fic: Marveille (Sam/Dean, Sam/Dean/Delphine NC-17) Part 7 of 7
Part 6
Just as Dean had guessed, their time of peace was short, Amara and Lucifer finally came calling. God had never answered the call that Amara had sent out by torturing Lucifer. And Lucifer had somehow cajoled her to let him ‘help’ her.
They were all sitting down to dinner one night, Marveille snug in Dean’s arms, when all four of them were suddenly transported to an all-too-familiar-place, Stull Cemetery in Lawrence. They stumbled and tried to hold each other up at the sudden change from seated to standing.
“Why the hell are we here, Lucifer?” Sam demanded, holding onto Delphine’s shoulders.
“It had to be here, Sammy,” Lucifer wheedled. The familiar form of Cas was barely recognizable at this point, shredded and flayed, a shambles of a human being.
“You’re not looking so hot there, Lucy,” Dean taunted.
“Aren’t you so sweet to be concerned, that won’t be a problem for me for very much longer,” Lucifer said. While his words still echoed in the emptiness of the cemetery, a sudden blaze of angel grace tore through what remained of Castiel’s vessel, the grace flew through the space between them and enveloped Sam, knocking him flat on his back.
Sam screamed out one long continuous “No!” that turned into Lucifer’s laugh.
“Sorry, not sorry, Sammy. Once a yes, always a yes, that’s how this vessel gig works. I was just kidding ya when we were in the Cage, guess you guys didn’t figure that out, huh?”
Amara held Dean back purely by her will, so he wasn’t able to do a thing to try to help Sam, he couldn’t even speak, he just screamed and wailed with his eyes. Anything but this again, he wished with his whole soul that it could be him, he wished he could ask for Lucifer to take him instead. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right that his brother had to go through this again.
Just as he was screaming all that in his head, trying to get through to Sam through pure force of will, something unthinkably worse took over his focus. Dean found himself handing Marveille over to Amara without her even having to ask. Dean could just barely hear Delphine screaming for him to stop, and it momentarily made him able to resist. Dean could feel his muscles straining and bunching as he pushed at Amara’s will with everything he had. But it was useless, Amara, being the Darkness, she held the power of their bond over him and used all of it to compel him to release the now-squalling baby into her arms. The amulet did nothing at all to protect his baby, and he wished he’d wrapped it around her somehow.
As the transfer was happening, there was a dip in Amara’s control, so Delphine tried to come at Amara to tear Marveille away from her, but she was once again held against one of the headstones as if by iron clamps on all her limbs.
Sam’s body, now possessed by Lucifer regained his feet and brushed off the seat of his jeans. Lucifer walked a few steps away from Amara, and turned to face her with his feet planted wide and strong, rooted to the Earth below him. He spoke some words of Enochian and held out both hands towards Amara. A stream of undiluted angel grace tinted with angry redness that seemed sharper than anything Dean had ever seen swarmed through the air towards Amara.
Amara didn’t react at first, she had assumed she’d be immune to any and all attacks by any of these lesser beings. Especially a lying, double-crossing one like Lucifer. “You were to serve me, Lucifer! Not attempt to slay me again!” Her face transformed into one of unhinged fury, she clutched Marveille closer to her chest and braced herself as the energy came closer with a burning, churning heat beyond what should be possible on the face of Earth.
Just as the stream was about to strike Amara, Delphine found herself momentarily free of Amara’s control, no doubt Amara was using her powers either for an attack or a shield, so Delphine launched herself in front of her baby to try to shield her from the stream of pure power flowing out of Lucifer.
At that same moment, Sam struggled for control with Lucifer. He’d done it once before, he could do it now. As soon as he saw that his baby was in danger, all the protective father-love welled up in him and he launched himself at the essence of Lucifer deep inside himself, pinning him easily and wresting back control of his body. He was able to force his hands down just enough to miss Marveille with the energy stream, as she squirmed in Amara’s arms.
As he fully took over his body again, Sam realized that the stream of energy was still coming out of his hands. It was stronger than anything he had ever felt, the power was immense, well-beyond just the will of the angel. Sam had to assume that the energy was the essence of the angel, Lucifer. It was Lucifer expending himself, using his grace to annihilate Amara once and for all. As Sam controlled the energy stream, he could feel that it was also his friend, Castiel, expending his lesser power in unison with Lucifer, both eager to take out the force that threatened all of their Father’s creation.
Sam used all of his will to push both of the angels’ grace together, twining it together with the old powers he hadn’t used since releasing Lucifer from the Cage. He felt the space in his head where they’d always been come alive with a strength that flooded into every atom of his body. He directed it, shaped it into a tighter, stronger stream at Amara, controlling it so that the energy would miss his daughter, but it would reach Amara and remove this threat from his world and his daughter.
Because of the redirection, as Delphine jumped she was hit by the stream of this intensely focused power, the red sharpness ripping through her fragile human body. She was successful in deflecting the edge of it away from Marveille, but the rest of it hit the center of her body, exploding all of her into a fine red mist that flew up to coat Marveille and Amara and part of Dean.
The shock of Delphine’s disintegration seemed to break Dean out of Amara’s hold, he lunged towards her, grabbing one of Amara’s arms turning her towards him and reaching for Marveille, but this moved the baby into the stream of angel-powered destruction and once the power felt the touch of the baby’s flesh, it was like she absorbed the energy as quickly as a dry sponge soaking up spilled milk. All of it was pulled out of Sam, both Castiel and Lucifer gone in an enormous flooding flash of light and heat and energy barely contained, all channeled into the tiny body of Marveille, transforming her into something that Amara was no longer able to hold. In all the places Amara’s skin touched Marveille’s she began to disintegrate into an inky black chalk powder that fell to the ground at her own feet. Amara’s arms were gone, then her middle too, and the rest of her consumed like a chalk eraser had wiped her out.
Amara was gone.
Completely and totally gone.
Erased from the world once again.
Somehow Marveille remained, hovering in the super-charged air at the same height she’d been held by the Darkness. Dean took the last step towards her and pulled his child into his chest, heedless of the power she still contained. Sam was across the space between them in a few steps and helped Dean hold their baby as the power exited the small body they held. It shot straight up into the night sky, brilliant and shining as an angel’s grace always was. This time twice as bright as two unleashed comets departed the surface of the Earth.
Sam averted his eyes, focusing only on his daughter’s face, but Dean watched, able to see the remainder of the angels that were formerly Lucifer and Castiel departing the world for the last time, their expended grace launching them back to Heaven and the stars or wherever dead angels ended up.
Sam and Dean held their baby and each other until the angel light faded away and they were left alone in the empty cemetery. Their woman was gone, but their child was safe in their arms. Sam’s tears fell on Marveille’s face and she fussed at them, a normal baby noise that was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. Dean wiped Sam’s tears away from Marveille’s cheeks and then kissed them off of Sam’s.
“It’s over, Sammy. I don’t feel her control anywhere, she’s really truly gone.”
“Lucifer and Cas are both gone too, I’m sorry, Dean.”
“About what?”
“Delphine, and Cas, I wish I could have…”
“Sammy, stop, there’s nothing you could have done, Cas chose this, all those months ago, just like you said. And Delphine was just doing what any mother would do, trying to save her baby. I couldn’t do either because Amara was holding me back. You can’t be sorry, you beat Lucifer again, and I saw it. You directed that angel grace somehow didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did. I don’t know how, but the powers I had, they were still there inside me, in the same place, and I could use them, I focused it, because it was both Lucifer and Cas kind of expending themselves. It had to be woven together to make it strong enough.”
“What the hell did Mari do though?” Dean asked.
“She was some kind of conduit, maybe the Mary Line thing, plus our heritage made her able to handle the angel grace? I don’t know, and she can’t really tell us, can she?” Sam said, tickling at Marveille’s feet that were kicking out at his hands as Dean held her tight.
“So our kid was the key to saving the world from the Darkness…”
“Looks like Billie was right. I don’t think any of this would have worked without all of us though. We all had our parts to play, whether we knew it or not.”
“Let’s go home, huh?” Dean asked, wiping at Mari’s face and then his own with a bandana, the red mist that had been Delphine cleared off much too easily for what it represented.
“Should we do anything, uh…you know, for Delphine here?” Sam asked, glancing around the empty cemetery.
“She’s gone, Sammy. You saw it, right? Poof, just like Cas the first time we were here. We could put up a marker, I guess, is that what you mean? Like the one for mom?”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I know you don’t believe in that stuff, but it’s important to me. And I’d like to be able to show it to Mari at some point.”
“I get it. So we’ll do it. For now, I’ll do this though,” Dean said, handing Marveille to Sam then bending down to pile up the pieces of crumbled headstones into a cairn in the approximate spot where Delphine had perished. “No one comes here, obviously, so I think it’ll do until we can get a headstone made up.”
Sam cradled Mari closer to his chest and tried to smile as Dean stood up. “Thanks, Dean.”
“C’mon, let’s figure out how to get back home, huh? That bitch brought us way out here without my Baby,” Dean complained.
Headlights washed over them as they exited through the arched gateway. A large pick-up truck pulled up and the driver’s window rolled down.
“You boys sure look like you could use a ride,” a woman’s voice said in the dark night between them. Her face was lit by the glow of the dashboard and she looked familiar.
“Missouri?” Sam asked, a sudden flare of hope kindled inside him as he held his daughter close.
“Oh Sam, of course you’d know,” Missouri said, her white smile now a visible flash.
“No shit, it’s really you, Missouri?” Dean said, walking towards the truck and peering in the window.
“Dean Winchester, control that mouth ‘a yours. You’ve got your baby to think of!” Missouri chastised with that enthusiastic motherly voice of command.
Dean leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Missouri, I’d like to introduce you to our daughter, Marveille Seydoux Winchester.”
Sam held Mari up to the window of the truck and Missouri reached out a wrinkled hand to touch the baby’s fingers gently. “Oh my word, she’s just as pretty as a picture, isn’t she? Just like I knew she’d be.”
“You knew?” Sam asked.
“Why do you think I’m here in the middle of the night picking you three up?” Missouri said, sarcastic as ever.
“But we don’t have a car-seat with us,” Sam said, feeling absurd the minute he voiced this concern. His little girl had just triumphed over the freaking Darkness. She could probably survive a single unsecured car ride.
“Sam Winchester, would you please just take a look in my back seat? This little girl just saved the whole danged world, of course I have a car-seat ready for her!”
Sam shook his head and walked around to the passenger side, opened the door to the back seat and buckled Mari into a car-seat that was the exactly correct size for her. He climbed into the seat next to Mari so Dean could ride up front with Missouri.
“Seat belts, gentlemen, or this truck ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Missouri said with a laugh in her voice. “Can’t lose the Saviors of the World to any darn car crash.”
Dean grumbled about saving the damn world and not needing a damn seatbelt as he clicked his closed but then he turned and caught Mari’s eye over the back of the seat. She was smiling that open, mostly gummy baby smile, as wide as ever, pleased as anything to be in a new vehicle, listening to a new person. She gurgled and pointed at Missouri. “Yeah baby, that’s Missouri, she’s a lady that’s always known when we needed her.”
Missouri chuckled and put the truck in gear, pulling away from Stull. “I’m real sorry about the mother, I was hoping to meet her.”
“Me too, Delphine would have liked you,” Dean said, turning back to look at Sam’s long-past-sad eyes. The tears that threatened to fall held there in Sam’s eyelashes, sparkling as the headlights from passing cars found them. Dean sighed, feeling this rush of love for his beautiful brother. He tried to express it with his eyes since he couldn’t say anything with Missouri sitting there next to him.
Sam blinked with acceptance, letting a few of the tears fall. He was distracted by Mari tugging on his sleeve. Sam leaned in to give her a raspberry blow on her cheek. She giggled and the sadness that was enveloping Sam was halted in its tracks. This right here, this is what Delphine died for. They were safe, the world was safe, Marveille was safe. And that had to be enough. It had to count as a win. He reached forward and set a hand on Dean’s right shoulder, safe in the dark from Missouri’s eyes. Sam squeezed Dean’s shoulder, transmitting it’s-going-to-be-okay vibes the best he could. He knew his brother’s tender bruised heart would be slow to heal, but he had to get him through this first, hard part. They both had to for Mari.
They drove through the outskirts of Lawrence and pulled up to Missouri’s small, neat house. Mari had fallen asleep, so Sam took her out very slowly to try and make it into the house before she woke up. Missouri led them inside and gestured up the stairs, they headed up and she opened one of the doors to a small bedroom with a double bed and a cradle next to it. She pointed across the hall at the bathroom, smiled and shut the door.
Just like that they were just three. Sam and Dean looked at each other and shared smiles filled with equal amounts of joy and sadness. Sam laid Mari down in the cradle and set it to gently rocking. She snuggled into the blankets and settled back to sleep. Dean had taken his boots off and tip toed out of their room across the hall. Sam heard the water running and knew he was taking a shower, washing off the rest of the red mist that had been Delphine.
He got himself tucked into bed and was nearly asleep by the time Dean joined him. Freshly washed, eyes deeply red from crying in the shower. Sam opened his arms and Dean slid into them, laying his head on Sam’s chest and wrapping an arm around his waist. Their breathing synced within a few minutes, Sam could feel himself drifting off to sleep.
“She really is our miracle, isn’t she, Sammy?” Dean whispered, sounding like he was on the edge of sleep.
“Ours and the whole damn world, Dean. And we’re all she’s got now,” Sam answered, holding Dean a little closer.
“We’ll have to be enough. We’ll do right by Delphine, we have to,” Dean said, tightening his grip on Sam and nuzzling into the crook of his neck.
Sam kissed the pulse point on Dean’s wrist softly, feeling the strong life flowing through his brother.
They woke up to Mari’s morning warning cries that meant she needed attending to pretty quickly. Sam rolled out of bed, scooped her up and brought her into the warmth between he and Dean. “Just for a second, then I gotta go find out if Missouri’s got baby food and diapers for us.”
Dean crooned one of his made-up tunes for Mari and her eyes lit up with delighted recognition. She chortled along with him, making Sam laugh at the two of them.
Through the momentary joy of his laughter, Sam realized that after all the harrowing events and loss they'd just experienced, he and Dean treasured each other even more. And now that they had a new life to think about, nothing would ever be the same for them again. Everything about that idea made him happier than he’d ever thought possible.
~La Fin~
Back to Masterpost
Just as Dean had guessed, their time of peace was short, Amara and Lucifer finally came calling. God had never answered the call that Amara had sent out by torturing Lucifer. And Lucifer had somehow cajoled her to let him ‘help’ her.
They were all sitting down to dinner one night, Marveille snug in Dean’s arms, when all four of them were suddenly transported to an all-too-familiar-place, Stull Cemetery in Lawrence. They stumbled and tried to hold each other up at the sudden change from seated to standing.
“Why the hell are we here, Lucifer?” Sam demanded, holding onto Delphine’s shoulders.
“It had to be here, Sammy,” Lucifer wheedled. The familiar form of Cas was barely recognizable at this point, shredded and flayed, a shambles of a human being.
“You’re not looking so hot there, Lucy,” Dean taunted.
“Aren’t you so sweet to be concerned, that won’t be a problem for me for very much longer,” Lucifer said. While his words still echoed in the emptiness of the cemetery, a sudden blaze of angel grace tore through what remained of Castiel’s vessel, the grace flew through the space between them and enveloped Sam, knocking him flat on his back.
Sam screamed out one long continuous “No!” that turned into Lucifer’s laugh.
“Sorry, not sorry, Sammy. Once a yes, always a yes, that’s how this vessel gig works. I was just kidding ya when we were in the Cage, guess you guys didn’t figure that out, huh?”
Amara held Dean back purely by her will, so he wasn’t able to do a thing to try to help Sam, he couldn’t even speak, he just screamed and wailed with his eyes. Anything but this again, he wished with his whole soul that it could be him, he wished he could ask for Lucifer to take him instead. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right that his brother had to go through this again.
Just as he was screaming all that in his head, trying to get through to Sam through pure force of will, something unthinkably worse took over his focus. Dean found himself handing Marveille over to Amara without her even having to ask. Dean could just barely hear Delphine screaming for him to stop, and it momentarily made him able to resist. Dean could feel his muscles straining and bunching as he pushed at Amara’s will with everything he had. But it was useless, Amara, being the Darkness, she held the power of their bond over him and used all of it to compel him to release the now-squalling baby into her arms. The amulet did nothing at all to protect his baby, and he wished he’d wrapped it around her somehow.
As the transfer was happening, there was a dip in Amara’s control, so Delphine tried to come at Amara to tear Marveille away from her, but she was once again held against one of the headstones as if by iron clamps on all her limbs.
Sam’s body, now possessed by Lucifer regained his feet and brushed off the seat of his jeans. Lucifer walked a few steps away from Amara, and turned to face her with his feet planted wide and strong, rooted to the Earth below him. He spoke some words of Enochian and held out both hands towards Amara. A stream of undiluted angel grace tinted with angry redness that seemed sharper than anything Dean had ever seen swarmed through the air towards Amara.
Amara didn’t react at first, she had assumed she’d be immune to any and all attacks by any of these lesser beings. Especially a lying, double-crossing one like Lucifer. “You were to serve me, Lucifer! Not attempt to slay me again!” Her face transformed into one of unhinged fury, she clutched Marveille closer to her chest and braced herself as the energy came closer with a burning, churning heat beyond what should be possible on the face of Earth.
Just as the stream was about to strike Amara, Delphine found herself momentarily free of Amara’s control, no doubt Amara was using her powers either for an attack or a shield, so Delphine launched herself in front of her baby to try to shield her from the stream of pure power flowing out of Lucifer.
At that same moment, Sam struggled for control with Lucifer. He’d done it once before, he could do it now. As soon as he saw that his baby was in danger, all the protective father-love welled up in him and he launched himself at the essence of Lucifer deep inside himself, pinning him easily and wresting back control of his body. He was able to force his hands down just enough to miss Marveille with the energy stream, as she squirmed in Amara’s arms.
As he fully took over his body again, Sam realized that the stream of energy was still coming out of his hands. It was stronger than anything he had ever felt, the power was immense, well-beyond just the will of the angel. Sam had to assume that the energy was the essence of the angel, Lucifer. It was Lucifer expending himself, using his grace to annihilate Amara once and for all. As Sam controlled the energy stream, he could feel that it was also his friend, Castiel, expending his lesser power in unison with Lucifer, both eager to take out the force that threatened all of their Father’s creation.
Sam used all of his will to push both of the angels’ grace together, twining it together with the old powers he hadn’t used since releasing Lucifer from the Cage. He felt the space in his head where they’d always been come alive with a strength that flooded into every atom of his body. He directed it, shaped it into a tighter, stronger stream at Amara, controlling it so that the energy would miss his daughter, but it would reach Amara and remove this threat from his world and his daughter.
Because of the redirection, as Delphine jumped she was hit by the stream of this intensely focused power, the red sharpness ripping through her fragile human body. She was successful in deflecting the edge of it away from Marveille, but the rest of it hit the center of her body, exploding all of her into a fine red mist that flew up to coat Marveille and Amara and part of Dean.
The shock of Delphine’s disintegration seemed to break Dean out of Amara’s hold, he lunged towards her, grabbing one of Amara’s arms turning her towards him and reaching for Marveille, but this moved the baby into the stream of angel-powered destruction and once the power felt the touch of the baby’s flesh, it was like she absorbed the energy as quickly as a dry sponge soaking up spilled milk. All of it was pulled out of Sam, both Castiel and Lucifer gone in an enormous flooding flash of light and heat and energy barely contained, all channeled into the tiny body of Marveille, transforming her into something that Amara was no longer able to hold. In all the places Amara’s skin touched Marveille’s she began to disintegrate into an inky black chalk powder that fell to the ground at her own feet. Amara’s arms were gone, then her middle too, and the rest of her consumed like a chalk eraser had wiped her out.
Amara was gone.
Completely and totally gone.
Erased from the world once again.
Somehow Marveille remained, hovering in the super-charged air at the same height she’d been held by the Darkness. Dean took the last step towards her and pulled his child into his chest, heedless of the power she still contained. Sam was across the space between them in a few steps and helped Dean hold their baby as the power exited the small body they held. It shot straight up into the night sky, brilliant and shining as an angel’s grace always was. This time twice as bright as two unleashed comets departed the surface of the Earth.
Sam averted his eyes, focusing only on his daughter’s face, but Dean watched, able to see the remainder of the angels that were formerly Lucifer and Castiel departing the world for the last time, their expended grace launching them back to Heaven and the stars or wherever dead angels ended up.
Sam and Dean held their baby and each other until the angel light faded away and they were left alone in the empty cemetery. Their woman was gone, but their child was safe in their arms. Sam’s tears fell on Marveille’s face and she fussed at them, a normal baby noise that was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. Dean wiped Sam’s tears away from Marveille’s cheeks and then kissed them off of Sam’s.
“It’s over, Sammy. I don’t feel her control anywhere, she’s really truly gone.”
“Lucifer and Cas are both gone too, I’m sorry, Dean.”
“About what?”
“Delphine, and Cas, I wish I could have…”
“Sammy, stop, there’s nothing you could have done, Cas chose this, all those months ago, just like you said. And Delphine was just doing what any mother would do, trying to save her baby. I couldn’t do either because Amara was holding me back. You can’t be sorry, you beat Lucifer again, and I saw it. You directed that angel grace somehow didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did. I don’t know how, but the powers I had, they were still there inside me, in the same place, and I could use them, I focused it, because it was both Lucifer and Cas kind of expending themselves. It had to be woven together to make it strong enough.”
“What the hell did Mari do though?” Dean asked.
“She was some kind of conduit, maybe the Mary Line thing, plus our heritage made her able to handle the angel grace? I don’t know, and she can’t really tell us, can she?” Sam said, tickling at Marveille’s feet that were kicking out at his hands as Dean held her tight.
“So our kid was the key to saving the world from the Darkness…”
“Looks like Billie was right. I don’t think any of this would have worked without all of us though. We all had our parts to play, whether we knew it or not.”
“Let’s go home, huh?” Dean asked, wiping at Mari’s face and then his own with a bandana, the red mist that had been Delphine cleared off much too easily for what it represented.
“Should we do anything, uh…you know, for Delphine here?” Sam asked, glancing around the empty cemetery.
“She’s gone, Sammy. You saw it, right? Poof, just like Cas the first time we were here. We could put up a marker, I guess, is that what you mean? Like the one for mom?”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I know you don’t believe in that stuff, but it’s important to me. And I’d like to be able to show it to Mari at some point.”
“I get it. So we’ll do it. For now, I’ll do this though,” Dean said, handing Marveille to Sam then bending down to pile up the pieces of crumbled headstones into a cairn in the approximate spot where Delphine had perished. “No one comes here, obviously, so I think it’ll do until we can get a headstone made up.”
Sam cradled Mari closer to his chest and tried to smile as Dean stood up. “Thanks, Dean.”
“C’mon, let’s figure out how to get back home, huh? That bitch brought us way out here without my Baby,” Dean complained.
Headlights washed over them as they exited through the arched gateway. A large pick-up truck pulled up and the driver’s window rolled down.
“You boys sure look like you could use a ride,” a woman’s voice said in the dark night between them. Her face was lit by the glow of the dashboard and she looked familiar.
“Missouri?” Sam asked, a sudden flare of hope kindled inside him as he held his daughter close.
“Oh Sam, of course you’d know,” Missouri said, her white smile now a visible flash.
“No shit, it’s really you, Missouri?” Dean said, walking towards the truck and peering in the window.
“Dean Winchester, control that mouth ‘a yours. You’ve got your baby to think of!” Missouri chastised with that enthusiastic motherly voice of command.
Dean leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Missouri, I’d like to introduce you to our daughter, Marveille Seydoux Winchester.”
Sam held Mari up to the window of the truck and Missouri reached out a wrinkled hand to touch the baby’s fingers gently. “Oh my word, she’s just as pretty as a picture, isn’t she? Just like I knew she’d be.”
“You knew?” Sam asked.
“Why do you think I’m here in the middle of the night picking you three up?” Missouri said, sarcastic as ever.
“But we don’t have a car-seat with us,” Sam said, feeling absurd the minute he voiced this concern. His little girl had just triumphed over the freaking Darkness. She could probably survive a single unsecured car ride.
“Sam Winchester, would you please just take a look in my back seat? This little girl just saved the whole danged world, of course I have a car-seat ready for her!”
Sam shook his head and walked around to the passenger side, opened the door to the back seat and buckled Mari into a car-seat that was the exactly correct size for her. He climbed into the seat next to Mari so Dean could ride up front with Missouri.
“Seat belts, gentlemen, or this truck ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Missouri said with a laugh in her voice. “Can’t lose the Saviors of the World to any darn car crash.”
Dean grumbled about saving the damn world and not needing a damn seatbelt as he clicked his closed but then he turned and caught Mari’s eye over the back of the seat. She was smiling that open, mostly gummy baby smile, as wide as ever, pleased as anything to be in a new vehicle, listening to a new person. She gurgled and pointed at Missouri. “Yeah baby, that’s Missouri, she’s a lady that’s always known when we needed her.”
Missouri chuckled and put the truck in gear, pulling away from Stull. “I’m real sorry about the mother, I was hoping to meet her.”
“Me too, Delphine would have liked you,” Dean said, turning back to look at Sam’s long-past-sad eyes. The tears that threatened to fall held there in Sam’s eyelashes, sparkling as the headlights from passing cars found them. Dean sighed, feeling this rush of love for his beautiful brother. He tried to express it with his eyes since he couldn’t say anything with Missouri sitting there next to him.
Sam blinked with acceptance, letting a few of the tears fall. He was distracted by Mari tugging on his sleeve. Sam leaned in to give her a raspberry blow on her cheek. She giggled and the sadness that was enveloping Sam was halted in its tracks. This right here, this is what Delphine died for. They were safe, the world was safe, Marveille was safe. And that had to be enough. It had to count as a win. He reached forward and set a hand on Dean’s right shoulder, safe in the dark from Missouri’s eyes. Sam squeezed Dean’s shoulder, transmitting it’s-going-to-be-okay vibes the best he could. He knew his brother’s tender bruised heart would be slow to heal, but he had to get him through this first, hard part. They both had to for Mari.
They drove through the outskirts of Lawrence and pulled up to Missouri’s small, neat house. Mari had fallen asleep, so Sam took her out very slowly to try and make it into the house before she woke up. Missouri led them inside and gestured up the stairs, they headed up and she opened one of the doors to a small bedroom with a double bed and a cradle next to it. She pointed across the hall at the bathroom, smiled and shut the door.
Just like that they were just three. Sam and Dean looked at each other and shared smiles filled with equal amounts of joy and sadness. Sam laid Mari down in the cradle and set it to gently rocking. She snuggled into the blankets and settled back to sleep. Dean had taken his boots off and tip toed out of their room across the hall. Sam heard the water running and knew he was taking a shower, washing off the rest of the red mist that had been Delphine.
He got himself tucked into bed and was nearly asleep by the time Dean joined him. Freshly washed, eyes deeply red from crying in the shower. Sam opened his arms and Dean slid into them, laying his head on Sam’s chest and wrapping an arm around his waist. Their breathing synced within a few minutes, Sam could feel himself drifting off to sleep.
“She really is our miracle, isn’t she, Sammy?” Dean whispered, sounding like he was on the edge of sleep.
“Ours and the whole damn world, Dean. And we’re all she’s got now,” Sam answered, holding Dean a little closer.
“We’ll have to be enough. We’ll do right by Delphine, we have to,” Dean said, tightening his grip on Sam and nuzzling into the crook of his neck.
Sam kissed the pulse point on Dean’s wrist softly, feeling the strong life flowing through his brother.
They woke up to Mari’s morning warning cries that meant she needed attending to pretty quickly. Sam rolled out of bed, scooped her up and brought her into the warmth between he and Dean. “Just for a second, then I gotta go find out if Missouri’s got baby food and diapers for us.”
Dean crooned one of his made-up tunes for Mari and her eyes lit up with delighted recognition. She chortled along with him, making Sam laugh at the two of them.
Through the momentary joy of his laughter, Sam realized that after all the harrowing events and loss they'd just experienced, he and Dean treasured each other even more. And now that they had a new life to think about, nothing would ever be the same for them again. Everything about that idea made him happier than he’d ever thought possible.
~La Fin~
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