” She hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but it had left her mind in the wake of all the revelations of the past half hour. “Sure you can’t stay just a few more hours?”

There’s that half-smile again, wry and just a little self-deprecating. “I do not think Dean is very happy with me right now, and considering Sam’s mental state, it would be unfair to burden him with the task of preventing Dean from stabbing me.”

Mary snorts at that, getting to her feet as well. “Yeah, fair enough,” she concedes. “He’ll cool off, though. Eventually.”

“I hope so,” Castiel says as they begin walking to the front door. “In the meantime, I hope I can gather some useful information.”

“Keep us updated,” Mary says.

“Of course,” the angel answers. “You take care, Mary.”

“You too,” she says, pausing as they reach the entrance.

Castiel turns just before he steps outside into the crisp early morning air. It’s just a little after sunrise, and the sky looks lovely, orange and purple and pink. “Mary,” he says, unexpectedly serious. “Your sons… what they have is special. It is the kind of love that most people on this planet spend lifetimes yearning for, and rarely ever receive. Keep that in mind.”

“I – yeah, sure, okay,” she says, crossing her arms against the chill.

“Promise me that you will,” Castiel says, not budging.

“Yeah, I promise,” Mary says, a little nonplussed. “They’re my boys, Castiel. Of course I’m happy they have each other.”

For a moment it looks like he’s going to stay and argue. His expression certainly says clearly that he doesn’t think she understands. But then he nods at her, turns, and walks away. She watches him go until she cannot see him anymore, and then she steps back inside and locks the door.

She should be sleepy, especially after all that driving, but she’s still riding out the last of the adrenaline rush, and so she decides to check in on her boys before heading to Room 16. Dean’s room is right at the beginning of the hallway off the war room, so she heads there first.

It’s empty.

Mary’s stomach sinks.

Her boys have shared rooms before. To keep nightmares at bay, according to Dean. It didn’t bother her, especially now that she’s seen one of the nightmares firsthand. But for some reason, right now, in the light of her conversation with Castiel, it makes her extremely uneasy in a way she does not want to put into words.

Soulmates.

Her feet move almost without any input from her brain, taking her in the direction of Sam’s room. With every step the heaviness in her belly increases, the bad feeling intensifying until she’s nauseous from it.

This is stupid, she tells herself. Of course they want to be together right now. Two months apart. Being close to each other must be reassuring for them.

And soulmates can be platonic, Castiel said so himself.

God, but he also refused to look her in the eye after that, like he was hiding something, and now she can’t help but wonder if he was lying. Weren’t angels supposed to always be truthful? He probably was not lying.

She reaches Sam’s room. Her heart is beating so hard she can hear her pulse in her ears, and she can feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins again. It feels too much like when she’s on a hunt, in a fight, battling monsters and demons.

These are her sons. Her boys. She’s being stupid, she tells herself. Making mountains out of molehills. There’s nothing going on—

She’s got her hand on the doorknob when she hears Sam’s voice and stops short.

“I don’t ever wanna be that far from you again,” he’s saying, voice low and aching. “I lost track of time in there, you know? I had no idea it was just a couple months. It felt so much longer.”

“I know,” Dean answers. “I mean, I was keepin’ count, but – every day felt worse than hell, man. I’m surprised we didn’t go crazy.”

“It was a near thing,” Sam admits. “At least for me.”

“I know,” Dean repeats, voice quieter so that Mary has to strain a little to hear him through the door. “’S why I made the deal. I felt like – an hour more and I was gonna lose it. Dying’s nothing compared to that as long as I got to see you first.”

“It was a stupid deal, honestly,” Sam says a moment later. “But – I’m glad you did it.”

“Me too,” Dean answers.

There’s silence for a few seconds. They’re probably just sitting up, talking, Mary tries to convince herself. Dean’s just making sure Sam’s okay and then he’ll go back to his own room. She can sort of see it in her mind’s eye – Sam in bed, Dean sitting next to him, both of them just talking. They’re just talking.

Then Sam says, “Dean,” and his voice is shaking a little, and Dean says, “It’s okay, Sammy, I got you, I got you—” and Sam says, “Mom’s at home—” and Dean’s saying “I don’t care, man, I’m done tiptoeing and trying to hide it, I don’t give a crap who knows—” and Sam says, “But it’s Mom—” and then goes abruptly quiet.

Mary’s blood is deafening in her ears. Turn and leave, she begs herself. It feels like she’s standing at the edge of some endless cliff, staring down into the darkness below, and if she stays for even a second longer she’ll find herself falling.

“I’m never letting you go,” comes Dean’s voice through the door, firm and determined. “You’re mine, Sammy, you’re mine, and if anyone has a problem with it they can go screw themselves. I can’t care anymore, man. We deserve this. After everything we’ve given, we deserve to be happy.”

“Yeah,” says Sam after a moment. “Yeah, Dean, God, yeah. We do.”

And this time when he says Dean’s name, it’s in a tone she’s never heard from him, breathless and trembling, and Mary’s blood is ice in her veins now, her heart suddenly still. She was right, she was right all along—

Soulmates, Castiel said, and now she understands with sickening clarity why he wouldn’t look her in the eye. Platonic soulmates may exist, but her sons do not fall into that category. Her sons, her boys, and they’re—

She can’t say it, even to herself.

But somehow, it’s not as shocking as it should be. It still feels like a slap to the face, and she’s still falling down the cliff, down, down, down, but…

She’d suspected. She’d lied to herself, made up bullshit to appease herself and willingly ignored the things she did not want to see, but she’d suspected, and maybe, somewhere deep down inside, a part of her she didn’t want to give voice to had always known.

They’re brothers, and they’re soulmates, and they’re—

They don’t just love each other, they love each other.

Something special, Castiel had said. Something rare.

Never seen anyone look at anyone else the way those boys look at each other, a hunter in Idaho had said.

Seen Dean break half of a man’s bones just ‘cause he looked at Sam wrong, someone in Washington had told her.

Sam’s the only thing that stopped Dean from gutting Walt and Roy and hanging them with their own intestines, a bartender in a roadhouse in Ohio had said. And it hadn’t surprised Mary. The only reason Toni Bevell escaped that same fate is because at the time Dean had been too preoccupied with his hurt little brother.

(The way Dean had looked at her, when she’d entered Sam’s room and found them both sharing a bed.)

The banter about Dean’s sex life – because it was Sam’s, too. The sequestering themselves in the same room for nights on end. Dean losing his mind at Asa’s, when he was locked out and away from Sam. The impulsive deals they tend to make for each other.

The way they look at each other, the way they touch each other, the way it’s never Sam and Dean, always Sam-and-Dean, the two of them versus everyone else, even her, maybe especially her, and God, she cannot believe she’s never let herself see it before.

She has no idea how she’s managed to make her way back to Room 16, but she’s here, and she closes the door behind herself with shaking hands before collapsing on the bed. She can taste bile at the back of her throat, and her chest feels clogged up, tight and panicky.

She’s been right all along, and she never even let herself see it.

She needs out. She needs out now, family be damned, fixing everything be damned. She cannot stay in this place a moment longer, in their home that was never going to be hers. Now that she’s aware of the truth she doesn’t think she can ever close her eyes to it. She’s always going to look around at the evidence of their life in this place, and wonder how many clues had been present all along, just waiting for her to connect the dots.

The shirts that always end up on Sam just a couple days after Dean’s worn them. Dean’s passing touches to Sam’s hair, his shoulders, his arm. The way Sam’s eyes follow Dean around the room, like he’s the only source of light there is. The way they laugh when they’re with each other. All the inside jokes, the fierce protectiveness, the love that runs so deep that there’s no name for it beyond devotion.

She can’t stand it. It feels like it’s in the air around her, getting inside her lungs and choking her from the inside out.

She can’t stay. She doesn’t know where she’ll go; all she knows is that she can’t be here.

A few sleepless hours later, she gets out of bed, takes a cold shower, and dials Mick Davies.

“Let me paint you a picture…”

The only thing Mary can see is her boys. She’d checked in on them once more before leaving, because clearly she hasn’t learned her lesson, and had been utterly unsurprised to find them fast asleep, curled around each other, very obviously undressed under the covers. She’d thought of waiting till they were awake, but in the end, decided that a note left on the kitchen table would suffice.

She’s betraying them. She is painfully aware of this. She is sitting across from Mick Davies, a representative of the same people who’d taken Sam and tortured him for days on end. She is listening to him talk, and she is pretending to consider his proposal, while knowing deep down that she’s going to say yes.

There’s no two ways about it; this is a betrayal. One she’s not sure she could be forgiven for, were they to find out.

And they will, eventually. They’ve got their ways. She’s not naïve, she knows she won’t be able to lie about this forever.

Just like they hadn’t been able to lie about their relationship. Just like they’d hidden it from her anyway. If Mary is betraying her boys, it is only because they did it to her first.

“So what do you say?” asks Davies, eyes watching her intently for her response.

Mary takes a deep breath, steels herself, sets her jaw. They did it to her first, she reminds herself. She can’t stay there. She can’t be with them, can’t look at them and pretend she doesn’t know about what goes on between them behind closed doors.

“Count me in,” she tells Mick Davies.

Chapter Text

Mary is the first to step out of the hug, a somewhat difficult task considering she has to first untangle herself from her sons’ arms. She smiles at them, pats Sam’s cheek, and then says, “I think I could do with a shower. And some dinner,” she adds. 

“What do you want?” Dean asks at once. 

Out of the three of them, Dean’s the only one with decent cooking skills. Mary’s not bad, but he’s far better. Right now, though, she’s tired and he can’t keep putting weight on his bad leg like that, so she says, “Takeout?” 

“Sounds good,” Sam says warmly. “Did you have anything in mind?” 

Mary shrugs. “Not really. Whatever you boys feel like.” In truth, she’s not that hungry, but she does need to shower, needs to get the blood and sweat off her. She also needs some time on her own so that she can process everything that’s gone down. 

“How about Chinese?” suggests Dean. “I know this great place in town. They’ll deliver,” he adds the second Sam opens his mouth. 

Mary grins at the look Sam gives Dean, and then says, “Sounds good, boys. Uh, so I’ll see you all in a bit?” 

“Yeah, okay,” says Dean, too busy rolling his eyes at Sam to really look at her. 

She leaves them to their bickering and picks her way through the ruins of the library, heading towards the showers. She really likes the showers in the bunker – the water pressure is phenomenal, and they never run out of hot water. After months on the road it feels like heaven on her skin, and she closes her eyes, letting her body go loose under the spray. 

The last few weeks are a blur in her mind. The last thing she remembers clearly before today is seeing Sam and Dean’s names on that screen in the BMOL outpost. She remembers struggling with Ketch, but after that it all kind of blends together. She knows she’s hurt people – killed them. Almost would’ve killed Jody, too. Jody, who cares so much about her boys. 

Her boys. She hurt them, too. In a way much more physical than joining the BMOL. She turned on them, put hands on them, watched as Ketch beat Dean. Left them to die in their own home. What if they had? What if they hadn’t figured it out, hadn’t been able to escape? Would she have one day come back home to find their bodies?  

Or would it never have mattered to her at all? 

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know. 

It’s getting a little harder to breathe – she doesn’t know if it’s the steam from the shower, or the fact that it feels like her lungs have forgotten how to function. Taking in a deep breath, Mary puts her hand on the cold tile wall and tries to center herself, tries to control her breathing before she can devolve into a full-on panic attack. She doesn’t have the luxury of allowing herself that. 

She needs to keep it together, because it’s what her boys deserve. She’s the mother. She’s supposed to be there for them, not the other way round. 

With great difficulty she finds the strength to get out of the shower. Drying herself off, she wraps herself in one of the fluffy bath gowns folded on a shelf in the bathroom, the ones Dean loves so much, and makes her way back to Room 16. 

Her things are exactly as she’s left them, but the room’s devoid of dust or dirt. Like the boys kept it clean in the hope that one day she’d be back. She can see it in her mind’s eye – Sam dusting the place while Dean changes the sheets on the bed, both of them working in silence so that they don’t have to talk about it. It makes something in her throat constrict. 

She betrayed them. She willingly went to work for the people who hurt her youngest son, her baby, and they still waited for her to come back. Kept her room ready for her, her clothes laundered and folded, her sheets fresh and her dresser clean. 

She doesn’t deserve them. 

Contrary to what she’d thought, her stomach is rumbling by the time she’s finally ready to step out of Room 16. Somehow knowing she won’t find them in the library, Mary makes her way towards Sam’s room – and sure enough, she’s still a few steps out when she hears their voices. 

She pauses at the door. She remembers all too clearly what she’d seen the last time she’d gone in there. Maybe it’s safer to knock. 

So she knocks. 

The voices pause, and then Sam calls out, “Come in!” 

She opens the door warily, and then relaxes when she finds them sitting with at least a foot of distance between them. Sam’s in his bed, cross-legged with his back against the headboard, and Dean’s in a chair, bad leg propped up on Sam’s mattress. They both look at ease – Sam has stripped down to a shirt and a pair of shorts, and Dean’s wearing sweatpants and an old, worn Guns N’ Roses tee. It’s odd, seeing them so domestic – Mary can’t remember the last time she saw them without the layers they wear like armor. 

“Hey, Mom,” Sam greets as she enters. She feels strangely overdressed now, wearing jeans and flannel, in stark contrast with her sons. 

“Food here yet?” she asks, drawing up a second chair next to Sam’s bed. 

Dean holds up his phone. “App puts the delivery guy at ten minutes out.” 

She nods, sitting. “Good. How’s the leg?” 

“Better,” Dean tells her. “Sam got me the good stuff and helped me bandage it.” He prods Sam’s thigh with his leg. 

Mary nods again. She feels out of her depth, feels like a stranger all over again. This time, though, it’s entirely her own doing. 

“And you, Mom?” Sam asks softly, bringing her out of her thoughts. “How are you?” 

“I’ll be fine,” she tells him with a smile. 

Sam accepts this without argument, though he looks like he’s not convinced. For once, she wishes he’d push back. But she knows that she’s the one who’s always pulled away from him, and now she doesn’t get to miss his concern. 

There’s a large bruise blooming blue and ugly on Sam’s thigh, and Mary zeroes in on it. “You’re hurt,” she points out, reaching out to tough it lightly. 

“Um,” Sam says. “It’s nothing, Mom. I’ve had worse.” 

“Looks painful, though,” Mary says, extremely aware of Dean’s eyes on her. 

“It’s fine,” Sam tells her. He’s stiffened up a little at her touch, and she tries not to let it sting.  

She draws back. “If you say so,” she says, and attempts a smile. 

Silence falls, awkward and heavy. She’s not sure where to look. Sam, it seems, is facing the same problem, and he ends up with his hands knotted in his lap, eyes fixed on them. Dean’s still looking at her with that calculating, narrow-eyed gaze, like he’s trying to figure her out.  

Which is strange. He’s been in her head. If anything, she should be easier for him to read. 

The vibration of Dean’s phone startles them out of the reverie. Dean takes it off Sam’s bedside table and unlocks it, and then announces, “Delivery guy’s here.” 

He makes to stand, but is stopped by Sam’s hand on his ankle. “Dude, let me go,” Sam says. “Your leg’s all banged up.” 

“I’m fine-” Dean begins, but stops when Mary stands. 

“I’ll go,” she tells them. “Both of you need rest. Um, he’ll be at the door?” 

“End of the road,” Dean tells her. “Uh-” He opens Sam’s bedside drawer, fishes Sam’s wallet out, ignores his brother’s outraged sound, and hands it to Mary. “Here. Tip him well, I always do.” 

“Got it,” she says, taking the wallet and laughing a little at the look Sam’s giving Dean. 

It’s a short walk from the bunker’s entrance to the spot Dean said, but the night air is cold and crisp and Mary finds herself inhaling lungfuls. She wishes it wasn’t so, but even now she feels freer outside the bunker than inside it. This time, though, it has nothing to do with her boys, and everything to do with the memories of what she’s done to them. The ruined wall and broken furniture definitely don’t help. 

She’ll clean that up, later. It’s the least she can do for them. 

She tips the delivery guy, accepts the bags of food, and takes her time walking back. The guy seems to be a fan of Dean’s - he’d asked after him, and he’s delivered the food in extra layers of packaging so that it stays warm. They’ve settled here, in this town, Mary knows. As well as they can. It’s become home to them in a way that Lawrence never was, in a way that most hunters will never get to have. 

So what if they didn’t grow up the way she wanted them to? They’re here, and they have each other, and a home, and a town. That's not so bad, really. 

She knocks again when she gets to Sam’s room, though it’s difficult with an armful of food. She’s learned her lesson about sneaking in on the boys, though she still tries not to think about it. 

Dean’s on the bed now, she notes as she deposits the bags of food on Sam’s desk. Sam’s moved to the side to make space for him, and now they’re both sitting side by side with their backs against the headboard. Dean’s hand is on Sam’s bare knee. He sees Mary looking and makes eye contact, and his hand stays where it is. 

Mary looks away.

Dinner’s pleasant. Nice and neutral. They discuss Chinese recipes and Dean tells them about the delivery guy’s cousin who’s saving up to go to MIT. Sam fusses over Dean’s bad leg a couple times until Dean is literally batting his hands away using his chopsticks. Sam exacts revenge by stealing a spring roll from Dean, who rolls his eyes and snags Sam’s dumpling. Mary laughs at their expressions and offers Sam her own dumpling. 

Sam’s yawning by the end, clearly exhausted from the day they’ve had. He tries valiantly to stay awake and participate in Dean and Mary’s debate about beef manchurian, but he’s also listing into Dean’s side and blinking sleep away every couple minutes. 

“Dude,” Dean says in the end, rolling his eyes. “Just go to sleep, man.” 

“I’m not sleepy,” Sam insists, and then yawns again. 

Dean snorts. “Sure you’re not.” He takes Sam’s empty Chinese container and puts it back into the empty takeout bag, and then adds his own. Mary watches as he pushes at Sam’s shoulder, waiting till Sam’s off him to slide down the headboard. “C’mon, Sam,” he says, pulling at him now until Sam’s lying down, head resting on Dean’s good thigh.  

Sam opens his mouth to say something, maybe protest, but it comes out as another yawn. Taking it as encouragement, Dean leans forward and grabs the blanket folded at the foot of the bed, pulling it so that it covers him and Sam. “Sleep,” he tells Sam, more insistently. “You need it.” 

Sam glances at Mary, looking uncertain, and she gives him a smile that’s very difficult to muster but she manages. The elephant in the room is on her chest, pressing down on her lungs. She doesn’t know what to do about it. 

But Sam, it seems, takes the smile at face value. Returning it, he makes himself comfortable and then closes his eyes, letting out a contented smile when Dean’s hand lands in his hair, pushing it out of his face. “’Night,” he mumbles, before settling. 

Dean smiles down at him, soft and fond. “’Night, Sammy.” Then he looks up at Mary. “What about you? Not tired?” 

“A little,” she tells him. “I’ll be off to bed soon.” She’s finding it difficult to take her eyes off Sam. Not just because his head is in Dean’s lap, but because- 

He’s already asleep, breathing slow and even, Dean’s fingers in his hair, and he looks a decade younger. His face is smoother, hand curled near his face, half-gripping the hem of Dean’s shirt. She can imagine him as a child suddenly, sleeping the way in Dean’s lap after a particularly long day. She can’t decide if it’s sweet or disturbing. 

Sam makes a sleepy noise, and stops instantly when Dean murmurs “Shh. ‘S okay, Sammy.” He looks up, sees Mary looking. 

He doesn’t look away. 

He knows, she realizes. He knows that she knows.  And he doesn’t seem to care. In fact, he seems defiant, the look in his eyes challenging her to say a word about it. 

She doesn’t. Instead, she stands and says, “Goodnight, Dean. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“’Night, Mom,” he replies, still with that look in his eyes. 

She doesn’t sleep, though. She tries, but gives up after about ten minutes and gets out of bed again. She doesn’t mean to, but she stops by Sam’s door, ears straining for any sound from within. 

Nothing but silence. They must be sleeping. 

She continues walking, heading towards the kitchen. Her movements are thoughtless, mechanical as she turns on the coffeemaker and puts a mug below the tap. It’s clearly old, white-faded-gray, one chipped edge, and faded blue letters proclaiming the owner to be the WORLD’S BEST BROTHER.  

Footsteps. Mary fills up her mug and turns just in time to see Sam enter the kitchen, all messy hair and wrinkled clothes. His boxers are askew on his hips; she pretends not to notice. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asks. 

“Woke up,” he corrects her with a soft smile. “Needed to go to the bathroom, and then I saw the lights on in here. You okay, Mom?” 

“Yes,” she tells him, and then hesitates, coffee mug in hand. “Just... couldn’t sleep.” 

He gives her a sympathetic smile as he sits down at the table. She slides in across him, her eyes on his face. Her son. Her baby. The sweet boy whose soul she damned. 

“How can you bear it?” she murmurs, looking away. 

“Bear what, Mom?” he asks, concerned. 

There’s a lump in her throat; she has to struggle past it to get her reply out. “Being around me, having me in your home.” 

“Mom.” She looks up at the tone of his voice, soft and sort of pained. His nose is pink, a tell-tale sign he’s about to cry. At least  that  hasn’t changed, she thinks. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles, looking away again. Now she’s thinking of him as a baby, the way he’d been in her head – smiling and round-cheeked, and so, so tiny. 

And she damned his soul.

“Mom,” he says again, and there’s a slight waver to his voice. “I - Mom, my entire life, all I ever wanted was to have you there. When I was growing up, when I was in school, and - and even after that. And having you back? Mom, it’s everything.” 

“I’m not even here most of the time,” she says, sniffling a little. Her own nose feels warm, like it’s red too. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he tells her, reaching out to take her hand. “Still my mom.” He smiles when she looks up at him. “That’s not gonna change. Ever.” 

“I hurt you,” she whispers, the words sharp in her throat. “I betrayed you boys, and I hurt  you.” 

“We’ve all made mistakes, Mom,” he tells her, painfully earnest. “Both me and Dean. Countless times! And we’ve hurt each other, before – what I’m saying is, Mom, it’s  okay.  Like Dean said, we can – we can move on. Start again.” 

“He told you, huh?” she says, turning her hand so that she can hold his back. 

Sam nods. “Yeah.” 

“And you don’t blame me?” she asks, surprised. “Sam, what I did ruined your entire life. Everything that you’ve been through was because of me. All of it.” 

“And I forgive you,” he says without missing a beat. His face is open, eyes wide and pleading with her to believe him. “I forgive you, Mom.” A tear falls from his eye. “I forgive you,” he repeats one more time, quieter. 

She pulls her hand from his, gets to her feet. His face falls; he looks away, biting at his lip, but then a second later she’s pulling him into her arms, pressing her face into his hair and taking in that baby-Sam smell she always seems to find. “I don’t deserve this,” she whispers, voice thick, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. 

“Don’t say that,” he says, standing so he can return the hug properly. He towers over her, but she loves how he makes himself small just so she can keep her face pressed to his hair. She’s seen him do it with Dean, stoop and curl into himself so that he can fit better in Dean’s arms, and having him do it with her is making her heart feel just a little lighter. Makes her feel like he  wants  to be her baby. 

He does, she knows. It’s all he’s ever wanted, to be babied by his mother, and she can’t help but hate herself for denying him that. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into his hair. 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he replies. She can feel wetness on her shoulder where he’s pressed his face into her shirt. 

She doesn’t understand how he can say that so easily. How he can have gone through everything he has, everything she’s heard from Dean and other hunters and even John’s journal, everything she’s seen in the scars on his skin – it's so much, it’s so much she can’t breathe if she thinks about it for too long, and yet. There is so much love in him. He forgives so easily, so wholeheartedly. The biggest sin she’s ever committed and he wiped it away in a matter of minutes, as if she’d just broken his favorite mug instead of ruined his life, damned him before he was even born. 

Mary’s been in awe of her sons’ achievements before, wondered many times how her boys could’ve grown into these legends - but now, when she pulls away and wipes his tears with her own hands, now for the first time, she feels real pride. This is the man her baby grows up to be, and he’s better than anything she could ever have imagined. 

“I love you,” she tells him. 

He lets out a laugh that’s half a sob, and pushes his face into her shoulder again. She smiles as she returns the hug, and then realizes that it’s the first time she’s said it, and meant it just as it is. No conditions, no demands.  

Footsteps again. Sam steps back, wiping at his eyes as Dean limps into the kitchen. Mary turns away so she can compose herself.  

“Hey,” Dean says carefully, looking conscious of the fact that he’s stumbled on to something. 

“Hey,” Sam tells him, still a little shaky as he smiles. “Why are you up?” 

“You weren’t in bed,” Dean says, approaching Sam. “Doin’ okay, Sammy?”  

Sam nods. “Yeah,” he answers, letting Dean wipe away the remnants of his tears, ending the movement fluidly by tucking his hair behind his ear. 

“And you?” Dean asks, turning to Mary. 

She smiles. “Yeah,” she tells him. “Are you in pain, Dean?” 

“Nah,” he says. “Sammy got me the good stuff.” He reaches out, takes Sam’s hand, intertwines their fingers. His eyes never leave Mary. 

“Dean?” Sam says, looking confused as he blinks down at their joined hands. 

“Yeah, Sammy?” Dean replies. 

“Uh,” is all Sam says, looking back up at Dean. He’s adorable when he’s confused, notes Mary wryly. 

“Real articulate, Sammy,” Dean teases, grinning at his flustered brother. “You comin’ back to bed soon?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Sam says, flushing. “Um, Mom-” 

“We’re together,” Dean says suddenly, loud and blunt. “Sam and I. We’re together.” 

“Dean!” Sam says, shocked. He tries to pull his hand out of Dean’s, but Dean hangs on, gripping tighter. 

“I know,” Mary says. Sam looks up at her so quickly his hair flies, expression stunned. 

“Mom?” he says in disbelief, hand going still. 

“I know,” she repeats. “I’ve known for a while.” She’s just thankful Dean brought it up – in his typical Dean manner – before she had to. The other option was going the rest of their lives without ever discussing it, which, while appealing, wasn’t sustainable, not with the way they act. They’re not subtle; her denial had just been greater than their lack of discretion. 

Sam goes completely still, still looking bewildered by this new development. Dean, on the other hand, has that defiant look in his eyes again. Say something about it, his face challenges. 

So she does. “And... it’s okay.”  

A few weeks ago if someone had told her she’d be accepting of her sons being in a relationship with each other (she refuses to think the i-word) she would have pumped them full of rock salt. 

“It’s okay?” Sam repeats, looking dazed. 

“Yes,” she says. Even manages a smile. “I mean – I don’t know,” she adds a second later, sitting down again, as she realizes she should be clearer. “It’s not...” 

“Normal?” Dean completes for her, a dangerous look on his face. 

“Usual,” she corrects. “But... I suppose I understand.” 

“And you’re okay with it?” Sam asks, looking so hopeful it breaks her heart a little. 

“I don’t know,” she replies honestly. His face falls a little, and she hurries to complete. “But - it makes you two happy. And you’re good for each other.” And I don’t deserve the right to say anything about how you live your lives, she adds to herself. Not after everything they went through because of her. 

Sam still looks uncertain, though, and Dean’s still got that look, so she says, “Castiel told me you’re soulmates.” 

Dean nods. “Yeah,” he says warily. 

“So there’s that,” she says. 

“There’s that,” Sam echoes. 

“It may not make much sense to me, but clearly it does to someone up there,” she says. “And to you.” 

“How long have you known?” Sam asks softly. He’s gripping Dean’s hand back, she notes. 

“I think since the beginning,” she admits. “I just didn’t want to really  see it. But I didn’t know for sure till-” 

“Till we came back from prison,” Dean completes. 

She nods. “Yeah.” 

“Is that why you left again?” Sam asks, frowning as his brain connects the dots. 

“Yes,” she says after a pause. She owes them the truth. It’s the least she can give them. “I just... it didn’t make sense to me. Still kinda doesn’t,” she adds. “But... it’s your life. And you two deserve to be happy.” 

“Are you gonna leave again?” Sam asks. She hates how small his voice is, how young he sounds. 

“Sammy,” Dean begins, immediately softening. 

“No,” Mary says, loud and clear so that they know she means it. “You’re my boys. You’re always going to be my boys. No matter what.” 

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.” Dean’s voice is quiet, but she can hear the brittle hope just under the surface. And she understands him, suddenly – he's defiant, yes. Stubborn, enough to rival both John and Sam combined, when he wants to be. He’ll burn down the world for Sam and he wouldn’t give a fuck about the consequences. 

But he’s also really, really  afraid of losing her. 

“Of course I mean it,” she says, getting to her feet and reaching out with both hands to frame Dean’s face. His stubble scratches her palms as she runs her thumb across his cheekbone. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this,” she tells him, smiling as reassuringly as she can. “And... and we’re family, Dean. And that’s the most important thing. All of us need each other. That comes before anything else.” 

Next to them, Sam lets out a choked-off sob. “Mom-”  

“It’s okay,” she tells him, letting go of Dean’s face and taking a step back so she can look at both of them. “I... I’m not gonna say this is what I wanted for you boys. But I know enough that this is what  you  want. And as long as you two are happy... well, that’s all I care about. As long as I don’t have to see anything,” she adds in a warning tone. 

Dean finally drops the act, letting out a hoarse laugh before moving forward for the second group hug of the night. Mary laughs too, her sons’ arms around her, and turns her head to kiss Sam’s hair. “I mean that, you know.” 

“We promise,” Sam says, and she can feel his smile against her shoulder. 

Clean slate, new beginning. 

They start over.