Archive of Our Own

There’s slow, soothing music coming from behind the kitchen door, and it’s just another thing in a long line of things that throws Mary off. It sounds jazzy, like the kind of stuff her parents' generation listened to (not that Samuel or Deanna Campbell had any interest in jazz). It seems more out of place than she does — if there’s one thing she knows about this strange future she finds herself in, it’s that her not-so-little kids apparently inherited her taste in music, and this, though nice, ain’t it.

Though it probably wasn’t Dean’s first pick, either. He had firmly, but vaguely, told them that they’re doing this at Castiel’s pace. What he wants , he gets . Maybe angels like jazz, who knows.

They might as well — she’s undead after thirty years as a burnt corpse, the babies she cuddled just a week ago are huge hardened men hunting things she never wanted them to even know about, and angels with picky music tastes are real. What’s next, peace on earth? Friendly and trustworthy witches?

The red-haired witch sitting across from her at the table, at the very least, is neither. She was, according to Dean (who, apparently, is calling the shots these days), good enough .

Rowena. She holds a battered old copy of some Jack Karouwak novel that Castiel had left out in her perfectly manicured hands, not really invested in it, going off her disinterested look. Every few moments she gives an exaggerated sigh through her nose, which only irritates Mary more each time she hears it. Still, Mary keeps a straight look on her face and a calm hand on her gun in the slightly oversized jacket lent to her by one of her sons, loaded with witch killing bullets.

Sam, sitting beside her now, had warned her earlier that Rowena was one of the most powerful witches out there. These bullets might not do much killing with her (though they’d still hurt like a bitch). Dressed in a black and pink floral sundress and wearing heavy makeup, Rowena looks more like some busy-body down the street who’d gleefully share passive aggressive and unneeded parenting advice through a fence than anything, but who is Mary to judge? After all, for years she’d passed herself off as an average enough housewife and mom, not someone who’s comfort zone is here, guns and flannels and all.

She never should’ve thought she could escape this. 

“So…,” the witch says, sounding bored and not looking up from the book. “I was told stories of the mother Winchester being a better host than this.”

How the hell stories like that got out is beyond Mary. She tried, sure, but she burned water half the time she was alone in the kitchen. If she had lived long enough to see the boys into school, she probably would’ve been banned from the PTA within a week for language.

“Well,” Rowena continues after a moment of silence. She spares Mary a look of amusement, and Mary longs to return to the potential hunt masquerading as a random murder she’d been looking into — an internet article that mentioned strange burn marks on the floor around the unidentifiable body, though it didn’t clarify what those strange marks were. “I suppose there is that saying of apples and trees and all.”

Mary only shrugs. 

Sam clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck, his surprisingly long hair falling into his face. “We, uh… we all really appreciate you coming by on such short notice.”

“Short and wi’ such a vague request.” Slight annoyance creeps into her voice, adding the slightest tilt to her accent. It's almost charming. “Your angel seems alright, no more ruffled than he usually does.”

“You aren’t getting paid to ask questions,” Mary snaps. Her sons were generously allowing Rowena to pick from a small stack of pre-selected books as a thank you, much to Mary’s silent horror.

“Excuse me, I didnae ask one.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam soothes, holding a hand between them. “Let’s not fight already.”

Mary, calmly, puts her hand on his and lowers it. “We aren’t. Yet.”

Rowena huffs out a small laugh. “Boys,” is all she says. It sounds almost like she’s going for solidarity with the word, though it's anyone’s guess what for.

Dean finally, thankfully, interrupts the awkward tension by calling out, “Rowena!”

Rowena lifts herself from her seat with flourish, picking up the already-prepped bowl of sludge by her side. She had quickly thrown it together when she arrived an hour ago, looking entirely too comfortable in the bunker’s spell ingredient reserves. She’s grinning in a condescending way, like they’re stupid children and she’s about to do a magic trick for them. Mary knows better, of course, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to just take the shot now and be done with her.

“Rowena! Now!” Dean’s voice is more urgent.

“Alright, alright,” Rowena says, unhurried, Sam and Mary following behind her. “Let’s not get our knickers in a tw— good lord! ”

Mary’s hand tightens on the gun in her pocket, though her barely suppressed instinct in that moment isn’t to aim it at Rowena. Over the witch’s shoulder and through the now open doorway, Mary’s eyes focus automatically on the blood.

There isn’t much of it, admittedly — most of it is on the steadily reddening cloth in Dean’s hand, with a few drops on the collar of the old shirt Castiel had changed into earlier, and only a smudge on the blade Castiel always carries, which lays on the counter now. It's the source of the blood that strikes Mary, making her wonder if it's really Dean facing them and not some shifter or demon wearing his face.

Or maybe a vampire. That would explain why Castiel is bleeding out from his throat.

“Um. Help?!” Dean demands, practically hugging Castiel’s head against his chest as he holds the cloth against Castiel’s neck. Castiel, for his part, looks surprisingly calm, though he’s definitely growing pale and starting to sweat from blood loss.

Mary puts a hand on Rowena’s shoulder, lightly pushing the witch forward. Her fingers touch Rowena’s neck, the skin smooth and soft. As she does this, she doesn’t look away from her son (her son is four years old and isn’t allowed to touch butter knives ) and her— well, to be honest, she isn’t entirely sure what Castiel’s exact relationship is to Dean, and therefore to her. They’re clearly in love, in a way that makes Mary almost nostalgic to see, but without wedding rings or proper conversations, it's hard to gauge where they are with each other.

She had tried asking Sam, right after they had rescued him from those demented Men Of Pages or whatever they were. She wanted to be supportive, genuinely happy times had changed enough for two men to be openly in love with each other, but the message had been lost when Sam rolled his eyes hard enough that Mary worried he’d pull something. The brotherly gesture of annoyance had hurt to see (years. She should have had years of scolding them for rolling their eyes at each other like that), so much so that she had said she’d ask again later.

She hadn’t really had the chance to ask again after that — a week and a half of stilted conversations with both her sons, tip toeing on the edge of painful, scary conversations and attempts at familiar banter, never quite falling into one or the other. A week and a half of Dean and Castiel disappearing for hours, sometimes shouting at each other throughout the bunker and other times her stumbling across them holding each other so tight, like they were afraid the other would slip away if they loosened even a little bit. A week and a half of Mary reading her now-dead husband’s hunting journal, going over page after page of the loving father she thought she knew turning their boys into soldiers instead of happy children. A week and a half culminating with Dean clearing his throat after dinner, barely twenty-four hours ago, that they both wanted something, something big.

“Alright. So. I got my family under one roof and I-I can’t stand the thought of any of you being ripped away again,” Dean had said after half a bottle of beer. He sounds stilted, like he’s struggling to get the words out. Castiel had held his hand, and Sam had nodded eagerly, looking excited after a week spent recovering from the torture he had endured. Mary had paused on her way to the sink to give him her undivided attention. She hadn’t missed the way Dean cringed as he looked between her and Sam.

“Listen, I don’t want to have a heart attack every time I walk into a room and see a damn angel banishing sigil on the wall, for a start.”

Is that what that sigil was? In between suddenly not being dead and Sam being kidnapped, she hadn’t stopped to ask.

“And I… I can't endure that again,” Castiel picked up from where Dean’s voice trailed off. “Watching Dean try to sacrifice himself in a way that would destroy his soul, wipe away his very being—” the angel’s voice caught, and Mary felt strangely numb hearing his word “-and to nearly lose Sam, failing to protect him—”

Both men tried to interrupt him. “Cas—” “Cas, it's not your fault.”

“-And knowing that if and when he died, I wouldn’t see his soul again either, being unwelcome in heaven now-”

Which only added to the list of questions Mary had.

“Well…,” Dean said, looking between Sam and Mary, like Mary had equal right to be included in this weighty conversation. He sighs heavily and turns to the sink, like this is a casual conversation. “Listen, don’t make this into something bigger than it has to be. We just had an idea we wanted to try….”

When they said they wanted to turn Castiel into a human, permanently this time (whatever that meant — maybe Castiel was like many of the monsters they hunted, a once normal human turned into a strange and dangerous creature. Maybe Mary just hadn’t made the cut to angelhood when she died. It was one of the many questions she had that she didn’t want an answer to), she hadn’t thought it would involve carving out his jugular. She had known it would require healing, in a way that was beyond field first aid and required either a trip to the ER (and thus the potential for cops to get involved) or magical intervention. The spell had been pretty basic, but part of it required a bit of energy transferred from the caster. With Sam in recovery, Dean “emotionally compromised” (Castiel’s words, which Dean hadn’t been happy with), and Mary rusty and frankly uncomfortable with spell casting in general, they had turned to a reluctant ally.

Apparently, it was either her or the king of Hell . Castiel had vetoed him with a scowl, even though Dean had said repeatedly that he didn’t trust Rowena around the angel (Sam had told her briefly about the curse Rowena had put on Castiel, after dinner. He had been quick about it, but she had gotten the picture).

Rowena walks up to the men, a half glance over her shoulder at Mary. Seeming almost on autopilot, she smacks Dean’s hand away from Castiel’s neck. She dips her fingers into the bowl, running the sludge over the bleeding wound. She pronounces words in a language Mary doesn’t recognise, her now glowing thumb running back and forth, skin slowly knitting back together under it. Mary suddenly remembers, not that long ago, singing a lullaby to her babies while she ran her thumb over their cheeks to soothe them. Her heart hurts.

In under a minute, Rowena’s done. The jazz, Mary realizes, is still playing.

Castiel sucks in a breath before doubling over coughing, sounding like a man nearly drowned. Sam pushes past Mary into the kitchen, standing by the other side of the chair Castiel sits on. His hand hovers as Dean basically wraps himself around Castiel. The angel — the human is already breathing more evenly now, murmuring words she can’t quite make out against the side of Dean’s face.

“I’m sorry, ” Rowena cuts in, “What was tha’!?”

She reels between the four Winchesters (because that’s one thing Mary does have a grasp on without having to be told, that Castiel has as much claim to the name as she does). The witch looks stunned, her accent thickening as she scolds, “He’s human! Yeh turned the angel human and dragged me into it wi’out telling me! Bunch of bompots— Oh, Rowena, I know yer vacation in Seattle is going well, hope you enjoyed th’ Needle, but why nae cut it short to help us with some mariticide shite!”

“Technically it isn’t maritcicide if no one dies,” Sam points out.

Rowena throws her hands into the air. “I cannae believe you’d drag a witch into half a spell — where’s the other half, then? What if something went wrong when mucking about with his Grace?”

“You did what we needed you to do,” Dean growls. “Now grab a book or something, you’re spoiling the mood. A small one, from the pile Sam picked out,” he adds.

“This is beneath me!”

“And above us,” Castiel says. He’s sitting upright on his own, Dean no longer supporting his weight. He adds, “at this current time, at least. Rowena, thank you.”

The sincerity on Castiel’s face deflates Rowena’s indignant anger.

The witch huffs out some more — “You boys of all people should be wiser when it comes to communicating properly” — but Mary just tunes her out. She feels displaced, too many questions and too much missed context to the answers. She looks away from Castiel and Dean.

“I’ll escort her out,” is all she adds to the conversation.

Sam gives her a grateful look, clearly wanting to stay with his brother and Castiel.

As Rowena steps past Mary, there’s a slight sway to her step. Mary’s hand automatically shoots out to steady her, barely brushing the witch’s elbow as she determinedly walks away.

She’s tiny, Mary realizes. 

Rowena keeps muttering under her breath. “I could’ve been home in Scotland…. Would’ve served them right if he went into tetany or shock before I got to the door. And in the kitchen , too, of all places, animals ….”

“Oh, ew,” Mary says before she can stop herself. Rowena does have a slight point — that bloody blade was right on the table. They had lunch there just a couple hours ago. Yes, hunter life isn’t always the cleanest, but if you have a consistent table to eat at, you should at least respect it. 

Rowena gives her a smirk. “Not your first choice, Dearie?”

Mary considers not answering, before finally huffing, “It seems important for Dean and Castiel that it happened in the kitchen. They didn’t tell me about, well…” Mary taps her own neck, shuddering as she realizes Castiel either slit his own throat as Dean watched, or Dean (running around with pie smeared on his face) took a blade to his partner’s body.

“Not much for communication, your lot. Glad I won’t have to break out the hydrogen peroxide. Shame about the shirt.”

Mary waves her off. “Eh, cold water and a little spit and it’ll come right out.”

Rowena makes a face. “Do you plan to lick it off the shirt?”

“Obviously not. Those boys are perfectly able to do their own laundry.”

This gets a laugh out of Rowena. “My Fergus would never get his hands dirty like that. He’d expect someone else to take care of it after.”

Mary almost asks who Fergus is, before reminding herself that this witch has at the very least hurt Castiel in the past, and most likely more given how apparently powerful she is. 

Rowena, after flipping through the selection Sam prepared for her earlier (more scrolls than books, really), giving the one she finally lands on an offended look, turns back to Mary.

“Alright, luv, I’d say it was a pleasure, but…” Rowena sighs through her nose. “I’m fond of your son-in-law, but don’t expect me to come thundering in again for another child’s game. Give those radges my love, I can make my way to the door.” The witch pats Mary twice on the cheek, giving her a playful look as she turns, much steadier already.

Mary’s stunned by the overly familiar gesture, before calling after the witch, “Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”

Rowena doesn’t even warrant her threat a glace.

--

Mary drags her hand down her face leaning against the car she’d picked out from the garage — a banged up Lexus 1990, something far newer than anything else in the Bunker’s garage. It’s not the Impala, but it does its job, and it’s not like she has claim to that car anymore, anyway. 

There’s something uncomfortable about cars that had been relatively new during her day now being considered vintage. Maybe that’s why she gravitated towards the Lexus.

She had driven separately from Sam, much to his protest, not wanting to intrude on him and his lady friend, Eileen, who they were hunting with.

By the grace of capital-g God’s sister , maybe she won’t miss her younger son’s wedding (she’s not sure if that witch had been invited, though she assumes as much, since slighting a supposedly powerful witch seems like a bad idea. She imagines Rowena wearing another floral dress and a perfectly painted smirk as the men exchange vows).

Dean and Cas had stayed behind, the hunt straight-forward enough to not really require more than three. They had been clearing out a space for a garden near the bunker last she heard from them.

“Cas says it’s the perfect season for planting irises, and everyone’s on my ass to get more exercise, so win-win,” Dean had said. Sam had been stunned that Dean had turned down a cross-country trip.

People with little connection turned into pigs — it had turned out to be the work of a witch. The grandson of a retired cop, he had been targeting people with “ACAB attitudes” (remembering the cops from her youth, she doubts his granddaddy would’ve been happy with him practicing witchcraft. She might have missed out on the heyday of the Satanic Panic, but she knew that attitude hadn’t sprung up out of nowhere. Plus, he had an easily wounded side to him that she doubts his grandfather would tolerate, going off what old newspaper clippings had to say about the man). They had cornered him in his creepy isolated cabin. Sam had caught him off guard, and though he had been thrown against a wall for his efforts, he still gave Mary and Eileen the opportunity to shoot. Mary’s headshot had been dead on.

As they burned his body, Sam and Eileen had an entire conversation on how someone could balance such conservative attitudes with the supernatural, which included some uncomfortable things being said about John. Sam had caught himself and had apologized. 

The thing was, Mary couldn’t even claim to be surprised. She had read John’s journals.

God, what happened to make her husband into such a paranoid, heartbreaking asshole? She liked to think she was behaving better than he had, and she was technically not only a widow, she had also lost both her—

Mary had decided to leave them to it. They would scout out the cabin to make sure burning it down wouldn’t release a dozen other curses, and if they added to the bunker’s library or some lorekeeper named Garth’s collection, it could only be good for future hunters.

Mary, meanwhile, was handling the witch’s victims, who were still very much pigs. Thankfully, most of them had been sent to a barn run by a remarkably unfazed elderly lesbian couple (Mary wondered if she should send Cas and Dean an electronic message, as a sign of support. She wanted to share this fact with someone for some reason, at least).

Unfortunately, both counterspells this Garth guy had given her hadn’t done much — at most, a couple of the pigs had regained sentience and the ability to use human language, but the result hadn’t been like Charlotte’s Web. She couldn’t really stand listening to their existential crises, so she had left them in the field. It was probably her fault it didn’t work, since she had been working with whatever random ingredients and notebooks she could grab from the cabin before heading out, not all of which matched the spells. She probably hadn’t gotten the ratios completely perfect either, trying to subtly compensate with a pinch more of this root or that — she’d never been good at following recipes.

Garth had hung up with the promise to keep digging, saying he’d text Eileen and Sam about what they saw in the cabin while he was at it. Probably Dean and Cas, too.

Mary bites her lip, staring down at the rectangle screen in her hand. She hates the idea of just leaving those scared people stuck the way they are (she shudders thinking about how one young girl loudly wailed about her lack of opposable thumbs). 

Looking at the wildflowers around her, Mary thinks of that witch again. She has Rowena’s number, copied from Dean’s phone into the little contact book she carries in her bag. This, surely, isn’t a “child’s game,” right?

Popping open the trunk and digging into the sparse suitcase, she pulls it out.

It just wasn’t right to put off helping those people if she could.

Rowena, shockingly, answers pretty quickly — Mary had been under the impression that most people let phone calls go to voicemail before calling back.

She sounds annoyed when she answers. “ Fergus, if this is about those dead angels, I still cannae find a pattern back to your little caged bird—“

“Excuse me— dead angels ?”

Instantly, Rowena’s tone changes. “ Ah, Mary, luv, I knew ye couldn’t stay away. To what do I owe this call?”

“We’ll get to that later — is this something Cas should worry about?”

“ Oh no, leave that sweet silly bird to his honeymoon. I doubt Dean lets him leave the married bed much, anyway. ”

Mary makes a face at the thought. “Ugh, would you want to think about your son in that situation?”

“I don’t much like thinking about Fergus if I can help it, but we’re civil enough for adult conversations from time to time.”

Oh. Rowena’s also a mother. Mary had been speaking generally, not expecting that. “Wait, wouldn’t he be long dead,” she asks before she can stop herself.

“If I had my way. Alas, him being a demon does complicate things .”

“And here I thought my family was strange.”

Rowena laughs, catching Mary off guard, she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

“ Dearie, if this was a social call, you should just stop by for tea. I make scones to die for.”

Mary decides not to ask if she meant that literally.

“It’s not. I need help.”

There’s a long silence on the other end. Eventually, Rowena says in a hard voice, “ Are you sure you do? ”

“Look, you don’t even have to do the hard part. We already killed the witch — no offense.”

“ Eh, less competition .”

“Now we just need to undo the transformation spell.” Mary gives Rowena a quick run down of the witch they took out and the failed counterspells, and much to her surprise Rowena laughs. “What exactly is so funny about this?”

“ Many things, dearie, though it sounds like you came pretty close to reversing your dollar store witch’s mess. The sorry bastard probably didn’t know what he was doing, let his emotions get in the way on top of that, and probably combined a spell or two along the way. He probably stumbled on the pig transformations by accident and pretended that it was his plan the entire time.”

“Well how do I fix it?”

“Hmmmm… trial and error? ”

“No.”

There’s another laugh. “Alright, why don’t I meet you there? You let me dig through your pathetic proud boy’s supplies, and I’ll see what I can do. I get to keep anything interesting, of course.”

Mart thins her lips. Letting this witch take whatever she wants sounds like a bad idea, and who knows what Sam or Dean would think of her teaming up with a witch like this — though she feels slightly justified since they sought out her help before. Still, Samuel Campbell must be rolling around in his grave.

“...We’re in Tennessee, how long would a flight over here be?”

The car door beside Mary opened suddenly, making her jump. “Not long at all.”

Rowena’s dress is all black this time. It suits her, especially the low hanging neckline that begs for attention, but it throws her off almost as much as the witch being there at all.

“How the Hell — ”

“Hell, exactly.” Rowena looks entirely too amused. “I simply made a portal through it to here.”

“Since when could witches do that?”

“Um, most powerful witch out there?” Rowena gestures to herself.

“Your… son, being a demon, probably helps.”

Rowena scoffs. “He doesn’t need to know when mummy is in his neighborhood. Now, lead me to whatever’s dragging me away from my tea and cakes. I was in the middle of a self care day.”

“And this — ” Mary gestures vaguely at Rowena “ — is your Me Day outfit? I thought florals were your thing.”

“Looking fabulous is my thing.”

Mary nods before she can stop herself. Avoiding Rowena’s heavily lined eye, she says, “Go ahead and dig through the stuff I have in the back. It's all we have to work with.” She doesn’t bother telling her about Sam and Eileen’s current work with clearing out the witch’s storage.

She gets an unimpressed look. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Rowena gives her a pursed lipped look. Then she smiles, which immediately puts Mary on edge. Walking slowly around the side of the car, she says, “You know, I didnae expect Tennessee to be so lovely this time of year. You’d expect nothing but confederate flags and burnt grass from the heat. People like your witch running about.”

“Well, that’s what you get for stereotyping,” Mary rolls her eyes. 

“Like you stereotyped every witch to know and care about each other? Kidding, kidding.” Rowena laughs, before gesturing around her, “Still, it's missing a little something. You said I look good in florals?”

Mary blushes, glaring. “I said nothing like that,” she snaps, before blushing harder with embarrassment. Something about this witch just gets under her skin and she doesn’t know why she even bothered calling her.

Rowena just smirks, before calling out, “ Me et mea Isis floret Iris nigricans in sole! ”

She ducks behind the car in the same instant Mary draws her gun, still loaded with witch-killing bullets. Mary doesn’t pull the trigger.

Instead, she looks around in awe.

Hundreds of flowers, each with three wide-reaching petals and three smaller curled petals, grow around them. They’re dark, nearly black, blinking in the sunlight around them. They’re strange and beautiful and Mary has the strangest thought, I never would’ve seen this up close in the 80s .

Rowena’s laughter is high, delighted, and it fits the scenery perfectly, like no other sound should even exist in this moment. Turning, Mary sees Rowena leaning against the car, wiping a tear from her eye. “I thought so,” is all she says.

In an instant, Mary is angry. “I could have shot you!”

“Yes, yes, one of your family’s strange courtship rituals. I’ve heard the gossip.”

Mary doesn’t even bother questioning what she means. Instead, she just points in frustration at the flowers around them, rage on her face.

“That’s what you get for bothering me over something trivial.”

“Trivial — !?”

“A little environmental warfare never hurt anybody. Just don’t tell your wee angel boy about this, I’m not interested in hearing about invasive species and all.”

“Invasive — whatever. Cas is growing his own flowers with Dean right now anyway.”

Rowena pouts. “I still take points for presentation, even if I cannae claim originality, I suppose.”

“What — ”

“So!” Rowena claps her hands. “Let’s look at what we have here.” She bends over into the back seat of the car, shaking her hips and humming some modern song to herself. 

Mary pushes her hair away from her face, leaning against the other car door.

“You know,” Rowena says suddenly after several moments. “I could teach you that spell. It's quite simple.”

Mary doesn’t respond to such nonsense.

---

“Are you happy, Mary?”

Those words echoed in her mind as she pulled into a closed down arcade. She’d come alone, knowing going solo into an unknown hunt was a bad idea, but not wanting to reach out to anyone — Bobby was long dead, who knows what happened to old friends like Carlos, and where her sons are concerned, she just… can’t. 

She had left them about a week ago, keeping in contact via smartphone after telling them she just needed time to herself. They weren’t dumb, probably knew she was solo hunting, but they hadn’t bothered lecturing her, thankfully. 

“Are you happy, Mary? ”

Cas had asked that the night before she settled on leaving. He had looked so peaceful, dressed in her son’s flannels as he set out on his own little adventure — heading to Garth’s for a few days so the lorekeeper could interview him about his knowledge of angels.

He had proudly showed her a mixtape Dean had made for him, to play on the road.

Mary leans her head against the steering wheel, thinking about it.

When she didn’t have an answer for him, he continued. “I know my actions, my choices, have been unquestionably selfish of late,” he had told her, as if he hadn’t been skipping around the bunker keeping the various rooms and questionable objects in them in order. “And yet, I can’t help but be happy. Dean has given enough to the world. I want him to be selfish for once. And I only benefit from it, too.” He gave a soft laugh.

“You and Dean are retiring, aren’t you?” It was a strange question, one that left her feeling displaced, angry, and maybe a little bit hopeful — could you really retire from hunting? She had tried, and if she had had her way, Dean and Sam would’ve never gotten mixed up in it in the first place.

It was Castiel’s turn to not answer, instead simply smiling and pulling out a couple Jack Daniels from the fridge, handing her a third one when she asked.

“Sam has found a place within the hunter community these days, one that he naturally fits into rather than one forced upon him,” Cas said. Sam had been taking more and more leadership roles these days, talking about mentoring younger hunters so there are less tragic deaths and more connection within the hunting community. He had taken some inspiration from those Letter Men, who had thankfully disappeared around the same time a letter simply reading “Moose & Squirrel, you’re welcome,” had appeared in the PO Box they kept in town.

Hunting was changing, had changed. Mary liked it and felt lost within it at the same time.

“Sam is excited for the future, Dean is finally allowing himself to be at peace,” Castiel had gone on. He covered her hand with his. “And I… I feel, freely. I feel joy, Mary. We want you to feel the same.”

Mary shakes off the memory, stepping out of the car. 

There’s police tape surrounding the entrance of the arcade, but no other signs of recent police activity. When she steps underneath it and tries the door, she finds it unlocked.

Interesting.

She makes her way inside with a flashlight in hand and a gun at her side, just in case.

Running the light over the tightly packed rows of games, she walks slowly, careful that her steps don’t echo. There isn’t much dust, and here and there the carpeted floor is slightly sticky from, presumably, spilled soda. It’s a testament to the fact that, just days ago, this building was probably overflowing with people of all ages, playing games, competing for tickets, and shaking down tired employees for prizes.

Somehow, in the silence and darkness, Mary can’t believe this. There’s a stillness to the air, like the building is holding its breath. It has to have been years since someone stepped foot in here, surely.

Maybe she isn’t alone in feeling a step out of time.

Mary shakes the thought from her head. Maybe the victim is lingering as a ghost or something.

Then, she hears a chuckle.

“Well, well, of course you of all people would pop in.”

Mary turns on her heel, stunned. Spotlighting the source of the voice, she finds Rowena, once again in florals, leaning against a door that read “EMPLOYEES ONLY.” The witch looks amused like always, but there is a pinch between her even, thin brows that looks out of place.

“Alright, let me guess,” Rowena sighs, and she starts briskly walking towards Mary. “You’re here about the dead angel.”

“Dead angel —”

“.. .Please tell me you’re here about the dead angel.”

Mary moves her hand to her side, looking around. She turns her back on Rowena as she runs the light over the games in her row again, as if by double checking the corpse of an angel would appear. What would it even look like? A normal human? Or would it be a scarred, stretched apart body, only showing visible proof of its possession after the fact.

“I’m here on a potential case,” she explains. “I had read about a John Doe with strange markings around the body weeks ago, and I’ve been looking for any connecting cases since.”

“You mean the wings, then?”

Mary turns to look back at Rowena in question before freezing. She had turned her back on a witch. What kind of hunter was she?

She couldn’t be a housewife, she couldn’t raise her children, and now she can’t even remember basic survival in the field she was born into. What was she even doing, hunting alone in the first place?

“ Are you happy, Mary? ”

Well, she sure as shit isn’t proud of herself right now.

A hand, small and with perfectly manicured fingers, touches her back. “Are you alright, Mary, dear? You look like you’ve seen a ghost — metaphorically, of course.”

“I'm starting to think I’m the ghost,” she murmurs, burying her face in her free hand and rubbing her eyes. Rowena’s hand stays on her mid back.

“Ah…,” Rowena says, like she’s starting to understand something. “...You’re a wee bit young for a midlife crisis, you know.”

Mary isn’t sure how she feels about being read so easily. “I should be in my sixties,” she points out, dropping her hand.

Rowena chuckles and gestures to herself. “Well, comparatively, I mean.”

Mary smiles, in spite of herself. “And how old are you, exactly?”

“Luv, you know that’s not a very nice question to ask a lady.”

They both share a laugh at that.

Rowena puts pressure on Mary’s back, gently pushing her along. They walked in step. “Well, anyway, I’ve solved your case for ye. Grab your boys and get. It was just someone looking for revenge against a small group o’ angels.”

“You don’t think we should check with C—”

“I don’t. Also, please tell me our little tweety pie is still honeymooning at home with your son.”

“He’s on a trip of his own. Lore related.”

Rowena seems relieved at that.

“Rowena, I’m afraid I can’t let this go. Something hunting angels —”

“Bah, with the right toys anyone can hunt down a few angels. Mind, it isn’t easy — they’re an annoyingly sturdy bunch; but these days, it’s hardly impossible.”

“I suppose that’s why Dean wanted Ca—”

“And who exactly did you bring with you,” Rowena cuts in over her.

Mary hesitates to answer. 

Rowena gives her another look of understanding before patting her on the back. “Take it from me: sometimes it’s better to be on your own than to have a coven hold you down with their inane rules and regulations.”

“It must be lonely though,” Mary says softly. She had never thought about it before — if anything, a covenless witch was a relief because it meant you only had to hunt down one target.

Rowena gives her a smirk. “Have ye ever thought about it?”

“Being… alone?”

“Not that bit.”

Whatever Mary could have responded with dies as she notices something from the corner of her eye. They’ve reached the end of the row of machines, and on the row next to it, she thinks she sees something on the ground: a feather.

Stepping away from Rowena’s hand, she raises her flashlight, stepping down the new row.

She sees, like Rowena had said, wings… or rather, the disembodied silhouette of wings, stretched out and spread across multiple machines and even dragging along the ground.

Mary takes a step back, thinking of her happy, hippyish son-in-law — the strange, kind man that made her son so happy. She thinks about how she had pointed a gun at him at first sight. “If Castiel had died—”

“ Castiel? ” A new voice.

Mary has a hand on her gun, ready to pull it out but not pointing it at the new voice just yet. It had come from the room Rowena had existed from just moments before. Footsteps echo across the carpet, and Mary doesn’t realize she’s stepped in front of Rowena until the witch clears her throat.

Walking into view is a woman with red hair and, of all things, an eyepatch across one eye. It's hard to gauge her exact age, but Mary recognizes something in her remaining eye. A hard glint.

This woman is not quite human. 

They all stand there in weighted silence that Mary breaks when she says, “Tell me there aren’t any more overpowered redheads running around.”

“Not that I’ve seen,” the woman responds.

Behind Mary, Rowena says, “I can confirm there is tragically at least one less powerful redhead out there.”

“Alright, what do you have to do with this?” Mary asks, pointing the flashlight at the burnt outline of the wings.

“What do you have to do with Castiel? Or each other,” the woman looks over Mary’s shoulder to Rowena. “Ms. MacLeod told me she had come alone and was working on something different. She said she didn’t recognize any of the angelic names I ran by her. She seemed… disappointed with me.”

“Okay, okay,” Rowena moves to stand beside Mary again. She waves a hand dismissively at both of them. “My business concerns something related to my son, a former work colleague of his, and cleaning up this work colleague’s rather big mess. Frankly, it's above both of your pay grades—” Mary and the woman snort, the woman crossing her arms “—and it has no relevance to what either of you were doing.”

“Well, my business probably concerns your Castiel. She's an angel, I’m assuming, going off your reaction?” The woman turns her hard gaze to Mary.

“None of your damn business.”

“Oh, it is. It very much is.” The woman’s voice is hard.

“Right, sure. How? ”

“She had a hand in killing my daughter .”

Mary blinks in shock. She looks to Rowena, who has a neutral expression.

“Cas? He’s — he — is my son-in-law.”

“So he’s taken a different vessel,” the woman says dismissively, before giving Mary a questioning look. “You aren’t a witch.”

“Obviously,” Mary scoffs, before feeling her ears burn at the look Rowena gives her.

“You’ve aged remarkably well to be old enough to have children that are marriage-aged.”

“Again, none of your damn business,” Mary snaps. “And Cas is kind. He listens to jazz and reads all day when he isn’t gardening. He— he cares about his family.”

“He tore mine apart.” The woman starts to prowl towards them. Mary drops the flashlight, whipping her gun out. “Both of you are also mothers. Tell me how you would feel to know your child is just gone. This human you created will never grow to have hands as big as yours, will never fall asleep as you play piano, will never outlive you…never dream, never laugh, never even breathe again. How would you feel knowing you couldn’t even protect them? ”

“I do know that!”

Mary is surprised by her words, echoing around the arcade. Her heart is pounding and all she can hear is Castiel’s damn question: Are you happy?

Was she ever happy?

Rowena’s hand is on her back again.

“My sons are older than me, but my boys are only four and six months old,” she starts, unable to stop the words. “My boys like helping me bake pie and coloring in front of the TV. They have tantrums and need to be tucked into bed. My four year old wears a I Love Hugs shirt! And— and then there was a fire, and now…”

You will not cry, she tells herself. They’re alive, you literally live with them.

You’re younger than them. You may end up outliving them no matter what you do.

She can’t stop her voice from cracking when she says, “I miss them. I miss my boys.”

The woman can’t possibly begin to understand Mary’s rambles, but she stills, gives her a look of sympathy. Her guard isn’t down, Mary knows, but there’s compassion in her eye.

“You know my loss,” she says softly. “Please, you can’t possibly want to stand in my way.”

“I’m afraid we do,” Rowena cuts in. “Our Cassie is very dear to us. He’s one of our lot.”

“I can’t even imagine him killing someone’s child,” Mary added. “Why would angels even want to go after a child like that, anyway?”

“They thought she was a nephilim . A monster in their eyes.” The woman’s voice shakes. “My situation was like your child’s — my husband was an angel. He was my daughter’s daddy, but he wasn’t her father, and I know— I know that at least one of the angels that took them from me knew that.” A wistful look came to her eye. “Even if she had been what they said, she deserved to live. Now, more than ever, angels who think they can just kill children that their kind fathered need to be taken down.”

Rowena stiffens. “Oh, bloody hell.”

It's Mary’s turn to put her hand on Rowena’s shoulder.

“Alright,” Rowena sighs heavily. “Alright. Why don’t we put on a cuppa… I think I saw some awful American tea bags in the employee break room. Might as well call Castiel in, too, if we’re just going to let word go round.”

“Word on what exactly?” The woman looks defensive.

“Might as well let the cat out.” Rowena gives Mary an apologetic look before asking the woman, “Does the name Kelly Kline mean anything to you?”

---

Cas has a panic attack when they tell him the woman, Professor Lily Sunder’s, story. 

Mary completely understands. She hadn’t exactly been happy to hear that not only had Lucifer been roaming the earth, but the devil himself had impregnated a completely normal, unsuspecting woman — Kelly Kline, a local politician-turned-missing-person in the eyes of the law — while out there, dooming her to die in the process.

“He’s been taken care of. I made sure of that in the meantime,” Professor Sunder says stoically. Rowena looks impressed. Mary would, too, if she wasn’t watching her son-in-law clench the sitting room table in Professor Sunder’s house. Cas is staring at her slack jawed, probably only hearing one-third of the words coming out of her mouth. A coffee cup that looks older than Mary should be lies shattered at his feet, Cas having dropped it in his shock.

“I should’ve known,” he whispers. His hand tangles in his hair. 

Mary puts a hand on his shoulders. “Cas? Cas, honey, it’s okay.”

“If I hadn’t— if I wasn’t so selfish-”

“Castiel.”

“All I had to do was stay an angel . I should have known right away.”

“You really aren’t one anymore?” Professor Sunder asks. Her jaw is still stern, face impassive, but Mary can see clear as day the compassion in her eye. Mothering, she finds, isn’t something you can act out.

“Ms. Sunder,” Cas gives her a desperate look. “I am so, so sorry. I can’t imagine the suffering I caused you. Please, I— I swear I’ll do anything to help Kelly Kline.”

“Do you really?”

“I have enough blood on my hands. I would do anything—” his guilt-ridden eyes meet Mary’s briefly before looking away “—to save a parent from losing their child.” 

“Why?”

Well, Mary thinks, isn’t that a loaded question.

“Because,” he says immediately, “I am not the only one who deserves to find happiness and control after being denied it for so long. Does Kelly want to have this child? Does she want to be there to see this child grow, to guide them, teach them, be there to love them?”

“Yes, more than anything to both.”

“Then she should,” Cas says, like it's the simplest thing in the world. It feels naïve, or at least it would if it hadn’t come from a creature older than any of them in that room combined.

He stands, and starts to pace. “Ms. Sunder, please tell me your current theories for helping Kelly. I’m sure my angelic history can be of assistance somehow.”

They begin speaking in low voices, soft enough that Mary can make out the melodic sounds, but not the words.

She looks down to the broken glass at her feet.

“...If you’re still worried about your case, I’m fairly certain there’ll be at least one more dead angel before this is done. Possibly two, but it sounds like that nasty bird, Ishim, is the true target,” Rowena says softly into her ear.

Mary shakes her head. “I’m not so concerned about that at the moment.” She looks at Rowena, one of Castiel’s questions lingering in her mind. “You… mentioned once that you tried to kill your son? Did you…?”

“No,” Rowena says simply. “I didn’t want to have a child, or at least, I shouldn’t have been in a situation like I was back then. We work together these days fine enough, and I might as well consider him a work friend at this point, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love him like a parent loves their child.”

“Are you happy?” Mary asks, before flushing with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“I’m the greatest witch of all time talking to a lovely, if emotionally compromised, woman. I think I’m doing just fine for myself.”

“What—”

“Rowena!”

Mary and Rowena look at Cas, who frankly looks like a desperate man that just made a bargain with the devil and has either simply not thought about the consequences or has decided they’re worth it.

She shudders at the thought.

“I think I have an idea. We’ll have to call Dean to bring something.”

“Can’t we just summon him?” Professor Sunder asks. “Or would that affect the—”

“No, no, it’ll be fine. Dean hates summonings and teleportations, so it's only fair for him to drive it over.”

“I wasn’t fond of Ms. MacLeod summoning me here.”

“Shouldn’t have left evidence that I could’ve used to summon you with at the Needle, then,” Rowena quipped.

“We thought of something that might grant Kelly the ability to survive the birth. Whatever happens after, we’ll all be there to protect and guide her child. Lily Sunder insists she senses nothing but good from this child, and, according to her, Kelly feels the same.”

“Parents tend to be biased,” Mary mutters to Rowena.

Rowena laughs. “Not always.”

“I care about Kelly,” Professor Sunder said. She looks down momentarily. “If I can keep her from becoming like me, while also keeping her alive, it would mean the world to me.”

“What exactly are you thinking?” Mary asks.

Castiel looks to Rowena, who, after a moment, slaps her forehead. “You kept it, didn’t ye?”

“Okay, okay,” Mary cuts in. ”Kept what?”

Rowena shakes her head, a fond look on her face, like Cas is a precocious child that broke a rule but did something clever in the process. “His Grace.”

---

They end up meeting with Dean and Sam at Professor Sunder’s heavily warded home, where Kelly has been living the last few months. She’s a lovely, if overly kind, woman. She’s only part-way through her pregnancy, so they decide to hold off on giving her the Grace right then and there, since there’s only a small amount of it — Mary had been shocked to see it barely halfway filled the vial it was in.

A good portion of it had been burned away over the years, Castiel had explained. He hadn’t given any more details, and none of them had asked — Dean and Sam had probably seen it first hand, and Mary knew he’d tell her without prompting if he ever wanted to.

She leans against the dining room table, looking out the warded window.

Behind her, Dean clears his throat. “Hey.”

“Dean, honey.” She nods to the seat beside her. “Are they still talking?”

Dean snorts. “Oh yeah. Cas charmed Kelly good . Pretty sure at this rate she’ll ask him to be her doula and the godfather. They were talking about baby names.”

“Any good ones?”

“There’s one Cas really likes that I think he’s selling Kelly on.” Dean’s smiling, chin in hand and eyes far away. “Jack.”

“That’s not a bad one. Jack. Little Jackie Kline.”

Dean fidgets in his seat now, trying and failing not to look uncomfortable. “Would you… be okay with that? Us having a kid on the weekends and playing little angel sleep away camp ? I mean—?”

“Dean.” She puts her hand on his arm. “I’ll be fine.” She pauses, before adding quietly. “…I think I’ll be fine. I mean, I still have you boys.”

“…It’ll never be the same, will it.” It’s a statement, not a question, but Mary nods anyway.

“Dean, are you…” She starts to ask Are you sure you’d be okay with a kid around? , but she stops herself, thinking about that far away look. There had been longing in there, alongside excitement. She isn’t sure what Cas and Professor Sunder said to make him comfortable with the thought of Lucifer having a child out there, a child that they seemed ready to take responsibility for, too.

“Are you happy?” She asks instead. 

Dean doesn’t answer for a long time, before finally nodding. “I… I think I am, Mom. Scares the shit out of me, but I think I finally am.”

“…Is Cas?”

“Scared? Nah,” Dean snorts, leaning back in his chair. “Dude’s always been pretty fearless.”

“There’s no going back, though, right? To being an angel?”

“He actually wanted to chuck it, immediately…his grace, I mean. I convinced him not to, in case he woke up and realized he made a mistake. He ended up giving me the whole speech on how he’s letting me have it as symbolic proof that he’ll never want it back, that this’ll be his forever. That I’ve always been the thing that grounds him. Giving me his— his heart and stuff.”

“That sounds like a proposal.”

Her son’s face is grave, and, of all things, embarrassed. “…You know? Does everyone know?”

“Honestly, I’ve been calling him my son-in-law for weeks now. I thought you two were open about it.”

“We’re actually pretty new. At, you know, being an us .”

“You’re kidding,” Mary laughs. “I thought he was an old Winchester at this point.”

“He is. We just… took our time to becoming a, um. A couple. I didn’t even know he wanted me like that until, like, a couple weeks ago.”

“Dean Winchester, I don’t believe you. Where on earth did you get that obliviousness?”

“Mary, luv.” Rowena pops out from the kitchen, fresh mugs of tea in hand. Setting one down in front of her, she settles on Mary’s other side. “Mind if I join?”

She holds the other mug out to Mary. Their fingers brush as she takes it. Her hands are so different from John’s, Mary thinks, before realizing with a jolt she hasn’t really thought about John in a while.

“I was jus’ going through Lily’s library — I wonder if she’ll allow me to sneak out a tome or two.”

“You and your books… I can’t even imagine the size of your library at this point,” Mary says fondly.

“A witch’s collection is never complete.”

She doesn’t realize Dean is staring at them until she hears him mumble, “Okay. Okay, yeah, I see what Sammy meant about gross UST.”

He stands, saying, “I’m gonna go check on Cas and the others. Gotta make sure Sunder didn’t gank him while Sam’s back was turned.”

“Please, with how Kelly looks at him? She’s probably already planning on putting him on the birth certificate.” Mary and Rowena share a laugh.

As Dean walks away, Mary can just barely hear him grumble, “Can’t believe I gotta deal with Crowley as my stepbrother now…”

Mary mirrors her son’s pose from earlier, putting her chin in her hand.

“Something on your mind, luv?” Rowena asks.

Mary shrugs. “I just realized, my son’s entire life is about to change — he’s more or less retired, he’s settling down with a man he adores to help with raising a unique kid — and I’ll never truly know what it changed from. And I’m happy for him.”

“Are ye?”

Mary pauses for a moment, thinking. “I think domestic life, after a lifetime of hunting, will suit him.”

Rowena taps a finger under Mary’s chin, turning her head so their eyes meet. She has such lovely dark eyes, Mary thinks. There’s an ancient, knowing glint to them, but also a spark of humor, like her wonderful laugh was constantly ready and waiting behind her clever tongue.

“And for yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Mary admits. “I care about the safety of others, but I sometimes feel like I’m out of practice with hunting, and I’m not sure it’s worth relearning. And when I was a housewife, I felt like I was just going through the motions. Maybe I could’ve been happy with both, but now, after dying and coming back?”

“What if ye tried something else?” Rowena asked.

Mary’s eyes flicked down to her red painted lips, taking in the smile lines that embraced them.

“I might be willing to consider collaboration,” Rowena continues. “I suppose I must admit my claim to being a solo witch is a stake.”

“Is that so?”

“What do ye say, Mary?” Rowena asks joyously, “Why not run away with me for a bit? Join me and become a wi—”

Mary cuts her question off with a kiss.