A/N: Decided to continue this.
When he sees her for the second first time, she's holding their sons' hands. They might as well be four and six months again, but they're not. John raised two tall boys, both quick with a loaded shotgun, both fiercely protective of what they have and what they lost.
But here they are, eyes red-rimmed, Sam sniffling and Dean trying not to wipe at his nose with his hand because Mary instilled manners in the boy for four years before she was burned away from him. Here they are.
And here she is, blonde hair cascading down narrow, but strong shoulders, her nightgown torn and outdated but here, just like he remembers it. And there's something fantastic about that big, ugly thing caught in his throat, that thing that's choking him, that won't go back down or come back up, that won't let him say her name because it's here because she's here. And he falls to his knees, eyes springing water like he's one of his tall boys. His tall little boys.
"Dad?" Sam asks, confused, and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "Dad, what…where have you…we found Mom."
The kid can't complete a sentence, and Mary's smiling at him like she smiled at him in the hospital, like she's peering down at him as he suckles on her breast, this tiny thing that is so beautiful and new and needs her so much.
Dean's scowling at Missouri.
Missouri, this is her house. Missouri would know things. But John can't bring himself to say her name, either.
"Has he been here the whole time?" Dean demands, rude as an ill-tempered senior citizen, and Mary looks at him in surprise before looking to John again, to say something, anything, either to her or to Dean, but Missouri has this.
"You watch your tone in my house, Dean Winchester." The scolding is sharp, would cut a less-hardened young man to the quick. Especially when predicating what comes next: "In front of your dear mother, too. Disgraceful. What must she think of you?"
Dean squeezes Mary's hand possessively. John watches as Mary squeezes back, the act no less a show of territory, but with the addition of some of that stern stuff John remembers her throwing around back in the day, when John was the soft one and Mary was doling out the chastisements followed up by a slice of pie.
She leans into their eldest, speaks quietly enough that John can't hear, but Sam can. The kid is smirking, looking for all the world like he's enjoying his status of little brother. Dean's face is falling with every word, fast-becoming a puddle of contrition, and John hears the whisper of, "M'sorry, Mom."
"To Missouri, please," Mary says, and it's a scuff of a boot against the floor followed by a mumbled drawl of, "Sorry, Missouri."
And that's when John suddenly exists again, his knees still against the floor, his mouth still agape but now his lips are occupied because his wife is in front of him, kissing him softly, bringing him back to the reality of the situation. She's here. She's really here.
"John," she says.
"Mary," he croaks. And their heads fall onto each other's shoulders as they embrace.
It's not long. It's in fact painfully short, and their boys are watching and so is Missouri, but Mary never was one to dawdle. Mary, John remembers not for the first time, is a hunter. Mary gets it done.
"We have to do something about Sammy's situation," she breathes in his ear. "And Dean needs some pie."
