A/N: Hello everyone. I forgot to add a disclaimer in the last chapter, so I'll add an extra one here: I don't own Supernatural. If I did, this would be in the actual show by now. Anyways, Kid!Dean and Baby!Sammy coming up. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, Jo Harvelle would not have died.
Chapter 2: Innocence
John decides to hold a closed coffin funeral.
There is something left, so her body wasn't completely shattered into ashes by feral flames, but its so charred and blackened and decayed by fire he knows that seeing her would traumatize anyone with a healthy sense of empathy and a gag reflex. It sounds insensitive, especially to John, but he knows that if Mary were here she would say the same thing. She wouldn't want people to see her ashes, the bleached teeth standing out starkly against what was one her skull.
So when he enters the room, he sees the wooden cage that contains his wife's remains. It's painted with a gloss over its dark mahogany wood, and if John looks closely enough he can see his own face and cheeks glistening with tears.
No one comes to Mary's funeral. She decided years ago she would keep friendships and connections to a minimum to protect the people around her. Dating John had been a stretch from her "don't get close to anyone" philosophy. She went to more funerals than she ever wanted to.
Her own funeral begins with a slow rise of funeral music echoing through the church. Dressed in black clothes, five adult figures and two younger ones appear, but they don't cry. Crying is a betrayal of Mary's memory, even if she only exists in the minds of a few humans there. Dressed in a cheap suit that smells like rain and sweatshop worker fabric, he sits in the front pew with his sons. He cradles Sammy, who is dressed in a miniature tuxedo he can't help but remember Mary wanted to give to Sam for his first Christmas, in his arms. Dean sits there, his tiny feet dangling off the edge.
The pastor stands up and talks about Mary, about how lively she was, about the beautiful, innocent blue of her eyes and the way she humbled everyone with her existence, with her righteousness. John wonders if the pastor would say the same words if he knew about Mary's upbringing.
John manages to tone it out. He doesn't think, doesn't feel, and doesn't look down at the tiny tuxedo accented with a fabric rose that his young son wears.
John hasn't been religious, not since he got back from the war. Still, he prays to his wife. Mary. Please. I don't know what to do. I don't know what the fuck to do.
The pastor tells the grievers to stand. John stands with military urgency, his motions mechanical.
Dark graphite clouds hover over the church when they leave. They walk to the graveyard, Dean clutching at his father's heels. The procession of footsteps sets a certain rhythm to grief: the black, shining shoes like the backsides of beetles, the clacking of feet against a hard sidewalk. Wind tears at the trees as their branches reach like savage arms toward John. No. Not toward John. Toward Sam.
They lower Mary into the ground. Her coffin disappears beneath the earth and all he sees of her now is a person sized mound of dirt beneath a granite tombstone dating Mary's birth and death.
"Daddy?" Dean wraps his arms around his father's legs. "Daddy, I want to go home."
"Me too, kiddo," says John. "But we can't do that."
Then the tears come.
Everyone else leaves except for the pastor. He stretches out a hand to John and shakes it. "Pastor Jim Murphy. I'm sorry for your loss."
There it is again. Pity. It pisses John off, not because of the sympathy, but because of the misplaced apology. Everyone should be apologizing to Mary, who burnt to death pinned to her own ceiling, her lips open and holding an unexposed cry. He could say that, but he doesn't. "Thank you."
"I have to talk to you," Pastor Murphy says. "Without your sons. I know what happened to your wife. I know it wasn't a gas leak."
John lunges at the pastor and grips his shoulders. "You weren't the one that did this, are you? Are you?"
"No," says Pastor Murphy. "Give the kids to my wife. She'd love to have something to do."
"So monsters" John sets down the cup of tea that's slowly cooling with every second he neglects it. He stares into the murky water, at the small clumps of herbs of tea that has been steeped too long. "And you've been hunting these things for how long?"
They're sitting in Pastor Jim Murphy's house by a dying fireplace, John wrapped in a green wool blanket given to him by the pastor. It makes him feel small, like a child, but he appreciates the brief comfort that soaks through his skin because of it. Lining the walls are guns, machetes and knives, all glistening in silver and burnished red by the faint light of the coals. John knows that under normal circumstances, a house full of weapons should be a warning to stop and run. But these aren't normal circumstances. Dean plays with Sammy in the next room and the giggle of a baby rings through the house like a church bell.
"Years," says Pastor Murphy.
"Honestly," John says, pushing away the tea. "I've known about that for a while. So it doesn't surprise me the same way it would for most people."
"Mary told you? That's a surprise. I thought she would keep it a secret."
"Yeah?" John laughs bitterly. "I didn't exactly find out on the best of circumstances. Doesn't mean I don't still think hunting is batshit insane."
John expects the pastor to flinch at his rough choice of words, but Murphy just laughs. "That's the reaction we always get whenever we try to explain ourselves."
John stands up. He hears Dean's loud shouts and the hushing sound that follows it. "So you think that one of them killed her?"
"And I don't know what kind of monster killed your wife, but I know something did. From what you told me, it's something the police wouldn't even think about considering. Trust me. If it isn't one of the things I fight for a living, I'll be damned. But if it really is something normal, then we'll know that then, won't we? I'll hunt it for you."
"No," says John. There's something hot and burning in his chest, clawing at his heart. "I'll hunt it with you."
"You don't know the first thing about hunting things," says Pastor Murphy. "I'm not bringing a beginner on a hunting trip with me. You'll just get killed. Besides, you have two little boys that need you right now."
"That thing killed my wife," John says, the anger bubbling and scalding his throat. "I want to be the one that kills it."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure, Pastor Murphy."
"Please. Call me Jim," says the pastor. "I'll let you come with. Teach you some of the tricks of the trade: how to fight demons, djinn, werewolves…"
John stares at him. "And how do I know you're not some religious whack job luring me into some cult like Mary's parents?"
"You can't know that," says Jim. "But I knew your wife and she told me that if she ever died she wanted me to look after you and make sure you're all right. And that her kids would be all right. I knew her, John, more than most people can say they did. It isn't like she has much family left to grieve over her. So I feel like it's kind of my job to look after you. And if you want out at any point, you can have out. I'll protect you. Oh, and John? Don't insult the Campbells' memories like that. It's not a cult. It's a lifestyle."
John takes a deep breath. The weapons on the wall feel as though they're pointed at him by invisible rebels trying to unseat the usurper of their king. "All right. So what kind of… monster do you think it is? Tell me, so that I know how to kill it."
Dean remembers her. His mother's smile, her blue-sky eyes, the edges of grilled cheese crusts arranged into a smiley face. He knows she isn't coming back, that she's something grown ups call dead. They say it when they think you're where you can't hear them, when they think you're so far away you couldn't possibly understand it. They guard it in that adult secret way where Dean feels like it's been locked away. But he hears it anyway.
Dying is what happened to his Mommy. He knows it because he saw a movie about it one time at home. The people walked down a path and looked sad. They cried, which Dean thought was weird because adults don't cry. Only children do. And he was at one of them a few minutes ago, his shoes too big and slipping off his feet, Sammy quiet and asleep in Daddy's arms.
Even if he isn't sure what it means, he knows for sure it means his Mommy isn't coming back. The thought makes his chest hurt, like there's a piece of bubblegum sticking to his throat when he decided to try and swallow it that one time a year ago.
But if he keeps himself thinking about Sammy, he'll keep himself happy.
He pokes Sammy's nose. "Boo."
Sammy giggles and grabs his finger.
Dean does it again. "Boo."
Sammy laughs this time and this time Dean laughs with him. "You like that, Sammy?"
He didn't like his brother when he first came home from that place… what was it called… the hopsital, that's what Daddy called it. He felt jealous and wanted her to take him back. But he gradually started to love his brother when he started to be able to do more and more things. It started to be fun to be a big brother. Important. And Mommy told him that when Sammy got older he'd have even more fun.
The lady his daddy left him with watches over them, cloudy gray hair swirling around her shoulders, her eyes the color of police cars. Dean likes police cars. They're loud and made of danger and that's all Dean wants in the world. His Daddy and the man with the white robes call her "Mrs. Murphy". She smiles at them, at Sammy lying on the carpet staring up at the spinning ceiling fan. He decides he'll call her "Grandma". She looks like a grandma.
Then Daddy walks in with the man in the white robe. Was he crying? Dean thought adults never cried. But they do because he sees the tear marks on his Daddy's cheeks. "Dean? We're going out for a little bit."
"Why?"
"We're going to take care of something. Daddy has a new job now and I'm going to my first day of work." Daddy walks over to him, bends down, and hugs him. "Look after your little brother, okay?"
Dean looks at him with something he thinks is a serious expressession. "I will."
"Hunting?" Mrs. Murphy l0oks at them. "Do you need me to come with?"
"No," the white robe guy says. "I need you to stay here and look after the kids. From what we researched, the… you know, only goes after women. Or at least that's the pattern we noticed so far."
"Pattern of what?" asks Dean.
"It's nothing to worry about, kiddo," says Daddy. "Just stay here and play with your brother, okay?"
"Okay," Dean says. He hugs his brother's head, gently. "Good luck."
"You too, buddy," Daddy tells him.
Right when he says that, he hears raindrops singing "Hey Jude" on the skylight above Sammy. Good, because he doesn't know how to sing the lullaby to his brother without Mommy. The rain can do it for him.