#contentnatural

In such a small town, just a few blocks from home, Mary didn’t often see people she didn’t know, and she really didn’t see people like that.

Mary met Frances - properly met her - on the first day of their junior year.  Mary remembered thinking that the other girl could be mistaken for a boy if it weren’t for the way she smudged out her eyeliner and the deep red pigment she had imperfectly swiped over her lips.  

It was only a few weeks later that Mary found out Frances (or Frankie.  She prefers Frankie.) would have enjoyed that confusion.  

Mary didn’t want to like Frankie.  The girl made her uncomfortable, made her think too hard about her own girlhood, made her address parts of herself that she’d worked hard to shove away.  

Mary did like Frankie though; she liked how the girl wore chunky boots even though she was tall enough without the added height.  She liked how Frankie wore makeup like the other girls but didn’t wear it like the other girls.  

Being like the others - Mary wanted it and hated herself for wanting it.  But Frankie?  Frankie had fun, loving every moment on the fringe.  She said things Mary feared, and she said them with a smile.  

Frankie watched the boys and said things like, “dontcha ever wish you could be like them?” and Mary felt smoke filling her lungs and blotting out her response.  

They were watching football practice, but in a different way than the girls above them, the girls sitting on the bleachers and cheering when the boys finished a drill.  Mary and Frances were watching with a tint of green, green like bronze rusted.  The rosy-colored tinge they should be watching teenage boys with had patinaed into strange, unexamined jealousy.  

Mary didn’t like how it felt, the envy instead of lust, so she tore her gaze away from the quarterback and refocused on the other girl.  

They were watching football practice, but they were really watching each other, hiding under the bleachers and passing one of Frankie’s cigarettes back and forth, sharing the silence as much as the smoke.

Frankie caught Mary staring and pulled in a breath, pushing out hazy rings to rub in Mary’s interest.  Frankie liked being watched as much as Mary liked watching.  

Mary liked how it felt to get caught staring, feared how it felt to get caught staring.  She didn’t realize she was still staring as she contemplated the feeling.  

Frankie finished her cigarette and asked Mary if she’d finally take her shooting soon.  She had been promising for months, ever since Mary used her hunting-for-animals excuse after she showed up with a few noticeable scrapes from a job with her dad.  

Mary jumped on the distraction, glad her staring went unnoticed or at least untouched.  That weekend, they’d go that weekend, and Frankie said sure and that she’d come by in the morning.  

Mary had a hard time falling asleep that night.  Excitement or nerves or both or something else unexamined. 

Over breakfast that morning, over eggs and toast carefully prepared for Samuel by Deanna, Mary mentioned with her feet swinging underneath the table that she had a friend coming by.  

She ignored her parents’ exchanged looks, barely noticing them through her giddiness.  They asked her friend’s name.  She told them.  They must have thought that Mary’s got some lanky, awkward, pimply seventeen-year-old boy on his way to the house; they must have pictured how they’d scare the kid into treating Mary right.  The confusion made Mary giggle. 

She didn’t want to correct them.  Her parents expected Frankie to be some boy down the lane.  She didn’t correct them.  She thought it was funny, thought Frankie would think it was funny.  

When the doorbell rang an hour later, and Deanna went to answer it, it wasn’t so funny anymore.  Deanna did not look like she was laughing.  Mary was not laughing either. 

Frankie could always get Mary out of her head so quickly.  At least away from the part of Mary’s head that her parents liked to lock her in.  Mary and Frankie rolled around to the back of the house, to the shed in the corner of the property with its chicken-scratch warding and devil’s trap on the floor (uncovered and bizarre, surely to Frankie).  Mary forgot that Frankie shouldn’t see - the other girl always brought down her walls before Mary could realize they were there for a reason.  

Frankie just raised an eyebrow, not too shocked, only observing the way she did.  Mary yanked a shotgun off the wall and slammed the door shut before Frankie could see anything too weird.  

Frankie looked at Mary, watching.  Taking everything in.  Frankie looked at Mary’s hands where they wrapped around the shotgun the same way that they watched the boys when they practiced their tackling.  Mary could feel the heat, the jealous green-flame.  She liked the way it burned. 

The two girls made their way out to the woods.  It was hunting season, so the sounds of gunshots wouldn’t be alarming to anyone nearby.  Not that anyone was nearby.  

Mary grabbed her bag, yanking it off her shoulder and loving how the clinks and clangs of the glass hitting inside drew Frankie’s gaze again.  They worked silently, an understanding passing over them as they lined up the bottles.  

One of ‘em had about two shots of Jack left in it, and so Mary giggled and offered half to Frankie.  They drank, sharing swigs from the same bottle.  Mary knew what Frankie’s lips taste like then, even if only because they tasted the same, whiskey wet on their tongues. 

Mary shot twice first, practiced in a way that made Frankie whoop with glee as the bottles burst in line.  Mary lined up a third shot before thinking twice, smirking tight and secretive as she looked back to Frankie.  

Frankie told her she looked good like that, the words falling out ready and raw in the autumn air.  

Mary blanked and blushed and rushed over to crowd the gun into Frankie’s hands.  Mary could deal with the shotgun; she couldn’t deal with the spoken truth.  

But Frankie didn’t stop speaking.  It was all questions then, which Mary could answer.  The girl asked how she should stand; is this right?  Hands like this?  Fingers here?  Thighs far enough apart?  Stance correct?  Feet planted right?  Chin angled like this? 

Mary could answer, but that didn’t mean she would.  She remained silent the whole time, correcting Frankie with gentle touches.  Mary put her hands on skin where Frankie’s clothes didn’t cover, feeling the heat through the fabric where they did.  

Frankie’s first shot missed.  It was way high - the recoil took her by surprise.  She swore and stumbled back into Mary’s body, leaning into the way Mary caught her by the waist.  

Her second shot clipped the neck of the fourth bottle, spinning it off its branch-perch and knocking the fifth bottle as well.  Mary asked if Frankie was aiming for that one or the third.  

Frankie laughed and shrugged, went in for a third shot before Mary was ready, but she made it.  With a solid shot through that third bottle, a laugh punched out of the two girls from the impact.  

The gun was quickly forgotten in the celebration, placed carefully on the ground and stepped over as Frankie crowded Mary away from their homemade range.  

Mary could see the way that Frankie was trembling.  The adrenaline, probably.  It could do that.  Mary felt herself shaking; that had to be why.  

“I liked that, Mary.  Liked that a lot.”  

Mary did too.  “Yeah.”

“I like you a lot, Mary.”  

Mary did too.  “Yeah.” 

Frankie was just a foot away.  Twelve measly inches.  Mary couldn’t close the gap.  

“You too, Mary?”

“Yeah.” 

Frankie looked away, twisting her neck to look over her shoulder at the bottles, two remaining on the branch.  

“Think you could shoot those from twice as far this time?”  

“Yeah.”  

Frankie laughed, throwing her head back in the carefree way she did, running off to grab the surviving bottles and set them up further back.  Mary was left in her wake, frozen in place as she watched, rosy-tinted stare rusted green with jealousy again.  

They hunt separately a lot these days, trading the kids back and forth between them. It would probably be safer to drop the kids off with Ellen, or to ask Bobby to take care of them, but after what happened to Bill, and it being on John's head, Mary has been reluctant to ask for help. She used to leave Dean and Sam at the Roadhouse with Ellen and Jo, even took up hunting with Bill for a few trips. It's her fault Bill and Ellen even trusted John enough to partner up with him.

She's not really sure that John can be trusted for much anymore. She's left Dean and Sam with Bobby and Rufus for a time, just so long as she's following up on this lead. She didn't want them to be staying with John when she found out if she was right about all of this.

It's 1991, and she's in Windom, Minnesota. According to some hunters that Mary met at the Roadhouse on her most recent stop through, January of last year had had her husband out here in the cold, and some are saying he met a girl out here. Some are even saying that girl's had a son by now, and rumor more that the boy is John's by blood. She isn't sure how much time John spends running his mouth if there's enough to know all of that about him, but he must do that more than parent their children, or even see her. He's still mad. That's fine. It's not like she much wants to see him anyway, just wishes he was around more for the boys. Especially now that there might be three of them.

She's not out here to confront Kate Milligan. She's out here to check her out. If Dean and Sam have a little brother, they might should see him from time to time, even if their Daddy doesn't. So she needs to know what Kate's about. If she'd even be okay with meeting the wife of the man who fathered her child. Wife. Even thinking that word about herself feels a bit too far left of center. She's someone's wife. It's been near enough to fifteen years that it shouldn't bother her anymore. It's not like they're gonna be celebrating any anniversaries together, so it's not like she has to be worried about the milestone.

"Are you Kate Milligan?" she asks this of a nurse that's prettier than Mary has sense, because she knows the answer. Kate Milligan, attending nurse at Windom Area Health, and she looks just like the picture on her driver's license, if a few years older. God above, she's beautiful. Kate narrows her eyes, but she's got a little smile on her face like she's more curious than suspicious.

"That's me. Who's asking?" she says, a chart knocked against her hip and held against her like a high schooler might carry their books. Everything in Mary's head runs right out her ears.

"I think we might have something in common," she says, biting down on the inside of her cheek. All of this trying to find Kate, she never thought of how she would actually have this conversation.

"Oh?" Kate asks, eyebrow raised.

"The father of our children," Mary blurts out, and she closes her eyes hard. That is not how she meant to come out with this, if she had thought about it at all. She'd thought about asking Kate to lunch, maybe, unveiling her real reason for being in Windom slowly. Instead, Kate looks at her in alarm.

"Excuse me?" she says, the smile completely vacating her expression.

"John Winchester. He's. Well. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Mary Campbell Winchester," Mary says, and she watches the realization roll over Kate's face.

"He told me that his wife was dead," Kate says, sitting down in one of the waiting chairs in the hall of the hospital. Mary sits down next to her.

"He would. We're still married, though. And..." she pauses, reluctant, but Kate keeps that steady look on her, "We have two kids. Boys. Dean and Sam." In an effort not to confuse, she doesn't mention that they used to have a son and a daughter; they're her boys, now. If anyone tries to say anything different (even John, especially John), she'll rip their head off. Kate's fingers are digging into her chart.

"I named him Adam. Mine. In case you didn't know," Kate says, and it's lovely, because Mary hadn't known. Adam's name had been left out of the rumors she heard, and his birth certificate wasn't available at the resources she had assessed. Adam. First man. First son of Kate Milligan.

"It's a beautiful name," she says. It reminds her a little of her brother; he had taken notes of baby names he had wanted to use one day, written them all out on recipe cards when he had started doing kitchen work, and he would like the name Adam, she thinks. Brian Joseph has been dead for almost six years. She still misses him like an ache in her chest. Kate looks at her sideways.

"I think so too," she says reluctantly about the name, and then, "If you aren't... if you're not pissed to high hell, why are you here? I mean, I'd be pissed. I'd come knocking on my door, barging into my work, because I'd be madder than hell, but you- why are you here, Mary?"

For a moment, Mary doesn't know either. The question makes her thing about something of herself that she doesn't know she's ever looked at before. She had never even thought of being angry at Kate, mad all over at John, but not really at the mother of her sons' brother. Kate didn't do anything wrong.

"He told you I was dead, Kate," she says, trying out the taste of the other woman's name in her mouth, and she tries not to let the pull of it go to her head.

"I fucked your husband," Kate says, and then she covers her mouth with both of her hands. Mary bursts into laughter unbidden, probably one of the most raucous laughs she's been able to give in a while, actually. It's a bit too loud for the hospital fair, but it's nice to feel something nice for once. And it not be about her boys, though this kinda is, it's just nice to feel good with an adult. If that makes any sense.

"I don't mind at all, really. It's not like I own him, and even if I was the possessive type, I'd still be more mad at him than you. You didn't do anything wrong, Kate. I'm here because your boy and my boys are brothers. Seems like it might be a good idea for them to meet, you think?" she asks, and she doesn't know how to make Kate aware of how much she wants this without spoiling all of it. Adam deserves to know his brothers. Her boys deserve to know him. Now that they know about each other, it'd be kinda shitty to keep them apart, so far as it seems in her head. Kate gives her a narrow eyed look.

"Oh are you sure? I don't know how old your boys are, but Adam is just a baby-" she starts, but Mary cuts her off.

"Dean'll love a new baby. I don't know that Sam's ever been around one except Joanna Beth, the daughter of a friend of mine, but he's a nosy kid. He'll be all about anything or anyone new. Dean is twelve, Sam is eight. If you want to take this slow, or if you don't want the boys together at all, it's best you tell me now. I didn't mean to take up all your time on shift today; I was planning on introducing myself, asking you to coffee and heading off. I'm sorry to have dumped all of this on you while you're at work," she says, looking down at her lap for a moment. She didn't mean to waste Kate's time, honest. She just got caught up in it.

"Well, it does suck for this to happen on the clock, but I met John while I was on the clock too. I might as well meet his wife just the same way," Kate says, and Mary can't help but wrinkle up her nose. Wife. God above.

"And as for the boys... I think it'd be okay for them to meet. For you to meet Adam, too. I'm just not sure about how fast to go about it- Adam's barely met anybody since he came home from the hospital. I've never had anyone to socialize him with, and siblings, especially older siblings, are proven to help the development of infants and toddlers. It's-" Mary can't help it. She interrupts. Again. She doesn't know that she's ever been so interrupting in her life.

"Proven to help the development? You did research about siblings, didn't you?" she asks, and this feels far too close to a way in, way too close to Kate wanting this too. Even if it's in that terribly nurse way, it's still something. It's still a start. It's not even a bad thing to think of it that way, to approach things with that precise logic. Mary finds herself more and more fascinated by the prospect of spending more time with Kate.

"I did research on only children, not really on siblings- I grew up with a brother, and I wanted to make sure Adam would be... that he'd be okay alone. Just me." Kate's voice is quiet toward the end there, her expression pulled together as she looks off somewhere into the middle distance. Mary can see the same pain in Kate that she feels in her chest every single day.

"You grew up with a brother?" Mary asks, just to get the straight of it, just to make sure. Kate's eyes snap back to Mary's, holding her gaze for a moment before she speaks.

"He passed away when I was sixteen. Seizure in his sleep. He was my best friend," she explains simply, still in that too-quiet and far away tone, even when she's looking right at Mary. Mary reaches out for Kate's hand.

"I'm so sorry. I grew up with a brother too. He's been gone now for six years," she says, and Kate holds her hand a little tighter.

"I'm sorry," she says, and Mary squeezes back.

"So, let's let our boys have their brothers, what do you say?" she offers one solid time, and Kate smiles.