Coda 12×19

scones-and-texting-and-murder:

Mary turns up at the bunker days later.

She’s still fumbling her key into the lock when she hears boots pounding up the stairs. The door swings open and Dean fills the doorway. Mary’s smile disappears as soon as she sees the crestfallen look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dean says, his jaw clenched tight. They stand there for a long moment.

“Can I come in?” she asks warily.

“Do whatever the fuck you want.”

Sam appears on the landing just in time to chide his brother. “Dean.”

“Like I could stop her.” Dean stomps back down the stairs and disappears down the hall.

“Hi, Mom.” Sam pulls her into a hug that she guardedly reciprocates. Being hugged by her youngest brings with it a nearly all-consuming wave of warmth and safety, and she holds back a little lest she find herself unable to let go.

He picks up her bag and ushers her inside, asking questions about her time away that she answers in the vaguest terms she can manage. He doesn’t call her on it, but a little of the light goes out of his eyes.

“What’s going on with your brother?”

Sam shrugs one big shoulder. “The usual.”

Wide-eyed, Mary confirms. “Cas?”

“Yeah. He took off again.” His mouth twists with bitterness. “Screwed us both over first.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.” Mary feels strangely in tune with this angel, out of his element, invited into a home that isn’t truly his own, surrounded by family that he’s continually letting down.

“Well, you try telling Dean that.”

Maybe she’ll do that. Maybe she’ll march right down to Dean’s room, pound on his door and make him talk to her. She can listen, clear-eyed and reasonable, then tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself and finally do something about this situation with Cas. How long has he been locked into this dance with him, unable to pull his self-denying head out of his ass long enough to put himself out there and take a shot at happiness. He needs a stern but loving talking-to and she’s his mother. She can do this.

Her self-righteous momentum carries her halfway down the hall before she stops short. Who is she to tell him anything? She left him when he was four years old, when the world was still black and white. Is it any wonder that he categorizes the people he loves in rigid terms of with him or against him? That any leave-taking, no matter the reason, is necessarily an abandonment?

Maybe she could’ve have eased this insecurity when she returned. Maybe she could have comforted and reassured the frightened little boy who lives inside this hunter’s body. This second chance with her sons could’ve have helped those scars to fade a bit. Instead, she’d sliced them wide open again with big, jagged lines by turning her back and walking out.

It’s all so much. Trying to keep everyone happy, including herself. These hulking men who tower over her can be as transparent as children in their need for love. She’s made them this way, her presence and her absence. She has no right to ask anything of them now.

Mary walks past Dean’s room, with the light spilling out from the crack under the door. She continues past Castiel’s empty room, to the one they all pretend is hers.