The Winchester mama is at it again! Here's a little peak in at Mary on her all important vessel retrieval mission!
Mary didn't necessarily like lying. Never mind that she was good at it or that it came with the hunting territory. The way people took her at her word when she knew she was lying to their faces always rubbed her wrong.
Sure, it was a vital part of the job, something she'd been taught to rely on since before she'd learned that the rest of the world didn't know monsters were real, but that didn't make it easier to tell a grieving parent that their suddenly literally heartless kid had died in a freak 'animal attack'. Not when she knew werewolves were real.
And it certainly didn't make it any easier to bite her tongue against warning them that if the victim's possessions weren't burned, the family might just be in for a nasty, unintentional haunting.
Deanne, her mother, rest her soul, hadn't necessarily liked the covert nature of their family business either, but Mary'd never seen another hunter turn a phrase or spin a tale quite like her. Gal would have you eating out the palm of her hand and begging for seconds before she'd even wiped the last of the vamp blood off her face. Saying something like, "Oh, this old thing? No, I always have one of these on me. Never know when you might need to pitch a tent!"
And you'd walk off wondering where the nearest campground was. Never minding that that stake she'd slipped into the back of her skirt band had had just a little too much heart tissue on it to be any kind of camping equipment.
Poor woman may not have liked it, but she'd understood that the misdirections and deception could sometimes be the difference between a lovely little private funeral and a full-blown, 'she told me my son was going to haunt me from beyond the grave,' witch hunt.
So she'd taught her daughter all the tricks. Made her practice in front of a mirror until Mary'd got herself believing that the sky was actually God's beautiful blue swimming pool, the sun was a flaming meatball that'd rolled off his plate, and the moon was just it's nighttime reflection.
Yep, keen sense of preservation and a knack for prevarication —with or without a particular gift for gab— and you had the makings of a solid hunter. So long as you could also swing a machete. And outrun a rougarou. Long enough to kill it, anyway.
All things Mary and her mother had been somewhere between decent and damn good at. And just like her mother, any guilt Mary may or may not have felt over the sort of things she had to do and say on the job were negligible when compared to the satisfaction that came with a successful hunt.
Not to say that it didn't still nag. At least when the lying got serious.
Thankfully, in situations like the one Mary was driving away from fast as local traffic enforcements would overlook, that sense of wrongdoing- that 'hunter's guilt' she'd spent the better part of her life learning to deal with? It'd completely melted away the moment she'd been shown in to see her newest 'patient'. Because the moment she met this new Michael, this Michael who was soon going to give their Michael a brand new home on earth, a very important fact had finally solidified for her:
Dean was about to be a free man. For good.
So she'd signed the transfer papers with an uncrackable professionalism and directed her 'nurses' and new patient out the side door and into one of the Apocalypse Hunter fleet's vans without a shred of that old weight on her conscience.
Sure, she'd just impersonated a doctor, falsified official documentation and perjured a signature, all while conniving to steal a human being, but for once the lies hadn't taken an ounce of effort. And even forty miles down the road, glancing at the gurney just visible in her rear view mirror, taking up the majority of the van's cargo space, Mary wasn't regretting a single thing. Not if her Dean was getting his life back because of it.
Not if it'd get Sam and Castiel their best friend back.
Not if she was getting her son back.
And it was true: she was getting her son back. Maybe even that same day, depending on how much more prep Castiel and the witch still had to do after she got back. After they'd had a chance to meet the new Michael themselves. Seeing as the spellcaster'd said something about needing to 'experience this new vessel's energy' for herself. In order to do the final prep for the 'transference'.
Passing up another small, sleepy town, Mary had to bite her lip against the urge to put her foot down and double the limit, all the way home. After all, she didn't want any extra attention brought to the rolling bed secured to the van's floor, flanked on either side by hunters who had a background in medicine.
And definitely not to the figure strapped carefully to said rolling bed. For that matter.
Instead the extremely responsible driver radioed their progress in to headquarters. Then asked whether her close to silent entourage was okay with the oldies station.
A few affirmatives later and she was sliding the dial through white noise until a voice she recognized came through the speakers. Then the whole van was humming along to The Eagles. Mary hoping that a little of that Peaceful Easy Feeling of theirs rubbed off on her. Before she stopped caring what those little numbers posted on the side of the highway meant and gunned it on down the road.
Still, every mile she kept it below seventy was another miracle in her book. Considering every minute that passed was another minute Dean was forced to share his body with someone who, in Mary's book, didn't deserve what they were giving him: a second chance.
When she thought about it, that drive was all about second chances. A second chance for Sam and Castiel to live and laugh alongside the third member of their team.
A second chance at a life outside of archangel-proof walls for said missing team member. As well as for the terrible, larger than life force possessing him.
And a second chance for Mary to be a good mother to her boys. Boys she'd died trying to protect and then neglected as soon as she'd been reunited with them.
Boys who'd spent decades thinking she was gone for good.
Boys who still believed their mom could beat up yours and save the world before bedtime.
Mary couldn't help the smile at the thought. Then, when old Blue Eyes filtered through the radio, singing about how he'd like to be flown to the moon so he could play among the stars, the mother on a mission loosened her grip on the steering wheel and turned up the volume. Checking her passengers still liked the music selection before letting her foot press just a hair harder on that gas pedal. After all, another two miles an hour wasn't gonna hurt anything, but the increased speed was already calming the worst of her anxieties. Reassuring her that they couldn't possibly get back too late.
'Too late' for what, she couldn't say. But Mary wasn't letting that drive take a moment longer than it absolutely needed to. She owed it to her boys.
Hope this little tidbit helped get the dear readers' weekends off to a good start!
Next chapter will feature an all-star cast with appearances by Auntie Rowena, Confused Castiel, Worried Sam, Concerned Mary, and a seemingly Impassive Michael meeting his new vessel for the first time!
Also: I'm so happy to see the first chunk of season 15 up on Netflix. Almost makes it feel like things are moving along normally, in a funny little way! : )