The waiting room hadn't changed a bit over the twenty years. Sure it seemed smaller, but she was bigger than the last time they were here. She was sure she was scaring her brothers with how happy she was acting. It wasn't like she could help it, Missouri used to always make her laugh, and she knew the older woman still had her sense of humour.
Speak of the psychic and she shall appear, with a balding older man.
"All right, there. Don't you worry 'bout a thing. Your wife is crazy about you." The woman led the man outside and shut the door right behind him with a sad shake of the head. "Whew, Poor bastard, his woman is cold-bangin' the gardener."
"Why didn't you tell him?" Dean asked, gaining an elbow to the ribs from Mercy and a roll of the eyes from the psychic.
"People don't come here for the truth. They come for good news." She said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Well? Sam, Dean and Mercy, come on already, I ain't got all day."
The three were quick to follow the woman into the next room.
"Well, lemme look at ya. Oh, you boys grew up handsome. And you were one goofy-lookin' kid, too." Missouri directed to a disgruntled Dean before turning to give Mercy the mother of all hugs.
"My goodness, you grew up so beautifully! Look at you!"
"Missouri, my god, I am so happy to see you again! You still look like a queen." Mercy squeezed Missouri back.
"You flatter me too much." It was Sam's turn to be put in the spot light. But instead of the happy greetings the other two got, Missouri grew sombre and gripped the tall boy's hand. "Sam. Oh, honey... I'm sorry about your girlfriend. And your father –- he's missin'?"
"How'd you know all that?" Sam looked like he very much wanted to snatch his hand from Missouri, but his curiosity over powered the need.
"You were just thinkin' it just now."
"Well where is he? Is he okay?" Dean pushed. Worry marring his face.
Missouri furrowed her eyebrows. Much like she was trying to find their Dad via telepathy or something.
"I don't know."
"You don't know? You're supposed to be a psychic right?!" This time Mercy elbowed him deep in the stomach and Missouri gave him a "Are you stupid?" look.
"Boy. You see me sawin' some bony tramp in half? You think I'mma magician? I may be able to read thoughts and sense energy's but I can't just pull fact's outta thin air!"
Dean looked suitably chastised and Mercy couldn't help but look at Missouri in awe. Dean was hard to handle most days and Missouri sorted him out within seconds.
"Sam, stop laughin' at your brother." Mercy scolded. The slight twang slipping back in her accent, it seemed Kansas never really left her.
"Sit, please." Missouri sat on the chair opposite to the sofa she had indicated.
Mercy noted that there was no way all three of them were fitting on the tiny piece of furniture, especially with Sam's giant body. So she instead went to lean against the window sill.
"Boy, you put a foot on my coffee table; I'll whack you with a spoon."
"I didn't do anything!" Dean complained.
"Well you were thinkin' about it." It was all he got in response.
That was the thing Mercy loved about Missouri, her quick wit and no nonsense attitude.
"You better be on your best behaviour boys. I've seen Missouri rip Dad a new one so deep he sulked in silence for days." Mercy knew her saying that would make the boys look at Missouri in awe.
The only other person who had managed to beat Dad in an argument was Mercy, and that was just because the man had been drinking quite heavily that night.
The three of them discussed what had happened that night all those years ago, whilst Mercy just watched the world outside.
She may have seemed in a good mood, but that town had been grating on her nerves ever since they got there. She knew it was thanks to Sam and Dean that she hadn't fallen into that familiar pit of despair.
That was another thing that pissed her off. She hated feeling weak. It wasn't right; she had gone through far worse things in her life than visiting her old home. Yet here she was fighting back the tears of frustration.
She had to keep it together. She had to build her walls again, because something like that could end up killing her on a hunt. She didn't need something like that.
"I don't know, but oh, it was evil. Ask your sister, she knows it better than me."
All eyes turned to her.
"Even I could feel its evil aura. Eight years old and the psychic ability of a brick, yet I still managed to sense it. I already told you about the yellow eyes."
Mercy kept her eyes glued on the street outside.
"But there's somethin' you haven't told us, isn't there." Missouri forced.
Mercy knew this wasn't a battle she could win. The trauma of watching your mother burn to death was something that stopped you from doing many things for decades. Telling her family exactly what she saw was one of them.
Describing it, talking about it, it just made it so real. Like if you don't think about it, it would just go away, it would no longer exist.
"There's not much more to say. I saw its silhouette, a man stood over Sammy's cot. He smiled at me and just disappeared."
She turned to glare at the three people at the coffee table.
"I don't understand why you all think I'm such an expert on what killed our mum. I saw him for a split second and he was gone, nothing more and nothing less."
And that was it.
A few hours later found them inside Sam's old nursery.
Flashes of fire and screaming burst into her head as she entered the room. Logically Mercy knew that it looked completely different from when Sam used it, but her mind wouldn't let her rest.
"This is where it all happened."
Mercy and Dean fidgeted with unease. They both felt their fight or flight instincts rear up in response to the memory of the danger.
Of course their old house managed to attract a nasty poltergeist and whatever the hell the other spirit was.
In Mercy's opinion, they didn't get out fast enough.
Hours later the four of them once again found themselves inside the old Winchester household, only this time armed with bags of magical herbs.
Putting them in the walls was an eventful affair to say the least. Mercy only just managed to dodge the knife aimed at her head and Sam almost got strangled to death by a lamp.
Safe to say Mercy was pissed at the poltergeist for hurting her brother, and she felt a strange sense of smug glee when she punched a hole in that wall and shoved in the bag.
She was not losing another family member in that house, thank you very much.
Mercy was getting sick and tired of coming back to this place. Yes she trusted Sam's instincts, but couldn't she have one good thing happen?
She was lying in the back of the Impala. She was going to declare it her room; she spent enough time in it. Her brothers were arguing again and Mercy did not have the energy to tell them to shut up so she just blocked them out.
It was getting to the point where she didn't care that that house was her childhood home. That it was the origin of all the bad things that happened in her life. It was becoming a very repetitive and irritating case that had no emotional meaning to her at all.
It was strangely refreshing in an exhausting way.
So when she went running into the house with her brothers the flashbacks didn't even try to bother her.
"Dean, get Jenny. Sam, get the boy. I've got the little girl!"
It wasn't until she saw the fiery figure that she realised how much of an idiot she had been.
Poltergeists don't have visible forms, and only one person had ever died due to a fire in that house.
"Sorry Mum," she told the ghost and grabbed the girl. She ran through the house, the exact path she had taken all those years ago. Only this time she knew she was going to save the child in her arms.
They were only a few steps away from the front door when Mercy felt something grab her leg. She quickly put down her burden and told her to run before she was dragged away.
As with any job, there are pros and cons of hunting the supernatural. A pro would be saving lives. A con would be the lack of stability.
Mercy was experiencing one of the worse cons, being thrown across the kitchen like some sort of rag doll, only bigger and more breakable.
It wasn't fun. It was also extremely painful and Mercy was sure she had broken a rib when the thing had thrown her onto the granite surface.
It was sad that things like that happened on almost every hunt, they always went for her first because she was female and smaller. Therefore she's somehow a lesser threat than her giant brothers.
Yeah. No.
Mercy didn't go through a lifetime of rigorous training in different martial arts (thank God for sports clubs) and gun techniques (her Dad, who else?) just to let herself be protected by her brothers.
But unfortunately, you can't physically fight a being of malevolent intent. No matter how hard you try.
So being tossed around the room was the only way to go. She just hoped the thing would get bored at some point because her body was killing.
She almost sighed in relief when the thing pinned her against the wall. Still in a life threatening position but it hurt less.
Mercy was sure her end was near. More fear dripped in her gut the longer Sam and Dean were trying to break the door down. It was like the house had something against female Winchesters.
Mercy was slammed into the wall again and her airway cut off. She gasped for air, desperate to live. But her body couldn't move.
Her vision slowly started to fuzz and dim. She struggled even harder, hoping to distract the damn thing from cutting off her oxygen supply. But to no avail, in fact all it was doing was making her body ache so much more.
She knew the second her brothers managed to break into the kitchen as the pressure around her neck disappeared.
"It took you two long enough!" She snarled at them through the hacking and gasping.
"Sam!" Dean yelled and the two pointed the shotguns at the flaming figure that had appeared.
"Don't shoot!" Sam and Mercy yelled in synch, both knowing who was walking towards them.
"I can see who it is now." It was like a switch had been flipped when Sam said that. The flames died down to show the woman who had brought all three of them into the world.
"Mum?" Dean called out hopefully.
The ghost of their mother smiled sadly at each of them. Tears streamed down Mercy's face, Mary looked exactly like she had all those years ago, so full of life even in death.
"Mum, I missed you so much. I love you." Mercy sobbed, her chest aching so deeply.
"Baby, my little devil, I love you so much." Her mum spoke with a wide sad smile before turning to Dean. "Dean, my baby boy,"
She turned to Sam last, her soft smile turning grim in an apologetic expression. "Sammy, I'm so sorry."
The three living Winchesters stared at their mother, unable to speak through the lumps in their throats. The blonde Winchester turned away from her children.
"You, get out of my house! And let go of my daughter!" it happened faster than they could see, the ghost of their mum burst to flames, freeing the house of any leftover spirits.
As Mercy dropped to the floor, she wiped the tears from her face and steeled her expression.
"Goodbye Mum and thank you."
Thank you for giving me the closure I needed, she thought.
That night a giant weight that had been dragging Mercy down for two decades was lifted. For the first time since the night of the fire she was free of guilt.