Knock knock knock

"Mother? Father?"

It's the middle of the night and Dean and Cas are trying to enjoy each other's company again, but Mary's voice wakes them up. Cas squeezes out of Dean's arms and sits up, rubbing his eyes. Sleep has become a regular thing for him that he doesn't even think twice about anymore. "Mary?"

"May I come in?"

"Yes…" The bedroom door opens and their little girl steps in, holding her arms close to her chest. "What's wrong?"

"I had unsavory dreams and they're upsetting me."

"What sort of unpleasantness?"

Mary steps closer to her parents' bed. "I left the bunker and the sun hurt me."

"You know that isn't true."

"I've been told it isn't true."

Cas sighs. "There's no reason to alarm and you're inside anyway. Try to sleep. You have no reason to be worried. Mary whimpers a little and at this point, Dean wakes up. He gropes around for Cas and sits up when he sees Cas is. "Whaaswronggg…?"

"Mary had a nightmare and it's preventing her from sleeping, though illogical."

"Huh? Nightmare?" Dean looks and is surprised to see Mary's shadow in the light from the hallway. "What happened?"

"I left the bunker and the sun hurt me," Mary repeats, a little sadder this time.

"Baby girl, you know the sun can't hurt you."

A little frustrated, Mary tightens her jaw and says what she just told Cas. "You tell me it can't hurt me but I don't know for sure!"

"Shh, shh, you're getting all worked up for nothing," Dean groans. "What d'you want us to do about it?"

"Can I sleep in your bed?"

Cas lets out a frustrated breath of air through his nose. "Mary…"

"Sure," says Dean. He pushes Cas over and gives his daughter space on his side. "But just tonight. Can't have you making a habit out of it."

"Dean," Cas says in a quiet yet sharp tone. "She's too old."

"She's 7, that ain't too old, it's cool."

Mary climbs underneath the covers and turns her back to her parents. Dean pets her head a little. "Is that better?" he asks. Mary nods in silence.

"She won't develop a healthy knowledge of sleep patterns," Cas whispers.

"I gotta disagree with you on that," Dean replies, laying back down. He pulls Cas into his big spoon again, which Cas reluctantly obliges. "One night won't kill her." Cas forces an annoyed sigh but manages to get back to sleep relatively quick.

In the morning, Dean wakes up and finds that Mary is gone. He gets out of bed, leaving Cas like the little sleeping angel he is, and trudges across the hall. Mary's door is slightly ajar and he creeps in, expecting her to be snoozing in her bed but instead she's sitting at her desk.

Her room is considerably different than when she was a baby. The magical ceiling remains, and is usually set on "nature", but her crib is now a little bed and a desk is beside it. She has many bookshelves that are crammed with all of her reading material. The dresser is still there but another one has been added; that one is filled with her craft supplies and other miscellaneous materials. She still has many of her stuffed animals and they stay on her bed, also the picture of Dean and her grandmother is still framed on the wall.

"Didn't realize you were up," says Dean. "Can I come in?"

"Yes." Mary is arched over a piece of paper, drawing lines with the help of a ruler (Sam got her a little geometric measuring set last year for her birthday). Dean steps up behind her and looks over her shoulder.

"What'cha drawing?"

"A reaper trap."

"What? Hey, don't—why are you drawing that?"

Mary moves out of the way so Dean can see her work. She's measure every angle perfectly. Dean's impressed.

"I'm drawing all of these important sigils."

"Why?"

"Because I want to." She looks up at her father and smiles. "What's it like to meet a demon?"

Dean stares back. "Horrible," he instantly replies. "It's totally horrible and you don't wanna know."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really. Don't think about that stuff. I know you like to read and that's cool, you can read all of those books and it's great that you're interested in it, but you gotta know that me and your Uncle Sammy didn't choose the life we have. If we could change it we would. The problem with hunting is that once you're in it, you can't get out."

Mary frowns and looks back at her drawing. She sets her pen and ruler down and folds her arms.

"Don't act like that," Dean says, trying to sound nice. He rubs her shoulder. "I just have to trust me on this one, okay? I really, really, really don't want you to be a hunter. It's bad enough you gotta know about this stuff 'cause you're part angel."

"What are angels like?"

"Your mama is an angel, you should know."

"But the others?"

"They aren't nice like him, believe me. He's rare."

"Oh…so…" Mary looks upset. "So then my family is mean?"

"Don't worry about that family," says Dean. "They don't matter."

"Alright…" Mary agrees but she looks unconvinced. Dean wishes he could explain it to her better but he really can't. "But why can't I leave at all?"

"It's not save, baby. We've told you this a billion times. There's a lotta bad mojo out there and we can't have you getting into it."

"But I want to see what trees really look like."

"That's why you've got your books," says Dean. Now he leans down and kisses Mary on the top of her head. "I'm sorry, I really am. It's just how it is."

During this conversation, Sam happens to walk by. He stops in the hallway and listens for a bit, wondering what could possibly make Dean's voice turn that serious. As they near the end of the discussion, Sam feels bad and decides to act on it. He goes down into one of the non-magical supply rooms in the bunker and searches around until he finds a couple things he needs.

After Dean leaves and Mary goes back to working on her reaper trap, slowly and with great care, Sam pops into her room with a knock on the threshold. "Hey, Mary?"

"Yes…"

"I have something for you."

Mary turns around and sees that Sam is holding a flower pot in his hands. Stuck in the middle, surrounded by some sloppy dirt and a bit of grass is a tiny sapling, about nine inches tall or so. "What is that?" Mary asks, tilting her head and she stares at it with great curiosity.

"It's a young tree," Sam explains. He puts it on her dresser. "I heard you and your dad talking about going outside and I thought this might help you understand plants better."

Mary jumps up from her desk and runs up to the tree. She pokes the pencil-thin stem. "So this is a tree?" she asks. Sam nods. A big smile runs across her face and she suddenly hugs Sam. "A tree! Thank you, thank you!"

"Y-yeah," Sam says, getting the air knocked out of him from Mary's tight hug. "It's a tree. I think if you leave the ceiling on like this, it should get all of the sun it needs."

"Do I have to do anything else?"

"It needs water."

"Water. Alright. Good. How much?"

"I guess a little bit every day? I'm not sure what kind of tree it is but we'll figure it out."

"Oh," Mary says, turning her attention to the sapling again. "We'll figure it out together."

"You should show your parents."

"I should?"

"Yeah I bet they'll be happy to see you happy."

"Alright. Thank you, Uncle Sammy." Mary smiles again and runs out of her room to get Dean and Cas. Sam sticks around for a moment and sees the drawings on her desk. Of course he recognizes the reaper trap right away, so he slides the papers around and sees she's drawn numerous devil's traps, angel banishing and summoning sigils, some planetary signs and a couple things that Sam doesn't even recognize. As he looks them over, he notices she also has some drawings of random things such as trees, rocks, and animals. They're amazing drawings for her age but not perfect. Judging by the books stacked up on her desk (biology and whatnot) she's been going through them and copying things from the pictures. They're annotated in Enochian and, since Sam isn't as proficient as he'd like, he takes a blank piece of a paper and jots down what they say. He's curious about what's going on in her head.