Fic: The Road To Heaven Bestrewed With Amaranth (5/??)
Title: The Road To Heaven Bestrewed With Amaranth (5/??);
Author: Rinienne;
Rating: overall R for language, violence, blood and sexual themes;
Genre: romance, adventure, time travel;
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel (pre-slash), Bobby, Sam, Jesse Turner, OFC;
Beta: eridanie;
Spoilers: The fic starts from the middle of season 6 and alternates the end of it, but also has spoilers for 7x1;
Word Count: WIP (3840 this part);
Summary: Sometimes life gives us a chance to turn around and see where you went wrong. Such opportunity was given to Dean and Castiel in a form of a young girl who appeared out of nowhere. Who is she? Where did she come from?
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Half-blooded
March 2011;
“The search for the Logos took us all around the world and Heaven, but in the end we were able to find it, and with its power we were able to overcome the forces of Raphael and his army.”
Mary was reading from a piece of white parchment, moving her finger over the neat lines of enochian symbols. When she finished she raised her head and looked over the company sitting in the room and looking at the girl expectantly.
“The Logos… like in ‘En archē ēn ho Lógos, kai ho Lógos ēn pros ton Theón,’ Logos?” Sam raised his eyebrow.
“Like in where?” Asked Dean not even looking up. He was holding a bottle of cold beer pressed to his forehead - the older Winchester had a headache the whole morning.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was god; John 1:1... ” Sam answered sighing.
“I thought that John was talking more about something abstract, like the ideology.” Bobby commented rocking in his chair behind the desk.
“As the journal describes, Logos is an actual book. God created it before he started to work on the World trying to describe everything he had planned for it.” Mary started to explain in her own words “But the Logos isn’t just a notebook with sketches and ideas. It’s the world’s most powerful artifact and you were able to get a hold on it and defeat Raphael in my time line.”
“This is a straight-forward blasphemy” Groaned Castiel. Since the very moment the angel had appeared, Castiel was quietly standing in his favorite spot in the corner of the room next to the book shelf, half leaning on its wooden side. He was making it obvious he wasn’t interested in anything the girl was saying. Mary herself could read perfectly every tingle in his grace noticing how it was reacting to every word she was saying, how tense the angel became when Mary mentioned Raphael. “The Logos was nothing but an idea, if the Logos were a book I would know about it.”
“Good point.” Bobby noted.
“Well,” Mary shrugged her shoulders. For all the time she had spent with young Dean and Castiel (although for Castiel the word “young” wouldn’t actually work) she had realized that stubbornness was the main character flaw for both of them. At least this time she had something to prove she was right. “Take a closer look.” She held out the parchment to the angel with a cheerful grin on her face, like it was the one million dollar lottery ticket.
Castiel cautiously stepped towards the couch and took the paper from Mary’s hand. For several moments his eyes were running thought the text before they finally returned to study her. “Where did you get it?” He asked.
“The same place as your sword.” Mary sighed. “You gave it to me.”
“What is it, Cas?” Asked Sam.
“This…” The angel looked at the parchment again. “This is my handwriting. I wrote it.”
“Well, isn’t it a good thing, then? Now you have a clue how to beat your power-crazy brother.” Bobby proposed.
Castiel didn’t reply, instead continuing to examine the paper.
“ I think we should go.” Sam added as he stood up from his place, tapping the surface of the table with his hands. “Still have the Campbell’s archives to check on. Dean, let’s go.”
The older brother only groaned in response, shooting an annoyed look his brother’s way as he took a sip from his bottle.
“I don’t understand” Castiel said suddenly, still frowning over an entry from his own journal. “Why would I compare Dean’s eyes with myrtle leaves from a branch, which for some reason he presented me on a Sunday morning?”
Dean choked on his beer.
***
Mary was laying on a couch in the study gazing aimlessly at the celling. Dean and Sam had left to check the Campbell archive in order to recover some books, and Castiel hadn’t seen any reason to stay, leaving Bobby and Mary alone at the house. Bobby was cooking something in the kitchen and Mary was yet again dying of boredom. The trip to the mall for clothes was the only time she had been allowed to go anywhere but the house or the backyard. Then again it wasn’t like she actually had anywhere to go since all her friends had been left in 2029.
She missed her own time. Even though she had always wanted to find herself in the center of a great adventure like the ones her parents and uncle had been on, she still found herself loning to see the people she had left behind. Now she wasn’t even sure if she would ever be able to return, to stop her father from opening Purgatory and freeing the Leviathans, to fix everything and set everything right.
Mary turned to her stomach and freed her wings. She wasn’t worry about Bobby walking in on her like this because the older hunter couldn’t see them anyway. The girl twitched her nearly healed wings and opened herself a little to allow a thin thread of heaven’s power to connect with her feathered appendages. She wasn’t taking much, not because she was afraid of the host noticing her, since it was too small an amount, but because the more power she had - the more difficult it was to hide her angelic heritage and she couldn’t allow anyone to know yet, before she was sure Castiel would stop working with Crowley. On the other hand she was also afraid to be completely drained if something bad were to happen.
Her phone suddenly began ringing. Mary reached for her bag and extracted a thin device moving it closer in order to see the caller ID. Two things suddenly occurred to her: first was that the number was hidden and there was only one person in the universe who would call her from a hidden number, and the second was the fact that it was actually her phone ringing - the one which shouldn’t have a signal in this time line.
Mary jumped into a sitting position and accepted the call.
“Hello?” She said in a whisper since Bobby wasn’t too far away.
“Hey.” Was the answer on the other side, the voice calm and low. It was very quiet and mixed with a white noise and it was nearly impossible to hear, but the fact was that Jesse Turner found a way to call her through time and dimensions. Mary knew that it was impossible even for a cambion like Jesse, unless he found a way to get enough power.
“Jess. How?”
“It doesn’t matter. How are you? Found your dads?”
“Yes… and I’m fine. And… you did it again… why?”
“Because when you’re done there, someone needs to pull you back.” The voice sighed.
“Not this way. We can find another solution!” Mary whispered in annoyance.
“First, I would love to see you try to find one, because I bet that vial of Castiel’s grace was empty before you even reached 2011, and I know you understand that you can’t take the grace of the Cas you’re currently hanging out with, and you will never have enough power on your own to make the second jump. Second, you’re not my mother or my wife so don’t tell me what to do.” The end of the sentence was said in a higher tone revealing the fact that Jesse was getting angry. Mary had seen him angry and she hadn’t liked it.
“How many will it take to pull me out?” she asked, rubbing her forehead with a hand.
“Fifty.”
“Fifty?”
“Thousand”
“You understand that’s like the population of a whole town? Where are you getting them?”
“I have my ways.” Jesse explained. “Save this call and press call back when you’re ready.”
“You need to stop.”
The call ended with a beep making Mary shudder, the sound was too loud compared to the half-demon’s voice.
“Or I will have to stop you…” She added, closing her eyes and squeezing the phone in her hand. The image of Jesse killing a demon and sucking it up into himself was still fresh in her mind even if it happened nearly a year ago in her time. The way his eyes turned black for just a split second.
“What, boyfriend problems?” She heard from her left, and turned her head. There, leaning on a doorframe that lead to the kitchen, stood Bobby with his arms crossed over his chest. “So, what was all of that about?”
***
April 2029;
Mary fled from the house as fast as she could and as far as she could. She wasn’t powerful enough to fly with the speed of an angel, but when after several minutes she finally stopped, she found herself on a lonely empty beach somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. It was cold here and the heavy rain was falling from the sky in pitchforks. Mary didn’t have any warm clothes, but she could use her grace to warm herself, not to the point she would feel comfortable, but it would at least allow her to not freeze to death. The humid air smelled like salt and snow and she could see mountaintops covered in white close to the horizon, so most likely she had fled over Canada and ended up near Alaska without realizing it.
Mary was crying but her tears were quickly mixing with the rain and washing away. She found a lonely rock close to the shoreline and climbed up to sit on it, pulling her knees close to her chest and wrapping them in her arms. One of her hands was still clenched around the vial Castiel had given her before his death.
Her cell phone started to ring playing the same melody Dean had always had on his own phone, without even looking at who it was she flipped it open and brought it to her ear.
“Where the hell are you?” Jesse asked angrily.
“I Have no idea. Somewhere close to Alaska, I suppose.”
She heard the half demon groaning but then he calmed down and continued: “I felt what happened. Came to check on your house and it was gone - ruined flat. Can you snap me a picture of your surroundings?”
Without even replying Mary moved the phone from her ear, took a picture of the mountains and sent it to Jesse. Next second she felt the rain stop pouring around her and a warm blanket touch her shoulders.
“Sam and his wife are okay. I hid them well.” continued Jesse standing next to Mary, “I did have to put Sam to sleep though, since the bastard was too stubborn. Aithne and Don are out somewhere in Texas hunting. I doubt those things would go after them. Ben and Clair are also not of interest to them I think.”
Mary finally turned her head to look at the man standing at her left and looking into the horizon where the ocean met the sky. His short dark hair was waving slightly in the wind, along with his long black coat which gave him this air of romantic mystery. Mary knew very well that it was only the air, and Jesse was not actually romantic or mysterious.
“Any ideas about what to do?” Jesse asked her finally, moving his gaze from the ocean and fixing his gray eyes on her.
“My father said that I should return to the beginning.”
“Time travel won’t help - this thing didn’t come from our universe.”
“What do you mean?” Mary inquired.
“I mean that we will have to pull something more serious in order to throw you through realms.” Jesse sighed. “Hold on.”
The cambion kneeled next to the girl and carefully gripped her under the arms and knees. The next moment Mary found herself in a random motel room which smelled of mold and tobacco sitting on the edge of a single queen-sized bed. The rain water started to leak from her clothes quickly soaking into the bed sheets, but Mary could care less.
“Take off your clothes, your human parts can still get sick.” Jesse commanded.
The girl started to undress slowly and with no enthusiasm. Usually she would have argued with anyone who tried to command her, but right now she was so emotionally drained that she didn’t care. She didn’t even care that Jesse was still in the room.
The half demon was watching her undressing emotionlessly. In any other situation Mary would have wondered if Jesse considered her sexually attractive, because even if he did, he had never shown any signs of it. The man’s expression was absolutely blank.
“Climb under the blanket, I’ll go get some stuff you might need.”
With those words he turned away spreading his wings. They looked exactly like Mary’s but dark, tainted, absorbing their energy not from Heaven but Hell.
“Jess…” she called out. The cambion stopped and turned his head. “Why are you helping me?” Mary asked.
The half demon grinned with a low chuckle. “Because when the time comes you will be the one to help me take over Hell.”
“I won’t help you with anything.”
“We’ll see…” Jesse concluded and disappeared from the room.
Mary spent several hours alone in the motel room. She was lying on the bed clenching into the vial of grace, not even moving. The girl had no idea where she was or how long it would take Jesse to return, and she didn’t really care. The realization of what had happened slowly started to catch up with her, making Mary shiver in fright and grief. Her life had been simple and easy. She went to school, hung out with friends, and every time she had returned home her parents were waiting. Sometimes either Dean or Castiel had left town with Sam for a hunt - the epoch of the Apocalypse had been averted, and all of the hunts they were doing were easy in comparison but they kept the hunter family in shape.
But now everything was gone, in just one morning. When Mary had returned home to find her parents in a pool of blood and those terrible creatures in the shape of Castiel standing above them, laughing. Mary squeezed the vial in her hand and the grace in it responded with several warming thuds.
This grace belonged to her father. Mary knew that the angel’s grace wasn’t alive by itself - it didn’t have Castiel’s memories or emotions. Grace wasn’t even like a human soul - it was merely a source of power, a battery. It wasn’t even all of Castiel’s grace - the angel had kept only a part of it to allow himself to spend a lifetime with Dean as a mortal, but still retain some of his abilities. Mary knew that her father had been planning to use the grace to return to Heaven as an angel when Dean’s time came, to spend the rest of the eternity with his soul mate.
Mary gave out a loud sigh and stood from the bed. “My parents gave up everything for each-other and for me. I won’t allow anyone to come and destroy our lives!” She said raising her head to the ceiling. “I know that I’m not as powerful as a full-fledged angel, but I still can do it!” She groaned with anger. “You hear me grandfather! You gave up on us, you allowed this to happen to us, but it doesn’t matter! I will fix everything, you hear me?!” The last part of her speech had nearly turned into a yell and suddenly the feeling of despair disappeared from Mary’s heart, letting her breathe with relief.
“Nice speech.” Mary heard Jesse’s voice from behind and turned toward it, seeing the half-demon standing in the middle of the room with a huge duffel bag. “The panic room and everything in it, was the only thing to survive.” He said placing the bag on the bed. “It looks like I have everything to open the portal.”
Mary glanced at her friend and noticed that something was off. The slight sheen of dark energy was surrounding him and it suddenly explained what had taken him several hours.
“You got new souls, didn’t you?” Mary sighed.
“Vampires.” The half demon replied indifferently.
“It doesn’t matter! Do you understand you’re playing with fire?”
“No… not with fire” Jesse smirked. “Fire can’t harm me - with hellfire.”
“You need to stop!” Mary groaned angrily. “My father didn’t save you so you could become this!”
“He didn’t save me,” Jesse corrected. “He just didn’t let your other father kill me.”
“Jesse!”
The half-demon suddenly glared at Mary with a look filled with anger so great that it made the girl shiver. The cambion could look intimidating when he wanted to.
“I’m saving innocent people!” He groaned stepping closer to the girl. “I’m a hunter like your parents. I kill monsters, not humans.” He took another step. “And I kill demons, because I won’t be satisfied until every single one of them is gone, and I’m trying to help you by opening a portal to the time vortex since you won’t be able to do it yourself.” With a final step he was now standing in Mary’s personal space, glaring into her eyes. “I’m not human, and not an angel, and I’m not trying to convince you that I’m good, because I’m not. So keep your righteous opinion to yourself, naphil*!”
Mary had retreated to the wall staring at her friend in shock. She wasn’t afraid of him because she knew that Jesse would never harm her. Maybe because he liked her, or maybe because he simply needed her for bigger plans. The half-demon never asked for Mary’s trust, so he never gave straight answers.
“And put some of the clothes that I brought on, because even if I’m not a human, I’m still a man.” Jesse sighed calming down and stepping away from the girl.
That moment Mary suddenly realized that she was still absolutely naked, and a heavy blush crept across her face. She grabbed Jesse by the collar of his coat and pushed him toward the door, opened it and showed him outside.
“You, creep!” She yelled. “You could have said something earlier!”
When the storm of embarrassment finally calmed down, Mary opened the bag trying to find clothes. Two objects were laying on the very top, which made her heart swell: Castiel’s sword and his journal. She carefully extracted the two placing them on her bare knees and rubbing her fingers over the smooth cold surface of the blade and the rough leather of the journal.
“I can do it…” she whispered. “And I will do it!”
***
March 2011
Mary was sitting on the couch with her palms flat on her knees. She was trying to explain the situation to Bobby in as much detailed as she could without mentioning the relationship between Dean and Castiel. The older hunter was sitting next to her listening carefully to every word.
“So, the guy is hunting monsters and sucking their souls up?” Bobby concluded after Mary finished. “What is it with you, Winchesters, and making deals with devils?”
Mary sighed but didn’t reply.
“You do understand he’s manipulating you?”
“I’m not stupid.” Mary replied. “I don’t trust him, he never wanted me to. But I don’t know what else to do. Dean gave him a chance to live.” Mary shook her head. “Dean believed that he could grow into a decent being and I believed it too. He has never harmed a human, but the path he is choosing… I don’t know. I’m afraid that if I am unable to talk him out of it, I will have to…” Mary paused clenching her fists into the fabric of her jeans “I will have to stop him.”
Bobby gave the girl a meaningful look. “You like the guy, don’t you?” He asked with a sigh.
“I…” Mary recalled the half demon’s face, his features, his deep gray eyes, and her heart started to beat faster in her chest. She had never thought about it, but when Bobby brought it up a sudden realization struck her. “I think so…” She whispered.
“Well, isn’t it wonderful?!” The old hunter smiled with sarcasm. “Having an antichrist as a BF and hoping everything will turn right! I hope you didn’t do anything stupid, girl…”
Mary blinked looking Bobby in the eyes. “Stupid like…”
“Well, like ‘drink my blood you will like it’ or, I dunno, a ‘night of fiery passion’ stupid.”
Mary blushed a little. The conversation was starting to remind her of the evening when Dean had been giving her the ‘birds and the bee’s’ talk.
“I didn’t drink anything!” Mary protested. “And about the other stuff… I’m still pure enough to pet a unicorn.” She added mockingly.
“Well, good.” Bobby nodded.
An uncomfortable silence seemed to dampen the air.
“You know.” Bobby finally said. “I’m not a person who easily trusts people. And don’t take me the wrong way, I still don’t trust you, but… you are the first of the Winchesters who at least can open their mouth without feeding some bull… poop like ‘it doesn’t matter’. I understand that your situation is difficult, but one thing I’ve learned over years of hunting - there is no such thing as a good demon. Even if his intentions are white and fluffy, it doesn’t change a thing.”
Mary sat in a silence for a moment and then said: “Thank you Bobby. I understand that there is no advice in the world which could help me, since I know where this leads... just thank you for listening.” She moved to the old hunter embracing him in her arms, then stood from the couch leaving Bobby with an awkwardly open mouth.
“I think I will go take a shower and then I will help you with dinner. Sam and Dean should be home any minute.”
With those words Mary disappeared from view, leaving bobby alone in the study.
“Well, balls…” the old hunter muttered under his breath.
His eyes suddenly slid to a duffel bag Mary left on the floor next to the couch, a corner of the leather journal was proudly poking from it.
“Balls!” Bobby repeated. “Well, no one can blame an old man for curiosity.” He nodded to himself reaching for the book.
*Naphil - a variation of the word Nephil. (Nephilim is a plural form of the word in Hebrew. Although English adopted it as a singular, creating own plural version of the word by adding ‘s’).
Next>>
Author: Rinienne;
Rating: overall R for language, violence, blood and sexual themes;
Genre: romance, adventure, time travel;
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel (pre-slash), Bobby, Sam, Jesse Turner, OFC;
Beta: eridanie;
Spoilers: The fic starts from the middle of season 6 and alternates the end of it, but also has spoilers for 7x1;
Word Count: WIP (3840 this part);
Summary: Sometimes life gives us a chance to turn around and see where you went wrong. Such opportunity was given to Dean and Castiel in a form of a young girl who appeared out of nowhere. Who is she? Where did she come from?
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Half-blooded
March 2011;
“The search for the Logos took us all around the world and Heaven, but in the end we were able to find it, and with its power we were able to overcome the forces of Raphael and his army.”
Mary was reading from a piece of white parchment, moving her finger over the neat lines of enochian symbols. When she finished she raised her head and looked over the company sitting in the room and looking at the girl expectantly.
“The Logos… like in ‘En archē ēn ho Lógos, kai ho Lógos ēn pros ton Theón,’ Logos?” Sam raised his eyebrow.
“Like in where?” Asked Dean not even looking up. He was holding a bottle of cold beer pressed to his forehead - the older Winchester had a headache the whole morning.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was god; John 1:1... ” Sam answered sighing.
“I thought that John was talking more about something abstract, like the ideology.” Bobby commented rocking in his chair behind the desk.
“As the journal describes, Logos is an actual book. God created it before he started to work on the World trying to describe everything he had planned for it.” Mary started to explain in her own words “But the Logos isn’t just a notebook with sketches and ideas. It’s the world’s most powerful artifact and you were able to get a hold on it and defeat Raphael in my time line.”
“This is a straight-forward blasphemy” Groaned Castiel. Since the very moment the angel had appeared, Castiel was quietly standing in his favorite spot in the corner of the room next to the book shelf, half leaning on its wooden side. He was making it obvious he wasn’t interested in anything the girl was saying. Mary herself could read perfectly every tingle in his grace noticing how it was reacting to every word she was saying, how tense the angel became when Mary mentioned Raphael. “The Logos was nothing but an idea, if the Logos were a book I would know about it.”
“Good point.” Bobby noted.
“Well,” Mary shrugged her shoulders. For all the time she had spent with young Dean and Castiel (although for Castiel the word “young” wouldn’t actually work) she had realized that stubbornness was the main character flaw for both of them. At least this time she had something to prove she was right. “Take a closer look.” She held out the parchment to the angel with a cheerful grin on her face, like it was the one million dollar lottery ticket.
Castiel cautiously stepped towards the couch and took the paper from Mary’s hand. For several moments his eyes were running thought the text before they finally returned to study her. “Where did you get it?” He asked.
“The same place as your sword.” Mary sighed. “You gave it to me.”
“What is it, Cas?” Asked Sam.
“This…” The angel looked at the parchment again. “This is my handwriting. I wrote it.”
“Well, isn’t it a good thing, then? Now you have a clue how to beat your power-crazy brother.” Bobby proposed.
Castiel didn’t reply, instead continuing to examine the paper.
“ I think we should go.” Sam added as he stood up from his place, tapping the surface of the table with his hands. “Still have the Campbell’s archives to check on. Dean, let’s go.”
The older brother only groaned in response, shooting an annoyed look his brother’s way as he took a sip from his bottle.
“I don’t understand” Castiel said suddenly, still frowning over an entry from his own journal. “Why would I compare Dean’s eyes with myrtle leaves from a branch, which for some reason he presented me on a Sunday morning?”
Dean choked on his beer.
***
Mary was laying on a couch in the study gazing aimlessly at the celling. Dean and Sam had left to check the Campbell archive in order to recover some books, and Castiel hadn’t seen any reason to stay, leaving Bobby and Mary alone at the house. Bobby was cooking something in the kitchen and Mary was yet again dying of boredom. The trip to the mall for clothes was the only time she had been allowed to go anywhere but the house or the backyard. Then again it wasn’t like she actually had anywhere to go since all her friends had been left in 2029.
She missed her own time. Even though she had always wanted to find herself in the center of a great adventure like the ones her parents and uncle had been on, she still found herself loning to see the people she had left behind. Now she wasn’t even sure if she would ever be able to return, to stop her father from opening Purgatory and freeing the Leviathans, to fix everything and set everything right.
Mary turned to her stomach and freed her wings. She wasn’t worry about Bobby walking in on her like this because the older hunter couldn’t see them anyway. The girl twitched her nearly healed wings and opened herself a little to allow a thin thread of heaven’s power to connect with her feathered appendages. She wasn’t taking much, not because she was afraid of the host noticing her, since it was too small an amount, but because the more power she had - the more difficult it was to hide her angelic heritage and she couldn’t allow anyone to know yet, before she was sure Castiel would stop working with Crowley. On the other hand she was also afraid to be completely drained if something bad were to happen.
Her phone suddenly began ringing. Mary reached for her bag and extracted a thin device moving it closer in order to see the caller ID. Two things suddenly occurred to her: first was that the number was hidden and there was only one person in the universe who would call her from a hidden number, and the second was the fact that it was actually her phone ringing - the one which shouldn’t have a signal in this time line.
Mary jumped into a sitting position and accepted the call.
“Hello?” She said in a whisper since Bobby wasn’t too far away.
“Hey.” Was the answer on the other side, the voice calm and low. It was very quiet and mixed with a white noise and it was nearly impossible to hear, but the fact was that Jesse Turner found a way to call her through time and dimensions. Mary knew that it was impossible even for a cambion like Jesse, unless he found a way to get enough power.
“Jess. How?”
“It doesn’t matter. How are you? Found your dads?”
“Yes… and I’m fine. And… you did it again… why?”
“Because when you’re done there, someone needs to pull you back.” The voice sighed.
“Not this way. We can find another solution!” Mary whispered in annoyance.
“First, I would love to see you try to find one, because I bet that vial of Castiel’s grace was empty before you even reached 2011, and I know you understand that you can’t take the grace of the Cas you’re currently hanging out with, and you will never have enough power on your own to make the second jump. Second, you’re not my mother or my wife so don’t tell me what to do.” The end of the sentence was said in a higher tone revealing the fact that Jesse was getting angry. Mary had seen him angry and she hadn’t liked it.
“How many will it take to pull me out?” she asked, rubbing her forehead with a hand.
“Fifty.”
“Fifty?”
“Thousand”
“You understand that’s like the population of a whole town? Where are you getting them?”
“I have my ways.” Jesse explained. “Save this call and press call back when you’re ready.”
“You need to stop.”
The call ended with a beep making Mary shudder, the sound was too loud compared to the half-demon’s voice.
“Or I will have to stop you…” She added, closing her eyes and squeezing the phone in her hand. The image of Jesse killing a demon and sucking it up into himself was still fresh in her mind even if it happened nearly a year ago in her time. The way his eyes turned black for just a split second.
“What, boyfriend problems?” She heard from her left, and turned her head. There, leaning on a doorframe that lead to the kitchen, stood Bobby with his arms crossed over his chest. “So, what was all of that about?”
***
April 2029;
Mary fled from the house as fast as she could and as far as she could. She wasn’t powerful enough to fly with the speed of an angel, but when after several minutes she finally stopped, she found herself on a lonely empty beach somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. It was cold here and the heavy rain was falling from the sky in pitchforks. Mary didn’t have any warm clothes, but she could use her grace to warm herself, not to the point she would feel comfortable, but it would at least allow her to not freeze to death. The humid air smelled like salt and snow and she could see mountaintops covered in white close to the horizon, so most likely she had fled over Canada and ended up near Alaska without realizing it.
Mary was crying but her tears were quickly mixing with the rain and washing away. She found a lonely rock close to the shoreline and climbed up to sit on it, pulling her knees close to her chest and wrapping them in her arms. One of her hands was still clenched around the vial Castiel had given her before his death.
Her cell phone started to ring playing the same melody Dean had always had on his own phone, without even looking at who it was she flipped it open and brought it to her ear.
“Where the hell are you?” Jesse asked angrily.
“I Have no idea. Somewhere close to Alaska, I suppose.”
She heard the half demon groaning but then he calmed down and continued: “I felt what happened. Came to check on your house and it was gone - ruined flat. Can you snap me a picture of your surroundings?”
Without even replying Mary moved the phone from her ear, took a picture of the mountains and sent it to Jesse. Next second she felt the rain stop pouring around her and a warm blanket touch her shoulders.
“Sam and his wife are okay. I hid them well.” continued Jesse standing next to Mary, “I did have to put Sam to sleep though, since the bastard was too stubborn. Aithne and Don are out somewhere in Texas hunting. I doubt those things would go after them. Ben and Clair are also not of interest to them I think.”
Mary finally turned her head to look at the man standing at her left and looking into the horizon where the ocean met the sky. His short dark hair was waving slightly in the wind, along with his long black coat which gave him this air of romantic mystery. Mary knew very well that it was only the air, and Jesse was not actually romantic or mysterious.
“Any ideas about what to do?” Jesse asked her finally, moving his gaze from the ocean and fixing his gray eyes on her.
“My father said that I should return to the beginning.”
“Time travel won’t help - this thing didn’t come from our universe.”
“What do you mean?” Mary inquired.
“I mean that we will have to pull something more serious in order to throw you through realms.” Jesse sighed. “Hold on.”
The cambion kneeled next to the girl and carefully gripped her under the arms and knees. The next moment Mary found herself in a random motel room which smelled of mold and tobacco sitting on the edge of a single queen-sized bed. The rain water started to leak from her clothes quickly soaking into the bed sheets, but Mary could care less.
“Take off your clothes, your human parts can still get sick.” Jesse commanded.
The girl started to undress slowly and with no enthusiasm. Usually she would have argued with anyone who tried to command her, but right now she was so emotionally drained that she didn’t care. She didn’t even care that Jesse was still in the room.
The half demon was watching her undressing emotionlessly. In any other situation Mary would have wondered if Jesse considered her sexually attractive, because even if he did, he had never shown any signs of it. The man’s expression was absolutely blank.
“Climb under the blanket, I’ll go get some stuff you might need.”
With those words he turned away spreading his wings. They looked exactly like Mary’s but dark, tainted, absorbing their energy not from Heaven but Hell.
“Jess…” she called out. The cambion stopped and turned his head. “Why are you helping me?” Mary asked.
The half demon grinned with a low chuckle. “Because when the time comes you will be the one to help me take over Hell.”
“I won’t help you with anything.”
“We’ll see…” Jesse concluded and disappeared from the room.
Mary spent several hours alone in the motel room. She was lying on the bed clenching into the vial of grace, not even moving. The girl had no idea where she was or how long it would take Jesse to return, and she didn’t really care. The realization of what had happened slowly started to catch up with her, making Mary shiver in fright and grief. Her life had been simple and easy. She went to school, hung out with friends, and every time she had returned home her parents were waiting. Sometimes either Dean or Castiel had left town with Sam for a hunt - the epoch of the Apocalypse had been averted, and all of the hunts they were doing were easy in comparison but they kept the hunter family in shape.
But now everything was gone, in just one morning. When Mary had returned home to find her parents in a pool of blood and those terrible creatures in the shape of Castiel standing above them, laughing. Mary squeezed the vial in her hand and the grace in it responded with several warming thuds.
This grace belonged to her father. Mary knew that the angel’s grace wasn’t alive by itself - it didn’t have Castiel’s memories or emotions. Grace wasn’t even like a human soul - it was merely a source of power, a battery. It wasn’t even all of Castiel’s grace - the angel had kept only a part of it to allow himself to spend a lifetime with Dean as a mortal, but still retain some of his abilities. Mary knew that her father had been planning to use the grace to return to Heaven as an angel when Dean’s time came, to spend the rest of the eternity with his soul mate.
Mary gave out a loud sigh and stood from the bed. “My parents gave up everything for each-other and for me. I won’t allow anyone to come and destroy our lives!” She said raising her head to the ceiling. “I know that I’m not as powerful as a full-fledged angel, but I still can do it!” She groaned with anger. “You hear me grandfather! You gave up on us, you allowed this to happen to us, but it doesn’t matter! I will fix everything, you hear me?!” The last part of her speech had nearly turned into a yell and suddenly the feeling of despair disappeared from Mary’s heart, letting her breathe with relief.
“Nice speech.” Mary heard Jesse’s voice from behind and turned toward it, seeing the half-demon standing in the middle of the room with a huge duffel bag. “The panic room and everything in it, was the only thing to survive.” He said placing the bag on the bed. “It looks like I have everything to open the portal.”
Mary glanced at her friend and noticed that something was off. The slight sheen of dark energy was surrounding him and it suddenly explained what had taken him several hours.
“You got new souls, didn’t you?” Mary sighed.
“Vampires.” The half demon replied indifferently.
“It doesn’t matter! Do you understand you’re playing with fire?”
“No… not with fire” Jesse smirked. “Fire can’t harm me - with hellfire.”
“You need to stop!” Mary groaned angrily. “My father didn’t save you so you could become this!”
“He didn’t save me,” Jesse corrected. “He just didn’t let your other father kill me.”
“Jesse!”
The half-demon suddenly glared at Mary with a look filled with anger so great that it made the girl shiver. The cambion could look intimidating when he wanted to.
“I’m saving innocent people!” He groaned stepping closer to the girl. “I’m a hunter like your parents. I kill monsters, not humans.” He took another step. “And I kill demons, because I won’t be satisfied until every single one of them is gone, and I’m trying to help you by opening a portal to the time vortex since you won’t be able to do it yourself.” With a final step he was now standing in Mary’s personal space, glaring into her eyes. “I’m not human, and not an angel, and I’m not trying to convince you that I’m good, because I’m not. So keep your righteous opinion to yourself, naphil*!”
Mary had retreated to the wall staring at her friend in shock. She wasn’t afraid of him because she knew that Jesse would never harm her. Maybe because he liked her, or maybe because he simply needed her for bigger plans. The half-demon never asked for Mary’s trust, so he never gave straight answers.
“And put some of the clothes that I brought on, because even if I’m not a human, I’m still a man.” Jesse sighed calming down and stepping away from the girl.
That moment Mary suddenly realized that she was still absolutely naked, and a heavy blush crept across her face. She grabbed Jesse by the collar of his coat and pushed him toward the door, opened it and showed him outside.
“You, creep!” She yelled. “You could have said something earlier!”
When the storm of embarrassment finally calmed down, Mary opened the bag trying to find clothes. Two objects were laying on the very top, which made her heart swell: Castiel’s sword and his journal. She carefully extracted the two placing them on her bare knees and rubbing her fingers over the smooth cold surface of the blade and the rough leather of the journal.
“I can do it…” she whispered. “And I will do it!”
***
March 2011
Mary was sitting on the couch with her palms flat on her knees. She was trying to explain the situation to Bobby in as much detailed as she could without mentioning the relationship between Dean and Castiel. The older hunter was sitting next to her listening carefully to every word.
“So, the guy is hunting monsters and sucking their souls up?” Bobby concluded after Mary finished. “What is it with you, Winchesters, and making deals with devils?”
Mary sighed but didn’t reply.
“You do understand he’s manipulating you?”
“I’m not stupid.” Mary replied. “I don’t trust him, he never wanted me to. But I don’t know what else to do. Dean gave him a chance to live.” Mary shook her head. “Dean believed that he could grow into a decent being and I believed it too. He has never harmed a human, but the path he is choosing… I don’t know. I’m afraid that if I am unable to talk him out of it, I will have to…” Mary paused clenching her fists into the fabric of her jeans “I will have to stop him.”
Bobby gave the girl a meaningful look. “You like the guy, don’t you?” He asked with a sigh.
“I…” Mary recalled the half demon’s face, his features, his deep gray eyes, and her heart started to beat faster in her chest. She had never thought about it, but when Bobby brought it up a sudden realization struck her. “I think so…” She whispered.
“Well, isn’t it wonderful?!” The old hunter smiled with sarcasm. “Having an antichrist as a BF and hoping everything will turn right! I hope you didn’t do anything stupid, girl…”
Mary blinked looking Bobby in the eyes. “Stupid like…”
“Well, like ‘drink my blood you will like it’ or, I dunno, a ‘night of fiery passion’ stupid.”
Mary blushed a little. The conversation was starting to remind her of the evening when Dean had been giving her the ‘birds and the bee’s’ talk.
“I didn’t drink anything!” Mary protested. “And about the other stuff… I’m still pure enough to pet a unicorn.” She added mockingly.
“Well, good.” Bobby nodded.
An uncomfortable silence seemed to dampen the air.
“You know.” Bobby finally said. “I’m not a person who easily trusts people. And don’t take me the wrong way, I still don’t trust you, but… you are the first of the Winchesters who at least can open their mouth without feeding some bull… poop like ‘it doesn’t matter’. I understand that your situation is difficult, but one thing I’ve learned over years of hunting - there is no such thing as a good demon. Even if his intentions are white and fluffy, it doesn’t change a thing.”
Mary sat in a silence for a moment and then said: “Thank you Bobby. I understand that there is no advice in the world which could help me, since I know where this leads... just thank you for listening.” She moved to the old hunter embracing him in her arms, then stood from the couch leaving Bobby with an awkwardly open mouth.
“I think I will go take a shower and then I will help you with dinner. Sam and Dean should be home any minute.”
With those words Mary disappeared from view, leaving bobby alone in the study.
“Well, balls…” the old hunter muttered under his breath.
His eyes suddenly slid to a duffel bag Mary left on the floor next to the couch, a corner of the leather journal was proudly poking from it.
“Balls!” Bobby repeated. “Well, no one can blame an old man for curiosity.” He nodded to himself reaching for the book.
*Naphil - a variation of the word Nephil. (Nephilim is a plural form of the word in Hebrew. Although English adopted it as a singular, creating own plural version of the word by adding ‘s’).
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