It's late when he comes, the sky a gun metal gray and the air wet. She knows it’s going to snow, she feels it deep in her bones. She’s just come from church – hung up her coat, kicked off her shoes, ready to settle in for the night – when the bell rings. Minutes before she’d heard the too loud rumble of a car stop in front of her house. Customers come at all hours on any given day.

She knows the Bible doesn't condone what she does but she knows if the Lord is responsible for everything, then he made her just as she is. 

 
Through the screen door she sees a tall man with wavy black hair that is perhaps a little too long. There’s a presence about him, something strong, intimidating if you can't hold your own. He looks tired, desperate, and sad. It’s reflected in his dull brown eyes, pale skin and a whiskered face. He seems unaffected by the icy wind as he stands on her porch, a blue bundle in one arm and a boy with dark blond hair half hiding behind the man’s leg, blue denim gathered in his small hands.

"Missouri Mosley?" he asks, voice deep and rough like sandpaper on glass.

"Yes?" she replies. The screendoor is wide open now. She stands at her full height, coming only up to about his shoulder, trying to be welcoming, voice soft and posture open. “What can I do for you?” She knows she has nothing to fear.

“I was told that you know things. That you could help me.”

The way he says it, the look he gives her, means she doesn’t have to make sure they’re on the same page.

“Hopefully, I can. Come on in.”

 

She steps aside and watches him move. Once inside, he just stands there in her foyer like he doesn’t know what to do. She smiles. “Well, first things first, your John Winchester and that’s Sammy.” John looks at her, stunned. He’d wanted to believe but it’s still a shock. “And that’s Dean.” She looks down at Dean, says “He doesn’t talk much.” She looks back up at John. “I don’t blame him. That’s a lot for child his age.”

Even without her gift, she knows about him, about them. She does read the paper and sometimes one can't help but hear the gossip that spreads though a place like Lawrence.

It’s not every day that a young mother dies in a fire. In her baby’s nursery no less. People around town whisper as if they know more than they should, that John Winchester killed his wife and that son-of-a-bitch is probably going to get away with it. Being in his presence, looking at him, she knows that’s not true.

She figured he’d left town. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. All that matters is he knows who she is.

“Don’t look so surprised. You wouldn’t have come over here so late if you didn’t think I was the real deal,” she tells him, smile still on her face. He’s still doesn’t say anything. “Let me hold him.” Dean moves at the same time she does, both reaching out for Sammy. John holds them both back.

“John, I have a feeling you’re going to be here a while.” She steps a little closer, pushing back some of the blanket to look at Sammy.

“Okay,” he says after Sammy smiles at her and then reaches for her.

“Hey there Sammy,” she speaks softly as she gathers him in her arms. Once he’s in her arms, she stoops so that she's eye-to-eye with Dean. “It’s okay, Dean.” She sees real fear in big green eyes. “Sammy’s okay but I tell you what. How about you hold my hand so you can stay with him and me?” She reaches out and, after looking up at his father, he latches on. John looks surprised and relieved at the same time. 

“All right, then,” she tells them as she straightens up. "You guys hungry?”

Dean sits in John’s lap, eyes cast down at his food unless his father asks him something or he’s looking at Sammy. He doesn’t answers his father with words. Not that it matters because John seems to be able to read him just fine like a father should.

She holds the baby, feeding him the bottle John brought. It’s been awhile since she’s held a baby but it quickly comes back to her. How heavy and light a baby feels at the same time. He feels comfortable in her arms. He coos and smiles up at her. He falls asleep with her shirt bunched in one of his tiny fist.

They don’t talk. The house silent except for the low hum of the radio that she listens to whenever she’s in the kitchen. Sunday nights it’s Motown songs that remind her of another time in her life. Not tonight though. She watches them eat and can only think about what’s ahead of her.

She’s been alone in the kitchen for a while, having shown John where he and boys would sleep before coming back down to clean up. She’s not surprised to hear footsteps on the stairs although she’d hoped he’d go to bed himself. He comes into the kitchen, dragging but wanting answers, thoughts going a mile minute.

Before he even gets a word out, she says to him, “There’s nowhere I need to be tomorrow. We’ll talk then.” As they stand in her kitchen, he wants to protest. She adds, “Trust me. Goodnight John Winchester.” Firm and final. She knows already she’s got to be that way with him. A hand on his arm to tell him it’ll be okay.

She hears his footsteps behind her because you can’t do much arguing when nobody’s there.


 

She doesn’t sleep, just lies in bed and listens for him and the children. She hears the shuffle of feet across the floor and the hush hush that one has to do with babies. Sammy’s been waking up every few hours fussing. She doesn’t hear Dean but she knows he’s not sleeping much either.

She’s not uneasy with him being in the house. It’s what he’s come for that’s got her mind racing even at this late hour.

It’s nearly midnight when she hears the shuffle of feet and the slow creak of the guest bedroom door. There’s no fumbling because she had left the hall light on. She listens until his footsteps fade.

She debates whether or not she should go down. Eventually, she does, thinking he might need something and have no idea where to find it.

“Everything okay?” she asks as she walks into the kitchen, hands in the pockets of her robe.

He sits her kitchen table, staring at his hands. “Can’t sleep.” He looks up at her. “Haven’t since…” His voice trails off, comes back to say, “Sorry if I woke you.”

“I couldn’t sleep either. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks.”

She doesn’t leave but takes a seat across from him, tucking her legs under her.

“You don’t have to stay up with me.” He says but wishes otherwise.

“I know. It’s like I said, I can’t sleep either. I just keep thinking about why you came.”

His eyes don’t leave hers and his voice doesn’t waver as he says, “Something killed my wife.”

He’s looking for the truth not like most of the people that come to see her. They say they want the truth. They really don’t. All they want is good news. “I know.”

“What was it?”

She hesitates, thinking it can all wait till later in the day. “Let me get you something to help you sleep.” He stops her by grabbing her forearm.

“I haven’t slept in months.” He looks it, too – darkness around his eyes, the lines on his face. He’s not that old, twenty-nine if she remembers correctly what the papers said. She knows how grief has a way of aging a person faster than anything she’s ever seen. “Please,” he pleads without letting her go.

She could be firm and tell him no but the look in his eyes says he won’t comply, all pleas to the contrary. He wants the truth, needs it. She wonders though if he’ll be able to handle it. “Okay, okay. First, you have to tell me what you know, for starters, how did you find me?”

He did what most people do. He went to phone book. He started visiting psychics trying to find some answers. He didn’t know what else to do. The first couple of guys were a bunch of hacks. Parroting back whatever those poor suckers told them. Then he ran into Smitty Watkins. She knows exactly who he is. He’s an older guy that lives in town who knows a little about everything. He told John about her, said you’re the real deal.

Just like a few hours earlier, she doesn’t bother to ask if he believes. Smitty would’ve made sure John wasn’t going to be wasting her time. Plenty of people come, no matter what for, but they’re still skeptical. She always tells them to come back when they’re ready. She doesn’t have that kind of time to waste.

“Did you tell Smitty anything, about what you think happened?”

“Not really.”

“Well, tell me what you know what you think happened.”

“Like I said something killed my wife. Her name’s Mary. Something evil, I think.” He looks her straight in her eyes. His voice steady as he goes. “I hear things at night like whispering, like someone is whispering a name, under their breath, again and again. I feel like something is watching me and the boys. I don’t know why.

“All the forensics came back on the fire. They didn’t find a thing. Nothing. There’s no proof that my wife was even there. There’s nothing left of her.” There’s anger seeping into his words now. “They told me it was an electrical fire, a short in the nursery. I asked for proof and they couldn’t show me any. They said it was lost in the fire. I don’t believe them since they say the nursery ceiling was the flashpoint when even an idiot knows almost all electrical fires start in the walls.

“So I started digging around at the library. Trying to find out all I could about fires.” He stops there, pushing away from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

When he comes back, he’s got a brown, leather-bound journal in his hands. “I made notes in here about what I’ve found so far.” He places it on the table and opens to the first page. He stands beside her, pointing out this and that. “Some of the books I’ve read talked about fire being controlled by evil things. It sounded crazy at first but then I remembered how the fire seemed to leap out at me. It even growled at me.”

She looks up at him then. She’s never heard of anything like that before. “I need to go there. Tomorrow. I want to get a sense of what really happened. I might be able to feel the echoes of whatever it was.” He doesn’t respond right away. “You don’t have to go with me. Stay and watch the boys.”

He nods. They both turn back to journal and he continues reading off his notes. By the time he’s done, it’s nearly two am by the clock on the wall.

“I should get to bed if I’m going to do this.” She pulls herself out of her chair, muscles stiff from being in the same position too long.

“Missouri…”

“I promise, John, tomorrow,” she pauses, remembering what time it is. “Well, today. I promise I’ll tell you all I know.” He’s not happy, she can see that but if it’s possible there’s a change in him, as cliché as it sounds, a burden has lifted from him. She pats his hand before turning to go. She hopes he can sleep a little better tonight.

It’s a ten minute drive to John’s old house. This is the first time she’s ever gone to visit even though this isn’t really a visit. She’s only ever driven by on her way to someplace else. Since the fire, she’s been tempted to stop by and see what’s left but she never did.

The whole house isn’t gone, just about one-half of the upstairs. Once white siding now black and split, reaching up to the sky. She stands on the side that’s been burnt. She doesn’t feel anything until she is a couple of feet from the house. She feels it. Evil. That’s the only word for it. It’s the echo of whatever was there. Something she’s never felt before. It permeates the air over the charred remains. She doesn’t spend a lot of time, just walks around the house, shivering against the wind and the unknown.

John doesn’t let her get her coat off before he’s on his feet asking her all kinds of questions.

“Let me get my coat off first,” she tells him, shrugging out of it slowly. She finally gets it off and on the coat rack then he’s right at it again.

They’re standing in the foyer, Dean and Sam playing on the living room sofa. She looks over at them. When Dean looks at her, she smiles even though it’s the last thing she wants to do.

“You guys were okay here without me?” She asks, stalling, still looking at the boys. She was gone a half an hour at most.

“Missouri…” he begins.

She looks up at him before taking a deep breath, whispers just in case, “It was evil. Pure evil John. That’s the first time I’ve ever felt something like that. I have no idea what it was exactly.”

“I knew it.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “What do I do now?”

“Tonight. After the boys are put to bed, we're going to see if we can contact Mary.”

His eyes go wide for a second.

“Trust me. It’ll be fine. You came for answers. Hopefully, tonight you can get some.” 

He nods. “Okay.”

He goes back into the living room and pulls both boys into his lap. He whispers ‘I love you’ and kisses them both on the top of the head.

The rest of the day moves by too slowly for him, she can tell, but not slow enough for her. She’s not sure she’s ready to find out more.

He meets her at the foot of the stairs after having put the kids to bed.

“They asleep?”

“No.”

“Dean won’t be coming down?”

“No. He promised.”

“Okay. Follow me.”

She leads him to the front of the house. She explains they’re going to have a séance and he’s to do everything she says.

They approach a set of heavy, wooden doors stained a dark brown just off the front hall. She slides the doors open to reveal a room big enough for a table seating six, maybe eight but the round table only has four chairs. There are a couple of bookshelves on the far wall filled with books, candles and containers of varying sizes. The room is bright because of the light she’s just flicked on. 

She closes the doors behind them and then gestures to the chair closest to the doors. “Have a seat.”

He sits and watches her move to the far wall. She gathers up whatever she needs from the shelves then spreads them out on the white lace tablecloth. It’s her mother’s just like everything else in this house. In the center of the table she places a dish of water – in which she pours some salt – a white feather and some white candles. She doesn’t say anything as she works, the seconds ticking by on the clock directly above one of the shelves.

This is how she works, in silence, as her clients usually fidget and do everything but relax no matter how much she tells them to.

She lights candles, turns off the light then sits down across from him. “Ready?”

He nods. Most people are extremely nervous. She can see it in their eyes, in the way they hold themselves, in the energy they give off. There’s a determination in John's eyes that holds him stock still. It’s all in his head, the uncertainty about what he’s about to do.

“Just relax. It’ll be all right,” she tells him. “Okay. You need to hold my hands and don’t let go, not until I tell you to.” His hands are steady, warm and slightly damp against her own. “When it’s all over, don’t talk right away. You’ll have to come down. It takes about thirty minutes. Close your eyes now. Remember to breathe deep and remember why we are doing this. Don’t talk unless I tell you to. That’s important. I mean it. Okay?”

He nods again.

“Say this with me; ‘We are seeking Mary Winchester. In the name of Jesus, we beseech you, come to us, Mary Winchester and communicate with us.’ We’ll keep saying it until she comes. I’ll tell you when she comes. Now repeat after me.”

She doesn’t know how many times they say it before a spirit comes, a cold wind blowing through the room as if one of them had opened a window. It isn’t Mary but it’s one that can help, a guide. He’s a young man with light eyes and dark hair.

“Okay, John. It’s not her yet but it’s a spirit guide. He’s going to help us. I’m going to tell him what we want.” She focuses back on the spirit. “We are seeking Mary Winchester. We want her to communicate with us. In the name of Jesus, help us find Mary Winchester.” The guide smiles and nods.

A few minutes pass before she finally sees the image of Mary Winchester, the young mother and wife with pale golden hair and bright blue eyes. The nightgown she wears is white and long, drifting across the tops of her toes.

“Are you Mary Winchester?”

“Mary?” John asks, voice choked with emotion.

“Ssshhh. I told you not to talk.” She squeezes his hand to emphasize her point.

Mary nods.

“It’s her,” she pauses, lets him absorb her words. “I’m going to repeat what she says after I ask a question. Are you from Lawrence, Kansas?"

“She says yes. Are you married to John Winchester?"

“Yes. And you have two sons, Dean and Sam?"

“Yes. Do you have something you want to tell John?" Mary looks down, like a child that’s been caught doing something wrong.

“She says she’s sorry for everything. She didn’t think you’d understand. It’d been too long.”

He’s louder now, clearly confused. “What? Mary? What are you talking about? What is she talking about?”

“Don’t talk.” She can feel how the air in the room is changing.

“Don’t tell me not to talk.”

“John, calm down. You’ll mess this up. You get angry and I will end it right now.” Missouri’s voice is soft but firm, the threat clearly not an empty one.

She waits. If he can’t get himself under control, they’ll have to do this whole thing all over again. It takes a few minutes for the tension to leave his body, for his grip on her hands to loosen.

“She had to do it. She says she couldn’t let you go. She made the deal for you. It was make the deal or lose you. It was a demon that killed her. Killed her parents, too. She’s sorry.”

His hands are clammy now, shaking some. She can imagine him paler than before, sick at what’s he’s hearing.

“She says she thinks you’ll be fine now. He got what he wanted. She says she loves you. She says to take care of the boys, give them the life you two talked about.”

When Mary says nothing else, Missouri knows their time is up. “Thank you, Mary. In the name of Jesus, go and be at peace.” Mary fades away until there’s nothing but white light slowly darkening in the space of Missouri’s mind. Her eyes open, she slides her hands out of John’s and goes to turn on the light.

John blinks, his eyes readjusting to the light. His hair is plastered down from sweat. He breathes deep, trying to steady his racing heart.

She reminds him to not speak, to just relax. He gulps down the glass of whiskey she brings him. She sips hers. She sits across from him waiting until the thirty minutes is up. She can tell the need to talk is strong, strumming just under the surface of his skin. He stalks back and forth across the carpet waiting. She speaks softly and slowly, “You can talk now.”

“She made a deal with the devil. For me.” He says it but it seems less for her benefit than for his as if saying it aloud changes how it sounds in his head. He says other things. Then he asks her questions, questions she can’t possibly answer.

“John, sit down.” He doesn’t listen but she knows he heard her. “John Winchester, sit down and let me talk to you.” He looks at her first before he finally drops into the chair he’d occupied before. He stares at her with eyes that would rattle a lessen woman.

“Mary was like me,” she begins then takes a deep breath. “Well, not exactly like me. She knew things just like I know things. She was hunter. Just like her dad.”

“Hunter?” He looks incredulous. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Everybody’s heard about the things that go bump in the night. Like everybody around here has heard about the Eldridge and Haskell being haunted. Well, it’s true. Things really do go bump in the night. You know a little about that now. And there are people that try to stop those things. Mary’s Dad, Samuel, was one of those people. He taught Mary how to do it.” John looks at her like he doesn’t believe her even after all he’s heard, seen, felt. She responds to his silent accusation. “Why would I tell you she was if she wasn’t? Doesn’t do me any good to lie to you.”

As the seconds pass and this new found knowledge sinks in, he gets angry. He rages quietly. She knows he’s doing his damndest to be respectful.

“John.” She reaches across the table to comfort him. He pulls away and then he’s gone – footsteps heavy and fast – but not before looking back at her like Mary’s been taken all over again. She supposes she has. He comes back down the stairs with barely asleep children in his arms.

She doesn’t say anything, knows that arguing with him won’t do any good. He wants to leave so she just lets him go. She holds the door open and everything, shouting “Take care of yourself and those boys, John Winchester” at his form walking down her front walk, the still soft snow disturbed. She watches him finally manage to get Sam and Dean in the big, black car.

He doesn’t bother to come back in and take what little else he had brought with them.

She jumps a little at the sound of the car coming to life in the middle of the night even though she knew it was coming.

She knows he’ll calm down. He’ll think about the things that seemed weird at the time, things he brushed off. He might come back. He might not. At least now he knows the truth.

She knew Samuel Campbell. She knew that when he came to her mother, she was his last resort. Doesn’t really want or need help. Hates to come and see me her mama used to say. That kind of stubbornness never helped anybody.

She’d met Mary once.

She got tired of peeking around the front window’s curtain and watching the blond girl in the car so one day she stepped outside. Mary watched her leave the house and walk all the way down the front path. Missouri was halfway to the car when Mary began to roll her window down.

“Do you know what your daddy is doing in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you’ll come see me one day.”

“Maybe.”

And that was all that was said before they both heard the front door open. Samuel didn’t say anything to either one of them, the same grim expression he came with still on his face. Missouri waved until their car disappeared around the corner.

She saw Mary around town after, every once in awhile. Mary would smile a ‘we know each other but let’s pretend otherwise’ smile. Missouri would nod, imperceptible to anyone else but Mary.

Not long after Samuel and Deanna Campbell died. Only the Mosley family knew it wasn’t at all what the papers said it was. 

Mary never came to see her. She never knew if Mary ever needed her; if she had put that part of her life behind her. Missouri often wondered if that was even possible.

It’s three days before she sees John and the boys again.

It’s a Thursday afternoon and it’s going to snow again. It’s going to snow right up until Christmas so the weatherman says.

It’s like that Sunday all over again only this time nothing is said as she lets him in. He looks sheepish and more worse for the wear than before.

She feeds them again and puts them all to bed.

Christmas is the best that can be done on short notice. Usually the extent of her decorating is a wreath on the door and some candles in the windows. She usually goes out, to a fellow church member’s house. Or travels to see her brothers and sisters. She’d planned on it but cancelled just in case he would return.

So this year she’s at home with the only kind of tree one can find at the very last minute and homemade decorations. Dean had fun helping her make them, she knows he did. There are all kinds of things to fit into stockings and under the tree. Everything left over that nobody else wanted.

She knows it’s the effort that counts as she watches John and boys open presents. They could all use a little normalcy.

Two days later the official investigation into what happened to Mary is closed. John looks at her, says “What a Christmas present, huh?”

There's life in her house now. Well, more than there was before.

There's a myriad of feelings that come with sharing space with someone else, other people so unlike yourself. 

It’s easy to fall back into old patterns of getting up, making sure mouths are fed (John Winchester you get down here to eat right now!), bodies are clothed, tempers soothed, young and old alike (Sssh, Sammy. It’ll be alright.) It’s different though. Quiet. Not like the noise she’s used to when her family was whole or even when she was the woman of the house. Her mama having died of cancer suddenly the summer she was forty-five and Missouri was seventeen. It was the six of them then – her daddy, two older brothers, one younger brother and one younger sister, who looked too much like her mother for any of them to ever forget. After their grief had lessened, they talked and laughed again, filling up the house as if to still make it sound like it was still seven lives in the house.

It’s going to take John and Dean awhile to get there. They move about, their grief palpable. She doesn’t bother them. She waits for them to get out of it on their own. That’s all she can do. That’s what she knows how to do having done it before.

Sammy’s different though, which makes sense. He’s like the sun peeking from behind the clouds. All smiles and gurgles and other sounds that will one day will be words.

She didn't think she was lonely. But maybe she was, if only a little. 

John tells her Dean and Sam sleep through the night now. He still doesn’t sleep though. So after the kids are put to bed, they sit. She teaches until her knowledge runs out, which isn’t very long after they start.

It’s a new thing for her. Most people come and they leave all in the same day, sometime the same hour. They just want to talk to a loved one that has passed on. They just want to hear they were loved or say sorry. Occasionally there’s someone who says There’s something in my house. Could you come?

Most of the time there’s nothing that requires her to dig deep and worry if she’s doing the right thing.

She remembers Mary’s words (Mary says to take care of the boys, give them the life you two talked about.) They nag at her but she tells herself, she’s not telling him how to hunt, just telling him what’s out there.

People talk. Lawrence isn't a small town but it feels that way sometimes. She hears the whispers. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary. There’s always been a constant whirl of gossip around her and her family. Her sister may look like her mother spit her out but Missouri got her gift.

These are new ones though. 

She's got that man living in there with her. A white man at that. Probably taking care of those kids like some nanny. 

Not just any man. John Winchester.

Her mama would never have allowed that. 

Yes, her mama would have. She believed in helping those in need. Whatever it took. However long it took. They’ve forgotten. It’s been going on seventeen years since her mother was alive.

It’s just no one ever needed her mama like the Winchesters need her. No one except her own flesh and blood.

She meant for it to happen, for them to stay as long as they need to. She made her intentions clear every time she could until she had to say John Winchester you are not taking those boys anywhere. It seemed like the right thing to do. It still seems that way. She saw how John was floundering, so unsure. It was unsettling. She knows he doesn't have any family left, only friends Mike and Kate. But he couldn’t stay with them anymore. He had to leave because They didn’t understand. They looked at me like I was crazy when I even tried to tell them what I thought. Mike told me I had to get back to work. How can I even think about work? He couldn’t take it anymore so he just picked up and left in the middle of the night. He left a note telling Mike he could have his half of the shop.

“I’ll earn our keep. I mean I’ll start.”

“Damn, right you will,” she told him, not at all worried about such a thing. He smiled and it shocked her a little.

His smiles have that effect on her because they’re a new thing, a rare thing. The smile wasn’t huge, didn’t make his dimples dig deep into his freshly shaven face.

She knows it’s time doing that but she’d like to think she’s got a little something to do with it.

They need her and she's got plenty to give. 

 

Sammy’s first word is ‘Dean’ and she’s the only one around to hear it. She cries – she can’t help it – and calls John down at the shop. Water under the bridge Mike said. She apologizes more than once when he panics and thinks the worse.

“I said I was sorry. I didn’t mean to get you all worked up,” she huffs.

“Missouri-”

“Focus on what’s important here. Sammy said his first word.” She balances him on her hip. “Say ‘Dean’ Sammy. Say ‘Dean’ to Daddy.” Sammy doesn’t say it, just gurgles and smiles at her.

She almost doesn’t notice the way John’s breathing changes. “I gotta go.” The dial tone is too loud in her ear and she scolds herself for being so insensitive.

Dean is of course excited and proud. He watches Sammy closely, more than normal, just waiting for him to say it. He says it when Dean comes in from school, then again sometime later. Then he clams up, content to play with his toys.

“He won’t say it again,” Dean tells her, pouting as he kneels on the kitchen floor, Sammy close by.

“He will. Give him some time.”

She watches him turn back to his brother. She thinks about how she’d said the same thing to John. Dean talks a lot now. He finally feels safe.

She doesn’t even think about it. She just wants to make Dean happy. He’s real excited making the card and helping her in the kitchen. It’s the most excited he’s been in a while. Every other holiday has passed by like they are any day of the week. She’d been nervous when Mother’s Day had rolled around. John said nothing and Dean followed his lead.

“You think he’ll like it?” He kneels on the chair next to her with his homemade card in his hands.

 

She looks into bright green eyes and smiles. “Of course, baby.”

She stands in the doorway of his room while Dean yells ‘Happy Father’s Day’ and then jumps into John’s bed.

“Deano!”

Dean giggles and squeals as John tickles him. She won’t lie about how her heart swells a little and then squeezes when John finally notices her. His face changes, a flash of this and that in his eyes.

“Dean wanted to make you breakfast.” She feels foolish as she says it.

He keeps the same expression on his face as she approaches and sets the tray down.

“Imma get Sammy,” Dean says, already scrambling to get off the bed.

She tells Dean to stay and she gets Sammy. She lays him between John and Dean. She then leaves, knowing she’s just done something wrong.

The rest of the morning she leaves them be. When they eat lunch, the look is gone but she knows he’s still trying to deal with Mary not being here. It’s only when they’re alone later in the day, passing in the hallway, that he tells her.

“You…I just remembered Father’s Day. Last year.” He looks like he’s the one that did something wrong.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think,” she tells him. “No need for you to look that way. I mean I should’ve known.”

“Thanks,” he tells her before walking away, disappearing into his room.

She remembers what it was like for her dad, how it had taken him quite awhile to move on.

Dean’s just about six when she thinks he might learn about her gift. The real reason people are always stopping by, not just because I’m a really good listener. Like most kids, he’d taken to telling little fibs. And like most adults, she was trying to break him of the habit.

It’s not like it’s a secret. Most everyone in town knows. And if they don’t, they’re either new or they aren’t paying attention.

“Dean you know you have to tell the truth. I’ll know if you don’t.” She sits in the kitchen, him standing before her with his hands behind his back. He looks at her, a faint blush to his cheeks.

“How?” he asks, big green eyes looking right into her own.

“I have my ways. How do you think I know so much about what you and Sammy get into?”

“Because you’re a mommy and mommies know a lot.”

She smiles; sure her smile is too big for her face. He smiles back knowing he’s made her happy. “I’m not a mommy though. I’m like a mommy.”

“Yeah, because my mommy isn’t here anymore.” His voice gets softer with every word. She pulls him into her lap, lets him rest his head over her heart.

“She loved you very much. You and Sammy. If she could be here, she’d be here.” She hugs him close, tries to keep her voice from catching.

He looks up, “But what about you?”

She lies, knows what a hypocrite that makes her. “I’d be around. A friend of your mommy’s.”

“Yeah?” he says.

“Yeah. Promise.”

He lays his head back down and they sit in silence until he slides off her lap running to greet John, the reason why she’d wanted to talk to him forgotten for now.

“You, okay?”

He startles her. It still unnerves how quiet a big man like he can be. She supposes he learned it in the Marines. She supposes it’s not something he can just drop however many years later.

She stretches, feels the muscles in her back pull. “I’m okay. Just a little stiff.”

He leans against the kitchen doorframe, arms across his chest. He looks at her and she looks back until she has to turn away, goes back to her pots on the stove.

“I’m leaving for a few days,” he tells her.

“Leaving? For where? Why?” She doesn’t look up.

“Pennsylvania. I just have something to take care of. Nothing to worry about.”

“You know people there?”

“No.”

“Then why are you going?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, she turns, wiping her hands on the closest dish towel.

“It’s not like you don’t know."

“You shouldn’t do this. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

He pushes of the wall. “You don’t know all that I know.”

“I know enough.” She knows he’s been doing things on his own, taken all that’s she taught him to learn more, do more. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

He pushes off the wall and walks toward her as he says, “Mike and Kate would love to see the boys. I can take them there and then when I get back, I’ll get a place.”

She meets him halfway. “Are you threatening me?” Hands on hips, she laughs, a bitter edge to it.

He laughs, too, sounding as bitter as she does. “I have to do what I have to do with or without your help.”

“So now you don’t need my help?”

“Missouri,” he starts, takes a deep breath. “You know that’s…”

She stops him with “I know.” She drops her hands from her hips in defeat, lets out a breath. She’s still angry though, her words clipped. “We’ll talk when you back. You can’t keep these kind of secrets.”

“As if I really could,” he tells her.

She shakes her head. “Still. Just take care of yourself.”

She hears him leave in the early morning hours – the creak of his door opening and closing, then Sam and Dean’s.

Four days later without a word, he comes in, arm in a sling but a smile on his face. He picks Dean up with his one good arm, kisses Sammy on the head when she presents him.

“Sorry,” he says – for getting hurt, for not calling – and she knows he means it.

She blinks to hold back the tears. “Hungry?”

They have ground rules. He's to work in the basement, keep all his stuff from young eyes and hands. He can’t get so caught up that he forgets them. Everybody eats at the same time. Stuff like that. She's to help him, not replace him when it comes to the boys. You’re their father and they need you more than they need me.

You’d think having been in the military he would have no problem following orders. Most of the time he’s good. Sometimes he forgets. She knows he loves his boys. It’s just that sometimes he's just blind to anything else but what he wants. She’s mostly the victor when they have those arguments. He's stubborn but so is she. And he knows she loves them boys almost as much as he does.

They get a routine down. He hunts close to home, nothing more than a couple days drive away. He's never gone more than four unless he gets really hurt. He doesn’t work a regular job to earn his keep like he’d promised since it’d be kind of hard to justify the no-shows and injuries.

Nothing illegal. I promise.

I’d believe you even if I couldn’t read your mind.

When John’s home, he takes Dean to school and picks him up after. The time after lunch is his and Sammy's time. He's not allowed back in the basement until he spends some time with him. More often than not, she finds them sleeping on the sofa. John's feet always hanging off, one hand secure on Sam, who rises and falls with his breathing. 

It works for about five years. Then he thinks he’s on to something, something that might explain how his life got so turned around. They argue and she loses. For the first time she's a little scared of him. He's so intense, so fired up, so ready, so full of anger that she acquiesces before the tension in the air becomes permanent. 

He’s gone for weeks, which turn into months. They’d told the boys John is like a private investigator. That he tracks down bad people and sometimes he gets hurt and sometimes it takes a long time.

This guy your daddy’s after is a tough one. Your daddy’s got to get him before he hurts some more people. Trust me. He’d rather be here with us than out there.

They know he’s still alive when they get phone calls, early in the morning, in the middle of the night. Whenever he can, remembers to call. Sometimes there’s so much static on the line conversations are no more than I’m fine. Missing the boys. Be good for Missouri.

Randomly a postcard might arrive in the mail. They surprise her every time. Always from some town she’s never heard of and probably couldn’t find on a map. Never a message, just ‘JW’ signed in the middle.

Even without a message, it strikes her as sentimental and not the face he puts on most of the time.

When he comes back, he wants to tell Dean. It’s the first thing out his mouth the minute they’re alone, which doesn’t last long so the conversation is tabled till later. So she has time to think about waiting. She's not sure when but later. She wants him to be a child a little longer. He’s already growing up so fast.

Later is when the boys have been put to bed and they sit on the back porch, another muggy evening in September, the very definition of Indian summer.

“John, I don't need protecting,” her exasperation evident. They’ve been going back and forth for what seems like a very long time.
 
“We all do.” She can feel his eyes on her so she only looks straight forward.

She tries a different tact. “What about Mary?”

“What about her?” Anger that wasn’t there a second ago lacing his words.

She looks at him this time. “Do you think this is what she would’ve wanted?” They both know it’s not.

“I’m their father," he declares as if she doesn’t know that.

She wants to say "Exactly!" Maybe she should argue with him about this – let it be a knock down drag out fight since they’re still kids. It’s not like they’re going to be hunters. If he does what he says he’s going to do – get the thing that killed Mary – then there’s no need. But it’s not like she thinks they shouldn’t know what’s out there. She just believes there’s plenty of time for them to learn about it.

She doesn’t argue though. She goes inside needing more time to think about what could change his mind. He follows, calling her name. She turns and steps into his personal space, taking one of his hands in hers. She has to look up while he looks down. “Just think about waiting a little longer, please? Think about all you’ve seen and done, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”

She leaves as quickly as possible. She doesn’t want to know if won’t do it. She’s glad that she takes both boys to church on Sundays. She wasn’t sure when this day would come but whenever it did, she wanted them to know the good as well as the bad.

He makes it two weeks past Dean’s twelfth birthday. She’s thankful for that even if she might’ve waited longer.

They’re back to sitting on the back porch but this time Dean is between them. She can’t read his face because Dean’s not looking at either one of them. He finds out her about her gift then, too.

He doesn’t know what to think. A hundred different ideas in his head. She has to smile at one. Sammy says Mrs. Kasick is a witch. She probably is.

The information changes him as she knew it would. He’s of course confused, scared, sad and determined. Determined to be the protective older brother because of what’s out there; the good boy because he knows she’ll know everything he does. He tells himself he’ll make sure Sammy’s a good boy, too.

She has to laugh to herself. Sure, she can read minds but she works around it for she knows how intrusive it is, how much trouble it can cause she when knows stuff that’s none of her business. She doesn’t tell him that though. She figures he’ll wait until he’s a little older.

“John Winchester where are you going with that?” She looks at the gun in his hand.

“Dean said there's something in his closet.”

She can’t help the smile in her voice when she tells him, “You are a damn fool sometimes. Give me that.” 

He holds it just out of reach. “It’s not like I can tell him ‘Don’t be afraid of the dark.”

“First, I think one would know if there was something in his closet. Second, I know you can’t tell him that but this isn’t the answer either.” She walks past him on the stairs. “Just follow my lead.” As they make their way to Sam and Dean’s room, she’s really thankful Sammy is over at a friend’s house because try explaining that to an eight year old. And she’s thankful Smitty sent them her way because the Lord only knows where they would be now.

“Deano's a natural.” John smiles proud and happy. Real happiness, the bone deep kind.

Dean loves the training. He rattles off this, that and the other to her. He talks non-stop about it, his level of anticipation for his first hunt sky high. He's never this excited about school. He's smart, does well but he could do better. Just one of those kids whose strength doesn't rely on books but the world. 

He has to bring home B's though. She doesn't accept less and John backs her up. C's mean no pie and no training. 

Sam's the opposite. He loves school, always willing to share what he’s learned in school. What he doesn’t know about what he’s learned, he asks questions. It seems like he’s always asking questions about anything and everything.

Sammy, one second. I have a headache.

Why?

He pouts when he can't go along with John and Dean the first time Dean goes out. John agreeing with her that he has to be at least the age Dean was when he was told the truth about what’s out there. 

Sam doesn’t say goodbye but he watches from her bedroom window as John and Dean pull off. She leaves him alone, lets him stew even during dinner. He perks up when she gives him more ice cream than usual.

It’s easy to put him to bed, the ice cream and the extra hour having done him in. An hour later, unexpectedly he’s knocking on her door, sticking his head in her room.

She’s already in bed, head wrapped up and book in her lap. She pats the empty space next to her. He smiles and runs, jumps in, scrambles to get under the covers.

He looks at her seriously, hair falling into his eyes. The boy needs a haircut but try telling him that. He hates getting haircut for no other reason than he likes his hair the way it is.

It doesn’t bother you when people think you’re a girl?

No. I know I’m not a girl.

How can you argue with that logic? So he doesn’t let her or John cut his hair as often as he should. It bugs John but he figures he’ll grow out of it eventually. She could care less either way. He’s too cute. Maybe when he gets older she’ll care.

“Dean and I sleep together.”

“I know.”

“All the time.”

“You’re not scared to sleep alone are you, Sammy?” He blushes. “It’s okay if you are.”

“Do you get scared?” He props himself up on one elbow.

“Of course. Everyone gets scared sometimes.”

“Then how come you don’t sleep with daddy?” The fact that she knew the question was coming still can’t stop the laugh that comes. Out of the mouth of babes indeed.

“Oh, baby. You should ask your daddy that when he gets back." She jokes but he, of course, takes her seriously.

“Okay.”

“No, no. I was kidding," she tells him, thinking, ‘the poor man would probably have a heart attack’. “I’m a grown up. I can take care of myself but your daddy’s close by if I need help.”

He opens his mouth to speak but a yawn escapes instead.

“Sleepyhead.”

“’m not tired.”

“Sure," she says pulling him close.

By the time John and Dean come back, Sam’s forgotten how mad he was at being left behind. They hadn’t lied exactly. They went hunting just like they said. Only it wasn’t deer but a ghost said to be haunting some dance studio in Topeka.

They even brought home enough deer meat to really sell the story.

Dean’s got a small cut above his left eye and looks like he could use some sleep. By the time she puts him to bed, she knows he’s fine, only a couple of bumps and bruises hidden under his clothes. He’s gotten hurt worse just by playing around in the backyard.

He was quiet most of the night, not the least bit interested in answering the questions Sammy peppered him with before he gave up.

He lies in bed looking up at her as she sits sideways on the bed while Sam sleeps across the room.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” He nods. “So if you were scared and don’t want to do it again, it’s okay.”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. How terrified he was. How he froze up. How when he unfroze he tripped and got that cut. How John was pissed and yelled at him. He apologized later but the damage had already been done.

“And don’t you worry about your daddy. I’ll take care of him.” She smiles but he doesn’t. “Alright now, you get some sleep.” She kisses his forehead. By the time she leaves, his eyes are already closed.

He doesn’t talk about it and he doesn’t go out with John again for another few months. It’s still tough going for him but he presses on until he’s as comfortable as he’s going to get at that age.

John doesn’t push, thinking that’s enough for Dean. She explains You’ll going to have to forbid that boy not to go. He doesn’t of course, which of course makes her wish she is more than she is.

“You’re not their mother.”

His words cut deep, deeper than he meant, deeper than she thought they could because she knows that. She just doesn’t need it thrown up in her face like this. Just because he doesn’t know what else to say and thinks this is going to shut her up. He knows her better than that. Or at least he should.

They stand in the basement, away from prying eyes and open ears. Though if anything Sam and Dean are sitting on the other side of the basement door listening.

“Exactly. They wanted to know.”

“I’m their father.” It’s the only thing he can come up with at the moment.

“So I’ve heard. Sam wanted to know. What was I supposed to do? You don’t tell them anything. Nothing. They have a right to know.”

He steps a little closer, says through clenched teeth, “You don’t know anything about it.”

She steps closer, too. “Yeah, because you’re the only one that’s ever lost someone.”

“I didn’t say that. I wasn’t even thinking it,” he yells.

“Oh, yeah it’s not that you’ve lost someone. It’s that you’ve lost someone under horrific circumstances. Yes, John Winchester you are the only one.” Her tone is hard because she wants her words to hurt. He can be so selfish sometimes.

“Stop saying my whole fucking name.”

Glaring and chests heaving. It’s times like this when reading minds is a pretty good thing. She knows that the anger isn’t really all about her. That he’s even a little sorry.

Everyone knows how kids can be and Winchester isn’t a name that will ever really die in this town. The first time Dean came home with a bloody nose he was eight. He lied and told John some story about sticking up for some other kid. Dean told Missouri the truth. As if he really had a choice.

He told her how the kid said Mary burned up and it was John’s fault. He said that my daddy killed my mommy and my daddy wouldn’t do anything like that. He also told her he didn’t want to make his daddy sad so he lied. It was déjà vu when it happened to Sam. While Dean didn’t ask questions about why that kid said what he did, Sam asked. She had Dean there, had him tell Sam what he remembered.

I don’t remember a lot. It was really, really hot. Dad told me to run out the house with you so I did.

You did?

Yup.

She filled in a few more gaps, age appropriate information of course. And of course, nothing about Mary being a hunter. She confirmed that their daddy is good man.

It’s been their little secret. They talk every now and again about Mary. She reintroduces Sam to a woman he’ll never get to know. She reminds Dean when he thinks he’s forgotten her. It’s not like she knows much but it’s something. John doesn’t talk about Mary to her accept every now and again. Only when he seems to forget that he’s told himself to not do it. It happens when it doesn’t hurt as much. She won’t tell the boys what John thinks when she reads his mind. She would never do that. She tells him to talk to the boys about Mary but he says I can’t. More like won’t. She could call him on it but she never does.

She’s always hears the unspoken ‘You don’t do it either.’

She knows he’ll forgive her eventually. She believes everything happens for a reason even if she never ever learns what that reason is.

You have to tell him what you want to do.

He'll hate me.

He could never do that. 

She doesn't push him any more than that. She knows that John will be angry; Lord only knows how angry he'll be. He can't protect Sam out there and out there is where Sam wants to be. California. 

He’ll be angry even when he’s known this day has been a long time coming. Sam makes his intentions clear about leaving every other day in subtle and not so subtle ways. John and Dean ignore the signs as if Sam will lose interest if no one pays enough attention. They forget about her.

That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t talk to Sam about staying closer to home. Pulling out all the stops about how she’s an old lady and can’t do all that traveling. He laughs that loud and happy laugh that shakes his whole body. You’re not old. And I’ll come home every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, and summer. Promise.

She believes him as she helps him in whatever way she can.

She didn’t have same conversation with Dean. He could be anything. Dean was smart enough to get into college. Still is. He just didn't want to go. He felt like – still feels like – he could do much more instead of learning about things that don’t mean anything after all he’s seen. Plus, he feels like John needs him.

Boy, you do know it's not your job to take care of him?

Yeah, I know. Nobody says I can't do it anyway. 

It's not like she can even blame John for that. She tried to do what could be done to make sure Dean knew he had his own path to follow. That it doesn't have to run parallel to John's. The boy knew his own mind then. He knows his own mind now. It may not seem like it but he does. 

 

“I want to be normal.”

She won’t lie, what comes out of Sam’s mouth stings a little. She did the best she could and tried to make sure John did the same.

“There’s no such thing.”

“I can try.”

“So you’re just going to turn your back on us? On your family?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. The Winchesters are nothing if not loyal.

“Damn it, Dad…”

“You walk out that door, don’t you come back.”

Seconds later, the front door slams. Then again a few seconds after that. She reaches out to keep Dean in place.

“I'm going after...”

She shakes her head when he looks at her. 

“Dean Winchester you sit right down there in that seat. They have to work this out.”

She knows it kills him to just sit down after that. It’s all she can do to stay where she is, letting the shock of the words sink in. She knows he didn’t mean it. People say crazy things when they are upset.

“They got to work this out. We can't always get in the middle.”

They’re not in the middle often. Only when John and Sam are so unyielding, too entrenched in their own wants and needs to see the other side. Most times they get along. As much as a teenage son and father can. There’s only so much she’ll allow.
 

He’s up again. “Dean,” she warns.

“Just going to get something to drink,” he tells her, backing up to the fridge. “You should know that.”

“Funny man.”

“You want something?”

“Just put the kettle on for me, please.” She sighs, drops her head into her hands.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Over the sound of running water, “Remember that last time they got into it?” He laughs, short and sharp.

“Not really. Wasn’t here remember? I came home late.” She turns to look at him. “Thank goodness I missed it. You looked like you wanted to kill them both.”

“Didn’t read their minds?”

“Not the way they were looking. Figured it best I stay out of it. Sometimes it’s best to just stay out the way.”

“They’re too much alike.”

“Who you telling?” Try telling them that though. She nor Dean would ever hear the end of it.

The room goes silent before Dean sighs then says, “This is worse than that.”

She cocks her head to the side. “Shouldn’t be. We all knew this was coming.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Dean?”

“Yeah, yeah, we did.”

He turns his attention to fixing her tea once the electric kettle clicks off. He fixes it just how she likes it. He sits across from her and takes a long pull on his beer. They don’t pick up where they left off. They start a new conversation about nothing in particular, just trying to ease some of the tension in the air.

It’s hours before Sam comes back. His hair sticks to his forehead, damp from rain. His clothes are just about soaked through. His skin is flushed pink but cold to the touch.

She doesn’t have to say anything to Dean before he’s ushering Sam upstairs.

John hasn’t come back yet. She knows him well enough to know that he could stay gone at least a day or two. He’d find some case, use it as an excuse.

She knows where to find him, down at a bar that just outside of town. It’s not a place for hunters, rather it’s not just for hunters. It’s for anyone looking to get lost. As she steps out of her car, she knows he doesn’t come here often. He doesn’t drink that much. Usually just enough to take the edge of when the need arises. He’s not the type to find solace in drinking. I just feel ten times worse in the morning. What’s the point then?

Missouri’s been here a few times before, looking for the same person every time, so when she steps through the doors the bartender takes notice, nods in John’s direction before going back to his customers. Being here before doesn’t mean she’s any more used to how dark the interior is from the low lights and the smoke that’s all around.

She slides into the cracked fake leather booth across from him, keeps her hands off the sticky wood table.

“You know you really should try a different place. For someone so cautious, anybody could come in here and find you.” She’s going for light, even though he’s never really been that kind of guy when he’s in a mood. It’s just the first thing she can think of.

He doesn’t stop looking at her like she’s got no business here. There’s a cheap light hanging over the table so she can see the hard edge to his jaw, the straight line of his shoulders, how the muscles bunch in severe agitation under the material of his t-shirt.

“He didn’t do this by himself,” he accuses.

“No, he didn’t but he could’ve if he had to. You know that.”

“He…”

“And you knew this was coming. Ignoring something doesn’t mean it’s not there. It just means you’re the poor bastard stupid enough to think it would work.”

He looks at her then like he has no idea what she’s talking about. Still, after all these years, it surprises her how blind he can be sometimes. The fact that he’s gone for weeks at a time now sometimes doesn’t change the fact that he knew.

And he knows there isn’t much he can hide from her.

Still, he doesn’t open his mouth to admit anything.

She reaches across the table, places both hands on his wrists for his hands are wrapped around his glass like some kind of support. “You can’t protect him forever.”

“I can damn well try,” he says, thoroughly convinced he could do it.

“And you know he damn well won’t let you. He’s too much like you, stubborn as hell.”

He huffs, amused, something she was not expecting at all. He looks down at his half empty glass. “I learned from the best. Mary was the real stubborn one.” Silence settles over them, the low mumbles of other conversations filling the air. Then, “It shouldn’t be so easy for him to walk away.” It’s been awhile since she’s heard him so sad.

“You know it isn’t,” she tells him, hoping he believes her.

“I don’t know. Really I don’t.”

“John…”

He looks up again. “He’s never understood.”

“How could he? He was a baby. Or maybe he understands all too well and still wants out. Mary got out.”

He’s got nothing to say to that, of the thoughts swirling around in his head none would satisfy her. He seems to know that.

“Come home. Make this right” is the last thing she asks.

They sit in the Impala until they announce his bus is here. She wanted him to fly. (For once see the country from up high. My treat.) He refused, said it would cost too much. She gave him the money anyway, in a card he can’t open until he gets to Palo Alto. 
 

“Well, let me look at you.” She fixes the collar of his polo shirt.

“You’ll see me again, Missouri.”

“Let an old lady have her moment would you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re a good man, Sam Winchester. Grew up to be so handsome. You, too, Dean even though you were one goofy looking kid.” Sam smiles that smile that’ll have all the girls falling in love with him.

“Hey!” Dean says from her other side.

“Hush, boy. You, Sam, better call me once a week or I will come out there to see with my own eyes what you’re up to,” she warns.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And don't worry about Thanksgiving. It'll cost too much, but Christmas for sure.” 

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I'm going to miss you.”

He has to bend down to hug her, so tall, even taller than John. She remembers how small he felt in her arms the very first time she held him. He had that baby smell, like powder and milk and something else that she couldn't identify. Now she smells the woodsy scent of his shampoo and the spice of his aftershave. 

“Don’t you be sorry and don’t you worry. It’ll be okay," she whispers into his ear.

They break apart and Dean steps into her place.

“You better have fun out there. If I call you at two am on a Friday, you better not be in the library.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean it Samm - Sam.”

They hug fierce and tight, all forgiven, all is well. They all look around but pretend otherwise as Sam and Dean load Sam’s two big duffel bags into the belly of the bus.

Sam still had the summer to go when he broke the news. John did come home but he was distant, he and Sam orbiting around each other whenever they were in the same room at the same time. It wasn’t often. John threw himself into cases.

You believe me when I say he’s not angry with you, right?

Of course.

And that he’ll come around?

Yeah.

When Sam calls to say he made it, she can’t say that she’s not disappointed that she isn't able to tell himm, “You father did come to say goodbye. He just missed you.”

 

Dean calls every week like he'd promised two days after Sam had left. She knew Dean was leaving, too. She could feel the itch under his skin the closer it got to Sam’s last day. She knows he never stopped hoping he and John would have one more man on their side.

Nine months out and they don’t call. Not really. Too caught up. Too focused. She expected that. She was really surprised that Dean made it as long as he did.

He called, never John. She can live with John not speaking to her even if he’s forgiven her. She’s used to his stubborn nature, admires and appreciates it on occasion though she’d never tell him that. She doesn’t ask to speak with him but she does ask after him.

Sam does call every week. He calls every Sunday at the same time. He’s six years old again going on and on about this and that. So excited to be there.

He sends her pictures. The first one she sees it’s like seeing him for the first time. Miles of tanned skin. Bright, happy eyes. A grin as wide as the ocean behind him. She thinks she’s maybe never seen him that happy.

She doesn’t regret a thing.

They talk about how hard it’s been to adjust, not having her and Dean around. He even misses John though he won’t say it aloud. He’s got no one to talk to about the weird things he feels, sometimes sees. For all his talk of normalcy, she knows he never completely left his past behind. It not really an option he can live with even if he tries to not feel, to not see and hear what most people doesn’t know exist.

“I mean it. I really want to just not know.” He’d said he was outside, sitting under the shade of the large tree in front of his dorm.

“It’s impossible to unknow things Sam.” She, in between clients, sits in the living room feeling for the boy.

“It’s just…I mean we had you but still. What some of these guys talk about. I can’t relate. I spent my summer vacations hunting ghosts and werewolves in dinky little towns.”

“Not all of them,” she reminds him.

“Yeah, okay,” he concedes.

Sometimes she took the boys to see her family back in Mississippi where her mama and daddy were born and raised until they decided to give Kansas a try. The boys were family, playing with her nieces and nephews, helping out on the land that was still in family hands.

She even made it to Florida with the boys once or twice, Jacksonville, to see her baby sister. She remembers boys running up to her from the water, one pink and freckled and the other a golden nut brown. Both with big white smiles. The last time Dean was sixteen and a magnet for girls in barely there bikinis.

“I know you wish your dad had done things differently. He didn’t though. You should forgive him.”

Sam’s quiet, then “Have you talked to Dean?”

She goes with the change of conversation. “Not lately.”

Dean’s never been in love. Not the real grown up kind, the lost of which has you feeling a little less whole.

That’s not to say the boy hasn’t been close. He just never went there, gave himself the chance. It doesn’t take a psychic to figure out why.

She doesn’t tell him he should just let go. Dean’s not for all that kind of talk anyway. Plus, some things you got find out for yourself.

“What’d you expect Dean? Most people have to see it with their own eyes.”

He doesn’t say anything, just breathes across the invisible line, his breath still heavy with regret but it gets softer now like he understands the longer they stay on the phone. He knew she would know as soon as he spoke those first words. It’s fine. She’s used to how Dean Winchester works.

“Give her some time.”

“I don’t have any. Dad wants to leave the day after tomorrow.” He’s desperate.

“You said she’s a smart girl, right? Journalism student, right?”
 

“Yeah.”

“Then maybe a night is all she needs.”

The next time she talks to him he doesn’t mention Cassie. He acts as if his heart hadn’t been broken and that makes her want to find Cassie and tell her about herself. She could because she knows people. She doesn’t though. She’ll let sleeping dogs lie on this one. Dean never did appreciate her talking to his girlfriends.

You can read thoughts. You’ll find out too much.

Dean Winchester, are you doing stuff you have no business doing?

No. Maybe. I’m going.

He was always more afraid she’d tell too much. Like there’s a heart and soul under all that bravado and charm.

Sam’s different. He falls in love a lot. The puppy love kind. The kind that makes you want to pat his head and wish you were that young again. He never talked to John about it for obvious reasons. He didn’t really talk to Dean about it. Reasons just as obvious unless he wanted advice he figured Missouri couldn’t give. So Missouri was on the hook for everything else like what do girls like? and if Julie does this, does that mean what I think it means because Dean says…

That little girl is blind. You’re a Winchester. About as fine as they come.

She finally knows it’s the real thing when he talks differently about Jess because the thing is he doesn’t really talk at all.

 I don’t know how to describe it.

You don’t have to tell me.

When he finally brings Jess home for a week during his sophomore year, it’s this time she’s never seen him so happy. Jess is tall, almost as tall as him, with curly dirty blonde hair framing a full face. She smiles sweetly and confidently when introduced.

Sam talks about you all the time.

Missouri likes Jess, knows she’s good for Sam. She sees love there even if they’ve only been dating for a short while. She doesn’t know if she’d understand his past, what his future could hold.

Sam, you need to tell her the truth.

I know. I just don’t know how she’ll take it. Could you tell me?

Boy you know I’m not some magician. I may be able to read minds and sense energies in a room but I can’t just pull facts out of thin air. You need to tell her and just see what happens. That’s all there is to it. Don’t just assume she’ll act one way. She might surprise you.

I’ll think about it.

Uh, uh. Didn’t we just talk about me reading minds?

“Dad’s missing.”

No hello, how are you, just that. If not for the panic, clear as day in two simple words, she’d tell him he has nothing to worry about.

“You’re going to Sammy.”

“I have to. I can’t do this by myself.”

“Dean.”

She knows it’s true. She doesn’t know if Sam’s going to go though. She hasn’t talked to him in a couple of weeks. She’s called, left messages. It seems he always calls her back when he knows she won’t be able to answer. Always the same thing. I’m okay. Just really busy with school. Jess says hi. Love you.

“Don’t be mad if he doesn’t want to go.”

“What?”
 

“He and John still haven’t talked.”

“Missouri, it’s our Dad. Missing. I know Sammy can be a stubborn bastard…”

“Dean…”

“It’s not like Sam doesn’t know Dad’s been watching. I know he hasn’t gone that soft.” She knows, not because she’s talked to John, though she has, it’s because she knows him. He wouldn’t just let his baby boy go even if he told him, too.

“I’m just telling you to be prepared for him to fight you on this. He’s happy.”

“You know he’s never been gone this long. Sam will know it, too once I tell him.”

Jess dies on November Second.

It’s not Dean or Sam who calls to tell her. It’s John.

“The thing that got Mary. It got Jess, too.” He’s beyond angry, mad that he couldn’t prevent it, protect her and Sam.

“Are you sure?” Stupid question but asked anyway.

“Pretty Positive. The son-of-a-bitch is after Sammy I know it. All these years, I've been putting it all together.”

They talk a little more, questions and answers flying back and forth for awhile before he says, “I’m going to find this thing. On my own. So if you don’t hear from me…”

“John, Sam and Dean are already looking for you! They won’t stop.”

“I’ll take care of the boys.”

The phone calls stop after that. She knows what he said but she calls his number anyway only to be told “This is John Winchester. I can’t be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help.”

Which she does. She only talks to Dean. Sam won’t talk to her, which worries her of course. It makes her wonder how much does he know. She wants to help him through this but she can’t until he’s ready.

She’s spent much of her time since they all left with one part of her just waiting for that phone call that will change everything.

So when she gets the call about Dean, she’s not unprepared. Her calmness surprises the officer on the phone. By the time she gets off the phone, she’s not calm but relieved.

She knows he’s not dead. Not with the facts he’s given her. She knows the police have got it all wrong even if she doesn’t know what supernatural force is at work.

Dean calls her when they’re on their way. It’s been two months since Jess’s death, since John last called. Three since she last talked to Sam.

“We should be there in a couple of days.”

“You’re not just coming to see me because you miss me,” she tells him.

“I…” he starts.

She interrupts with “It’s okay Dean. I’m just glad I get to see you two, get to help. Between you two and your father…”

“You’ve talked to Dad? How is he? Where is he?” The hope in his voice makes her heart squeeze.

“He called me right after Jess died. I haven’t heard from him since. It’s not for a lack of trying. All I get is that message to call you.”

“Oh,” is all he says.

“I’m not going to tell you not to worry. Just be safe. Get here when you can.” She hangs up the phone and waits like she’s been doing. Only now she knows it won’t be for much longer.

When they come she’s walking a client out.

“Alright then, don’t you worry about a thing. Your wife is crazy about you,” she tells him with a smile on her face even though she knows the poor bastard’s wife is cold banging the gardener.

They walk slowly up the path, Sam behind Dean just as it’s always been. Dean’s head high and Sam’s low, hiding behind his hair.

They, her and Dean, don’t speak. They just embrace. It’s not long enough to get the full picture but long enough to know how hard things have been.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” she says and then “It’s not your fault” as she hugs him, runs her hands up and down his back.

The only thoughts in his head: You never told her the truth. You dreamt it would happen. You left her to die.

She doesn’t let Sam tell her anything. She feeds them their first home cooked meal in forever and then pushes him towards the stairs. He protests of course, telling her they’ve got to save this woman.

She looks over her shoulder, says, “Dean, if you agree with him, I’ll hit you with a spoon.”

“I wasn’t going to!" He protests.

“You were thinking about it.” He shrugs. “Go back to the kitchen. I can handle him.”

She does though it’s not as easy as it used to be. If he ever goes to law school, those professors won’t know what hit them. They agree he’ll sleep for a few hours and then off to the old house. Just him and Dean. They’ll call her if they need her.

Dean tells her how Sam just woke up talking about his vision of the tree in front of the old house. That in his vision he sees this woman in an upstairs window screaming for help.

He looks spooked by it all and she can only imagine the looks he must’ve been giving Sam as he told him about it.

“He’s still Sam,” she tells him topping off his coffee.

“I know, it’s just…We don’t…We’re normal.”

She has to laugh. “Oh, boy.”

“You know what I mean. I mean he tells me he’s got the Shining. That he dreamt about Jess dying. About the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything and how he didn’t do anything about it because he didn’t believe it. He thinks now that he’s dreaming about this lady in our old house that it means something. That it could be the thing that killed mom and Jess.” He stops, takes a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“It could be. We won’t know until we go over there.”

He scratches the back of his neck, classic Dean avoidance move.

“Dean, look at me.” He looks up, face as neutral as he can manage. “You don’t have to go back there. I know you swore that you wouldn’t. Sam and I can probably handle this on our own.”

“No, I’m going. It’s just. The house and Dad.” He goes silent, his mind replaying the message he left. Dad? I know I’ve left you messages before. I don’t even know if you get them. But I’m with Sam and we’re in Lawrence. And there’s something in our old house. I don’t know if it’s the thing that killed mom or not but I don’t know what to do. So whatever you doing, if you could get here, please. I need your help Dad.

“He has his reasons, doing what he thinks is best to keep you safe.” She says the words, knows they are true. It doesn’t make them any easier to say since it’s not for her to do. He should be saying them himself.

He half believes her, giving her a shrug before downing the rest of his coffee. “I’m going to get some rest.”

“Okay, see you in a bit.”

She’s already waiting on the front porch when they pull up. They fill her in on what happened with the woman. Her name is Jenny.

Just like the last time she was here, she feels something as soon as she gets within a few feet. She just can’t quite put her finger on what it is.

A woman with blonde hair and worried eyes opens the door with a small boy in her arms.

She looks at the three of them, clearly not in the mood, clearly terrified but not about to show it. “Sam, Dean, what are you doing here?”

“Hey Jenny, this is our friend Missouri,” Sam tells her, voice soft so he doesn’t spook her any more than she already is.

“If it’s not too much trouble we were hoping to show her the old house.” Dean adds quickly, “For old time’s sake.”

“You know this really isn’t a good time. I’m kinda busy.” She steps back.

“Listen, Jenny, it’s important.”

Missouri stops Dean with a hand to his arm and steps between the two of them. “Give the poor girl a break. Can’t you see that she’s upset. Forgive this boy, he means well. We just need you to hear me out.”

“About what?”

“About this house.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about. You think there’s something in this house. Something that wants to hurt your family. Am I mistaken?” Jenny knows Missouri’s not mistaken. Missouri can see it on her face. She doesn’t have to read her mind.

“Who are you?” She clutches her son a little tighter to her body.

“We’re people who can help. Who can stop this thing but you’re going to have to trust us just a little.”

After a moment, Jenny steps back to let them all in before she’s telling him everything, the floodgates having been opened. They tell her and the children to have a seat, let them have a look around.

Missouri’s led by the pull of that dark energy up the stairs to one of the bedrooms. 

As soon as she steps in it, she knows. “This room is the center of it all.”

Sam asks, “Why?”

“This used to be your nursery Sam. This is where it all happened.” She sees the look on his face but presses on. “I don’t know if you boys should be disappointed or relieved but this ain’t the thing that took your mom.”

“Are you sure? How do you know?” Sam asks, his disappointment evident.

“It isn’t the same energy I felt the last time I was here. It’s something different.”

“What is it?” Dean wants to know.

“Not it. Them. There’s more than one spirit in this place.”

“What are they doing here?” he asks.

“They’re here because of what happened to your family. You see all those years ago real evil came to you. It walked this house. That kind of evil leaves wounds and sometimes wounds get infected. This place is a magnet for paranormal energy. It’s attracted a poltergeist. A nasty one. And it won’t rest until Jenny and her babies are dead.”

“You said there was more than one spirit,” Sam points out.

“There is.” It’s familiar to her. Very much so but she won’t say who she thinks it could be. It would make sense. But she doesn’t want to get their hopes up. She wants to be sure first.

“Well, one thing’s for damn sure,” Dean announces, stepping closer to her. “No one is dying in this house ever again. So whatever is here, how do we stop it?”

They go back to the house and make little bags of angelica root, van van oil, crossroads dirt, some other odds and ends. She tells them they have to be put inside the walls, in the north, south, east and west corners on every floor. She’ll take the basement, Dean on the first and Sam to take the second. It’s the only way to purify the house completely. She tells them they have to work fast since once the poltergeist gets wind of what’s happening, things are going to get bad real fast.

In the basement with its sparse light, she goes to each corner, knocking in a hole big enough to fit the bags into. In the last corner, there’s already a hole. She throws it in and a second later she’s pinned to the wall by a dresser that flew across the room.

It knocks the wind out of her, the back edge of it pressing hard into her torso. She breathes as deep as she can, pushes the thought of pain and bruises out of her mind.

She can’t move the dresser. It’s not big but the power that controls it makes it feel like it weighs a ton.

She listens to movement above her, furniture moving, Dean’s muffled voice that may be screaming for help.

The bags are what are going to save this house, this family that’s come to inhabit it for better or for worse. Still she speaks the chants she’s learned from John. Her Latin is rusty with lack of use. She does it because it can’t hurt, because she feels like she’s been pinned to this wall for way to long.

She chants as loud as she can. Every recitation stronger than the last as the once familiar words come back to her.

Then it’s over. She takes another breath and the dresser moves with hardly any effort, just the force of her breath. She makes her way up the stairs.

She finds the boys in the kitchen, food and utensils everywhere. Tables and chairs upturned. Cabinet doors open and their contents blown out.

“You boys alright?” She sees the bright pink lines around Sam’s neck, the way Dean rolls his.

“Yeah, yeah,” they tell her even though they hurt and are spooked by this whole thing.

“You sure this is over?” Sam questions.

She take a moment to listen and feel. “I’m sure. Why? Why do you ask?”

He looks around like he knows something she doesn’t. It’s quite possibly he does. “Uh, never mind. It’s nothing I guess.”

Missouri opens her mouth to ask ‘Are you sure?’ when Jenny’s voice calls out, “Hello? We’re home.” She steps into the kitchen, eyes wide at the mess, “What happened?”

Sam apologizes and offers to pay for it all. She sees the look Dean gives Sam. She tells Jenny, “Don’t you worry. The boys are going to clean up this mess.” Sam moves but Dean doesn’t. “Well, what are you waiting for boy? Get the mop. And don’t cuss at me.”

She doesn’t sleep well. She thinks about Mary’s spirit maybe being in that house. She thinks about Sam sensing something. Maybe she should’ve told him about her feeling, asked him more about his. She thinks about how Sam and Dean sit outside Jenny’s house because Sam just wants to be sure the house is clean.

If not for that, she would’ve stayed behind, tried to contact Mary’s spirit again. Really make sure the house is clean.

Turns out it’s not. Dean’s call comes early, just after dawn. He doesn’t say much, just that she needs to come back.

The minute she steps into the house she finds them standing in the kitchen looking at each other.

“The other spirit was your mother,” she tells them, all pale faced and confused. Both look like they are on the verge of tears though they would never admit it.

“You knew?” Dean asks, his voice cracking just a bit. There’s an undercurrent of anger there.

“I wasn’t sure. That’s the truth.” He looks at her like she failed him. She feels that way.

“I’ll be outside,” Dean announces, once last look at Sam before leaving.

“Tell me what happened Sam.”

With every word, she can picture in her mind everything that Sam says. How he saw Jenny at her bedroom window screaming. How he ran inside and grabbed the kids. He told Sari to take Ritchie and run out the house. “I had to stay and then I had no choice.” He talks about being drug into the kitchen, thrown around if he weighed nothing. Then being held against the wall, some invisible force trapping him. Then he sees this form on fire walking into the kitchen. He says he could hear in the distance wood cracking and then Dean calling his name. Then Dean runs in ready to destroy the figure. He told Dean not to.

“I could see Mom while the figure was on fire. Then she appeared wearing a white nightgown.”

“Like she wore the night she died,” Missouri tells him.

“She told me she was sorry. Why would she say that?”

“I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you that.”

He huffs, a cross between a laugh and a sigh. “You think my Dad going to tell me?”

“He might. When he thinks you’re ready.”

“So never then.”

She takes him in her arms, tells him to wait for her outside.

When she sits down next to Sam on the front steps and tells him there are no spirits in there anymore this time for sure, she’s hopes like hell she’s right this time.

He turns to look at her. “Not even my Mom?”

“Not even your mom.”

“What happened?”

“Your mom’s spirit and the poltergeist’s energy, they cancelled each other out. Your mom destroyed herself going after the thing.”

“Why would she do something like that?”

“Well, to protect her boys, of course. Sam, I’m sorry.”

“Not you, too.” He smiles and she has to smile back.

“You sensed she was here, didn’t you? Even when I couldn’t.”

He doesn’t answers, asks a question of his own. “What’s happening to me?”

He looks at her and she’s reminded of the little boy that would have nightmares and ask Why I gotta dream about that stuff?

“I know I should have all the answers but I don’t know.”

They both turn to look at the road; Dean and Jenny talking by the car.

“I guess I should apologize to you, too,” Sam says.

“For what?” she asks just because.

“As if you don’t know.”

She moves closer, takes his right hand in both of hers. “No need to apologize to me, Sam. I understand. I felt the same way when things started changing for me. I was a lot younger than you though.” He nods remembering the stories she’s told. “I kept my gift to myself for awhile.”

“I’m not supposed to have a gift. Hell, I wouldn’t even call it that.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Dean’s spooked and I need to talk to my dad.” He breathes out, a slow and heavy breath.

“I know. I know” is all she can say.

When they get back to the house, she’s the only one that notices something’s amiss. She doesn’t have to tell them to get some sleep. They willingly shuffle up the stairs, Sam still sad and Dean still mad.

She reads the few signs in the house, signs that lead her to the basement, light slipping under the door. The steps creak a little under her weight as she descends to find him sitting at his old desk, head in his hands.

“Where’s the truck?” she snaps.

“A couple of blocks over,” he says without looking up.

“John Winchester, I could just slap you. Why don’t you talk to your children? Hiding down here like some fool.” He’s an old fool, not that old but old enough with patches of white now in his beard and hair.

“I want to. You have no idea how much I want to see them. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I know the truth.” If she wasn’t so mad, she might soften at the longing in his voice.

“Not good enough. Those boys miss you. They need you.” She whispers yells even if Sam and Dean are two floors away. “You don’t to be a psychic to see that. I’d rather not be one right now. All the energy around them.”

“It’s going to have to be. I gotta keep them safe until I know for sure.”

She throws her hands up in the air. He doesn’t see her do it because he still won’t look at her. “When will that be?”

“I don’t know. This thing is…”

“The demon? You sure?” He looks up then, sees the spark of recognition in her eyes.

“Yeah. And I’m getting closer.”

She understands him better now. She still thinks he’s wrong. “They at least need to know you’re alive. They deserve that much.”

“I’ll call them. I promise.”

“Just stay until they wake up.”

“No. They’ll try and follow me. I shouldn’t even be here. It’s dangerous for you and them. I promise. I’ll call.”

She believes him even if she’s not completely satisfied but it’s the best she’s going to get. She knows. Plus, she’s tired.

“Now, tell me what happened at the old house.”

They fall back into old patterns easily. When she’s recounted every last detail at least once, sometimes twice, in the basement she rarely uses, he asks, “Mary’s spirit, do you really think she saved the boys?”

She answers, “I do.”

It’s their last exchange before she’s watching him disappear into the night.

When the boys leave the next day, Dean is no longer mad but Sam is still confused. Worried. She can’t blame him.

“Don’t you two worry. You’re daddy is fine. I’m sure of it. And he’s going to call. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Thanks,” Sam says for maybe the fifth time though she’s not sure she deserves it.

“Don’t you boys be strangers.” It’s a command as much as it is a plea.

“We won’t,” Dean promises before sliding into the front seat.

John calls her a week later, asks did she know, did Sam tell her while they were in town.

He’s angry at her but she doesn’t care. She tells him, not caring how loud she is, “I know you’re not mad at me. It’s not like you’re the easiest person in the world to get a hold of. Maybe if you had stuck around like I’d asked, you would’ve found out around the same time I did.”

He’s quiet a moment before he agrees, says, “You’re right. You know Dean said pretty much the same thing.” She doesn’t have to have her gift to know he hates to admit that.

“Somebody needs to tell you something. And you need to listen.” She huffs. “So what’s the plan now?”

“I told them what I know. We’ll going to do this together.”

“Good.”

The next time he calls it’s late and he’s scared. That she can tell even if he won’t admit it.

“Missouri you need to get to Bobby’s” are the first words out of his mouth.

“I’m in danger.” She turns on her bedside lamp.

“Yeah. I told you about the danger. One of them called me. Her name’s Meg.”

“Meg,” she repeats, sliding out of bed, making her way to her closet.

“Meg. She killed Jim,” he pauses, takes a deep breath. “Right in the church.”

“A demon on hallowed ground?” She can’t believe it.

“She killed Caleb, too.”

She takes a moment, one hand braced on the closet door. She’d only met each of them a handful of times, them passing through town. She’s heard about them a lot though. Stories from the boys from their time spent with them. Dean and Caleb forged a special bond over hunting while Pastor Jim and Sam did the same over books. She can only imagine how the boys are feeling right now.

“She’ll kill you, too. They’re going to keep killing everyone the boys and I know. Her exact words were ‘friends, anyone that has every helped you, gave you shelter, anyone you ever loved, they’ll all die unless you give us the gun.’”

“The Colt? It exists.” He’s mentioned it to her a few times, believing that it existed and a fellow hunter had it.

“Daniel Elkins had it.”

“He’s dead, too. Vampires of all things.”

“Yeah. It’s not important. I gotta figure out a plan but until then, I don’t want you alone. Get to Bobby’s. He’ll know what to do.”

“He knows I’m coming.”

“I called him first.”

“I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

As she packs, she thinks about her they had taken care of the house. They’d dug up the floor just behind the doors and pieces of the windowsills. They’d poured salt in the holes and replaced the wood so no one could tell those places had been touched. They’d put Devil’s Traps under rugs and furniture so nothing ever moved from its place.

She could’ve explained it though. Her customers wouldn’t have been surprised by such unfamiliar things; probably expected it of her. All she would have to do is tell them some story and they’d buy it.

She thinks how if Meg had found her first she wouldn’t have been safe in her own home. For all she knows and all the times trouble could’ve followed the Winchesters home, she’s always felt safe here.

She packs light and fast – clothes, toiletries, protection while she’s on the road. She makes sure things are turned off before she’s out on the front walk looking back at her home. She wonders when she’ll get back to it, if she ever will.

It’s a ten hour drive to Bobby’s. She’s driven the route a couple of times before. To pick up boys who needed to get back to school. To take John’s off Bobby’s hands. John’s never been the best patient and Bobby is no Florence Nightingale.

She hasn’t seen Bobby in a quite awhile. It’ll be good to see him just not under these circumstances.

The drive is long. She pretty much drives non-stop, only bathroom breaks in the most populated places she can find. She eyes every woman with suspicion having no idea what this Meg demon looks like.

The coffee, music – old school soul – and cool late night/early morning wind keeps her awake, moving down long stretches of highway with only whatever animals that own the night for company.

It’s just after dawn when she arrives, pulling up the dirt road to the house in the middle of pretty much nowhere.

It doesn’t seem like much has changed, still junkers all over the place in various states. Bobby’s old faded blue pickup is still parked out front. The house with chipped blue paint and windows that still need replacing. The only thing that’s missing is the sound of Rumsfeld, alerting Bobby to her arrival.

She hears him when she knocks. Bobby’s there a few seconds later. Rumsfeld skirts around his legs, touches his nose to Missouri’s hand. She pets him while greeting Bobby.

“Missouri Mosley. Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes?” He smiles wide.

“Bobby Singer. Don’t act like didn’t know I was coming.” Her smile matches his.

They embrace, not letting go for several moments until Rumsfeld whines about being ignored.

“Seems like old Rummy here’s missed you, too.”

“Hey, there boy,” she says, while he lies on his back. “Now you know an old lady like me can’t get down like I used, too.”

“You ain’t old because that means I’m old.”

“I hate to break it to ya Bobby.” He laughs.

“Let me get your bags. Make yourself at home. You know where everything is.”

She shrugs out of her jacket, lies it on the first available chair back in the living room. His house is so unlike her own, cluttered, dusty, desperately in need of woman’s touch. She likes it anyway. The history of the house itself and the history it holds. Books on every available surface covering all kinds of subjects related to religion and the supernatural.

The desk he always works at sits in front of a wall full of tacked up paper between two tall windows with shutters on the bottom. The room is kind of dark, with the only light being what filters in through the space not covered by shutters. She sees the open book on his desk. It’s open to some page. A black and white drawing of a Devil’s Trap stating up at her. She sits down, starts reading with Rummy by her side.

She listens to Bobby come in the room.

“Boning up I see.” She looks up at him.

“Yeah. John and those boys have stepped into some serious crap,” he tells her, sitting on the edge of the desk. He sighs as if to say ‘it’s always something.’

“Ya think?”

“In a normal year, I’d hear of say three demonic possessions. Maybe four tops. This year I’ve heard of 27 so far. More and more demons are walking among us. A lot more.”

“Do you have any idea why?” Missouri asks, not liking the sound of this at all.

“No. But I know it’s something big. A storm’s coming and the Winchesters are smack in the middle of it. We’re gonna catch hell just by association.”

She doesn’t think the expression on her face suggests what he says to her but who knows. She’s tired. “Bet now you wished you’d never let John in that night.”

She huffs a laugh. “You’d think. But no.” He laughs, too in understanding.

“You want to get some sleep?” he asks after they’ve lapsed into silence.

She looks up. “I should. John called me just as I was about to fall sleep.”

“We’ll talk when you get up. The room is the second on the left.”

It’s well after four when she gets up. Muted sunlight fills the room. She hadn’t bothered to change, just fell into bed and was sleep as soon as she closed her eyes. Her clothes feel too tight and her mouth is dry.

She showers in the bathroom with the old fashion claw tub like the one she’s got at home, then follows the smell of coffee into the kitchen. Rummy greets her first.

“Hey, boy.”

“Afternoon,” Bobby greets, mug of coffee in his hand.

“Afternoon and yes,” she says, sliding into the closest chair at the wooden kitchen table.

“Hungry?” He places the coffee in front of her. The sugar and cream, too.

“Yes. Whatever you got.”

He sets to work fixing her a plate.

“So you’re not too sure we’ll survive this,” she says as she eyes him over the cup of her coffee.

He stiffens for a second. “Hey, now. Don’t go reading my thoughts.”

“Sorry.” She waits a beat. “So.”

He moves around the kitchen warmed by the sun still high in the sky. It’s homey, old fashion in its charm. He talks as he goes.

“I know about demons. But I don’t about any demons that can go onto hallowed ground. We must be dealing with some really powerful ones. I’ve been reading up trying to find something. Hopefully, they can still be stopped by a Devil’s Trap. And that they can be exorcised. If not, we’re up shit’s creek.”

“That’s why John wanted me to come here. I don’t how to do an exorcism.”

“I’ve only done a few myself. The last one was so long ago.” He places two plates down on the table. He sits. Rumsfeld sits right between the two, perfectly positioned just in case either one of them drops some food.

“Hopefully, you won’t have to. John and boys can kill this thing with the Colt. And then this whole thing will be over.”

“John always said he thought Danny Elkins had it. The SOB was right.”

They talk some more, reminiscing, avoiding shop talk before moving on to the basement.

“My version of a panic room,” he says as he pushes open a large metal door. He steps into the space and then motions her to follow.

The space is large, round in shape, lit up by the sunlight that comes in through the ceiling. The shadow of a Devil’s trap on the floor.

“Wow, Bobby.” She’s amazed and a little taken aback. He can tell.

“I have a lot of time on my hands,” he defends.

“I’m not judging. Better safe than sorry.” She smiles at him before turning back to look around.

He tells her, “The walls are solid iron. There’s enough food and water in here to last a week.” She can see two single cots and a desk, already with books on it. “So if anything happens and you can get down here, get down here. You’ll be safe.”

“Okay,” she says although it’s not like she can’t handle herself. She can shoot a gun, wield a knife. John wouldn’t let her get away with not knowing. What if you need to defend the boys? She hasn’t done it in years though so she’s not sure how good she’d be at this point.

She remembers the first time he took out for training. First, up was learning how to shoot, a Tuesday morning when the boys were in school. They were in some empty field off a lesser travelled road out of town. It was like some scene out of the movies – tin cans placed on a rock and them some number of feet away. He stood behind her, both of their legs a little bit shoulder width apart, arms outstretched and fingers wrapped around a .22 pistol.

It’s easy. Just relax and breathe when you pull the trigger. Not hard. Just a little pressure as you squeeze.

Easier said than done so it was awhile before he stepped away and let her do it on her own.

The knife was a lot harder to learn. They both have the scars to prove it.

Three days later and the boys come. Missouri, Bobby and Rumsfeld perking up at the sound of the Impala rolling up to the house. She recognizes those looks, looks that mean they don’t know where John is and it’s killing them both.

“Your father…” she starts, hugging them both one by one after they’ve dropped their bags.

“Meg says she’s got him,” Dean tells them. “She didn’t tell us where.” He turns to Bobby. “We came here first. They probably find us.”

Confident, Bobby says, “I can handle it. I know a little something about demons.”

Dean and Sam don’t take the time to eat or rest a minute even though she insists. After awhile she gives up and joins them. They pour over the book on Bobby’s desk, Sam marveling that he’s never seen anything like it. Bobby tells him what he told her about the mess they’re in. He then leads them to the next room and looks up.

Dean snorts. “Damn Bobby.”

“You’ll thank me later” is all he says.

As Sam recounts how Meg came into their lives, he’s replaced Missouri as Rummy’s favorite human. They plan into the early evening and then expect to wait. For how long, they are unsure. They are about to turn in, except for Bobby who’s got first shift, when the sound of Rummy’s anguished whine comes. Then the door flies open and there’s Meg, a little slip of a thing with a blonde shag cut in blue jeans and a reddish/purple jacket.

Missouri could still make it to the basement but she’s rooted in place by the energy coming off of Meg. It’s not as pure and strong as what she felt walking around the Winchester property soon after Mary died. But it’s close.

“No more crap, okay?” are the first words out of Meg’s mouth.

Dean approaches Meg ready to splash her with the Holy water Bobby had given him. He doesn’t get close enough to do anything. Meg flings him into a stack of books almost as high as the ceiling. Sam steps in front of her, putting distance between them and Meg.

“I want the Colt, Sam. The real one. Right now,” she demands.

“We don’t have it on us. We buried it,” Sam lies.

“Didn’t I say no more crap?” Meg stalks towards Missouri, Sam and Bobby as they back into the next room.

“I swear after everything I’ve heard about you Winchesters, I gotta tell you I’m a little underwhelmed. First, Johnny tries to pawn off a fake gun. And then he leaves the real gun with you two chuckleheads. Lackluster man. I mean did you really think I wouldn’t find you?” Meg asks.

Dean emerges behind her, a little shaken, voice hoarse as he says, “Actually, we were counting on it.”

Meg turns to look at him, not really believing it. Dean’s look says ‘We gotcha” as his eyes travel to the ceiling. Meg follows his gaze, eyes going wide and angry at the Devil’s Trap.

“When I get out of here, you all are going to pay,” Meg threatens as she walks around the edge of the trap, making sure she locks eyes with every one of them.

“Trust me, sweetheart you’re not going anywhere,” Dean boasts, rope in hand. Sam’s got the chair and they’re ready.

“Be careful boys. You have to help the girl in there.” She tells them this as she stands a few feet from Meg. Meg turns to her, snarls.

Then she smiles. “Missouri Mosley. You were next, you know?”

“Shut up, Meg,” Sam warns as he pushes her down into the chair.

“Don’t worry about it Sam,” Missouri tells him. “That’s just the demon talking. That girl in there? She’s got nothing to do with this.”

She can hear the real Meg, the twenty-one year young woman, screaming, trapped inside her own body. She wishes she could turn her gift off, block out Meg’s pain. She’s been forced to do many evil things. She leaves the room, beckoning them all to follow.

“We got to find out where our dad is,” Dean says to Missouri once they’re all far enough away not to be overheard.

“Boy, don’t you think I know that? She’s still a human being, an innocent victim in all this.” Missouri takes a deep breath. “I’m not saying don’t do it. Just be careful.”

“There’s no way to be careful. She fell out of a window. The only thing keeping her alive is that demon.” Bobby looks at Sam and Dean. “You exorcise it, she dies.”

Dean’s the first to speak again. “We are not going to leave her like that. We’re going to put her out of her misery.” He stalks back into the room.

“You know if you wanted to tie me up, all you had to do was ask,” Meg says as if this situation something to joke about.

“Where’s our father, Meg?” Dean asks.

“You didn’t ask very nice,” Meg taunts.

“Okay. Where’s our father, bitch?”

“Geez, you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, I forgot. You don’t.” Her smile is sickening sweet.

“You think this is a freaking game?” Dean yells right in her face. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”

“He died screaming. I killed him myself,” she spits. Dean sneers before backhanding her. 

“Dean!” Missouri yells.

“That’s kind of a turn on. You hitting a girl,” she smirks.

“You’re no girl. At least not all of you.”

Sam takes that as his cue. He steps closer, John’s journal open in his hands.

“You going to read me a story, Sammy?”

“Something like that,” Dean says. “Hit it Sam.” Sam begins chanting in Latin.

“An exorcism? Are you serious?”

“We’re going for it baby. Head spinning. Projectile vomiting. The whole nine yards.” Missouri watches as Meg closes her eyes as Sam continues chanting. She grunts in pain. Then her eyes fly open. She turns to look at Sam behind her.

“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to rip the bones from your body.” Her voice is deeper now.

“No, you’re going to burn in hell unless you tell us where our dad is.” Dean is back in her face. Meg smiles and says nothing. “Well, at least you’ll get a nice tan.” Dean looks at Sam who’s stopped. He starts again causing Meg to shake.

Meg’s voice is a harsh whisper, words coming through clenched teeth. “He begged for his life with tears in his eyes. He begged to see his sons one last time. That’s when I slit his throat.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re lying because if it’s true, I swear to God, I will march into Hell myself and I will slaughter each and every one of you sons of bitches so help me God.” Dean means it. Missouri knows he would find a way.

The air in the room changes, gets colder, stronger, flipping pages in books the more Sam reads.

“Where is he?”

“You won’t just take dead for an answer.”

“Where is he?”

“Dead.”

“No he’s not,” Dean yells, spitting in Meg’s face. “He’s not dead. He can’t be.” Under the anger, Missouri hears the fear. The sound of a child that can’t stand the idea of losing his father.” Sam stops and looks at Dean. He’s afraid it’s true and afraid for Dean. “What are you looking at?” Deans snaps. “Keep reading.”

Meg screams in pain. The chair moves of its own accord in the circle, the harsh sound of wood on wood filling the air as well. She stops, bending at the waist as if to catch her breath.

“He will be,” Meg shouts. “He will be after what we do to him.”

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Dean questions.

“You don’t.”

“Sam,” Dean says at the same time Missouri says, “She’s telling the truth.”

Meg continues. “A building, okay? A building in Jefferson City.”

“Missouri? Where? An address?”

“I don’t know.”

“And the Demon we’re looking for, where is it?” Sam asks.

“I don’t know,” Meg says. She looks on the verge of tears, some of the real girl slipping through. “I swear. That’s everything. That’s all I know.” She bends at the waist again.

Missouri repeats, “She’s telling the truth.”

“Finish it” is Dean’s only response as he walks around her bent form.

“What?” Meg screams.

Sam interjects. “We can still use her. Find out where the demon is.”

Missouri tells him, “She’s doesn’t know.”

Sam’s disappoint is clear in the look he gives her, the deep breath he takes before he starts again. Meg shakes from side to side so violently. Harsh turns of her body. Her eyes go black. All this before her head goes all the way back. She screams, a thick rush of black smoke pushes out of her mouth towards the ceiling. There’s so much smoke. It seems to go on and on. Missouri expects it to fill the room but instead it disappears into the vents.

The last wisp of it leaves Meg’s mouth, then her head drops, chin to chest. Drops of blood fall onto her jeans. Everyone is frozen in shock, even Bobby who’s seen this kind of thing before. The room is so quiet for several long moments.

Missouri inches toward Meg, knowing she’s still holding on. A touch to her shoulder and Meg slowly lifts her head. There’s blood around her mouth, coming out of her nose.

“Call 911. Get some water and blankets Bobby,” Missouri orders. “You two get over here and untie her.

“Thank you,” Meg whispers.

“Ssh, ssh. Take it easy, honey.” Missouri soothes as best she can.

“Come on, Sam, let’s get her down.” Meg moans in agony as they hear bones crack. They lay her down on the floor.

Sam tells her, “We've got you. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Meg tells them, eyes on Missouri, who has Meg’s head in her lap. “It’s been a year.” She says it twice. “I’ve been awake for some of it.” She coughs up some blood. “I couldn’t move my own body. It was a nightmare.”

“Was it telling us the truth about our dad?” Dean asks.

“Dean,” Sam admonishes.

“We need to know,” Dean responds, cutting his eyes at Sam.

“Yes, but it wants you to know that they want you to come for him.”

“Dad’s still alive. None of that matters.”

Bobby comes back with water and some blankets. He hands the glass to Dean and a blanket to Sam. Meg can hardly get the water down.

“Where is the demon we are looking for?” Sam asks, clearly now agreeing with his brother.

“Not there. Other ones. Awful ones.” She grimaces in pain.

“She doesn’t have much longer,” Missouri tells them.

“Where are they keeping our Dad?” Dean asks.

“The river. Sunrise” are her last words, a whisper.

“Sunrise? What’s that mean? What’s that mean?” Dean asks, panic in his voice.

“She’s gone,” Missouri says as she closes Meg’s eyes.

Missouri closes her eyes, says a prayer for Meg’s soul. She’s always been on the periphery of the supernatural. Most of the time anyway. She’s never been close enough to see someone die.

By the time she opens her eyes, she's alone in the room with Meg’s body. Voices coming from the next room.

She can’t bring herself to leave just yet, so she stays kneeling, cradling Meg’s head in her lap, knees starting to hurt but she doesn’t care.

When Sam and Dean come back in, they come over to her.

She shakes her head at them. “I’m fine. Fine. You two be careful now. Promise me.” She can feel the tears spilling down her face.

They promise before kissing her goodbye.

Soon after the front door closes, Bobby’s back.

“So the paramedics aren’t coming?”

“Nope,” Bobby admits. “I’m good but not that good.”

“Her parents need to know what happened to her.”

Bobby sighs. “We’ll figure something out.”

Turns out there aren’t many options that won’t have the cops asking a whole lot of questions. The simplest option they determine is the best. They leave her body on the side of the road far enough away from Bobby’s and close enough to town. They cover their tracks as best they can.

They bury Rumsfeld under his favorite tree.

She stays a few more days, reading the local paper for word that Meg’s been identified. On the fourth day, the story is on the front page again. It says her parents, Marshall and Sara Masters, are coming to claim the body.

She hasn’t been home more than twenty-four hours when Sam calls.

“Missouri” is all he says.

She stops in the middle of the stairs, takes a seat. “Oh, baby, where are you all?”

Sam’s never been one to not cry. So most of what he says is choked, his sobs breaking her heart: Car wreck. Demon. He shot it. Dad hurt. Dean in a coma.

“Sammy, you need to get yourself looked at.”

“I’m all right.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

She hears the breath he takes. “It’s just Dean and Dad…Compared to them.”

“Just tell me where you are.”

She makes the drive on pure adrenaline. In all her years, it’s never been this bad. By the time they’ve gotten back home, the worse was always over. She’d always scold them for not calling. And they’d always say they didn’t want her to worry. Which was ridiculous. She always worried. She’d be some kind of monster if she didn’t.

Hospitals don’t bother her, the smell of antiseptic doing its best to cover up the smell of sickness and death. She’s been in them enough – her mother, father, various clients over the years. It’s the patients that get to her. So much energy in one place, most of it not good. It can get to be too much. It takes a lot from her to be able to block out most of their thoughts, to be able to do whatever she came for.

She makes her way to John’s room first. It’s empty, no real sign that he’d ever been in there. Just that someone had, the sheets messed up and the bed still warm. She figures he’s probably in Dean’s room along with Sam.

Dean’s room isn’t that far away, just four doors down the hall. John’s not there and neither is Sam. Dean’s there alone, his skin pale and cool to the touch, his freckles standing out.

“Oh baby,” she says aloud to him not sure if he can hear. She can’t hear him and it scares her. She stands hovering over him for awhile before she finally takes the only seat in the room, a chair under the window. She pulls it close and takes a seat, dropping her bag and jacket on the foot of the bed as well.

“I’d hoped I’d be gone before a day like this,” she tells him. “I hoped but in your and your daddy’s and Sammy’s line of work I didn’t really know if hoping was going to be a waste of my time or not.

“I don’t know where your daddy is or Sam. I’d think they’d be here hovering over you, driving the doctors crazy. I’d hate to think what’ll happen to those two without you. You and me, we were always a team in keeping those two in line.”

She smiles, takes one of his hands in hers.

“Oh Dean, why can’t I hear you? I know you haven’t left us yet. Not you. Not without a fight. Remember when you used to get sick?” She laughs. “You were the worse. Never wanted to stop long enough to rest. Didn’t believe half the time you were sick. Boy, many a time I wanted to put a little whiskey in your orange juice. Put you down for awhile. You’re daddy wouldn’t let me though. Surprisingly enough since he always looked like he wanted to pull his hair out.”

She laughs again then stops because soon she’ll be crying. She’s not ready to go there.

“You better pull through. And then you better not scare me any more this year. You’ve reached your limit. Cops think they got you. Sammy calls and tells me you’ve been electrocuted. Now this? I don’t know if your daddy had this many close calls in a year.” She sighs. “Who am I kidding? He probably did. I just never heard about them. I know when to stay out of someone’s head.”

She goes silent, the only sound in the room the machines beeping to keep him alive. She’s not sure how much time passes before Sam comes in.

“Sammy.”

“Missouri.”

There’s always been strong energy around all of them. Now she can’t feel Dean’s and Sam’s is almost too much. When they pull apart, she doesn’t let him go completely, slipping an arm around his waist even has she feels everything so completely.

They are both looking at Dean when he asks, “Have the doctors come back in?”

“No. No one was here when I got here either.”

“Dad’s up to something. He told me to get some things from Bobby but wouldn’t tell me what’s it for.” He turns to her, clearly angry. “Dean’s dying and he’s still keeping secrets.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

He turns back to Dean. It isn’t long before John enters the room.

For a man involved in a serious car wreck, he looks pretty good. He’s got a couple of scrapes on his face. Blood stains his shirts. One arm is in a sling. He’s not as well of as Sam but he’s better than Dean. It kills him that he’s not the one in the coma.

“Where were you?” Sam starts in, taking a step to move towards John.

“Sam,” is all she says and he stops. She walks over to John, hugs him, shuts her eyes at the knowledge that’s seeping through. He’s warm and solid under her hands. Heart beating steadily against her own. She breathes in his scent, what’s always been him underneath the smell of sweat, blood, ash and gun oil.

“I’ll miss you,” she finally whispers.

He doesn’t speak but he knows he feels the same. He thinks she’ll take care of the boys better than he ever could.

“You did your best,” she tells him.

When she finally pulls out of his arms, he smiles at her. She will truly miss that smile. “I’ll be outside.”

She stands just outside the door. She listens to the sound of John’s voice, the last time she’ll ever hear it. She can’t decide if she’s smart or stupid for not going back in there. It’s not like she can do much.

It’s final. The deal’s been made. Lord only know the consequences if it’s broken.  

She leans against the wall, it doing most of the work of keeping her upright. Her eyes are closed to keep the tears where they need to stay for the moment.

When Sam steps out of the room, his head is down. He looks startled to see her. His eyes are wet. When she looks at him, she can’t stop a few stray tears. She wipes her face when she says, “How about I go with you to get that coffee?” He only nods.

Missouri links her arm through his and they walk. His head’s a mess over John’s words. The last thing he said being You did good Sam. Real good. Sam had been almost out the door when John stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He squeezed it, smiled proudly. Sam had smiled back.

The elevator doors are about to close when he says, “It felt like goodbye.” He looks at her for confirmation. She won’t, can’t lie.

“Shit!” 

The doors open on the next floor and he’s off the elevator, pushing past whoever’s in his path.

She helps them get the body out, handles with paperwork, runs interference even as she deals with their silent accusations.

They find a field and burn the body. Still they stand shoulder to shoulder watching his ashes float heavenward.

Still they come home with her. Sam goes straight upstairs. Deans wants to talk. He follows her into the kitchen.

“Did you know?” he asks if though he really wants to say ‘You knew.’

She’s putting the kettle on when she answers. “About Sammy? Yes and no. About what your daddy was planning? I did only after he came into your room.”

He looks betrayed. His voice is low, dangerous even and she knows how he’s managed to make it thus far beyond his training and instincts.

“How could not tell us?” He stands in the middle of the kitchen, a few feet away from her at the stove.

“I wasn’t so sure about Sammy. Your daddy?” She sighs. “I don’t know what to tell you except, he loved you two more than anything. He wanted to do that. Save you, protect you the only way he figured he could. A man on a mission.”

“He shouldn’t have done it.”

She doesn’t know what to say so she asks, “Are you going to tell him?”

He just looks at her and doesn’t answer for a long time. She almost wants to say ‘See? It’s not so easy.’ She doesn’t though. Just closes the space between them and takes his hand in hers.

Dean doesn’t cry except when he does. She pulls him close, his shoulders shake and the sound of his sobs fill the air.

There’s nothing to bury but she gets a headstone anyway. She puts it right next to Mary’s. It’s the right thing to do; what he would’ve wanted.

Sam and Dean aren’t there to see it. But she knows they’ll come back one day.

She sits a long time staring at the two headstones, letting her tears fall and talking to them, not caring how she looks.




THE END