Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Dean watched her anytime they were in the same room. Not with a curiosity, but with a warning. A dare for her to try anything he didn't agree with.
She hated to admit it, but she was relieved to be by herself. She was glad when she didn't feel like a prisoner, always monitored to make sure she stayed in line.
But she couldn't leave him, not when Sam was dead and he was on a desperate mission to revive him. So, she sought moments of refuge in the bunker's kitchen, making simple meals as peace offerings to Dean.
Dean squirmed in his seat at the dining table, she could see him from her place in the kitchen.
"Do you want me to cut the crusts off?" she asked.
Dean nodded with a smile.
She cut the crusts off with the practiced precision that came from years of hunting. Oddly, she felt more exhausted as a mother than she ever did as a hunter.
But when she thought of Sammy sleeping peacefully and saw Dean's grin as he dug into his crust-less sandwich, it was more than worth it.
She looked at the sandwich she made for Dean, who was too old now for sandwiches with the crusts carefully removed. It wasn't peanut butter and jelly, though she was sure that he wouldn't have objected to it. She was sure that whatever she brought him to eat, he wouldn't even taste it. He went through the motions because he had to, not because he wanted to.
She knocked on the door to the latest storage room Dean had been scouring. "Dean?"
A grunt of acknowledgment was the most she received, and she pushed the door open. "I brought you some lunch," she said. "You need to eat."
"Put it on the table in the corner," Dean said. He was surrounded by books and strange objects she'd never seen before. Each day, the stubble he refused to take the time to shave grew longer and more unruly. His bloodshot eyes had dark shadows beneath them. He tried to take care of the dead more than the living. "I'll eat later."
Mary shook her head. "Do you really expect me to believe that?"
"About as much as you expect me to believe that you still won't try to get rid of Sam."
"Dean, I promised you that I wouldn't."
"Yeah, well, I don't trust easily," Dean said.
After a long moment of internal debate, Mary set the plate down and left the room, weaving her way through the bunker until she stood in front of Sam's door.
And she continued past it to the room she claimed for the time being, where she paced its short length.
"This is ridiculous," she whispered to herself.
She paused and bit the nail of her thumb, but the restlessness in her forced her to continue her pacing within a minute. There was no way for her to get through to Dean, not after she witnessed his obsession to save his brother.
Mary stumbled out of bed, half-asleep, but unable to ignore the gut feeling that something was very, very wrong. Her long, white nightgown tangled around her legs a few times.
"John?" she asked, glancing into Sam's nursery and at the shadow looming over his crib. "Is he hungry?"
She walked towards the kitchen for a bottle, but the hall lights flickered, and any remaining sleep clinging to her vanished.
"John?" she asked again, halfway down the stairs to find him lulled to sleep by static television.
Seeing nothing amiss with John did not relieve her in the slightest because if John was there, who was with Sam? She rushed back up the stairs and into Sam's nursery. "Sammy!" she yelled.
She froze at the doorway.
The man in the nursery looked over his shoulder at her, yellow eyes glowing in the darkness.
"It's you," she breathed out.
Had ten years passed since that night? In her distraught state after the death of everyone she loved, had she bargained away her unborn son in exchange for John's life?
The one thing she knew was that, deal or not, she would not let that demon take away her son, too. Not if she could help it.
She took a step closer with the defiance of a hunter, and the love of a mother.
Mary laughed, bitter. Thirty-three years ago, the thought of losing her baby devastated her. It was enough to drive her into throwing herself into the line of fire (which turned out to be more than just a saying that night).
Now, her baby was grown up and his death wasn't just a possibility. It was a reality. But she didn't feel anything about it, not like she should. A touch of sorrow, sure. A lot of guilt over being the cause of someone's death, of course.
But that man lying lifeless on his bed wasn't her Sammy. He was a stranger. One she never knew and one she would never get to know.
With a deep breath, she made the trip from her room to Sam's, opening the door, but not crossing fully into the room.
It was ridiculous. She knew that Sam wasn't hanging around his room. He wasn't in the prone body sprawled atop the bedding. He was with Dean, attached to the amulet that Dean now protected like his own life depended upon it.
From what she'd seen of the bond between her sons, Dean's life might have very well depended on Sam's survival. Even her grief when John died shortly after her parents on November 2, 1973 couldn't rival that of Dean's since Sam was shot (by her) on the bridge.
With a deep breath, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Cas' number, none too surprised that it went to voicemail.
"Cas," she said, "I don't know what you've been up to, but Dean needs you. At least call him back. He's been trying to reach you ever since you disappeared from here."
Dean threw the last object of the storage room against the wall. He'd tried every incantation he had the slightest hope would work. He'd decorated Sam's body with amulets and talismans. Drawn on his brother's slowly rotting flesh every symbol that had a chance at helping their situation.
But still, nothing.
He felt tears stinging the back of his eyes. He wasn't keeping track of how many days passed. A week, at least, he thought. Maybe two. But it felt so much longer.
Sam kept haunting his dreams. Kept telling him to let him go, which was the last thing Dean planned to do. He told Sam that if he left, he would be following.
"What about Mom?" Sam asked.
They were in just another motel room, identical in every way that mattered to the multitude they'd stayed at over the years. Probably conjured by Sam's memories of all the rooms blending together.
"What about her?" Dean asked. "She left us before. I'm sure she'd do it again, and I know how to live without her, Sam. I never figured out how to live without you, though."
Sam shook his head and laughed. He didn't sound happy, but he didn't sound upset either. Purely amused. "How odd is it," he said, "that it takes something like this to make us realize the important things."
"I don't know, Sammy, but you gotta stop doing this to me. Gonna make my hair go grey early."
"God, Sam. I'm so sorry that it's taking so long for me to fix this. I'm trying. I really am," Dean said.
He suspected that, positions reversed, Sam would have figured it all out by now. Research and planning. Those were Sam's specialties. Not his.
One of the books on the floor fluttered open to a random page. Dean picked it up and read over it.
It wasn't a miracle or a solution given to him by Sam's ghostly presence. It was a page about a binding ritual, one Dean came across and quickly dismissed as he tore apart the room in his search.
But now it was a message.
"Yeah, we're bound, aren't we, Sammy?" Dean asked. "Remember what Zachariah said back when the angels' primary goal was fucking with us? About how codependent we are?"
Dean closed the book and set it aside. "I was upset with you back then and didn't really think about it at the time, but he wasn't wrong."
He felt as crazy as his mom seemed to think he was, in an empty room and having a moment with his dead brother, who was now a spirit attached to the amulet he once wore religiously (and had started to wear religiously once again).
His cell phone went off, interrupting the one-sided moment.
"Our lives are weird," he mumbled.
He pulled out his phone, but nearly dropped it when he read Cas' name on the caller ID.
"You better have a damn good reason for your disappearing act," Dean said.
"I do," Cas said. "I think I have a solution."
Author's Note: Finally a possible solution showing itself. This was actually only supposed to be about 3 short chapters, but I've gotten a bit carried away.
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