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one of the wonders

Summary:

Honestly, Mary doesn't care at this point, just would someone tell her how she's supposed to deal with two suddenly adult sons, their angel BFF/life partner, and their baby, who happens to be the devil's son and can maybe read her thoughts? And teleport? And move things with his mind?

Oddly enough, there's no manual for this.

Or, 5 times Mary saw something that made her realize her grandson is the most powerful being on Earth and 1 time she experienced it firsthand.

Notes:

if you've read the first installment in this series some of this may seem familiar lol, and that's bc this fic was written concurrently when it became obvious there were two very different stories working themselves out: one a family tragicomedy and one a farcical story about an angel baby with magic powers.

welcome to the second one

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Mornings in the Bunker are different this time around. For Mary's part, she's the same as she's ever been: an early riser by habit as opposed to inclination, she's still up by five, forcing herself out of her room by eight, snagging handfuls of whatever's out in the kitchen before hitting the road, whether that be for a case or just the sound of wind hissing through cracked windows.

She still bumps into Sam coming in from his run more often than not, still waits for the sound of Dean's door opening down the hall followed by the pipes coming to life for his shower before she emerges. The clothes from her bags, left with her car in the Bunker's garage when they all headed out for Washington six months ago, are half hung up in the closet, half in her trunk where they belong. Same as ever.

Things are different, though. For one, they have half a dozen interdimensional roommates. For two, there's a baby in the mix. Mary is around more often than she'd like yet for ostensibly the former, but it's really both, because the biggest change is not the increased demand for hot water. The biggest change is—

Mary ducks into the hall exactly thirty seconds after the sound of Dean's door shutting only to walk straight into Castiel and Jack.

"Oh—"

"Shit—"

Somehow the baby's the most eloquent of them all, letting out a distinct noise of displeasure at the sudden stop. He's still half asleep on Cas's shoulder, clinging to the front of his shirt—a shirt which is, she wouldn't even have to recognize it to know, Dean's. It's an eerily familiar image to her: for Mary, it was only a year ago she was waking up to see a different sleep rumpled dad carrying a six month old in footie pajamas. She can't tell what's weirder, how similar or how different this is.

They've both very obviously just woken up, because—Mary checks her watch—of course they have. Six on the dot.

"Sorry. I'll just..." Mary steps to the left as Castiel steps to the right. "Uh."

They go back and forth for a second before Mary just stops and takes another step back, gesturing down the hall. Cas nods at her kindly, hiking Jack higher on his hip.

"Good morning, Mary."

"Good morning, Castiel." She pauses for a second, unsure if she should greet the baby too. Would that be weird? Would it be weirder not to? He's just a baby, he won't notice, but...

As they pass, Cas smiling briefly in thanks, Jack turns to keep her in sight, unwavering gaze sits in stark contrast to the sleepy crease in his cheek. Somehow, she knows he noticed. She still isn't sure she should've said something.

Dean and now Cas's room is not that far from hers, and Mary abandons her trajectory to turn back, to watch Cas push open the door with his shoulder, arms full of baby. She catches a glimpse inside the room, messy by anyone's standards but especially Dean's. There are toys and baby books on every surface, a half full laundry basket next to a folded pile of clothes on the desk, shirts draped over chairs and the bed a mess. It looks lived in: real. It looks personal, and yet Mary has no idea the stories behind each thing out of place.

From this angle, she can clearly see Dean still facedown in his pillow, Cas's hand in the center of his back. Another view of the angel's back and she sees Dean has one knee hiked up on the opposite side of the mattress—Mary tries not to think about it—where Cas tucks Jack under his arm in a neat cradle before returning to close the door.

Mary restarts walking just in time to avoid notice, but, well, there's no one left to witness her loitering, and the bunker is echo-y as hell: if anyone's headed her way she'll hear it ages before they get there. For now, it's just her and the fluorescents.

Under the click of the door comes first Jack's babble, then a muffled noise from Dean.

"Aba ba ma," Jack answers, which Cas translates as, "Good morning, Dean."

"Mm. You hear something?" The sound of sheets rustling. "Coulda sworn there was somebody in here..."

More Jack noises, insistent over a barely audible laugh from Cas.

"No, just us."

"Funny, cuz it sounded like... a baby!"

Jack's delighted shrieks fill the hallway as the light above their door surges. From the accompanying yell from Dean and general noise, Mary can imagine the scene well enough, but it still boggles the mind. As if stitching together the image of her own little boy it feels like she was carrying just yesterday with this battle-scarred adult wasn't hard enough, the universe adds this to the mix: her son and his son, not that different from the baby she left behind and yet so tiny in the arms of this man, a killer, a caregiver too. This man, whose laughter seeps through fake monster sounds to join the laughter of his monster baby.

Mary recognizes the thin screech with just enough time to hop out of the spray when the bulb bursts. Shattered glass, almost so fine as to be dust, falls neatly to the concrete. It could be mistaken for a salt circle if not for the hot wire smell in the air. Except it's not quite a circle, or maybe it's two, a smooth arc of powdered glass bending around an invisible force, like the slow overlap of one celestial body eclipsing another. It's a perfect halo, right up until...

When she takes a step back, the arc fits perfectly around where the toes of her boots were.

Mary glances back at the door, still shut on the baby and Dean's jointly waning laughter.

"Ah, shit," Dean sighs. "I thought we were doing better, baby Jack."

"And you thought five dozen extra bulbs was overkill."

"What's the damage?"

As Mary steps back carefully down the hallway, keeping an eye on the next bulb (still steady, but she's watching anyway), the door clicks open to admit Castiel's head. Face upturned, his eyes find the empty socket of the light his son just blew up out of joy.

"Just one more," Cas tells the ceiling.

By the time he looks down, Mary is in the garage, her key in the ignition.

Notes:

the silly little art is mine. shout out to gaussian blur, this brush pack I downloaded in I think 2013, and smudge tool my beloved. idk I was thinking abt doing a little thing for each part, they're just very visual to me for some reason. if anyone else wants to join in lemme know and I'll give you early access to a chapter or smth lol (kind of a joke but also not really)

anyway, I'm still writing this but posting it's what's gonna make me finish lmao. don't forget to rate comment and subscribe etc

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

ꞮꞮ

When Mary gets back, all she wants is to get this duffel off her aching shoulder and pass out on top of the covers. A shower can wait: she got most of the vamp blood with the wipes in her car, but the bag full of knives is digging into the joint at the bottom of her neck already sore from swinging her machete basically all day.

A few more feet, though, and she can drop it in the library. Thankfully the garage was mostly empty, decreasing the odds she'll have to stick around and make small talk. It wouldn't be that bad, probably: the rest of the Apocalypse world hunters know her as kind of a lone wolf, and Sam will only ask how the hunt went. Dean is a tossup. Cas...

Castiel is lying on the floor in the middle of the play area. It's just a corner of the library where they've moved a shelf forward to fit a soft rug and toys, but it's a compromise: keeping the library free for hunter activity while also making sure Jack's world isn't too restricted. Jack is there right now, lying on Cas's chest, chubby arms locked to keep him upright with Cas's hands on his hips to steady him.

The extra support is seemingly unnecessary, though, as they're locked in an unshakeable staring contest. They do this sometimes. Mary has no idea what to make of it, so she stays in her (lightly creeped out) lane.

Neither looks up when Mary enters, or when she sets her bag on the uncluttered middle table with an obvious clunk, so she continues unloading her gear while keeping them in the corner of her eye. They look so similar; Jack's hair is just starting to darken from its baby blond, but their eyes are the exact same, a blue so deep and bright it should be impossible. It has to be a coincidence, but a part of Mary wonders if the freaky prenatal bond Dean mentioned has something to do with it—if maybe Jack, as powerful as he is, somehow rewrote his own genes when he decided Cas was his father.

Just as she thinks it, they laugh in unison, Cas's low chuckle soft under Jack's bright giggle. They haven't moved, no one has said anything, but somehow they're in on a joke together. Mary is definitely going to ask about telepathy.

Cas is still smiling fondly as Jack's arms tire and he flops back down, chin on his little hands. Shifting one hand to the baby's back, the other reaches blindly behind his head and grabs a burp cloth—just in time, as Jack starts to drool onto his well-worn sweatshirt.

He's still smiling at Jack as he says, "Hello, Dean."

All three of them look up to see Dean in the doorway, a couple folios under his arm and a goofy smile on his face. Jack rolls over with a happy sound and lands safely in the crook of Cas's arm, which has already moved to catch him.

"How's my two favorite guys?" Dean sing-songs at them as he sets the books down with a thump.

"We're just finishing tummy time," Cas says completely straight-faced, gathering Jack up and standing. "Jack is working on his upper arm strength."

"Abeebeebee," Jack adds.

Dean nods sagely. "Hell yeah, little man."

Mary keeps her head down, but none of them look her way anyway. It's like this, sometimes: the four of them are a family unit, self-contained and separate from the rest of the bunker's inhabitants as they go about the daily lives they've been living for the last six months. She doesn't know how to feel about it. She's happy to have the pressure off, but... Well. It's not the first time "family" has been a fraught concept for Mary.

"I'm surprised you even noticed me come in," Dean is saying when she gets out of her head again. They're at the table, Dean half-heartedly entertaining Jack while Cas drags a diaper bag closer with one foot. When he speaks, though, Cas looks up to tilt his head at him.

"I always notice you."

"Eh, you say that..."

It's a joke, but Cas looks offended anyway. He pulls from the bag a very fluffy bunny that Jack is already reaching desperately for. "Dean. The world has almost ended several times because of how much I care about you."

"That's not—" Dean takes the bunny and smacks his arm with it. Jack is still grabbing. "Shut up. You know what I mean."

"I really don't."

"You get tunnel vision, man." He gestures around Cas's whole face. "Your eyes glaze over, I can hear your brain going 'baby baby baby' on repeat."

Mary hides a smile behind her hand as Cas frowns, hiking Jack closer even as the baby makes grabby hands at Dean now, bunny forgotten in favor of regaining his fathers' attention. He gets it immediately, of course, though they're still focused on each other. Par for the course.

"I do not."

"You so do." Dean holds out a finger for Jack to take, shaking it absentmindedly. "The other day it took you twenty minutes to notice Sam left to answer phones, you were so focused on Jack smearing carrots all over himself."

When Cas frowns louder, Dean rolls his eyes, swooping in to grab Jack and kiss Cas's cheek in one fell swoop. "Relax, sweetheart. S'cute. Very fatherly."

"Da da ba ba," Jack offers, patting Dean's face with each sound.

Dean ducks to blow a raspberry into his palm. His resulting laughter, bright and excited, melts Cas's face into the exact look Dean was talking about, soft like butter. When Jack turns to check that Cas is watching, Dean does too, an eyebrow quirked over his smile.

"See? The kid agrees."

"That's not what he said," Cas says as he reaches over to catch Jack's other hand and kiss it also. The three of them make a very lovely picture: Dean and Cas turned in towards each other, their baby smiling between them. Mary... Yeah.

Dean rolls his eyes again, though the mask slips into a smile when Jack smacks Cas between the eyes. "Quit pretending you can understand him."

"Of course I— Jack, please." Castiel catches Jack's hand again before he can blind anyone; the boy lets him with a cherubic smile. "Of course I can, he's praying to me."

It's apparently as much news to Dean as it is to Mary. "Uh, since when?"

It explains a lot, actually: the weird stares, the prescient parenting, the certainty with which Cas says certain things about Jack's tastes that couldn't otherwise be divined. One time he told Mary that Jack was mildly allergic to strawberries, which they found out when they fed him some and his tongue started itching. At the time, she had no idea how he knew that. She guesses Jack must have told him.

"Dean." Cas gives him that look: I love you, but really?  "Jack praying to me is how I got out of the Empty."

"Yeah but— What, he talks to you?"

"How did you think I always knew what was wrong when he cried?"

Dean shrugs the shoulder Jack isn't gnawing on. "I don't know, I guess I thought it was just part of you being a great dad."

The tilt of Cas's head says exactly how adorable he thinks Dean is being. "Well, that's very sweet, but no. He's just praying. It's not always articulate enough to be of use, but I can generally tell now what feeling he's trying to convey, especially since most of it I recognize from my own time as human. We understand each other. And at least he's stopped broadcasting to the entire Host."

The last part is directed at Jack himself, in what Mary would hesitate to call a baby voice on anyone else but might be exactly that. Dean definitely thinks so, judging by the big-eyed, close-lipped smile he aims at Cas over Jack's head. He's gone through a whole series of emotions since Cas started explaining: embarrassed and pleased, despairing, guilty, and now completely besotted with this, his little family. For a man who represses so much, Mary's found Dean to be remarkably legible now that fatherhood and true love have softened him up.

"Although I admit, it was funny to see the look on Naomi's face when he— Oh." Cas cuts himself off, raising his arms a bit urgently. "You're gonna want to hand him over now."

"Why...?"

He lifts Jack out of Dean's arms, but it's already too late as the baby spits up orange all over Dean's shoulder. Cas passes him one rag while tucking the other under Jack's chin on his shoulder now, but Dean is too busy staring at himself in dismay to notice it.

"Dean."

He looks up and takes it, patting at his flannel forlornly. The orange is a vivid tragedy against the purple and blue. "This is my favorite shirt..."

"I know, my love." Cas doesn't look that sorry, though, as he turns back to wiping off Jack. "I did try to warn you."

"Serves me right, I guess. Shit." He shucks off the shirt, folding it carefully to keep the stain from spreading as he turns to Jack. "You're lucky I'm doing laundry tonight anyway, kid. I mean, you're too cute not to forgive, but geez."

"Well, that's just part of you being a great dad." Cas dots a kiss on his cheek, almost quick enough to distract from the dirty rags he presses into Dean's free hand. "You'll want to get that in cold water."

"Yeah, I— Hey!"

Cas is already halfway across the room, head tipped intently at the baby in his arms who stares back: not as silently as it seems.

Notes:

hello again! in case you've missed it, I decided to post every day starting last friday (why? well, why not) so if you're in need of more after this hit of baby jack, check out.... uh... okay, there's a real variety of shit, but some of it's cute like this!

up next is sammy time, I promise! I have not forgotten him, it's just how the fic is structured (it goes dean and cas, cas, sam, dean, all 3 of them, then mary comes in at the end)

no art this time (yet... eyes emoji) but may I offer you a meme in this trying time

Chapter 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

ꞮꞮꞮ

Sometimes, it's easy to forget she technically lives with a baby again. There are weeks at a time where Mary's been out on a case and comes back only to really interact with the other hunters. Then, she's back and forth between her room and the map room or the armory, playing dispatch and helping Maggie with her knife throwing. The bunker is usually clear of baby things in the common areas, outside that corner of the library and the baby dishes in the kitchen, so if she just steers clear, watches herself. She starts going to bed early and getting up earlier, out like a light before she can overhear lullabies and out the door before she can overhear good mornings.

Sometimes, though, it's hard to avoid. It's a bit of a minefield at times. She'll see a baby sock stuck to the inside of the dryer and fall into a time warp, sink down against the wall like she's gonna start sorting socks into size tiny and tinier, Dean making funny faces down at Sammy on the rug next to her. Then it's half an hour later and she comes back to reality because her ass hurts from sitting on chilly concrete, not the sixteen cent scrap rug her mom bought a decade ago. Several decades ago, at this point.

But Mary can handle it on a good day. After a hunt ends well? When she saves the day, gets the girl, whatever? She can come back with a bag of takeout and not freeze up when she sees Cas and Jack on their way out, Jack in a little hat with fluffy bear ears that Cas is carefully velcroing snug under his chin. It's the world's cuddliest exposure therapy.

She's having one of those days when she's circling looking for a jacket she could've sworn she left somewhere and runs into it. Dean calls it "Jack's office": a little circular tray with a bouncing seat in the middle that lets him stretch legs still too wobbly to stand. Mary's seen it all over the bunker, usually when one of the boys has a chore to do and needs him stationary and occupied (she's a little jealous, to be honest: it looks convenient as hell).

Today it's Sam, in the library, fielding what looks like three separate veins of research. He's on the phone when Mary pokes her head in, but just looking at the titles around him, he's having a busy afternoon.

Luckily, Jack has an equally impressive spread of board books and toys around him, though he seems more interested in what Sam is doing at the grownups table. Though usually his quietness is unsettling, Mary can see its uses. (If she steps back, it's a little funny: the quiet baby she left now sitting in companionable quiet with his own kid.)

Her jacket is right where she thought, draped over one of the control panels for they still don't know what, but Mary lingers, trying to put her finger on something. Sam is reading. Jack is "reading," looking at him occasionally. For guidance? Is it the synchronicity, maybe? But it's more than that...

Sam gets a call just as she figures it out: why Jack is so much more interested in Sam than his toys. The phone rings and Jack sits up straight, jumping in place until his seat moves enough to grab one of the stuffed animals behind him. It's a fuzzy little bee, and suddenly, she sees it.

Every time Sam does something, Jack copies it on his own kiddie level. When Sam turns a page, Jack turns a page. When Sam picks up his pen to jot something down in a notebook, Jack stabs at his tray with a block. Sam talks into his cell and Jack does the same with his bumblebee, babbling to it seriously with pauses for the bee's answers (he shakes the rattle inside it) as Sam listens to whoever's calling.

It's very precious.

"Alright, Maggie..." Sam raises a hand hello at Mary as she finally walks through to grab the jacket she'd been after in the first place. Jack echoes the gesture a second later as Sam continues, "Yeah, that definitely sounds like more than one of whatever it is, so I'm gonna send Stevie your way. She's nearby and you shouldn't try to take this on alone."

"Eegee," Jack says solemnly. His bee agrees.

"Oh," Sam reaches for one of the top books on the furthest pile, trying and failing to tug it open by the sticky note stuck in it, "and I'll get you that chapter on regional sea monster legends. Stevie knows this stuff already, but it's always handy to have the original."

He hangs up, unscored by one last jingle of Jack's bee, and turns all his attention to the book. It starts to open to the page he wants when the sticky comes free and Sam swears silently, lunging for the pages before he loses his place.

What he gets in return is a papercut, judging by the sharp hiss and jerk back that follow.

"Ah, shhhoot," he manages to recover, sticking his index finger in his mouth before he can accidentally swear more. Jack's eyes are already on him when Sam looks over and says, "You didn't hear that."

"Gah!"

Jack knocks over one of his own books as he reaches both arms up to Sam. His faint baby eyebrows are furrowed the exact same way as Sam's.

"It's okay, I'm alright," Sam says, but it's not enough for Jack, who fusses again wordlessly, hands opening and closing around the air between him and Sam. Sam stares at him questioningly for a moment before removing his finger from his mouth. "You...?"

When Jack makes the same noise again, Sam smiles, wiping his finger off conscientiously before offering it to him. The baby grabs on gratefully, bringing Sam's hands closer with little effort as the man obviously leans in.

"Dean taught you that too, huh?" He just as Jack makes a "muh" sound with Sam's cut near his mouth. "Well—"

Sam's fond expression quickly falls into one of surprise as gold light shines out of his finger, brightening in sync with a high ringing sound as Jack retreats from his kiss, leaving Sam's finger perfectly intact.

Stunned silence fills the library, both known and unknown. From Mary's vantage point behind one of the pillars, she can see realization dawn across Sam's face: first surprise melting into confusion, then excited curiosity.

"Wait." He leans forward over Jack and his outstretched finger. "Did you just...?"

"Aba!" Jack says, which only takes a second for Mary, still fluent in baby, to translate: Ta da.

When Sam laughs, Mary's first thought is that it's not that different from how he laughed as a baby. She hadn't heard him laugh—really laugh, more than the wry huffing of adults—since she was dropped in the future.

"Holy shit," he laughs. "Wait, really?"

Really. Mary would have thought it would be... She doesn't actually know, but not like this: light and high and so carefree.

That's it; that's what's so jarring. Carefree is the last word she'd use to describe Sam, then or now. Even as a baby, he was full of care. Somewhere along the line it morphed into more of a burden, the weight of the world on his oh-so-high shoulders, but even thirty years ago, she knew that. Or at least, she thought she did.

Sam starts babbling fascinated rhetorical questions at him, Jack answering back incomprehensibly but just as enthusiastic. When Sam, now hypothesizing wondrously to himself, scoops Jack up and out of his seat, the baby laughs—and though Mary knows she has heard that laugh before, it sounds just as new.

Notes:

sammy time!!!!! as is only fitting, this is being posted frm a university library lol, though that's more bc I moved today and my internet isn't up yet. wifi is so expensive <3 <3 <3 fuck this <3 <3 <3 my cashapp is—

anyway, this chapter is dedicated to my brother, who had one of those baby activity center things that we did call his office, something I totally forgot til my mom and I were packing up picture boxes a couple months ago. do those things still exist in 2017? I have no idea, nor do I care. jack is in his office.

(ok but re: the other thing, do check my twitter pinned lol)

Chapter 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

ꞮV

"So he pages her, right? And then—get this—he sticks that knife, from earlier? In the outlet, right before she gets to the door." Dean pauses, seems to consider what he just said, and turns to Jack to add, "Don't do that, yeah? It's dangerous. Bad for babies."

Jack nods, wide-eyed, around his teething ring. It's late morning, something like lunch, but Mary only rolled in after dawn and is just out of the shower (ghouls, God, every time). She's looking for some coffee when she stumbles upon this adorable little scene of Dean peeling a mountain of apples with Jack in his high chair next to him, bowlful of mush ignored in favor of the sweet relief of frozen plastic.

She'd heard tell from Sam on her way in that it's Jack's half birthday tomorrow, which is apparently something Dean is adamant about celebrating properly, "no matter what he tells you." So far it's only pie and some toys Dean's been meaning to give him anyway, according to Sam, but then Maggie caught wind, and she really loves the kid, babysits him when she can convince them to let her, and—

"It's gonna be a whole production," Sam had warned her. "In case you wanna... Just so you know."

Little did he know, it's already a whole production. Dean's got a fleet of apples before him, headed by two bowls: a big ceramic one full of perfect, uniform slices and a smaller but overflowing cereal bowl with the rejects. Every piece he slices gets examined before being thrown onto one of the piles, and it's a very strict process, apparently, as the discards look almost identical to the accepted few. High standards for a half-birthday boy who won't even be eating this pie, but that's Dean for you.

He finishes a last slice and sticks the remainder (mostly core, but not entirely) in his mouth as he reaches for the bag on the stool next to him, returning with another shiny apple.

"Right—" Chomping through a bit of the core, the rest goes in the paper bag under the table. "So." Dean digs enough into the apple skin that he can start peeling in a smooth, steady spiral that hypnotizes the baby, as if he wasn't paying rapt attention anyway. "All the candidates are back in the place with the blackboard and Wilson comes in, and he's in charge but not all there, you know? And Wilson tells them House died, but it's whatever—which, you gotta remember, is not normal for most people. Winchesters are different. That's another important thing to learn."

Jack drops his teething ring to babble something supportive.

"Exactly." Dean drops the peel on the pile next to him. "Who says TV can't be educational? Bullshit."

When Jack blows spit bubbles in response, Dean laughs, high and loud, before reaching over to wipe it up with his bib.

"Yeah, 'pbbbt' is right."

When he leans over, Mary glimpses the mug at his other elbow. It wafts over, aromatic as hell and reminding Mary why she was here in the first place. Jack spits something on Dean.

"Hey! I'm trying to help you here, you know."

Taking advantage of the distraction, Mary tries to sneak straight through to the coffee maker for her own hit—"tries" being the operative word. She doesn't look when Dean's head turns towards her, though she does catch the movement. She's acting natural. No big deal, just getting some coffee.

It isn't until she's armed with her mug that she turns and meets Dean's eyes, ignoring how Jack's are also turned on her with their usual eerie precision. "Hey."

"Hi."

Mary takes a sip. Sure is coffee. Dean looks similarly occupied, despite not doing anything.

"It's, uh..." Dean gestures at the bowls, the kitchen's general chaos (which isn't actually that bad but is noticeably ill-organized for Dean). "Six months tomorrow. Figured since everyone's here we could celebrate a little. Pie. Couple presents."

Mary nods, mouth conveniently full of coffee and saving her from answering until she can figure out something benign. "That sounds nice."

Dean turns back down to his pile of peelings, one hand on the back of his neck. "Uh, yeah. I mean, he can't actually eat it, but I figured, mushy apples are good. Kinda close enough."

"No sure, that—" She stops herself from mentioning that they did that for Dean his first Thanksgiving, soft apples and pumpkin puree for dessert matching their apple and pumpkin pies (that yeah, were bought at the grocery store, but you try making a whole Thanksgiving dinner with a ten month old on your hip). Her poker face has never come in as handy as it has these last few weeks. "Totally makes sense. I get it."

"Yeah, it's—" Dean nods, starting to peel again, before he notices that Jack is still staring at Mary—and possibly hasn't blinked? At least, not that Mary has seen, though she's glanced away more than her fair share. "Hey."

Dean nudges the spoon still in Jack's hand with his apple slice, pulling the baby's attention back. With Jack's eyes on him again, Dean goes right back to smiling, all discomfort evaporated.

"Alright, angel baby, reign it in. We talked about this, the staring is creepy. Come on, what happened to second breakfast?"

He goes right back to talking at Jack, but Mary hears none of it, stuck. She don't know he remembered that: it must have been, what, when she was pregnant again? She was explaining about the new baby when Dean asked why they needed another one if he was "baby," like she called him, and Mary explained it was a nickname, like "honey" or "sweetie," and how her mom had one for her when she was little too.

Angel baby. It's funny. Deanna Campbell could've never seen it becoming so literal, let alone for her, what, great-grandson? But then again, Mary didn't think angels were literally watching over Dean every time she told him that before bed and look where that got them.

"Yeah, wish I could, kiddo," her baby says as Jack reaches for the apple slices towering over the lip of the big bowl, "but we're not up to solids that solid yet, alright? Come on, applesauce is still apple."

Jack makes a dismayed sound, but it's quickly replaced by the gumming sounds of him eating the spoonful of applesauce Dean holds out for him. Baby thusly occupied, Dean returns to slicing and narrating what Mary thinks might be a TV show. For a second, Mary is able to picture this repeated a hundred times over, the preceding one hundred and eighty days of Dean and Jack, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He probably could make a Thanksgiving dinner with a ten month old on his hip, one handed and without tears, even.

Mary is pouring herself another cup to excuse why she's still lingering when something scrapes. It isn't her—she looks over the counter, but there are no precarious mugs or anything—but it's a distinctly misplaced sound: the kind of thing she's trained her whole life to notice.

"Where were we?" Apple peeling noises. "Right, so Wilson goes to see House and he's pissed." Jack says something. "Yeah, sure, he lived! But that's his best friend. He's allowed to still be mad."

Then, another scrape. Mary turns around in time to spot its origin: it's the bowl of apple slices, jerking against the table, for no visible reason. The bowl lurches again, just an inch, then flings forward down the length of the table before—

"Hey."

Mary has only just started to move when Dean catches the bowl halfway down the table—quite the feat, as it wasn't that far a journey. Great reflexes come with the job, but there was something too quick about that move, a kind of readiness Mary remembers from always having to be one step ahead of his baby self, her little tornado. Even before Dean started walking, she always had to have one hand on a rag and the other on the back of his shirt.

Jack makes the exact same face Dean always did in those moments, halfway between contrition and hopeful innocence, ready to switch completely to whichever is called for. When Dean drags the fruit back to his side of the table, Jack seems to decide on the latter tactic, big blue eyes staring wondrously at Dean like he's never heard of apples.

"Don't give me that look, kiddo," he says warningly, picking back up his peeling. "I know it's you now. I recognize that little Care Bear Stare. You want your dad to give you a telepathic talk about your powers again?"

The baby switches right back to contrition, babbling quickly, "Madadaba."

"Uh huh, I bet."

"Ba!" He's doing the eyes again, and though Dean tries to uphold the façade, Mary can tell he's already lost. She would know: she's been there many a time.

"Look..." Dean peels off a sliver of apple, thin enough to gum on but big enough that Jack won't accidentally inhale it. He holds it up in demonstration. "You don't tell your dad I gave you this and I won't tell him about you using your powers. Deal?"

Jack shrieks happily and bounces in his seat, reaching out two grabby hands. The sound ricochets around the kitchen and Mary could swear she hears the whir of the egg timer speed up briefly underneath.

"God, you're lucky you're so fucking cute," Dean mumbles under his breath, handing Jack the apple with one hand while the other covers his ear. As Jack starts gnawing on it, though, Dean brushes his hair back with a gentle smile.

The coffeemaker dings, reminding them of her presence, and Dean gives her a half smile when he catches her looking. She raises a hand in greeting and pours herself a mug until he looks away, back to peeling apples and pushing toys back into Jack's reach: back to taking care of his son.

Without looking up, Dean asks her, "So, you wanna come? It's not a big deal, obviously, but..."

"Uh." Mary watches as one of the smaller chunks in the discard bowl starts to hover. "Sure."

She has a feeling it's gonna be a really good pie. Just as long as there's enough fruit to fill it.

Notes:

hey gang! fancy seeing you all here. sorry, I had to write 25 pages of thesis to turn in last week and it ricocheted through my writing-of-every-kind schedule lmao. but we're back! everyone say hi baby jack, DON'T think about my last fic (unless you like succession, in which case do read it), this is a no bummer zone!!!

Chapter 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Growing up "in the life" meant something very different for Mary than it did for her sons.

Like, alright, she knew to pick the motel room with the easiest getaway and to always check the bathroom windows got lined with salt too, but she had a childhood home. Her mom made dinners, her parents had jobs, she had baby photos on the mantle and volleyball trophies on her bookshelf. She graduated high school alongside kids she knew when they were eating paste.

And she didn't have to deal with fucking laundromats.  

Oh yeah, she appreciated the wind in her hair as much as the next hunter, but life actually and perpetually on the road sucked. Even when she was sneaking out on long weekends to "visit old friends," there was a comfort to the idea of returning home, of convincing herself she could have both, she could do it all, fight monsters and lay her head in the same bed every night. Not only could she go away, but she could come back.

Now, it's different. Spending all her time on the road is well and good, saving people and kicking ass, but it gets to her. Sometimes you just want something familiar, right? To wake up and not have to wonder which state you're in this time, to step into the shower knowing what the water pressure will be like, even if it sucks, just to know in advance—to not have to deal with the gummy residue of whatever dipshit used the washer before her.

She's always hated laundry, but this takes the cake. The choice between shelling out another two bucks to run the dryer again or live with wrinkled, half damp shirts? More brutal than the guilt of trading her sons' fates for the chance to not be completely alone in the world—kidding, of course, but come on. She's got no idea how Dean has done it all these years, neat freak that he's apparently become.

And it just seems stupid, right? When there's a fleet of industrial washers and dryers not that far from what Mary last knew in the bunker, free of charge. When the only thing standing in her way is herself and her last gasp hang-ups.

That's how the thought process goes, anyway, every time she comes back. That's what she reminds herself when she's peeling staticky onesies off her flannels and finding, weeks later, a baby sock that's snuck its way up the leg of her jeans and clung there, still crackling.

She's found three, this time, none of them matching: purple with white polka dots, white with a little green stripe around the cuff, and, now, one nearly identical but with yellow. It's been a while since she found anything substantial—the boys must have gotten better at catching everything—but socks are still the worst. There's always half a second where she pairs them, on autopilot, before remembering whose they are.

Mary drops the sock onto the pile of the others. Not thinking about it.

Scooping up all three offenders, she heads back to the laundry room. Her main coping mechanism is dumping the baby clothes back in the dryer and pretending it never happened. It usually works—it would this time, if it weren't for the fact that the second she turns into the laundry room, she's face to face with Sam, carrying a basket of his own.

"Oh. Hey!" Sam's expression is halfway between happy and confused, quickly sliding towards the former when he actually realizes what he's looking at. He shifts the basket onto his hip, where Mary can now see at least one of the socks she has the match to. "I didn't know you were still here."

"Jules asked me to stick around and take a look at some omens." She holds up her fistful of socks. "And do some laundry."

Sam laughs and takes them from her. "Aw man, sorry about that. They're so little, I can never keep track..."

"No problem."

Smiling awkwardly, Sam nods his head back into the laundry room where (Mary sees as she cranes around him) there's another empty basket on the table. "Dean's been helping Maggie and a couple other kids clean up in Missouri and Cas still doesn't really get chores, so I got stuck with the short end of the stick."

Mary gets that—boy does she get that—but she has no idea how to say so without making things extremely awkward, so she just nods too. "Socks are an especially tricky one."

At that, Sam lights up with the gratitude of someone tossed a conversational life preserver. "Right? They're just so small, you can't even fold them like normal socks, but Dean gets all pissy when he can't find a match."

"Usually you can fold just the sides over each other," Mary offers. "Makes 'em easier to get apart too. I don't know if Jack's all that wriggly, but..."

"Lemme guess, Dean was?"

After a moment of theatrics, Mary nods, making Sam chuckle. Before she has to figure out where to go from there, one of the dryers buzzes, loud and industrial.

"Oh, sorry, I gotta..."

"No problem."

Sam turns around to get the other basket, only to find he's still holding one, and Mary, foot in mouth, blurts out, "Here, let me get that."

"Oh. Thanks."

And so, now, Mary is doing this. Okay.

She stares surveys the basket before her as Sam retrieves the next round of clothes. On top are the socks she returned, along with one match, and the rest is equally baby colored. The few larger articles of clothing in it are familiar—one of Dean's flannels and his own patterned socks—but the majority are clothes that she has tried not to learn and recognize. Still, she can't help it: here, for instance, is the striped green and white onesie Jack was wearing when they fished her and the others out of the other universe. Their first real meeting, and she realizes, now, why that one sock looked so eerily familiar.

"Thanks," Sam says again, startling her (though she hides it well) from the memory. "I can—"

Mary ducks his reach. "No, come on, it's fine. Where we headed?"

Sam smiles and leads her down the hall to Jack's room. The infant in question isn't there, though he is just across the hall with Cas in his dads' room. Cas catches her eye with a polite smile as she follows Sam in, setting her basket on the changing table as he does the same with his at the rocking chair. Mary doesn't like to go near the rocking chair, it's too familiar, but the rest of the room... isn't so bad, now that she's in it. It's just a nursery, ordinary as hell and almost comforting in how lived-in it feels, as long as she doesn't think about the last time she was in a nursery.

When Mary glances back at Sam, he's smiling at her again, and Mary realizes her hands have gone ahead without her and started folding. She stares at the folded onesie. It's... not that bad.

"Dean's gonna refold everything anyway," Sam jokes, subdued, "but it's either this or hear him bitch about wrinkles."

Across the hall, Jack says something long and inarticulate, to which Cas replies, "Well, these are clothes for sleeping. It's different."

"Fair enough."

She picks out a sock with an embroidered giraffe, smaller than her thumbnail, on the cuff. The side? It's so small, they're essentially the same.

Not finding its match immediately, she sets it aside and pulls out another sock. Sam catches her eye and smiles politely, a kind distraction from the footsteps coming down the hall.

Everyone in earshot knows who it is immediately, all coming to attention in their own way. Sam looks up, then grimaces back at the rest of the unfolded laundry, while Cas smiles at the empty doorway briefly and continues dressing Jack. Jack, for his part, perks up, launching into a high-speed babble as he makes fists up at Cas.

He only gets louder once Dean appears, bedraggled with his duffle barely managing to stay on his shoulder. Still, Cas continues to wrangle him into his onesie, so Jack's head only pops out once Dean has slumped in and draped himself over Cas's back.

Cas mumbles something that makes Dean laugh and go to collapse on the free half of the bed.

"Who's ready for bedtime?"

"Me..." Dean says into his pillow, collapsing on the free half of the bed.

Ignoring him, Cas continues, "Jack is."

Dean turns over, kicking off his boots as he goes. Mary looks back down at the wrinkling onesie in her hands and folds it again from the start.

"Oh. You're doing the thing. Right."

Cas pulls one of Jack's hands free from the sleeve of his onesie, despite his wriggling. "Encouraging our son's brain development and self esteem? Yes."

Next to Mary, Sam snorts, folding another of many almost identical flannels. She looks up and he smiles before rolling his eyes across the hall, and it's nice: like they're in on a little joke together.

"I encourage him plenty!"

Jack says something in agreement. Mary finally finds the other giraffe sock. They're very soft inside.

"And who has the most beautiful soul I've ever seen?" Cas free Jack's other hand and gives him a kiss. "Jack does."

"I see how it is..."

Cas leans up and over to kiss Dean's forehead too, one hand on the mattress for balance and the other on Jack. "Yours is a close second, my love."

"Stiff competition," Dean mumbles, but his face is decidedly red when Cas retreats. "This kid's gonna have an ego the size of Texas, you know."

"No, he won't," Cas continues to stare lovingly at Jack, who is now reaching for his own feet in defiance of Cas's hands, "because he is a very sweet boy who deserves all praise coming his way."

One last snap and he sits Jack up, only to have the baby throw himself back down with a grin the second Cas lets go. Ah, that familiar phase. Mary never really got that far with Sam, but Dean was the same kind of menace, always flopping away when Mary was trying to get him to sit still long enough to brush his hair, rolling away from the damp washcloth in her hand, pressing berry fingerprints deep into the picnic blanket in his quest to learn how his little body existed in space. She never did get that stain out.

Now, Dean snorts above them. "Oh yeah, the sweetest. Just a little angel, right, Jackie?"

Jack turns at the sound of his name, head first with the rest of his body following as he rolls onto all fours. As soon as he's up, he crawls speedily to Dean, who scoops him up in a giggly pile.

"Man, somebody's not ready for bed, huh?" Dean says as Jack flops back in his arms, babbling incessantly. "What's it gonna take, kid? You need some... tickles?"

"Dean—" Cas starts, but barely half-hearted and too late, as it comes out through a smile when Jack's hysterics fill the room.

Dean just grins. "I'm tiring him out."

He's looking at Cas, but his head is not quite right, tilted up and to the side in a move Mary half recognizes before...

Oh. Mary looks away then, though not quickly enough to miss how neither of them seem to be able to stop smiling enough to actually kiss. All that's left are a handful of unmatched baby socks at the bottom of the basket.

She hears Jack continue to babble as she starts pairing the last few as slowly as she can without being obvious about it. While Sam across from her opens one last drawer, she hears Cas deadpan, "Well, thank you for all your help."

"S'what I do."

Sam and Mary trade spots, her with the half a dozen pairs of socks that fit easily in her hands, him with the small pile of Dean's (and thus also Cas's) clothes that he drops in the empty basket. Not quite machinery smooth, they move around each other in a room Mary's never really been in but that is identical to every other room down here: to the one she sleeps in and tries to marry the feeling of the same ceiling overhead every night with that of sleeping alone.

When she turns back, Sam is crossing the hall. Beyond him she sees Cas and Dean, no longer touching but still somehow attached : a single silhouette. Dean is still mostly lying down, though he looks brighter than he did when he first appeared, and wiggles his fingers at Jack, back in Cas's arms.

"You want me to take over?" He's asking Cas as he nods to Sam in thanks.

Sam just smiles and starts unloading the pile—Mary remembers then that he's technically still in the middle of chores.

"I can do it," Cas says unconfidently. "I did his bath."

Dean looks back at him. "Buddy, I love you, but you can't sing."

"That's not fair."

"No, but it's true."

"I can do it," Cas avers, and Dean lifts his hand in deference.

"Alright."

"Alright." Cas leans Jack over Dean, who sits up slightly. "Say goodnight to Dean."

One hand anchored in Cas's sweater, Jack pats Dean's cheek with the other before clumsily bopping his face to Dean's in an approximation of a kiss. Despite his exhaustion, Dean lights up brighter than Mary has ever seen, eyes crinkled warmly as he catches one of Jack's retreating hands to kiss.

"Night, buddy," he says with one last brush across his fine hair. "Don't let your dad burst your eardrums."

Cas doesn't so much roll his eyes as his entire head, even as he kisses Dean's hair, Jack babbling all the while.

"That was one time."

"Sweetheart, it was at least four," Dean calls after him with a shit-eating grin.

"Name me them," Cas says, turning back as Sam, snickering, sneaks by to pick up the rest of the day's rumpled baby clothes, still on the nearest chair. It's like watching a sitcom.

"The literal first time we met—"

Cas heel turns back to the door and the movement draws Dean's eye over to her, but before Mary can think to do something stupid like hide (Sam obviously knows she's there and Castiel has to have noticed by now, right?) something... else happens.

The first thing she registers is the change in air pressure, like suddenly the room has gotten smaller, or they've been dropped in the air, a bit of vacuum sucking her in from the hallway. Then there's a pop, like a suction cup, and a sudden second of silence where Jack's babbling stutters. But doesn't. Or, it does, but it's like...

Then her brain catches up to her eyes.

Dean looks just as confused to suddenly have a lapful of the baby who, less than a second ago, was across the room. Mary's glad she's not the only one, though when she looks around, it seems the odds are still against them.

"Uh..." He blinks dumbly as Jack starts noisily climbing him. "What the hell?"

"We were going to tell you about that," Cas says.

"Oh you were, were you?" Dean hugs Jack in a way that's definitely more about keeping him in one place than anything else. "And when was that gonna be?"

His unimpressed look swings over to Sam, who raises his free hand defensively, the other keeping the laundry basket at his hip. "Don't look at me, it was Cas's idea."

"That's not—" Utter betrayal on the angel's face. "It wasn't an active conspiracy. It just happened once, we weren't sure what it was, so I thought I would do more investigating before worrying you."

Jack burrows in, his head snug under Dean's chin. "Amamamama."

"And do I have to worry?"

"Oh. No."

Disturbing Jack as little as possible, Dean swings his arm out at Cas, managing to hit him with the back of his fingers. "Well, lead with that!"

"I think he's just learning to use his wings," Cas explains. No one but Mary blinks, though she sure does enough for the lot of them. "Most angels, their wings are more of a metaphor—how the human mind perceives something unperceivable on this plane of existence. Jack's are a bit more literal, though. I think he absorbed some of Kelly's preconceptions about angels."

The last part sounds a little sour on Cas's tongue, and Sam behind him snorts: definitely a conversation they've had before.

"So what, this is the angel equivalent of crawling?"

Jack blows spit bubbles in answer.

"At least it's not the equivalent of teething," Sam offers with minimal hope, though the suggestion just makes Dean grimace more.

"We can only assume. It's not like there are a lot of books on nephilim rearing."

"Right, but he's not—" Dean stutters in setting his hand on Jack's back and gives it a nervous glance. "I mean, you can... see them, right?"

"Oh." Cas shakes his head, watching Jack tug Dean's ear. "No, his wings are fully formed, though I suspect they'll still grow with age."

"Right. Good."

"It's more analogous to crawling," Cas says and lifts Jack off of Dean before he can do any more damage, holding the baby aloft and staring at nothing else. "No, his wings are very beautiful and strong. Though they will molt at some point, probably around when he loses his baby teeth."

Sam huffs a laugh while Dean grimaces. "Okay. Gross."

"It's not gross," Cas explains patiently to Jack. "It's a perfectly normal part of child development."

Dean rolls his eyes and shuffles to sit at the foot of the bed, wincing all the time. "Nothing about this family is normal. Hey. Pass him back real quick."

Cas does so willingly, though Jack's wriggling reach doesn't give him much choice. He settles once he's back in Dean's arms, babbling happily and patting Dean's face to a rhythm only he knows.

"Hey, kiddo, it— Hey." He catches one of Jack's hands, holding it loosely. "Congrats on the wings, but it's still bedtime for babies, okay? Be good for your dad. C'mere."

Once he gives Jack a kiss on the cheek, he holds the baby out to Sam, who hugs him goodnight too before passing him back to Cas. Cas leans down to kiss Dean's temple again, saying something softly that makes Dean laugh once as Sam shuts the last drawer.

There's a moment when Cas turns, Sam sneaking out between them, and meets Mary's eyes. She almost, almost steps forward, but then she sets down her basket and backs out with a nascent smile at Cas—the baby too.

Notes:

happy love day! here is some love

dedicating this chapter to my late professor, whose passing I found out about from... a suggested trending tweet from kripke. yeah. she was almost certainly a sam girl and a wincestie, but still. if you've read my good omens paper or article on the niche, it was her class that I wrote those for, a class that really changed how I write and the confidence with which I approach my bizarro interests academically. miss you, kathy! hope you're living it up at the big con in the sky

anyway, there's also a destiel smut spin off for this one that will be incoming later tonight, so keep an eye out for that. seeya later!

Chapter 6

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

VꞮ

Mary is leaning against the map table, listening to Cas's story about Gabriel and the third frog in all creation, when he stops mid-sentence and looks up at the door.

Jack perks up in his arms, but when both he and Mary follow Cas's eyes, there's nothing there.

Calmly and without looking away, Cas says, "Mary, can you please take Jack to the kitchen?"

"Um—"

But he's already handing the newly wriggly Jack over, and by the time she has a handle on him, Cas is on the stairs.

Jack's fussing peters out when the outside door shutting echoes down the entrance tunnel, almost inaudible under Cas's footsteps on the staircase but distinct enough to pick out. As Mary walks away with him, Jack cranes his head to keep Cas in sight, only giving up when they get to the hallway.

She doesn't need the confirmation, but by the time they reach the kitchen, Sam and Dean's voices are clear.

"Alright, alright, just—" Dean grinds out. "Can I sit first?"

"At least let me stop the bleeding," Cas says.

"In a sec."

Three sets of footsteps come back down the stairs.

"What the hell did you do."

"You can take that one," Sam says.

Dean groans in response.

"Dean."

"Yeah, sweetheart, I know, just— Ah, ah, okay, okay."

Jack's hand flexes against Mary's jacket: open shut, open shut. Her head snaps around to look at him, but Jack doesn't seem to notice. It's... Dean used to do that. He still does. It's one of the few bits of continuity she has to hold onto.

"Okay," Dean sighs. "Alright, do your thing."

"I got tied up at the library," Sam explains while something hums a high tone that echoes down the hallway. "Dean here decided to go back to the victim's house on his own, where it turns out her older brother was the vamp."

A hissing sound.

"Sorry." Cas does not sound sorry.

"Uh huh. Long story short, one jumped me from behind and I guess the other on the floor had enough left in him to get the knife in my leg. Gravity did the rest."

"Well. It'll take a couple hours for my grace to recharge enough to fix the internal damage, but at least I can't see bone anymore."

"Thanks, Cas," Dean says, almost too quiet to hear.

There's enough of a pause that Mary considers rejoining them, but Dean speaks before she can make a decision.

"Where's the kid?"

Jack bounces in her arms once and leans toward the door, reminding Mary that she's holding him. She holds on but makes no move to quiet him when he lets out the faintest noise of displeasure: not nearly enough to carry down the hallway, but enough to twist Mary's heart in her chest. She doesn't blame him. She's been feeling the same way since she heard them enter and realized why Cas wanted Jack out of sight.

Besides, he could fly back to his dads with a thought if he wanted. Holding him down would probably just remind him he could.

"In the kitchen with Mary, but—" A groan (Dean) and a sigh (definitely Cas, probably also Sam). "Dean, you shouldn't be walking on that any more than necessary."

She can't quite tell what Dean says in response—"It is necessary," maybe?—but it doesn't matter when he's in the doorway in seconds, shoulders falling when he sees them.

"Hey, buddy," he says as he holds out arms that Jack eagerly falls into.

Now that she has a visual, Mary has a better grasp on what happened. There's blood in his hair and on the left leg of his jeans, which have a ragged tear from the top of the calf to almost the cuff. Underneath she only sees smooth (though bloody) skin, but from the way Dean drops down to sit on the tabletop with a wince, it's obviously not all healed. Mary's seen some shit, but Cas mentioned bone, and the thought of her baby... Well, she knows the life, but she tries not to think about it. Evidence makes that harder.

But now that her baby has his baby, the pained notch in his brow eases. Dean barely spares a glance for his mother before burying his face in Jack's hair, but she's not offended. She knows the feeling, exactly: she's caught up then in the sense memory of the exact same thing, coming home from an overnight hunt disguised as a girl's trip and sweeping her baby up off the front steps of the neighbor's, where he was already bouncing, ready to run to her. He always felt so much bigger in her arms than when she left him, but she knew it was him: there was no mistaking those eyes.

Now, the same eyes flick up to hers as he tucks Jack into his shoulder before saying, "Thanks for watching him."

"It was two minutes." She aims for casual, but it obviously doesn't work. Still, he doesn't say more, just half shrugs and holds her awkward gaze until she adds, "He was a little angel."

Dean laughs—quiet, but there—and kisses Jack's head. "Yeah, if you're lucky. Other times he lives up to—"

When he stops mid-thought, frowning, Mary hears it too: a quiet huffing sound, distinct from the mumbles of Sam and Cas talking outside. She figures it out a second after Dean maneuvers Jack back enough to look at face to face.

He's crying—not the loud wails that have woken Mary more than once by shattering the unlit bulb in her lamp, but the small, snuffling sounds of a child in the midst of being soothed down from worse heights, or an adult trying not to be noticed. It's unnerving, though not in his usual uncanny way. It's too heartbreaking to watch, yet too odd to look away from.

Tears cling to his cheeks as his hands grasp around nothing, now out of reach of Dean's shirt, but he doesn't protest. His head is cradled in one of Dean's hands.

"Hey, hey." Everything else disappears, as far as Dean is concerned. "Hey, buddy, it's alright. I'm alright, yeah? Don't cry, Jack, don't..."

Jack makes a more articulate noise and lurches forward. As his small palm reaches for Dean's face, Mary has the urge to jump in front of it, like it's a bullet and not baby soft skin. It's stupid, but it's not—

The gold light and the ringing tone that follow are now all too familiar, but Mary's never had this extended a view. The light, she sees now, is not one color but something shifting and liquid, spots of yellow-white and deep orange like glitter in a glass of water. The tone is not a single note but a chord. And all of it, it's clear now, is coming from Jack's hand specifically, pressed over a cut on Dean's cheek. His palm is the melon color of sunlight through skin, the delicate spread of bones inside like lacework.

The light show comes to a sudden stop as Dean reels like he'd stumble if he were standing. The cut is gone, replaced by an expression of quiet horror—an emotion Mary knows intimately. It's not the look of a witness: it's the what have I done hollowness Mary recognizes from every night she wakes from a dream of that night in the road and catches her reflection as she douses it in cold water. He stares into the middle distance before his eyes focus on Jack's, where he opens his mouth uselessly a few times.

"Jack..." He croaks eventually. "I—" One unbloodied hand smooths over Jack's hair to hold the back of his head. "No, Jackie, I promise. I wouldn't leave you like that. I wouldn't, I... I won't."

Jack sniffs, hands back to clenching Dean's collar. Whatever he showed Dean was obviously draining for both of them (though Mary would bet it's more the content of the connection than the act itself) but he stays valiantly upright as Dean stares hard at him.

"I promise, buddy. It's okay. Everything's okay."

Mary isn't sure whether to ask or not; the frantic gleam in Dean's eyes is a strong argument in both directions. Before she can decide, though—more importantly, before Dean can remember that she's in the room—there are footsteps coming down the hall. Dean quickly swipes at his eyes, but it doesn't achieve much. Anyone looking at him could tell how rattled he is, let alone the two people who know him best and who are also walking through the doorway now.

"Dean?"

At his heels, Cas has the same worried look as Sam, though it's somehow more and less confused, like he can see something the rest of them can't but doesn't quite know what to make of it yet.

"Hey." Dean sniffs and holds Jack higher, closer to his chest. "Sup?"

"Everything... okay?"

"Yeah."

Cas skips to the point. "What happened?"

"It, uh—"

Jack makes a noise and Cas's eyebrows furrow.

"Aw, man, don't rat me out," Dean tells the side of Jack's head. He sighs. "It's alright. Jack, uh, healed me, I guess."

"He can do that?" Sam asks.

"Apparently."

Cas is less satisfied. "That's not all..."

"What, can you taste it in the air?" Dean continues even as Cas rolls his eyes, "Yeah, I guess he mind melded with me. I saw a memory, I think. I don't know, he was like a day old, it was pretty blurry. Baby tunnel vision."

At that, Sam starts to tune into something too, and Mary puts the pieces together in time for...

"Oh. Dean ."

"It's fine." His smile is fooling no one, least of all Cas, who looks a second away from crying. Sam is cringing, knowing what's coming next. "I guess it was just— He can't talk, y'know? But I guess he was trying to communicate, uh. How he was feeling."

No one talks about it, that nebulous space of time (Mary still doesn't know how long) between the night that Cas died, Jack was born, and Mary disappeared, and whatever happened to bring Cas back. There's an unspoken blank space in the timeline. Mary knows that once Cas came back, something happened that lead to the renewed efforts to get to her. She knows it wasn't right away. She knows, now, what's between Dean and Cas, and she knows how much Jack cares about his fathers. No one talks about that time, but Mary can imagine pretty well. How he was feeling.

"He was freaked out. But we're good," Dean says, quieter than before. "See? All good. Right, Jackie?"

Jack pats his cheek right where the cut was, Mary remembers, and though it's not accompanied by the happy babble Mary's come to associate him with, it isn't nearly as distraught as she's now seen the baby be.

"All good," Dean reiterates. "Also I promised it wouldn't happen again, so." He shrugs the shoulder that Jack isn't curled up against. "Guess I'm retiring."

By the end of this spiel, Sam looks somewhere between stunned and impressed, while Cas looks two seconds from bolting across the room and sweeping both father and son up into his arms. If Mary ever had any doubts about this human-shaped thing her son is in love with, that look would obliterate them; that is a man propelled by love.

"So!" Dean hefts Jack up higher in his arms, giving the boy a smile that the adults in the room can tell is a little forced but genuine enough. "Somebody's gotta be around to make sure we get his first steps on video, and I've got a feeling it's gonna be sooner rather than later. Yeah, bud—? Ow. Alright, hey, watch it."

Once he pries Jack's hand from his ear, though, Jack grabs Dean's finger instead and yanks.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Eh!"

Jack fusses, wriggling, and turns around to face the rest of them, making his grabby hands around the open air.

"Think that's for you, pal," Dean says, glancing at Cas as he bounces Jack a few times in vain. Even in that one look, it's obvious that Jack isn't the only one who wants Cas close right now.

The angel steps forward but stops almost as quickly, tilting his head as if listening to something far away.

"Oh," Cas says. "No. It's... He's asking for Mary."

Mary had no solid preconceptions about where that sentence was going to end, but she sure as hell didn't expect it to be her name. "Me?"

Dean looks equally surprised, though he lets go easily when Cas takes Jack from him. The baby settles immediately, head piled against Cas's shoulder but turned to look out at them—to look at her.

"When you held him," Cas explains as he walks them over to her, "he remembered meeting you when he was born. Between that and feeling your equal worry for Dean," who here shuffles awkwardly, "he wanted to..."

Cas shrugs, hiking Jack up on his hip as they reach their destination, close enough for Mary to count the individual fine hairs on the baby's head.

"Well, I don't know. He wasn't specific."

Mary is saved from not knowing what to say by Jack sitting up in Cas's arms. He wiggles until Cas holds turns him to face her fully, setting two identical sets of unerring blue eyes on her. She's still getting used to the angel, but the baby is a different story. To be honest, Mary doesn't know if it will ever not be strange to see eyes so old in a face so young. Somehow, though, it helps now to see them side by side. It makes Jack make sense, to see him with his father.

This time when Jack raises his hand, she doesn't flinch. He's a baby , she reminds herself. A baby who can project his memories and levitate things and fly, but a baby. He's not evil, he's just... a kid. Sam and Dean's kid. Her grandkid. Mary leans in the last centimeter.

Jack's hand is warm, but the feeling is soon superseded by a rush of something. It's like a cool eddy in a summer lake, washing over her mind with a wholly unfamiliar sensation. Somewhere, she feels the ache in her neck melt away, the stiffness in her wrists lessen, but it's lost to the images that follow.

They're... her, after a fashion. A yellow and green blob, then her face, entirely too close. There's something else there, fuzzy like the picture isn't coming through or the antenna's grown too old to be effective. It's orange and luminescent, glinting in her eyes and hands as she leans over and—

Her hand makes contact and a riot of senses explodes: terror, wonder, the ache of something lost. Bravery and fear. Determination and insecurity. Something bracing and braced both. The image snaps into focus: the night sky outside the cabin's windows, the sweat shining on Mary's forehead.

"Hey," the Mary in the memory says, sounding like she's underwater. "Hey there, it's, uh— Alright. Alright, hold on."

The world lurches, swimming. It smells like iron and flowers—blood and viscera, something in her present adult mind identifies, combined with Herbal Essences—and then the orange light is back, growing deep and burnished.

"There you go."

Mary's face returns. She's holding something fabric, too close to make out, and something sweet, bright pink, bright blue, swells underneath an itchy soft feeling. The image clears again on Mary's eyes. There is a white hot feeling running through his—her—someone's bones. Someone outside yells. Mary turns to the window again before looking down again.

"It's okay," she says, tense but lighthearted. "It's okay. You're alright, now, okay? You're safe here. Jack."

The memory recedes like a bright white sheet being pulled over Mary's head, the blinding sun on the otherwise unbearably warm and sweet. Mary opens her eyes, blinking, to find there are tears in them, but Jack's big eyes are right there waiting for her, clear blue. They are in the kitchen again, and it's still evening, but this deep underground there's nothing else to recall the room they were just in. There's no one shouting outside. The air smells like the popcorn Cas was making earlier. The room is full of people.

Jack pats her cheek, the same way he does his fathers, and a little burst of feeling comes through that Mary somehow knows means, Jack, in her own voice, recreated by someone else.

"Jack," she agrees aloud. "Hi. I'm Mary."

"Gah," Jack agrees, and he smiles a gummy baby smile.

Mary smiles back.

Notes:

and thus the last chapter of mary & baby jack adventures comes to a close !

thank you everybody for all your kind words along the way! I really do appreciate it: I was nervous about getting back on the wip horse, given what happened last time I tried lol, so it was nice to hear people were reading along the way

IF YOU LIKE THIS AU pls subscribe to the series!!! lots of people have been subbing to the oneshots which I appreciate in spirit but you're not gonna get any emails from those lol. for example, you'll miss the follow up to this chapter where dean and cas have a conversation about what went down here! don't miss it! it's nice I swear lmao

Notes:

shout out to mary winchester for rolling with every punch the world has thrown at her, she truly is the mvp

title from "wonder" by natalie merchant. befuddling miracle baby rights!

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