There's Something About Mary
By Tracy

Rating: PG

Spoilers: "Home"

Summary: There's a reason why John can't face his sons.

Disclaimer: Neither Supernatural nor Buffy is mine. Insanity is mine, though.

Author's Note: A crossover with the Buffyverse of a sort. Inspired by insane episode ramblings after "Home".

John couldn't face his boys.

He saw them through a crack in Missouri's closet door. Examined their faces; assuring himself that they were all right, that they would be okay.

Dean's message on his voice mail broke his heart. Dean hardly ever cried. Even as a little one, back when Mary was alive, he'd been such a little soldier. It took a lot to make Dean cry. Sam had always been a bit fussier of a child; not a crybaby, but Sam cried loud, as if he was bound and determined to be heard. Dean bottled his feelings inside, and only broke down when he was absolutely emotionally spent. When John heard Dean's voice cracking as he struggled to hold back tears, John knew that he had to come back to Lawrence, no matter how much he wanted to stay away.

John felt like a coward; but he wasn't ready to face his boys yet.

There was so much he couldn't comprehend, so much he couldn't understand about the long and winding enigma that had become the life of the Winchester family.

After twenty plus years, John was starting to get close to the truth. The truth of what had happened, of why it happened.

The truth was a double-edged sword. While it should have brought only comfort and absolution, it also bared a heavy burden.

The woman he had loved; his wife, his soul mate, the mother of his children- she was not the woman he thought she was.

There had been something about Mary, something that drew John to her. He'd fallen in love with her the first time he saw her. Years after her death, he was still devoted to her.

Mary's past was fractured; the stories she'd told him of her childhood, of high school, of the life before they met, weren't real. People and places didn't exist.

There were ancient texts in long forgotten libraries, texts that mentioned a birthmark exactly like the one on Mary's shoulder. Old musty books that talked about a girl being chosen for a great destiny.

Mary hadn't been just a small town girl.

John wasn't sure what she had been; though he was almost certain that it was somehow connected with her death. He wouldn't rest until he knew that Dean and Sam would be safe from whatever had claimed Mary.

He couldn't lose them too.

Missouri's ramblings about Sam being powerful chilled John to the core. Sam had always wanted the chance to be normal; but it seemed as though the would be lawyer had a much greater destiny to fulfill.

John yawned and took a sip of the herbal tea Missouri had prepared for him. He opened the small day planner, his new journal completely devoted to the search for the truth about Mary.

His most promising lead had been quite a disappointment. John had found information about a mystical society called The Watcher's Council. He'd met with several different people; most of whom were of disreputable repute, before getting the apparent address of where the Watcher's Council met. He'd arrived at the address to find nothing but rubble, the scorched ruins of a building that had once stood upon that spot.

He wouldn't give up. Couldn't give up. Not when Sam and Dean's lives were at stake.

There was a new lead; a town in California called Sunnydale.

Maybe in Sunnydale he would finally find the truth.