Sam knows without a doubt that if he was above ground right now, with warm yellow sunlight spilling across his pillow, he'd be asleep. Instead, he's staring at the dark ceiling above his head, unable to roll over and go back to bed.
Cas's healing has taken all the physical pain away, but there's something bone-deep mentally exhausting about what Toni did to him. It's been a long time since someone's been in his head like that.
He sighs and looks over at the clock. Seven o'clock. An idea forms in his head as he swings himself out of bed. He slept clothed, half convinced that the Men of Letters would be back to reclaim their bunker any moment. All it takes is lacing up his shoes to get ready to go.
They threw together a room for Mary last night, so that's where he heads. He can't quite call her Mom in his head yet. That word carries a weight he's not sure he's ready to carry. But he's ready to take a step.
"Hey. I want to take you somewhere."
Mary blinks blearily up at him. Her hair is an absolute mess, and her arms are wrapped around Dad's journal, as if she fell asleep with it. She's wearing Dean's robe and the softest one of Sam's t-shirts he could find. Sam's throat constricts. She's not the angel Dad always painted her as. She's better: she's human.
"Okay," she says, somewhat dubiously. "Let me get dressed."
Sam makes his way into the war room, where he scribbles a quick note so his brother won't panic. There's a beer sitting on top of North America. He shoves it out of sight just as Mary walks into the room.
"Ready," she says.
He smiles. "All right. Let's go."
/
Sam's right-Dean panics as soon as he realizes that both Sam and Mom's rooms are empty. By the time he makes it to the note, he's already pulled his gun out of his waistband and shouted for them both at the top of his lungs.
"Dean!"
Cas bursts into the room like the hallway behind him is on fire. Dean isn't ready for the wave of affection at the sight of him. All it took was one panicked yell, and Cas came swooping in to save him.
"It's okay. Sam and Mom are out."
A completely irrational part of him feels a pang of jealousy at the thought, much like his four-year-old self had felt at the appearance of a baby brother. Dean shoves it down. He's got four years on Sam in the mom department. He can share. Totally.
"Your mojo doing okay?" Dean asks. "Healing Sam had to take a lot out of you."
It's a good thing for the Men of Letters that Cas had been able to heal every bump and scratch. If he hadn't, and if Dean had gotten an idea of just how bad Sam's injuries were, he would have tracked them all down and killed them. (Well. Only if he beat Mom to it.)
Cas shrugs. "My Grace is the strongest it's been in years."
Which isn't saying much. Dean remembers the angel that raised him from Hell, the solid granite statue of a creature and can't understand where his Cas came from.
His Cas? Where did that come from?
Dean clears his throat and speaks before that thought can go any further. "So. Mom in action. Weird."
Not exactly the best word for the utter confusion of seeing his mother a) stab someone and b) beat up on a seasoned fighter like Lady What's Her Face.
Cas inclines his head. "I've found that sometimes the people we idolize are not what we expect."
He blinks once, twice, before he understands what Cas is talking about. When he does, his breath catches in his throat. He's been so consumed in the shock of not dying, of Mom being returned to him, of Sam being missing that he's forgotten.
Dean thinks about Mom sitting with her legs hanging out of the Impala, saying that she wasn't okay and takes a deep breath. Things are different now. "Do you—I mean—are you…upset, at all?"
/
The church has seen better days. Mary can see it in the half empty Sunday school classroom, in the average age of the churchgoer being sixty-five. It's the very last place she expected Sam to take her. Somehow it doesn't seem like there's a lot of room for God in the six foot four muscle mass that's replaced her baby.
"A lot of things change," Sam says as they make their way to a middle pew. "This doesn't."
In a way, it's easier to look Sam in the face than it is Dean. He doesn't look at her with expectations, with an image of how she's supposed to be, with stars in his eyes. He looks at her like a mystery. Well, they're mysteries to her, too. She can deal with that.
"When we were bouncing around the county, I snuck out on Sundays sometimes. Dean thought there was a girl for the longest time." He smiles at the memory, and Mary's heart constricts. "We stayed with this one pastor a few dozen times. I had one of his Bibles for the longest time, but I lost it in the shuffle somewhere along the line."
It's the clearest picture of their childhoods that she's seen so far. John's journal is just as much of an enigma as its author. He prefers—preferred—subtext and doublespeak, never saying quite what he meant. It's like an inside joke, and she's frozen out.
"No iTablets in here, are there?"
He smiles, fondly, like you might when a little kid says something almost right. Stupid future. "No. Just books."
She can deal with books. Mary hasn't had the time to go through the library yet, but she wants to. She's always been a slow reader, but she likes words.
Just as he finishes his assurances, the service starts. Mary gets to her feet, holding the service outline like a lifeline. Mary puts her thoughts of God's sister and real life angels out of her head for a moment. They sing three hymns before she recognizes one.
When On Eagle's Wings begins, Mary sucks in a sharp breath. She hasn't cried so far—sure she's felt like it, but there haven't been tears, not yet. She can feel them coming now. One dribbles out before she can stop it.
Sam must be watching her out of the corner of his eye just like his brother does, as if she's going to vanish if they take their eyes off of her. He shuffles uncertainly towards her and pats her elbow before deciding to wrap an arm around her shoulders.
"I'm the reason this all happened," Mary confesses in a hush before she even really knows what she's saying. "The yellow-eyed demon wouldn't have come after you if it wasn't for me."
The choir keeps singing as a few more tears drip steadily down her nose. Mary closes her eyes, willing them to stop. At the feeling of Sam rubbing soothing circles into her shoulder, she realizes how much older he is than her—only a few years, but he shouldn't be older at all—and the tears start again.
"Yeah, he wouldn't have. And you know what? I would have never been strong enough to withstand Lucifer. I would have broken the world."
Mary bites down on her lip so hard that she expects to taste blood like they do in books. All she gets for her trouble is a small swell of her lip. Sam takes a step back as the song ends.
"We're gonna figure this out."
She looks up at him (up, not down), up at the gentle man her son has become and nods. Somehow, they're going to.
/
"I'm sorry He wasn't what you wanted him to be," Dean says.
He still remembers the feeling of holding Dean's amulet in his hands, begging it to do something. Grow bright, warm up, anything. He spent hours just staring at it, rolling it over in his palms like he could somehow activate it just by wishing.
And all along, he'd been the prophet Cas died in front of.
"I looked for him for a year," he says quietly.
He sits at the map table and folds his hands neatly in front of him. He still marvels at the feel of being able to move his fingers under his own autonomy again. Being confined like that made him feel for Jimmy Novak.
"And it turns out that he was—what would you call it?—a deadbeat."
Cas doesn't expect to feel Dean's hand rest on his shoulder. He leans into the touch despite himself. It's not as if he got much human contact over the last few months. Years ago, that meant nothing to him. Now, it's everything.
"It sucks," Dean agrees. Then, "You know, Cas, you don't need them. The angels. God. You have us. Mom and Sam. Me."
Something swells in Cas's chest, a feeling that he can't quite identify. Holding his breath, Cas reaches up and tangles his fingers with Dean's. They slot together like they were made to. Dean doesn't pull away.
"You?"
"Yeah, Cas." Dean smiles, softer than Cas remembers. He's not sure if it's the not-dying or the return of his mother that's done it. "You'll always have me."