A/N: Well, this took a while! I loved this episode so much and Jody was such a badass!
Mary studies her two sons sitting across the table from her. They bump and jostle each other as they move, squeezed into too small a space for their combined bulk. The sounds of people's chatter and plates clattering surround them but it's like the three of them are separated from it somehow, contained in their own little world.
When she first saw them, they were little more than strangers. They had been mere children when she died; she couldn't recognise the men 33 cold, hard years had turned them into and her hunter's instincts had immediately labelled them as a threat. Now... She's not sure what they are now. She knows some - not much, but some - of what they had been through but then Lucifer echoes through her head and she remembers that she still doesn't know them as well as she should. If she's being honest with herself, she's not sure she wants to know, but what she wants doesn't matter - has never mattered - when it comes to her boys.
"Sam?" she asks. He instantly notes the hesitant tone of her voice and she sees his whole demeanour change from calm and relaxed to on high alert within a second. The shift is subtle, but she spots it regardless and her face flushes briefly.
"What's up?"
"I, um... What that demon said? About Lucifer?" She trails off as Dean stops shovelling bacon into his mouth and straightens in his seat. The light in his bright green eyes turns hard and she can almost feel the weight of his gaze piercing into her soul. Sam laughs nervously.
"You heard that?"
"I was just wondering... Is it, you know..."
"True?" Sam finishes. His expression has turned guarded, wary even, and his voice is carefully controlled when he answers. "Yeah. I was his vessel - his true vessel - and apparently the only one strong enough to contain him without breaking apart."
"But... What did it mean, that Lucifer left you alive? I thought angels needed permission to enter a human's body in the first place."
"They do. I-"
"Did what you had to," Dean finishes, firmly cutting off the conversation. Sam glares pointedly at him but he takes no notice, instead silently challenging Mary to ask another unwelcome question.
"Dean, she needs to know. We can't keep her in the dark forever."
"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying we don't need to tell her everything yet."
A silent argument ensues between the two of them consisting of glares and what must have been the 'patented Sam Winchester puppy dog eyes', which Sam apparently wins as Dean huffs in exasperation and turns back to his breakfast, attacking the sausages as though they were vampire's necks. Sam looks apologetically at her and shrugs before continuing his story.
"I agreed to be his vessel."
They sit in the diner for over an hour more, consuming outrageous amounts of coffee and catching up on the past few years. Mary knows they're still holding back, she can see it in their eyes, but she realises that she'll be getting no more out of them. For the moment, she will leave it be. What she has heard has shocked her to the core and she wonders what else she's missed out on while she has been gone. These men, her sons, have suffered too much for their years. She never wanted this for either of them, but even most other hunters never lived through as much as they had. The haunted, broken look in their eyes is finally starting to make more sense but she can't help but feel that she will never be able to properly see them as her children.
A/N: Ugh, that ending was so crap. If you have time for a review, please leave one! If anyone here follows my SPN/Merlin crossover, Our Broken Souls, I apologise for the long gap in updates and it should have a new chapter soon. Bye!