Dean clenched his jaw and shoved his growing rage down so he could drive without killing Cas and his mom from distracted driving.
Blood in the Bunker. Cas banished by some unseen force. His brother and son are missing, taken by whoever banished Cas, and who knew about the Bunker. The fact that they used a banishing sigil tells Dean that whoever it is, they're human. They have to be Men of Letters. Another member or descendant of someone who was initiated before the slaughter perhaps. Anyone else wouldn't be able to get in. Not with the locks and wards around the place.
It took Amara months to find it.
Dean kept his eyes forward and hands gripping the steering wheel. He can feel Mary staring at him worriedly from the passenger seat, and Cas' from behind him. Just think, an hour ago he'd been ecstatic to have his mother returned to him, and on his way to break the news to the rest of his family, especially Sam, of their mother's reappearance in their life 30 years after her death. That this is the Darkness' thank you, and for once things seem to be going their way ...until Dean and Mary return to the Bunker and find a crime scene instead of his family sitting around in mourning.
He gets maybe three days with his son, goes on a suicide mission, doesn't die from said mission, reunite the first family ever, and gets his mother back in gratitude for a good deed. Things should have been good, at least for a little while. A month. He's not asking for much. Just one month with his family, dammit. A month for getting to know his son, of reconnecting, and taking baby steps on this new path with Cas.
His hand still tingles with warmth from when he held hands with his angel.
Dean rubbed his tingling palm against the steering wheel absently. They have a lead, a black SUV was seen blowing through a red light minutes after Sam and Ben were taken. A man driving the vehicle, Jamie Ross, admitted he drove the blonde woman they've been looking for but he didn't know her name.
Ross did give them another lead, the tail number of the plane Evil Elsa flew in on, and Dean looked it up. It had diplomatic registry, which is unfortunate because their flight records are sealed and Dean is not going to hack into the State Department. He doesn't have the skill set. That's Sam's area of expertise.
Another lead popped into sight, thank you, Cas.
Dr. Marion, a veterinarian said he pulled a bullet out of Sam's leg, saw a teenager sleeping in the backseat of the SUV before the driver bailed, and he told them that another woman showed up in another vehicle to pick them up, and they drove away.
Mary got more information out of Marion, telling Cas to hurt the man, and they found out he had Evil Elsa's phone number. Apparently, she called him a couple hours ago, asking about the sedative he gave to Sam. Unfortunately, he has no idea where they are. He damn near wet himself when Cas growled in dissatisfaction, and that in no way made Dean feel a little hot under the collar. Now is not the time for those kind of thoughts.
Under duress, Dr. Marion called Evil Elsa, only she figured out Marion wasn't calling of his own volition. Dude couldn't act worth a damn.
Dean grabbed the phone from him and demanded his son and brother back or he'd kill them slowly. If she gave them back, he'd let it go. Sam and Ben's safe return is his only concern for the moment. He'll find and kill her later. She hung up on him. Rude.
They're currently on their way back to the Bunker to trace Evil Elsa's number.
A vehicle came out of nowhere and rammed them on the passenger side near the back wheel, and Dean had a brief flashback to before Dad sold his soul for him. Mom is unconscious, Cas is okay and so is Dean.
At least now Dean has an outlet for his anger.
"Dean Winchester, I presume," a brunette says in a British voice and a smile, a cut on her cheek from the crash makes him grin a little at seeing.
Dean stalked forward and grabbed the woman by her lapels. British accent, knows his name, it doesn't take a genius to know she's been where his family are being held. "Tell me where my son and brother are and I'll take it easy on you."
The woman's smile grew mockingly. "Oh, please don't." She jabbed forward, hitting Dean with brass knuckles, and they hurt like a bitch. He got her in a choke hold but she easily got out of hit and gave him several body punches before turning her attention to Cas, knocking him to the ground as well. Those brass knuckles are not normal ones if they're hurting Cas.
"Round two? Anyone?" she asked cockily.
Dean glared, and shot to his feet. First, she hits his Baby, injures his mom, hurts Cas, and she knows where his family is. This fight isn't nowhere near done.
He throws a punch but she easily ducks under it and counters with a punch of her own, sending him to the ground. Those damn brass knuckles are kicking his ass. Cas' too. This woman can fight, seems to enjoy it as she disarms Cas like she's taking a toy away from a baby. They're not even giving her a hard time. Talk about an ego check.
She grabbed Dean's gun, the one she took from him when she escaped the choke hold - damn she's good, he didn't feel her take it - and aimed it at them.
"You know, I would've thought that with two strapping lads such as yourselves would have lasted a tad longer," she says, scoffing a bit. "Hey, you know what they say. Good things come to those -"
Mary stabs her through the back with Cas' discarded sword.
"No!" Dean shouts, crawling forward to the already dead woman's body as it hits the ground. "No, why did you do that? She knows where Sam and Ben are!"
Knowing it was no use, Dean still reached forward and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Dean let out a roar of rage and slammed his hands on the pavement again and again, tearing the skin. Nonononono. She was their best lead to finding them.
"Why didn't you just disarm her? Knock her out?" asked Dean angrily. He quit punching the asphalt, and cradled his head in his bloodied hands. Cas' warm touch covered them then a hand went to his forehead, and he healed Dean's injuries. His hands grasped Dean's, offering comfort that he didn't want but couldn't deny the angel giving.
"We'll find them," Cas promised, and Dean wished he could believe him. Right now things are looking bleak. "We need to hide her car."
Dean got up and didn't look at Mary. He couldn't. Cas held Dean's hands a little longer then let go. The hunter went around front and turned on the vehicle so he could shift it into neutral for him and Cas to push into the trees.
When he came back, Mary is sitting in the backseat, her feet on the asphalt, looking at her hands. A part of Dean wanted to say something comforting but he's still pissed off at her. He opted to fill her in on what he found in the vehicle, crouching to her level, and told her about the woman's phone. A call from Aldrich, Missouri came a couple of minutes before she rammed into them, and that is where he thinks Ben and Sam are.
Mary nodded, saying good.
Then, unprompted, she started talking about how she spent her life running from hunting, that she didn't want this life for him and Sam, and Dean wished on any other day they were having this conversation, because it is important, but he just can't right now. His priority is his son - finding Ben and Sam. Heart-to-hearts are going to have to happen later.
"Mom, I-I get it. I do, but my son and little brother are out there, in Missouri, with some British woman, doing Chuck knows what to them," Dean told her as gently as his anger allows him to. "Saving people, hunting things, this is our life. I think we make the world a better place. I know that we do."
Mary nodded again, pulling herself together. Dean reached out and laid a hand on her knee then straightened up. It's a long drive back to the bunker.
Cas is staring at him from where they stashed the jeep. There's concern in those ancient and familiar blue eyes, it warms Dean's heart and body. There's a talk in their future, and Dean hopes he doesn't screw it up. Cas means too much to him to lose over his inability to talk about his feelings. Just ask Sam. He's been harping on Dean about that for years. Even Dad got frustrated with Dean bottling everything up, and cracking jokes instead of talking.
The idle thought that Ben might be the same way has him heaving an internal sigh.
Mary hasn't said a word since they got back to the Bunker. He sent Cas ahead to Aldrich to try and see if he can find where Evil Elsa and Punchy McPuncherson took Ben and Sam while Dean tried to find them digitally. There has to be a record of them somewhere. They flew in, dammit. Someone had to have seen them or at least know where they went. Traffic cams are of no help.
If his mom would just talk to him, it'd be one thing off his checklist out of the way.
Dean scrubbed his face in exhaustion. Missouri is their only lead. Cas is currently scouring the place for any hint of Evil Elsa, he's having Cas check out real estate holdings that have either been bought or recently rented.
Rural areas suck. So easy to hide and disappear, and not a whole lot of surveillance.
Mary came waltzing in after he hung up with Cas wearing his bathrobe. It brought a brief smile to his face.
"Any news on Sam?" she asked.
Dean shook his head and lead her to his laptop. "Somewhere outside Aldrich, Missiouri," he told her, pulling up what he found, and it's not much. "Cas is going through it with a fine-toothed comb, and I've cracked every database I could."
"Every what?"
"Right," Dean said, rapping the table with his knuckles because, like an idiot, he forgot, "you didn't have internet the first time around."
Mary smiled wryly. "We didn't have an electric typewriter." She looked down at the table then, asked, "Are you really afraid about overwhelming me?"
She didn't look at Dean, and Dean couldn't look at her. This is so awkward on so many levels.
"Mom, look, I am," he paused, a little disbelief and a happiness he couldn't quite handle flooded him for a moment, "so happy you're here. I am. I mean, I am so damn happy I can't stand it."
Mary smiled, a real one, too. "It's just going to take me a second to catch up, you know?"
Dean immediately started nodding and agreeing, because he had a similar situation so many years ago when he met her and Dad when they were younger, and when he met Grandpa Henry and Adam. He gets it.
"I have a grandson," Mary said in wonder, and Dean's panic and worry over Ben slapped him in the face to remind him it's still there. "We're going to find Sam and your son," she assured Dean, and Dean wanted to laugh/cry over her comforting him.
Mary's smile faded and she pulled away, and not just physically.
"When we find Sam, how am I going to face him?" she asked, horror, disgust and recrimination in her voice. "That yellow-eyed thing would have never come to him that night if I -" she breaks off and takes a shuddering breath. "I started all of this."
Dean frowned at the broken, guilt-ridden look on her face. It hits him then that that's the look he has whenever he thinks of Ben. Did he ever want Ben hunting? No. He knows this life, and he would have given everything to ensure he was never drawn into this world, but he is a Winchester, and this is it for them. Whether they like it or not.
Does he blame himself for Ben's life ending up like it is? Fuck yes. Just by being his son, Ben's life was always in danger, and when Crowley found out and the threat of angels, Dean had to do the hardest thing he has ever done: stripping Ben and Lisa's memories of him and sending them away.
Five years his son grew up without any knowledge of him, then Lisa dies when the angels fall. His son spent a year without his mother and Dean, and he picked up hunting because he somehow found people connected to him that are Hunter-Lite, like Jody and the girls. Like Krissy Chambers and Jo, who made sure to send Ben to someone who could truly protect and teach him. This was always going to be his son's life, just like it was for Dean and Sam.
"My son turns 19 this year. He should be enjoying his first year in college and going to frat parties on the weekends, and going home to Lisa on holidays," Dean says, meeting Mary's eyes. "He was 8 when I first met him. Changelings. I knew the second I laid eyes on him, he was mine, and I wasn't happy, not at first. No, not at first." Dean copied Mary's posture. "I was scared. For him. I had - I had death nipping at my heels, and I was going around re-visiting old flames, and Lisa was one of them."
Dean huffed a laugh. "I met my son on his birthday, and came close to losing him the next day. I had never been so scared in my life. Not even when the Shtriga almost took Sam when we were kids. I couldn't think, Mom. I could barely breathe," he recalled, his heart rate picking up at the memory. Mary drew forward, pulled in by Dean's story, and desperate for a connection.
"He knew he was mine. He told me so after he snuck out of the house to catch me before I left. Lisa lied when I asked if Ben was my son, and I didn't blame her. I would've done anything to keep Ben safe, but Ben wasn't having it. He had to tell me he knew the truth." Dean blinked rapidly to dispel any accruing tears. "Holding my son for the first time, there were no words to explain how it felt, but I also felt an immense sense of loss. Of being robbed. I should have been there when he was born. I should have been in that room, holding Lisa's hand, getting yelled at for putting her in this position as she damn near broke my fingers from contractions.
"Ben's first steps, his first word, his first day of school ...I should have been there for all of it. But I wasn't. I was having the time of my life hunting and taking care of Sam. The bitch of it," he said to Mary, "is I'm not sure I would have done the right thing if Lisa had been able to track me down. What would have Dad and Sam thought about me being a dad? Would they have believed I could do a good job?"
Mary reached out, laying her hand over Dean's. He gets it, she thought. A connection blossomed between them. For the first time since she'd been brought back, Mary saw her sweet little boy in Dean, the one who made her feel better when her and John had a fight. Who mediated between them when things got heated. A responsibility much too big for a child but he handled it with ease.
"You would have been the best father that boy could ever have," Mary said with conviction. Dean reared back, not believing her. "You would have, Dean. No monster or demon would have gone anywhere near your son, and as for John? I know he would have been happy for you."
Dean scoffed. "In our life, the life you hate and wanted to get away from, and died because of? I'm pretty sure Dad would have encouraged me to stay away and let Ben grow up safe and ignorant of our life. It's what he did with Adam. He still died because he didn't know about hunting. No matter how much you wanted to be rid of hunting, Mom," Dean said, "this is our destiny. Literally. The angels and demons made it so. A prophecy of a union between Mary Campbell, descendant of a long line of hunters, and John Winchester, a legacy of the Men of Letters. No matter what you did or did not do, this was always going to be our life."
Mary pulled her hand away from his. He missed its comforting weight and warmth.
"I love you, Mom, and I'm happy you're here, but I - I need you to not focus on the past. It never does anyone good. We have to find Sam and Ben." Mary nodded. "Get some rest. You have a lot to process and I have some ideas to go over."
Mary nodded again and walked down to the living quarters, finding an empty room to call hers for the time being. Dean watched her go, eyes sad and face pensive.