1. "Truth is that it was always going to end…" -Panic! At the Disco

Dean blinked into awareness. He lay still, staring at the cement ceiling of his room in the Men of Letter's bunker waiting to recognize what had pulled him awake. The whine of the water pipes indicated a shower was on in the bathroom. He pulled his phone from the small table beside his bed. 7:43 – too early for Sammy to naturally be up and about. Dean rolled up off the mattress, growling a warning to suck it up at the bruised ribs that protested. He toed on a pair of worn grey slippers that still reeked of Good Will and shuffled toward the door. Reaching for the door knob he got a wiff that set him back a step. Grimacing in anticipation of a second assault, Dean forced his nose into his shoulder. God Damn! Quickly he shed the shirt and flung it toward a pile of laundry waiting for attention. He pulled his towel off the back of a chair, grabbed his toothbrush, and set off to investigate the shower.

Dean caught the bathroom door before the hinge squawked a warning of his entry. An evil idea curled his lip. If he could hardly stomach his own arm pit, could he really pass up this opportunity to see how quickly his brother could break a head lock? He struggled desperately to hold back the sick glee the thought ignited. Silently Dean crept forward. He shifted to set his towel and toothbrush on a sink and caught his reflection in the mirror. Crap! Streaks of deep purple wrapped from his chest around to his back. He had been playing hide and seek with Sam on the topic for the past three days. As Dean stood debating whether a little fun was worth admitting to Sam that he had taken damage. A soft feminine voice began to hum a vaguely familiar tune from a golden oldies channel. Dean's eyes went wide. Sam had a girl in the bunker?

The embarrassment of catching Sam in a compromised position wasn't tempting enough to OUT the bruising he was sporting. Quietly Dean retreated. There were other ways to mess with Sam.

Dean was a step from ducking back into his room when Sam's sleepy voice caught him by suprise. "Mom's here. Call out before you go barging into the bathroom, because seeing your parents naked is one of those unseeable events." The instant look of horror, like Dean could literally have seen that happening was comical. But then came what Sam had been waiting for, the dawning sunshine effect their mother's presence had on Dean. The light in his brother's eyes made Sam's effort to drag himself out of bed this early - worth it. Sam rubbed his palm against the bridge of his cheek trying to inspire a little more alertness. It had been two am when Mary had knocked against the door. Too late for an extended reunion but anticipating this moment with Dean had kept sleep away. Sam imagined it was something like what normal kids felt the night before Christmas. Dean gave him a nod in acknowledgment, but Sam caught the private smile that lit his brother's face as Dean moved into his room. Sam couldn't help responding with a smile of his own as. He savored the moment, watching the flex of light and dark across his brother's back. Too distracted by the good vibes, to register the anamoly of dark bruising.

"Dean!" Sam swore. He startled from his slouch against the wall but Dean's door slammed shut. Damn it, Sam huffed. He had been trying for days to figure out what Dean had been hiding and the arrival of their mother had completely distracted him. He knew better, he had been there when the ghost flung Dean from the room. Begrudgingly, he admitted that if Dean hadn't keeled over yet, he would probably live without intervention. Sam shook his head with a mix of fond infuriation. Maybe with Mary back, things would change. Dean wouldn't get away with quite as much. The smile crept back to Sam's face. It felt good not to be motherless kids any longer.

SNSNSN

Mary ran a hand over her hair and checked for the third time that all her shirt buttons were paired to the correct button holes. She was as pressed and clean as she could manage and there didn't seem to be any excuse left to put off confronting her grown sons. Sons she still felt motherly responsibility for even though they were adult strangers. Would they love her? Would she love them? Wasn't it just yesterday that 38 weeks of colicky baby sleep deprivation had left her pandering for a smile from a four year old with a few rewarmed dino shaped chicken pieces? And it had worked, she could still remember the feel of Dean's little arms wrapped around her legs and his adorable dimpled smile shining warmer than the sun.

"Jesus John, what am I doing?" she whispered. John was gone. She knew because she had damn well looked. But after her own surprising return from the grave she couldn't discount the feeling that maybe he was out there, listening, working towards his own return to duty. The thought gave her strength anyway. It was the reason she had returned even though every second with Sam and Dean dug painfully at her with what she had missed. A mother in the grocery line had caught Mary watching some kids playing with the gum display. The woman had smiled like she shared Mary's pain and said "They grow up so fast, don't they?" Mary had dropped everything and bolted; apples and spilled milk scattered in her wake. It was the only way she had avoided breaking the hapless woman's nose.

Making a clean break and starting over was more Mary's style, it's what she had done after losing her parents. It's what she had started to do until she was struck numb with this image of John walking in and catching her playing house with someone else. That's about the one thing her marine wouldn't be able to forgive her for. So she had packed it in, and returned to the Men of Letter's bunker half hoping her boys wouldn't be home.

Mary stepped into the library and two sets of green put her center stage. Damn it! How the hell did a six foot adult have the same eyes as her beloved four year old? She had to drop her eyes quickly as she swallowed the weight threatening to strangle her. "Coffee?" Sam asked hopefully. Mary nodded gratefully and slid into a chair beside Dean. She could feel Dean's leg bouncing and reached a hand to his thigh without thinking. "Don't fidget," she commanded softly before releasing Dean to take the coffee cup from Sam. It wasn't until she saw Sam's look of awe that she realized what she had done. She glanced back at Dean. He was still, a silly bemused look on his face. She turned back to her coffee cup. Ok, maybe she could do this.

Taking a deep breath, she launched into a speech she had been working over the long hours driving to the bunker. "So, ah… it's probably going to take some getting used to… ah… suddenly having a mother." She brought the coffee cup up in front of her in defence. "So ah… they say you don't get to choose your family, which means… you are sort of stuck with me." She finished with a one shoulder shrug. "Since… well, maybe the best place to start is to… get to know you boys." She rubbed at a coffee ring on the table. "I sort of need to know what's what if I'm going to be any good at this." Sam smiled encouragingly at her. She still couldn't bring herself to look Dean in the face, but he hadn't retreated. He seemed to give off heat like a radiator, she could feel his nearness.

Sam nodded; he gave a soft hum thinking hard about what he wanted his mother to know about himself. Everything, of course… he loved animals… he had always wanted a dog… But that lead to thoughts of the two dogs he had had which were both moments that he had unerringly cut and run on Dean… So maybe don't go there yet, he counseled. Um, he loved to read… so maybe favorite book? Jezz, there were so many to choose from. Ender's game… nah, too sci fi that would make him seem like a geek, again not the first impression he wanted to give. What about a classic like Frankenstein? Nah, she already knows that he's a hunter; he doesn't want her to think the supernatural is all that he does.

The silence stretched until Dean finally broke it with a snort of enjoyment. "Don't strain anything, Sammy." Dean teased. Sam shot his brother a dirty look that did nothing to stop Dean from continuing. "Don't let the silence fool you, this kid loves to talk." Dean pointed at Sam, "Sammy's got plenty to brag about. The brainiac got a damn full ride to Stanford and he's fast enough to take a vamp's head." Dean shook his head playfully, "And Jesus, look at 'm. He's a freak'n sasquatch. Good luck to any bar mug trying to get close enough to land a punch." Mary smiled at Dean's obvious pride. Sam just shook his head and countered, "Nice Dean. Could you have said any of that less eloquently?" Dean smirked and leaned in towards Mary to add, "Come on Mom! Could you be any more proud of the vocabulary stuffed up under that mop?" "Dean!" Sam barked an edge entering his voice warning his brother he was going too far.

Mary held up her hand to stop the escalating banter as amusing as it was. "Stanford?" She redirected the conversation. Sam nodded. "Yeah, pre law. I thought I would make a decent trial lawyer."

"Those stuffed shirts running the place thought so too," Dean added leaning back in his chair. "He was all set up with an interview to lock in a full ride on the post graduate stuff too." Mary's look of approval took the bite out of Dean's teasing, so Sam smiled and shrugged.

"Wow, John must have been over the moon." Mary thought aloud. "You know he had just started college on the GI bill when you were born," She directed at Sam. A sudden tension moth balled the room making Mary realize she had stumbled onto some type of emotional land mine. "Uh, I mean he was only a semester in… but… Well… the mechanic job he took to support us when Dean was born was always supposed to be temporary." Sam was staring at her in disbelief. "We wanted a better life for you boys, so… yeah, college. You know," she quickly added, "I went too; almost had my paramedic certification."

"DAD went to college," Sam clarified carefully.

Mary nodded, "Being raised by a single mother, college was just one of those things John was driven by." She chuckled lost in memory. "He was one of those nontrade students everyone hated because he would over do every assignment. He didn't just write the required 150 words, he would make visuals and have everything cross referenced; completely shattered the bell curve. I knew better than to be in a class with him."

"Both of you went to college… thought college was a good idea." Sam reiterated his eyes now on Dean with a manic WTF intensity. But Dean was lost in his own attempt to understand the hole this punched into who he had understood his father to be. Mary looked warily between her boys. Sam's face hardened sarcastically, "That's news to me. Dean?" Sam demanded. If this was another one of those things his brother had hidden… Sam didn't know what he was going to do. But it would be violent and Dean was going to be paying for it for the rest of his unnatural life! Sam jerked to his feet. The legs of his chair squealed like nails on a chalkboard. Effective pulling Dean from the conclusions spooling in his head.

Dean looked up into Sam's questioning disbelief. "He never said," Dean confirmed.

"Unbelievable!" Sam erupted throwing his hands up. But the split second glimpse of broken diffidence in Dean's quelling glare stopped Sam in his tracks. Sam glanced back at Mary to consider her. With a sniff he settled back in his chair. "Apparently DAD never said a lot. Because he refused to say anything to me for almost four years when I walked out that door for college."

"Sam," Dean's low voice was a warning. Sam's look was enough to communicate that he believed this was irrefutable evidence that their father's actions didn't deserve defending. But it was an old worn rut between them. Glancing at his mother, Dean knew exactly who he was protecting. The father their mother was still in love with. "He loved you," Dean said with narrowed eyes and steely conviction. Sam sighed and slowly agreed, dropping his head until his hair fell forward to sulk in some semblance of privacy. "Besides," Dean added to ease the tension, "You and I both know it was your hippy hair not your oversized brain that Dad objected to." Sam huffed an involuntary laugh.

"Jerk," Sam responded affectionately.

"Bitch." The word slipped out without thought. The force of Mary's palm against the back of Dean's head stunned both boys.

"Language!" she barked. Sure she had heard, even used worse but it was the principle. She was the mom, this was part of the job and that particular noun directed at her youngest was an automatic parental trigger. Dean stared openly at her like a kid caught with his finger in the frosted cake. Suddenly Mary was full term again, beached on that ratty second hand couch with the flower pattern she hated, staring into her four year old's stricken face seconds after the boy had accidently spilled the glass of milk he had been charged to bring her. "Sorry, baby!" Mary gasped, jumping forward to grab his arm. Dean jerked back involuntarily at the suddenness. OH HELL Mary realized. She had just hit one of her boys - she was a horrible mother! Crap! "I just, its… All the parenting books say…" She fumbled to explain, "It's a mother's role to teach her boys language control or they are more likely to grow up to objectify women."

Instantly Sam collapsed forward strangling in laughter. "Dean?" He wheezed, "Objectify women?" Surprised, Mary released Dean to witness Sam lose all composure. Tears spiked his lashes and the gasping breaths between peels of mirth quickly developed into hiccups. Dean glared, but Sam could only shake his head and ride out the reaction. "I'm sorry…" Sam tried only to interrupt himself with the giggles.

Dean watched his brother with a look of resigned suffering. He hadn't seen his brother this loose in years and it was a far safer topic than confronting their Mother's first gesture of reconciliation with a run down of John's faults. It was becoming obvious that Mary had fallen in love with a different John Winchester than Dean or Sam knew. So he let his brother go, watching the hilarity affect Mary with an suffering smile.

"Ha, Ha, ha… It's been what? *gasp (Chortle)… Hic …what…Ha, Ha… Hic, months since… Ha, Ha months since Dean tapped anything in a bar's broom closet." Dean's eyes narrowed in warning; watching his brother roll towards an edge that would require a reaction. *giggle, hic… "Ha, at least… Ha, ha… At least he's not dating the darkness anymore… gasp*" Ok, he's had one too many Dean thought. Sliding low in his chair to reach beneath the table, Dean kicked Sam's chair out from under him. Sam dropped immediately out of sight below the table. His body hit with a thump that left Sam laughing even harder than before.

"Dean, that's enough." Mary commanded, "I think you need some time alone." Dean raised his eyebrow but didn't comment. Instead he got up silently and dutifully left the room. Sam's large palm came over the table edge, and her son pulled himself over the lip of the table still huffing with amusement. "Did you just put Dean on time out?" Sam asked. Mary frowned, her eyes tracking to the doorway Dean had exited. "I guess. I think I'm supposed to draw the line when things escalate from verbal to physical." She looked back at Sam's impressed look. "I take it that's not a frequent thing?" Sam shook his head and retrieved his chair trying to clear the mirth still bubbling up.

Sam shook his head negatively wrestling with how to explain knowing his words would eventually find their way back to Dean. "I think Dad got his parenting style from Uncle Sam." Mary's look asked for clarification. Sam continued carefully, "I can't argue the results, but… I think Dean is covering a couple bruised ribs, so I appreciate that you didn't just send him out on a 20 mile run." Sam explained.

That didn't sound like the pushover that would slip his little four year old Cheetos after Mary announced it was too close to dinner for snacking. But she filed that piece of information away for later. She had a more immediate need for this moment alone with her youngest. Leaning forward she took Sam's hands. Pausing to enjoy the strength and warmth they held, she looked intently into Sam's eyes and spoke, "I need you to know how proud and impressed I am with how you turned out, Sam." She watched emotions shift through his beautiful expressive eyes and wondered how he was able to survive the life when everything he felt was written there on his face for any unnatural creature to twist and use against him. She gave his hands a soft squeeze for emphasis. "I'm sorry for everything you had to overcome, the troubles you were born with. I heard a few tales while I was out there. What you have done with what you were given is nothing short of miraculous. I couldn't be more proud. I'm hoping I can make up for the part I was responsible for… Maybe give you the chance to return to college and your dream of some normal life."

The declaration, his mother's open approval, and the implications of her pledge were too big for Sam to do anything more than nod. But his thoughts immediately went to Dean. "I can't leave Dean." He said with quiet conviction. Mary smiled in response. "I have no intention of leaving Dean either, the family that hunts together can also study together, right?" Sam's look telegraphed that he didn't think she knew what she had just taken on. "You know…" The moment took on a confessional feel. The intimacy of the moment tempted her to share the heavier burden she was struggling with.

Alarm crossed Sam's face, "It's ok," he jumped in thinking her anguish was because of him. "I forgive you... if that's even a question. I don't blame you, after everything…" Mary reached across the table to take his hand. How her youngest had turned out, wasn't the issue giving her heartache but this tender moment between a mother and her youngest son wasn't the right time to explain. So Mary smiled and kept her issue to herself.