Ever have a day that just doesn't go your way? Yeah. That.

Mary was having, to put it mildly, a day. Or, a morning, anyway.

To start it off, she'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed; irritable and bone tired even though she'd gotten well over her customary five hours of shuteye.
Then when she'd made to roll herself out of her larger than strictly necessary, softer than it had any right to be bed, it was with a bitten off groan that she discovered a gnarly kink right in the middle of her back.

How she'd managed such a thing was an absolute, painful mystery. After all, she hadn't been out on a hunt in weeks and she doubted very much that helping set up the stereo the day before could have caused anything half that bad.
So cursing her rotten luck and wishing with every aching movement that her annoyingly mature body would cut it with the trying to kill her crap, Mary made it to her feet and got ready for the day.

Then she'd zombie shambled her knotted up self out her private living space, down the long and winding corridors, and into the kitchen on a beeline for the coffee maker. Only to find that Rowena had already 'commandeered' it for one of her gross, herb filled, 'takes half a day to steep' type magical experiments. The witch saying something about their brewing machine being happy to serve a higher purpose that afternoon. Or something else just as self-important and annoying.

And then when she'd turned away from the frankly infuriating freeloader and finished counting to ten and was just working her way around to convincing herself that a cup of instant wouldn't kill her, Mary had noticed that both Sam and Castiel were munching omelets and bacon at the table. Together.

That, if her caffeine depleted brain was doing the math right, put every single caretaker with clearance to be within a hundred yard vicinity of the convalescence ward all in the same place.
At the same time.

And nobody seemed to think a single thing of it.

So yeah, her morning? Not a good one. Not by a long shot.

But, so long as there was food waiting to be eaten not ten feet in front of her, Mary figured there was no reason not to eat while the eating was good. So long as she did it fast. And got a little safety confirmation along the way.

So the mother of two did her best to keep a calm expression as she sidled her way over to the breakfast spread and took the closest, least occupied seat.
Then she folded her hands on the table in front of her to keep herself from fidgeting as her youngest served her a plate of her own.

"You sleep good?" Asked the giant of a man sliding over a goodly sized heap of bacon and veggie filled eggs.

"Yeah, all things considered," she said with a nod. "How 'bout you? What time did you konk out?"

"Oh, uh… late. Or, maybe early? Cas?"

"Early. Definitely early. I believe the sun was set to rise within minutes of my relieving you of your vigil," said the angel with the chunk of egg and spinach stuck on his fork prongs.

"And you were with Dean and Michael all morning?" Checked a Mary already three shovel sized scoops deep, barely tasting her cooling omelet as she went.

"Yes, in fact I only just left them a scant few minutes ago," Castiel confirmed, readying to take a sip of what looked like a mug of plain milk while he, perhaps unknowingly, worked to assuage the worst of the elder hunter's concerns. "They were both sound asleep, so I thought it prudent to grab sustenance for them. That was when Sam insisted I sit and join him."

"How's Dean? Any change since yesterday?" Mary couldn't help but ask. Even though she knew the answer just plain wasn't going to be anything aside from-

"Unfortunately no. But I have the feeling that he's enjoying the music." At the curious eyebrow the hunter with the fresh double mouthful of omelet sent him, the angel moved to explain his hunch. "It could have been an illusion brought about by the intermittent flickering of the old desk lamp, but Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite in particular seemed to draw just the slightest smile to his eye."

"That's great, Cas," said a practically grinning Sam. Taking a sip from a glass full of some weird green sludge before adding, "I also thought I saw him smile. When… I think it was a Chopin piece, came on. Don't know what was up with that," he finished with a shrug.

"Oh, 'I'm your huckleberry.' Or, perhaps, 'I have two guns; one for each of you.'"

Mary glanced over to confirm that her son was in fact just as confused as she was about whatever the heck Castiel had just said. And why in the world he'd said it in that weird imitation of a southern drawl.

"Tombstone? A film of the western genre released in the year nineteen ninety-three?" At the obvious looks of confusion from the humans at the table, the angel cocked his head and went on. "Chopin is featured in the film. Played on an old, poorly tuned saloon piano by Dean's favorite character, Doc Holliday." At the continuing looks of confusion, Castiel cocked his head the other direction and furrowed his brow in a confused look of his own.
"He has not enticed either of you into viewing his prized two disc special edition DVD set with him? With and without director's commentary?"

Mary gave her head a firm shake, being pretty sure she'd never heard of the movie and absolutely sure that she'd never been invited to a showing of it.
Though, considering she'd been dead a solid decade before it was released and a good twenty- three years afterwards too, wasn't much wonder she hadn't.

When Sam gave his own head a shake, the hunter asking all the questions gave a small frown and took another sip of his milk.
"Hm, strange. He said that it's a classic that everyone should see at least once in their life. More than once, preferably. I assumed he had already done so with the rest of you."

"Uh, nope, Cas, not me. I've never been much of a western fan myself," Sam said with a wry, almost sad smile.

"You know, Sam," Mary started with an almost sad smile of her own, setting down her fork before going on, "your grandparents were western junkies. They used to sing Roy Rogers at the dinner table and then make me huddle around the tv with them for new episodes of Rawhide, Laramie, Bonanza, The Rifleman… Maybe that's where your brother got it?"

"Either way, please never introduce Dean to any of those, otherwise we'll be stuck avoiding watching reruns with him for the rest of our lives," Sam cautioned, before taking another swig of whatever sludge he'd no doubt concocted for himself.

"Hm, Dean has invited me to 'cowboy viewing parties' on days when TV Land, one of his favored television stations, aired nothing but reruns of 'America's favorite family westerns'. It seems I have seen episodes of all of your parents' selections," the angel said with a nod Mary's way.

"Oh, God, Cas, you couldn't find a way to wiggle out of it? He's been trying to get me 'in on that' for years. No wonder he finally stopped," the younger brother said, expression turned decidedly blue around the edges.

"It's no imposition," Castiel insisted with a small smile. "As it turns out, I am rather fond of the western genre, as well as the black and white film medium. And of the rather more… 'colorful' language spoken by the farmers, ranchers, and desperados."

"You know, Castiel, if my mom and dad'd heard you talking like that, they'd've made you an honorary Campbell, on the spot. No, I'm serious," Mary insisted at the angel's look of deep puzzlement, "you, Dean, and the two of them would have been thick as thieves. It's just too bad none of you got to meet them," she lamented with a glance her youngest's way, shoving another heaping mouthful of omelet into her pie hole soon as she finished.

"Actually, we did meet them. Samuel and Deanna. I thought we told you? They helped us out with a big hunt, few years back."

"You- They- What?" The only words Mary could get past her surprise. And the mash of food halfway down her throat.

"Uh- long story," Sam said with a hapless shrug. One which wasn't going to deter the once daughter from grilling her kid for every single gritty detail just as soon as she finished-

"Ah, that reminds me, it's been long enough: I must get back to Dean and Michael," Castiel interjected with an indicative nod of his head. "I'll take this tray with me and make sure they both consume as much 'breakfast' as they can."

"No, Castiel, you should rest. You're still not fully recovered from all the healing and magic stuff you did for them," said a genuinely concerned Mary, cutting the angel off handily. "Besides, it's about time for my next watch anyway," she went on, moving to snatch the tray from the center of the table before an argument could be raised.

"Perhaps I could assist? Michael has been quite stubborn of late on his stance concerning his consuming of… food."

"Yeah, maybe Cas and I should tag along; see if we can make some progress with him today?"

"Sam, you look like you haven't slept a wink in three days," Mary reproached, exaggerating just a hair to better get her point across. "No, I think the two of you should relax for a few hours, maybe get some shut-eye while the getting's good."

"But-"

"No 'buts', boys," insisted the woman pulling herself to a stand. "It's my turn on watch and I'm not letting either of you get in the way of my reading time."

The playfully 'I dare you to say something' look she shot the two turned out enough to have them clammed up and turning back to their breakfasts. So with a satisfied nod, Mary turned from the table and- and tried not to flinch when the face attached to a ball of redder than red hair sent her a 'friendly' smirk. From over by the counter.

With a curt bob of her own face, the hunter turned for the exit, marveling as she walked at how very not annoying the witch had kept herself the past few minutes. And wondering whether it might be worth it to let Rowena use the coffee pot for her long winded 'magical experiments' more often. If it got the rest of them a little peace and quiet anyway.

With a shake of her head Mary saved for after she hit the hallway, the mother of two turned her mind to more pleasant topics. Like how in God's name she always managed to forget how heavy those stupid serving trays were? That thing was killing her already massacred back bad enough that she figured she'd better get it where it needed to be ASAP. Or else she might have to send herself off for some high quality R&R.
And her shift hadn't even started yet.

Whatever, she could suck it up if it got Sam and Castiel off their feet for a while.
And besides, Dean had been eating so little the past couple of days that it was getting to be a genuine concern.

Though if the archangel was still insisting on 'naught but water' for himself, wasn't like she was gonna complain. In fact, maybe she'd settle herself on down somewhere he couldn't avoid seeing her and straight up eat his share. Just to spite him.

With a dry chuckle at that ever so slightly amusing thought, Mary ignored another pang from her knotted up back and took the corner into the recovery ward. Hoping against hope that Michael the ass-angel wasn't going to magically wake up the moment she walked in because he 'sensed her inferior presence', or something equally-

And then Mary's mind short circuited, her body frozen stock still in the open doorway at the sight awaiting her within:
The sight of the scourge that had singlehandedly brought Cataclysm upon another planet bent over her incapacitated son. Pressing down on the helpless hunter while a cold, calculating look turned his brand new face just as chilling as any the archangel'd ever worn.

"What're you doing?" Mary demanded. Fingers going numb as she was hit by the most terrifying thought a mother could have: the thought that she might already be too late.
Because the despot from another dimension was already touching her boy; menacing the man he'd spent the last months of all their lives torturing.

"What the hell do you think you're doing to my son?!" She shouted, the all but forgotten platter falling to the floor as her body sprang into action. Her decades of hard-won fighting instincts taking over as she rushed forward and straight at the cosmic entity looming itself over her own flesh and blood.

The hunter didn't even have time to think about what she was going to do until she'd already done it. But when Mary realized she'd just strong-armed an archangel off his prey and up against the nearest wall, she didn't blink. Just pressed in harder where one fist was balled up in a good chunk of pajama shirtfront.

She did blink though when what sounded like a surprised grunt brought her attention to the wicked Arkansas toothpick she had to the ex-dictator's throat. After all, though she didn't deny it was a good move, she couldn't remember having reached for her knife.
A knife which might actually work against her enemy, now that he was trapped inside this new, smaller, weaker, warded vessel.

"I'm not asking again, you sadistic piece of-"

"Hold." Commanded the supernatural being who looked like he just might be ready to take the human with the glinting blade nestled snug against a celestial's throat seriously.

"Why should I?" Asked said human, barely restraining a snarl. "What's stopping, let's say, my hand from 'slipping'… and then me watching you bleed out on the floor? Right here, right now."

"If you do that, you will have sealed your son's fate," the ominous words that stilled Mary down to her core. Even her heart shocked to stillness while the sentiment registered. Only restarting when a glance to one side reassured that Dean was indeed still alive.
"Now will you listen?" Came this time on a voice buoyed by the sort of all consuming confidence only one who'd conquered civilizations could hope to wield.

"Fine; talk. Only you better talk fast, mister, 'cause I don't take kindly to monsters I catch trying to kill my kids," warned a Mary with a hand beginning to vibrate where it was clutched around the hilt of something she wasn't seeing much reason to keep steady. Unable to resist pressing in just a breath harder when the tyrant's expression went smug.

"Your angel and your witch have failed to heal your son from his unresponsive torpor because they lack the experience necessary," said he in that same, seemingly unaffected, infuriatingly confident voice.

"Oh, and I suppose you could do better? Powers all locked up nice and tight in your new suit?" Challenged the mom with the gore promising glare stuck on her face.

"No matter my current spiritual situation, I've eons more practice in the exacting art of the healing of souls," said the angel who was honestly lucky to still have the ability to speak.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Mary couldn't help but ask, hands not budging an inch while she waited for her explanation.

"Long ago, in the age of the Crusades, the Army of Heaven oft would suffer casualties at the hands of the Forces of Hell. As general of our forces 'twas far removed from my purview to have any hand in the retrieval of our wounded, but as the most powerful host of divine energy in Heaven, it did fall upon me to revive those of my horde closest to death."

"So what, you're a miracle worker?" The woman with the literal upper hand demanded, feeling it up her blade when the archangel gave a derisive snort.

"Chief among a breed of miracle workers," Michael corrected, sounding almost offended with the sneer thrown in like it was.

"Right, and I'm supposed to take your word for it?"

"You may ask your angel, for if this Castiel served in my garrison, as the seraph did on my earth, then he will have witnessed firsthand both the near destruction of countless of his brethren, as well as my benevolent rendering of their salvations. For he himself was once among the mortally mangled."

"Wait a second, are you saying that you, the 'angel of destruction', saved Castiel in some battle, once upon a time?" Mary clarified, doubt written in every line of her scowl.

"Yes. Or, I healed my earth's version of your Castiel, anyway. Only this Castiel would know whether my counterpart has healed him as well, as the scars left upon his grace would have faded far too long ago to say for themselves."

"Right, and I'm just gonna leave you here while I go fact-check your claims of 'benevolent' heroism with him? No way, buster," all but growled the woman who could hardly believe the nerve of some monsters.

"Then you may 'supervise' as I demonstrate my proficiency. Right here, right now," the angelic presence instructed. Mary not appreciating the mocking edge to the sentiment.

"Uh-huh, I 'supervise' while you turn around and suck the life force right out of my son? I don't think so," rebuked the mother who couldn't help the small shuffle that brought her that much more between the primordial entity and his intended victim.

"And pray tell, Mother Mary, what good would further injuring your son do me at this junction?" Posed the archangel. A purposeful glance down at the glinting threat against his own continued existence making his argument for him.

"...Fine," said the mother who'd been handed just about the worst set of circumstances fate could dish up. "But you try to pull anything, and I mean anything, and I'll make you wish you'd never heard the name Winchester."

"You may stow the theatrics," said the archangel wearing the thoroughly unimpressed look, "I mean my former vessel no harm."

"Prove it." A newly determined Mary dared, giving the barest flick of her head toward where Dean was laying, alive and seemingly well. "And remember: I'll be watching. The entire time," the born and bred hunter warned, pulling her captive cur from the wall and directing him to stand at the edge of her son's bed.

"I would expect no different," said the archangel as he watched the hunter's bowie move with practiced ease from its place at his throat to nestle instead in an equally important spot between two ribs. Sounding, if you asked Mary, way smugger than someone aware they were about to be working under threat of evisceration should have.

But, then again, she wasn't sure the cretin even knew what a liver was. Let alone the fact that he'd be needing it if he wanted to keep on living. For long, anyway.

Regardless whether the severity of the threat was actually registering, Mary kept the blade tip where it was. Her body and arm at an angle that would make it all but impossible for any but the most practiced to snatch her weapon from her as she watched… Well, she wasn't sure exactly what she was watching. Considering the archangel didn't seem to be doing anything. Aside from the slow, slinking, calculating movements that brought him to be stood exactly the way he had been when she'd walked in the joint:
Leaned ominously low and close over the resting form of her son, one hand to his chest, the other to his forehead.
Almost as if braced to push the man back down if he tried to get out of bed. Which, to her knowledge, Dean hadn't since before he'd been dispossessed by the nastiest angel this side of Apocalypse World.

The woman with the pigsticker to another's vital organs found herself mirroring the supposed healer; staying stiller than still as she scrutinized both the unmoving statue by the bed, as well as the dozing man in said bed.
A bed which, just like the three of them, was passing the long, interminable silence in absolute stillness.

That is, until it started trembling. As if somehow compelled to movement by some silent, invisible form of… energy?

A thought all but confirmed for the hunter when she looked to the bane by her boy's side and caught his eyes flickering with a dull bluish light. One that reminded her of the light she'd seen in the eyes of the only other angel she'd ever voluntarily stood this close to. As said angel turned hunter had worked himself past the point of reason. All in the hopes of saving her son from a smiting that should never have happened.

Her attention was brought back to her task as both Michael and Dean's breathing began to labor, their breaths seeming almost to synchronize as the stuttering light grew in intensity. And Mary found she had no idea whether she should step in and stop whatever was happening, or start waving pompoms on the sidelines. Because while she trusted Michael about as far as she could throw him, he'd given his word —a thing that Sam at least seemed to think meant something— that he meant Dean no harm.

In the end, Mary bit the inside of her mouth and watched on in muted dread as the bed did start to rattle, just audibly.
Tasting the barest hint of blood when, with a sound akin to a hiss of concentration, the archangel hunched that little bit closer to her son.
Wincing when the flickering angelic glow flashed a piercing white and then disappeared entirely.

And then gasping when the archangel stumbled back from the bed, nearly spearing himself on the blade Mary just barely managed to deflect in time.
Watching on in rapt, invested attention as Michael's hands spasmed to clutch at his own head and chest in a strange… almost desperate way that made it look as if he might be trying to keep from coming apart at the seams.

"Well?" Checked the hunter staying close, just in case this was all some sort of act. Meant to help their prisoner make a run for it.

"It is done." Announced said prisoner, seeming to barely find the air for it between breaths ragged enough that it had Mary on the verge of… concerned.

But before she'd had chance to so much as ask what in God's name was supposedly 'done', the archangel's eyes had rolled back in his head and he was falling backwards.
Headed straight for a concrete wall.

Wow. That certainly didn't go the way a good morning should…

On a more positive note:
Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful and comforting condolences! ? They all have meant so much and I'll treasure every one of them!