AN: Thanks so much for the wonderful response to this story. I very much appreciate all of the reviews and follows. Thanks for reading.
Chapter 2
Mary Winchester was not surprised to learn that angels existed. She just didn't expect one to be dressed in a blue suit and trench coat. Or to have one so casually introduced to her by her son — her adult son.
"This is a vessel," Castiel explained. "You would not be able to look upon my true form."
"Or listen to him," Dean put in, remembering disastrous it had been for him when Cas first tried to speak to him. He wiggled a finger in his ear at the memory.
Mary had many questions about why an angel was living in the flesh among her boys. She certainly didn't expect him to be such good friends with them. Dean seemed relieved the see Castiel but at the same time annoyed with him. The angel took her son's belligerence in stride as Dean questioned him about why Sam was missing.
"You promised you'd watch out for him," Dean complained, more pained than angry.
Castiel lowered his eyes as the comment hit close to home. "I'm sorry, Dean."
Regret for his harsh words flashed across Dean's face. Cas dipped his head accepting the wordless apology and her son immediately returned to the task at hand.
"Just tell me what happened."
"When we got back to the bunker after ….." The angel gave Mary a quick glance before looking to Dean again. "You … left …."
"Yeah," Dean murmured.
"Someone was waiting."
"Who?"
Cas shook his head. "I don't know. She used a sigil to banish me. She was waiting for us, and she obviously knew I would be with Sam. I was going to stay with him no matter what, Dean."
Mary watched curiously as Dean gave his head a slight nod, acknowledging the angel's words.
"The intruder was prepared. By the time I got back, Sam was gone. As I was searching the bunker for clues, you called."
"Can you zap us all back there now?"
"I should be able to, yes."
"Alright," he said to Cas before turning back to his mother. "Let's get back home to find Sam."
"Back home?" Mary didn't want to ask too many questions now, not while her son was missing. But she could barely follow the Dean's conversation with Castiel. "To Lawrence?"
Despite being anxious to start looking for Sam, Dean slowed his pace to explain. He was patient with her and his expression held no hint of the frustration he had just displayed to the angel. "No. We're going to where Sam and I live. Lebanon."
"You have a house?"
"More like a bunker, but I guess we would call it home."
He guessed it was home. That raised more questions for the mother who was eager to learn more about her children. She never wanted them to be hunters in the first place, and this made her even more concerned about their lives if they called a bunker a home.
Castiel put a hand of each of their shoulders and paused, shifting his gaze to Mary. "This may make you feel lightheaded. But it will cause you no harm."
Mary glanced toward her eldest, who gave her a tense smile. She felt like she tucked in her baby and woke up in the twilight zone where her lovable, four year old little boy was a grown man. He was older now than she had been when she last saw him.
The scars she saw didn't belong on the sweet face that she remembered. The darkness in his eyes that he tried so desperately to hide seemed foreign to her. She ached for him and what he must have endured in his life.
Though she was frantic with worry about her missing son, it touched her beyond words that Dean spoke so affectionately about Sammy. Or Sam, as he liked to be called, proving that her baby was a grown man as well.
She was overwhelmed by how the world had changed. She grieved the loss of her husband and mourned the years she missed with her children. Her heart broke for Dean, who seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and for Sam, who was lost and in trouble. And now an angel was telling her that she may feel lightheaded after he 'zaps' them to a bunker that Dean called home.
Feeling lightheaded was the least of her worries. Yet how she felt was less important than finding her little boy. So she steeled herself against her rising panic and spoke with confidence to Castiel.
"I'm ready."
Mary stumbled slightly when they landed in the bunker, but Dean was quick to catch her. "You okay?"
"Yes," she answered, though she really wasn't. Physically, she was fine, except for the dizziness that Castiel warned her about. Emotionally, she was on edge, though she refused to let it show. She took a moment to look around this place that her boys called home.
She noticed no windows or doors until her eyes followed the wrought iron staircase to the top where she assumed was the entrance. The place looked like a war room from the 1930s. The primary piece of furniture was a lighted table map of the world. A bank of computers that were out of date even in her time and clocks from various time zones lined the wall.
Dean paused again to make sure she was fine before moving briskly to an archway where he examined a marking drawn in blood. She looked beyond him to see a library also decorated in the 1930s style and lined with books and decorated with weapons.
"She made a couple of mistakes," Dean commented, looking to Castiel after he studied the markings.
"Yes," the angel confirmed. "But it was good enough to blast me out of the way."
"What else did you find?"
Cas motioned to some blood on the floor.
Dean's face fell as he followed Castiel's line of vision. "He's hurt?"
"It appears so," the angel answered as he moved to the splosh of blood and picked up a device that looked similar to the one she saw in Dean's hand earlier. "His cell phone is broken."
"So we can't track him with GPS," Dean noted, his eyes still scanning the floor. He narrowed his focus to something a few feet away. He stooped to pick up a bullet casing, worry crowning his features. He seemed to forget Mary was there at all when he looked to his friend. "He was shot."
Castiel met her son's gaze, his brows drawn together, as he searched for some hope to relay to the distressed brother. "It would seem she wants him alive," the angel offered.
"But he thinks that I'm …," Dean began, but cut himself off with a glance to his mother. Cas seemed to pick up on what he was trying to say.
"I have no doubt that he would keep trying to find a way back," Cas said. "He won't give up."
Mary watched the entire scene as Dean transformed from concerned to alarmed. His only tell was the look in his eyes. Never once did he lose his calm demeanor, but she wondered how he would have reacted had she not been present.
"Dean," she finally spoke up. He stood to face her, not able to fully look her in the eye. "Tell me what happened."
"That's what we're trying to figure out, Mom." His tone was gentle but his words were nonetheless evasive.
She meet his hesitant look with a determined one. "I need you to tell me what happened before you found me."
"Mom, I …."
She knew he was trying to protect her, but that wouldn't help them find Sam. Though to him, she had been dead for the past 30 years, she felt like young mother who would do anything to keep her family safe. She had already lost John, and she refused to lose one of her boys. As unsettled as she felt about the jump in time, she was determined to pull answers from the reluctant source.
"You were wandering alone in the woods where you find a mother whose been dead for over 30 years. I could see the shock on your face. Then you had to steal a car to get us into town. You spent hours trying to contact your brother when an angel …. an angel," Mary emphasized, "showed up to help. We find out that Sam has been missing for more than a day. He's probably wounded and it sounds like he didn't expect you to come back at all."
Dean blew out a breath. "You don't miss a thing, do you?"
"No. I've had plenty of practice."
Dean's eyes widened at her defiance and he seemed stung by her tone. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him so she softened her voice. "I know that I've been gone for a long time. A lifetime for you. But for me, it's been hours."
"Exactly. You've lost a lot in a matter of hours," he said, the pain evident now in the slight tremble in his voice. "Thirty years of your life. Dad. I don't want to put too much on you at once."
"Too much would be if something happens to Sam and I don't do something to help find him," she retorted. "You and Sam are still my children. I don't care if it's been a day or 30 years. I'm your mother and I'm strong enough to help you with whatever you dealing with now."
"Yeah, I can see that."
As Dean studied her, Mary again was hit with the knowledge that she didn't know him well enough to guess what he was thinking. She wondered if perhaps he realized that young mother that he idolized was not the mother who stood before him now.
After a pause, Dean relented. "Sam thought I was dead. When I found you, I was trying to contact him to let him know I'm okay."
So many questions swirled in her head before she settled on the most pressing one. "You're worried that he would do something to himself?" She couldn't quite say that he would harm himself, but she didn't like how anxious Dean had been to find him.
"Not really that he would intentionally hurt himself, but that he would be more reckless than usual."
"Is he impulsive?"
"No. That would be me," Dead admitted with a snort. "He's gotten out of some tough jams before, so I think he'll be fine. I'm worried because that's what I do. I worry about Sam. I always have."
Mary sensed that what Dean felt now was far past worry. If he has always worried about Sam, it's because of the danger that lurked in every shadow in this business.
Her boys ended up in the very life she wanted to protect them from. He had a look in his eyes that she had seen in her own father every so often and in her mother almost every day of her life. And God knows she certainly felt it before she escaped that life and married John.
So if Dean looked anxious, it was because of the job John had raised them to do. She felt a jab of anger at her husband before she remembered he wasn't around to defend himself. He died years before, Dean told her, but he wouldn't say how. And she couldn't bring herself to ask just yet.
So maybe Dean was right that she wasn't quite ready to hear all of their story. But that wouldn't stop her from doing whatever it took to save her youngest son.
"There's a lot I need to know, but not today," she conceded, receiving a nod from Dean, who seemed to appreciate the compromise.
"How do we find Sam?" she asked, leaving no doubt that she intended to be involved every step of the way.
Dean shrugged because he wasn't sure where to start looking.
"I found one other clue," Cas spoke up. He had been so quiet, Mary had almost forgotten he was in the room. Her son turned quickly to face the angel, a shred of hope creeping into his expression.
Castiel held up a metal box that Dean seemed to recognize instantly.
"She had a key?" Dean pondered that for a moment, holding out his hand for the box. As he examined it, pieces seemingly falling into place. "A few of the markings are different. It's not our key. You said she was British?"
"Yes."
"And the only people who would have access to a key like that would be …."
"Men of Letters," Cas finished.
"Do you think it's possible?"
Again, Mary felt lost at the conversation, but Dean looked so hopeful, she didn't call him on it.
"A chapter in Great Britain?" Cas offered.
"Has to be, right?"
Mary blinked when the angel she had been watching with such intensity disappeared with a fluttering sound. And glanced at her son, who was actually smiling.
"I kinda missed that," he said mostly to himself.
"Missed what?" Mary had to ask.
"Cas disappearing on me," he said, not bothering to explain why that was something to be missed. But she admired the firm faith he had in the angel. "He's gone to check something out. He'll be back."
The more she got to know Castiel, the more unlike what she imagined an angel to be. But he was kind and he watched out for her boys, so what more could she ask. And because Dean trusted the quirky angel so much, so did she.
ooOoOoOoo
Dean shifted, not sure what to say after Cas left. It would take him some time to search pretty much all of England, he guessed.
"Do you need something?" he asked Mary.
"It would be nice to know where Castiel went."
"He's looking for what may be a Men of Letters chapter overseas."
"Men of Letters?"
"It's was … or maybe still is … an organization that records and stores information about anything supernatural. Dad's father was a Man of Letters so Sam and I are legacies."
Her eyes rose at this revelation but she didn't ask how Dean knew this.
"Long story," he added. He skipped most of the details, even the part that Henry Winchester didn't abandon his son. The more he explained, the more questions she would have, and some he just wasn't ready to answer. So he kept to the basics.
"This was once a Men of Letters bunker until they were wiped out in the 50s. At least we thought they were eradicated by a demon — a Knight of Hell. But the key box Cas found indicates other this group may exist elsewhere."
"You think a Man of Letters kidnapped your brother?"
"A woman, but yes." Dean was still patient with her questions, he felt a restlessness stirring just under the surface. Had she not been here, he would have gone with Cas to look for Sam. But he couldn't leave his newly back-from-the-dead mother alone, and Cas could probably cover more ground without him.
He gave Mary an uneasy smile and shifted again. "You want a drink or something? I think I'll have one."
When she didn't reply, he turned toward the bottles of liquor. "Do you drink whiskey? I don't remember seeing you drink. I guess I only remember the glasses of milk you gave me. If you don't like whiskey, we probably have beer. Probably not wine though. But we have coffee. Maybe Sam bought some tea, but I …."
"Dean." Mary cut off his ramblings.
He snapped his mouth closed at what felt like a rebuke to him. She probably didn't mean it that way, and he knew he was yammering on about nothing. She was his mother and he loved her, but he didn't know what to say to her. And he couldn't take anymore questions at the moment. It killed him that Sam was out there somewhere and Dean couldn't do a damned thing about. The bourbon in his hand was the only thing that would calm his nerves.
He downed the drink in one gulp before pouring another. Holding up the bottle, he offered once more. "You sure?"
It made him more uncomfortable when Mary scanned him as if she could see every flaw. And there were many. He glanced away from the doe-eyed look she gave him and realized that Sam got those eyes from her. The eyes that made total strangers open up about the unbelievable horrors they had seen. The ones that made Dean acquiesce to anything his little brother wanted as a child. Hell, sometimes as an adult, too. He worried that if he met her gaze, he would start spilling every secret that he didn't want her to know about himself.
"Yes, I'll have one," she answered with a sigh.
He nodded, embarrassed by his own behavior. When he handed her the glass, he paused as she reached out for it, making eye contact again and giving her the best smile he could muster. She ran her hand over his as she accepted the drink.
"I know I lost any right to mother you years ago," she began.
"That's not true," he said automatically.
"And I guess we really don't know each other very well, but you and Sam are still the most important people in the world to me."
"I know." And he did know, but he was unsure how to close the distance between them was 30 years wide. He opened his mouth to say more, but Cas reappeared as suddenly as he left. It took both another moment to pull their eyes from each other to find out what Cas learned.
ooOoOoOoo
"It still exists and they don't like us," Dean commented, his voice flat. That pretty much summed up what Cas discovered. "That's nothing new. Most people don't like us."
"They hold you two responsible for the …," Cas paused to choose his words carefully, aware that Mary didn't know about the brothers' past. " … the troubles we've had recently."
"Of course they do," he scoffed. "Perched up on their high horses, they probably have a good view of life in the trenches."
Dean turned away to pour himself another whiskey. "Where do they have Sam?" When Cas didn't immediately answer, he looked back at him, the whiskey already gone from the glass.
"I don't know," the angel admitted. "He's still somewhere in the states, but I've had trouble locating him. Their angel warding must be exceptionally effective."
That they were no closer to finding Sam made Dean crave another shot of whiskey, but he was aware of his mother's eyes on him. He put down the glass and took his frustration out on his friend. He knew Cas could take it and he hoped that the angel would forgive him for being an ass. Lashing out was the only way he could keep a lid on his rising panic. "What the hell do they want from him?"
"Basically, to answer for your crimes," Cas responded, unfazed by the underlying harshness of his tone.
"Crimes?" Dean was offended. They had made mistakes — a whole boatload of them — but they had tried their best to do the right thing. Sam especially so. The upper crust idiots from Britain probably spent too much time in their books than out in the real world where hunters like him too often had to choose between something bad or something worse. Bobby used to say that they had to do a little bad to do a lot of good. That's the way it was.
'Apes' is how Henry Winchester referred to them when he found out they had been raised as hunters. If he thought that, Dean felt sure that these snobby sons of bitches who had Sam thought worse. Whatever they were doing to his little brother couldn't be good.
"How exactly are they making him answer?" Dean again ignored the call of the whiskey beside him as he asked.
Cas shrugged. "I don't want to speculate, but we need to find him soon."
"Damn it," Dean groaned. He swiped at the beads of sweat that popped up on his forehead and scrubbed his hand down his face. Sam needed help now, and they had no idea where to look.
"Dean." The soft voice coming from his mother was unexpected. Lifting his head, he remembered she had been listening to the conversation. Her eyes were drawn together in near panic. As anxious as he was to find Sam, she had to be more so. He knew that she was smart enough to understand what was left unspoken — that Sam was probably being tortured. And if they didn't hurry to find him, it would be too late.
It wasn't the first time he saw tears fill her eyes, but it was the first time since he found her that she gave into them. Because she cried, he thought he might, too. So he pulled her in for a hug so she wouldn't see it.
As she leaned against his chest weeping, Dean realized one thing Mary didn't know about him. Dad knew it all those years ago, and Cas knew it when he pulled Dean hell. Had it not been for the belief that he was dead, Sam would have known too that Dean would stop at nothing to save his brother.
"I'm going to find him, Mom," he promised, pushing her back so she could see the raw determination that would never waver when it came to Sammy. "No matter what."
