A Promise to Mary Winchester

In the early winter of 1978, Mary Winchester dreams of summer and her family alive and safe.

Castiel arrives in a small, unfamiliar kitchen with Mary and her mother, Deanna, neither of whom notice him as they stand at the counter, shaping ground beef into hamburger patties. Music hums through a radio perched in an open window. Two male voices from outside mingle with the music and when they ring out in laughter Mary looks out the window and smiles. Castiel moves behind her to see John Winchester and Mary’s father, Samuel, standing over a grill. Samuel claps John on the back as John stokes the charcoal.

Mary is not pregnant in her dream but even from here Castiel can feel the life growing inside her. He has to tear his awareness away from that familiar presence, to stay in the dream and focus on what he came here to say.
I’ll take the burgers outside, Deanna says to Mary, placing the last of the patties on a paper plate. You get started on the onions and tomatoes.

‘Kay, Mary says and Deanna obliviously brushes past Castiel on her way out of the kitchen. While Mary washes her hands and the cutting board in the sink then selects a knife from the drawer and goes to work on an onion, he steps cautiously forward, unsure how to introduce himself.

This proves irrelevant, however, when Mary spins fluidly to plunge the knife into his heart.

Castiel looks down at the knife then at the expression on Mary’s face and realizes exactly how much Dean Winchester takes after his mother.

Who are you?

The music is gone and the tomatoes and onions and the yard outside the kitchen window is empty. Castiel is sorry to have disturbed this dream of the peace and happiness Mary so clearly longs for. He hopes that what he will leave her with is at least some consolation.

I’m an angel, he says. My name is Castiel.

This is a dream. Mary looks at the knife still embedded in his chest, at the empty yard through the window. Are you real? What do you want?

Castiel hesitates. If he intended to reassure Mary Winchester, to soothe her fears and anxieties, he is not off to a good start. Her eyes keep flicking back to the knife drawer. And if he were being honest with himself, curiosity had played some part in his admittedly spur of the moment decision to come here. He’s come back to this time period twice now but had only watched from afar the first time and spent most of the second unconscious. He’s never seen Mary up close and he can’t help but wonder about the woman whose fate had so shaped the lives of her family and through them the fates of so many others and of the world itself.

To tell you something, Castiel answers finally. To give you something.

Give me what?

Hope.

Mary inclines her head and narrows her eyes in skepticism. Yes, she is very like her son.

You’re afraid, Castiel says. You know better than most what all there is to be afraid of. You want to protect the ones you love. That’s why you made that deal.

You know... she begins then drops her gaze. Of course you know. Then she snaps her eyes back up, raising her chin. I don’t regret it. I did what I had to do.

I know. And you won’t be the last Winchester to do or say that, he thinks sadly but doesn’t say aloud. And yet you’re aware that you can never be truly safe. That your family will always be in danger.

I thought you were here to bring me hope, Mary says, her voice strained. The kitchen has grown dim around them, as though they’ve been talking for hours, yet Mary appears faintly illuminated, glowing softly yet defiantly in the encroaching dark. She seems at the same time both larger than life and very small.

I can’t tell you your future, Castiel says. Or promise you safety or that you and your family will never suffer. I can’t erase what you’ve suffered already. But I can promise you this one thing. I believe I…owe it to you. To your child.

My... Mary automatically brushes a hand over her belly, which is now swollen as though in her dream she has just remembered she is pregnant. She wraps her arms around it protectively and shoots him the sharp, warning look of a protective mother. What about my child?

Castiel looks her in the eyes though a part of his attention is irretrievably drawn to the being cradled within her. He draws a breath and says, I will protect him. Whatever happens and whatever it takes. From now on, for the rest of my existence. You have my word.

Mary just stares at him and the promise hangs in the silence. Castiel has just enough time to think about what he has said, the implications, before Mary says softly, Him?

Castiel’s thoughts slam to a stop and he realizes he has told her something she hadn’t known yet. He has a brief, uncomfortable thought about angels bringing news to expectant mothers then simply says, I promise.

And then disappears.

When Mary wakes the next morning she doesn’t remember the dream, not really. Sometime later that week she picks up an angel statuette at a yard sale and the baby gives a kick. She brings it home along with a couple dollars worth of toys and baby board books and on the drive home she keeps glancing at it in the passenger seat as though it just materialized in her car.

Castiel, meanwhile, is somewhere far away, keeping his promise.

(Note: Castiel time travels from 2009, 10-07).