The thing with injuries, Mary reflected, is that the worst ones are rarely physical.
Sam stood in front of her, head bowed. She'd seen him stumble on the stairs coming from the garage, and it had been all she could do not to rush to his side to help. She didn't know her boys as well as she would like, but she did know that they didn't appreciate coddling when they were hurt.
And if he was feeling even half of what she was (although it was almost certain he was feeling at least twice as much) then, oh, was Sam hurting.
"I'm sorry Mom," he whispered, ashamed. "I'm so sorry, I couldn't…"
"Shhh," she put a finger to his lips. Only Sam could return from killing Satan himself and apologize. "It's okay."
It wasn't, of course. He knew it and she knew it. It wasn't going to be okay for a very long time, if ever.
Mary folded her son into her arms anyway, and held on tight despite his reluctance. How had he gotten so tall? It wasn't her genes, to be sure. Sam gripped her in a sort of perfunctory way before letting go.
"We need to… to find him," Sam gulped. "As fast as possible. The longer he… it gets harder. To expel the angel, that is." Her tallest son raked a hand through his hair and failed to suppress a shudder. "What was he thinking?" he muttered under his breath.
They both knew the answer to that question, of course.
"I'll check the Bunker computer, maybe we can…" Sam stumbled again, and this time Mary caught him on the way down and guided his fall into the nearest chair. Damn, but he was heavy. And all elbows and knees too. He would have been hilarious as a gangly teenager, and even the threat of angst and moodiness wasn't enough to make her regret missing seeing that.
"Cas!" she called urgently. Sam tried getting back to his feet, but she placed a hand on his chest and forced him back down. She didn't miss his wince of pain.
"Mom, I need to…"
"You need to let Cas patch you up before you hurt yourself worse," Mary interjected. "Every inch of you I can see is turning black and blue, and I know you haven't slept in too damn long. So sit." Sam shut his mouth with a sharp click and sat. Good to know that her 'mom voice' was still working, even if it was thirty years unused.
Castiel was there a moment later, and moments after that the bruises purpling Sam's face were gone. But the angel's fingers lingered on her son's forehead for longer than was necessary.
"What's the matter?" she asked, worried. She wasn't sure she could handle any more bad news today, especially concerning her boys.
"Sam? What happened?" Castiel questioned instead of answering her.
"Lucifer tossed me around a bit, nothing new," Sam gruffly batted away the angel's hand.
"You're not telling the whole truth," the Cas tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. Sam didn't quite squirm under the scrutiny, but it was clear he was thinking about it.
"I'm fine."
"Winchester 'fine' is not 'fine'," Castiel shot back.
"I. Am. Fine." Sam growled, fists clenching. "We need to focus on finding Dean, before…" he shook his head, squared his jaw, and abruptly stood. He brushed past Mary and Cas like they weren't even there.
"What's wrong with him, Cas?" Mary pressed once her son's footsteps had faded down the hallway.
"I don't know," the angel said helplessly. "But it isn't good."
Mary found Sam four hours later, snoring quietly on the desk in his bedroom with a book under his cheek. He looked so much younger when he was asleep. She could easily imagine him looking like that at Stanford, pulling an all-nighter at the library to study for an exam. At least, until she saw the tears trailing down his face and soaking into the pages beneath his head.
"Sam?"
She knew better than to try and touch him: hunters woke up swinging. The lights were already on, so they wouldn't be of any use in jarring him awake.
"Sam!" she tried again, louder. Her son's shoulders started to tremble slightly.
"SAM!" she practically screamed, and his eyes finally flew open. She was glad she was standing back a pace, because in true hunter fashion Sam came to in a flurry of limbs. The chair he was sitting on overbalanced and dumped him on the floor. Mary leaned over to help him back up.
"Don't," Sam whimpered. Mary paused momentarily before reaching out again.
"Please," he backpedaled until his back met the wall with a muffled thump. "Not with her face."
That stopped her cold in her tracks. What was going on?
"Sam, honey, you're still dreaming a little bit. Wake up now. You're safe in the Bunker," she tried.
"Dean?" he gasped with breathless hope.
"No Sam, Dean's not here right now," she almost choked on the words. "But I'm here Sammy."
"Mom?" Sam whispered. "But you can't… you're not…" he shook his head in confusion.
Mary tried to edge closer, but Sam just pulled himself into an even tighter ball. His fear of her cut her deep inside. She was his mother, the person he should flee to when he was afraid, not someone he should be scared of.
"You're safe," she tried again. "You had a nightmare, but you're safe now." Mary wanted to wrap her son in her arms and just hold on until everything was better. But that's not what Sam needed right now. Her words seemed so inadequate, but they were all she could do.
Sam took a shuddering breath, and then another. He tipped his head back to stare at the slowly spinning fan above them.
"Just a dream," he shook his head as if to clear it. "I'm out," he said to himself, digging his thumb into his palm. It was a motion Mary had seen a few times before when Sam was particularly stressed.
"Sam?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm awake," Sam gave her a rueful smile. "Sorry if I…"
"Don't you dare apologize to me for this," Mary interrupted firmly. She walked over a few steps and sat down beside Sam against the wall. It was a tight fit, but that was fine by her. He rubbed a hand over his face, and Mary was shocked to see red on his thumb. She quickly snatched his hand and pulled it into her lap. His thumbnail had gouged so deeply into his palm that he'd drawn blood. Sam tried to pull his hand back, but Mary held on.
"Why do you do this?" she asked softly as she watched the shallow cut start to clot on its own. There were faint scars from where the same thing had happened before, as well as a long jagged line that bisected his palm. The sight made her furious. "Are there not enough things trying to hurt you that you have to hurt yourself as well?"
"It's not like that Mom," Sam's shoulders slumped.
"Then explain it to me," she snapped back. Her son was silent for a long moment. His free hand rubbed his sternum like it ached.
"Remember what I told you about Hell, and getting back my soul, and the Wall?" Sam started. She nodded. It had been a difficult discussion for everyone involved, and she had no desire to repeat it. "Well, after it crumbled I… hallucinated. A lot," he bit his lip and closed his eyes. Only Sam would come back from Hell and feel ashamed about having PTSD from it. Mary leaned into his shoulder to try and comfort him.
"Dean's the one that figured it out," Sam rubbed his chest again with a wince. "Hell pain is different, because it affects your soul," he tried to explain. "It feels different than normal pain. It's difficult to describe how, but it's true. I'd sliced open my hand," he traced the long scar on his palm, "and Dean showed me how to use that pain to figure out what was real and what wasn't. After Cas fixed things, I didn't really need the reminder anymore, but I guess it's just a nervous tic now."
How had things gotten so messed up that her baby boy didn't know what reality was unless he was in pain? Mary cupped her son's cheek and tried not to cry. She was supposed to be comforting him, not the other way around.
"So the nightmare?" she asked gently. "Do you want to talk about it?" Mary didn't really want to hear about even more things that had hurt her boys because her Deal had drug them back into hunting. But if that's what Sam needed, then she would be there for him.
"Not really," Sam sighed. "It's not something that fits well into words, especially if you haven't… you couldn't understand, and I would never want you to."
She'd heard that excuse before, from another traumatized man who woke up from nightmares swinging. But John had been to Vietnam, not Hell. Although at the time he would have joked that Hell was more pleasant this time of year.
Mary told her son what she'd told her husband. "I don't need to understand to listen. If you want to talk, I'm always here."
Sam smiled sadly. "Thanks," he broke into a huge yawn mid-sentence, "Mom."
"You should try and get some actual rest," Mary nudged his shoulder. "In a bed. Besides, I can't stay on this floor forever. I'm older than I look, you know."
Mary was rewarded with a short laugh as they helped each other to their feet. When Sam made no move to lie down, Mary pulled down the covers and held them up for him to slip under.
"I'm not a kid, Mom," he pointed out, not unkindly.
"That's not the point," she shook the sheets insistently. When he hesitated, she added. "Please let me do this? I need to know that at least one of my boys is ok right now." It was a dirty move, especially with the liberal application of the puppy eyes he'd inherited from her, but it did the trick. Sam slipped into his bed and let her tuck the sheets around him without complaint. She turned down the lamp before sitting on the edge of his bed and bending over to give him a kiss on his forehead. Adult or not, he was still her darling boy, and she loved him more than anything. Sam just leaned into her touch for a moment before grunting softly in pain. He shifted to rub his sternum again.
"Sam?" she asked. He was silent for a long moment, long enough that she thought he wasn't going to answer.
"I think Lucifer did something during the fight," he finally admitted, not meeting her eyes. "Feels like a Hell wound. It's better than it was, but…."
"But it's messing with your perception of reality," Mary hazarded a guess.
"Exactly," Sam looked relieved that he didn't have to spell it out to her. "It's not that bad, really. I've lived through far worse."
Another excuse she'd heard one too many times from a stubborn Winchester.
"That doesn't mean you have to live through it now. So how can I help?" She desperately wanted to make him feel better, but this wasn't some scraped knee she could just cure with a bandaid and a kiss.
"You already are," Sam gave her a tired smile. "More than you know. Just by being here."
Mary smiled in return. "Then I'm not going anywhere." Carefully, she placed a hand on Sam's head and stroked his temple gently with her thumb. His hair had more of John's coloring, but the texture was all hers. His long hair drove Dean nuts, she knew, but it suited Sam. It was still a little strange to her: Sam had still been baby-bald when she'd died. As his breathing started to slow, she found herself humming under her breath. She stroked his hair gently, savoring the mom moment that she'd been denied when he was younger.
"Dean used to do that," Sam whispered long after she'd thought him asleep. "When I was little and had a nightmare. He'd put his hand on my head and sing Hey Jude until I fell back asleep."
"That's what I used to do for him," Mary bit her lip. Clearly Dean had copied her technique because she hadn't been around to comfort Sam herself. Mary knew that her death had made them both grow up far too fast, but it was little details like this that really drove home how much they'd lost, how much she'd cost them. Every time she thought it couldn't hurt any worse, she'd learn some new fact that would rip open that wound afresh.
"Sometimes I'd imagine he was you," Sam continued. "It was hard: Dean's not a very good singer. But I wanted a mom so badly…"
It felt like someone had stabbed her in the chest and was slowly twisting the knife. She wanted to just curl up and die again so she didn't have to bear witness to the destruction she'd caused in her son's lives. But Sam needed her to be strong right now. It was so rare that he let himself be weak.
"I'm here now," Mary tucked his hair behind his ear. "And we'll get Dean back too."
"I know," Sam said quietly. "I know."
A/N: Sorry this last chapter took so long; I rewrote it like four times before I found the right story and the right POV to tell it from.
Thanks for reading! Reviews are the fuel that keeps me writing through the hellatus.