Mary's Crossroads: A Supernatural Account

Mary joined the junior varsity cheerleading squad her first year of high school. Athleticism in a cheerleader is expected. In any other girl it's looked sideways on. Leered at rather. She's a poplar tree in Kansas, a black poplar will attract attention that a cottonwood poplar won't. Hunters can't afford to draw attention.

Mary stays on the varsity cheerleading squad ‘til she graduates high school. Technically anyway. She isn't involved in the end of year pep rally or anything, nobody expects Mary to have much attention for anything since she only just finished arranging her parents' funerals. Mary's not the cheer captain and she's not marrying a football player and she's not planning on staying at home to dust the windowsills while her man earns their living, she's keeping Campbell Cleaners running as well as her dad did until she can find someone to sell to and she's only planning on selling because owning a business takes time she needs for important things, but she's still a cheerleader. She's a poplar tree in Kansas. Part of the landscape. Nothing to remark upon.

She has ten years to figure out what that demon intends to take in exchange for John's life. Six months more to figure out why it matters to Van Halen that she stay in bed on November second. Mary can't afford to draw attention.

It’s not twelve hours after Deanna and Samuel’s deaths that the family starts arriving. They look nothing like what John had assumed her family would be like. They're all hardened looking, grizzled, more like his family than how he'd imagined hers.

John holds Mary’s hand through all of it, the greetings, the condolences, the strangers sleeping in her house. He half expects her to tell him to go, that this is just a family thing and he’s not welcome. She never does.

John isn’t sure about Mary’s family. They're too…intense. They stare him down during the wake, like they’re judging him just for breathing. Some of the ballsier ones even talk to him when they come to offer Mary their sympathies. They never drill him for too long. Mary always fixes them with a look he knows he’ll see in his nightmares and they scuttle away, looking ashamed.

One of the meaner looking ones corners him while Mary’s in the bathroom fixing her aunt’s makeup. The man can't be older than his mother but he’s got this look about him that just seems so much older. John knows that look. That’s the look of a man who’s seen too damn much in life to keep whole. It’s the same look he has to train himself to hide every morning.

So you’re the one who’s got our Mary all boy crazy, the man says, crossing his arms.

John is not deterred. I wouldn't say crazy but I'll take it, he says with a smile. John Winchester. He holds out his hand in a sort of peace offering but the guy doesn’t take it. John awkwardly pulls back.

What sort of work do you do, John?

I’m a mechanic. Just repair, y'know. The boring kind.

Is that good money, son? Suddenly this has become a round of twenty questions. And the stakes, John suspects, are his balls.

It’s a living, he admits. But I’m not actually working right now.

The man’s eyes narrow. And why’s that?

I’ve been out of town for awhile.

Where?

Overseas.

There's a hell of a lot hovering behind that word, overseas, and it’s all John has to say. The guy takes a half step back and John prepares for the usual song and dance. The stuttered apologies and reluctant eye contact followed by getting the hell away from him. Politely, of course, but still running away like he’s some fucking human time bomb.

But it doesn’t come. Instead the man visibly relaxes, looking pleased of all things. He opens his mouth to continue the interrogation but Mary chooses that exact time to sidle up next to John, thank God. She leans into him and tucks her arm in his, fixing the man with a cold stare John never wants to be on the receiving end of.

Sweetie, she says, more steel in her voice than necessary. I see you've met Uncle Mark. What're you two talking about? She’s talking more to her uncle than John now. There’s a smile frozen on her face, more furious that genuinely happy. He doesn't seem the least bit intimidated by her and actually laughs in her face.

Mary! he says, clapping her on the shoulder, I’m impressed, girlie. You actually got yourself a boy who can shoot a goddamn…

The look Mary fixes her uncle with is terrifying, worse than the ones she’s been giving the rest of her family. There’s a very real threat of violence in her eyes. It looks so wrong on her, John thinks, so ugly on her pretty face. It shuts her uncle up though. The man looks startled to hell, like he wasn't expecting angry and hateful to come from someone as sweet and gentle as Mary.

Yeah, well, that makes two of us, buddy.

Slowly Mary turns to face him, that frozen smile back in place. John, sweetie, she says, clearly straining to keep up that saccharine sweet tone. Can you run to the car real quick and grab my purse? I left it in the trunk.

They both know it’s not true. John carried it in himself after Mary dropped it while being accosted by a gaggle of aunts and cousins. It’s hanging on the coat rack in the corner, in plain sight. But John’s not stupid, there’s something bad wrong right now and she doesn't want him to see it.

So he does what any smart man in his position would do. He nods, plants a kiss on her cheek, and makes a hasty retreat.

Ten minutes later John returns empty handed to a much quieter funeral home. In no time at all he’s found Mary again and resolves to never leave her the rest of the funeral. It doesn’t really matter though. After that everyone in the building refuses to even make eye contact with him.

Sometimes there's a hard edge to John that makes her think that with the right training, the right books, he could...but she tucks that thought away, keeps it safely hidden out of sight. She knows he was a soldier but she doesn't want him fighting her war. She's chosen to stand down.

They stay in Lawrence. John has his job at the garage, which keeps him busy and happy, and Mary uses the money from her parents' life insurance to put a down payment on a house. It's a good house. She already has the nursery room picked out.

It's a bad idea. It's the worst thing she's ever done. Even as she's leaning in to kiss the demon, Mary's praying the only price she has to pay is herself. But she's trapped, John dead at her feet and Dad bleeding to death before her eyes and he says Mom's dead and she doesn't think he's lying, her fault they're dead, her fault Dean didn't take the shot, her fault she took this hunt, her fault her fault her fault.

Only way out is through.

She takes it.

Mary could go back to her family. But Dean knew of her father so he knows the Campbells and there was that look in his eye when he said practically family. If he's a Campbell, and there are enough cousins scattered around the country that he very well might be, then half the family will know how badly Mary screwed up within the week. She can't face that, she can't go back.

Not that she wants to. Mary's mother wasn't a Campbell, not even of Scottish descent, which makes Mary's immediate family the clan outsiders. Mary wants children someday and if they're Campbell children they'll never be free.

Mary could tell John about the family business and she could watch him walk away. Then she'll still have given the demon a blank check and she won't have a damn thing to show for it.

Mary could tell John about the family business and they could hunt together. She could teach him everything she knows about demons and they could take the demon on together when it comes to take its due. He's killed his share of people so he shouldn't have any problem with killing monsters. Then she'll have poisoned his life the way her childhood poisoned hers, much the same as he would think he'd poisoned hers if she'd joined the Woman Marines when he enlisted.

Mary could tell John about the family business and they could settle down. Then he would feel constantly guilty because he'd figure out soon enough how few hunters there are, the only thing keeping him from guilt over not reenlisting is that the USMC is large enough that his presence won't make a difference.

Mary could tell John about the family business and he could hunt without her. Then...moot point because she won't be left behind.

Mary could tell John about the family business and she could hunt without him. Then...moot point because he won't be left behind.

Mary could never tell John about the family business and she could hunt without him. She could find out what her price is for his life and pay it or get out of it without ever letting him know what she'd done. If she can.

Mary could never tell John about the family business and they could live like any other jock and cheerleader married right out of high school. Sex. Family. Safety. Peace.

Illusory safety.

She's at a crossroads, just like she was at a crossroads there at the bridge across the river where John died, with each road branching into a dozen others and more roads than she can see and it's too late not to take the path that leads to John being alive and Mary owing a demon something she doesn't know if she can pay. It won't be her soul, she knows that much, and no one will get hurt but there's so much possibility in the word hurt, the narrower the yellow eyed demon defines the word, the more likely it is that the consequences will do damage to Mary or John or Mary's cousins or Mary's children.

On November second, nineteen eighty three, don't get out of bed.

What did Dean's father see happening on November second?

It couldn't have to do with Mary's deal, could it? Six months after the deal comes due. A hundred eighty four days, which is a little more than half a year and puts the half year mark square on Halloween. Samhain, all sorts of nasty things on Samhain, that long exorcised demon whose name is the English pronunciation of the Gaelic word, summer's end, beginning the dark half of the year, the Morrígan's deal with the father of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the day of deciding what to sacrifice to ensure the household can survive what's to come.

It's coincidental that Mary pays up half a year before the date Dean warned her about. Isn't it?

And the date on which Mary made her deal is not Beltane. Not the day of purification and protection against evil.

Mary doesn't believe in coincidences. No hunter does.

Mary chooses to watch and wait.