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.