Summary: Mary appreciates her son's offer of being waited on and cared for by the host of Heaven, but she'd rather renovate Limbo instead, and create places where she can interact with the living in order to help others.

Notes: According to Catholic doctrine, Limbo ceased to exist once Jesus died and opened the doors to heaven for humanity (also at that point, in order for Humans prior to Jesus' death to be allowed in time had to be split into two, a plot point that will be touched on later) Depending on who you talk to, it either turned into Purgatory or became it's ante-chamber … I'm going with it as a separate place. There are dozens of debates about Limbo, this is my spin.

Mary, by virtue of being God's mother, got an elevated status in Heaven after her death or dormition- Dante's Paradiso has her as the last thing standing between God and Dante. Catholic's recognize her as Queen of Heaven and Earth, effectively replacing Eve as the Mother of everyone. For more on this subject, there are Mariology classes.


All Around the Limbo World

Eden was gorgeous, and Mary smiled as her Son showed her plants that she had never seen before, it was a nice break from the tension that had followed the splitting of time and the allowance of humans in Heaven.

"And these are Orchids!" God pointed them out happily.

"Oh, my, they're gorgeous!" Mary gently stroked the petals. "They've been pruned?" She noticed.

"Joshua is the angel in charge of the Garden when I'm not here." He explained, and took her hands. "Mother, you'll never have to worry or work here, the Angels will take care of everything you want."

"Dear, you know full well I'm not going to sit and be idle- Gabriel did teach me to answer prayers and how to heal, remember?" Mary squeezed her son's hands.

God smiled at the woman who had raised him. He'd known, but He'd still wanted it to be her choice.

"Well, then, how would you feel about taking care of troubled souls?"

"I'd need more detail than that."

"Limbo is empty right now, all souls that were contained are now in heaven, but I can tell you now, in the future, some souls will be too good for Hell, but too damaged and in need of healing before they can truly be at peace." His gaze went distant, or that's what it appeared to do, Mary smiled at the mimic of human behavior God still did around her. "They'll need someone to guide their healing."

"I'd be honored to help them." Mary smiled.

"Of course, I'll make sure you have Angels to help you, you know Sarathiel, Jael and Ariel, they'll make good seconds."

Mary shook her head, amused at her Son's eagerness to give her everything she could ever possibly need.

"I think I'll give you a portion of the cupids as well, you're a good match maker, oh, and there's going to be something that possibly happens, so how would you feel about taking care of baby angels as well?"

"'Something that possibly happens'? I don't suppose you'll clarify that?"

"Mother, a son needs to keep some secrets." He said with a grin, and Mary shook her head again in fond amusement. "I'll help you get set up!"

Limbo was a mess, and in desperate need of renovation. The Palace, however, was a little much.

"Mother, you deserve to be treated like a queen!" Her son noted her look. "You can make it look like whatever you want, mother." He added, smiling.

Mary concentrated, and instead of an elaborate palace, there was a simple copy of the temple with adjoining rooms for souls that would come to live there. It would take her more time to form a garden, and to make sure this place was still accessible to all people, but she wanted a fairly simple start.

Her Son left to speak with his Angels, but not before getting Joshua to bring her a rosebush from Eden, and Mary was only mildly surprised when Gabriel popped up on the sofa in the small living area she'd set aside for herself.

"Michael and Lucifer had another fight." He told her, and Mary quietly brought over a tray of cherries and other sweet fruits her best friend had introduced her to while teaching her to fly. "I don't like it when they fight." He told her while he took some cherries.

"I know, Gabriel. What was it about this time?"

"Same thing as last time. This time, though … Lucifer drew his blade." Gabriel closed his eyes and covered them with his arm. "I don't like them fighting."

"Well, God gave me Limbo to make it into a sanctuary for troubled souls, you're welcome to hide here as long as you need."

"Thank you." Gabriel uncovered his eyes and glanced around for a moment. "You need more colors." With that, multi-colored tapestries, blankets and rugs appeared.

"Thank you Gabriel, could you bring me some plants from your travels, they'll be a good start for a garden." Mary smiled, quietly resolving to move around some of the tapestries and rugs to some of the other rooms.


500 A.D.

"My Lady, I don't think this is a good idea." Jael was in a golden-haired vessel from a country Mary had never heard of while she lived on earth. They were standing outside a partially burned building that had once been an Inn.

"Jael, first of all, call me Mary; second of all, I need to interact with living humans on occasion, perhaps by doing so I'll be able to help them accept their lives before I have to do the same for them in Limbo. Besides, I'll make it so only people who need and want help will be able to find these places." Mary assured her, before rebuilding the inn with a single 'clap' of her hands. Naturally, that included wards that would keep those who would seek to harm those under that roof from seeing the place, as well as not allowing any fights or violence from those that entered. "And this would be a good way for you and the other Angels to learn about the humans you'll be helping."

"If you think that is wise, My Lady."

"You're never going to call me by name, are you?" Mary sighed. So far, none of the angels, save Gabriel, would call her by her name. Ariel, thankfully, had compromised and started calling her 'Lady Mary', but even with time passing Mary wasn't quite settled into the idea of being considered something more than a mother and a wife.


1350 A.D.

"A Plague, huh?" Mary rubbed her eyes, a new gesture she had picked up from one of her tenants. "Out of curiosity, has anyone told the flagellants that they're just helping to make it worse?" She looked into the 'reflection pool' she'd added as a means to see the world while she was in limbo.

"I think someone tried, but they believe their public flogging of themselves will grant their twons mercy." Sarathiel in the vessel of a persian* woman waited for Mary to swirl her hand through the water, dismissing the images, and to stand before bringing up the reason she sought Mary out. "There is a Pagan to see you." She sneered slightly at that. Sarathiel was one of many angels who believed the existence of pagan gods to be the same as weeds found in a garden, and had not agreed to Mary's extension of the Limbo sanctuary to them and their followers.

"Thank you, Sarathiel, I know that wasn't easy for you." Mary went out to the meeting area that was technically one of many holes in the veil that connected Limbo to the living world. "Greetings, Hestia of Olympius, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" It was rare for the greek goddess of the Hearth to leave her home. "Please, come and sit with me, would you like some wine?"

"No, thank you, I'm afraid the pleasure is fleeting. Eris is … displeased, with your saving the child she wished to drown to punish the parents for their presumption in trying to bind her." Hestia explained.

"Oh dear, how 'displeased' is she?"

"She is spreading false rumors, some of the smaller pantheons of gods are believing them." Hestia absently held her hands over the small hearth near where they sat. "Iris is also displeased by this, though it is directed at Eris. I'm afraid this is only the beginning, however."

"Yes, it probably is. Thank you for warning me." Mary sighed. Sarathiel and Jael would be hard to convince to not retaliate for whatever slurs Eris had spread.

"It was the least I could do after your previous help." Hestia stood, and Mary walked her to the entrance. "I'm afraid not even Zeus can halt Eris when she's upset."

"I shall not forget that." Mary watched Hestia go, before deciding to check on one of her Convents to see how they were fairing during the plague.

Of course, none of the cloister knew that the sister who was in charge of the small garden was her.

When she arrived, however, it was to the sight of her nuns with sores and blackened spots from the plague. A cruel giggle informed her of just who had caused the problem, and Eris appeared to wave mockingly at Mary before vanishing.

Mary was normally quiet even tempered, she had no problem playing the mediator and had centuries to learn how to deal with the trauma that came from being a human full of grace.

Eris, however, had managed to hit two of the three things that made Mary angry, and that was harming children and those who had consecrated themselves to live peacefully.


1944 A.D.

"Shh, Shh, it's okay." Mary soothed, one of her angels on the other side of a young woman who hadn't been completely dead when she was thrown into the incinerator at a Death camp, and was not willing to let the experience go, or even leave the 'entrance' hall where the reaper had brought her.

The young woman did not react well when a suicide showed up. The fact he was still wearing the uniform of a death camp guard didn't help.

"Good men follow orders." The man muttered, sobbing. "I can't! I'm not a good man! No more!" Two angels quickly pulled him into another hall.

"I thought that other war was monstrous." Mary murmured, finally coaxing the woman into a room where the Angel could start working on healing her trauma.

"My Lady, there's a Reaper here to see you." An Angel wearing the vessel of a large, but soft-spoken, Ethiopian man came up to her.

"Thank you Ariel."

Being able to see a Reaper's true form was one of the least frightening things her Grace filled abilities gave her. In fact, Mary no longer cared. "I'm sorry to ask this of you, but your true form will frighten any more new arrivals, if you wouldn't mind changing?"

The Reaper turned into a Korean man. "Not at all."

"Thank you, now, what can I help you with?"

"We need help with some stubborn and frightened souls who are refusing to move on."

"Of course." Mary nodded, once she sent several angels to help the reapers, Mary left Limbo under Ariel's supervision, quietly checking on a couple that were smuggling Jews away from territories under Germany's hold, before checking on an inn and tavern she'd created to help the living in England.

It was currently hosting several displaced children and their mothers, and it was only the fact Mary had learned to travel through time that helped her continue to run it without anyone wondering where 'Moira' occasionally vanished to.

She didn't bat an eye when Loki, dressed in a RAF pilot's uniform, suddenly appeared in the back room while she was checking the rations, or when he placed a box of chocolate on the shelf.

"I thought you were out messing with airplanes?"

"Eh, they've come up with the idea that 'gremlins' are what are messing with their war machines, so I made some to continue the work." Loki shrugged. "By the way, your broken bird's abusive husband is dead. Beaten to death by gremlins." He added with a smirk.

Mary didn't ask for any more details, she'd started all these little places for interaction with the living (and occasional pagan god) in order for her not to lose her empathy for them; not that there weren't times when she'd find herself stepping back emotionally in order to let people make their own choices, regardless of how stupid, and to feel some sense of satisfaction that a person received their wages of their sins; the 'broken bird' had tried to claim that she and her children, the youngest being two were just bruised from the rubble of her house before they were evacuated.

Rubble, however, didn't form bruises shaped like hands, especially around a four year olds neck.

"Thor must be enjoying this."

"Best mood I've seen all those war gods and goddesses in for a long time, I don't think that 'Great War' really cut it for them, just made them hungry. Rumor has it though that Minerva is disgusted with ol' Adolph for something, though, so I won't be surprised if he starts to lose some ground." Loki grinned. "Which reminds me, it's time I spent some time with those lousy goose-steppers." A snap, and his uniform changed into a Nazi Major's uniform. "I'll swing by Limbo later."


Some Clarifying Author's Notes:

There, snippets of what Mary does. She has her own Garrison of Angels, and she and Raphael are the two that work with the Cupids (more on that head canon later).

'Jael' is taken from the book of judges, a woman who killed a war lord by driving a tent peg through his temple. 'Ariel' means 'Lion of God', and is more Shakespeare than Hans Christian Anderson. 'Sarathiel' is one of several possible names for the other three Archangels in the list of the traditional seven (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel are the four most often used in media, it should be noted that Lucifer is not traditionally listed).

Limbo is now a place where souls that are still caught up in the events leading or causing their deaths can heal so they can accept the idea of going to heaven. I did technically combine some of what Catholic doctrine views purgatory as, because in Supernatural Purgatory is Monster Heaven, and in real life, there have been those that combine/confuse Purgatory and Limbo with each other.

Other than Limbo, Mary has a bar, a bed and breakfast, a hostel, a motel, a couple convents, and several other similar-type places that she and her angels use to try and help people who are having trouble with their lives.

'Eris' the greek or roman goddess of chaos (I can't remember which, so I went with greek) this is the beginning of the trouble Mary has with some of the pagan gods, and the start of the incident referenced in the chapter 'What Happens in Vegas'.

Sadly, some people really were only mostly dead when they were cremated in the Nazi Death Camps. And how anyone could do such horrible things to another person is a fascinating study in psychology involving propaganda that was de-personalizing those who were sent to the camps so that the guards would follow orders without question, there were some who did realize what they were doing was wrong, but were too scared to speak out or fight.

Suicides- Yes, it was regarded as a sin because it was killing a person (murder of oneself) and giving into despair and the belief that God wasn't helping you and so dying was better than living with an unfeeling God; however, people then were not aware of brain chemistry imbalances that caused a person to feel depression and to harm themselves. There was a belief for a while that instead of Hell, suicides went to Limbo, so I decided to use that.

'Gremlins' were little creatures that sabotaged airplanes, but they only came into existence, and I have two different stories for where their name came from, during World War II. Naturally, they spread out from messing with airplanes to all other mechanical equipment.