Archive of Our Own

Mary exhales slowly. She’s sitting at the large meeting table in The Bunker, her fingers idly tracing the initials Sam and Dean had carved into it. She’d stopped back in for a surprise visit only to discover that Sam was off in Ohio, helping some other hunters with a case and Cas was, to quote Dean, “off doing whatever it is he does when he’s not here.” Her journey to find anyone who she remembered from her past had turned up nothing so far but she’s still planning on getting back out on the road soon anyway. Dean left her alone for a few moments so he could go take a quick shower and Mary doesn't know what to do with herself. So she sits awkwardly waiting, a stranger in her children’s home.

A cell phone starts ringing somewhere near her and she begins sifting through piles of papers and books that are scattered everywhere. After three rings, she finally finds it under an old Men of Letters research paper exploring the genetic component of humans who are able to be vessels for angels. It must be one of Dean’s personal cells because it’s not labeled as FBI or CIA or anything like that. It’s an unknown number but Mary would bet good money it’s another hunter calling. It could be an emergency.

"Hello?" Mary answers the phone abruptly, trying to catch it before it goes to voicemail.

"Oh, um, hello," says a higher pitched, uncertain voice on the other end of the line. "I was looking for....I was looking for Agent Young?"

"This is Agent Young's partner, Agent Nicks. How can I help you?" Mary asks in her very best "I'm definitely an FBI agent” voice.

"Oh, oh, it's just," there's some rustling at the other end of the line and then the voice continues, "it's just Agent Young helped me out a while back and he said I should call if I ever, um, if I ever..."

"He helped you out?" Mary asks.

"Yes."

"He helped you out with something....bizarre?" Mary ventures.

There's a sigh of relief and then an ardent, "Yes. SO bizarre."

"Well, I specialize in bizarre, too," Mary says reassuringly. "That's why we're partners. So what's the problem?"

"I think," there's a pause and then the sound of shuffling. "I think I might be haunted."

“Well, that does sound like our kind of thing,” Mary tries not to sound too pleased.

"Yeah, my name is Jamie. Dean, um, Dean..." There's a deep breath and then, "He helped me out a few years ago. He might not even remember me. Just tell him I was the woman being stalked by Dracula."

"You mean by a vampire?" asks Mary.

"No, I mean Dracula," she says firmly. "Cape and accent and all."

"Okay, Jamie Who Was Stalked By the Actual Dracula," Mary says. "Tell me everything."

A short while later, Mary and Dean are in the car with Mary riding shotgun. Dean had only needed to grab his go bag and Mary hadn’t even unpacked so they were out the door before Mary even had a chance to wonder why she was so relieved that this call had come in.

There’s something about being back in the Impala that is immensely comforting and she supposes that that’s at least one thing she shares with her son. The smell of the leather, the sound and the feel of the engine, it’s like being surrounded by John’s warm embrace again. Her John, anyway. Her John who didn’t know the difference between a rugaru and a hole in the ground. It haunts her, knowing about the life he led after she was killed. Everything she wanted for herself and her family was ripped away from them and it was all her fault. She should have known that no one escapes the life. Her past was always bound to catch up with her and her husband and sons paid the price.

“So tell me about Jamie,” Mary asks to distract herself from her own morbid thoughts.

“Oh man, that was a crazy case,” Dean smiles when he says it, though, so she knows that at least this case must have had a happy ending. “There was this shifter that was impersonating old movie monsters and killing people.”

“Old movie monsters?” Mary asks.

“Oh yeah, he was dressing up like black and white movie monsters, you know?” Dean says excitedly. “Like as a werewolf with actual wolf hair, a mummy with all the bandages. The guy had props, costumes, everything. Even a fake old time-y dungeon set up in his basement.”

“And Jamie was almost one of his victims?” Mary asks.

“Yeah,” Dean nods. “He had a real obsession with her. Kidnapped her and tried to force him to be his bride. Dude was crazypants banantown.”

“Well, it was a good thing you were there to save her,” Mary says and she hopes she sounds proud. She is proud of how many people her sons have saved. She’s just also heartbroken for them, too.

“Actually, she kinda saved me,” Dean says. “He got the jump on me while we were fighting and she was able to grab my gun and shoot him.”

“Wow,” Mary says. “That’s pretty good work for a civilian.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees readily. “She’s a pretty cool chick. So what kinda details did she give you about the case?”

“Well, it’s a bit thin but I thought we should check it out anyway. You know, since she’s a friend of yours,” Mary says. “She’s been having very strange dreams or possibly visions. She says they don’t feel real while they’re happening but when she wakes up, she’s covered in mysterious scratches and bruises. Sometimes things around her house have been broken.”

“She could be right,” Dean says. “It could be a ghost. Sometimes ghosts can affect people’s dreams or cause them to have hallucinations. Could also be a poltergeist.”

“She’s worried it's him,” Mary says.”The shifter, I guess, though she didn’t know to call him that. She told me she’s worried he’s back somehow and looking for revenge.”

“Shifters can’t turn into ghosts,” Dean says and then glances over at Mary. “Can...can they?”

“No, I don’t think so,” says Mary. “I’ve never heard of any monster being able to turn into a ghost.”

“Okay, good, because that would open up a whole world of problems for us,” Dean laughs.

Mary smiles at him. “You worried about ghost werewolves coming to get you?”

Dean shoots her a smile, “Wouldn’t you be? I mean, how would you even fight that.”

“Hmmm, salt coated silver knife?” Mary suggests.

“You answered that way too fast,” Dean says. “Like you’ve already thought about it before.”

“You have to be ready for anything in this line of work,” Mary says.

“Speaking of being ready for anything,” Dean says, sobering up a little. “Do you think Jamie is in any immediate danger? It’s a sixteen hour drive to Canonsburg. We’re not gonna get there before tomorrow morning even if we drive all night.”

“I think she’s alright for the moment,” Mary reassures him. “She’s noticed a pattern in the incidents. They only happen on Saturdays.”

“Saturdays?” Dean frowns. “A little weird for a ghost to have a schedule.”

“A little weird but not unheard of,” Mary shrugs. “Ghosts are by definition stuck in the past, sometimes dates are important to them.”

“Yeah, annual dates, usually,” Dean says. “I’ve never heard of a ghost on a weekly haunting schedule.”

“I guess we’ll have to figure out the significance of Saturdays when we get there.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I’d still like to get there as soon as possible, even though it's Wednesday. The faster we solve this case the less chance for the spirit to escalate to doing Jaime real harm. You okay with driving through the night? You up for it?”

“Am I up for it?” Mary chuckles. “You’re the old man, not me.”

She meant it as gentle teasing but she regrets it immediately when Dean gives her a brief stricken look and an awkward silence engulfs them. Mary opens her mouth to apologize but before a single word can leave her mouth, Dean reaches over to turn the music on. The sound of Led Zeppelin's Fool In the Rain fills the car and they drive on.

One night of Dean’s alarmingly fast driving later and they're sitting at a diner in Pennsylvania, sipping coffee and waiting for their breakfasts to arrive. Mary's happy that at least her and Dean agree on food. She knows he means well but Sam complains about her food choices every time she eats in front of him. She's happy to order extra bacon for once and have a son grin at her instead of huff about cholesterol.

A pretty blonde woman in her mid-thirties enters the diner and Dean waves her over with a warm smile.

"Hey, Jamie," Dean says. "Sorry we ordered without you. We were starving after driving all night."

"I don't mind at all," Jamie smiles at him. "I'm just glad you're here."

"Jamie, this is my….my partner, Mary," Dean says. "You spoke to her on the phone."

"Of course," Jamie shakes Mary's hand and then slides into the booth next to her.

"So, how have you been?" Dean asks.

"Alright," Jamie says but her smile is tight.

"Still working at the beer garden?" Dean asks.

"Sort of," Jamie says. "I kind of own it now."

"Really, no shit!" Dean grins. "Hey, I can't help but notice that we're here in time for Oktoberfest again."

He gives her a charming little wink that makes Jamie finally break into a real smile. "Yes, yes, yes, I remember how much you love beer. You can come by for one on the house later. I just...I just didn't want to have this conversation anywhere my employees might hear me."

"We understand," Mary says. "It's not an easy conversation to have anywhere."

Jamie takes a deep breath, "I just can't believe this is happening to me again."

"It's okay, Jamie," Dean says. "We're here now. We're not going to let anything happen to you."

Jamie nods, "Okay. So what happens now?"

"First, tell us everything that's happened, in as much detail as you can possibly remember," Mary says. "Even if it sounds crazy, tell us. Especially if it sounds crazy, tell us."

"Okay, okay," Jamie nods. "It-it started a few months ago. I was having these weirdly intense dreams. They're so...bizarre, I can't even quite describe them. I'm in this….this place, with all these strange glowing lights and all these creatures. Creatures like out of storybooks, like mermaids and minotaurs. Dragons, there's usually a few dragons. And it's...maybe not just when I'm sleeping? It's like I can't control it. I'll just be doing something normal like making coffee and then suddenly it's hours later and it's like I fell asleep and dreamt all this stuff and then woke up but I didn't...like I didn't choose to go to sleep."

Mary reaches out and places her hand on Jamie's arm and Jamie smiles shakily at her, "It was really concerning. And it was happening every Saturday. And then, well, and then I started waking up with injuries that I had no idea how I got. Or I'd wake up to a huge mess in my house. Broken plates, overturned tables. I just….I have no idea what's going on."

"We're going to figure it out," Mary says, reluctantly taking her hand back now that Jamie is done telling her story. "You don't have anything to worry about."

"Has anybody else witnessed these events?" Dean asks. "A boyfriend or a roommate?"

"No, I'm single. I live alone," Jamie says, raising an eyebrow. "What about you?"

Frown etched across his face he asks, "What do you mean, what about me?"

"Are you single?" Jamie asks casually.

"Um, no, no I'm not quite, I mean, I'm a little--," looking panicked, Dean glances over at Mary.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Jamie says, glancing between the two of them. "That's so embarrassing. I didn't realize the two of you were together."

"WHAT, NO," Dean makes a sound like he just nearly choked to death on his own saliva. "She's my mo-I mean she's my Mary!"

"She's your what?" Jamie looks torn between amusement and concern.

"Mary, she's Mary," Dean says quickly. "She's just Mary."

"I get it, her name is Mary," Jamie looks between Dean and Mary again.

"We're….we're family," Mary says, trying to come up with the best explanation for Dean's minor aneurysm.

"Oh, I see, so you're like Dean's little sister or something?" Jamie asks.

"Or something," Mary says as Dean looks down into his coffee like he's thinking about trying to drown himself in it.

"It's okay if you flirt with girls in front of me, you know," Mary says as she's scanning for EMF in Jamie's spare room.

Dean, currently across the room looking for hex bags, makes a strangled noise and says,"What?"

"You know, earlier, with Jamie," Mary takes a deep breath. "You could have told her the truth. You didn't have to turn her down just because I was there."

"Ah," Dean says, his voice strangely high. Mary glances over and sees he's searching the box spring intently, purposefully not looking anywhere near her. "Uh-huh."

She stares at him for a moment. His face has more wrinkles than hers. She noticed, once, on a day that he hadn't shaved, that there's some gray in his facial hair. Just a small amount but certainly more than she ever saw on John's face. It seems almost impossible to her that this man in front of her doesn't have anyone in his life. Maybe she's biased as his mother, but she thinks he's a good man. He's honest and kind and brave, she's sure of that. She knows the job is hard and makes relationships difficult but if she met him as a stranger, she would assume he had a nice woman somewhere. Maybe he's not the settling down type but it should be easy enough for him to find a female hunter somewhere who felt the same way.

"Unless, of course," she says cautiously. "You are seeing someone and just haven't told me."

His hands pause their searching but his eyes are frozen, staring intently at the box spring. A small muscle in his jaw twitches.

"Are….are you seeing someone?" she asks in a small voice.

"What would it matter to you?" His voice is quiet and bitter. "You're not around to see me or anyone I'm with."

They stay still for a moment, standing there in the silence Dean's words made.

"I'm not getting any readings in here, I'm going to go check the other end of the house," Mary says and walks out of the room.

When Mary finishes her sweep of the house, she goes outside to talk to Jamie, who is sitting nervously in her car. Jamie gets out of her car the second she sees Mary approaching.

"Well?" she asks hopefully.

"Well…." Mary shakes her head. "It's not a ghost."

"Is that…good?" Jamie asks. "I mean, I didn't really want it to be a ghost."

"It's...what it is," Mary says. "If it's not a ghost that means it's something else and it might be harder to get rid of."

"Oh," Jamie sighs, leaning back against her car. "So that's not good news then."

"Unfortunately not," Mary smiles sympathetically and leans against the car next to her. "Ghosts, you know, they're pretty standard. We could wrap up a basic case like that in a day."

Jamie snorts. "That is the most ridiculous statement anyone has ever made."

"There's no way it's the most ridiculous statement ever made," Mary protests.

"I mean, I know you live in a world where ghosts are an easy problem to solve but that's pretty freaky for the rest of us," Jamie nudges her shoulder against Mary's and grins.

"So…" Mary clears her throat. "You...you and Dean, um…"

"Oh, nothing happened, really," Jamie says and she has a small smile on her face that Mary can't quite understand. "I mean, we kissed but that was it. He's a shameless flirt, you know, but neither of us was really looking for anything at the time."

He's a shameless flirt, you know.

No, Mary thinks. I don't know.

"And anyway, it was 8 years ago," Jamie continues. "I was kinda dumb back then. I would have swooned over any guy who burst in, guns blazing to save the day."

Mary is overcome with the sudden and inexplicable urge to tell her about the kind of jobs she works where she, too, bursts in guns blazing and saves the day.

"Though I'm not sure I've gotten any smarter in that area," Jamie mutters under her breath.

Mary wants to ask her what she means but Dean comes out of the house, face serious.

"Did you find anything?" Mary asks.

"No," he shakes his head. "No hex bags, no sulfur. You?"

"Nothing," Mary sighs. "No EMF, no cold spots."

"What does that mean?" Jamie asks.

"It means it's not any of the usual things. It means we're in for a long night of research," says Mary.

"And I'm not sure I'm wild about you staying here until we figure out what's going on," says Dean. "You should stay with us."

Mary looks over at him, startled.

"Oh, you...really think I should?" Jamie asks.

"Better safe than sorry," Dean says firmly. "Pack a bag for a couple of days and come stay with us at the motel. I'll text you the address."

"Alright," Jamie nods. "Okay...well, wow, I guess this is serious, then. I've got to head over to the bar soon. I'm working tonight and I won't be able to get back to the motel until late."

"That's okay, we'll be up," Dean says. "Like Mary said, we're in for a long night of research."

Dean walks away without a second glance back at Mary, leaving her to jog after him so he can't drive away without her.

They share several hours of tense silence, sitting in a motel room, scrolling through town records online before Mary leaves to get food.

When she comes back, she's armed with gas station apple pie and a new determination.

She sets the pie down in front of Dean and she sees his eyes light up a little. She remembers that same look on his face when she'd give him dessert when he was little. At least some things don't change.

Dean gives her a small, crooked smile, recognizing the pie as a peace offering. She hands him a plastic fork she had grabbed from the stash in the Impala and they both quietly dig into the pie. After a few calm moments enjoying their treat, Mary decides it's time to break the peace.

"When you look at me, you're not seeing me. You're seeing a ghost," she says softly.

Dean tenses and that muscle in his jaw is twitching again. He doesn't look up from the pie.

"I want to know everything about you," she says and she sees him relax a little. She dreads ruining that brief moment of relaxation for him, but she has to keep going. "I also want to know nothing about you."

Dean exhales sharply, throws his fork down and pushes the pie away from him, "What am I even supposed to say to that? Who says that to their kid?"

"Dean, you're nine years older than me," she tries again. She hates that she has so much trouble articulating her feelings and she hates that it appears to be a hereditary condition she passed down to Dean. "When you….when you've thought about me over the years, I always looked exactly like this, right? Like, whatever stories your dad told you, whatever memories you had or whatever pictures you saw, I always looked exactly like this. But whenever I've thought about you, you know up until a couple of months ago, you were a little kid to me. Can't you...can't you see how this is difficult for me? Three months ago, I was nursing an infant and now that infant is five feet taller than me. Three months ago, I was reading you picture books and singing you lullabies and now you're...now you're older than me. I know...I know this is something...that I'm something you thought you wanted but for me...I've just lost everything, Dean. I've lost my husband and my boys, my entire family and it seems like all of my friends as well."

"You didn't lose us," Dean says, eyes brimming with unshed tears. "We're right here."

"No, you're not, you're not," she struggles to find the right words.

"We're not what you wanted us to be, is what you mean," Dean says bitterly.

"No," she says, her eyes are filling with tears as well. "You're not. I ran as far and as fast as I could from this life. All I wanted was to be a happy and safe in a home with a white picket fence and I wanted kids who grew up to be lawyers or teachers. And every time I look at you, I see everything I lost."

"Yeah, sorry for existing, I guess," Dean growls.

"But I'm not what you wanted, either," says Mary. "You had this idea in your head about what kind of person I was and you're so attached to that fantasy, you don't wanna see me for who I actually am."

There's a soft knock on the motel room door and both Dean and Mary furiously wipe away unshed tears as Mary walks over to let Jamie in.

"Oh, wow, you guys weren't kidding," she says, looking around the room at the two laptops and the stack of newspapers on the table. "Oh, hey, pie!"

"Yeah, help yourself," Dean says. "I actually think I might hit the hay. We're not getting anywhere tonight. Might be better to rest up and get an early start tomorrow."

Mary nods. "That's a good idea."

"Alright, ladies, you can decide which of you gets which bed, I'll sleep on the couch," Dean stands up and stretches out his long limbs.

"What? Dean, no, I'll take the couch," Mary argues.

Dean frowns, "I'm not gonna let my mo--you sleep on a couch."

"Dean, you're six feet tall," Jamie laughs. "You won't even fit on the couch laying down."

"Actually, I'm six foot one," Dean says like it matters.

Jamie snorts. "I'll take the couch. It's the least I can do since you guys are out here to save my ass in the first place."

Dean looks for a moment like he wants to argue longer but he looks at Jamie and then Mary and sighs, "Fine, if you insist."

As Dean retreats to the bathroom to get ready for bed, Mary moves to the couch, hoping that Jamie will take it as an invitation for her to take the other bed. Instead, Jamie plops herself down next to her.

“I believe I said I would take the couch,” Jamie chastises Mary with a small smile on her face.

“I really don’t mind,” Mary shrugs, looking back down at the stack of newspaper reports she brought with her.

“Neither do I,” Jamie shrugs. “And you two are the ones saving me here.”

“We’re just doing our jobs,” Mary mutters, still staring at the newspapers but not really seeing anything.

“Well, can I help?”

“Not really, you have to be trained to see the stuff we’re looking for,” she says.

“Could you teach me some keywords or something? I’m feeling pretty useless sitting over here,” Jamie bumps her shoulder against Mary’s.

By the time Dean comes out of the bathroom, Jamie is still with Mary on the couch, her body pressed close to Mary’s and leaning over to see the newspapers as Mary points out what sorts of things to look for. Mary sees his eyebrows raise but he doesn’t say anything. He simply grunts a good night and throws himself down on the bed, facing away from where they’re sitting.

Mary spends a good half hour softly explaining the types of things to look for in the papers and then hands Jamie a stack of papers and moves away from her to sit on the very end of the couch. Her side is suddenly cold and everything inside her insists that she should immediately move back. Jamie gives her a strange look but simply shakes her head and looks back down at the papers Mary gave her.

They work quietly for another forty-five minutes or so, the only sounds the occasional rustle of paper and Dean's constant snoring. His snores had filled the room shortly after his head hit the pillow. Mary tries not to think about how John slept like that. He could fall asleep under almost any conditions, said it was an aftereffect of serving in the military. You have to get your sleep wherever you can get it in the field he’d told her. She tries so hard not to let her mind wander to why Dean might have needed to develop the same skill.

Mary starts to think about turning in herself but she’s loath to give up now when it’s clear Jamie is still going strong. It seems to be an unspoken thing between them that whoever goes to sleep first will take the last bed. She’s intent on outlasting Jamie but, unfortunately, a poorly stifled yawn gives her away.

“You should go to bed,” Jamie says in a low voice so as not to wake Dean.

Mary shakes her head, “I’m fine, really.”

Jamie smiles, “Are you always this stubborn or is it just something about me that brings it out in you?”

“I…” Mary’s mouth hangs open as she tries to think of a response.

Jamie laughs softly, “Well, at least you’re cute when you’re stubborn.”

Mary’s mouth is still hanging open. Jamie smirks and reaches her hand over, gently guiding Mary’s mouth closed.

Mary clears her throat.

“So…” Jamie starts. “You got anyone waiting for you after you’re done working this case?”

“Waiting for me?” Mary asks.

“You know, boyfriend, husband or whatever…” Jamie scoots closer and Mary suppresses the urge to climb over the arm of the couch to get farther away.

“Um, no, I...I had a husband but he...well, he died,” Mary says, her mouth very dry.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jamie says earnestly. “I had a husband, too. But he didn’t die. I just kinda wish he did.”

Mary looks at Jamie sharply, “What?”

“Oh, no nothing,” Jamie shakes her head. “I’m sorry, that was an incredibly insensitive thing for me to say to someone who actually lost their husband. It’s just that...well, if you met him, you’d understand.”

“You married a bastard, huh?” Mary says.

“He wasn’t, at first,” Jamie says sadly. “Then he...well, I guess I don’t want to say he changed even though it felt like that to me at the time. He just...started to show me his true colors. It was hard, you know? It was so hard realizing that I had no idea who this guy was that I married.”

Mary breathes in sharply, staring at Dean’s sleeping form, “Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve been finding out that the man I married wasn’t who I thought he was, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says quietly. “It sucks to find that out, doesn’t it?”

Mary turns to stare at her and they lock eyes for a moment. Mary stares deeply into Jamie’s soft, sympathetic brown eyes and she wants nothing more than to lean forward, to be close to her again in a way that she can’t name.

Mary pulls herself away and says, “I think you’re right, I think it’s time for bed for me.”

Mary gets up and slips under the covers of the unoccupied bed, turning away from Jamie.

“Good night,” she hears Jamie whisper quietly into the dark.

The next morning finds them sitting in the same diner as the day before, eating a greasy breakfast and grilling Jamie on local legends and any information she has on the previous owners of her house. It doesn't yield much.

Mary sighs. "Well, we might have to hit the local library for this one. Go combing through periodicals to see if anything weird has happened."

"Sorry I couldn't be more useful," Jamie shakes her head.

"It's not your fault," Mary says. "This is a tricky one."

Mary notices Dean's playing with the food on his plate a bit. Finally, he speaks up, "I actually did have a thought."

There's a silence that stretches between them all before Dean grimaces and says, "Fairies."

“Fairies?” Mary asks as Jamie exclaims, “Fairies exist?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Dean says sympathetically. “That one was a shock to me, too.”

“I don't know much about fighting fairies,” Mary sighs. “I didn’t even think they dealt with humans much anymore. I’ve never met one. What makes you think it’s fairies?”

“I’ve tangled with a few fairies in my time,” Dean says. “And I have to say, some of what Jamie’s describing sounds familiar. I, um...hm, I was sort of kidnapped by fairies at one point? And it was like being in this weird dream world. I had memory gaps and lost a lot of time when I was in the fairy world. The only thing that stuck with me was some vague shapes and colors.”

“You were kidnapped by fairies?” Jamie’s voice goes up an unnaturally high degree at the end and she seems to be struggling very hard not to freak out when Dean nods.

“How much do you know about the fairy world?” Mary asks.

“Not much,” Dean says. “They exist in a realm that we can’t even see. And I think there are different realms, too. I wish Charlie was here. She was a friend of mine. She...she passed away. But she was really the expert on all this stuff. She dated a fairy chick for a while and she even lived in Oz for a time.”

“Oz like the Wizard of Oz?” Jamie’s voice has somehow gone even higher though she is still controlling her facial expression enough to not look as panicked as she sounds.

“Yeah, though from what she told me, the books weren’t very accurate,” Dean says. Mary reaches a hand out to quickly squeeze Jamie’s in a way she meant to be comforting but Jamie squeezes back and doesn’t let go. Mary sits there, gripping Jamie’s hand as she thinks about what Dean just said. His friend Charlie. He had a friend named Charlie who died. A friend who was clearly very important to him and Mary never even had a chance to meet her. She wonders if it will ever stop hurting like a knife to the heart every time she thinks about how much of her sons’ lives she missed.

“Okay, okay,” Jamie says, taking a deep breath. “So how bad is this?”

“Well, it really depends on how you look at it,” Dean shrugs, his voice is calm but Mary can see his eyes dart to where her and Jamie’s hands are still clasped on the table. She tries to gently remove her hand but Jamie grips a little tighter when she does. “On the one hand, it’s not great because we don’t know as much about fairies as we do other monsters so that makes them harder to fight. On the other hand, I do know one very important thing about fairies and that is that they don’t mess with humans unless they’re forced to. They prefer to stay in their own magical realms and the only times I’ve seen them come into our world, it’s because a human called them here.”

“So we’re looking for a human?” Mary says. “That does make things easier.”

“A human who knows enough real magic to summon a fairy and force it to do their bidding,” Dean says.

“Like a witch?” Mary asks. Jamie’s hand tightens around hers again but she doesn’t even bother asking if witches really exist, too.

“No, I don’t think so,” Dean shakes his head. “Witches have their own magic. Or magic from demons but even then it’s still something they can control. Binding a fairy is a rookie mistake.”

“Fairies don’t take well to being bound, then?” Mary asks.

“Would you?” Dean huffs. “Odds are, if we can find a way to break the binding spell, the fairy will immediately turn on whoever bound it and then go back to the fairy realm.”

“Alright then,” Mary turns to Jamie. “We have a plan. We just need to figure out who is binding the fairy.”

Jamie nods.

“I...I will need my hand back for that,” Mary says quietly.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Jamie releases her hand and looks out the window. Mary can see Dean glance back and forth between them but she refuses to meet his eye.

“Okay, so,” Dean says eventually. “Who’re your enemies?”

“What?” Jamie asks, startled.

“People don’t go through the trouble of binding a fairy for fun,” Dean says. “Someone has it out for you. Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt you or scare you?”

Jamie stares at the table and says quietly, “My ex-husband...he...he didn’t take the divorce well.”

“He’s threatened you before?” Mary feels an old anger well up in her that she thought she’d forgotten long ago.

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “Like I said, he didn’t take it well. Nick is...he’s pretty controlling.”

“Okay, asshole ex-husband,” Dean nods decisively. “That’s a strong lead. Give us his address and we’ll check him out.”

“You know…” Dean starts speaking but immediately stops. Mary had been staring out the window of the Impala as they're driving to Jamie’s ex-husband’s house but she turns to look at him now.

“I know what?” she asks.

“Oh, nothing,” Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Nothing.”

“Well, that’s definitely something,” Mary raises an eyebrow at him.

“No, nothing, nothing at all,” Dean says. His fingers start tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel.

“Okay, good talk then,” Mary says and turns back to staring out the window. She does love this car. She’s so glad Dean’s taken such good care of it. Her father never let her own her own car. This was the first car she got to drive without her father’s stifling presence. Sometimes that came with John’s stifling presence but it was still mostly good memories between the two of them here in the Impala.

“It’s just…” Dean starts again. “You know, same to you.”

“What?”

“You know, what you said to me before,” he says this meaningfully but Mary couldn’t possibly guess what she’s supposed to be finding meaning in. He stares hard at the road and grumbles, “You know, it’s okay for you to flirt with girls in front of me.”

“I wasn’t...what? I wasn’t even…” Mary tries to stumble in the direction of a coherent response and fails.

“I know you weren’t but maybe you should have been,” Dean snorts.

“I’m not like that,” Mary says quickly.

“Okay,” Dean nods but Mary can’t tell if he really believes her or not. “But, you know, if you were...you know...well, you should know that the world has changed a lot since you...I mean, things are really different now. Then they were the last time you were alive.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Mary mutters.

“I just mean, you know,” Dean shrugs. “Two women can get married now and everything.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a queer,” Mary snaps.

“Right, yeah, of course,” Dean’s gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are white. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”

"So that was a bust," Dean sighs.

"It could still be him," Mary says. "Just because we didn't find anything doesn't necessarily mean it's not him."

"There was nothing suspicious in his whole house," Dean says. "Or on his computer!"

Mary's going off of faith that Dean was able to do as thorough a job of searching the computer as she did of the house because she certainly didn't understand any of the "hacking" he tried to explain to her.

"He could be keeping a spellbook in his car or at his work," Mary suggests. "I mean, fairy binding spells, they don't require altars like dark magic, right? He could just be carrying the spellbook around for safekeeping."

"I guess," Dean frowns. "I still would have expected some weird search results or something to show up in his internet history."

"Maybe he's better with the computers than you are," Mary says.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Dean rolls his eyes. "So we can't rule him out but I'm not sure he's our guy anymore. We should talk to Jamie again and see if she can think of anyone else that might want to hurt her. She should be at work by now. I could go for a beer. What do you say?"

"Alright," Mary's not sure Jamie will appreciate them bothering her at work but she finds it easier to just agree with whatever Dean wants to do. There has been a weird tension between them since their conversation earlier. She wants to bring it up again, wants to ask what exactly it was about her that made him think she was...like that. But he had seemed upset by the whole conversation (even though he was the one that brought it up in the first place) so she let it be for the moment.

The drive over to Jamie's bar is quiet. Dean sings along softly to the radio. She wonders if he's doing it on purpose, so she won't start any conversations with him. She knows by now that when he sings along to songs, he sings loudly and enthusiastically and slightly off key. This feels different, like he's just trying to ensure there's no silence she might feel the need to fill. Mary doesn't mind. She never knows what to say to him when they're not talking about work and she's enjoying the music. It's all stuff she remembers from the 60's and 70's. Dean had told her this was the oldies station but she tries not to think too hard about that. It's playing now and it's familiar and it's comforting and her son is singing along to it as if he grew up with this music as much as she did and she clings to this thread between them.

They pull up to Jamie's beer garden a short while later and Mary's a little shocked to see the extent of the festival that's popped up around it. Hundreds of people milling about among stands selling soft pretzels, Bavarian beers, schnitzel and bratwurst. A polka band is playing somewhere off in the distance.

"Damn, I could go for a giant pretzel," Dean says longingly, staring at a passerby's giant pretzel. "I had one last time I was here. It was amazing. Come on."

Dean drags her over to the stand, orders them two giant pretzels and thrusts hers into her hand before gleefully devouring his own.

"Oh, yah, that's the stuff," Dean says happily, voice muffled because his mouth is stuffed full.

"Is this normal?" Mary asks, tearing off a piece of pretzel and popping it into her mouth. "I mean, an Oktoberfest this big? I didn't really grow up in an area that had anything like this."

"You didn't ever check out the local festivities whenever you were working a case?" Dean asks curiously.

"We mostly only did cases in Kansas, you know," Mary shrugs. "It was different back then. We had to comb through local papers to find cases or hear about things through word of mouth from other hunters. There were hunters that wandered around from town to town, looking for cases but my family always stayed local. We might have heard about a case this far east but my dad would have just called another hunter to take care of it. The only times I went out of state were when I was tracking something that started in Kansas and then skipped town."

"Okay, well, we definitely need to get you some of the local cuisine while we're here, then," Dean says decisively. "Bratwurst and sauerkraut, strudel, oh! Apple fritters!"

"Okay, okay," Mary laughs at the excitement in his eyes. "But maybe we finish the case first?"

"If you insist, but I'm telling ya, you're missing out," Dean huffs but gives her a small smile. "Time to see Jamie then?"

Mary finishes the last few bites of her pretzel (she can't deny, it was incredibly good) and follows him into the bar.

Jamie notices them as soon as they walk in and points to an open booth in the back. They sit down and she follows over shortly with a couple pints of beer.

Setting the beer down in front of them, she murmurs, "Give me a minute to get things sorted up front and I'll be right back."

Mary glances around the bar and notices that hidden among the festive decorations are numerous occult symbols. Devil's traps, protection sigils, even some warding she recognizes as supposed defense against evil spirits. Dean's sitting opposite her so she nudges him under the table with her foot and nods her head in the direction of some of the symbols.

"Huh," he says. "Guess she did some research after we left town last time."

"Not the best research," Mary says. "That warding is useless against actual ghosts."

"Yeah, there's a lot of inaccurate lore out there," Dean takes a sip of his beer. "Sammy's been saying for ages that we should start handing out pamphlets to people we've helped."

"Pamphlets?" Mary raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you know, once they've been attacked by a real monster, the cat's kinda outta the bag," Dean says. "So, Sammy figures we should be giving them some info. In case they run into trouble again. You know, just basic facts. Weird stuff to look out for. Maybe some basic protection sigils and stuff."

"That's actually a really good idea," Mary says, taking a very small sip of her beer. Her father was always so strict about not drinking on cases, it's a hard habit to break.

"You like it?" Dean smiles. "Maybe you can help Sammy with putting it together. He'd like that."

Mary nods and looks around again. The booth Jamie pointed them to is actually perfect for their purposes. They're in a far corner that gives them a view of the whole room and the large window out front.

From her vantage point, Mary can see everyone walking by the bar and her eye gets caught on a young child who has tripped and skinned their knee. The mother is close by and scoops the kid up quickly, cuddling them close. Mary aches at the sight. She wants nothing more than to be able to scoop up her babies and hold them close to her.

"Who held you when you cried?" Mary doesn't even realize she's asked the question out loud until she hears Dean choke on his beer.

"What?" He asks in a strangled voice, still coughing a bit on the beer he must have inhaled.

"Everybody cries sometimes and you were very young when I died," Mary says, wondering if any of this is making sense to him. "You probably cried a lot."

"Um, no," he says very carefully. "No, I didn't."

"Oh," she says and she doesn't mean for it to come out so small.

"I, um. I didn't speak for a long time. After," Dean says, staring hard at his beer. "Dad was worried. Kept trying to get me to say things. But I just….I don't know, I guess I couldn't. I think he always felt like I wouldn't. I don't think he ever understood that I couldn't."

"And he didn't hold you? When you couldn't speak?" Mary forces herself to look directly at Dean as she asks this. She needs to see the answer in his face.

"I don't know, I guess maybe he must have at some point," Dean shrugs and picks up his beer again and Mary feels her heart break all over again.

"Sorry about the wait guys," Jamie joins them at the table, slipping in next to Mary without giving her time to scoot over so they're briefly pressed together before Mary hurriedly moves further into the booth. Mary can still feel the warmth where Jamie had been pressed against her. "So, what's the deal?"

“Seems like your ex is clean,” Dean sighs. “Anyone else you can think of who might want to hurt you?”

“Not really.”

“Damn,” Dean says.

“Yeah, sorry I’m not a more hated person,” Jamie smiles ruefully.

“It might not be someone you think of as an enemy,” Mary says. “Sometimes people...people can be very petty and when they get some amount of power, they get addicted to it. It could be someone you offended years ago that you barely even think about anymore.”

“Well…” Jamie says uncertainly. “I did have some trouble a few years back with the bar. There was this big company that wanted to buy me out. They were pretty pissed when I wouldn’t sell. They wanted the building, said it was a prime location.”

Mary glances over at Dean and sees that he’s thinking the exact same thing as her.

“We’re going to need the name of that company and whoever it was you dealt with over there,” Mary says, pulling out a paper and pen and handing it over to Jamie.

“It was just a business deal that didn’t go through,” Jamie shakes her head. “You really think someone would be calling fairies from another realm just for that?”

“You’d be shocked at what people use magic for once they know it exists,” Dean says.

Jamie pulls out her phone and scribbles down the company’s contact info.

“Sal Ditko,” Dean says, reading the paper upside down from where he sits. “THINK Business, Inc.”

“Alright, we’ll check this out,” Mary says, slipping her notepad back into her suit pocket. “Is there anyone else you can think of? We need to examine all the possibilities as quickly as possible, seeing as tomorrow is Saturday.”

“But if I stay out of my house, nothing bad will happen, right?” Jamie says quickly. “I mean, that’s why you had me stay with you last night?”

Mary pauses for a moment, waiting for Dean to explain but he simply raises an eyebrow at her. She takes a deep breath and then says, “Jamie, we had you stay with us last night because we assumed there was a problem with the house. If this is what we think it is and someone has bound a fairy to do their bidding, the problem isn’t connected to the house. They’ll be able to find you anywhere.”

Jamie nods firmly but there’s a tremble in her hand as she reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear. Dean kicks Mary under the table. Startled, Mary glares questioningly at him but he only inclines his head in Jamie’s direction. Turning to Jamie, Mary says, “You don’t have to worry. We’re going to keep you safe. We’ll be with you the whole time.”

Jamie smiles at her a bit shakily. Dean kicks her foot again, more lightly this time, and without thinking, Mary reaches out to squeeze Jamie’s hand. “It won’t be like the other times this happened. You won’t be alone.”

“Thanks, Mary,” Jamie’s smile is a little more sure this time.

Mary clears her throat and takes her hand away from Jamie’s, “We’ll let you get back to work.”

Mary’s attempting to work on the computer as Jamie lets herself into the motel room around 11:00pm that night.

“Hey,” Mary says, thankful for the interruption. “How was work?”

“Normal,” Jamie shrugs.

“No ghost sightings, then?” Mary jokes.

“Oh, god, is that something I have to worry about?” Jamie throws herself dramatically onto the bed nearest the door. “I’ve already had to deal with movie monsters and fairies. Can’t that be enough for one person?”

“That would be more than enough for one person if you weren’t talking to a hunter,” Mary says. “You hungry? We’ve got some leftover fries in the fridge.”

“Yum, soggy fries! You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” Jamie walks over to the fridge and pulls out the takeout container.

“My main goal is to show a girl a safe time,” Mary says, still staring at the infuriating computer screen.

“Where’s Dean, anyway?” Jamie asks, popping a cold fry into her mouth.

“Tailing Sal Ditko,” Mary replies. “He texted me about half an hour ago. Hasn’t seen anything interesting so far.”

“And what are you doing?” Jamie asks.

“Research but it's going very slow because I have to use…” Mary trails off, knowing how strange a rant against the internet would sound coming from someone of her apparent age. “Less than ideal methods. I really think he should’ve let me tail the potential creep so he could stay here and do research."

“Is this some misguided chivalry thing?” Jamie asks.

“What?” Mary looks over at her, puzzled.

“He just seems a little protective of you, is all,” Jamie shrugs. “Seems like maybe he’s the overprotective type.”

“Oh, no, he’s not…” Mary searches for the words to even begin to describe their relationship. “I mean, he is. Protective. But he’s also...I mean, he’s...lost people. He’s protective of everyone. And also...he...well, he said he thought maybe you’d prefer it if I were here waiting for you rather than him.”

Jamie smiles, “Okay, so he gets credit for being right, then.”

Mary has no idea how to respond so she simply doesn’t.

“So, is it all work and no play with you?” Jamie asks, still picking at the container of fries in her lap.

“Well, my job is pretty time consuming,” Mary shrugs. “There’s always another case, another mystery to solve, another person that needs helping.”

“Yeah, but you have to take a break sometime,” Jamie says.

“I did, once,” Mary says, her hands are still on the keyboard of the laptop in front of her but she’s staring, completely unfocused on the motel wall. “I took a break for a few years. It didn’t really work out, though.”

“What does that mean?” Jamie asks.

“Nothing, it means...nothing,” Mary shakes herself and tries to return to her research.

Jamie, however, has no patience for that. “No, you can’t just say something like that, say it like you’re all haunted by your past and whatever and then just blow off any follow up questions.”

Jamie stands up, grabs Mary by the hand and leads her back to the bed.

“Sit,” Jamie says. “And talk.”

“There’s nothing much to say,” Mary mumbles.

“Okay, let’s start with how you got into this whole hunting thing,” Jamie prompts.

“I was raised in it,” Mary says. “It’s what my parents did. What they wanted me to do.”

“But not what you wanted to do?”

“It’s the only thing I know how to do,” Mary says. “I tried another life for a while but...the old life caught up to me. I told you I was married and...well, it ended.”

“Yeah, marriages do that,” Jamie elbows her a bit.

“Did a demon come and destroy your family?” Mary asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

Jamie’s face falls, “No.”

“Then our marriages had slightly different endings,” Mary stares at the motel wall again. There’s an uncomfortable silence surrounding them now and Mary starts to feel guilty for being the cause of it. “But it’s not just that, really...I had this...life. This life that I always imagined would be perfect. And of course that’s stupid, nothing is perfect...but it’s like, I spent so much time fantasizing about what it would be like and then I had it and it’s like I didn’t...fit. I didn’t fit in the life I wanted. I tried so hard but I didn’t. And now...now, I’m learning all these things. I’m learning all these things about the kind of man my husband was and I don’t think I knew him at all.”

“Well,” Jamie smiles ruefully. “That last part is at least something I can relate to. I know a little bit about marrying someone who turns out to be a different person than you thought you knew.”

Mary sighs. “We had issues. Of course we did, all couples do. I just always thought...I always thought he’d be there when...I guess I thought he’d get himself together.”

Mary’s silent for a moment. She doesn’t even know how to begin to explain why she needed John Winchester to be the man she wanted him to be. She’s seen something of the way the world is now. Maybe, if she had been born into these times, she would have found a way out that didn’t require a John Winchester. But in the time she had been born into? She had very few options for escaping the life her parents had decided for her. John had felt like the only way to save herself so she needed to believe he could be a better man.

“My guy actually seemed pretty well together, at first,” Jamie sighs. “It was just...the longer we were together, the more and more controlling he got. He started getting upset if I spent too much time with my friends instead of him, he’d get angry about the hours I worked. He even started hiding my work clothes because he said they were too slutty. I tried to tell him that’s how bartenders get good tips but he didn’t seem to think that was funny.”

Mary huffs, “Yeah, I know a little something about controlling men.”

“You really don’t think it’s him?” Jamie asks cautiously.

“Why are you so sure it is?” Mary asks. “He was the first name you gave us. Right away, as soon as we asked you named him.”

Jamie shrugs, “Like I said, he didn’t take the divorce well. He was controlling and when I decided to leave…”

“He lost it,” Mary nods.

“Yeah, totally freaked out, shouting, throwing things. He told me I’d regret it,” Jamie said. “Honestly...I’ve kinda been waiting for him to get back at me. I’ve spent the last couple years since our divorce looking over my shoulder.”

“Well, he didn’t count on you having backup,” Mary bumps her shoulder against Jamie’s.

“Do you think it’s him?” Jamie asks again quietly.

“I don’t know,” Mary says. “We didn’t find anything suspicious in his house but that doesn’t completely rule him out. It does sound like he had a pretty good motive. The best thing to do is evaluate all the potential threats.”

“Well, sounds like Dean’s got Sal Ditko covered,” Jamie says. “And it didn’t sound like that little research project you were doing over there was going anywhere.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Dinner and a movie?” Jamie holds up the rest of the fries. “Classic first date stuff.”

Mary tenses at Jamie’s words and she must notice because she quickly says, “It would just be good to distract myself for a little while. You know, with a movie.”

“Well, okay, but you don’t need me for that,” Mary tries to move off the bed but Jamie grabs her arm.

“You said you weren’t going to leave me alone,” Jamie says.

“I’m not leaving you alone, I’m just getting off the bed,” Mary shrugs.

“Okay, how about this,” Jamie smiles at her. “Why don’t you watch ten minutes of a movie with me? Just to help me relax and then you can go back to doing whatever terribly important work you were doing.”

“Ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes,” Jaime swears.

Mary is walking but the air around her feels thick and her movements are slow, like she’s wading through water. There’s bright, disorientating bursts of color at the edges of her eyes. When she tries to look directly at anything, it turns foggy like she’s looking through a frosted window. There’s a sharp pain in her head. She grasps wildy for something, anything. She needs to calm herself and think clearly. She knows she had been in a motel. She had been sitting in bed, next to Jamie. They were watching a movie, it was late...did she fall asleep? She doesn’t remember falling asleep. This world feels dreamlike but she’s too aware of everything for it to really be a dream. Which means she must be in the fairy realm, probably with Jamie.

Jamie had been right next to her in their world and if Mary got sucked into the fairy realm with her, it must have been because they were so close to each other. Mary reaches out wildly to try and grab on to anything that might be near her. If Jamie was close to her in their world, she should be somewhere near her in this world. Bright colors dodge in and out of her grasp. She wonders if they’re beings or if it's just the energy of this world. She hears the sounds of bells tinkling and it sounds strangely like mocking laughter.

There is a large blob of light approaching her. Mary’s vision starts to become clearer as she takes in the figure in front of her. She still can’t make out details but she sees the large serpentine body, vivid green scales shining with a gold aura, the top half looks almost human but she can’t be sure. The figure starts reaching out to her with it’s almost human hands. Mary reaches into her sleeve and pulls out a silver knife, slashing at the monster.

The entire world feels suddenly hostile to her. She hears hissing but it doesn’t come from the figure in front of her; it comes from all around her. The bright colors that have surrounded her since she entered this place turn into angry reds and oranges. Her vision starts to fog over again, leaving her with only the feeling that she is in some very unwelcoming place that is now trying to shove her out. She tries to fight it, she needs to find Jamie again before she can leave but it seems that once this realm has decided it no longer wants her, she no longer has the ability to stay.

Mary is suddenly in the motel room, panting heavily, silver knife still clutched in her hand and body still poised for an attack.

“MOM!” Dean rushes to her, wrapping his strong arms around her and pulling her into the tightest hug they’ve ever shared.

“When...when did you get back?” Mary asks, her body untensing. She hugs him back carefully, still keeping the knife in her hand.

“Last night,” Dean huffs into her shoulder. “You’ve been gone all day.”

“I--what?” Mary asks. “I--I couldn’t have been there for more than a few minutes.”

“That’s the way some fairy realms work,” Dean says. “You lose time in them.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Mary says.

“You didn’t like it?” Dean says, incredulous. “I’ve been the one stuck here all day, panicking because I had no way to get you back.”

“Sorry,” Mary says in a small voice.

“Ugh.” Dean finally releases her and says in a teasing tone, “Fairies! Why did it have to be fairies?”

Mary’s confused face must speak for her because Dean frowns at her. “Like snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Indiana Jones! Okay, when we get back, we need to have a movie ni--”

There’s a groan somewhere else in the room and they turn to see Jamie on the floor, blood pouring from one of her arms.

“Ah, shit!” Dean says and he runs to grab their emergency kit.

Mary rushes to Jamie’s side, scooping her up in her arms, “Jamie!”

“Did...did Dean just call you mom?” Jamie slurs before passing out.

Mary sits nervously by Jamie's still unconscious body. She's already gently pushed Jamie's hair out of her face more times than she thinks is strictly necessary but she wishes there was more she could do. Dean had patched her up to the best of his ability (which was disturbingly good). She wants to ask him about how he got so good at motel room stitches but she knows it's better if she never knows the answer to that.

"You need to tell me everything that happened when you were in the fairy realm," Dean says, sitting down on the bed opposite her and Jamie.

"I told you," Mary frowns. "It was all very confusing. Like my brain didn't even want to comprehend it. There were a lot of bright colors and weird sounds and I think I saw a monster."

"What did the monster look like?" Dean asks carefully.

Mary shakes her head, "I can't give you a good description. My vision was all…clouded over. But I did see that it looked like a half human, half serpent...thing. Like something out of a medieval myth, the ones of creepy mermaids."

"Okay," Dean's mouth twists a bit. "What did you do?"

"What?" Mary says, she still staring intently at Jamie, as if it will make her wake up faster if she never looks away.

"You had your knife out," Dean says patiently. "You attacked it?"

"Well, yeah," Mary shrugs. "Of course."

"And you injured it?"

Mary nods.

"And as soon as that happened, you both got transported back here?" Dean is making a face like he's trying to ask a question without asking the question. She recognizes that face by now, it's almost permanently fixed to Sam's face whenever they try to discuss anything personal.

Mary sighs, "Dean, it's been a long night...or day. Day and night. Whatever it is you're trying to say, just say it."

"Mo--, Mary, you know what this looks like, right?" Dean says and she wants to smack the sympathy right off his face. "It looks like she's our monster."

"That doesn't make any sense, Dean," Mary says, reaching over to fix Jamie's blankets so they perfectly cover her waist. "Why would she call us here if she was the monster?"

"Maybe to lure one of us into the fairy realm," Dean suggests. "Or maybe she doesn't even know she's doing it."

"If her plan was to lure me into the fairy realm, she sure didn't do a great job of it," Mary snorts. "And how could she be the monster without knowing she's the monster?"

"Some werewolves don't know they're werewolves," Dean shrugs. "They go into some sort of...other state of consciousness. I've seen it before."

"She's not a werewolf," Mary says. "And besides she said all of this just started happening. Have you ever heard of someone turning into a fairy?"

"Well, there's a lot of changeling lore out there…" Dean begins but Mary cuts him off.

"Changeling lore is about children, Dean," Mary shakes her head. "There's no lore out there about fairies taking adults."

"But there's also a lot about fairy lore we simply don't know," Dean says. "They're so many different kinds of fairies and they're all hidden away. And most of them are assholes, in my experience."

Mary looks down at Jamie's face again. Her body is relaxed in the bed but her face is crinkled a bit in pain or discomfort. She's still beautiful and Mary wants nothing more than to reach out and gently smooth away the pain on her face.

"Listen, I know you don't want to hear this," Dean says quietly. "I know she's...I mean, I know you guys were starting to get to know each other but it's an option we need to consider."

"Fine," Mary snaps. She doesn't know if she's angrier at the assumption that there's something personal at stake here for her or the implication that Jamie might be evil.

"Alright, I'm gonna start in on some research," Dean says and he walks over to the laptop.

"You do that," Mary says as she adjusts the pillows under Jamie's head.

The next day finds Mary at the library. Jamie had woken up eventually, bleary eyed and confused. Dean had convinced her to call in sick to work and he was with her back at the motel, doing research on his laptop. Mary knows he only suggested she go to the library to get her away from Jamie but she went anyway because it really is the only good way she knows to research and she needs to research if she's going to prove Dean wrong. She’s sifting through giant tombs on medieval mythic creatures when her phone buzzes.

Sam: Dean says you two are working on a case together? How’s it going?

Mary hesitates. She’s in a library so she shouldn’t talk on her phone but she also truly loathes texting. Something about it just doesn’t feel right. She takes a quick glance around. It's the middle of the day, there’s hardly anyone in here. She hits Sam’s name and holds the phone close to her ear. He picks up during the first ring.

“Hey, mom, what’s up?”

Mary tries not to tense at being called “mom”. She knows it’s something he needs. She thinks it’s something he needs. “Not much...just a tricky case.”

“Tricky? Do you guys need me? I could start driving now,” Sam says and Mary can already hear rustling on the other end of the phone like he’s rushing to leave that very second.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Mary says. “We’re fine, we’re handling it. It’s nothing big just...puzzling. I’ve been stuck in the library all morning.”

“A local library?” Sam asks. “They can’t have much. You should let me check the Men of Letters library. They might have something you’re looking for.”

“Possibly,” Mary nods. She knows the Men of Letters probably have a great number of resources tucked safely away in the bunker but she’s never spent enough time there to look through any of them. “So...we think it’s fairies.”

“Ugh, fairies,” Sam groans. “Okay, I can check it out. What kind of fairies?”

“Well, they seem to only show up on Saturdays,” Mary says.

“Doing what?” Sam asks curiously.

“What do you mean?” Mary asks.

“I mean, to do what,” Sam says. “Fairies don’t just show up. They don’t really like interacting with humans.”

“Right, right,” she says. “Dean mentioned that. He said a human would have had to make a deal for the fairies to appear?”

“Yes, and a deal would mean that the human asked for something,” he explains. “Normally it’s favors, like those old folktales about fairies doing all the cobbler’s work. Sometimes it can be darker than that. We worked a case once where a guy had forced a fairy to attack people for him. So, what’s this fairy doing?”

“...kidnapping a woman and dragging her into the fairy realm every Saturday?” she replies.

“Huh, that is weird.” He thinks for a moment then asks, “What happens when she gets to the fairy realm?”

“No idea, she doesn’t really remember much when she comes back.”

“Damn,” Sam groans. “That’s pretty typical for fairies but it’s still a pain.”

“Yeah, I certainly couldn’t tell what was going on when I was there,” she says without thinking.

“When you were where?” Sam exclaims.

“Oh, um,” she coughs a bit. “I was...I was sort of with Jamie the last time the fairies took her and I went with her into the fairy realm?”

Sam inhales sharply but says nothing.

“I do remember one thing, though,” Mary says quickly. “There was this half human half serpent monster. Maybe that’s a lead.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll check into that,” Sam mutters.

There’s silence between them for a moment before Sam ventures to ask, “Yeah, so...how are things?”

“Well, like I said, the case has us a bit stumped…” Mary begins but Sam cuts her off.

“No, no, I mean,” he clears his throat. “You know, with you. How are things...with you?”

“Fine,” she replies.

“Oh, right, yeah, okay,” Sam’s disappointment seeps through the phone.

“It’s...interesting,” she says. “Being out here with Dean. He’s...well. We’re really still getting to know each other.”

“Oh yeah, I mean, it sucks that you haveto get to know each other but...but you are, right? Getting to know each other?” He asks hopefully.

It’s his tone more than his question that makes it hard for Mary to breathe. The way he asks the question lodges deep in her chest and blocks her throat. Sam is the hopeful one and his hope causes her pain. Sometimes it’s easier to deal with Dean and his difficult moods and stony silences. She understands that. She doesn't understand Sam. She has no idea what in his life could have made Sam hope so hard.

“It’s...yeah...we’re...it was a long ride,” she says. “We...talked.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks excitedly. “About what?”

She’s tempted to say that they talked about Dean’s girlfriend. Maybe if she can get information on this girl from someone other than Dean, it’ll be easier for Dean to talk about this girl to her but she swallows down that urge. She’s spent so much of her life lying. She had to hide so much from her parents because she wasn’t what they wanted her to be. She had to hide so much from John because he would never accept all that she was. She’s trying so hard not to do that with her boys. Unfortunately, her long pause has clearly not gone unnoticed by Sam.

“Did you guys--” he says. “If you...I mean, if you talked about something personal or something, obviously you don’t have to tell me. You know, I’m just glad you’re getting along--”

“We’re not, really,” Mary says. She’s pretty sure there’s only one person in the entire world that understands their whole situation so she might as well take advantage of that right now. If she’s learned anything about Sam in her brief time back on earth, it’s that he’s always has a stack of research to back up his opinions. Maybe he has a “how to talk to Dean” handbook laying around somewhere. “It was tense. Sometimes, it’s okay. Sometimes we can talk but...but really we can only talk about hunting monsters.”

She can practically hear Sam’s face making the patented Sam Winchester Concerned Forehead Crinkle on the other end of the phone when he starts talking, “It is..it is something you both have in common. I know it sucks that we can’t just be one big close happy family as quickly as we want but that’s not a bad starting place, is it?”

Mary sighs. “I guess not. I just feel like I can never say the right thing. It’s like every conversation with him is filled with landmines.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda just talking with Dean sometimes,” Sam’s voice is bitter in a way she hasn’t heard before. “He’s stubborn as hell. Must be hereditary.”

Mary’s honestly not sure if that’s a slight against her or John but they probably both deserve it. “I just wish it was easier.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sam sighs softly. “But we’ll get there eventually, right? Dean might yell a lot but there’s a very caring person under there.”

“Dean yells a lot?” Mary asks, surprised.

“Yeah, he hasn’t...wait, you said you guys…” Sam searches for the right words.

“He’s just been...very closed off,” she says. “He’s never yelled at me.”

“He hasn’t?” Sam asks and then snorts. “Yeah, of course he hasn’t.”

Mary has absolutely no idea how to respond to whatever that was so she simply says, “Yeah, well, you know.”

“Yeah, unfortunately I do know,” Sam sighs. “Anyway, I should check into this serpent monster thing for you.”

“Yes, thank you,” she says and wants to kick herself with how formal it sounds.

“Okay, mom, I’ll talk to you later,” he says and then much more quietly he adds, “Love you. Bye.”

“Yeah, bye,” she says and hangs up quickly.

After a few more uneventful hours of work at the library, Mary decides to head back to the motel. The Canonsburg Library is large enough that it has a decent folklore and myth section but she’s always been efficient at hunter research. She can quickly skim books and discard the ones that won’t be helpful. It’s a skill her mother drilled into her when she was very young. Her mother used to time her ability to evaluate a book’s usefulness. Her mother would hand her an unknown book, potentially full of valuable information a hunter needs but also potentially full of incorrect lore passed down by unaware civilians, and she would set the kitchen egg timer. Mary would race through the book, searching for anything that might indicate it’s quality. She had to make the (correct) decision before the egg timer ran out or she would lose her dessert that night.

Mary lets herself quietly back into the motel. Dean had dropped her at the library this morning but she hadn’t wanted to call him for a ride back. She’d hopped on a bus and rode it back. She’s hoping she can slip into one of the beds and fall asleep. Her time in the fairy realm must have exhausted her more than she knew because it was only late afternoon but she could barely keep her eyes open.

When she looks around the motel room, Jamie is nowhere to be found but she can hear Dean’s voice coming from the bathroom, like he’s speaking to someone. She can hear a second, more garbled voice so he must have someone on speaker phone.

“--I’m just saying, Dean,” the other voice is saying. “That the next time our mother goes missing, I’d like to know about it.”

“Sammy, I had the whole thing under control,” Dean’s saying now. “There was nothing for you to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about...” the voice Mary now recognizes as Sam’s sounds beyond frustrated. “DEAN. You did NOT have it under control, I can’t think of a time where you had less control of a situation--”

“Sammy,” Dean’s voice interrupts. “What’s done is done, okay? Now I know to call you next time.”

“Now you know to call me?”

“Look, we’ve got a case to work, okay? Can we focus on that and fight later?”

Sam grumbles something that Mary can’t quite make out but he sounds very irritated.

Dean laughs, “Bitch.”

“Okay, okay, jerk,” Sam says. “But you know we’re not done with this conversation. In fact, I think we need to have several conversations about mom.”

“Sammy,” Dean groans.

“No, look, Dean, how long do you think you can keep this from her?” Sam’s voice is sounding angry again. “It’s not fair to her. It’s not fair to you and you know what? It is really not fair to Cas--”

“Woah, hey, hey,” Dean cuts him off. “Not fair to Cas? Cas is fine.”

“Really, Dean? How do you think this makes him feel? You’re keeping him a secret from your mother--”

Mary moves quickly to the bathroom door and knocks.

“Oh, yeah,” Dean’s voice sounds sheepish. “It’s unlocked, you can come in.”

She opens the door and sees he’s standing in front of the sink, his hands covered in suds, scrubbing at a duffle bag. His phone sits on the counter, blinking Sam’s name.

“Hi, boys,” she tries to sound as normal as possible.

“Hi, mom!” Sam’s voice chirps from Dean’s phone.

“Hey, mo--um, hey,” Dean says. Gesturing towards the duffle bag in the sink he says, “I was just trying to get a nasty blood stain out of this thing.”

“Oh yeah,” she nods. “Sure.”

“Yup,” Dean nods.

“Where’s Jamie?” she asks.

“Oh, Jamie insisted on going in before the dinner rush,” Dean says, fiddling with the wet bag in front of him. “She said she didn’t want to leave her people short staffed. I made her promise to come back once things slow down again.”

“Ah good,” Mary says.

“Yeah,” Dean shrugs.

“Okay, so…” Mary starts but doesn’t know where to go with the sentence now she’s started it.

“Sam’s--” Dean practically shouts this and seems to realize how loud he was being because he stops speaking and then continues at a normal speaking volume. “Sam’s got some info for us.”

“Oh, really?” Mary looks towards the phone as if Sam could see her turn towards him.

“Oh yeah,” Sam says and he even seems a little excited to be bringing information to them. “So get this, there’s this old French legend about the Melusine.”

“The Melusine,” Mary repeats with a frown.

“Never heard of it,” Dean says, moving to hang the duffle bag on the shower bar to dry then quickly wiping his hands off on a towel.

“Yeah, there’s not a ton of lore on it,” Sam says. “But according to the Men of Letters, it definitely existed.”

“Existed as in doesn’t exist anymore?” asks Dean.

“Well, no one’s seen one for a couple hundred years but you know how time works differently in the fairy realm,” Sam’s picking up speed now, almost stumbling over his word with how excited he is to get all of his knowledge out to them. “It’s completely possible that there have been Melusine monsters in the fairy realm this whole time and none were called forth into the human realm.”

“Okay, so what’s the myth?” Dean asks.

“Well, there are a couple variations of the myth,” Sam says. “But they all share some common themes. A woman who marries a man under the condition that he never looks at her on a Saturday and never asks her where she goes. The marriage lasts for a while but the husband always ends up driving himself crazy, thinking about what she’s doing on Saturdays that she won’t tell him about. So he follows her and finds out she’s a part fairy, part human creature and on Saturdays she turns into a half serpent/half human figure. Once he looks upon her in that form, she’s cursed to stay in that half serpent body forever."

“Like in Swan Lake?” Dean asks.

“Uh,” a clearly startled Sam replies. “Yeah, um. Actually exactly like in Swan Lake. Same thing happens in Selkie myths, too.”

“Huh,” Dean says thoughtfully.

“Is that it?” Mary asks.

“The story always ends with her so angry with him that she leaves forever,” Sam says. “Sometimes she sprouts wings and flies away from him while yelling at him.”

“Good for her,” Mary mutters.

“Okay, so, did the Men of Letters have any thoughts on fighting something like this?” Dean asks.

“Well, it’s actually really interesting,” Sam says and there’s some loud rustling of papers.

“Interesting in a ‘we can use this to fight it’ way or interesting in a ‘you’re a total nerd and think obscure, conflicting lore is interesting’ way?” Dean asks.

“Um,” Sam says.

“Yeah, cool, so no helpful information from you, then?” Dean surmises.

“It could potentially be helpful information,” Sam says defensively.

Dean rolls his eyes, “Yeah, okay, lay it on me.”

“Well, the Men of Letters noted that there’s some inconsistencies in the myth that don’t quite add up,” Sam explains. “From what we know about fairies, a part human/part fairy creature isn’t even possible. So that leaves the question of what exactly was Melusine, right? All the myths mention this curse of Melusine so their theory was that Melusine wasn’t a creature, exactly, but rather a fairy curse cast on a human.”

Mary locks eyes with Dean and they nod at each other in silence.

“Okay, that’s actually super helpful,” Dean says. “Thanks, Sam.”

"Yeah," Sam says. "And if that's true, then there might be a spell to break the curse. One of the Men of Letters was working on something I think might work."

"That sounds great, Sam," Dean says. "Send us the spell and we'll see if it works."

“Alright, you guys be safe, right?” Sam says. “Call me after you’ve dealt with everything.”

“Will do,” Dean says and he hangs up.

“We need to look into Jamie’s ex again,” Mary says immediately.

“What? No,” Dean says. “We need to talk to Jamie again. She’s been turning into a half serpent monster once a week and forgot to tell us.”

"We don't know that Jamie's the creature I saw," she argues.

"Yeah...we kinda do," he says and looks vaguely guilty as he speaks. "I didn't say anything in front of Sam because I figured he'd just freak out and start driving here but Jamie….her arm was completely healed after a couple of hours. The wound just completely gone. Last I saw it, there was still a scar but I wouldn't be surprised if that disappeared, too."

"That doesn't necessarily mean--" Mary starts but Dean cuts through impatiently.

"You and I both know exactly what that means," he huffs. "Not human."

"Not human doesn't mean monster," Mary says quietly.

"Don't I know that," Dean mutters. "But everything about this is suspicious. You have to see that."

“You said yourself she might not be aware of what’s happening,” Mary says. “I think she gave us as much information as she could. We know who might have it out for her and her ex-husband is our best bet. He’s a controlling asshole, just like the guys in the myths.”

Dean gives her a pensive look and then says, “Mom, there’s something you missed here while you were at the library.”

Mary stares stonily at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Someone died last night, right next door,” Dean sighs. “I don’t want to believe it’s Jamie either but there’s a body now and--”

“How?” Mary interrupts.

“How what?” He asks.

“How did they die?”

Dean shrugs, “Slit throat.”

“That doesn’t sound like a monster,” she argues.

“So I’m supposed to buy that it was just coincidental that this woman was murdered at the exact same time that Jamie turned into a monster?”

“You don’t know that Jamie turned into a monster,” Mary says, Dean tries to interrupt her but she barrels ahead, “And you also can’t possibly know that the woman was murdered while we were in the fairy realm!”

“Yes, I do,” Dean says. “I saw the estimated time of death on the report, it matches.”

Scrambling for something, Mary says, “That can only be preliminary. They can’t possibly have finished a complete autopsy so fast.”

“So what?” Dean’s voice raises in volume. “We’re just supposed to wait around until it’s extra confirmed that her murder and what’s happening with Jamie are linked?”

“Don’t raise your voice with me,” Mary whispers, her voice deadly. “I wouldn’t allow your father to talk to me that way and I won’t allow it from you.”

Dean is frozen in front of her, his face a mixture of anger, pain and what she thinks might be fear. He exhales harshly, his eyes flashing with hurt and rage, body rigid with unexpressed anger. He walks past her stiffly, glaring straight ahead and clearly headed for the door.

Mary is gripped with the paralyzing fear that yet another Winchester man is about to walk out on her.

“Dean, wait,” she says softly. “I’m sorry.”

He looks back at her silently, and she sees in his eyes a man she knows, not because he's her son but because she's seen that look of violent anger in other hunters' eyes. His eyes are the same green of her baby boy’s but his gaze is cold and dangerous. It’s the look of a killer and she knows it well.

“That crossed a line,” she says finally, breaking eye contact with him because if she sees that look in her little boy’s eyes any longer, she’ll run from him again. “I didn’t mean...I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Dean nods once, his jaw clenched but the threat of violence has disappeared from his eyes.

“We don’t seem to know how to speak to each other,” she says. “I’d like to change that..but I think the only way to change that is to talk more so...well, I think we’re in for a lot of terrible conversations before we can start to get to know each other.”

Dean gives her a hard, searching look for a moment.

“Look,” she says. “I know we haven’t known each other long and I know it goes against everything John ever told you about me, but I’m good at this. I know a monster when I see one.”

Dean’s jaw twitches but he holds her eye and nods, “Okay, we can start with the ex-husband but if we don’t find anything on him quick, we have to talk about how to trap Jamie.”

Mary nods.

The car ride over to Nick's house is silent. Dean doesn't even turn on any music. They pull in across the street and Mary's heart drops into her stomach. Jamie's car is in the driveway.

"Looks like she didn't go to work like she said," Dean shoots her a meaningful glance.

"You don't know why she's here," she replies.

Dean sighs. "Okay, look. I'm not saying she's up to no good but I'm saying there's a possibility she's up to no good and I need to know you're going to have my back in there if she isn't who you think she is."

"Dean, you don't have to worry about me," Mary says. "I know you think that I'm...personally attached to Jamie but it's not that. It's an instinct. I've worked a lot of these cases and I got very good at reading people. You should know, you do it, too. Which is why I know that you don't really think she's bad news, either. You're just playing devil's advocate, though I'm not sure why."

"She could have all kinds of nefarious motives," he says stiffly.

Mary sighs, "Either tell me what's really bothering you or shut up about this so we can go do our jobs."

Silence finds itself between them once again and Mary's beginning to think of the silence as another son to her. She spends just as much time with silence as she does Sam and Dean. More, even.

"I can't lose you again," Dean's staring out the window, pretending to watch the house but Mary doubts he's actually seeing anything. "I know...I know you're not the mom I thought you were and I'm...I'm working on that, I am. I'm trying to be okay with you...with you doing this job. But I just wish...I just wish you'd be more careful. I wish you'd second guess everything so no one can ever get the jump on you."

Mary leans over and pulls him into a hug. He crumples into her and she kisses the top of his head. She doesn't say what she's thinking (that maybe he'd be better off without her, that maybe there's nothing left in the world that needs her anymore). She just starts to softly sing Hey, Jude. He sobs a little and tries to cover it up as a cough.

"Okay, okay, whatever," he pulls away from her and says roughly, "We've got a job to do now."

“Yes, we do,” says Mary firmly.

“Alright,” Dean says, clearing his throat and pulling a duffle bag from the back. “This is gonna take a bit of trial and error, since there are a lot of different types of fairies and we’re not entirely sure which realm this one is from. Sam dug up a spell he thinks will work. Whichever nerd in the Men of Letters did all that Melusine research cooked up something he thought would work but he never had the opportunity to actually test it out.”

“Right, so we’re trying that first?” she asks.

“Yeah, Sam thinks it looks pretty promising,” Dean nods. “Here’s a copy of the incantation.”

He hands her a piece of paper with the incantation written on it with the words spelled out phonetically underneath.

“What is this...old French?” she asks.

“Yeah, medieval French,” Dean nods. “That’s where the myth originated so it’s based off the work some old French monk did.”

“Alright,” she says. “And the backup plan?”

“Backup plans,” Dean corrects. “They’re sensitive to silver and iron. It won’t kill them but it’ll slow them down. Sometimes they’re bound by a spellbook, in which case, destroy the spellbook if you see one.”

Mary nods.

“And,” Dean says, pulling a strange bottle filled with murky liquid out of the duffle bag. “There’s this. A fairy binding spell. Saw it used on a real powerful fairy witch a few years back. This is only a temporary fix, though. It’ll only hold the fairy. Like the ghost trap.”

“You have a ghost trap?” Mary asks, intrigued.

“No, like from Ghostbusters?” Dean raises an eyebrow.

“From what?” she asks.

“Oh, man, have you never seen Ghostbusters?”

Mary smiles a little at the excited gleam in Dean’s eye.

“We really have got to get you caught up--”

“Dean,” Mary laughs. “The job first? And then you can tell me about your ghost fighters.”

“Ghostbusters,” Dean says. “But yeah, anyway. If we end up using this, we’ll have to bind the fairy in the bottle and then take it back to the bunker to find a permanent solution.”

“Okay, how does it work?” Mary starts reaching for the bottle to inspect it more closely but he pulls it away from her.

“No, no, if we have to use this...I’ll be using it,” he says hastily.

“Dean…” she starts.

“I know how it works, it’s easier for me to use it than you,” he says, not looking her in the eye.

“Dean,” she sighs. “We’re about to walk into a situation where we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with. If there’s something tricky about that binding spell, I need to know what it is so we can both be prepared.”

“It’s just that…” Dean gives her a guilty look. “The only time I know of this spell being used, the woman who used it, Dorothy...she...she got trapped in the bottle, too, along with the fairy witch she was trying to trap.”

“Dean!”

“But she got out okay! She was fine, she was just...stuck for a while…” Dean shrugs. “Sam will get me out if I get stuck, too.”

“I…” Mary starts but doesn’t know how to continue. “Okay, okay, that’s a very worst case, absolute last resort option.”

Dean nods, “Alright. Let’s go.”

As they move crouched down around the side of the house, Mary can hear arguing coming from inside. Mary thinks she recognizes Jamie’s voice though she’s never heard her sound so angry before. She looks back to Dean and he’s grim faced, hand gripping his gun tight.

After quickly glancing around to make sure no one can see her, Mary straightens up to peak through one of the windows.

“It’s no good,” she hisses to Dean, staring at a single arm angrily gesturing, the body it’s presumably connected to out of her line of sight. “I can’t see anything. They’re out of view of the window.”

“Alright, let’s try around back.”

They sneak around to the back of the house, Mary fully intending to try spying through the windows again to try and get a read on the situation but a loud crash and a muffled scream has both of them straightening their statures, giving up entirely on discretion. Dean jerks his head at her and she’s behind him, gun at the ready as he kicks in the back door.

Nick and Jamie are frozen, turning to look in shock at Dean and Mary but it’s clear from his posture that Nick had been threatening Jamie just a few seconds before they burst through the door.

“Step away from her,” Dean barks.

“Jamie, come over here,” Mary lets one hand leave her gun to reach out to Jamie but Jamie shakes her head silently, fear on her face.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Nick says angrily.

“Man, I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with,” Dean warns.

“No,” Nick sneers. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with.”

Nick slips a small, ornate leather book out of his pocket and flips to a marked page. Dean moves quickly towards him but not quickly enough because with a few quick words of medieval French read off the page, Jamie suddenly starts to transform.

Jamie screams. She’s glowing, a bright golden light under her skin and her bottom half is transforming, growing green and long like a large serpent tail.

Dean tries to move towards Nick again but he holds up the book.

“Oh no,” he hisses. “You come near me and I’ll set a monster on you. It only takes a couple of words and I can have you killed.”

“Why are you doing this?” Jamie sobs, staring down at her own transformed body. “Why?”

“Because this is what happens to disobedient wives,” he snarls. “This is the curse you’ll have to live with now...unless you come back to me, where you belong.”

“What?” Jamie asks, horrified.

“This curse...it doesn’t have to take over your life,” he says, his eyes alight with obsession. “Right now, you’re only partially fairy. If you come back to me, it will stay that way. If you don’t, I will reject you and the curse will punish you the way you deserve. You’ll be this...half human thing forever, all of the time.”

“What is wrong with you?” Jamie cries. “I don’t understand...oh, god, how can you do this to me?”

“How could I do this to you?” Nick snarls. “How could you leave me? You were mine, you had no right to leave me.”

“I wasn’t yours, we were married...it was supposed to be a partnership,” Jamie shouts.

“You. Were. MIne,” he says. “And now you will be again.”

Dean quickly reads of the incantation from his piece of paper but it does nothing except make Nick look over at him, gleefully triumphant.

"Did you actually think that would work?" Nick laughs cruelly. "This curse is far more powerful than you can imagine."

“Hey, hey, now, buddy,” Dean says, looking back and forth between Jamie and Nick. “You know this isn’t the way things work. You can’t just force someone to love you.”

Dean shoots Mary a glance and she realizes that he’s simply trying to buy her some time to do something. Nick is clearly too controlling to ever let Jamie go but Dean can distract him long enough to allow for Mary to make a move.

“Look at what you’re doing,” Dean says, stepping sideways away from Mary to make Nick’s eyes follow him away from her. “You...you’re all mixed up in fairy magic, which always ends bad. And even if it doesn’t...what’s your plan here, man? You just gonna marry a half human fairy who resents you?”

“She’ll learn,” he growls. “She’ll remember that I’m the best thing that ever happened to her.”

“You’re gonna get yourself into trouble,” Dean says, continuing to step slowly away from Mary, Nick’s intense and hateful glare following his movements. “I mean, it’s not just us. What about that woman from back at the motel? You think the police aren’t going to look into that?”

“What?” Jamie says, shocked. “Nick, did you...did you kill that woman?”

“She got in my way,” Nick snarls at Jamie. “I needed to be close enough to you. To make sure you turned properly again. She was in my way.”

“Yeah, but what happens now?” Dean asks, drawing Nick’s attention back on himself. “I mean, what if someone saw you? What if you left fingerprints or DNA at the scene? One slip up and they’ll be on you. Doesn’t it seem like all of this is more trouble than it’s worth? Wouldn’t it be easier just to let Jamie go?”

“I will never let her go!” Nick shouts.

Mary sees that Nick is now entirely focused on Dean and she’s not even sure what she’s thinking, so many thoughts are rushing through her head. Her hunter’s instincts are telling her to do something fast and Dean said they might have to improvise, she needs to try whatever she thinks might work and her brain sticks on fairies and fairy tales and she does the only thing she can think to do. She rushes forward to Jamie, grabs her head and presses their lips together.

“NO!” Nick screams furiously and rushes towards them to break them up but Dean blocks his way.

Jamie is frozen for a minute but then she begins to return Mary’s kiss, something sweet and chaste and her lips are soft and warm and it’s wonderful but Mary is filled with a strange tingling sensation she’s pretty sure isn’t natural. She breaks off the kiss and looks down. Mary is glowing with the same strangely beautiful light that lives under Jamie’s skin in her fairy form.

Nick stares in enraged shock and it’s enough for Dean to grab the spellbook from him and quickly stab it with his silver knife. Almost instantaneously, two women appear in the room, humanoid but covered in patches of red scales and wearing bright suits of armor. Mary stares at them, noting that the scales look exactly how she always imagined dragon scales would look. They walk towards Nick who tries to run away but they disappear and reappear right by his side, each one firmly clutching one of his arms.

“I suppose you’re here to take him away, then?” Dean says like he was expecting this.

“He has been binding fairies to do his bidding. He used a forbidden fairy curse on a human. He must be dealt with,” one of the dragon women says firmly. “He will be tried for his crimes in our court.”

“Wait, what about us?” Mary asks them.

One dragon woman looks her up and down. "The two of you are bound now, by the curse."

"Yes, how do we fix it?" Mary says anxiously.

“I’m afraid you’re bound by human magic that is controlling the fairy curse,” one dragon lady says. “Human magic is unknown to us. We can't break it. If we were able to break human magic, no human would ever bind a fairy again. But you’re human, you should use your human magic to break it.”

“But how did he even...I mean,” Mary looks from Jamie and then back to the dragon women. “Is she...a fairy now?”

One of the guards exhales and says, “Yes, sort of. All fairies have a magic running through them.
Now she does, too, so I suppose you could say she is a fairy. Though, not a true one. You should be able to remove the magic from her veins and return her to human. You cannot remove the magic from a true fairy without killing it.”

“We must return now,” the other guard says impatiently. “We’ve already dwelled too long in the place.”

The two dragon guards and Nick disappear. Mary feels the tingling sensation within her dimming and looks down to see her skin has stopped glowing. She looks over at Jamie and sees her returning to her human form.

“We should get out of here,” Dean says. “That was a lot of noise, someone may have called the cops.”

They leave quickly without a word between them.

Back at the motel, Dean hands a hot cup of coffee to a visibly shaken Jamie as she sits on the couch with Mary next to her.

“Jamie, why did you go over there?” Mary asks, the question nagging at her. “You knew he might be dangerous.”

“I don’t know...I don’t really know,” Jamie is shaking so badly that Mary puts an arm around her to try and help her steady herself. “I don’t remember deciding to go, I just...went.”

Dean grimaces, “Nick was practicing fairy magic and now that you’re, well...kinda part fairy, he could have compelled you to come to him.”

Jamie sits silently, staring at the floor as Mary strokes her hand over Jamie’s arm in comfort.

“Does that mean..” Jamie asks very quietly. “Does that mean anyone who knows this...fairy magic...can make me do whatever they want?”

“I don’t really know for sure but…probably,” Dean says regretfully. “But, we’ll make it okay. We’ve got a place, we’ve got whole rooms full of books and research on all this kind of stuff. We’ll find a way to fix this.”

“Okay,” Jamie whispers, staring down into her coffee. “Okay, then.”

“What..what happens until we fix it?” Mary asks. “I wish I knew more about fairies…”

“Yeah, me too,” Dean says. “But...I think you both should be mostly fine, as long as no one else tries to take advantage of Jamie being a fairy. You’re...bound to each other now. And the way the curse works, as long as you don’t try to reject her, she should stay human except on Saturdays.”

Jamie snorts, “Great. I’ll only be a monster on Saturdays. Yippee.”

“We’ll fix this,” Dean reassures her. “We will but...until then...well…”

He glances awkwardly between them.

“What?” Jamie asks.

“Just....maybe don’t do anything to tempt the curse,” Dean shrugs. “I’m not exactly sure how powerful it is. It seemed like Nick would have to actually say the official rejection for the curse to take full effect but we don’t know that for sure so don’t….don’t tempt it.”

“Don’t tempt it by doing what?” Jamie asks.

“You know...all the...all the old myths are about husbands who think their wives are having affairs so...if the curse thinks the two of you are a couple, you should avoid doing anything that might make the curse think you’re being...unfaithful,” Dean says.

Jamie snorts, “Not a problem. I’ve been out of luck in that department for a long time.”

“Alright, well,” Dean says. “It’s only temporary and, you know, the two of you being bound together isn’t the worst thing in the world since you...”

A panic grips Mary’s chest tightly and she’s terrified it shows on her face because Dean clears his throat and says, “Never mind. It’s just, at least you’re both bound to someone who knows what the issue is so you can be on the same page.”

Jamie nods, “Yeah, I guess there’s worse people to be bound to...my son of a bitch ex-husband, for one.”

“Alright,” Dean claps his hands together. He gets up and crashes down on the bed furthest from the door. “It’s been a hell of a day and I’m wiped. Good night.”

“Good night,” Mary says quietly.

Jamie nods and stands up, pulling Mary with her. Without much thought, Mary simply allows Jamie to lead her to the empty bed and they fall down next to each other, quickly slipping into sleep.

Mary slowly starts to come back to consciousness and she feels so good she doesn't even want to move. She feels cozy, cuddled up to the warm body next to her and the morning sunlight joyfully filtering through the window.

Something about this feels….wrong but she's so content she doesn't want to question it. The body next to hers doesn't feel like John's but it's so soft and welcoming, it feels like she belongs here. She buries her face deeper into the pillow, trying to block out the light so she can go back to sleep.

A sudden noise in the room brings her forcefully back to full consciousness and her body tenses as her eyes spring open. Dean is frozen, staring at her from across the room.

Sorry he mouths and then goes back to packing up his bag.

She's cuddled up with Jamie…she's cuddled up with Jamie and Dean is right there, seeing them, seeing her…like this.

She pulls herself quickly away from Jamie, standing up shakily and stumbling over to her duffle bag. She's avoiding looking at Dean but even out of the corner of her eye, she can see him shaking his head. Jamie groans a little and rolls over, sleepily reaching her arm out searching for Mary’s body that had so recently been pressed against her. Not finding her, Jamie sticks her head up.

“Oh...time to be awake already?” Jamie asks blearily.

“Yeah, sorry,” Dean says. “I was trying not to disturb you too much but I should hit the road soon. Sam texted this morning with a lead on a case.”

“Another one already?” Jamie asks, surprised. “Do you ever stop working?”

“Not really,” Dean shrugs. “There’s a lot of bad out there and not a whole lot of people fighting it.”

Jamie glances over to where Mary is also packing her bag.

“Ah, so you’re heading out then, too?” she asks.

“Well, Dean’s my ride,” Mary shrugs, carefully folding her clothes just to have something to do with her hands.

Dean clears his throat a bit and then says, “No reason you can’t stay here for a couple days. Just find yourself a car when you’re ready to drive back.”

Mary snorts at the euphemism and wonders if it’s for her own benefit or Jamie’s that he didn’t simply say “steal a car”.

“No, I should leave now,” Mary says firmly. An awkward silence greets her and she tears her eyes away from her clothes long enough to see both Dean and Jamie staring at her. “It’s just...I should really get back to the bunker to work on figuring out how to break that curse. Especially if you’re headed off on another case with Sam. It’s best we get Jamie uncursed as quickly as possible.”

Jamie sighs, “Yes, yes...I guess that is for the best.”

They continue to pack in silence and soon all three of them are headed out the door.

Jamie lets out a long breath.

“Well,” she says. “Back to my own home, I guess.”

“Yeah, no more itchy motel sheets for you,” Dean grins.

“Yup, just me and my silk sheets on my big empty bed,” Jamie smiles, shooting a glance at Mary.

Dean snorts.

“So...you’ll be in touch?” Jamie asks Mary hopefully.

“Of course we’ll be in touch,” Mary says. “We told you we’ll work on a way to break the curse. We’ll call you as soon as we know something that might help.”

Jamie glances back and forth between Dean and Mary, her face somehow both amused and incredulous.

"So what, is the love ‘em and leave ‘em thing just a family trait then?" Jamie huffs snarkily.

Dean groans and sticks his head in hands, “Please don’t say things like that.”

Jamie laughs.

"She'll call you, okay? I promise," Dean says, his cheeks red.

"Okay," Jamie smiles. "It was good to see you again, Dean."

"Yeah, you, too, Jamie," Dean grabs Mary's arm and starts dragging her away towards the Impala.

“And it was really good to meet you, Mary,” Jamie calls after them.

“Uh, yeah, you, too,” Mary shouts back as Dean opens the passenger door for her and pushes her in with a bit more force than necessary.

“What was that about?” Mary asks Dean after he’s settling in at the driver’s seat.

“I had to get you out of there before you said something stupid,” Dean grumbles. “I didn’t realize what it’s like seeing that from the outside.”

“I...what?” Mary asks, utterly confused.

“Nothing,” he grunts. “Just remind me to apologize to Sam when we get back to the bunker.”

“Alright,” she quietly agrees.

They drive in silence for a few hours but it feels different than the ride here, more comfortable. Mary basks in their quiet comradery while watching the world go by outside her window. She’s glad they’re driving through a rural part of Ohio, she likes the countryside better. The cities have changed too much, they remind her of how much she doesn’t know but the countryside...cows are still cows, rows of corn are still rows of corn, trees are still trees.

"Cas and I are together," Dean says abruptly.

"What?" Mary says, turning from the window to stare at the side of his face. He keeps his eyes fastidiously on the road but she can see apprehension written on his profile.

"Cas," Dean says gruffly. "Cas, you know, the angel? You met him when you first came back? He and I are...we're...you know, he's my guy."

"I...what…" Mary says, feeling like she's stumbled into a conversation that had already been going on for hours.

"We're, you know," he shrugs uncomfortably, shoots a quick panicked glance at her and then turns back to stare intently at the road again. "We're...keen on each other. We're going steady, you know, we're like….courting or whatever it is you guys used to say."

"Courting...Dean, what century do you think I'm from?" Mary almost laughs but she's struggling to even comprehend what he's telling her.

"I don't know," Dean huffs. "I don't know what you crazy kids were saying back in the old days. But, yeah, you know, however you said it. We're...we're that. Me and Cas, we're that."

"But Dean, he's…" she hesitates and he shoots her a sharp look so she continues, "He's an angel...how does that...I mean, how is that even possible?"

"He's...you know, he's special," Dean says. "He's...different from the other angels. And he...I mean, we take care of each other, you know. And isn't that...isn't that what it's about? We're...yeah, I mean, I get it, he's not human but we're...we're there for each other. Always. He's always there for me."

"Good," Mary says, though she's feeling a little ill. "That's good. I saw how he was with you and when Sam was kidnapped...he's...he's protective. I'm...I'm glad he's...looking out for you."

She sits quietly, staring out the window watching the world outside rush by. She breathes in deep, inhaling the familiar scent of the leather seats in an effort to ground herself.

"So does this mean…" she struggles to form the words. "I mean, you're with him and...he's not human but he's still...a man. Does that...does that make you some kind of fa--?"

"That's not really a word you should use anymore," Dean says very quickly, gripping the steering wheel tight.

"Oh, okay, I'm sorry," Mary mumbles. "I didn't mean...I don't know anything about people like that, I mean, I don't...you know, you just hear things that other people say, I've never actually met a…"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Dean says and she's so relieved he's cut her off because she feels like she was just digging herself deeper and deeper into a mess.

She sighs and Dean must catch it because he looks at her for a moment before returning to staring at the road.

"I'm not…" he starts and then he pauses, huffs and tries again. "It's...I like both. I like...I like men and women. I've...I've dated women...um, kinda a lot of women...and some men, but you know, I'm...I'm with Cas and that's for good."

"You like men and women?" she asks quietly.

"Yeah, yeah I do," he nods. "It's...it's something that I've known about myself for a long time."

Mary feels something boiling up inside her and she says something she's never said out loud, something she's even tried to ban herself from thinking about, "I don't think I'm that way."

"Mom...Mary," he sighs. "Maybe you should...you don't have to figure anything out right this minute, maybe you should think on it a while before you--"

"I don't think I like men," she says abruptly.

"Oh," he says, brow furrowed. "Oh."

"I...I'm not sure I ever really have," she says, so quietly she's not even sure he'll hear her over the sound of the Impala's engine. "I don't think I've liked any man the way I was supposed to."

"What about dad?" Dean asks, a little sadly.

"I don't...I don't know," she admits. "I don't know why I went with him, I never even…it was like I needed to be with him. But sometimes it felt like I didn't want to be with him...I'm sorry, he was your father. You loved him. This can't be easy to hear…"

"You hated him, at first," Dean says, glancing at her with sympathy on his face. "You hated him, when you first met him."

"How...how could you possibly know that?" She asks, shocked.

"A cupid told me," he shrugs.

"A Cupid?"

"Yeah, look, I wasn't gonna…" he breathes deeply, in and out. "I wasn't gonna tell you. I figured everything in your life was already so confusing, I figured you didn't need more in your life but...but now I realize this might actually help you figure a few things out. Your marriage...it was commanded to happen. Heaven commanded it."

"What?" Mary asks, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. "What does that even mean? Heaven commanded it?"

"Well, you know...heaven, they sometimes have plans and they'll...meddle. With people's lives to try and fulfill those plans," he sighs. "They needed you to marry dad. They needed the Winchesters and Campbells to converge. It was a bloodline thing. They needed me and Sam to be born so...they sent a cupid to force you to be together. And...well, I had a cupid tell me that...that you two both hated each other when you first met. And they couldn't have that, so...well, so they changed it."

Mary sits, silently stewing in this new information. She can't force her brain to process it. She simply feels numb to this idea that her whole life was manipulated so she would pop out a couple of kids because heaven wanted to put those kids through hell.

"Did they make me love him?" Mary asks. "Is that what that feeling was?"

"I don't...to be honest, I don't really know," Dean says. "I don't think so? I think it's more like...an intense infatuation. I don't think they can actually force you to love someone but they can alter your brain to make you obsessed with someone."

"Okay...well, okay," she says.

"Okay?" Dean says incredulously.

"Okay," Mary shrugs. "It's...well, it's hardly the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me...and it did make you and Sam, so I guess it wasn't entirely bad."

Dean shoots her a hesitant smile that she returns.

"Okay, so...okay, we head back to the bunker and you'll stay for a bit?" Dean asks hopefully and for a moment, she's strongly reminded of how her little boy would ask her for things, eyes big and bright. "So you can spend some time with Sam? And...and maybe spend some time with Cas?"

"Yeah," Mary says, nodding. "Yeah, let's have some family time."