Like many people who are naturally curious and intelligent, Mary works at a bookstore. It has been helpful to overcoming her initial awkwardness and learning more about the big world.
One day as she is crouched to shelve books, someone approaches her from behind and says, "Excuse me, dear."
Mary stands and turns to see a small thin woman with drapes of red hair. She speaks in a heavy Scottish accent as she asks, "I don't me to pry, but I happened to notice that beautiful tattoo."
The Nephilim suddenly tugs at the back of her shirt and blushes. She had no idea that her lower back was that exposed. "Oh, um, thank you," Mary says quickly.
"What sort of meaning does a thing like that have behind it? If you don't mind me asking."
"It's just something I got for my dad."
"Aah, how lucky of him to have such a lovely daughter! And your parents must be quite the lookers, too."
"Lookers?"
"Mm," the woman nods, "Attractive, dear."
"Oh. I suppose they are."
"Now I don't mean to keep you any longer. Sorry for all the fuss, I just had to say something."
"Okay, then. Thank you."
"Have a lovely day."
The woman waves and she disappears behind a bookshelf, leaving Mary with a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach. She returns to stocking shelves but she's not too pleased with it. The end of her shift comes not a moment too soon and she waits in front of the store for her ride.
"Hey girl," a deep voice says as a car rolls up.
"Dad."
Mary hops in the front seat of the Impala and puts her hands in her lap. Dean smiles. "Have a nice shift?" he asks.
"Maybe. How was your day?"
"Not bad, but I think I'm starting to get too old for this."
"Too old? Why is that?"
"You know how you won't grow or age anymore now?"
"Yes."
"Well, I've told you before, but I will."
"Right."
"And aging involves getting weaker and tired and—hey, let's not worry about that now, okay?"
"Okay."
"I never thought I'd make it this far so I should consider myself lucky!"
Mary sighs at that statement. She leans her head against the window and stares out with glassy eyes.
"Something wrong?" her father asks.
"Concepts I don't quite grasp," Mary mutters. "But not just that. I had a strange thing happen at work today."
"Strange how?"
"A woman asked me about my tattoo."
"That happen a lot?"
"Never. But I rarely allow it to be seen."
"So what was strange about it?"
"It felt odd. She had an unsettling vibe to her."
Dean groans.
"Ugh, you angel-folk with your intuition."
"What?"
"We'll ask your mom about it when we get home and see what he makes of it."
After getting back to the bunker, Mary goes ahead inside to find Bobby at the main table. He has a couple of books in front of him and he's grumpily writing in a notebook. While the Nephilim grow up, Cas has been teaching them everything they need to know about Heaven, Hell, Earth and human life. Mary took to the studies quite well but Bobby has been struggling. He doesn't understand why he should know how to kill a ghost when Sam and Dean haven't been actively hunting for years. "You have to be informed," Cas would say.
"Where is mom?" Mary asks Bobby.
"Dunno. Kitchen, maybe."
"All right."
Mary finds Cas with the twins trying to cook in the kitchen. Dean follows. There's a tray of something crinkled and dark green sitting on the counter.
"The heck is that?" Dean asks. "Better not be dinner."
"They're kale chips," Cas tells him, sounding as if he's reading the words for the first time, "And they're good for you."
Dean pops one into his mouth and grimaces, but Mary has a couple with a smile. "I like them," she says. "They're nice."
"I'm glad you think so," says Cas, who is attending to a proper pot on the stove while Sammy tugs at his apron, "But I'm not as worried about your cholesterol."
"Blah, blah, blah," Dean grumps. "What's in the pot?"
"Fish stew."
Dean's moan is even louder and more desperate. He slumps over and staggers behind Cas, rubbing his shoulders as the angel stirs. "You're killing me," he sighs.
"That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid," Cas retorts. "I'll have you know that I'm quite up to date on my study of the human body."
"Yeah, I know."
"Try it."
Cas holds the spoon out to Dean and he retracts.
"They've gotta have made some healthy food that tastes good by now?"
"Mama says it does taste good!" Ellen adds, looking up at Dean with her wide hazel eyes. They flicker grey for a moment. "And it's special for daddy to eat it."
Dean sighs again, but this time it has a stronger air of acceptance. "Well, if it's special…"
He tries the stew and is pleasantly surprised at the taste. Mary, however, is still munching on the kale chips and looking a bit distraught.
"Weren't we going to discuss what happened today?" she asks, and Cas suddenly snaps his head to Dean with fire in his eyes.
"What happened?!" he hisses, taking the protective mother stance that he rarely has to use. Dean tries to diffuse it.
"Nothing serious, I'm sure," he says, going back to rubbing Cas' shoulders. "Some woman at the store asked her about the anti-possession mark. Give me another taste."
Cas offers Dean a second sample of stew but keeps his focus on Mary now. "What did she say?"
"Not a whole lot," Mary explains. "She wondered what the meaning was. I told her it was something I got for my father but, in my better judgement, I did not reveal the true purpose."
"Intelligent," Cas nods. You can see that he's quite proud of raising such a brilliant young woman.
"Then she mentioned that my parents must be attractive," Mary added, now looking a bit confused. Dean snorted.
"You didn't tell me that," he laughs. "I don't think this is a problem at all. Maybe she was hitting on you."
"No, there wasn't any physical contact."
Dean laughs again but Cas appears a little concerned. Ellen is still oblivious as she plays with Cas' apron. Sammy has been keeping himself busy with a set of Lincoln Logs at the table this whole time, though he may be listening.
"Your father means to say that the woman may have been expressing romantic interest in you," Cas clarifies, but this leaves Mary just as confused.
"Then I have to tell her that reproduction with two females is impossible."
Dean and Cas look at each other silently. Dean clears his throat but stays silent and Cas keeps stirring the stew. He lowers the flame.
"I know that our family is unusual in our homosexual reproduction," Mary adds, as if that would ease the tension. Ellen repeats "homosexual reproduction" and Sammy finally lets out a laugh. They don't understand it at all, but Mary is hardly more informed.
"Perhaps we should discuss this later," Cas suggests.
"Yeah," Dean agrees. He looks over to Mary and says, "Let's worry about it after dinner, okay? Go get Bobby."
"Um. All right, then."
"How did we mess that up?" Dean groans, coming into the bedroom with a towel around his waist. "Why didn't we ever give her the talk?"
"I don't think a specific conversation is entirely necessary," Cas ponders. "I never had one."
"Yeah but you fucked up a lot. And look how long it took for us to get comfortable with our feelings. I don't Mary to have trouble like that."
"You have a good point."
Cas strips down to a pair of tight briefs and Dean gets into a t-shirt and boxers. He eyes his partner. "Those are cute," he says.
"I think we have more important things to talk about," Cas quips, getting into bed. "Come here."
Dean climbs under the covers and they both sit up with their backs to the headboard. Cas takes Dean's hand in both of his.
"Mary's physical and mental growth has well surpassed the rate of whole-blooded humans. It wouldn't surprise me if she's been, to put it crudely, sexually mature for a while."
Dean winces. "Y'think?"
"It's merely a hypothesis."
"But it sounds like she wouldn't even know if someone hit on her. What if some punk ass young guy tries to get fresh with her and she gets talked into a bad deal?"
"Hmm…"
"We have to at least try talking to her so we know where she stands, as painful as it sounds."
"We could show her the babysitter video."
"No."
"Hmm…"
"Man, I wish Sam could do this part of the parenting for us."
"Why?"
Dean furrows his brow. "'Cause he's good at explaining things in a technical way without putting it into unnecessarily graphic detail."
"I'm sure we can do just as well together."
Cas squeezes Dean's hand slightly and gives him a kiss.
"Yeah, I bet we can," Dean agrees. "What about Ellen and Sammy?"
"What about them?"
Dean scoots closer to the angel now and puts his head onto his shoulder. "The other two matured pretty fast, but does it ever feel like the twins are slower?"
"How?"
"Ellen still talks like she's four."
"I don't think so."
"And she's so attached to you."
"I'm her mother."
"The others weren't like that."
"They're all unique individuals."
"Ah, I guess you're right."
"Dean, this means a lot coming from me, but you must try and not worry so much."
"Ha!" Dean laughs loudly. "Sorry. But yeah, that is big. You worry about them more than I do."
Cas decides to sink down into the bed properly now and Dean joins him. He gestures to the lamp and it turns off. "I understand the angelic side far better," he says quietly, "And that is to be feared far more than the human one."
Across the hallway in Mary's room, she tosses and turns in her bed, pulling the sheets this way and that. She can't understand why a woman would have romantic interest in her and more so how couldn't she detect it? There was certainly a weird vibe about that interaction. She talks to people all day and nothing like that has happened before.
Hmmmmn, hmmmmmn.
Her phone rings but only the vibrate is on. It's sitting atop her nightstand and hums loudly. With the glow bright in her face from the room being dark, she makes out the caller's number as 666.
"Odd."
She ignores it. A message is left.
"Odder."
There's no way she will sleep without listening to it. When it begins to play, she hears a familiar voice that she hoped to never hear again.
"Hullo, Mary…don't pretend you've forgotten about me. Be a darling and return my call. I've got nothing better to do, you know."
It's Crowley without a doubt. Mary feels a surge of white hot emotion run down her spine—is it fear or anger? Perhaps both. She ignores the message and tries to sleep, but sure enough, he calls again just a couple minutes later. Another message is left.
"Well then, if I don't hear back from you now, I know I will soon. Things are about to get rather complicated for you all and the first person you should turn to is me. Ta-ta."
