Prodigal Mother

Seated on the kitchen floor, he drank beer, and gazed upon the photos. So creased now, tattered at the edges, bearing witness to hard times. His mother, his brother, himself. It was these photos Sam had used to bring him back from the brink, with Death's scythe in his hands.

'Take these,' Sam had said, as he knelt upon the floor with the blade over his head. 'And one day, when you find your way back . . . let these be your guide. And they can help you remember what it was to be good . . .what it was to love.'

He couldn't remember, now, how he had been so desperate as to believe Sam's death could do anything but destroy him. He recalled Death's words, his explanation; recalled feeling detached, and empty of all but rage, of need, because he was a monster. The Mark had made him so, as had the First Blade. He had lost himself that day at Cain's farmhouse when he'd accepted the Mark, brought to the realization that there was no answer, no hope for him to become other than a horror equal to Lucifer, or worse; and by knowing Abaddon could only be killed if he accepted Cain's offer, he had damned his brother.

He recalled it, but couldn't feel it. Maybe Cas had done something. Or maybe he had, to himself, to excise the guilt, to block it from taking root in his soul. He remembered asking Sam to forgive him.

And Sam had done so, as Sam always did.

Dean looked at the photos again. In them, Sam was but an infant, as yet innocent of the world beyond mother, father, big brother.

We have come so far, Sammy. Both of us. But I don't think either of us are what Mom would have us be.

He rose then, set down upon the counter the beer, the photos, and went to see his brother. To thank Sam for always forgiving him.

The revolving fan fragmented the ceiling, each blade slicing through the air in slow motion. It broke Sam's vision into quadrants: one-two-three-four; one-two-three-four.

On a higher speed, the fan displayed a slight but annoying wobble, a faint squeak that sometimes reminded him of the Impala's door hinges, albeit considerably muted. He ran it on low to negate the wobble, to still the squeak, so he could think without impediment, because even faint noise was loud when his mind was unquiet.

—one-two-three-four—

The blanks of the past, now, were of the past, no longer permitting him to shape himself upon memories he lacked, the what-might-have-beens, the maybes, the I wishes; the faint sense of lack that Dean didn't share, because Dean remembered his mother. She fed him tomato rice soup when he was ill; cut the crusts off his sandwiches.

She fed Sam milk, while the demon fed him blood.

They had, in their lives, believed in the unbelievable, accepted the impossible, killed monsters and demons and angels. Because they had been raised to do so in the name of the woman down the hall, who had died over three decades before; and their father, in a mix of indescribable grief and a terrible anger, stole the childhoods, the young adulthoods, of his two sons in the name of revenge.

And all of it, now, for nothing. Because Mary Winchester was back.

A step sounded in the open doorway. He shifted vision from fan to his visitor, expecting Dean. His brother mostly respected Sam's privacy when the door was closed, as he accepted that the door left open was permission to interrupt if he chose to. So Sam expected to see Dean's broad shoulders, the thrumming kinetic energy that emanated from his brother even when Dean believed himself still. Sam had called him on it once, told him flat out that he was never still, and there were times it was exhausting to observe it, to sense it.

That observation had utterly baffled Dean. 'What do you mean, I'm never still? You make me sound like I'm a human Magic Fingers.'

That had made Sam grin. 'I think that's a great analogy. Pretty much sums you up.'

But he looked at the doorway and saw his mother, not his brother.

He didn't know her. He didn't know her at all. He remembered the young Mary, the one he and Dean had gone back in time to save from Anna. That Mary, to some extent, he'd known, if only briefly, when he had seen her fierce pride, her well-honed competence, the determination to overcome the enemy even as her womb housed her eldest.

Her eyes were Dean's. Large, expressive; a clear hazel green that changed according to lighting, to mood. He saw in her jaw, in the planes of her face, the progenitor of his brother's with its clean architecture.

She lingered in the doorway as he pushed himself upright, intending to rise and pull out a chair for her. But she stayed him with a raised hand, and Sam sank back down, sat upright against the wall, winced from the bruises, the stiffness. He still couldn't put a shoe upon his foot, only a sock.

In her other hand was his father's journal. She lifted it, pressed it against her chest, folded both hands over the worn, stained leather. "I've read a little," she said. "This is why I wanted out of hunting; so I could raise my children free of the violence, of the bloodshed, and the pain." She swallowed; in her eyes a sheen of moisture glinted in low light. "This is not the man I knew."

So often he had resented his father, repudiated his father. But before John's wife, he could not do so.

He lifted one shoulder in a slight, awkward shrug. "He did what he believed he had to."

"Look at you," she said. "Sammy—that woman butchered you."

He smiled crookedly. "I've had worse."

And that, he realized, was the worst he could say to the woman who bore him. A mother shouldn't have to know what terrible experiences he had survived. Or that he had died.

"You were a child," she said, and her voice trembled faintly. "So was Dean. Children, Sam. The man I knew would not have done this. Dean said—Dean said he'd changed. But I didn't expect this."

Sam looked at the journal in her arms, then met her eyes again. "What would you have done had it been Dad who was killed? You were a hunter. You might have done the same."

Her face blanched. "He did die," she said hollowly. "He did—and I made a deal to bring him back. That deal is what allowed that thing to come into the nursery. It's why you and Dean are what you are, instead of husbands and fathers raising your children in safety."

"It's what Winchesters do," Sam said, "and also Campbells." He smiled a little. "Dean and I never had a chance, not with those genes. Some way, somehow, it would have happened." But he forbore to tell her of angels who manipulated John Winchester and Mary Campbell to meet in the first place. "We're all vessels, you know. In a manner of speaking."

She tapped fingers against leather. "Your father said you were a rebel from the beginning. Like him, he said. Tough and stubborn and bull-headed. And from what I saw in the basement, so bruised and bloody but never giving in, you are your father's son. Because all he wanted, then, was to live an apple pie life with his wife and two sons, but once he was a soldier."

"That's Dean," Sam said. "I never was, not really. But Dean accepted what he had to be, too, the way Dad did. I can't tell you how many times he's pulled my ass out of the fire, what he's done for me . . . " Sam shook his head, feeling the sting of incipient tears. "There aren't enough words, or the right ones, to tell you what Dean is. But you should be proud of him. Be proud of who he is, and what he isn't, and that he's always put family first."

His mother's mouth was soft. "From what I've read so far, Dean is not his father."

"He wanted to be," Sam told her. "He always wanted so badly to be like Dad. I think . . . I think after the fire, he lost himself. Dad did, too. For almost thirty years Dad trained him to be the toughest son of a bitch he could be, because he felt that to save Dean, to save us both, he had to make us stronger. But Dean's always been stronger than I, and Dad knew it. It's why we butted heads, Dad and I. I was younger; I never knew any different. Dad figured he could mold me into whatever he needed. I think he expected it of Dean, because that was Dean's default. Do as Dad taught him, do as Dad told him, because it meant he could save people. It meant he could save me."

Mary's swallow was heavy. "He killed his first werewolf at sixteen."

"He's good at it," Sam said. "Better than Dad. Because Dad believed in the worst, and Dean believes in the best."

Mary closed her eyes.

"He's a good man, Mom."

After a moment, she met his eyes again. "You inherited his gentleness. I see it in you."

Sam huffed a breath in irony. "Dad was many things, but gentle he was not."

"He was when I married him. When I bore his children. And whatever blame you may feel he deserves, I deserve it more." Her gesture encompassed the bedroom. "You and your brother live in a bunker warded against demons. And it began with me."

"We've all made deals," Sam told her. "You. Dad. Dean. Me. And always, always to save the ones we love." He pointed at the journal. "It ends not long before he died. So how it happened isn't in there. You made a deal to save his life. He made a deal to save Dean's. The demon who killed you also killed Dad. And—" But he broke it off, assailed by memories. After a moment he met her eyes again. "You asked me why I came back after I'd gotten out. I told you it was family, and it was. But also because my girlfriend died the same way you did."

He saw the blood leave his mother's face.

"I couldn't walk away from that. There was enough of my father in me to seek revenge, to dedicate myself to hunting down that yellow-eyed son a bitch. I thought at first I might go back to school when we killed it, but by the time we did, I was a different man. And I had my own demons to slay." Sam indicated the journal. "This isn't in there, either. But it was Dean who killed it. So maybe it was a good thing that Dad made us what we are, because we do save people. Even one another."

Mary's eyes were distant. "He was a happy little boy. He laughed all the time. He worshipped his father. He waited all day for John to come home from work, and he met him at the door with a baseball in his hands, or a football. John was always tired, but he also always grabbed Dean up in his arms, spun him around, then took him outside to throw that baseball, to throw that football. I always had to call them in for dinner, or they'd have been out there all night." Her gaze sharpened. "Did he do that with you, Sam?"

He wanted to lie. He couldn't. "No. No, Mom, he didn't. There were no baseballs for me, no footballs. Only weapons."

She tipped her head back, blinked hard and stared at the ceiling, released an unsteady sigh.

"But something good came of it," Sam said. "When I went to Stanford, I left Dean behind. I rejected the life, Dean's life. I wanted the apple pie, the white picket fence. And if I had married Jess, as I wanted to, and if we'd had children, as I hoped, it's very likely they'd never have known their uncle. And I'd have lost my brother." He felt the scrape of bricks through his shirt as he shrugged. "Read it all, Mom. Every word Dad wrote. Most of it's about monsters, but it's about us, too. You don't know us at all. You read that, and you will—well, at least who we were before he died. Then you come and tell me if I'm like Dad."

His mother nodded, looked down at the journal clasped in her hands.

"One more thing," Sam said, and her eyes rose to meet his. Dean's eyes. "Was he ever still?"

"Still?"

"Dean."

Her smile was reminiscent. "He started kicking when I was five months along, and never let up. After he was born, he twitched in his sleep, or tore around the house like his pants were on fire. The only time I ever saw him still was when John sat in his favorite armchair with Dean sprawled against him as his father read him a story." And then she laughed. "His favorite book was Where the Wild Things Are."

Sam grinned. "Well, that was prophetic."

She nodded, then began to turn to go. Her eyes lingered on his a little longer. "He loved you both very much."

Sam watched her walk out of his doorway. 'He loved you more, to become what he did.'

Mary left the room, left her youngest. And as she did so, she saw her eldest striding away from her. All she saw was his back, the breadth of his shoulders, and the tension in them. She had seen that in John, when he found something difficult.

"Dean. Dean."

She meant it to stop him, and it did. He paused, but did not turn. She caught up, put her hand upon his arm, moved around to face him, to block his way. She saw in his eyes that something had hurt him, had hurt him deeply, and how he tried to hide it. That was John's way, too.

"You heard us, didn't you?"

After a moment, Dean said, "All of it." He was, for once, still. "When I was four, I thought he was brighter than the sun. So big, so strong, so safe. And I swore then I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. But I'm not, am I? Sam is. You said it yourself."

"Dean—"

"But you died, and things changed. He changed. And then I did. Because I wanted nothing more than to be like him. So I embraced the life, even as a kid. If he wanted me to shoot, I shot. If he wanted me to spar, I sparred. If he wanted me to run a mile every morning—and, later five, then eight—I did. When he ordered me to look after Sammy, I made it my life's work. I did whatever he told me to, whatever he wanted me to do. He shaped me, Mom. But it was never in his image. I couldn't be him. I wasn't good enough. He knew it. So he used what he could of me . . . stuck the sword blank in the fire, took a hammer to me, and pounded, and pounded, and pounded, until I could do what he needed me to, be what he needed me to. But I was never him. I couldn't be him. I wasn't good enough. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't tough enough."

Tears brimmed in Mary's eyes, fell. She reached out, placed the flat of her hand against her son's chest. Felt his heart beating. "Does it matter what I wanted you to be?"

His eyebrows twitched. "What?"

"Does it matter what I wanted you to be?"

He was clearly at sea, trying to find the meaning in her words. "Well—yeah. I mean, sure."

She lifted her hand from his chest, placed it against the strong, defined jaw, the hint of stubble. "I never wanted you to be your father, Dean. I wanted you to be you." He started to speak; she silenced him with fingers against his mouth. "And from what I've read so far, what I've seen so far, you are."

He did not believe her. She saw it. He touched her hand, curled his own around it, lowered it from his face. But he did not release it.

Dean shook his head a little. "You don't know what I've done."

"I know you raised your brother, were more a father to him than his own. I know you have saved people, killed what—and who—would harm others." She gazed up into his eyes. "I will read all of this, and then we'll talk. If you want to. Because I need to learn what my husband became. I've read enough to know Sam was not an easy child for John, and that you were. But Sam only knew what John was, after my death. You remember him from before. You remember him from when you believed he was brighter than the sun, and would keep you safe from the wild things."

Dean's voice was rough. "He was. He did."

"And you've kept Sammy safe."

His mouth jerked briefly. "Not always."

"Well, it doesn't matter, " Mary told him. "Not anymore." She removed her hand from his, pressed fingers against the line between his brows and smoothed it, chased away the hurt. "Because I'm here to keep you both safe. Mothers do that, too."

Dean's eyes were on the journal she clasped in one arm. His voice was tentative. "He said once . . . he said once that I was like you." His eyes rose to meet hers. "So maybe I never could be him. I was meant to be you."

She had borne, but never raised, two big, powerful sons. And regardless of what they thought, they did have their father's gentleness in them, too.

"Well, if you really want to be like me," Mary said, "there's a way to begin."

Dean's frown was faint. "What do you mean?"

"Whiskey," she said. "Do you have any in this place?"

And then he smiled, and was brighter than the sun. "That we do."

She tucked her hand through his arm, tugged him forward. "Two fingers," she said, "to start."

"To start?" Dean moved beside her. "What, I'm supposed to witness my mother getting drunk?"

"It's been thirty-three years since I had a drink," Mary said dryly. "I think I'm due one, don't you?"

Dean grinned, folded her hand over his arm. He was so much a man, now, instead of a boy, but she saw the same joy in his face that she recalled when he was young.

She reached up, threaded a hand through his hair briefly, as she used to do. "There's something I need to know."

"What's that?"

"How the hell did Sammy get so tall?"

And in her firstborn's laughter, she heard an echo of John's.

~ end ~