Chapter 3
It was the silence that woke Sam up. He was reclined in a big La-Z-Boy and for the second time that day, he woke up disoriented. He also couldn't breathe. There was a heavy weight on his chest and he started to panic slightly before he realized that it was Mary curled up on his chest, sleeping with her head on his shoulder. He readjusted her a bit and cradled her in his left arm before looking around the room he was in. It was just as interesting as the rest of the house he had seen with floor to ceiling dark cherry wood bookcases lining the walls and he could have sworn he saw a baby grand piano when he walked in the room earlier. He stood up, holding Mary close with his left arm and turned around to see the piano and large bay windows framing it. He glanced out the windows before looking down, a habit he didn't realize that he had. Satisfied with the line of salt that ran across the windowsills, he continued his tour of the house with Mary asleep on his shoulder.
It was quite large, the house. And nothing like what he expected Dean to live in. When he stepped out of the living room opposite the way he came in, he was greeted with a large and fully stocked office, complete with French doors and a fireplace on his left. He turned away from the office, past the large, curved staircase that went to the second floor and went down a few short steps to what looked like the front door. Sam spied another set of stairs that he assumed went to the basement but stopped and stared in amazement at the ornate chair that so randomly sat in the tiny foyer. The entire chair was carved out of a single piece of dark wood into the shape of a dragon. It looked like something straight out of ancient China. And nothing like anything Dean would ever have in his house. In fact, it looked exactly like something a ghost or spirit would attach themselves to. He eyed it suspiciously before walking past it and making a note to ask Dean about it. He did find the basement at the bottom of the stairs and it was just ridiculous. It had a fully stocked bar, a pool table and a flat screen tv, all things he knew Dean would love, but that was where the normalcy ended. Instead of comfy, plush chairs, something he would expect Dean to want in his man cave, there was lawn furniture. A complete set of ridiculously ugly lawn furniture. It was wrought iron frames with big tan pillows that had ugly yellow and pink flowers all over it. Sam just shook his head and catalogued it with all the other things to ask Dean about. Another thing to ask about? The big Blue Marlin hanging on the wall. Sam made his way around the pool table to get a closer look at the fish. He just could not possibly imagine Dean, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, fighting to reel this fish in. And it seemed he didn't have to because the Marlin wasn't even real. Sam just shook his head in slight bewilderment and turned to make his way back upstairs.
As he walked back through the living room and dining room, in which the huge, twelve person dining room table was strewn with various weapons, Mary started to stir. He felt her tiny fingers hook onto his collarbone and she sleepily rubbed her cheek across his shoulder a bit before she pushed her forehead onto his neck. Sam stopped and looked out the screened in back door to where Dean and Linet were sitting on the stoop. Linet was tucked into Dean's side with her head on his shoulder and he had his arm around her. Sam hesitated, not wanting to interrupt the scene before him. He had never seen his brother so happy or whole that he found himself praying this future would actually come to pass and was not just a figment of his tormented and desperate imagination or the work of a powerful monster. Sam was about to turn away, to allow Dean and Linet this moment when Mary had other thoughts and sleepily called out to her mother.
"Mommy," she yawned. Dean and Linet both turned to see Sam standing in the doorway holding the tiny girl tight against his chest. At first, Mary had no desire to move from her uncle's arms. She was content to just be in his arms as he walked around the house until she saw her mother. She was suddenly desperate to be with her mother and when Linet stepped into the house Mary left one comforting embrace only to be accepted into another. Once Linet took Mary, Sam stepped outside and sat on the stoop with his brother.
They sat there for a while, neither of them saying anything. Sam looked at his brother; the haunted fear that had been so prevalent in his eyes was gone, replaced with a content calmness that Sam didn't think he had ever seen before.
"You have a very interesting house, Dean." Dean just laughed at that and nodded.
"It was Linet's grandfather's house."
She seems like a very interesting woman."
"Oh yes, Sammy, she certainly is."
"Her scars…" Sam trailed off, not quite knowing how to bring the subject up but Dean saved him from having to ask anything further.
"She was a hunter Sammy, and before that she was a soldier. She's one of the best fighters I've ever seen and fighting leaves scars."
Sam just nods at that, knowing all too well the scars that fighting evil can leave. The brothers sit in silence again until the unmistakable sounds of lunch being made floated from the kitchen and Dean turned to grin at Sam.
