Chapter Text
Chapter Fourteen:
Dean pushed open the door to Mercy’s bedroom. It was early in the morning for any normal human, but for his sister it was late to still be idle in bed. Typically she was downstairs with the sun, having already gone for a run with Sammy, whipping up breakfast, and three cups of coffee deep into her day. Today was anything but typical, and Dean was not surprised to find her curled up under the covers and staring listlessly out her window. She didn’t flinch as the hinges of the door squealed or as the floorboards creaked when he walked over.
He lay down on the bed next to her and didn’t say anything. Five minutes ticked by. Dean waited, and eventually his patience was rewarded. Mercy turned over and laid her head on his chest, pressing her face into his shirt. He adjusted their position to cradle her into his side more comfortably, and began stroking his fingers through her soft curls.
“Morning, baby girl,” he murmured softly.
She didn’t respond, but he hadn’t expected her to. Before yesterday, Dean thought he had years to go before he had to worry about a boy breaking Mercy’s heart. She had never really shown an interest in them, even when they were living together in Indiana and she was a full-time normal teenager. That hadn’t stopped them from being interested in her–in fact it might have been a contributing factor. He’d seen the way they’d watch her at track meets and cross country matches, or when they were out at their favorite pizza place or grocery shopping on a Saturday morning and he’d been metaphorically, if not literally, cleaning the shotgun. But Mercy never even noticed their lingering looks or fumbling, pubescent attempts at flirting, and Dean had been privately relieved.
This was everything he hadn’t wanted for her, and it was worse than a schoolyard crush gone bad. It was Cas. Part of Dean wanted to be curled up in bed too, but he was older than Mercy, harder in almost every way, and mostly he wanted to bury the pain in a bottle of whiskey and his job.
“I’ve got to talk to you about something,” he said reluctantly, after a few more minutes of silence. He sighed. “About the angel warding.”
Mercy stiffened. “I’m sorry,” she croaked out.
“You were hoping he’d come see you,” Dean said rather than asked.
“Yes… no… I don’t know.” Mercy’s breath hitched. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it right now.”
She began to squirm like she intended to get up, but Dean tightened his hold on her. Part of him wanted to be angry with her, but he knew it wasn’t actually her he was angry at. “Later.” When Mercy settled back down he said, “Talk to me, kid.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered. She looked up at him with those sad baby blues and Dean felt his heart break in two. Tears welled up within them and spilled down her cheeks all over again. “I- I don’t understand.”
“I know, I know,” he shushed her, absently wiping her tears away with his thumb. “It sucks.”
A startled laugh forced its way past the tears at his blunt understatement, but that uneven puff of breath quickly devolved into a hysterical sob and she pressed her nose into his ribs with enough force that it physically hurt, and cried. He held her tight as she fell apart, and felt his own throat close up. His eyes were hot, but he could break down on his own time–his little sister needed him now.
Her wails must have been loud enough to hear all through the house, because Sam appeared in the doorway a few minutes later with wide eyes, mouth open around a silent question. Dean shook his head, and Sam’s face twisted up, but he quietly closed the door and retreated.
It was twenty minutes later when Mercy fell into a fitful sleep, and Dean slid out from under her. He tucked the comforter up to her chin, leaned down and pressed his lips to her curls. He lingered there for a moment before drawing back, and heading downstairs.
“How is she?” Sam asked immediately.
“Asleep… devastated.” He ran a hand down his face and sat heavily in the armchair. “I knew we shouldn’t have let her be there when we confronted him.”
Sam’s lips were a thin line. “I don’t think she would have believed us if she hadn’t seen it for herself, man. She was…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, but Dean knew what he meant anyway. Mercy had been ready to go to war for Cas. She’d been so livid with Sam and Bobby that she’d packed a bag and gone to stay with Jody in the middle of the night with barely a note to quell the sudden surge of panic Dean experienced when his sister disappeared from the house with no warning. Sometimes teenagers run away from home, that’s just what they do and he knew that. Dean could remember all the times Sam had run away in stunning clarity, but Mercy wasn't their brother. Mercy was the kind of girl who was always and forever running towards home. To run from it?
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a migraine building in the back of his head like no other. “I don’t know what to do, man.”
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do, Dean,” Sam said. There was a faint hint of a smile on his face, but it vanished a moment later and he tossed a book in Dean’s direction. “Not about Mercy, at least.”
The last thing Dean wanted to do was more research. It felt like all they had been doing lately, and he wasn’t built for it like his brother and sister or Bobby. But with a choice between reading dusty, old books or sitting around with his thumb up his ass and nothing to distract him from his spiraling thoughts, he’d pick the journal of Jebediah Campbell.
He cracked it open and groaned upon seeing the cursive script. Perfect. Everyone knew squinting at tiny, squished letters was the cure to headaches.
An hour later Mercy came stumbling downstairs. Dean and Sam shared a quick look, neither sure what to say or do, but Mercy walked right through the study without greeting them. She reappeared a moment later, outside the window, with a bottle of Windex, a rag, and a can of red paint.
Dean watched silently as Mercy began windexing one of the angel wards. She scrubbed the window clean and began anew, carefully finger painting the complicated sigil from memory. Two other windows got minor corrections before she was satisfied. When she was finished, she put the supplies away and then came to stand in front of Dean with her head bowed. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about the wards being wrong last night,” she said.
He closed the journal and set it aside. “I know there’s part of you still holding onto hope that this is all a misunderstanding,” he said quietly, and Mercy’s shoulders migrated toward her ears. “But Cas has been lying to us for months, spying on us for maybe just as long, and working with the King of Hell. We gave him every opportunity to come clean and stop and he used them to sabotage us–right now we can’t afford to give him any more. Do you understand?”
Mercy nodded.
“Okay then,” Dean said. He flipped the journal back open. “Go wash your face with cold water and get something to drink, juice or water. No coffee, you’re dehydrated enough as it is.” She fled the room, and Dean sighed as he watched her disappear back up the stairs. “Too harsh?” he asked his brother.
“She needed to hear it,” Sam murmured.
When Mercy returned ten minutes later, she had coffee for him and Sam, and a glass of orange juice for herself. She hesitated, but then finally came to sit in front of Dean’s chair. She leaned her back against it, pressing her shoulder to his leg. He knew she was seeking reassurance that things were okay between them, and so he let his hand fall over the edge of the chair and rest atop her head.
No words were exchanged, but he heard the shaky sigh of relief Mercy exhaled, and returned to his journal. Mercy picked a book off the top of the stack and the three of them fell into a peaceful silence. It only lasted ten minutes, the length of time it took Dean to finish what he was reading and determine it was useless and that he’d wasted his time.
He snapped the journal shut, and the dull thwack of soft leather and soft pages didn’t quell his growing annoyance. “Samuel's journals are pointless,” he grumbled. “I mean, I'm sorry, but uh, Jebediah Campbell has squat to tell me about how to stop Cas from cracking Purgatory.”
“Well actually, it's not about the journals we have, it's about the one we don't,” Bobby said as he walked into the study.
Sam furrowed his brow. “Meaning what?”
“Well, that's the bad news.” Bobby’s eyes darted towards Mercy before he addressed Sam and Dean. “Our pal Cas didn't stop in last night just to mend fences.”
Dean felt Mercy tense up against his leg, and he squeezed her shoulder. “What did he do?”
“Stole something.”
“What? ”
Bobby nodded. “The Journal of Moishe Campbell.”
“Moishe?” Sam repeated incredulously.
“Of the New York Campbells.”
“Well, uh, so we gotta get it back, right?” Sam said.
“Or-” Bobby held up a manilla folder. “-just read the copy I'd already made. Hi, glad to meet you. Bobby Singer. Paranoid bastard.”
With Sam at his desk, Bobby took a seat on the couch and shuffled the papers out of the folder. Mercy sprang to her feet. “I’ll get you coffee,” she said in a rush.
The older hunter watched her go with a furrowed brow, before turning to Dean and jerking his chin in her direction. Dean read the gesture as, talk to her, idjit. He’d already been moving to intercept her.
“Hey,” he said in a gruff tone of voice. He caught Mercy by the elbow and pulled her into the hallway where they’d be away from prying eyes. “Not conditional, remember?”
“I remember,” she murmured. She even managed to look him in the eye and smile softly, and Dean was reassured enough to let her go.
-M-
Mercy kept herself occupied. She kept her hands busy and her mind blank of everything except the pattern she was crocheting. It was what Lisa taught her in those first few weeks in Indiana when Dean was at work and Ben was at summer camp or baseball practice and Lisa didn’t have a class to teach. She gave Mercy a hook and a ball of yarn and showed her how to make a chain and a single stitch and Mercy took to it like a duck to water. By the end of the week she was looking up tutorials about other stitches and making granny squares at ass o’clock in the morning with her brother just to get her brain to shut up.
And just like how she hadn’t wanted to think too hard about Sammy, Mercy really didn’t want to think too hard about Cas–Oh, Cassie , her naive, well-intentioned angel. Because she knew if she thought too hard about him she’d come up with all kinds of excuses for him. She was doing it right then, minimizing his actions with soft words like naive, well-intentioned.
She found her eyes drifting away from her work and over to her brother. Dean hadn’t slept well last night, she could tell. She could forgive Cas easily–too easily, she knew–but then she’d remember the look on Dean’s face as he begged Cas to let them help. And now, taking this journal from them? Mercy blinked back tears that blurred her vision. She’d cried enough. She couldn’t think about it anymore. She’d drive herself mad. So, she’d pack it away–pack it away until this whole mess was over and done, and only then would she let herself fall apart. Right then, all she could do was endure.
“I think I zeroed in on something,” Bobby spoke up gruffly.
“What do you got?” Dean asked as he returned from getting a refill of his coffee–his third that morning, but Mercy wouldn’t say anything unless he started making it Irish.
Bobby held the paper out towards Dean, and he took it as he settled on the edge of the desk. “Went to talk to Howard Phillips about the events of March 10th,” he read.
“That’s March 10th, 1937,” Bobby clarified.
“Alright, so who's this Phillips guy?”
Bobby’s beard twitched. “Phillips ain't his last name. It's Lovecraft.”
“Wait, H.P. Lovecraft? Let me see that.” Sam snatched the paper out of Dean’s hand, eyes already hungrily devouring the words.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Dean asked
“Horror writer?” Bobby said in an obvious tone, waiting for Dean to light up in recognition. “At the Mountains Of Madness, The Call of Cthulhu?”
Dean’s expression remained blank. He looked to Sam for support, but Sam was grinning as he watched his older brother struggle to make the connection and Dean pressed his lips into a thin line. “Yeah, it's- no, I'm- I was too busy having sex with women,” he grumbled into his coffee.
Mercy cleared her throat of the last of her tears. “You do know Lovecraft, even if you don’t know that you do,” she said, managing to sound normal. “He’s everywhere in heavy metal. Uh, Black Sabbath, Behind the Wall of Sleep? Oh! Metallica, Dream No More?”
Dean perked up, just like she knew he would. “I know those songs!” he said proudly. He began tapping a beat on the desk, “Can’t look away- ”
Mercy picked up the tune, smiling softly at the goofy way Dean was bobbing his head. “You turn to stone-”
“Madness they say, Cthulu awaken!” they sang together, ignoring Sam staring at them like they’d lost their minds.
“Well, anyhow,” Bobby cut in before they could get to the next verse. “There's one notion that comes up over and over again in his stories. Namely opening doors to other dimensions and letting scary crap through.”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You don’t say?”
“Wait,” Sam said, voice tinged with a bit of excitement. “So you're saying you think Lovecraft knew something about Purgatory?”
Bobby shrugged, “All I know is Moishe paid him a visit.”
Before they could discuss the revelation any further, Dean’s cell rang. He frowned–the three most likely people to call him were all sitting right there–and fished it out of his pocket. The confused expression deepened when he read the caller ID and Mercy sat up when Dean answered the phone by asking, “Ben?”
She watched, with a pit opening in her stomach, as Dean leaned forward. He was white-knuckling his phone, expression shutting down as he listened to whatever it was Ben was saying. “What are they?” he asked, and any bit of warmth was gone from his voice and face. The only tell that Dean was panicking internally was his rapid blinking and Mercy came to his side. “Did you see their eyes? Teeth? This is important Ben, I need to know,” Dean said sternly.
Mercy knelt on the floor by Dean and leaned in close, so she heard Ben’s frantic voice when he replied, “Dean, I don’t know!” In the background Mercy could make out Remi’s thunderous barking as he defended his home and family.
“Okay, where are you now?”
“In my room!”
“Can you get to your mom's closet or Mercy’s old room? I left shotguns there.”
“No. Dean, what do I do?”
Mercy was so on edge she jumped when she felt Dean grab her hand. He squeezed hard enough that it hurt and she heard the shaky breath he inhaled before he said, “Okay, Ben, listen to me. Go to your window and jump.”
“What?!” Ben squeaked.
“Any bones you break won't compare to what they're gonna do to you, Ben. You've got to jump,” he ordered.
“Okay, I’m going.”
For a moment there was only the sound of Ben’s heavy breathing and a commotion of furniture being moved and the window opening.
“I'm coming right now. I'm coming to get you and your mom, I promise. You with me, Ben? Ben? Ben? Dean’s voice cracked slightly and Mercy squeezed his hand. He drew back the phone, checking to make sure they were still connected and Ben hadn’t accidentally hung up as he made his escape.
“Hello, Dean. Fancy a chat?”
Dean surged to his feet and Mercy went with him. She hadn’t heard that voice in months, but she recognized it instantly.
“Crowley, let 'em go now, or I swear-”
“Right, right. You'll rip me a cornucopia of orifices.” Crowley interrupted him. “Let's get to the bit where I tell you how this goes. Your chocolate's been in my peanut butter for far too long.”
As the demon spoke, Mercy tried to calm her racing heart. This was the devil they knew, and what Mercy had known since the day she’d met him was that Crowley would always do what was best for himself, and right now that didn’t involve bringing down the full wrath of Dean Winchester by killing the people he cared for.
“I am going to kill you,” Dean said calmly, and Mercy wasn’t even sure he was aware of what he’d said or if he was so deep in the grip of primal rage that the words were just instinct.
“Oh Dean, ever the wit,” Crowley remarked. “I've got your uh, oh what are they? Ex-lady friend and not-kid, and I'm keeping them until I'm satisfied that you've backed the hell off !”
There it was, the terms of the agreement she was certain Dean didn’t even hear. “I'm telling you, last chance to let 'em go easy.”
“You're adorable when you get all threatening. Don't worry, I won't hurt them. I won’t even kill the mangy mutt, provided you and Jolly Green stand down . Got it? Splendid. Kisses.”
Crowley hung up and Mercy went to step out of Dean’s personal space, to give him a moment to gather himself, but his hold on her hand only tightened.
“What's the story?” Bobby asked.
Dean’s throat jumped as he swallowed. “He said Lisa and Ben keep breathing as long as we sit on our thumbs.”
“You think Cas knows about this?” Sam asked quietly.
“We gotta assume he does,” Dean said.
“So what are we gonna do?”
“I'll tell you what we're not gonna do–sit here. I'm going after 'em,” Dean shoved his phone back in his pocket and began making for the door.
“We’re coming with,” Sam spoke up. His hand landed on Mercy’s shoulder, and she froze in place.
“No, Sam.” Dean shook his head. “You guys gotta stay on the Lovecraft thing, okay? Cas is already way ahead of us.”
“You gotta be nuts if you think we’re gonna let you do this alone. Bobby can take care of the case,” Sam argued.
Mercy clenched her hands into fists. “No, here’s what we’re going to do.” She looked up at Sam and said, “You and Dean are going to track down Ben and Lisa, and Bobby and I are going to follow up on this lead… this-” she grimaced “-this thing with Cas and the journal is my mess, and I’m gonna help clean it up.”
Sam looked surprised, but Dean appeared to have already known where she was going to land on this. “She’s right,” he said. “This is a big ball. We can’t drop it now. So we split up.”
Mercy went to Dean and stood on her tiptoes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him down a few inches into her embrace. Normally she preferred being the little spoon in hugs, but she’d always make an exception for her brothers. She squeezed Dean tight and muttered, “I have faith in you.” When she felt him nod minutely against his shoulder she drew back. “Keep in touch,” she told both him and Sam, and then her brothers were gone. She turned back to Bobby and said, “Okay… where do we go from here?”
-M-
Their investigation led them to one totally normal and well-adjusted adult man living in his mother’s basement. Judah claimed to have the world’s largest collection of Lovecraft’s private letters–some of which had gone mysteriously missing after a visit from another reporter he described as Rain Man in a trenchcoat. She wondered who that could be.
Cas really did have the jump on them.
From there they ended up in a mental institution to talk with a man named Westborough who’d been there since he was nine after witnessing Lovecraft and his friends attempt to open a door to purgatory at a dinner party in 1937.
“You sure you're not with that other reporter, in the coat?” Westborough asked as Bobby and she sat down. “Liar, that one. Not who he says.”
Mercy flinched at the reminder and Bobby answered, “No sir. Uh, I'm not affiliated with his paper. I just have a couple of questions about a dinner party you were at in 1937.”
“Everyone is so fascinated…” Westborough shook his head, blinking rapidly. “Wanna know about my night at the home of the great H.P. Lovecraft.”
Mercy reached out and lay her hand atop the older man’s. “We’re not fascinated, and we aren’t interested in hearing about how great Lovecraft was,” she said, hoping she was gauging this right. “We’re looking for the truth.”
His hand shook beneath hers. “Do you believe in monsters?” he asked in a whisper
“Yes,” she and Bobby answered.
He looked around discreetly. “You know, you go saying that, they'll lock you in here, rest of your life,” he warned them.
“Whatever you saw, you tell us and we’ll buy it straight,” Bobby said seriously.
“The spell worked,” he whispered. “A door opened and something came through. B-but it was invisible, so no one knew, except me.”
“How did you know, then?” Bobby asked.
“Because it took my mother.” Westborough’s eyes shone with tears. “It went into her. She wasn't the same. She even smelled different. And then, she disappeared. And surprise, surprise, one by one, they all start dying.”
Mercy squeezed his hand gently. Bobby murmured, “I'm sorry, about your mom.”
The older man blinked hard. His chin trembled as he said, “You're the first person who ever said that.” Tears burned in the back of her throat, but she smiled and nodded when Westborough asked, “Hey, you wanna see a picture? Hmm?”
With a trembling hand, he reached into the inner pocket of his cardigan and pulled out a photo. It was clearly well-loved with worn corners and wrinkles, showing Westborough as a boy posed with a blonde woman who must be his mother. Westborough smiled proudly, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and Mercy returned the gesture, even though her heart was breaking for him.
“She was beautiful,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Westborough replied.
Bobby stood, and Mercy took that as the cue that they were leaving. She rose to her feet as well, but paused to press a kiss to the old man’s cheek. “It was wonderful to meet you. Thank you for your time.”
Outside the building, Mercy turned to Bobby and said, “Gosh, I can only imagine…experiencing something like that, losing your mother, and having nobody believe you. Everyone thinking you're crazy…” she shuddered.
There was an alternate universe out there where Dean never showed up in Indiana that day six years ago. Where her aunt and uncle and everyone in the town got away with murdering her mother and no one would listen to Mercy as she told stories about the scarecrow that ate people until she was blue in the face.
Or worse. She glanced back at the mental institution. They did listen.
Bobby didn’t respond. He appeared deep in thought.
She nudged him. “Hey, so, what’s next? Tracking down Eleanor?” she asked.
Her mentor shook his head, as if finally coming back to himself. “You head back home now,” he told her, and Mercy furrowed her brow. “I- I already got a lead. But I need to go alone.”
“Come on, Bobby. Whatever possessed Eleanor is dangerous. She’s like Eve-”
“She’s not like Eve,” Bobby quickly cut in. “She’s… trust me, okay? Go back home and make sure them boys of yours ain’t doing anything too stupid.”
“Like you aren’t one of my boys who does stupid things sometimes?” she asked, to which Bobby rolled his eyes. “Fine, but have me and the boys on speed dial, okay?”
“Course,” he responded gruffly. “What do you take me for? An idjit?”
Mercy was halfway back to South Dakota when she got the call from a frantic Dean and had to wrench the wheel and race in the other direction.
-M-
Lisa was pale against the white hospital sheets. Dean watched her face carefully for any sign of waking, though the doctors had already warned him it wasn’t likely she would. It didn’t seem real. Lisa wasn’t supposed to die like this. She wasn’t supposed to be stabbed in a dark warehouse and then fizzle out in a hospital bed while her son watched her slip away. It was wrong. He’d thought by leaving he was keeping them safe. He should have known. Lisa and Ben’s lives had been ruined the second he’d met them.
Dean’s eyes slid away from Lisa’s form, and found Ben. He had a hollow look to him. Like someone had reached inside him and scooped everything out. It was an expression that reminded him of Mercy that day she’d shot the skinwalker. Lost. Ben had tasted his first blood earlier that night, seen someone he’d known mercilessly killed in his own home, had all his childhood fears spat at him through his mother’s lips, then watched her fatally stab herself. The kid had just speedrun the kind of trauma most normal people never experienced, or at least accumulated over a lifetime, in a single night.
“Ben,” he murmured, voice rough. “I’m so sorry.”
Ben glanced over, through him almost, and then stood up and left. Dean didn’t blame him. He hunched over and put his head in his hands. Tears burned at the back of his throat, but he was too tired to cry.
“Dean.”
His head shot up. Mercy stood in the doorway, breathing heavily as if she’d just finished a track event. She looked disheveled, and he figured she’d had to drive through the night to get to him. “Merce,” he choked out.
“Oh, Dean,” she whispered.
She was across the room in an instant and Dean closed his eyes as she wrapped her arms around him. He buried his face into her shoulder and hid himself away from the world. Mercy was good at that, at pulling him inside herself and making the pain feel muted, if only for just a second. Because right then, nothing else existed, nothing except for the warmth of her hug and the smell of her sea-salt shampoo.
Dean could have stayed like that forever, but Mercy tensed a moment later, and he was forced to glance up and find Cas in the room with them. He immediately pulled out of Mercy’s embrace. “What do you want?” he demanded.
“Dean, listen-”
“What do you want me to say? She'll be dead by midnight,” he snapped.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were just as hollow as when he’d said them a minute ago to Ben. They were just as useless, just as selfish. “I don’t care,” he said coldly. “It’s too little too late.”
“Okay. Well, regardless, I didn’t come for you.”
“Meaning?” he demanded.
For a moment, he was worried Cas was referring to Mercy, but then the angel approached Lisa’s bedside and Dean held his breath. Cas reached out and touched Lisa’s forehead. A long moment passed before he said, “She’s fine now. She’ll wake soon.”
He rose on shaky legs, not daring to believe it until he saw Lisa’s numbers begin to miraculously improve on the monitors. Mercy had her arm around his waist a moment before he realized his knees were going weak from relief and he leaned some of his weight into her side.
“Dean, Mercy, I said I’m sorry, and I meant it.”
Mercy made a sound in the back of her throat, and Dean folded his fingers around her forearm like steel bands just as she yearned forward. He knew, he knew that Mercy wanted to forgive Cas so badly. She would, right that second, welcome Cas back with open arms if he let her go. Instead, he tightened his hold on her. He swallowed, and said, “Thank you… I wish this changed anything.”
Cas glanced quickly at Mercy, but his gaze snapped back to Dean just as fast. “I know. So do I. All else aside, I just wanted to fix what I could.”
The angel turned to go and a wild thought gripped Dean. “There's one more thing you could do for me,” he said suddenly.
Mercy didn’t try to stop him, though he could tell she wanted to. She stood silently by his side as he said goodbye to Ben and Lisa the only way he could now that they had no memory of him, or her, and held his hand as they walked out of the hospital.
Ben and Lisa were safe now. That was the only thing that mattered.
-M-
It was amazing to Mercy how so many things could change, and yet everything was still the same. It also amazed her that the world trying to off itself kept aligning with her end of year exams. She swore God was having a laugh at her expense somewhere in the universe, because once again Mercy had been left behind by her brothers and mentor. Her math final had been scheduled to begin in twenty minutes when they’d gotten a call from Bobby’s friend Ellie, and Mercy hadn’t bothered to propose skipping the exam. She’d learned that particular lesson two years ago.
So she’d sat the stupid test and contemplated how much trouble she’d be in if she suggested dropping out of high school and just getting her GED over the summer. Probably a lot, but honestly, this was just becoming ridiculous. She imagined this is how Harry Potter felt when Voldemort kept showing up at the end of the school year in every book, except for her, it was the stupid apocalypse that kept threatening to break the peace.
Mercy was in the middle of making herself a sandwich when Bobby and Dean burst into the house, dragging a lifeless Sam between them. She dropped the knife and demanded, “What the hell happened?!”
“Cas happened!” Dean spat. “Help us get him downstairs.”
She rushed ahead of the two of them and opened the door to the panic room. Bobby and Dean grunted as they hauled Sam over the threshold and got him settled on the bed. Her eyes frantically scanned over her brother’s body, but he didn’t have a single injury that she could see. No blood, no bruises, no limbs at odd angles. “What did Cas do?” she asked, bewildered.
Dean slammed the door to the panic room shut. “I’ll tell you what he did! He broke the fucking wall in Sam’s head!” he shouted.
Mercy flinched as Dean grabbed a glass that had been left on the desk and threw it across the room. It shattered as it hit the wall, and she looked at Bobby, desperately hoping he’d tell her what Dean had said wasn’t true. Bobby shook his head, and Mercy sucked in a shuddering breath.
“Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll get the angel wards up in here too, just to be safe.”
They had a can of white paint and a brush hanging out under the desk, and Mercy began the process of angel proofing the panic room with shaking hands. Behind her, Bobby and Dean were muttering to themselves, trying to figure out what was wrong with Sam and why he wasn’t waking and what they could do, but Mercy didn’t hear them. Her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears she couldn’t hear anything.
Why would Cas do this? He knew what could happen to Sam without that wall. He knew what Dean had gone through to save their brother. He-
Mercy finished the last sigil and her hand fell to her side limply. He knew, and he’d done it anyway. She clenched her hand into a fist and without thinking, slammed it into the iron wall. Damnit, Cas. Damnit. Mercy sucked a shuddering breath into her lungs and then turned around. Bobby wasn’t in the panic room anymore. The glass had been cleaned up, and Dean was nursing a new glass with a generous amount of whiskey in it.
“Bobby’s gonna find Cas,” he grunted.
She nodded absently and pulled the desk chair over to the other side of the bed. She sat down. “What happened with Ellie?”
“Dead,” Dean said. “Cas and Crowley have everything they need now to pop purgatory in, oh-” Dean glanced at his watch. “A cool fifteen hours now.”
“Right,” she said, sinking further into the chair. “Right.”
Her brother didn’t respond, and Mercy wasn’t sure how long they sat there in that smothering silence. Eventually, though, Mercy stood. “I’m going to make you something to eat–don’t argue,” she said when Dean opened his mouth to do just that. “We need you sharp, which means you need something in your stomach to soak up that whiskey. Besides, I know you haven’t eaten anything all day.”
He didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue, so Mercy headed upstairs. Bobby was at his desk, head bowed. There was a book open beneath his nose, but Mercy could tell he wasn’t reading any of the words. She stood in the kitchen for a few long moments, contemplating what food she could get away with forcing down her uncooperative family's throats without them kicking up a fuss before settling on a classic comfort food.
It wasn’t long before the mouthwatering scent of shepherd's pie was floating on the air through the house. It certainly got Bobby’s attention. He finally picked up his head and joined her in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry about Ellie,” she murmured.
“Yeah, me too,” Bobby replied. “That angel of yours has a lot to answer for.”
Mercy ducked her head. “Yeah.”
Twenty minutes later, she was bringing a plate of shepherd’s pie down into the panic room for Dean. He kicked his feet up on the bed and balanced the plate on his lap when she gave it to him, but didn’t immediately dig in. She watched as he pushed the potatoes and meat around listlessly with his fork.
“I can’t keep doing this,” he finally said. “How many times do I gotta sit vigil at my brother’s side like this, Merce?”
Mercy didn’t have an answer, so she kept quiet. She didn’t think he’d been expecting a response anyway. On the bed, Sam suddenly jerked. For a brief, hopeful moment, Mercy thought he was waking up. But Sam’s eyes were squeezed shut as his body bowed nearly in half in some kind of fit.
“Sam? Sammy?” Dean demanded, surging to his feet and sending the shepherd’s pie crashing to the floor. He pressed down against Sam’s shoulders to stop him from falling off the bed, but just as quickly as the fit had started, it ended, and Sam’s body was limp against the mattress once again.
Mercy and Dean shared a panicked look. “Good sign or bad sign?” she asked breathlessly, as if he’d know any better than her.
He clenched his jaw. “When is it ever good?” he grunted.
Bobby’s voice called, “Look what the cat dragged in.”
She turned and saw Balthazar hovering outside the door. He leaned his head as close as he could get and peered around the room at her handiwork. “Well, at least you mudfish finally got the angel-proofing right.” His eyes landed on Sam and Mercy resisted the urge to step in front of her vulnerable brother protectively. “How's Sleeping Beauty? You didn't steal any kisses, I trust?”
“What the hell took you so long?” Dean snapped as he stalked over.
“Honestly? I was having second thoughts,” the angel said lightly.
“About?”
Balthazar’s congenial expression melted away. “About whether to help you. I was thinking maybe, maybe I should rip out your sticky bits instead.”
“And what did you decide?” Bobby asked.
The angel stared at them each for a long second and Mercy braced herself when his eyes landed on her, before finally he turned back to Dean. “Well-” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. He handed it to Dean. “Cas and Crowley are there. That's where the show gets started.”
Dean glanced at the paper, before showing it to Bobby. “Alright, well give us a minute to pack up and then zap us there.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no. I don't think so,” Balthazar said, taking a step back.
“Balthazar,” Dean snapped.
“I'm betraying a friend here. A very powerful friend. We all are,” he reminded them, and Mercy crossed her arms over her chest uncomfortably. “So I think I've stuck my neck out far enough already. Good luck.”
-M-
It was an unspoken arrangement. Bobby and Dean were going to go save the world again, and Mercy would stay with Sam. If he woke up, depending on what state he was in, they would meet Bobby and Dean in Kansas. But somebody needed to keep an eye on him, and Mercy knew she was the least qualified in a fight.
“Time’s up Dean,” Bobby grunted as he zipped up his duffel. “It’s four hundred miles of asphalt to ground zero without Air Angel. We gotta go now.”
Dean’s throat jumped. “Yeah, just a second.” He knelt down next to Sam’s bedside and said, “Alright, Mercy knows where we’re gonna be, Sam. So, you get your lazy ass out of bed and come and meet us.” Sam didn’t so much as twitch, and Dean murmured, so quietly Mercy almost missed it, “Sammy, please.”
“I’ve got him,” Mercy spoke up. She managed a smile for her big brother. “We’ll meet you there, yeah? Leave some ass for us to kick.”
“Always,” Dean responded. He squeezed Sam’s limp hand and dropped a kiss atop her head. “See you soon.”
They left, closing the door to the panic room behind them, and Mercy sighed as she leaned back in her chair.
The boys had probably been gone less than an hour when it happened. Mercy had brought down her laptop and was watching Netflix while picking lamely at her dinner when Sam began thrashing on the bed like a thousand volts of electricity were surging through his body.
“Sammy?” Mercy asked nervously, but he only bucked harder.
For a genuine moment she was terrified he’d snap his own back in half from how viciously he was twisting and writhing. Without thinking she climbed on top of him and began trying to pin his flailing arms and legs with her body weight so he couldn’t hurt himself. Sam was fighting against some invisible force, and she could only hope he was winning.
When Sam’s eyes flew open and he gasped in a lungful of air, Mercy yelped in surprise. His pupils were worryingly dilated and she knew he wasn’t seeing her at all. “Sammy!” she said loudly. He was fighting against her hold, so she quickly let go of his wrists. “SAM!” she shouted.
He blinked rapidly. “M’r-” he coughed. “M’rcy.”
“I’m here,” she said, trying to keep her tone soothing and level, though it was hard with how hard her heart was pounding against her chest. “I’m here, Sammy. Breathe.”
He inhaled deeply in response to her command. “Shepherd's pie,” he muttered, almost incoherent. “You made shepherd’s pie. Was Dean drinking whiskey again?”
Mercy’s mind was racing. She leaned over and grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the desk, thrusting it under Sam’s nose. His nostrils flared and he seemed to settle down, if only a little. “Smells,” she said. “Are smells grounding?”
His head bobbed up and down, and Mercy rolled off his lap. “Hang on, I’ve got an idea.”
In her room, Mercy had a single bottle of perfume–a gift from Jody. Mercy had commented once that she liked the smell of Jody’s perfume, because it reminded her of the one her mom used to wear. The next day, Jody had gotten her a bottle. Mercy didn’t wear it, but sometimes she did spritz the air when she was feeling sentimental.
She sprayed a bit on her inner wrist and couldn’t help her small smile at the warm smell. When she got back downstairs with the bottle, Sam was curled up on the bed and rocking back and forth as he muttered and tugged at his hair. “Sammy, give me your hand,” she said, though she didn’t wait for him to comply. She grabbed his arm and sprayed the perfume on his wrist.
It took a minute but Sam seemed to come back to himself. “I remember,” he whispered. “Mercy, I remember everything. Oh, god, I remember everything.”
“Hey,” she snapped, when it seemed like he was about to spiral again. She climbed into his lap and grabbed his face between her hands. “They’re just memories. It’s over. Sammy, you’re here with me. We’re home. You’re safe. Smell the perfume?”
He nodded jerkily. “I’m here with Mercy. I’m with my sister,” he murmured, almost to himself. His body tensed up suddenly. “Where’s Dean? We’ve got to- we’ve got to find Dean.”
She shushed him without thinking. “Dean and Bobby are handling Cas. You’re in no state to go-”
“We need to get to Dean,” Sam said like he hadn’t heard her. He pressed against her shoulders, and Mercy reluctantly got out of his lap. “Gotta find Dean.”
“Sam I really don’t think-”
“I’m going,” he said as he stumbled to his feet. He made it to the door before he had to grab hold of the wall, grunting from the effort of going a few steps.
Mercy only thought about it for a second. They were maybe an hour behind Bobby and Dean. They could catch up, easy . “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
-M-
If Mercy was being honest, she had no idea how they made it to Kansas. Her attention the entire drive was torn between keeping them on the road and keeping Sam together. The perfume seemed to help, but it wasn’t enough. She was slapping a bandaid on a bullet hold, that much was clear to her. Still, one way or another, they got to the warehouse in one piece.
Before she’d even put her truck in park, Sam was falling out the passenger side door. “Sam!” she snapped, turning the engine off and scrambling out of her seatbelt. “Sam!”
He was frozen on the road a few feet ahead of her, and Mercy realized why a beat later. It was so dark she almost missed it–the impala was upside down in the overgrowth. Every window was shattered, the frame twisted and deformed and Mercy could have thrown up. The doors were open though, and there was a trail of blood, so she knew Bobby and Dean had, at the very least, been able to walk away from the wreck.
“Let’s keep moving,” she murmured, and Sam grunted in agreement, wrist pressed up under his nose as he used her perfume as an anchor point.
Mercy walked ahead of Sam with her shotgun pressed into the pocket of her shoulder. She was prepared to shoot at anything that moved, but the warehouse was eerily quiet as they navigated through it. That was, until she heard Castiel’s voice echoing down the hall.
“You can't imagine what it's like,” she heard him say. “They're all inside me. Millions upon millions of souls.”
Mercy gestured for Sam to get down as they approached the open doorway. She pressed her back against the wall and craned her head around it. She immediately sought out Dean and Bobby. Both were okay, as far as she could tell, but their backs were to the door, so they didn’t see her. Cas, Crowley, and Rapahel were there too. All the biggest players on the board finally in one room and she swallowed hard past the lump in her throat.
“Sounds sexy,” Crowley said. “Exit stage Crowley.”
The demon disappeared, but Mercy wasn’t the least bit reassured. There was true fear on Raphel’s face, and she understood why. There was a weight to Castiel’s presence now. Before, where the feel of Cas’ grace was like a gentle caress, now it felt like six feet of dirt and a pine box pressing down on her shoulders.
“Now, what's the matter, Raphael? Somebody clip your wings?” Castiel asked, and Mercy had never heard the angel sound quite like that before. Sarcastic… sadistic.
“Castiel, please,” Raphael murmured. “You let the demon go, but not your own brother?”
“The demon I have plans for. You on the other hand…” Cas raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Mercy closed her eyes just in time. She’d seen a vessel implode before, and she had no interest in witnessing it again. She heard the clatter of Rapheal’s angel blade on the concrete floor and when she opened her eyes again Cas had turned to face Bobby and Dean. “So, you see, I saved you.”
“Sure thing, Cas. Thank you,” Dean said in a controlled voice.
“You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along.”
Next to her, Sam inhaled sharply. Mercy pulled away from the door and saw her brother struggling against another memory. “You’re home, Sam,” she whispered, fumbling the perfume out of her pocket. She sprayed it in front of his face. “You’re safe.”
Relatively.
“Okay, Cas, you were. We're sorry. Now let's just defuse you, okay?” Dean said.
Cas titled his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“You're full of nuke,” Dean said steadily. “It's not safe. So, before the eclipse ends, let's get them souls back to where they belong.”
“Sam,” Mercy hissed as he brushed past her.
“Oh no, they belong with me,” Cas was saying.
For a man who wouldn’t be able to walk in a straight line to pass a sobriety test if his life depended on it just then, Sam was surprisingly stealthy. He waved her off discreetly, and continued creeping down the stairs. Reluctantly, Mercy followed behind.
“No, Cas, it's it-it's scrambling your brain,” Dean tried.
“No, I'm not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must punish them all severely.” If Mercy wasn’t in the room with him, she wouldn’t have believed the words were coming out of her Cassie’s mouth. No, that was her mistake. This was no longer Cassie, and he hadn’t been for a long time.
Mercy finally saw Sam’s trajectory. He was intent on Raphel’s angel blade, and she faltered, realizing what he intended to do.
“Listen to me,” Dean begged. “Listen, I know there's a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I'd have died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you... please . I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you too. You don't need this kind of juice anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all!”
“You're just saying that because I won. Because you're afraid.”
Sam scooped up the angel blade. For a brief moment, Mercy considered tackling him to the ground. At the last second, she stopped.
“You're not my family, Dean. I have no family.”
Sam thrust the angel blade into Castiel’s back. Despite herself, Mercy gasped and covered her mouth, but Castiel didn’t even flinch. His gaze dropped down to the silver tip poking out of his chest, before he reached behind himself and yanked it out. The wet shlunk of the blade was nauseating, but Cas set it on the table as if it were no more bothersome to him than a toothpick.
For a moment, the silence in the room was deafening. Then Cas turned towards her and Sam with an empty smile.
“I'm glad you made it, Sam, Mercy. But the angel blade won't work, because I'm not an angel anymore. I'm your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you…”
To Be Continued in… The Course of Justice