Crowley felt an uncharacteristic burst of emotion flood through him as he grinned at his mother. She pulled him into an embrace that was long overdue, and he didn't resist. For some reason it felt strangely right.

"I knew you could do it." She said, grinning happily at him. "You've got the MacLeod blood in you, alright!" She beamed. Crowley couldn't help smiling back at her, simply letting himself enjoy a moment with her.

"Shall we take this conversation to a more suitable place?" He asked.

"If you prefer." She said. He took her back to her home and sat on the couch while she made some scotch tea- strong with milk, just like she did during their multitudinous other meetings. She walked and sat across from her son, and they both took a sip of their tea before speaking.

"So Mummy, how was purgatory?" Rowena and Crowley both took notice of the preferred name he gave her, and both wondered why he kept calling her that, but they ignored it for the time being.

"It was very entertaining. Watching creatures kill each other and manipulating them all to do what I say was wonderful. But I felt like I was missing something the entire time I was there. Of course now I know that it was you. But I knew you would bring me back. My little Fergus." She grinned, chucking him playfully beneath his chin. Crowley rolled his eyes. Mothers were so embarrassing. He took a moment to enjoy the quiet before he got to the matter at hand.

"Mummy?"

"Yes, dearie?"

"While you were gone. I- I found out some things." He began.

Rowena's playful demeanor vanished, and she could tell what was coming was incredibly serious. "Yes?" She urged him on.

"Lucifer wasn't responsible for what happened to me and you like we thought. He partnered with someone to get you out of the way."

"Who, Dear?"

"A man named Angus McAdams."

At the mention of his name, Crowley watched his mother intently, and saw her actually physically recoil in fear. She gasped slightly and held her chest, panic-stricken. The fright in her eyes was palpable and her skin blanched paler than usual.

"You- you saw Angus?"

"I haven't seen him but according to Lucifer and the crystal you gave me he is the one responsible for what happened to us."

Rowena's shoulders relaxed a fraction, but not nearly enough. Crowley decided to investigate.

"Who is he?" Crowley asked. Rowena looked torn about what to tell him. "Please Mummy?" He asked, trying to butter her up.

Rowena sighed. "Angus McAdams was my first lover... and your father."

It was Rowena's turn to watch her son. A flickering of surprise in his eyes, and then a closing in.

"Why didn't you ever talk about him?" He asked flatly.

Rowena looked away from her son and rubbed her chest as she struggled to breathe.

"That man has done horrible things, Fergus. Unspeakable things. Things that make your torture in hell look like playtime at the park for the wee lads and lassies." She said.

For a moment Crowley felt as if he were truly seeing his mother for the first time. He reached out to hold one of her hands and asked a question he needed answers for.

"What did he do to you, Mummy?"

Rowena took in a shuttering breath, trying to hold herself together.

"He beat me. All the time. If I had dinner ready late... If I took too long doing something... If something went wrong I was to blame. The beatings happened more and more, and then he... he would rape me. But every time he apologized and told me he loved me... and I was stupid enough to believe him. It was the only love I had ever known, and I swore to myself that when I had you I would never love you like that... ever."

As she spoke, he could see the events she described happening like a movie in his mind, and it broke the heart he vehemently denied having. A teardrop ran down his mother's cheek, and he felt his vessel's eyes prick strangely. In an occurrence that was as rare as a shooting star darting across the sky, Crowley felt his vessel crying. No- more than that, he himself was crying. His lifelong question as to why his mother had never shown him love had been answered, and in the most gruesome way possible. Now, his earlier words about his mother rang in his mind. That she was incapable of love, and of loving him. But now he knew that the opposite was true. She loved him enough to not show him that love that she had known. It was a revelation.

Seeing her son's upset at her distress, Rowena pulled him close to her in a hug. Perhaps not fully recovered from having him as an infant, or possibly just for her own comfort, Rowena hushed him and gently rubbed circles on his back. The motion was so foreign to him that he leaned into the touch.

Then, an odd feeling overtook him, one that he didn't know how to explain. It was like he himself was floating out of his body while it went on autopilot without him. The floating sensation lasted only a minute or two, and then he was back in his meat suit. He was about to ask his mother what had happened when he realized that he had his thumb in his mouth. He pulled it out quickly, embarrassed, when he saw his mother staring at him, shocked.

"Oh my... oh my sweet boy... that spell must have had it's clutches in you deeper than I thought!" Her tone was alarmed and it made him sit up straight.

"What do you mean?" He asked, confused.

"I've heard of it only happening a few times. The spell was so deeply ingrained in you that it triggered black out periods where your behavior mimics what it was during the spell. You'll have no control over it." She said sadly.

Crowley hit himself in the face with his palm, making a loud smack as he did so. Now he had to help his mother recover from her abusive relationship, help her to kill his father, defeat Lucifer before he could escape the cage, and deal with the ramifications of the spell gone awry.

What else could possibly go wrong?