#millibell

Heaven was different here, Mary decided as she surveyed the rolling fields, straining her eyes to make out a building of some sort in the distance. It was less bright here than in the other place, she thought even as she shaded her eyes from the sun, the colours less washed out. Everything seemed more real, somehow, and if Cas’ words were anything to go by, at least the people were real. Not just memories of those she had known in life, but actual, breathing- well, maybe not breathing, or living, but definitely existing humans.

Speaking of Castiel, he stepped up next to her, hands in the pockets of his trench coat, which billowed slightly in the breeze.

“What do you think?” he asked, taking it all in himself, even though he must have seen it a thousand times by now.

“Well, I haven't seen much of it yet. And the others... you said everyone here is a friend of Sam and Dean?” Mary asked, trying to hide her anxiousness, but feeling herself biting her lower lip.

After a moment of consideration, Castiel said: ”Mostly, yes. They've never met Bill Hargreeves, but we could hardly exclude him when his wife and daughter are here.” He stopped again for a moment, glancing at Mary before facing away again. “He's one of those who are only tangentially connected with Sam and Dean. And we've been thinking of bringing more people here. When we have more open plan Heavens, everyone can choose where to go, but for now Jack wants to give everyone who he has met or heard of before a preview, so to speak.”

Mary smiled. “He's a good kid.”

Again, Cas looked at her, but this time his eyes didn't leave again. “You do remember what happened, right?”

“You mean how I died?” Mary sighed. “Yeah. I should have backed off, shouldn't have crowded him like that. Should have known he wasn’t himself, that he couldn’t control himself.”

“It was orchestrated to happen, I think,” Cas said, looking sad.

Right. Because his father – the actual God – had meant for it to happen. Because he had toyed with everyone's lives, most of all those of the people surrounding her sons.

“That's over now, right? Free will actually means something?” Mary shifted uncomfortably. Ever since dying again, she had been remembering more and more about her own life, especially about those first few years with John.

He hadn't been sweet on her, as she’d always told herself. Not at first.

She hadn't been sweet on him either.

As of yet, she hadn't asked anyone to confirm, but she wasn't stupid. If she and John had to have children in order for them to be perfect vessels or whatever, it stood to reason that Heaven would have interfered in case of any hiccups.

Like the two destined people not liking each other.

“Yes, it's over now,” Cas said gently.

While he could be quite blunt at times, which she also appreciated, Mary had come to find that Cas could be very sweet when dealing with people he liked. Mostly, she'd seen it directed at Jack. Sometimes at Dean or Sam.

It felt a little odd to be included in this intimate circle. Not that it felt bad, but did she really deserve to be looked at by him like that?

Perhaps he was just extending his gentleness to her as a favour to Sam and Dean.

Just like everything in her life, and even her after-life, was connected to Sam and Dean.

But there would be time enough to chew on that. For now, all she could do was step forward, and see where it would take her.

Literally.

She started walking towards the building in the distance, leaving Cas to contemplate the field.

The building turned out to be a bar called The Roadhouse, a somewhat ramshackle wooden place, but with a homey feel to it. Its inhabitants seemed to be varied – there were the Hargreeves, a family of hunters, and Bobby, though not the one Mary knew. But there was also a young man named Ash, who talked like a hippie and was apparently some kind of genius regarding computers or the internet or something.

Then there was a man named Rufus, who would gripe at Bobby, and he would in turn roll his eyes and gripe back.

From what she was told, not everyone had known each other in life, though everyone knew at least someone there, except for Mary.

Then someone else walked in. A blonde woman around Mary’s age, a little smaller than her, with a petite frame. She was accompanied by Jack, who gave Mary a somewhat sad smile, but proceeded to introduce the mystery woman.

“This is Kate. She's Adam's mother.” When no one said anything, Jack frowned. “Oh right, you probably don't know who Adam is.”

“Wait,” Bobby said, stepping forward. “Adam as in... John's other kid?”

Mary froze. John's what?

Kate's face grew clouded. “He's my son. John...” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Was anyone going to tell me that John had other children?” Mary asked, and regretted the sharpness in her voice when Kate looked at her with wide eyes.

“I only know about the one. And last I checked, he was still in Hell,” Bobby muttered.

“He was where?” Mary gaped at him, and Bobby looked away.

“He came back. Together with Michael,” Jack started explaining, but hesitated when Mary turned to stare at him. “Not that Michael. Another one. A... better one. Kinder.”

Bobby huffed. “'Kind' ain't a word I'd use for him, kid.”

Jack contemplated this. “Maybe he wasn't like that when you met him. And maybe you need the comparison to the other Michael to use that word, but... He's been helping. We wouldn't have come so far without him.”

Mary shook her head in disbelief. This other Michael really must have been very different from the one she'd met.

“Whatever. But you said...” Mary turned towards Kate. “Your son is John's...” She couldn't continue that sentence.

Kate looked at her curiously. “Yes, John is his father.” She pursed her lips. “Even if he barely deserves that title, after what he pulled him into.”

“He didn't do it on purpose,” Jack said cautiously. “He couldn't have known what role his sons were meant to play in Heaven's plans.”

“No, but he could have told us that monsters exist. He could have been there and protected us.” The bitterness was evident in both Kate's voice and on her face. “But of course, he couldn't be bothered. And we paid the price for it.”

Mary looked at her for a long moment. Another woman disappointed by John. Another son he had failed to raise properly, who he had not been there for.

This one, he had apparently messed up by not making him a hunter.

“It's difficult,” she heard herself say, “to know what to tell your children. Or your spouse. If you tell them, life as they know it will be over. The world will suddenly be a dangerous place full of monsters.”

“The world has always been a dangerous place,” Kate said coldly. “And the monsters were there anyway.”

“Sure, but what do you think the world becomes when you tell a five-year-old that the monsters under his bed – or in the closet – are real?” Mary had to take a deep breath and force herself not to think of her own dad.

She couldn’t quite keep the image of a blade shining in the glow of her night light out of her head.

But Kate was having none of it. “Adam wasn't five. And neither was I! Hell, John never knew Adam when he was five. He was eleven by the time he got me to cave and call his dad. And John... what? Forgot to tell us he was hunting monsters instead of being a truck driver? He lied to us.”

“He was protecting you,” Mary said softly.

“Bullshit,” Kate said sternly.

Behind Mary, Bobby snorted. “Now I know where the kid gets it from.”

“Well, I think we can all agree,” Rufus said, getting up from his chair and drawing everyone's attention, “that John Winchester was kind of an ass.”

Ellen Harvelle made a sound of protest while Jo laughed in disbelief. Bobby glared at Rufus.

“You never even met him,” Bobby said gruffly.

“Yeah, but from what I heard, he was a real ray of sunshine.”

Mary sighed. Bobby and Rufus were starting to remind her of those two old muppets. She couldn't currently remember their names, but Dean had loved them as a kid.

“Well,” Bill said, “Rufus ain’t completely wrong.”

Ellen swatted him with a dish towel and shook her head, but she was smiling.

“John was a lot of things. Complicated. Stubborn.” Mary heard her own voice hollowing out on the next word. “Angry. Righteous. Easily obsessed.” She let out a mirthless laugh. “I guess he fit right into the family.”

When she shook herself out of her reflections and looked around, everyone was giving her pitying looks.

Great.

“Anyway,” she muttered, turning back to Kate. “I'm not trying to defend John's character. But not drawing your son into the hunting life... that definitely wasn't one of his worst decisions.”

“Yeah,” Kate said, but her eyes were cold. “I bet the monsters that ate Adam and me thought it was a great move.”

Mary had to close her eyes as she winced. “I'm so sorry.”

When she opened her eyes again, Kate was giving her a calculating look. “You were his wife?”

“Yeah.” Mary hesitated. “For a few years. And then I died.”

Kate weighed her head. “This might be insensitive, but you don't look that much younger than me.”

A weak smile appeared on Mary's face as she tried and probably failed not to show her sadness. “I was 29 when I died the first time. But when I came back... well, let's just say I suddenly had a lot more back pain than I used to.”

Kate stared at her, mouth slightly open until she managed to close it. There was pity in her eyes, now, too, and Mary gritted her teeth and turned away.

“My boys,” she said. “John turned them into hunters. Monster killers. They lost their home when I died and instead of finding another, John dragged them from motel to motel. He went where there were monsters to kill, and he took Sam and Dean with him.”

When she glanced at Bobby, he looked like he wanted to say something. But the moment their eyes met, he looked away.

“They deserved better,” Mary continued. “They deserved to be kids.”

Kate's face was unreadable.

Behind her, Jo sat a bottle of whiskey down on the bar. “This sounds like a topic for drinks.”

Mary didn't know how they had gotten there, but a couple of shots in, Kate and her started talking about their kids.

“You should have seen the look on Adam's face when the coke reacted to the Mentos. He was so convinced that it was magic, and that I was somehow the most powerful magician in the world.” Kate giggled. “And when I told him it was science... I ended up having to tell him all about molecules.”

Mary smiled, and sipped her whiskey. “How old was he?”

Kate snorted. “Six.” She shook her head. “I didn't even know the word molecule at that age. But Adam had no problem understanding that the world was made up of particles so small that we can't see them with the naked eye.” She sipped her drink. Mary had already forgotten what it was, but it was blue and had a little umbrella in it.

“Sounds like you raised him right,” Mary said.

Kate's smile became sad. “I tried. But he mostly raised himself. Next to my work, I barely had enough time or energy to even take care of the house, much less him.”

Mary frowned. “Where did you work?”

“Hospital. I was a nurse.” Kate looked at her sheepishly. “That's how I met John. He came to the ER. Guess I should have known back then that he was lying when he talked about having fallen out of the door of his truck. But...”

Mary felt the corner of her mouth lifting up. “But he was charming,” she said. “And you wanted to believe him.”

“Yeah.” Kate glanced at her again, seeming surprisingly sober now. “I guess you know what that's like?”

The smile on Mary's face was sad, and she took another sip of her whiskey to hide it. “My fingers and toes aren't enough to count how many times he promised me he'd pull himself together. That he wouldn't get angry at every little thing, and wouldn't vanish again for days on end.” She swirled the amber liquid in her glass, then put it back down on the bar. “I wanted to believe him too.”

“You're not defending him anymore,” Kate said matter-of-factly.

Mary shook her head. “I never meant to imply that he's done nothing wrong. He definitely has, and not too little.” She grimaced. “He screwed up my boys. But then, I screwed them up some more.”

“It's hard, being a mother.”

“They saved the world,” Mary said, pride and sadness warring in her voice. “Is it bad that I wish they could just be safe and happy?”

“That's what every mother wants for her kids.” Kate put a hand on Mary's back. It was warm, even through the layers Mary was wearing. Maybe it was because they were souls here, and didn't have actual bodies.

“The worst thing is that I understand it.” Mary picked up her whiskey glass and Kate dropped her hand. The spot on Mary's back where it had laid instantly felt cold. “John's actions, I mean. Not so much the revenge, but... The demons came after me, what stopped them from coming after Sam and Dean? They needed to learn how to protect themselves.” She drained her glass in one big gulp. “Even if that meant putting a knife in a five year old's hands.”

She smiled at Kate, but she could feel that her eyes were dead.

“Don't get me wrong. I can understand it – but that doesn't mean that I can forgive it.”

Kate weighed her head. “They might have died if they had led a normal life. Like Adam. Maybe not at his age, but eventually.”

Mary thought about it. Heaven had had an eye on her boys since before they had been born, she was pretty sure. They wouldn't have gotten away.

Kate was right. They would have just gotten dead.

“I guess it's useless to dwell on it,” Mary eventually said.

Kate raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, well, I'm still going to punch John if I ever see him again.”

Mary couldn't help it – she laughed.

It might have been hours later, or maybe days. It was difficult to tell time in Heaven, Mary thought as she kept drinking with Kate. Sometimes, Ellen joined them for shots, and Mary talked to Bobby and Rufus for a hot minute, but mostly she and Kate sat together in what was sometimes companionable silence and at other times animated conversation.

And then John walked into the bar.

Mary might not even have realised it, if everyone around her hadn't progressively grown silent. Bobby grumbled something under his breath that sounded like a curse while Ellen looked calculatingly between John, Mary and Kate.

When John's eyes fell on Mary, they widened. He took a step towards her, a smile forming on his face - and then he saw Kate.

“What-”

“Hey John,” Mary said, and downed the last of her whiskey in one go. The sound of the glass hitting the wood was loud in the silent Roadhouse. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah,” John said, his eyes flitting between Mary and Kate. “Mary-”

“What, you think it's awkward because Kate is here? Don't worry about that. I was dead, it's not like you cheated on me.” Mary shrugged. If they were going by that, she had also cheated on him, with Ketch and those others.

She had thought that having sex would help her feel better. No, that wasn't quite right – she had thought that it would help her feel young again.

Of course, it had done quite the opposite. It had just shown her how different her body was to what she’d remembered.

John smiled again, though a little more timidly, and took another step towards Mary. He stopped when he saw the expression on her face, and his eyes flitted down to where she had her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Sweetheart?” he asked, his smile wavering.

“Don't 'sweetheart' me,” Mary hissed. “You made my boys into hunters, John.”

John's eyes widened for a moment, and then he frowned. “How do you even know-”

“Never mind how I know. You put a gun into Dean's hand when he was a little boy. He never got to be a child because of you!” Mary felt tears stinging her eyes as she spoke, and tried to will them away. Maybe she was being hypocritical, using this against John when Dean had hurled it at her.

It had been her fault that she had died, after all. She had made that deal with the yellow-eyed demon, and she hadn't been strong enough to fight him when he had come back.

But it had been John's decision to go down the path of revenge, and to take his two small children with him.

“Mary, after you died...” John trailed off, closing his eyes, then tried again. “We had to get the thing that got you.”

“And then what?” Mary shook her head, and took a step back when John tried to come towards her again. “You made my sons into killers. They're never going to have a normal life, and that's on you. You did the same to them that my father-”

She broke off, and had to look away.

A warm hand laid down gently on her back as Kate stepped up next to her.

“You made those boys into soldiers, John,” she said with an authority that made her seem tall, even though she was half a head smaller than Mary. “And you failed to even tell me or Adam that there was danger out there.”

“Kate-” John started, but she took a step forward, interrupting him.

“Nineteen, John. That's how old my boy was when he was ripped apart by-” Kate was audibly holding back tears. “-by those monsters.”

John's face fell. He hadn't wanted any of this, that much was clear. Who would?

But that didn't excuse it.

“Kate, listen. I just wanted him to grow up feeling safe, grow up normal-”

“Well, he didn't! He didn't grow up at all! Feeling safe is all well and good when you are safe, but not when there are monsters out for your head because your father killed one of them before!” Kate was seething again. By now, Mary knew that she hadn't personally witnessed Adam's death, but she had certainly heard about it – and all that had followed his death.

He was doing fine now, or at least he seemed to think so. It was difficult for Mary to wrap her head around the whole thing with him and that other Michael, but then Kate wasn't doing all that better on that front.

“Kate... I didn't know,” John said, and took a step towards her.

She shook her head, her pretty blonde hair flying. “No, you didn't. And that's the point. You thought you knew better than anyone else, that you had the right to keep these things from us, to do whatever you wanted. Well, guess what.”

Kate positioned herself right in front of John. Even though she was small and petite, and had to look up at him, he instinctively cringed back.

“You're not the arbiter of who gets to live in innocence and who doesn't,” she hissed.

John squared his shoulders. “Kate, with all due respect, but you don't know anything about what it means to be-”

He never got to finish that sentence, because Kate's fist collided so hard with his face that his head was thrown to the side, and he stumbled and fell to his knees. Now Kate was standing over him, all righteous fury, her fists trembling.

“With all due respect, John, but you're the one who doesn't know anything. You barely even knew us, but even you should have realised that neither Adam nor me are some kind of delicate flowers who need you to protect us from harsh truths. All you did was put us in danger by association, and not even tell us about it.”

Mary walked over while John struggled to his feet. In the back of her jeans pocket were the brass knuckles which were one of the first items she'd bought on Earth.

Just as John had stood up again, she punched him right in his stupid face. He went down like a wet sack of potatoes.

“That one was for Dean's childhood,” she said coldly. Then she kicked John's head. “And that one for Sam's.”

John didn't move. The Roadhouse was silent.

Finally, Jo said: “Is he... dead?”

“We're all dead, kid,” Rufus answered, and noisily slurped his whiskey.

Kate crouched down and felt for his pulse. “He's alive – as much as any of us are,” she said. Then she glanced up at Mary. “What should we do with him?”

Mary shrugged. “Let him lie here, I'm sure he'll wake up eventually.”

Kate nodded, and stood. “Sorry for the mess,” she said to Ellen.

“No worries. Bobby, Rufus, why don't you help the ladies get him outside, huh? He’ll just be in the way in here.” she said.

“What do they need our help for?” Bobby groused. “They handled him just fine so far.”

“And I'm sure they're quite out of breath from it, so go make yourselves useful.”

Bobby and Rufus grumbled about it, but heaved John's body out of the door, and threw him off the porch.

Kate winced when she saw it. “Now I almost feel bad for him.”

Mary raised an eyebrow at her.

“I said almost.”

Mary smiled, and put a hand on Kate's shoulder. “Do you know if we got houses around here?”

“Oh, yes. Mine isn't far, just behind the forest. Jack showed it to me before he brought me here.” One of Kate's hands came to rest on top of Mary's. “Would you like to see it?”

“I would love to,” Mary said, and was surprised at how soft her own voice sounded.

“Then come.” Kate took her hand and pulled her outside, past John's still unmoving form, and towards a patch of woods which Mary hadn't noticed before.

There were fairy lights hung between the trees, and mushrooms littered the floor that looked like little houses. Mary wouldn't have been surprised to see a Smurf popping out of one of them, or a fairy flying by among the trees.

“I love my house here. It's everything I've ever dreamed of,” Kate told her as she led her through the forest, still holding her hand. “I suppose it's kind of childish, but... it looks magical, there are nooks and crannies everywhere, and it even has a little tower in one spot. Oh, and there's a conservatory. Perfect for sitting in it on a nice day, which seems to be most days here. Or even on a rainy day, really, since it's always warm enough in there. You know, I can imagine…”

Kate broke off, a light dusting of red on her face.

It was utterly adorable.

“You can imagine what?” Mary prompted.

“I can imagine, uh… sitting there naked. Could be very freeing, being without restraints, you know.”

Mary squeezed her hand. “Maybe we could do that together some time.”

“Yeah?” Kate asked, turning towards her, and squeezing her hand back.

“Yeah.” They had stopped walking now, and Mary leaned in a little so their breaths mingled. “I'd love being unrestrained with you.”

Kate's eyes flicked down to Mary's lips, then back up to her eyes. “I have to warn you, though.”

“Hm?” Mary made, barely able to keep her hands – or mouth – to herself.

Kate leaned in further, so she was whispering against Mary's ear: “I bite.”

Mary shivered, and grabbed one of Kate's shoulders, as if holding on for dear life.

Being unrestrained inside a conservatory sounded like a lot of fun.