Chapter Text
"You sure you don't want any help? Dean's back now and we can-" Sam is insistent. It's good, it makes him a good leader, but Mary doesn't need it. She cuts him off.
"I'm sure, Sam," she says confidently, reassuringly. On the map table, her duffel is already fully packed with all the clothes, weapons, and tools she will need. But, just in case, she also has a spare bag in the trunk of her car with additional supplies. "You said it yourself, it's just two vamps. Plus, you and Dean still need to talk about what happened. And Jack deserves to spend some time with you two. I'll be fine."
He looks skeptical, and she doesn't blame him. She's one of the only people allowed to go on solo hunts, even though it's clear he doesn't like when she does. But Bobby is already off on his own hunt, and there isn't anyone else she works nearly as well with. "Alright, but don't forget your regular check-ins."
"I never do, Sam."
-
Goldmine, Oregon is a small ex-mining town on the coast west of Portland that is now known for its... well- it's Goldmine. From Lebanon, it's about a 23-hour drive.
Plenty of time to think.
There's nothing around but her and the dark green '64 Riley One-Point-Five she had taken a liking to when she first entered the bunker. Just her and the car and the walls of trees and a sputtering soft rock radio channel.
For just a moment, she forgets who she has become. She breathes. Lets herself believe that it's just a long drive. John is in the passenger seat, Dean and Sam in the back seat. Dean is talking animatedly to John and smashing toy cars together in his lap. Every now and then Sam babbles on in an attempt to join the conversation, and Dean responds like he understands perfectly. So far divorced from reality for just a moment.
But it's not even a memory. Just a flash of ignorance that she indulges in.
They never went on any trips between Sam being born and... everything else. Plus, if they did leave the house together, John always had to drive.
Plenty of time to think. And she thinks her life may be falling apart at the seams.
Dean is back, she tells herself, but she barely knows him. Even if she did, he could never be her Dean again. For all intents and purposes, the family she remembered was gone.
There were no young boys who relied on her. No one to rush home to.
And she knew they were still her sons, but sometimes it was so hard to play along. They were older than her, now. They didn't need her to teach them how to tie their shoes or cook an egg. It was almost always them teaching her about things.
She could tell they wanted her around. Of course, they did. She was the ghost that had haunted their lives for decades, they couldn't let her go now. They both wanted a second chance at that relationship, but she didn't she could give it to them. Not as the white-picket-fence mother they wanted. When she died she had just finally accepted a life away from hunting. She had done it for them. Not that it mattered. She couldn't be any sort of mentor either. They knew so much more than she did.
She was stuck.
Stuck with two men who wanted, who deserved, to finally have a second chance with their mother. But she couldn't do it for them. She didn't know how.
So she kept running.
First to the BMoL in an attempt to salvage a life for her sons, then to the Apocalypse World to offer her skills to them, and now on any solo hunts she could find.
It was just her, the car, the music, and the long, expanse of road.
-
Another victim. A young man.
Another person rushed into the building on a bloody stretcher. The mask over his face keeps him from screaming. It didn't with the woman last week. Like her, though, the man is torn to shreds. Though, he is by far the worst one yet. A nurse bites her cheek and runs an absent hand through her hair calmingly. Parts of her scream to reach out and help him in any way she can.
When she looks into the paramedic's eyes, it's clear they both know there's no way he'll make it.
Her jaw clenches tighter.
She knows it has to be like this. She can't save everyone, it would draw too much attention. She needs to let lost causes go. The clasp on her locket clicks open-shut, open-shut. Deep breath.
Let it go, the rational part of her mind is arguing. It would be insane for him to live through this.
But what's an apparent miracle every now and then, her heart screams. It happens all the time! You've done it before! This isn't a natural death! It should never have happened in the first place!
When she finally looks up, the man is gone. She can hear doctors in the operating room. She waits.
Eventually, another nurse tells her about how he made it through surgery, but he's still in critical condition. Idle fingers pick at the opening of the sachet in her coat pocket. She asks what room they put him in.
-
Mary's mind finally turns to the case. All sorts of people are being attacked at night on the outskirts of the town, usually just past the tree line. Victims reported being lured into the woods by the sound of a wounded animal, usually a dog. Most said there were two attackers. All of them just barely lived through the attack, arriving at the hospital with extreme blood loss. Typical vampires. Likely a mated pair.
But, no one had died yet. Whether it was careful planning on the vampire's part to take just the right amount of blood or just dumb luck was still up in the air.
After two days of driving, she finally pulled into a motel just off the main road. She paid for four nights. After dropping her stuff off in the room and changing into a dark dress suit. There was a gun tucked into her belt, hidden by the jacket.
-
"Hello, ma'am, I'm Ms. Weekes with the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service," she flashes a fake business card, "I was wondering if you had any time to talk about your attack last week?" The first victim is a middle-aged woman, a fitness instructor, who had been out in the woods on a run. When she answers the door, Mary is shocked by how quickly she's recovered from the attack.
"Of course, come in." She ushers Mary into her house and takes a seat in a cozy, off-white living room. "What did you need from me?"
"I just wanted to go over a few details one more time before the report is closed. I saw in the initial report from the hospital and police that you claimed to be attacked by two people, but your injury report is consistent with many wild animal attacks, especially in this area. What exactly did you see?" Truthfully, all she needs is confirmation of how many vamps there are. Everything else is easy to figure out later.
The woman freezes for a moment. "Yeah, I don't know for sure. I was really out of it at the hospital," she stammers.
"That's okay. Just tell me what you remember," Mary reassured her.
"God, it all happened so fast. I was out running and I saw these two people, a girl and a guy- I'd say mid-twentyish, flagged me down and asked if I knew where the nearest park map was. There's one at the head of each trail. I pointed them towards it, and then all of a sudden I was being attacked by some sort of animal."
"And they were the only two people you saw?" Mary pushes.
"Yeah."
"Did you recognize either of them?"
"No. I thought I knew if not everybody in this town, at least all the people who ran the trails, but I guess not."
"Alright, that's all I needed to clarify. Thank you so much for your time. If anything else pops up, don't hesitate to call me." She hands over the business card from before. "And I must say, it's great to see you up and about this soon after such a severe attack. You're very lucky."
-
The nurse walks into the latest victim's room confidently. He's hooked up to a variety of machines, all whirring and beeping and clicking and buzzing.
She pulls a pink drawstring bag from her pocket and dumps the contents onto the table. Immediately, she sweeps half of the various crystals back into the bag. When she sees that he is already getting blood through an IV, she picks away two more. Glancing at his vital, she finally picks one out and puts the rest away.
The crystal she's chosen is orangish-red, cut into a wand, and engraved with a different sigil on each side. She leaves it in the patient's room, hidden behind a vase.
In the corridor, she passes what must be his family. They rush into his room anxiously.
When she sees them again later in the cafeteria, they've all calmed down. Two children are listing off ideas of what their dad would like them to bring back to him. An exasperated mother continues to explain how his tummy isn't strong enough to eat anything since he just woke up from surgery. The nurse smiles genuinely.
-
Vampires are predictable. Just because they look like a human, doesn't mean they live like one. Nine times out of ten they're holed up in some nearby abandoned barn or motel or something. Mary finds her latest pair in an abandoned cabin just a bit past the tree line.
There's two of them, but she's prepared. Machete in her hands, she sneaks through the door. The guy the victim described has his back to her, and she doesn't hesitate. Lunging into the kitchen, the sharpened blade cuts into his neck messily just as he turns at her scent. Stopped by his spinal cord, she only hacks her weapon back and slashes again. This time, his head is severed properly.
The second one notices her, though.
The woman comes at her with a pocket knife, and as prepared as Mary is, her arm still ends up bleeding. The vampire, in the split second Mary is distracted by the wound, shoved her down onto the hardwood floor, knocking over a coffee table and sending its contents flying. She lands on something, and it tears through her jacket and shirt to slice into her back. She curses at the pain but doesn't flinch again. With a hard push to the chest, the vampire is thrown off of her and onto the couch in the living room. Towering over the creature, Mary raises the blade and brings it down heavily.
A second head rolls.
On her way out of the cabin, her eyes land on a shattered flower vase, a shard of which she assumes had cut into her back.
-
Back at the motel, she assesses her injuries. The large cut on her arm looks bad, but it's nothing she can't handle herself. She does the stitches herself, already accepting another scar.
She's more worried about her back. There's no way for her to reach it, and she can tell it's still bleeding into her shirt. Condemned to ruining another shirt, she chooses to take it off, shower, wrap her back the best she can, and sleep on a towel.
She thinks about how her father always talked about the importance of wound care, and how she should have washed the wound with alcohol, but it doesn't matter if she only has alcohol wipes and still can't reach the wound in the first place. She thinks about how Sam hadn't wanted her to go alone precisely because of situations like this. She falls asleep quickly to spite both them and the pain.
When she does manage to maneuver a hand over the wound the next morning, she gasps at the lasting pain. The wound feels warm, and there's definitely glass still inside. She groans at the thought.
With no one around to help her, she debates her other options. She's a full day from the bunker if she were to drive for 24 hours straight.
The warmth points to a growing infection that she needed to deal with quickly; and the glass wounds, while she hadn't noticed them under the general pain the day before, would make sitting down for the drive extremely painful.
She hesitantly decided on the local ER she had driven past when she first got into town. Connected to the town's hospital, it was where all of the victims had gone.
-
The same nurse is working when Mary comes in. It's a slow day, and she happily accepts the papers before walking back to a room. "Alright Ms Weekes, you're here for a possible infection. Could you pop up here to show me the wound and tell me what happened?" She pats the paper covering the exam chair.
Mary sits and strips off a blessedly clean shirt. "I know it's stupid," she plays innocent, "but I was cleaning my house the other day and accidentally broke my favorite vase! Then, when I was trying to sweep it all up, my dog got excited and pushed me into it. I wasn't worried, but it's worse today than it was yesterday." For a minute she debates tearing up.
The nurse has to try not to laugh at the Hunter. It's obvious in the way she carries herself, not to mention the litany of scars across her whole chest. "Alright, well, I can start by taking your temperature and then I'll go ahead and examine the wound. You said it was glass, did you manage to get all the shards out?"
"No. My husband's out of town, and I couldn't reach it. God, he's going to be so mad when he gets back." Mary lets the nurse slip the thermometer under her tongue before the nurse walks around her to look at her back. If the breath she takes in is any indication, it doesn't look good.
"Well, it's definitely infected, and I'm seeing a lot of glass still in your skin. It's a miracle you managed to sleep at all like this." When the thermometer beeps, she takes it away to check it. "You don't have any fever yet, but I'm worried that won't last long. Are you up to date with all your vaccinations for MMR and Hepatitis?" Mary nods. "And have you had a tetanus shot in the last ten years?" She nods again. "Well, that's good at least. For now, since it's only small particles, I'll get the glass out and then see if the doctor can prescribe you a dose of antibiotics." The nurse moves again to rifle through the cabinets for everything needed to remove the glass. Mary finally takes the time to look her over.
She's pretty, Mary notices quickly. Her pastel pink scrubs highlight tanned skin and extremely long, dark orange hair. It's obviously dyed, but it looks good. When she walks back behind Mary, she has a small strip of bandage wrapped around her hand.
"Alright. I'm just going to pat this down around the glass to pick it up, okay? Let me know if you need me to stop." She presses the adhesive down onto newly scabbed skin, and Mary doesn't react at all. In her mind, that's what seals the deal that the woman in her chair is a Hunter. Anyone else would have flinched at least. She continues to collect the glass silently. The wound is surely from whatever had been attacking all those people, so she is happy to help out. There's something... off about the blonde, but she can't place it. Something beyond hunting and all the problems that brings with it.
She still hasn't gotten her cherry opal back from the last patient, so she considers what else she has on her. After she throws away the bandage, she pulls the small bag out of her pocket again. The small crystal of zincite she has is pulsing with red light, but she doesn't grab it. It does, however, make her ever more curious about the woman. The type of curiosity she knows she'll have to pursue.
Light blue calcite for its cooling effects, a small polished bloodstone for healing, and moldavite to amplify the others since Mary won't be there long. She places all three down behind a container of cotton swabs and leaves to get a doctor to write the necessary antibiotics prescription.
-
Mary waits patiently for the young nurse to finish before finally pulling her shirt back on. While she's busy getting dressed, she hears the woman click her tongue at something before ultimately dropping multiple things on the desk and leaving. She assumes it had been medicine or tools of some sort, but there's nothing visible on the desk.
And, well, she hadn't survived as a hunter for so long without some sort of natural curiosity. She gets up to check what the noise had been. Nothing at first, but she eventually looks behind the various boxes and cups. There, behind a half-empty cup of cotton swabs, are three carefully engraved rocks of some sort. Another thing Mary had learned in all her years of hunting, witchcraft was surprisingly easy to spot when you knew what to look for. And that included a handful of crystals with obviously legitimate sigils carved into them.
She sticks her head out the door and, with faux worry shouts, "Could I get my nurse back here? I think something's wrong with my back!"
The woman rushes around the corner and back into the room quickly. "Did the bleeding start again? I can-" Mary cuts her off by pushing her against the door and clicking out the blade of the knife in her pocket.
"What did you say your name was again?"
"I didn't." Mary pushes the blade against the side of her neck, thinking about what she had done to the vampires the night prior. "Helena Dawson, if you trust my ID." The blade presses further. "Or you can call me Hel," she says with a growing smirk.
"Did you think I wouldn't catch you?" Mary stares into her ash-blue eyes challengingly.
"Well, I guess I assumed that, if you did, you'd be smart enough to realize what's been going on." For the first time, Mary begins to inch the switchblade away from soft skin. "You didn't really think the vampires- was it vampires?- were non-lethal, did you?" With the room to move her neck, she laughs. "Gods no, I've just been healing them as best I can without raising too much suspicion, darling. What can I say? I'm a white hat witch."
"Say I do believe you. Why?"
"Wow, you really just can't believe that some people are good? I don't know what to tell you, but I really am just a healer at heart and all that. Did I seem like I wanted to do anything bad? Those stones are all for healing. Calcite- the blue one- has cooling effects to help with your infection; Bloodstone is green and known for healing wounds and blood loss; and the clear green one, moldavite, is a natural amplifier." Finally, the knife is taken entirely away from her skin. Mary forces the stones back into her hand.
"You're too reckless," she says. "You'll get caught if you keep this up."
"I don't know, I haven't been stopped yet. Plus, I was just about to move out of this place anyway. New name, new people, all that jazz. And speaking of names, can I get yours?" She carefully puts the moldavite and calcite back into her sachet.
"Mary," the hunter grunts, grabbing her bag off the chair.
"Well, Mary," she opens the door for them both. "I won't bother you with the rest of this visit, I suppose. And since I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other soon enough, I'll let you keep this." She slips the bloodstone into the breast pocket of Mary's shirt. "The warrior's stone. Strength, luck, healing, and courage." Slipping out the door first, she turns to walk further into the hospital.