The morning of November 2, 1983 dawned upon the Winchester household just as it always did.
Mary, used to getting up with the sun, was already downstairs in the kitchen, brewing coffee and preparing batter for the pancakes she was going to make for breakfast.
John smacked the button on his alarm clock to shut it off and rolled out of bed groggily, shuffling his feet across the carpeted floor towards the en suite bathroom.
Dean snored peacefully beneath his Batman sheets, dreaming happily of his Mom's baking.
Little Sammy, lying on his back in his crib, stared up at his mobile, the warm glow of light shining through the window lulling him towards sleep once again.
W
As Mary scooped pancake batter into a hot skillet, her thoughts were not on the food she was making, but on other, darker topics.
It had been ten years since she had made her deal with the Yellow-Eyed Demon, ten years since she'd begged him to bring John back to life, ten years since she'd agreed to give the monster something of hers if only so she wouldn't have to live without the love of her life.
Mary had an entire decade to think of what the demon could possibly want from her. He hadn't wanted her soul- he had made that clear at the time- but wouldn't tell her what he expected instead.
That made Mary nervous. She had never heard of a demon not bargaining for a soul. That's what they did. Nothing else was important to them, not wealth or fame or glory.
Not that Mary had any of those things to give away. Yes, she and her family lived in a very nice house, but they had a hefty mortgage to look after, and neither she nor her husband was famous or popular.
As Mary sprinkled a handful of blueberries onto the first pancakes as they cooked, she came to a horrible, terrible conclusion.
The only things Mary had which were of really any value to her were her family: her husband and two little boys. Would the demon come back and kill John?
As soon as she thought of it, Mary doubted it. Even though demons were evil, they still had their rules and wouldn't go back on a deal they had made.
That left only one more option: the demon was coming for her children.
Mary flipped the pancakes over with more force than necessary and grease splattered the pink apron she was wearing.
"Shit!" she swore and jumped back.
"You okay?" John's voice asked her from the kitchen doorway.
Without turning to face her husband, Mary nodded, "Yeah, don't worry about it."
She listened as John crossed the linoleum floor and poured himself a cup of coffee before opening the fridge.
"Mare, we're out of coffee creamer," John shut the door, "Thought you were getting some while you were out yesterday."
"I forgot," Mary replied, clenching her teeth.
"Hey," John's large, warm hand found her shoulder, "It's just creamer, it's not a big deal. I'll have milk."
Mary slid the first pancakes onto a plate and handed them to John.
"Can you put those on the table?" she asked, "And wake Dean? I don't want breakfast to get cold."
"Sure," John replied and left the kitchen.
Once she was alone again, Mary let out a shaky breath. Pressing the back of her hand against her mouth, she told herself to get under control. She was a hunter, damn it! She may play the part of a civilian but she knew what to do to protect her family and protect them she would. There was no way in hell the demon was going to get anywhere near her babies.
W
Mary watched Dean as he crammed large chunks of blueberry pancake into his mouth, barely even chewing before he swallowed, eating as though he hadn't seen food in days.
"Whoa! Slow down there, Tiger!" John chuckled, "There's enough pancakes to go around."
The four-year-old nodded, chagrinned, "Sorry, Daddy."
"And finish your milk," John pointed with his coffee mug at the untouched glass in front of his eldest son, "It'll help you grow up big and strong."
Dean wrinkled his nose, "Do I have to?"
"If you have your milk now, you can have juice at suppertime," John told him, "Deal?"
Dean smiled, "Deal."
"I'm going to get Sammy up," Mary stood and left her husband and eldest son in the kitchen.
Trailing one hand up the wooden banister as she climbed the staircase, Mary struggled to think of what a demon would want with two young children.
Moving down the hallway and into the nursery, Mary smiled as she peered down at her youngest son.
Only just six-months old, Sammy was the newest member of the family and, in Mary's eyes, the most vulnerable.
"Hey baby," Mary greeted the infant she reached down and picked him up.
Sammy burbled happily as Mary held him close to her chest, peering into face.
"Mommy's going to keep you safe," Mary murmured to him, "She won't let anything bad happen to you."
W
As soon as John left to take Dean to school before heading to work, Mary set her plan to protect her family into motion.
Grabbing a carton of table salt out of the cupboard, she opened it and spread thick lines of the tiny, white crystals across all the windows in the house- even the ones in the basement- and the doors.
Next, she found a can of black paint in the garage and a brush and brought them upstairs. Pushing Sammy's crib out of the way, Mary lifted the blue, circular rug that it sat on and carefully painted a Devil's Trap on the hardwood beneath. Moving onto her elder son's room, Mary wedged herself beneath Dean's bed and painted the floor upon which it sat. Standing up, she smiled; making sure that the Trap could not be seen by anyone coming into the room. Once the paint was dry in the nursery, Mary replaced the rug and the crib, pleased with her handiwork.
Finally, she went down to the basement, and, after about fifteen minutes of trying to find the correct pipes, was able to locate which ones fed water into the house. With a set of Rosary beads and a Bible, Mary blessed the water flowing into the house so that, if needed, she could open any tap and have a ready supply of holy water.
Heading upstairs, Mary checked her watch and saw that it was past lunchtime. Picking Sammy up from where she had left him in his playpen, she brought him with her into the kitchen while she made herself a quick lunch of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.
As Mary ate, she tried to think of anything else she could do to keep her children safe. The idea of convincing John that they should stay in a hotel for the night was not even debatable; the demon would surely find them wherever they went so it was better to remain at home.
Glancing around the kitchen- the dirty breakfast dishes piled in the sink, Dean's Matchbox cars scattered all over the floor in one corner, half-empty pot of coffee- Mary sighed. She could imagine that today was just like any other, but she knew it wasn't, and suddenly the small, mundane tasks that normally took her attention, seemed all too trivial.
The lives of her children could be in very real danger and she was expected to do the cleaning and cooking?
SPN
John Winchester opened the front door, allowing Dean to run inside.
"Take your shoes off!" he called after his four-year old son as the boy bolted into the kitchen where there was usually a sweet treat waiting for him.
The auto mechanic frowned as he stepped over the threshold and noticed white grit in the doorway.
"Mare, did you spill something here?" he asked his wife, using his steel-toed boot to brush the mysterious bits out the door.
"No," Mary stepped into the foyer, "I don't think so. How was your day at work?"
John shrugged, "Same stuff, different day."
"You know you don't have to stay there if you don't like it," Mary told him but her gaze was locked on the floor at the doorway.
John sighed, "You know I can't, Mare. We've been over this."
"Why? You don't own Mike anything," Mary told him.
"He's the one who hired me after I came back," her husband reminded her, "Not a lot of other guys got that chance. You know what people thought of us."
Mary nodded, looked about to say something but turned her head and spoke to Dean.
"Leave those cookies alone! I said you could have one!"
John watched as Mary stalked into the kitchen, continuing to scold Dean, and sighed.
He knew Mary wasn't happy that he hadn't left the garage he'd been working at since he came back from Vietnam. Mary didn't think Mike Guenther treated him all that well but John felt that he owed him for giving a chance when no one else would. Now, John couldn't see himself doing anything else and Lawrence was too small for him to set up his own shop.
Toeing his boots off, John followed his wife into the kitchen to see a batch of chocolate chip cookies cooling on the table, two or three missing and dark brown smears on the pan to indicate they had been quickly picked up and eaten by a hungry four-year old.
Dean was now standing at his brother's high chair, talking to the baby, telling him about his day at school.
John walked over to the sink to wash his hands- Mary hated for him to touch anything until he'd cleaned them thoroughly- and frowned. The dishes from that morning's pancake breakfast were still sitting in the sink.
"You didn't do the dishes," John said, surprised.
"I was busy today," Mary told him.
"Doing what? Making cookies?"
His wife glared at him.
"I didn't feel like doing the dishes," she told him, "How about you do them for a change?"
John frowned.
"Sorry, I was just saying," he apologized, "I didn't mean anything by it."
"You make it sound like I'm supposed to be the doting housewife," Mary told him.
"I don't care that the dishes aren't done, Mare," John told her, "It's just that you usually do them."
Mary shook her head, "I'm sorry, John, I just… haven't been feeling well today."
Her husband went to her and gave her a hug.
"I didn't know," John murmured and kissed her hair.
"What do you say we have dinner out? And when we get home, I'll take care of the dishes?" he asked.
Mary peered up at him, that vertical line appearing between her eyes whenever she was worried, but then she nodded and smiled.
"Get your shoes and jacket, Dean," John told his eldest son, "We're going out for dinner."
"Yes!" the four-year old ran into the foyer to get ready, "Can we go to Plucky Pennywhistle's?"
John made a face and looked at Mary. She nodded.
"Sure," he called back to his son.
Mary picked Sammy up and hugged him to her for a long moment.
"Mare?" John reached out and put a strand of his wife's blonde hair behind her ear, "You know if something's bothering you, you can tell me about it. Right?"
Mary smiled at him.
"I'm fine," she assured him and John, who didn't believe his wife would hide anything from him, believed her.
SPN
Even though Mary had told her husband she was fine, she was unable to relax as they had dinner in the kid-friendly restaurant that Dean loved. Despite being surrounded by other families, Mary kept expecting the Yellow-Eyed Demon to appear to collect what he was owed.
Having to sit through a meal of greasy pizza and off-brand soda pop, Mary forced herself to pretend as though she wasn't about to have a panic attack.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, she thought; maybe we should have stayed at home. I could have made something or we could have had delivery.
But the most eventful part of the dinner was when Dean, running around the Play Zone, fell off a slide and skinned his knees.
Returning home, John insisted that he do the dishes by himself and truthfully, Mary didn't put up much of a fight. She went upstairs to get the boys ready for bed; bathing them, getting them dressed in pajamas, tucking Dean into his bed and laying Sammy down in his crib. She lingered over her sons for longer than usual before heading back downstairs.
She joined John in the living room when he turned on a baseball game and got himself a bottle of beer, declining to have one herself. She needed to be completely sober for what she knew was coming.
SPN
The game was only on its third inning when John fell asleep, one hand gripping the bottle, head titled back, snoring.
Mary waited for another inning to end before standing and taking the half-empty bottle from her husband's lax hand and setting it on the coffee table. She thought about turning the TV off but decided against it; it may cover up any noises from upstairs.
Leaving her husband in the living room, Mary made her way slowly up the stairs, her entire body tense and ready for a fight.
Moving down the hallway, she eased Dean's bedroom door open and looked inside. Her eldest son was lying on his back, hands thrust beneath his pillow, sleeping peacefully. Pulling the door shut again, Mary peered into the nursery. She could just hear the sound of her baby breathing as he slept in his crib. Leaving the door ajar, Mary went back down the hallway and positioned herself so that she could run to either boy's room if she heard any disturbance from within.
Not sure how long it would take; Mary sat down, her back against the wall, and clasped her hands between her knees. Although not at all religious, she found herself asking whomever was listening that she would be strong enough to keep her children safe from the evil she knew was on its way.
W
Mary startled and opened her eyes, for a moment confused as to where she was and what had woken her up… and then she heard it.
Sammy.
Standing up, Mary rushed down the hallway to her infant son's room and pushed open the door. For a moment she saw nothing, could only hear the sound of the baby's crying, and then, a shadow moved, slinking right up to her son's crib.
She watched as the shadow materialized into the shape of a man, the same man she had made a deal with ten years ago to bring her husband back from the dead.
"You," Mary breathed and the demon looked up, his yellow eyes boring into her green ones.
"Mary," the demon greeted in a silky voice, "You're still as lovely as you were all those years ago."
"Get away from my baby!" Mary hissed, "You can't have him!"
The demon held his hands out, palms up, "I don't want to take him; you've got me all wrong."
"Then what do you want with him?" Mary asked, fury rising up through her.
"I want to give him a gift," the demon told her and bent down over the baby.
"Don't touch him!" Mary snapped, stepping forward.
The demon ignored her. He brought up one arm and pulled down the sleeve of the black coat he wore. Before he could continue, Mary spoke again, snarling out the words to the exorcism her father had ingrained in her until she knew it by heart.
The Yellow-Eyed-Demon froze and lifted his gaze.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice sounding thick.
Mary didn't answer. She couldn't stop now.
"We had a deal!" the demon snarled.
He swore and turned from the baby, intent of leaving but found he was trapped.
Terrified, Sammy was practically screaming in fear.
Mary, for the moment, ignored her son. She could not stop if she wanted to get rid of this demon.
"Stop it!" the demon demanded, "Stop it now!"
Nearing the end of the exorcism, Mary found herself screaming the words, never feeling as much fury as she was at that moment.
The demon threw his head back and thick, black smoke pushed itself from the man's mouth.
Mary didn't stop until the smoke dissipated into the ceiling, and the man's body collapsed to the floor.
"Mary!" John's voice from the doorway caught her by surprise.
Turning, she saw her husband's shocked face.
"I can explain," she told him.
SPN
John Winchester simply could not understand how, in the early hours of November 3, 1983, he was driving with his wife to the outskirts of Lawrence with a body in the trunk of their car.
This is all some crazy dream, John told himself as Mary told him to stop; it's all that cheap pizza giving me some weird dreams.
Mary climbed out of the Impala before John had even got his seatbelt unbuckled and had popped the trunk.
His wife, so petite and gentle, grabbed the body, wrapped in black plastic garbage bags and tied with coarse, yellow rope, and heaved it onto the ground.
"Grab the legs," Mary instructed John.
Carefully, they began walking, supporting the body that had hosted the Yellow-Eyed-Demon towards the river.
"With any luck," Mary grunted as she strained with the heavy corpse, "No one will find him until spring."
John just nodded. They picked their way carefully down the embankment and then, at the edge of the river, dropped the body into the chilly water.
Mary, seemingly unsatisfied with this, used the toe of her sneaker to shove the body deeper into the river until it was completely submerged. She waited for a long moment, perhaps to ensure the corpse did not float to the surface, before turning and beginning to climb towards the car.
When they reached the Impala, John grabbed Mary but the arm. She turned to look at him.
"Mary," John said, "Why?"
"I have to protect my family," she told him, "At any cost."
John let Mary's arm slip from his grip and he watched as his wife- who now seemed like a complete stranger- climbed into the passenger's seat of the car and close the door.
Shaking his head, John muttered to himself, "That is the last time I mix alcohol with shitty pizza."
Author's Note:
Story title comes from an instrumental song by Shiro Sagisu.
This is what I feel should have happened since Mary is a hunter and could have protected her family from Azazel in the show. I never understood that part of the show where its revealed she grew up hunting monsters and yet, she did nothing to prepare or protect her family from the demon she surely knew was coming to collect.
Sorry if this isn't a popular opinion, but it's just my own thoughts and if you have a different opinion, that's awesome.
Please leave a review if you enjoyed this little story.