AUTHOR'S NOTES: Canon almost screwed me up on this chapter because I was about halfway through the chapter when I realized: "Oh, my God! There wasn't actually a body when Mary Winchester died!" But then remembering that Sam and Dean's half-brother Adam crawled out of a grave when he'd been cremated I figured I was okay.

Chapter Summary: Mary Winchester is back, Samuel and Dean have another heart-to-heart, and Celeste tells Castiel her big secret.

Chapter 7


It was early morning on a chilly October day when Mary Winchester finally managed to crawl out of her grave. Lying breathless in the cemetery she wasn't sure how she could possibly be alive. She remembered being pinned to the ceiling of Sam's nursery, eyes wide with terror. She remembered John staring at her in horror, screaming her name as the fire consumed her.

"Hello, Mary."

Mary looked up and saw a young woman standing about 10 feet away. After slowly getting to her feet, she asked, "Where am I?"

"Lawrence, Kansas," the woman replied as she approached Mary. "And it's the year 2010."

"What?" Marry whispered, doubtfully. "But how…? Who are you?"

"My name is Celeste," the other woman replied with a smile. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

"An angel?" Mary asked, not sure of what to make of all this. She had really been dead 28 years? What about John? Or more importantly what had happened to Sam and Dean?

"I know you've got a lot of questions," Celeste said, calmly, holding out a hand. "And I promise I'll help explain everything. Just come with me."

Mary's years of being raised as a hunter made her go on the defensive. This could be some sort of demonic trick. Just because the thing facing her claimed it was an angel didn't mean it couldn't be lying. But at the same time, she remembered her father always encouraging her to trust her instincts. And it was those instincts that were telling Mary that Celeste was someone who could be trusted. Mary took Celeste's hand and what felt like wings surrounded her. The next thing she knew they were no longer in the cemetery but in an old car junkyard standing next to a black '67 Chevrolet Impala.

Mary walked over to the car and ran a hand across the hood, as she stared in disbelief. She could still remember when John first brought the car home. He was so happy… Looking inside the car, however, her heart plummeted when she saw a couple of knives and a sawed off shotgun in the backseat. Straightening up, she turned to look at Celeste, fighting back tears. "My sons… are hunters?" Mary asked, praying desperately that it wasn't true.

Celeste stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and nodded, sadly. "I'm afraid so."

"And John?" Mary asked, a pit forming in her stomach. "Does he know?"

"Mary, I'm not the one who—"

But Mary cut Celeste off as tears started rolling down her face. "No! I come back from the dead after almost 30 years and now you tell me my sons are demon hunters? I want to know the truth!"

Celeste sighed as she looked at Mary but before she could say anything she saw Sam, Dean, Samuel, and Bobby coming out of the house. "Okay." Giving a quick nod in the direction the guys were coming from, Celeste waited until Mary's back was turned before winging off.

When Mary saw her father she almost fainted then and there. And then her eye went to the two younger men. "Oh, my God," she gasped, her hands going to her mouth. After a moment, she slowly lowered her hands as she took a few steps towards her father and her sons. "Dean? Sammy?"

"Mary," Samuel said, stepping forward quickly to hug his daughter. But after they shared a quick embrace, Mary pulled away and turned to Sam and Dean.

"Mom," Dean said, his voice husky with emotion and disbelief.

Mary quickly hugged Dean before taking a step back and hugging Sam. When she finally took a moment to look at her boys, she felt fresh tears falling down her cheeks. "My boys…" she said, finally smiling. Looking at Dean, she said, "You look like John when we first met." Turning to Sam, she gave a small laugh. "You got tall, Sammy."

Sam laughed at that. "Yeah, I, uh… I sprouted when I was in 9th grade. Dwarfed Dean back then, too."

Looking around, Mary started to wonder where John was. When she finally voiced the question, Sam and Dean exchanged looks. "Dean…?" she asked, not liking the sinking feeling in her stomach.

But it was neither Sam nor Dean who responded but rather the scruffy looking man wearing a faded ball cap. "John was killed by the yellow-eyed demon about 5 years ago."

Seeing his mother's look, Dean sighed before saying, "Mom, this is Bobby Singer. He's basically been like second father to Sam and me over the years."

"Nice to meet you, Bobby," Mary said, shaking his hand.

Bobby gave her a nod. "Same here. I knew John a long time."

Mary just nodded, feeling overwhelmed.

"I could use a beer," Bobby said, trying to cover the awkward silence.

"I'm game," Dean agreed, looking at the rest of his family.

"Sounds good," Sam said, nodding.

After a moment, Mary asked, "Do you have anything stronger?"

xx

While Sam and Bobby filled Mary in on the events of the past 28 years, Dean pulled his grandfather aside before fixing him with a hard glare. "So what did it cost?" Dean asked, setting his beer down.

"Dean," Samuel began but he stopped. "You know what? I don't have to explain myself. You know why I did it."

"I didn't say 'why'," Dean said, quietly. "I asked what it cost to bring Mom back. Did you find another crossroads demon or what?"

"Not a demon," Samuel sighed. "Your friend, Celeste."

Dean rubbed his face with one hand as he thought about that. "And? What else did she say?"

Samuel sighed again before looking in the direction of the kitchen to make sure no one was listening. "Celeste gave me a year before I…"

"And Mom?" Dean asked ready to tear his grandfather a new one.

Samuel shook his head, knowing where Dean was going with the question. "Mary gets to stay. But when the year is up I get sent back to heaven."

"God, what is with this family and making deals?" Dean muttered to himself, rolling his eyes as he paced the room. "Demons, angels…"

"What would you have done?" Samuel asked, quietly.

But Dean just shook his head. "I get it. Trust me, I do." Fixing Samuel with a look, he said, "But you have to tell Mom."

Samuel started at that. He hadn't intended to tell Mary anything about the deal until absolutely necessary. "Why? Why does she have to know, Dean? So she can make some sort of deal of her own to let me stay? I just want to be able to have some time with my family again. When my time's up, that's fine. You said it yourself, Dean. You, your dad, Sam… there's a family tradition of self-sacrifice. It stops with me, I promise you that."

But Dean seemed doubtful. It wasn't that he doubted the sincerity of his grandfather's words but he knew his family was screwed up enough that the deals and the sacrifices would never really end. And while he wanted to give Samuel the illusion that he was right, Dean knew that he had to face reality. "You can't promise that, Samuel. You don't know what any of us are going to face. It'll happen again and just start another round of this family giving up everything for each other."

"You're right," Samuel admitted, regretfully. "But I know one thing." It was something that had haunted him a long time while he was in heaven and once Crowley had brought him back and he'd seen the family Dean had tried to build, one thing became painfully clear. "If our family has one curse it's all of this."

It took Dean a moment to understand what Samuel meant. "You mean being hunters."

Samuel nodded, sadly. "It's cost me everything, Dean. And I know it's cost you and Sam, too."

Dean leaned against the desk in Bobby's study and let out a long sigh. "So you think we can just break the family curse? Hmm? Go live normal lives? I don't know about you, but I can't do that. I couldn't live with myself knowing what's out there, knowing that I can stop these things and I didn't. Hunting isn't a job, it's not a calling… It's in my blood." Thinking about long ago when the angel Zachariah had zapped him into a world of normal life, Dean added, "And even if I went back to Lisa and Ben… If I'd had 10 years away from all this I'd still find my way back to it eventually. It's in me, and there's nothing I can do about it."

xx

Sitting in Bobby's kitchen, looking at his mother, Sam thought of all the things he'd ever wanted to say to her but he just couldn't say them. But as she sat down next to him, Mary gave her youngest son a warm smile. "Sam…" Touching his cheek, she said, "I'm sorry, honey."

"For what?" Sam asked, not quite looking her in the eye.

"I never should have made that deal with the yellow-eyed demon," Mary replied, sadly. "If I hadn't…"

"It wasn't your fault, Mom," Sam insisted. "You couldn't have known."

"Sam's right," Bobby insisted. "'Sides, we can't change the past."

"Right," Mary replied. Looking at Sam, she could see the lines on his face which made him look older than 28. His brown eyes looked haunted and when she thought about all she'd seen on hunts she could only imagine the horrors her son had seen. "So are you and Dean still single or…?" Why was it so hard to talk to her own son?

Giving a soft laugh, Sam shook his head. "No, I'm, uh… I'm not with anyone. Uh, Dean's hoping to get back with his girlfriend, Lisa, though. They split up a while back but they're trying to work things out."

"Does Lisa know about what you do?" Mary asked, wondering if Lisa and Dean had broken up because of Dean being a hunter.

"She knows," Sam replied, not sure how much of the truth to divulge. "Dean and I saved her son couple years back."

Mary straightened up a bit. "She has a son?" When Sam nodded, she asked, "Is he… Is Dean the father?"

Sam thought back, trying to remember if Dean had ever actually said but when he remembered asking the question, Dean hadn't replied. "I don't know. Kid's name is Ben. Dean never told me whether or not he was Ben's father."

The idea of Dean's girlfriend having a son—possibly by Dean—got Mary to thinking. "Did Dean..? Was he training Ben to be a hunter?"

"I don't think so," Sam replied, seeing where his mother was going with the line of questions. "Dean was pretty adamant about keeping Lisa and Ben away from all that stuff."

Mary nodded, gratefully. Just the idea of Sam and Dean raising their own children as hunters made her feel sick.

"Uh, I hate to interrupt," Bobby said, popping a fresh beer and looking at Mary. "But there's something I wanted to ask you."

"What's that?" Mary asked, turning her attention to Bobby and ignoring the ever so slight rise in her heart rate when her eyes met his.

"How in the world are you back?" Bobby asked.

Sam looked from Bobby to Mary, not sure why he hadn't thought to ask the question from the start. After Mary had passed the usual silver/holy water/salt tests Sam and Bobby had tried to catch Mary up on past events while Samuel and Dean spoke in private.

Mary wasn't sure how to explain but given that Sam and Bobby knew about angels, she told them about crawling out of a grave in Lawrence and about Celeste.


At the bar in Colorado, Celeste wasn't surprised when the last few stragglers of the night mysteriously collapsed and Castiel appeared at the counter. "Hi, Cas. Want a drink?"

"No," Castiel replied, flatly. "You brought back Mary Winchester."

"I made a deal with Samuel Campbell," Celeste replied, nonchalantly. "And before you ask why let me just say that we owe them."

"Owe them what?" Castiel replied, frowning. "Sam and Dean started the apocalypse. Because Michael is in the cage with Lucifer Heaven is in the middle of a war that we are very close to losing. What do we owe them?"

"We owe Sam and Dean," Celeste replied, feeling her temper rising. "—because if you and Zachariah hadn't been so damn hung up on secrecy and destiny we could have stopped all this right from the jump! If one of us had brought Sam back Dean wouldn't have been in Hell, the seals wouldn't have broken and none of this would have happened!"

Castiel gave her a piercing stare and while he hated admitting it, Celeste had a very good point. "We all follow His orders," he said, trying to rationalize.

"God didn't want all this!" Celeste shouted, angrily. "Castiel, God didn't create us to serve His will. What is a gardener without a garden to care for? He created us as His children—perfect and flawless. But then He realized that it was the flaws that make us individuals. When He created humans He wanted all angels to see them as unique creations. Lucifer saw them as flaws." Leaning forward, she went on. "You want to know why Heaven is in a power-play? Because a lot of angels are tired of following orders from a father who they don't believe exists."

"Then help me," Castiel implored. "You've been God's vessel. You can help us end this war."

"No, I can't," Celeste replied. "Because… Because God is meant to be in Heaven and I have to stay down here." Seeing the other angel's confused and astonished look, she sighed. "I never wanted this, Cas. I belong with angels. But when God made me… He said that humans aren't meant to carry the weight of heaven and earth. I was. I am meant to have faith when others don't, to heal when they're so beat down there's no other place to go."

Castiel took a step back as he understood. On the counter, an old amulet on a leather cord started to glow with the heat building up inside it. Looking at Celeste, he found that there was more behind her eyes than mere angel or human vessel.

"Those who set out to seek God never find him when they want to," Celeste said, taking the amulet by the cord and handing it Castiel. "You can only find Him when you're meant to." When Castiel took the amulet she smiled. "Make sure that gets back to Dean safe, okay?"

"I will," Castiel promised before disappearing.