Chapter 2 – Mary's boy

Nina laid a single white lily amongst the scattered rose petals that decorated her mother's grave. She knelt upon the damp grass, only too aware that her mother's bones lay rotting in the dirt beneath her, the last traces of terror etched upon her face.

"What do I do now?" She whispered shakily.

The wind toyed with her hair and chilled the tears upon her face, so that they felt like icicles sliding down her cheeks. Freddie gripped her hand tight, and she leant against him heavily. His strong arms encased her in love as she sobbed into his chest, her hands pulling him closer.

"You live, Nina. That's all you've ever got to do, just live. I'll take care of everything else."

Nina heard the faint roar of an engine somewhere off in the distance, and felt her stomach twist itself into knots. It was them, she just knew it.

Michael followed her around the room on all fours as she busied herself trying to make everything look as neat as was possible for a cheap, shabby motel room. She'd checked her pale reflection in the opposite mirror about a thousand times, noting with disdain the bags beneath her eyes and the way her dark hair sat limply upon her shoulders.

She tried to think of anything other than what she would do when they arrived, because truthfully she had no idea. What could she say? 'My mum told me to find you just before she died, please help me fight some curse I don't understand or believe in?'

They'd have her in a straight jacket before she'd even completed that sentence.

So when the roar of an engine suddenly cut out just outside the motel door, Nina's heart rose to her mouth in an attempt to escape. She realized - a little too late - that maybe she should have just stayed at home, instead of running from an evil that just didn't exist.

But then a small tug at the hem of her jeans brought her out of her panicked stupor. She smiled warmly and bent to pick up the only thing she had left, her baby, her precious jewel, the sun and the stars in her sky, her everything.

"Hey there Mikey." She cooed softly, picking him up gently and bouncing him on her hip.

Her heart was broken in so many ways it wasn't possible to ever fully heal it, and day by day she could feel the weight of a thousand worlds crashing down upon her shoulders. When she was alone, she would cry for the loss of everything that had once made her smile, and the glue that roughly held her together would stretch to breaking point…

But with Michael's tiny little heartbeat, fluttering softly against her chest, there was nothing that could bring her down. So when that knock on the door finally came, Nina May was ready.

Nina would dream about a man sometimes, a man with gleaming eyes that flashed black and silver and red. He would always smile at her, grin at her, his pearly whites sparkling. He would always take her by the hand and hold her tight, like Freddie would, whispering sweetly in her ear.

"I'm coming for you."

And just before his teeth sunk into her flesh, Nina would wake up screaming.

She took a deep breath, before opening the door slightly and peering through the crack.

"Hello?"

Michael laid his head on her chest, his fingers enclosed around the silver chain that hung around her neck. On the other side of the door stood a man well over 6ft tall, his warm eyes glistening as he wore a smile that belonged on the front cover of a magazine. He pushed his fringe out of his face.

"Hello, Nina is it?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I'm Sam, Sam Winchester."

He peered down at her curiously, and she could almost hear his brain whirring, trying to size her up. She swapped Michael onto her other hip, and then opened the door fully.

She smiled warmly, even though inside her heart was racing. "Please, come in."

He followed her inside, his eyes settling upon her single bag of belongings before glancing back up at her. It was at that precise moment that Michael decided it was time to throw up his breakfast, leaving a trail of undigested biscuits and sour milk all down Nina's front. He gazed up at her with a cheeky grin on his face, his bright eyes twinkling innocently.

"Well I guess that's one way to break the ice." Sam joked, the corner of his lips twitching. If he was nervous at meeting a mysterious new relative, then he hid it well.

Nina blushed a deep crimson colour. "I'm so sorry! He's only just got teeth and sometimes I think he forgets he can chew…" She made her way over to the bed and tried to rummage singly handedly through her bag for baby wipes and a clean shirt.

"It's fine, really. Do you want me to…?" He held out his arms for Michael, and Nina's first instinct was to hold onto him tightly, afraid to let him go for even a second – if her experiences had taught her anything, it was to trust no one. But there was something about this Sam guy that made her feel at ease. Those large puppy eyes made her melt a little, and she had to remind herself that they were related by blood.

"Umm yeah, thanks." She muttered quietly, unable to look her cousin straight in the eyes.

Michael's eyes widened as Sam hoisted him up and held him against his broad chest.

"Hey there little guy." He cooed gently.

Nina waited for the tears and screams that usually came whenever she let him go, but instead of crying he just stared up in wonder at the giant who held him, and hiccuped, causing Sam to chuckle softly.

"So, who is this charming young man?"

Baby wipes at the ready Nina began to clean Michael's face, and was so absorbed by her task that she didn't realize Sam was gazing down at her, his eyes unreadable, but hard around the edges…just like the eyes that stared back at her when she could face looking into a mirror.

"Michael, my son..." She picked up a spare t-shirt. "Sorry, do you mind if I…?"

"Oh yeah, no problem."

"You can sit down if you want, and you can put him down if he gets irritable."

He nodded before lowering himself down and perching awkwardly on the edge of her bed, placing a sleepy Michael on his lap.

Nina made her way to the bathroom and hurriedly began to change her shirt. She sighed quietly - what a great way to introduce herself!

"So, where's your brother." She called from behind the door.

"Dean? Oh err, he had to finish something at work, said to say he's sorry he couldn't make it though…"

Nina emerged from the bathroom in a pale pink vest top and checkered shirt, watching Michael scream in delight as Sam bounced him on his knee.

"So…you're my cousin huh?"

Nina smiled sheepishly. "I guess so…My Mom used to talk about Aunt Mary and Uncle John all the time, but she never mentioned her sons until…well she just never mentioned you."

Michael yawned and rubbed his eyes, before resting his head on Sam's chest and gazing up at his mother through half open eyes. Sam's tanned arms were a safe stronghold around him, and for a fleeting moment Nina imagined Freddie sitting in his place, holding his son in a fortress of love and protection.

If Sam noticed the broken glint in her eye, he didn't mention it.

"Our Dad never told us that our Mom even had a sister." Sam spoke quietly.

"Yeah well, she doesn't anymore…she died last month."

Sam looked up at her, his expression unreadable. "I'm sorry."

Nina shrugged to mask her crippling sorrow and averted her eyes, glancing at the large and tired looking photo album that sat on the desk next to the bed.

"You must want proof though, right? I mean, you don't look stupid so I wouldn't expect you to believe that we were related without proof."

She could feel Sam's gaze burning through her as she picked up her mother's family photo album and held it as though it were a precious stone that could crumble at any moment. She gently flicked through the pages of her grandparents before she found the one she wanted, and smiled down at the fading photograph.

"Here…" She sat cautiously on the bed next to Sam and watched his eyes light up. On the page in front of them stood two beautiful women with beaming smiles and eyes that sparkled, their arms wrapped around each other lovingly; Mary's head resting against that of her younger sister's. Their young faces shone with a hope that their bright futures had awarded them, and their naive expressions haunted Nina every time she looked upon them. How would they have looked if they had known where their lives would lead? If they'd known they would both burn...

She liked to think they would have smiled all the same.

"They look so…" Sam shook his head, unable to find words suitable for the expression upon his mother's face.

Nina looked up at her cousin, her family, and felt a twinge of regret spike through her heart. If only they could have met sooner, and under better circumstances. She watched him smile and small, woeful smile.

"What was her name, your mother? My aunt.."

"Cassandra, but everyone called her Cassie. She made that little bracelet around Mikey's wrist, said Mary taught her how to make it."

Michael's eyes fluttered open at the sound of his name, his face scrunching up like it did whenever he was about to cry.

"I Think it's time to swap." Nina laid the album behind her and cuddled her son as Sam lifted him up gently and placed him in her lap, before he retrieved the photo album and began turning the pages.

Nina rocked her son in her arms whilst studying the stranger before her – because that's what he was, a stranger – and it struck her as kind of mad that she had let him into her temporary home, and had even allowed him to hold her son. Imagine if he had turned out to be some sort of creep? But he just seemed so, so…

Nina couldn't find a word to describe the calm that came over her when she looked up at him. His shaggy mane of hair fell over a kind face, although his eyes seemed to glow somewhat darkly, and his shoulders seemed to sag as if a heavy weight sat upon them. She fought the urge to reach out and cuddle him, shaking the motherly impulses from her heart, but deep inside she knew he felt like Home.

She watched him freeze over a group photo, the exact one she'd known he'd stop on, his fingertips hovering over the cheerful faces that beamed up at him. Nina could close her eyes and still see the photo as it lay on the page.

Her mother and Mary both sat on chairs in the middle of the picture, giggling babies wrapped in their arms as though they would never let go. Her mothers' auburn hair lay in bushy waves that cushioned her face, and the diamond necklace her father had given her lay around her neck, caught in a glare from the camera flash. Uncle John stood crouched down next to Mary, one arm around her waist and the other keeping the boy on his shoulders from falling off; his face almost glowing with joy and pride. Nina's father was sat upon the floor next to her mother, head resting against her thigh and his hand entwined with hers upon her lap, smiling merrily, unaware of the chubby fingers reaching out to take the glasses away from his soft hazel eyes.

That picture was taken the day Mary Winchester died.

Nina poked her head around the door and felt her heart glow warmly inside her chest. She tread carefully, keeping her footsteps light as she manoeuvred her way through the maze of toys that littered the floor.

Michael lay fast asleep in his crib, sucking unconsciously on his dummy, his legs occasionally kicking as though he were trying to run through his dreams. She stroked his cheeks softly, bending down to kiss the top of his head.

She straightened back up and turned around, gazing down lovingly as the love of her life dozed in his favourite armchair. He opened one eye lazily and smiled.

"Sweetheart?" He whispered croakily.

Nina smiled, her heart expanding in her chest. "Yes?"

"Don't let me go downstairs."

Her smile faltered. "What?"

Freddie closed his eye and sighed.

Suddenly Michael's night-light flickered and went out, leaving them in a black so thick she couldn't breathe. She could feel her heartbeat racing crazily, beating harshly against her ribcage.

A split second later the bulbs re-lit, but Nina couldn't shake the sensation of suffocation.

"Freddie?" Her voice shook with fear.

Freddie didn't answer - Freddie couldn't answer, because Freddie's throat was slit from ear to ear, and blood was spilling from his mouth and eyes and nose and dripping down his face and ears and –

A cold whisper sent a wave of terror pulsing through her entire being, and a cold body pressed itself up against her, a knife glinting silver beneath her chin.

"I'm Here."

She woke up choking, a firm hand clamped over her mouth.

"It's ok Nina, it's ok it's me Freddie!"

Nina pulled his hand away and buried her face in his chest, sobs shaking her body as he held her tightly, rocking her back and forth.

Freddie's eyes widened slightly as he cocked his head to one side.

"Baby I don't wanna scare you, but I think someone's downstairs."

Nina tucked Michael into yellowing sheets, wishing with all her heart that she could provide more for her son than dank motel rooms and toys so old and chewed up they were hardly recognizable, and definitely not hygienic. She wanted more than this for him, for both of them, but she knew she could never stop running.

"Where's his dad? If you don't mind me asking…"

Nina bent down and laid a soft kiss upon Michael's cheek, trying to gather up the strength and the courage to do what was best – crazy, definitely crazy, but it was worth a try. What more could she possibly lose?

"He died, about two weeks ago now…" She wrapped her arms around herself as though trying to hold herself together, as if trying not to let Sam see that all she wanted to do was crumble, fall apart, blow away. But Sam could already see straight through her, and he was studying her cautiously.

"Bobby said you needed our help…and I'm guessing you don't just need money or a place to stay."

"You're gonna think I'm crazy…"

Sam smiled as if laughing inwardly at a private joke, and his expression seemed to say 'girl, you've got no idea.'

"Try me."

Nina felt panic rush through her system like a drug, immobilizing her for a split second before releasing her into a wave of terror.

"NO! NONONO! Don't you leave me!" She held onto Freddie's shirt with all her might.

"Nina it's ok! Just calm down, take a deep breath, I'm not going anywhere." He held her tightly in strong arms, whispering softly in her ear and kissing her head gently.

A loud thump came from downstairs, and Freddie's body became tense.

"Please don't go downstairs." Nina begged, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "Please!"

He pulled her back and held her face in his hands, gazing down at her with a torn expression as he wiped away her tears. "Ok…it's probably just the cat anyway –

A door banged loudly somewhere in the house and Freddie jumped out of bed, so quickly that Nina didn't have time to hold onto him.

"Freddie!"

He turned to her just as another door slammed downstairs. He knelt down beside her on the bed and took both of her hands in his. "Nina you need to be strong for me ok? I'm going downstairs. because I need to protect the two people who mean everything to me, who are my world."

"Please, you don't –

"Yes I do. Call the police Nina, then go and stay with Michael in the nursery ok?" He gazed down at her agonizingly before leaning down and pressing his lips softly against hers. "I love you."

He ripped himself out of her grasp and was lost to the night, leaving her alone in a bed that was too large; in a room that seemed to close in on her as she wiped her tears away with the sodden bed sheets.

Fear pumped through her veins as she picked up the phone next to the bed, and her heart sunk as she realized it was disconnected. She threw it to the ground in a panic, her pulse racing dangerously as she raced out of the door and across the hallway to where Michael slept, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in.

She stopped suddenly at the open door to his nursery, the silence of the house around her halting her in her tracks.

"Freddie?"

The walls seemed to absorb the word before she'd spoken it, making her wonder if she'd said anything at all.

"Freddie!?"

The stairs stretched out before her in ominous anticipation, beckoning her, whilst at the same time screaming at her to go back and hide beneath the bed.

A slow rumble suddenly rolled through the house, vibrating the carpet beneath Nina's bare feet. A glass smashed somewhere - the sound seeming to come from so very far away, as the vibrations began to feel stronger and quicker beneath her. Fear struck at her heart and her throat as the walls started to shake beneath her fingertips, and a shrill cry escaped her lips before she could pull herself together.

"EARTHQUAKE!"

She stumbled blindly through the dark hallway, groping the violently shaking walls and choking on tears she hadn't realized had been falling.

"FREDDIE!"

It was as though she was caught in a bubble somewhere in the midst of time itself. Her whole body shook in slow motion, along with the house and the rattling windowpanes. Terror was quietly wrapping its icy tongue around her legs and pulling her down, and the only word that she could form on her lips was that of her husband's name. Even the thought of her son being shaken in his crib, could not break through the film of crippling fear that had formed inside her head and her mouth and her heart.

That is, until two strong hands gripped her shoulders and shook her harder than the house itself.

Sam frowned down at his notepad, in which he'd been scribbling down the details of her twisted, screwed up story. Nina paused, and pulled her shawl a little tighter around her shoulders. They'd moved from the dingy motel and into Sam's car in the parking lot, so as not to wake Michael up, and he'd made Nina tell him everything right from the very beginning.

"So your mother rang you the night she died, and just before the line cut out you heard…?"

"A scream. She told me the thing that had killed basically everybody in our family was coming for mine; that I should look for you boys and run...and then I heard a scream and the sound of something being torn. But when the police arrived they said that cause of death was from asphyxiation due to smoke from –

"- from the fire... Hmm." He nodded to himself and scribbled something illegible down in his notebook.

"They wouldn't listen to me – nobody would! The police said they'd checked the phone records and that no call had been made to me that night. I began to think maybe, that maybe I'd…"

"Maybe you'd made it all up? That you were going crazy?" The corner of Sam's mouth lifted into a crooked, sour smile, and he gazed down at her knowingly.

Nina returned his gaze helplessly. "Aren't I?"

A bitter laugh escaped her mouth before she had time to register it. "Aren't I just insane? How can this be my life? How can I go from having everything I've ever dreamt of having, to sitting in a car with a cousin I never knew I had, reciting a story that belongs in nightmares and horror movies?! I just…" She fingered her necklace with nervous fingertips, and wiped away the tears on her face with her other hand.

"If it weren't for Michael I never would have let it get this far. I wouldn't have run away from my town and my friends to hunt down strangers, I wouldn't be living in a disgusting hotel in the middle of nowhere, I –

"Nina."

She closed her eyes, and fought the lump that had risen in her throat. Sam's soft, reassuring voice carried a thread of concern that, for once, was not focused on the terms of her sanity, and she hated herself for lashing out at him. She kept her eyes closed and heard him sigh quietly.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, desperately trying to fight to the waves of guilt, loneliness and sorrow that had threatened to wash her away ever since Freddie's death.

"That's okay, I know this can't be easy for you, but you're not alone anymore. This is what me and my brother do…we hunt things that aren't supposed to exist outside of a TV set. We were raised this way, it's normal for us, so in answer to your question." He paused, and Nina cautiously opened her eyes to find that he was smiling warmly down at her. "To answer your question, no, you are not insane, and we will help you protect yourself and your son from whatever killed your mother and your husband."

"And basically everyone in the Winchester bloodline."

Sam chuckled but it sounded hollow. "Apparently so."

Nina nodded, and managed a weak smile through watery eyes back up at him.

"Do you mean We, as in you, your brother and Uncle John? Because my mom said she'd helped him kill – or apparently not kill – whatever it was that killed your mother and my father and our grandparents so…" She faltered and let her sentence trail away. At the mention of his father, Sam's eyes had lost their smile and had dimmed visibly. Nina's heart dropped in her chest.

"I'm so sorry…When? How?"

Sam stared down at his hands. "A week ago...and here's this for a kicker - he died by the hands of the yellow-eyed demon, the thing we think killed our mom, and your mom apparently, and basically everyone..."

Before thinking, Nina placed her hand in his and gripped it tightly. They sat like this, in a mournful silence, each plagued by the losses of their family, for what seemed like eternity. It was worse than Nina had anticipated, and she didn't even want to think about processing the word 'demon'. Everything in that instant just seemed hopeless.

Sam breathed in deeply and shook his head. Nina withdrew her hand from his, breaking the spell that had bound them in a moment of misery. He re-opened his notebook once more and turned to her, his eyes warm but firm once again.

"So, where were we?"