13022020

THE ONE WHERE MARY FINDS OUT...

Mary realises just how little she knows about her sons after Dean throws her out of the bunker.

I don't own Sam, Dean, John, Mary or any of the British Men of Letters, I'm just borrowing them for a moment. I write for love not money.

Mary knew leaving the bunker had been the right decision at the beginning. It still tilted her world sideways when she tried to reconcile the two grown men who looked at her with eyes filled with love, hope and fear with the two babies she had left behind 33 years ago. She needed time, space, but not from her boys, Dean was wrong there, just to find herself, where she fit in this new, future world.

A chance meeting with Arthur Ketch and some gently coaxing by Mick Davies was all it took to draw her into their operations. Despite walking away, she still loved her boys. She was broken when she discovered John had raised them to be hunters and now she was certain that, with the British Men Of Letters help, she could save them. She could use their 'better way' to free her children from the horror show that was their lives.

Still that one moment insisted on playing, on continuous loop, in her mind.

"You are not a child, Dean!" She had yelled at her first born.

And there, right at that moment, she saw every moment of suffering he had ever experienced over his lifetime swiftly flash across his face as he stiffened and stared at her with such...pain. She had immediately regretted her words but had no time to retract them when Dean spoke to her in a heart breakingly dead tone.

"I never was."

…

"I never was."

Those three words haunted her every waking moment...

"I never was."

And followed her into her dreams.

"IneverwasIneverwasIneverwas..."

And now Mary found herself wandering the halls of the British Men of Letters compound, a bottle of whiskey dangling from her fingers, opened, but as yet untouched. She'd roamed those corridors not realising her destination, just focused on those three words recycling in her head.

"IneverwasIneverwasIneverwas..."

It wasn't until she was standing at the door to the records room that she realised this had been her intended destination all along. She had left the bunker, run from her family, before even learning more than a fraction of their lives. Sam and Dean had been too afraid to overwhelm her with details, fearing they would scare her away. There had been so much to catch up on, advances in technology, phones that fit in your pocket and could be used anywhere. Computers that could give you access to all the worlds knowledge at the push of a button. And then of course they hunted. It was only during small breaks in learning these new things that her sons would give her the slightest hint of their lives. She had Johns journal and they had told her they were there and would tell her everything when she was ready but instead, she ran.

Slowly Mary reached up and ran her fingers across the word inscribed on the plaque stuck to the door. She lowered her hand and gripped the handle, pushing down until she heard the latch disengage. She hesitantly pushed the door open and stepped into the room. Each step echoed as she walked across the floor and made her way down the aisles, searching for her name, Winchester. She found three folders, placed consecutively on a back shelf. With a determined sigh, Mary reached up and pulled them from their place. She hugged them to her bosom as she turned and walked back to the table positioned at the front of the room.

The whiskey bottle made a loud noise as she placed it on the table. Carefully, almost reverently, she placed the thick binders beside it.

She sat and placed her hands flat on either side of the pile, staring at the folders for several long minutes. Finally with a shuddering breath she reached one hand out and lifted the whiskey bottle.

"Here goes nothing." She raised the bottle slightly then tipped it to her lips, drinking a nip or two, grimacing at the slight burn it left behind.

She stood and spread the folders across the table side by side, trying to decide which to read first. Each was labelled with a name and date.

WINCHESTER, Jonathan E. 07/07/1954.

WINCHESTER, Dean M. 24/01/1979.

WINCHESTER, Samuel W. 02/05/1983.

She moved her hand from folder to folder, gently touching her fingertips to each name, whispering them quietly, like a prayer. She repeated the action for several long moments. Just as she would decide to begin with one she would glance to a different packet of information and change her mind. She took several more mouthfuls of liquor before finally placing her palm flat on a random file.

"I never was..."

Once again those words floated unbidden through her mind. Mary glanced at the name beneath her hand.

"Sammy it is." She said sitting and drawing the file close.

Mary knew that somewhere in Britain there was a much larger archive that contained boxes of information on her family. She knew that what she was about to read was just the 'abridged' version of her family's history, but, beggars can't be choosers and seeing as how she had run from her children and was now no longer welcome in their 'home' she was sure one hell of a beggar.

Mary closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. She opened the cover and looked down. Sams file was thick, but by no means the thickest amongst the three, but it still took Mary a good 90 minutes to go through all the documents. His birth certificate was sticking out slightly from the side of the papers. She pulled it out and looked at it. Placing a soft kiss to it she laid it to the side and began to examine the contents of the file. First there was his schooling history. She counted up the different schools he had been enrolled in and shook her head at the vast number. How he managed to get into Stanford at all surprised her. His Stanford transcripts were also there, as were the details of one Jessica Moore, deceased.

Several sheets had his criminal history detailed on them and there were pages and pages of his medical information. Mary read them then laid them to the side. A few photos were amongst the pages. One or two mug shots and several candid shots, clearly taken from afar by someone watching her youngest. She dwelled on them a long time, smiling sadly at the moments she missed and will now never have.

The more chilling details of Sams life were all detailed as well. Mary read about Sams liaison with the demon named Ruby and his subsequent addiction to demon blood. She discovered he'd broken the last seal, at Ruby's coercion, and freed Lucifer, only to become his vessel and fall head long into a cage deep in the dark recesses of Hell. She read on about Sams soulless return from the pit and his work capturing Alphas for a plan to open purgatory. A plan ill-conceived by an angel and demon, tricking Sammy into working with her newly resurrected father, his grandfather and namesake, Samuel.

Mary read on and on, discovering all the things she didn't know about her baby. She read about being held captive in Cold Ridge in some sort of death match where he, himself, briefly died. There were reports about Leviathans, a woman named Amelia, almost dying trying to complete heavenly trials to close hells gates, possessions by an angel named Gadreel and a demon named Meg, hospitalisations and stays in psyche wards. Battles against knights of Hell and the darkness...

It was all too much, too much information. And when Mary reached Lady Bevells report regarding her capture of Sam, she closed the folder, tears streaming, unnoticed down her cheeks.

It took Mary several minutes and several inches of whiskey before she felt steady...brave... enough to face Deans file. She had placed Sams to the side and now pulled Deans in front of her. Her hand shook minutely as she lifted the cover and looked at the first page.

There was a picture of a smiling little boy. She remembered this picture. It had been clearly taken from his kindergarten file. Deans file also consisted of school records. She frowned when she read he had left school and taken a GED just months shy of graduation. Amongst the papers were psychologist reports with bold words like extreme psychological trauma and selective mutism standing out like wounds. What had her poor little boy endured in the months after her death? Like Sams files there were also doctors report, notes of suspicious injuries, suggestions that CPS be notified.

Deans criminal records were more extensive than Sams. Breaking and entering, grave desecration, assault, theft...murder! It shocked her as she read a report by the St. Louis police that he had been suspected of several murders then pronounced dead...several times it seems. She counted at least three occasions where his death had been reported.

Unlike Sam, Dean seemed to have avoided possession but that didn't mean he had gone completely unscathed, though it was with pride that she discovered it was Dean who eventually killed Azazel, the demon that had started this whole tragic mess. She read reports that he had sold his soul to save Sam and been taken to Hell by hellhounds where he had been tortured for decades before taking up the knife and breaking the first seal. Pages and pages Mary scoured through. Not skipping a single word. Learning about Deans return from Hell, his destiny to be Michaels vessel. She briefly wondered why there was no mention of that in the report in Sams folder. There was mention that Dean was present at Stull Cemetary but not that he was possessed by Michael at the time. She did learn they had lost several people close to them as they attempted to prevent the apocalypse.

Time ticked on as Mary discovered Deans history piece by piece. She was beginning to understand his behaviour as she read about manipulation by angels, battles with supernatural creatures, many even she didn't know existed.

The whiskey level dropped as she read about Deans battle against the monsters freed from purgatory, Leviathans. How the creatures had taken their adoptive father, Bobby Singer, from them and then taken Dean to purgatory when they foiled the monsters plans to enslave the world and use humans for their private food supply. She read of his escape only to fall into one horrendous situation after another! She learned of Dean taking the mark of Cain to use against Abbadon, a knight of Hell, winning that battle but losing the one against the influence of the mark. After being killed by the angel, self proclaimed 'Scribe of God', Metatron, her son was resurrected by the mark as a demon until Sam found him and cured him. But, it seemed, that wasn't the end of it once the mark had been removed, her sons found themselves up against a whole new level of enemy in the guise of Gods sister, Amara, who it seemed had taken a partial liking to Dean. Dean reunited the siblings and...well Mary didn't need to read on, she knew what happened next. She closed the file, tears drying on her cheek and less whiskey in the bottle. There had been but one bright spot. Dean had spent a year of normalcy with a woman named Lisa and her son, Ben. There had been a notation against this report: Paternal DNA results see document #dw1063. Mary had looked but could find no such document and assumed it was in the larger Archives back in Britain. She did find his birth certificate and without thinking folded it and slipped it into her pocket.

She glanced at the clock and saw she had been immersed in Deans past for over two and a half hours. Much like Sams, there was so much information, too much heart break. It seemed her boys were leap frogging from one end of the world disaster to another, never stopping, never having the chance to just slow down and breathe. With shaking hands she slid Deans file over to sit next to Sams. Kissing her finger tips she placed them down onto Deans name and then repeated the action for Sam.

This just left John...

Giving herself a few minutes to calm herself, Mary finally reached over and dragged her husbands file in front of her, opening it carefully. Much like their sons files before, this also contained his criminal records, also his health information and military service history. She slowly read all the reports one by one. Johns file wasn't as full thick as Deans but still contained more than Sams. It detailed his militaristic training of the boys. The way he had moulded them into soldiers ready to fight against the supernatural. She read through accounts of his hunts, his determined tracking of Azazel. Her heart clenched at the mention of his abandonment of Dean to follow his own path, leaving their eldest alone while Sam was at college. Mary knew Dean would not have taken that well. Even as a child he didn't like being alone, often following Mary from one room to another just for her company. She read of their reunion and the deception that lay waiting. John had been possessed by Azazel and had tried to kill Dean, all so he could claim Sam as his own. There were medical records attached to this report showing Dean with life threatening injuries, lying in a coma after their car collided with a truck while trying to escape. The report seemed to suggest Dean wasn't going to survive. The next entry, dated just a few days later, described John giving his life, his soul, to save his eldest boy. Mary smiled softly and sniffed, wiping at the tears on her face. John had sworn to protect Dean with his very life the day he was born and it seemed he had finally came through on that promise.

There were a few other additions to Johns file, mostly a vague reference to his soul being released from Hell and ascending to heaven. Behind these were a pile of photos and certificates. The top being their marriage certificate. She held it up and smile, staring at it for a long time. Placing that to the side she picked up the pile of photos. There was a copy of his military picture on top, also more surveillance photos of him and the boys. She slowly flipped through the pictures, pausing briefly at one of John and a strange boy outside a baseball field. She put that to the back to look at the next photo when a piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground.

She leaned over and picked it up. At first glance she noticed it was another copy of a birth certificate. Thinking it was Johns she went to set it aside before something caught her eye. She looked at it closely reading the name aloud.

"Adam Milligan." She read.

Frowning she scanned the rest of the paper.

Date Of Birth : September 29, 1990

Mothers Name: MILLIGAN, Katherine

Fathers Name: WINCHESTER, John

Mary froze. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again waiting to refocus on the page before rereading the line again.

Fathers Name: WINCHESTER, John

She read the page over and over again but those two words remained the same.

WINCHESTER, John

Mary's heart clenched as her breath caught and burned in her chest. John had fathered another child. He had another son? No, no, this couldn't be! Did Sam and Dean know about him? She couldn't remember hearing them say his name during her short stay at the bunker. Were they even aware of his existence? Do they have him hidden somewhere safe? She looked back through the photos to the one of John and the strange child..no...not strange, Adam! She flipped it over. In flowing handwriting 'John and Adam (?) 2006' was written. Adam. First man, no, not first, third.

Mary couldn't help the feeling of betrayal that rose within her. It was irrational of course, even she knew that. Mary was, of course, already dead almost eight years by time the child had drawn his first breath. She didn't expect that John had lived a celibate life after her death but this was still a shock. And suddenly it clicked. Dean! Dean wasn't possessed by Michael during that final showdown at the cemetery. Lucifer had Sam but who was Michael wearing?

Mary searched Johns file again but it seemed to finish at his death. She pulled Sams back in front of her quickly finding the Stull Cemetery report. She read it again and there it was. A tiny asterisk besides Michael's name. She scanned the report again and again to find the corresponding mark but it was nowhere to be seen, the writing finishing at the very bottom of the page. She was about to give up when she spotted a page she had set aside thinking it was blank.

*see document am#0078

Mary shoved away from the table violently and raced down the aisles looking for a folder with Adams name on it. She almost missed it as it was quite thin. There was very little in it, just his birth, health and school records. A sheet had dates which she concluded were visits from John but they were few and far between. It held only two reports of any detail. The first was of his and his mother's deaths by Ghouls who were trying to lure John out but he was already dead. Her sons went instead.

The second was of his soul being recalled for Michael to use as Dean had steadfastly refused. It appeared Sam and Dean had tried to keep him safe but ultimately he had fallen into the pit with Sam, Lucifer and Michael.

Mary allowed a few tears to fall for this young man. Her husbands progeny, whose only sin was to be born with Winchester blood. She dropped the file, not caring where it fell and returned to the table. She pulled out the pictures of her boys, her babies and held them to her breast as she began to weep in earnest for all they had lost, for it seems they have lost much more than she could ever imagine.

Crying in harsh, heartbreaking sobs she concluded that too much information was indeed a dangerous thing...

13022020

A/N... so this story came about because I always wondered if Mary ever found out about Adam. She spent so little time at the bunker in the beginning that I really don't think Sam or Dean would have blurted out..."Oh, by the way, we have a brother, though he did say 'yes' to Michael and fell in a cage in Hell and we left him there.". That just doesn't seem like dinner table conversation. So to satisfy my own self, much like "A Dish Served Cold" where Sam goes off and deals with the Amazons because it irritated me how that whole story line was left...sorry, got off the track there...I wrote this just to answer my own question. Hope you enjoyed it and remember...

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