Dean's been here before. A possessed parent, Sam watching on in helpless horror, feeling his heart throbbing, aching, struggling for each beat. With John, it hadn't been too much of a surprise, his words hitting harder than the physical aspect of the possession, even with his chest tearing open deeper with each flash of yellow eyes burning into his vision. With Mary, it's a little of everything- the way she looks at him, how her hand is steady as the ice spreads in his chest. He struggles to break through, to talk, can hear Sam, muffled, in the background, also trying.

Dean feels everything in him fighting just to survive a little longer- an unfortunately too familiar sensation by now. He thinks he can feel everything down to his sinew just struggling to expand, draw in one more breath, beat one more heartbeat. It sucks, it hurts- and not just physically. Looking into his mother's eyes, and remembering every time before when something like this happened, with others important to him... but never her...

His heart seems to be a favorite punching bag by the supernatural, and he's not entirely sure why. Maybe it all originated with that lapse in judgment that had led to his being electrocuted and having a heart attack at 26, put an easy target on this one weak spot, who knows. He lifts his eyes and stares at his mom, pleading. "Mom..."

Her brows furrow, her hands tense against him and she's struggling, he can tell it. The ghost tries to say something else, the ice digging in deeper into Dean's veins, and he knows they're at a breaking point now.

It's not her, he reminds himself. It's not. It's the ghost's spirit, influencing her, but god, the pain is seeping into his thoughts and all he can do is struggle to breathe, held tight to this wall and unable to move even a few inches. One way or another it always seems to end up here- him pressed against a wall, forced to watch as the people closest to him are used against them, to tear his heart to shreds. It really makes it hard to exonerate them after awhile, when it just keeps happening again and again and again.

Sam's speaking, now, but it's barely registering. His chest aches in that old, too-familiar way of I'm dying and he kind of wants to cry as he stares into his mother's eyes, but he doesn't even have the energy to do that, pinned against this wall, struggling for each breath.

"Mom, I know you can fight this," he says desperately, remembering what it took to snap John out of it all of those years ago, hoping that somewhere Mary does still care enough to break through the control. She stares at him, fingers slowly curling in on themselves as the cold intensifies, his heart struggles even harder just to beat, and he tries not to remember how it had felt every time in the past, the slow death of a failing heart, the agony of not being able to stop it...

It ends. Somehow. The control over Mary collapses and she stares at him with shiny eyes, horrified at what she'd almost done. "Dean," she breathes out, before turning to Sam and directing him where to go to finish this.

From there, it's just containing Mary until Sam gets rid of the actual spirit, and then... well, then Mary leaves entirely, takes John's journal with her, and Dean feels a different kind of cold agony settle in his chest.

Later, Dean finds himself stirring, looking around. There's still this strange pressure in his chest, and he thinks it's more psychosomatic over something physically wrong still lingering from earlier, but either way, he doesn't want to be alone so he forces himself up and trudges out to the main part of the bunker, almost relieved to see his brother sitting at the war table, reading with that old familiar crease in his forehead from focusing too hard. He flicks the side of the page and smirks a little when Sam looks up, a scandalized glower on his face.

"Whatcha readin', Sammy?" he asks, just wanting to fill up the lingering silence. He crosses over, walks around and frowns at the headline of the article Sam's so focused on. "...'the process of deliquesce in the egg yolk'? Are you kidding me right now?"

Sam makes a face at him, half-petulant, half-relief. "Shut up, it's interesting." He watches Dean slowly move around the table and his expression shifts, a little. "You good, man?" he asks before Dean can even fully settle down in a chair across from him.

Dean shrugs. "Good as can be expected."

They sit in silence for a few minutes longer, Sam spinning his pencil around between his fingers. "You know, uh. I... I kind of... I get it, you know? You... you envisage a person to be a certain way, and- And, well-"

"Envisage? What is this, recite the dictionary day?" Dean huffs and rolls his eyes, but Sam isn't deterred.

"You know what I mean," he sighs.

"She's still Mom, Sam. Nothing on that front's changed," Dean says, even though he knows it's wrong. She's Mom, yes, but she's nothing like what John's talked about in drunken fits and rages for all of those years. It prickles at Dean's skin even as it intrigues him, and he equally wants and dreads to learn more about the woman who had been frozen in time way too young and now has another chance to be herself. With nothing but the memory of a husband and two little kids long left in the past to tie her down.

He swallows hard, trying not to dwell on that train of thought too much. "So," he says, poking at Sam's laptop with the toe of his boot as he plops his feet up on the desk and earns himself a glower from his little brother. "What's next on the agenda?"

It's not normal, even for them, but he's trying. It's the best he's got right now.