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Even in this strange new world, Mary never expected to be riding shotgun on the way to a birthing party. Much less a hunter’s birthing party. Sam and Dean looked pleased though and had held up a steady stream of conversation the whole two hours they’d been travelling, tossing names she didn’t recognize back and forth.
“So, how do you two know...Audrey was it?”
Dean sent his brother a smirk in the rear view mirror. “Well we don’t, but uh, Sammy’s girlfriend-”
“Dean, we’re not dating. It is possible to have female friends-.”
“I’m not complain’n or nothing. I’d love to call Eileen family if you two wanted to-.”
Sam groaned and Mary felt his knees knock into the back of her seat. “Anyway, Audrey and Carlos are some of Eileen’s friends, but they’ve been out of commission for the pregnancy, which is how we ended up meeting her working solo on a hunt in Lebanon.”
“And now,” Dean interrupted. “Audrey’s been a little freaked out about something coming after her while she’s vulnerable. Won’t even go to the hospital. She’s got a midwife she’s known for ages and wants a detail to keep an eye out while she’s in labor. That’ll be any day now.”
“I see,” Mary said quietly. “Anyone I would know showing up?”
“Don’t thinks so,” Sam admitted. “A lot of good hunters, experienced hunters, were wiped out in the last decade. What with the apocolypse, Leviathin-”
“Excuse me, Leviathin?”
“Long story,” Dean grunted. “Short version; A lotta shit hit a lotta fans.”
“There’s a new generation of hunters though. They’ve had to grow up fast, either because their parents were hunters and got taken out or were just in the line of fire. Krissy, Josephine, Aiden, Claire, Jody-”
“I met her,” Mary jumped in. “At Asa’s wake.”
There was a moment of silence as they recalled the insanity of that night.
“It’ll be nice,” she reasoned, “a baby.” She looked at her palms and was aggrieved to realize she barely remembered what it was like to hold baby Sam anymore. It was only a few months for her, but Mary could feel the years since her death like a phantom limb.
She settled for watching her two grown boys, possibly older than she was, joke about meeting old friends and betting on the gender of the baby.
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By the time the Winchesters pulled up to the cabin and found a place to park amongst the beat up trucks, muddy jeeps and gleaming motorcycles, the sun was setting and the party was going strong.
Salt line, silver knife, devil’s trap and holy water, all checks to make it through the door. Sam immediately left them, saying he’d promised to put up some enochian wards alongside the mosaic of other symbols decorating the wall, clearly done by various hunters with different protections to offer.
“Dean!”
A long haired brunette squeezed between a pair of exuberant looking rough and tumble hunters.
“Dean, it’s good to see you,” the woman said, her speech surprising Mary as much as the hand gestures she made as she spoke.
“Good to see you too Eileen,” Her son’s eyes crinkled in the corners and she could tell his smile was genuine. “This is- I know it’s going to sound crazy-”.
“Mary Winchester?” Eileen interrupted. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Sam has talked a lot about you.”
“Oh,” Mary said, shaking the offered hand. “I’ve hear about you too. Nice to meet you.” She noticed how closely Eileen followed the movements of her lips and she probably over enunciated her words, if Dean’s side eye was anything to tell by. But Mary was woefully out of her element.
Eileen just smiled, taking both their hands into her own. “Let me introduce you to the expecting mother.”
Audrey was a strawberry blonde, freckles smattered heavily across her nose and covering her arms from knuckles to shoulders. Her stomach was larger than Mary’s ever was and her dress pulled tightly around it. Stormy blue eyes ringed with dark purple bags turned to them, a glass of what smelled like apple juice in her hand.
“No, let me guess,” Audrey said as Eileen opened her mouth. “You,” she pointed at Dean, “Are...Sam Winchester?”
“Close,” Dean smirked. “But I’m the better looking brother.”
“Dean then! I’ve heard about you Winchesters for years, never thought I’d have the chance to meet you though. Good work on that nest in Shenandoah back in April, I heard you cleared it out in six minutes flat.”
“More like ten, but thanks, and glad to be here. Babies don’t happen everyday in this life.”
Audrey smiled sadly at that. “Too true. Ah, where are my manners, Carlos- where’d he get off too that silly man...over there, the one with the hat, that’s my Carlos. We’ve put off having kids for about 8 years now. We wanted to take out the ghouls that got his sister’s family before we started our own. And here we are.”
Eileen patted Dean on the shoulder. “I’m going to find Sam, but I’ll be back.”
She fled through the crowd.
“How are you feeling?” Mary asked. “Prepared? I’m Mary by the way.”
Audrey shook her hand, laughing exhaustedly. “Nice to meet you Mary. I’m ready to pop, after that I’m not too sure. But as you can see,” She waved her glass at the room in general, more than a dozen of hunters gathered around the fireplace guffawing and back slapping, each one clearly packing. “I’m a wee bit paranoid.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” was Dean’s immediate response. “We’re gonna keep you safe though, Audrey. You focus on becoming a mom.”
Audrey smiled deeply and wiped a tear from her eye. “Right, well, now I’m being hormonal. Thank you both for coming, Sam too. Help yourselves to a drink, we’ve only got sparkling cider and juice though, to keep everyone on their toes.” With that, she excused herself.
“Alright then,” Dean said after a moment. “Want to meet a few people?”
Mary spent the evening shaking hands, toasting old friends, and making new ones. Krissy Chambers hugged Dean tightly and told him about how she’d dumped Aidan, who Mary guessed was the sullen teen across the room who kept sending mournful glances in their direction, and how Josephine got a cat.
“Not like, a siamese or a tabby cat. She got a serval.”
“A what?”
“Look, I’ve got a photo.”
She spent some time speaking to Jody Mills about how she and Mary’s boys met. Five minutes listening to the woman and she felt more connected to her than she had with any other woman besides her Mother.
“It’s tough,” Mary whispered. “Suddenly being the parent of grown children.”
“Claire and Alex had already been through so much before I even met them,” Jody said, swirling her sparkling cider in the glass.
They had taken front door duty and were seated in decorative, but cozy, chairs, clearly out of their normal space to be set up in the foyer.
“It's taken years to connect with Alex. The hell she went through growing up... I could never understand, no one can really. But we’ve worked things out. A few bumps here and there but I know she’s going to be okay and that’s the most important thing.”
“Is she here?” Mary asked.
“Nah, she doesn’t want to have any more to do with the things that go bump in the night if she can avoid it and I don’t blame her. She’s looking at colleges with a few friends right now. Claire is here though. She’s just over...there, with Alicia and Max.”
Mary ached at the sight of the girl. Dean had briefly mentioned the Claire but Castiel, in a sleepless night’s conversation, had spoken fondly of her. How he worried for her but had failed her so completely that he didn’t really know where he stood with her.
She had hoped for a daughter. Expected Sam to be one, not that she held it against him. But Mary had dreamed of brushing a little girl’s hair and dressing her up for prom, having mom and daughter nights out...
“Now Claire, she’s a whole other animal.” Jody broke through Mary’s daze. “Claire wants to hunt full time and thinks college is pointless. I’ve had to re enroll her twice already. I wish I could get her to understand that I’m not telling her she can’t hunt. Just that she should have a...a…”
“Back up plan?” Mary offered.
“Exactly. I was hoping to get Sam to talk to her about it a little, what with his time at Stanford.”
That hit Mary hard. “Stanford? Sam went to Stanford?”
Jody looked at her with big eyes. “Uh, yeah. He didn’t tell you?”
“I knew he went to college for a little while, but he never said anything about Stanford…”
The dark haired woman shifted her posture in the chair uncomfortably. “Well uh, yup. I believe he said Pre-Law, which was a hoot, let me tell ya.” She looked Mary hard in the eye, freezing her to the spot.
“You, Sam and Dean. You all need to sit down and talk. Have you had the chance to yet?”
“No,” Mary admitted and swallowed hard. “I’ve not...I haven’t been around too much. I needed some time to figure all this-” she waved her hand about flippantly, “out. I know I need to spend some real time with them. Isn’t that crazy? I don’t know my sons.”
Jody’s hand landed on her own, warm and assuring.
“If there’s one thing Sam and Dean have taught me about life, it’s that there’s always something a little crazier just around the corner.”
Mary snorted, “Cheers to that,” and they clinked their flutes of sparkling cider together and took a swig.
“Oh, Dean found the baby.”
“What-”
Mary turned to look across the room where Josie was looking and felt her stomach fluttering.
A little ways from the cluster of hunters Dean was swaying with a bundle of periwinkle blue blankets, lips moving as the corners of his mouth tugged upwards.
“Tamara’s,” Jody explains and stands up.
“Hey Mackey! Keep guard for bit will ya?”
A gruff, curly haired blond rolled his eyes and a few of his friends followed him over. Jody didn’t introduce them to Mary but nudged her up and guided her in Dean’s direction.
“-He’s teething,” A dark skinned woman was telling Dean, British. “Gone through about a hundred binkies in the last two months.”
“I can tell,” Dean was chuckling, and has they approached Mary realized he was letting the baby chew the tip of his little finger. “Sammy never took to binkies. He sure could shred a washcloth though. Still, he was strictly a pinky baby in the car.”
Her stomach was fluttering again, somewhat more sour. She wanted to know more. She should know more. Her baby Sam had loved his binkie. Another thing that that must have changed after the fire.
The baby cooed at Dean, smacking his chin, and Dean made such a ridiculous face that she had to laugh.
His goofy expression shuttered, but he pulled a weak smile. “Mom,” glancing to the couple beside him, “This is Tamara, an old friend, and her husband, Rodney.” Looking down he added, “And this little man is Isaac.”
His voice was distant but he began to sway with the baby again, looking as though it was to calm the child as much as it was to calm himself.
“Tamara, this is my mom, Mary Winchester.”
Tamara was sizing her up and it had her straightening her posture and fighting a scowl. She smiled tightly instead.
“You Winchesters,” Tamara said quietly. “Are truly remarkable.”
Dean handed baby Isaac back to his mother after a little more conversation, looking reluctant and lost on what to do with his hands.
Mary watched Dean from the corner of her eye, As Jody conversed with the couple and Tamara tucked her child back into his carrier,
“You’re good with him. Kids too. You seem to have a lot of them looking up to you.”
Dean snorted. “Yeah, well. I learned pretty fast with Sam. Had to.” He rubbed his nose and crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. “Teens are all the same, they just want approval. Recognition. Especially when it comes to other hunters. The trick is to make them realize you’re on their side no matter the odds. Really throws em for a loop too.”
It occurred to Mary her son was giving her parenting advice. She turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Nothing. You grew up good. Wish I’d been there for it.” Her eyes burned a little.
Dean shifted from one foot to the other. “I had that once. Or, well. Kind of.”
She looked at him in askance.
“Djinn.”
“Ahh, well.”
“Yeah. You were alive, Sammy was living the good life. Dad had passed away, but you were holding up fine. But me, I was a jackass.” He smiled, laughing at himself.
She didn’t know what to say to that.
“Not that, I mean, I’m not saying if you’d been there I would have grown up a jackass. I mean, I’m still kind of a jackass anyway, What I’m trying to say is-”
“I get it,” Mary interrupted. And she found she really did.
A wail echoed through the house and was followed by silence.
Her son turned to her and said, “looks like the real party is about to start,” and winked. “Got my bets on a girl.”
Mary smirked back. “Bet you fifty bucks it’s twins.”
“You’re on.”
A thirteen hour vigil ended with squealing twin girls.