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Mary takes a fifties stick shift and bolts across the state. Without meaning to, she finds herself on I-70 heading into Lawrence. She knows that heading back into the town she died in is a bad idea, but she can’t help herself. A tiny part of her believes that if she can only get back home, she can click her heels together and wind up back in 1983. The intellectual side of her knows that it’s stupid, but she can’t help it. She wants her life back so much that it’s like a physical ache.
She decides to ease back into Lawrence, like at the swimming pool that she’d used to take Dean to. Mary starts with the library. With the small exception of a row of computers where a shelf of reference material used to be, everything looks the same. She spends an afternoon curled up in one of the chairs in the back of the fiction section with a modern history book.
It makes her head spin. It’s a world completely different than the one she left behind. A woman is running for president. The AIDS crisis is long over. You can hold a computer in the palm of your hand. When she asks the receptionist for the card catalog, she looks at her like she’s speaking another language.
The motel room she collapses in at the end of the day looks pretty much like any motel room would look like in 1983, except that instead of advertising colored TV, they’re advertising something called wi-fi that Mary has to look up on her phone, once she figures out how to look things up.
She looks down at her phone—well, Sam’s backup phone, really, but she doesn’t have a lot of possessions so it helps to call something hers—for a long time before finally finding the icon that shows the phone and hits call.
He picks up on the first ring. “Mary?”
“How’d you know I have Sam’s phone?” she asks.
“He texted me,” Castiel responds. “He thought you might call me.”
Over the phone, it’s easier to forget that Castiel is about as far from human as you can get. Without the way his eyes seem to x-ray her or the slight electrical vibe he gives off, she can almost pretend that he’s another hunter.
“I’m in Lawrence.”
She can tell by the silence on the other end that Castiel knows exactly why that’s significant. Mary has no idea how on Earth her sons got close enough to a supernatural creature—to an angel—for him to know something like their hometown.
“Do you need help?”
Mary’s gut instinct is to say no and hang up. She bites down on it. “I—I just need to be with someone and I can’t—I can’t be with the boys right now.” The words come out in a rush without her permission. “Every time I look at them, it’s like I’m looking at the men who stole my children and it hurts and I know I’m hurting them by running away—oh God, I’m a terrible mother, what I am I doing? I need to go back—”
“Mary.” Castiel’s voice remains steady, calm, on the other end of the line. “This doesn’t make you a terrible mother.”
No, this doesn’t. Allowing a demon into her home does. Letting him take her baby and corrupt him into something other than human does. Not being there for her boys or for her husband when they needed her the most does. That’s what makes her a terrible mother. Mary presses her hand over her mouth so Castiel can’t hear the hitch of her breath.
“Where are you?” he asks gently.
Mary takes a few breaths before she answers. “The Knightly Motel. It’s got a giant suit of armor on top. You can’t miss it.”
“All right,” Cas says. “I’m about an hour away. Until I get there, turn on the TV, all right?”
The awful numb feeling in her chest eases a little. “All right.”
She hangs up, feeling like an idiot. She may be younger than her sons now, but she’s still a fully grown woman. Having someone else take care of her like this is just plain embarrassing. She considers calling Castiel back and telling him not to bother, but her heart clenches painfully at the thought, so she doesn’t. Instead, she ignores John’s journal (because reading about it, feeling his palpable grief through the pages, hearing about her sons turned soldiers will only make her feel worse) and turns on the television.
They still do reruns of I Love Lucy. At least one thing hasn’t changed.
By the time a knock sounds on her door, Mary has almost forgotten about the phone call. She opens the door and keeps her eyes carefully trained on Castiel’s feet. It’s too much to look him in the eyes right now.
In the background, Lucille Ball throws her head back and laughs.
Cas brightens at the sight of her. “Dean doesn’t think she’s funny.”
“That’s his damn father shining through,” Mary says, the pain in her chest easing somewhat. “Why the man claims to hate things that make him happy, I’ll never—”
She stops. Claimed. Not claims.
Castiel clears his throat awkwardly, so Mary takes a step back and lets him fully in the room. He doesn’t take off the trench coat. She hovers awkwardly, trying to work out whether or not he means to stay.
“I brought you snacks.” He holds up a white plastic bag. “Dean said you liked jerky?”
A small smile creeps across her face. “Yeah. I do.”
Mary switches off the TV and seats herself on the bed. Castiel perches beside her, looking painfully out of place. Mary wonders if he looks like that everywhere he goes. Unearthly. Unsettled.
“What do you want to know?”
Mary blinks at him. Somehow, he knows what she’d ask for. “Everything.”
She doesn’t trust Sam and Dean to give her the full story. They want to sugarcoat things, to keep her in the dark about the darkest parts of their lives, but she doesn’t want pretty. She wants to know what actually happened.
Castiel shakes his head. “Why don’t we start small?”
He tells her about his “last night on Earth” (actually using the air quotes), about he and Dean fleeing the brothel, Dean laughing as they ran out. He tells her about Sam making him a peanut butter sandwich in the bunker to try out his taste buds. It’s a parade of simple moments, but it gives her a clearer image of her sons than the big picture ever could.
“I miss them so much,” she says thickly, doing her best to pull herself together.
“And you will,” Castiel says with a nod. “The children you knew—they’re not children anymore. But as time passes, things will get better.”
“They’re older than me. How am I supposed to be their mother?”
She’s not running from her sons, she realizes. She’s running from their picture of her, from the woman that they think she is.
Castiel shrugs. “I don’t know. But I would start with trying to be their friend.”
If Samuel Campbell could see his daughter lean into an angel for an awkward sideways hug, he would probably go to get his shotgun. Still, Mary gives his shoulder a squeeze before she draws back.
“You must be a great friend to them,” she says. Then, “I always told Dean that there were angels watching over him. Thank you for watching over them when I couldn’t.”
Castiel offers her a smile, barely enough to crinkle his eyes. Mary thinks that for him, that’s the equivalent of breaking into laughter.
“You’ll find your place here, Mary.”
Somehow, she thinks he’s right. Castiel gets up to go, but Mary pats the place beside her on the bed.
“Hey. If you have time, I think the episode with the assembly line is up next.”