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Mary hummed and rocked Sammy gently in her arms. It always took him longer to go back to sleep after his afternoon feeding but he was especially fussy today. “Do you want me to call Daddy?” she cooed. “You always calm down when Daddy talks….”
Sam wasn’t quite old enough to talk yet but he seemed to calm down just at the mention of Daddy.
“Alright, alright, let me call him…”
Still bouncing her baby in her arms, Mary walked over to where she left her phone and swiped to call her husband. It only rang twice before he answered. “Hey, sweetie,” she said, putting the phone on speaker. “Sammy’s having a hard time going down. Do you think you could talk to him?”
“Of course.” His voice was warm over the phone lines. “Sammy, I know you’re just fussy because you’re growing. But you’ve gotta give Mama a break sometimes. She could use a nap too, yaknow?”
Already, Sam was yawning.
“That’s my boy. You be good and take care of your mom. I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”
Mary smiled. “Alright, I think he’s ready to go down now. Thank you.”
“Anytime, dear. You get some rest too, okay?”
“I will. Love you.” She hung up and turned to put Sam in his crib, where he finally went down peacefully.
Mary sighed and pocketed her phone before going downstairs to make herself some lunch.
Sometimes, she couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have a life like this. Then again, it never would’ve happened without a little help.
6 Months Ago
“No.”
“Mary-”
“No, I won’t do it. What you’re asking- It-It’s too much.”
“Mary, please calm down.” Antonia Bevell looked down her nose from her seat at the head of the table. “It’s not as if we’re asking you to kill them. We just need you to reign them in. They don’t even have to agree to work with us, just get them to stop working against us. It will make things easier for everyone, truly.”
“You really think I can make them do that?”
“You're their mother, aren’t you?”
“Are you forgetting the part where I died almost 30 years ago? They don’t know me, I don’t know them, I haven’t even lived with them for the past month and- And you think they’re going to listen to me?”
“If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Winchesters,” Mick Davies said, “it’s that they put family above all else. You may be the one person they will listen to.”
Mary scoffed. “They put family above all else, but they put each other above even that. And after what you did to Sam-” she glared at Toni “-there’s no way in Hell they’ll back down. Not as long as they’re alive, at least. Unless you want to brainwash them or something, which I’m sure you can do. Probably got an arsenal of mind control spells in your library.”
“We’d like to avoid the nuclear option,” Mick stated. “If you’re unable to convince them, we may have to go that route.”
“Now, now, Mick,” Toni said. “No need to threaten the woman; there are other routes we can take.”
“Like what?” Mary asked.
“You mentioned brainwashing,” Toni said. “While that is certainly within our skillset, we try not to use it unless absolutely necessary. It’s effective but not foolproof and things get messy if they break through conditioning. But there are…milder methods of affecting a person’s mind.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You don’t really like hunting, do you Mary?” Toni smiled at her. “You only tolerate hunting for us because we’ve promised you a world without monsters and you want to make that happen. And that’s commendable, truly. But there’s a reason you ran away with John. There’s a reason you made that deal with Azazel all those years ago. You don’t want to hunt. You just want a happy, safe little family.”
“Toni,” Mick warned.
“So what if that’s what I want? What does that have to do with what we’re discussing?”
“There are just as many hunters that fear Sam and Dean as hunters that respect them,” Toni continued. “Hunters that fear joining forces with us for fear of angering them. If they were put out of commission, so to speak….”
“I assume you mean in a way that doesn’t involve killing them,” Mary said, eyebrow raised.
“Of course,” Tonie agreed. “It’s perfectly within our ability to make Sam and Dean into that happy family you desire. The spellwork wouldn’t be too complicated, though it would need to be reapplied every now and then to maintain it. We could remove their memories of hunting and leave only your devoted, normal sons for a happy normal life,” she promised. “We could even take it a step further, really make them your children again. That’s a bit more complicated but-”
“Is that true?” Mary asked Mick. Toni could promise the moon but Mick was the practical one. If he said it was true….
Mick sighed. “We don’t like to but, yes, we could. We’d need to get permission from back home but…yes. If that’s something you’d want, we can make it happen.
“Would you like that, Mary? To have your family back?” Toni asked
Mary stared at the wood grain of the table as if it would give her the right answer to this question.
Of course she wanted her family back. It was all she’d wanted since she was first brought back. But she couldn’t have that. Her husband was dead, her sons were all grown up and living as hunters, and she was 30 years out of time in every way.
But if there was a way…. “What would I need to do for this to work?”
Toni smirked. “Just feed your boys a special little potion our boys have cooked up. It’s easily consumable, can be slipped into a beer or a pie with barely any after taste. We’ll take care of the rest. Get you a nice house to stay in, even stable employment. All you have to do is take care of your family. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
It all sounded too good to be true. It probably was. But she wanted it. She wanted her family back. She wanted to be a mother. She wanted to live a normal, safe life. She didn’t want her boys to have to worry about monsters day in and day out.
“I’ll do it,” she said eventually.
Mick sighed. “I’ll start the paperwork.”
Toni grinned. “Perfect. Now, let’s talk about what you want out of this….” She steered Mary out of the meeting room and down the hall toward a lab.
Mary answered the rest of ehr questions in a daze. She couldn’t believe it. She was finally getting what she wanted. She was getting her family back.
Present
After his nap, Mary set Sammy down in his playpen and went into the kitchen to check on dinner. It would be ready for when her husband came home but she had to make sure it didn’t burn down the house first.
After checking the oven, she checked the time. 30 minutes until he came home.
She spent that time wandering around the house doing last minute tidying until she heard the unmistakable rumble of the Impala. She smiled and turned toward the front door, ready to greet her husband.
Dean Winchester opened the door and smiled wide when he saw her. “Hey, honey. How was your day?”
“Perfect,” Mary said, greeting him with a kiss. “Sammy was a little fussy but I think that’s just growing pains. How was your day at the shop? Busy?”
“Yeah, but I guess I can’t complain. Just more money to spoil you two with.”
Mary chuckled. “You’re too sweet. Go clean up; I’ll have dinner ready in a moment.”
“Sure thing; let me just say hi to Sammy first.”
SHe watched him to into the other room and went to the kitchen to make a last minute touch to dinner. She took a small purple powder shaker down from the very top cabinet above the fridge and sprinkled it over the roast, then in Sam’s fruit puree. That would be enough to keep them under for a few more months. Then, she plated it. It looked perfect, as always.
“Dinner’s ready!” she called.