The door opened and John woke up. He wasn't sure when he fell asleep, but from the sharp jerk next to him, it seemed Mary had too. He looked at the door, his hunter instincts having kicked in and wanted to assess the threat. There was a new man, looking confused then relieved as he looked at John and Mary. John was about to speak, to demand who he was and what he was doing there, but Mary put a hand on his shoulder. "Cas, what are you doing here?" she asked. John looked at her, surprised. So she knew this man?
"Mary…I uh…I came to see you." he said. The man sounded conflicted as he looked around and John felt more and more confused. "Sam and Dean…they aren't alright." he said. John hadn't thought he could be more confused before, but as this conversation went on he realized he was missing something. This man, Cas, knew both Mary and the boys. How was that possible?
"John…this is Castiel, he's an angel." Mary said, looking between them. John's mind whirled, trying to make the pieces fit together. Mary had been dead and just came to join him in Heaven. How did she get there unless and angel had brought her to him? But where was she before that? This angel knew Sam and Dean, so was it possible she left a Heaven where she was with the boys to come with him. But if that was the case then their boys were dead! John felt sick. How could Sam and Dean be dead?
"Mr. Winchester it is a pleasure to finally meet you. Sam and Dean have told me a lot about you. Dean especially." the angel said. John's brow furrowed.
"You say it like you and Dean are friends." he said. John knew Dean better than almost anyone, the only other being he knew of being able to claim that was Sam. Dean didn't like to talk about himself, knew the consequences with other people about telling them about their lives. Dean was also not one to talk about things that would upset him, and John was fairly sure he was a taboo subject with Dean to people Dean wasn't close to. Cas nodded.
"Dean is my best friend." he said. John felt like the world stopped making sense for a moment. Dean was best friends with an angel? And Sam must have been close to him too if he was talking to this angel about John. Clearly this wasn't a simple encounter with the boys but an actual friendship. But how did Mary play into that? "Mary, I came to bring you back. Sam and Dean are trying to find a way and Dean said they were going to see if Rowena had any spells in the Book of the Damned." he said. John shook his head, trying to make pieces fit. His new puzzle shattered away to leave a blank slate.
Mary frowned. She honestly had expected something like this. After all when Cas died, the boys wanted him back. When Jack died Cas went and retrieved him from Heaven as Sam and Dean found a way to tie him back to his body. The boys had a hard time of letting those they love go, and there was no doubt in her mind they were going to do whatever they could to bring her back. Mary found herself shaking her head. "I'm not leaving here. I'm staying with John." she said. After all she never really fit in again. She had found a purpose with the Men of Letters, but that fell through when she saw their true nature. She had found a purpose in the Apocalypse World, just to be dragged back to her own reality. She had found a purpose with assisting the survivors, but Michael killed them. She had found a purpose with her sons, but they didn't need her anymore.
"Mary, they need you." Cas insisted. Mary shook her head again, trying to will the angel to understand.
"No, they don't. They have you and Jack." she said. Cas opened his mouth but seemed to decide to not say what was on his mind. Mary had an idea of what it was. "I know Jack was the one to kill me, but Cas, he's still a good kid. The boys, they are going to be lost and upset. I need you to help them through it. All of them." she said, insisting that she didn't just mean Sam and Dean, but Jack too. She could see out of the corner of her eye that John had questions. He was practically bursting at the seams with them, but seemed to decide he would wait to ask. Cas nodded.
"Very well." he said. Mary smiled.
"Cas, I want you tell them that I'm happy. That I'm at peace. I know how they are. They are going to need you, especially Dean." she said. After all, Sam took after John. The John she knew. That John was open and would tell her every time there was something wrong. He was intelligent and had a way of thinking through the problem, like when they were fighting and he made the decision to step away a few days to give them the space they needed to cool off before addressing the issue. Sam would be the same. Dean however took after her. Misplaced guilt and hiding emotions were something they both did. Dean would find some way to feel responsible for this, to take at least part of the blame on himself and would go out and do something reckless and dangerous to himself and others to fix it. She needed Cas to stop him, to show him that she was fine with how things turned out.
"I understand." the angel said. Then he turned and left. Mary could feel John shaking next to her, the strain of trying to figure out how to ask what he needed to know and trying to sort out his own thoughts. She was sure he was trying to put together what he heard in order to make sense of it all.
"After I died in our house, my spirit couldn't leave." it seemed the best place to start, an as a hunter she was sure John would understand this. "I stayed in that house, trying to protect those where were there. One day a poltergeist came in, a bad one. I tried to warn the family to leave, but in the end they would have died if Sam and Dean hadn't come in. I was surprised to see how old they got, how much they grew. When the poltergeist went after them…well I couldn't' let it. I don't really know what happened, but the next thing I knew I was here, in Heaven. I kept seeing our life, living with you and our four year old Dean and baby Sam." she said. Mary finally looked at John again, seeing him staring at her intently. It was almost painful to her, seeing no judgment in that gaze, only the desire to understand and learn.
"Then I wasn't in heaven anymore. I was in the woods on earth and while I was trying to figure out what was going on, where I was, Dean came to me." she said. She could still see that night, the confusion then the utter joy in her oldest when he realized it really was his mom. John frowned.
"Dean…what did he do?" John felt like the air was leaving his lungs. Did Dean make a deal? What did his oldest do to bring back Mary? Why now? John couldn't wrap his head around it. And if Dean was making deals with demons or other creatures did that mean Dean was still hunting? That made no sense! Dean was supposed to quit hunting now that he killed the demon they had been hunting? Could Dean just not let go of the life? And what about Sam? Dean wasn't likely to take another full time partner without Sam around, so did that mean Dean was hunting alone? And if Sam wasn't hunting did he finally go to a normal life? Or did he die?
"He did what he and Sam do. He saved the world." Mary said with a smile. John gave her a confused look before reaching to the coffee table for his beer. As he was about to take a sip he stopped. Mary figured he needed something stronger so she got up and headed to the kitchen. She could hear him following her and she went to where she recalled keeping a few bottles of alcohol. Back then they saved it for celebrations. She pulled down two glasses and a bottle of John's favorite whisky. He gently took the bottle from her hands, opening it himself and pouring them each a drink as he reached around her. Mary leaned back into his chest as he closed the bottle and placed it on the counter. Mary then shifted her weight forward and grabbed the glasses before turning to face him.
"So you were brought back to life because Sam and Dean saved the world?" John asked. It wasn't that he didn't believe her, because he did. That sounds like something that the boys would do, see evil and go out and destroy it to protect innocent people. Yet he didn't understand how it could have come to that. John took a drink from his glass and Mary did the same.
"Dean was by himself. Apparently Amara, the Darkness, had been set free by Sam and she mortally wounded her brother God." Mary started, but John held up a hand. She stopped to let him process what he just heard. It was a lot of information to take in at once.
"So wait, God has a sister, and you met them both?" John asked, addressing the most concerning piece of that first. Mary frowned.
"I didn't no. Sam and Dean did." she said. John nodded before taking another drink. He had been a catholic before Mary's death, and afterwards he still had faith, but that faith had been twisted and distorted by the evil that filled the world. John had believed that God existed once, but as time went on with the hunts and he had seen the real evil that existed he began to question it. Now he was being told God really did exist, and not only that but his boys had personally met him. In addition to that, he had a sister?
"Alright, and why did God's sister want to kill him?" he asked, trying to understand. After all there was no way Mary would lie to him, especially about something like this.
"Because he locked her away at the beginning, and he was trying to do it again." Mary explained. John nodded.
"I see, because Sam set her free…why?" he asked. After all he can't imagine Sam of all people setting an ancient evil loose on the world. He couldn't fathom any reason his boy would do that. Mary looked down.
"From what the boys told me, Dean was cursed and it was the only way to save him." Mary said. John wanted to curse. How did Dean get cursed? How bad must it have been that Sam felt the need to unleash something that could kill God onto the world to save him? John wondered just what he doomed his children to by teaching them to hunt in the first place. It was clear by now the boys never left hunting like he thought they had. "Amara had apparently wanted to destroy the world, and the only one who could go anywhere near her was Dean. Sam said there was a bond between Dean and Amara that wouldn't let them hurt each other. In order to try and save the world, they but a bomb inside Dean made of pure souls and Dean was going to use himself to take her down." Mary said. John felt his breath catch in his throat. Before he could say anything or even put his emotions into thoughts, Mary had plowed on with her explanation. "Dean ended up talking to them and helping Amara and God renew their bond. As a thank you God took the bomb out of Dean's body and Amara returned me to life." Mary said. John could feel air enter his lungs again.
"I see." he said, trying to show that he understood how Mary was resurrected. It was a lot of information, too much to fully digest at once. He knew he'd have questions later, things he would need to have clarified. Not only that but he would need to understand how things got that bad to begin with. How did Dean get cursed and what did that curse do to him? For now, this was good enough.
"John…are you alright?" Mary asked. She was worried about how he would take all this. He took another drink. She reached behind her to grab the bottle but John grabbed her wrist. She smiled, glad he wasn't going to try and depend on alcohol to get through this conversation. He slowly nodded.
"Yeah. I just…need a minute. I hoped the boys would leave hunting after everything, so to hear that not only have they kept hunting but had to save the entire world is a little much." he admitted. Mary nodded. John looked her in the eye. "Mary, I'm sorry." he said. Mary blinked, confused. This didn't seem right to her.
"What?" she asked, confused.
"This is all my fault." he said. She continued to give him a confused look so he decided to elaborate. "When you died, I lost myself. All I could think of was killing what killed you that night. I dragged Sam and Dean into being hunters, and now you've been dragged into it too." he said. After all, she had to have gotten involved in hunting after she was brought back. She seemed far too comfortable with what she was telling him about God and Amara to not understand the supernatural world. Mary's face fell and she looked at the ground.
"No John, it's not." she said. She could hear John open his mouth to argue, and she knew she had to tell him now. "My family, the Campbells, have been hunters for as far back as anyone ever bothered to trace." she said. When she didn't hear anything she looked back at John's face to see how confused he looked. "My parents Samuel and Deanna Campbell were famous hunters. I was raised to be a hunter too, but I never wanted to be in that life. Then I met you, and you took me away from it. Or at least you tried to." she said. John scowled, but not out of anger, more like confusion.
"What do you mean?" he asked. He didn't understand. She was a hunter before they ever met? And how did he take her away from something that he didn't know what it was? As John thought over what he knew about Mary's family he remembered a vague altercation with her father, and she mentioned once not long after they got married that her parents both passed, a car accident maybe?
"The night we left, my parents were killed. Azazel, the leader of the four princes of hell and the former king of hell, had been working for Lucifer on a plan to revive him. That involved making deal with people to have access to their children so he could create the perfect leader for a demon army. He killed my parents, and then you. He offered me a deal, he would bring you back if I would allow him in our home in ten years." she said. She looked down, as if she couldn't bear to see his reaction. John's mind was working overdrive, trying to understand. Mary had made a deal to save him, and that let yellow eyes into their home that night? John had known about the plan to make special children for a leader for the demon army and he knew yellow eyes was a dangerous son of a bitch, but he had no idea he had been that important. Looking at Mary again, he could see she truly blamed every bad thing that ever happened to their family on her and that deal.
"Mary." he started. He pulled the glass out of her hand and reached around her with both hands to put the glasses on the counter behind them. Then he wrapped those arms around her and pulled her close, hugging her. "This isn't your fault. You did what you felt you had to do. There's no telling what would have happened if you made a different choice, but I am glad you made the one you did." he said, trying to reassure her. To his surprise she actually laughed. "What?" he asked, wondering where that came from.
"I know exactly what would have happened if I hadn't said yes. When Jack was born he accidentally tore open a portal to another world." she said. John frowned. There was that name again, Jack. It was the name she said when she was talking to the angel Cas. However he momentarily pushed the man, rather child if he was born recently, from his mind as the rest of the sentence caught up with him.
"There are other worlds?" he asked. Suddenly John felt sick. What had his family gotten into? Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and all the other monsters were one thing. That was normal, that made sense. Hell, even the random minor god or deity made sense. However God, other worlds, the King of Hell, God's sister. None of that was normal. That was way beyond the pa-ygrade of any hunter.
"Yes, a few from what I've heard. Sam and Dean told me about one they call 'The Bad Place' where there are strange creatures and monsters." she said. John blinked as he continued to hold Mary, trying to process this. "The world Jack opened was exactly like ours, until the moment Azazel offered me the deal. In that world I didn't take the deal, and because of that Sam and Dean were never born. Without them, the Apocalypse happened and humans were nearly existent. Angels won the war and took over everything, bringing the whole world to destruction." John was floored. He hugged Mary tight, wanting her to know that none of this was on her.
"I guess it's a good thing you said yes." he said. It was a thin attempt of humor, but Mary laughed anyway. John let go of Mary and they made their way back to the living room, to the couch. They settled onto the cushions again, and John tried to mull over everything he learned. His boys were heroes, the ones who saved the world. And Mary got to see them again! He had many more questions. Many things that needed to be said and questioned. However he needed to process what had been told to him. They had all the time in the world after all.
Next chapter Ash comes crashing in and we start moving to the Roadhouse. Hope you enjoy!
