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anactoriaTitle: ...And the Deep Blue Sea
Rating: G
Word Count: 1800
Warnings: Spoilers for 12x03.
Summary: Coda to 12x03. Mary drives as far from Lebanon as she can get. On the seashore, she meets a friendly stranger.
Author's Notes: Squeaking in under the wire before this gets Jossed! Anyway, here's some wild speculation.
Mary drives west.
She thinks about the Grand Canyon, about the Rockies, but in the end she heads for the ocean. She wants to look at something vast and indifferent and old; something that’s the same now as it was thirty-three years ago. She wants to be somewhere that isn’t trying to be her home.
Plus, if she’s honest, maybe some of what Sam told her has stuck with her. About how he tried to run, before John died, and how California looked like freedom. She’d like to tell herself she’s trying to understand them better, her boys, by retracing his steps—but mostly she’s just running.
She finds herself heading for Stanford, doesn’t ask herself whether that’s out of coincidence or instinct, veers south and keeps driving. Around midnight—she knows, because the insistently bright time display on the cellphone Sam insisted she bring won’t let her forget—she finds herself nodding behind the wheel and winds down the window, hoping that the night air will be cold enough to wake her up.
It isn’t, but there’s a startling tang of salt in it that does the job. She hadn’t realized she was so near the sea, but the next road sign tells her she’s a little north of Monterey. Not far at all.
That’s enough to make her give the roadside motels a pass and push on, imagining the vast, empty space of the ocean at night, the reassuring sigh of the waves. Yes, she knows there are dangerous things that haunt the waterfront, too—but those aren’t what she’s afraid of.
The car’s old even by her standards, and the space carved out of the black by its headlamps doesn’t reach far enough. She wouldn’t be able to brake in time if an animal ran out into the road. Or a grindylow, or a funayūrei, or a selkie. She saw a selkie, once, up around the Great Lakes. A naked, running girl-thing that looked at her with raw terror in the moment before Dad got its sealskin lit up and it crumbled to a pile of ash, its shriek dying to nothing on the wind.
It’s quiet when she parks the car. The waves shush and the breeze ruffles her hair gently, just like she imagined. The first thing since she got here that’s felt just like she imagined it.
Down to her right, there’s the flicker of a campfire: a knot of college kids sit around it, laughing and sharing beers (which she remembers) and pausing every couple minutes to snap pictures on their smartphones (which she doesn’t). They don’t seem to notice her, anyway, so she picks her way down to the water’s edge and sits.
The sand is cool beneath her, a little damp, so it’s probably gonna stick to her jeans and get all over the car seat later. John would’ve hated that.
One of the places—no, one of the memories—in her Heaven was of the two of them in the Impala, driving toward the sunset. John’s dad was long gone and her parents hadn’t exactly left them much, so a camping trip was all the honeymoon they could afford; but then again, John was all the escape she’d ever been able to imagine. For the first time since—since—she’d felt able to breathe free.
They’d gotten grass all over the seats, and John had grumbled about it all the way home; but even then, some ache inside her had been tempered by how normal he was, how normal all of it was. She’d told herself that was what their children were gonna have. Normal. She’d compartmentalized. She’d convinced herself, for a while.
Even now, that memory feels realer than the bunker she was standing in a couple days ago. It’s worn into the grooves of her brain, like the pops and scratches on a well-loved record that eventually seem to become part of the song.
So much so that, when she catches movement in her peripheral vision and feels somebody sit in the sand beside her, it doesn’t immediately occur to her to be suspicious. The unconscious part of her brain just thinks, Of course, it’s John, like a puzzle piece slotting into place.
Then the conscious part of it remembers that John’s gone, and she isn’t (anymore), and she starts back, turning to look at the newcomer with her heart thudding in her chest.
The newcomer gives her a faint smile that might or might not be intended as reassuring.
He looks… normal. Well, apart from the fact that he’s just walked up to her on a mostly-empty beach in the middle of the night, when nobody’s supposed to know that she’s here. Forty-something, unshaven, blond, dressed in the same jeans-shirt-boots combo as every hunter she’s met since the seventies. He’s looking at her steadily, eyes like ice-chips.
“Dangerous out here alone,” the newcomer offers. Not trying to be reassuring, then.
Mary watches him carefully, fingers digging into the sand. She has silver, holy water, salt, a gun—but they’re all in the trunk of the car. She’d left them behind, as though she could shed that life like on old jacket on her walk down to the beach. She should’ve known better. The car’s only a couple minutes away, but a couple minutes is too far if this guy’s a ghost or a demon, or even if he’s another hunter. You don’t trust hunters you don’t know.
You don’t show them weakness, either.
“I can take care of myself,” she replies, keeping her voice level.
He doesn’t respond to that like the warning she means it as, just shrugs and turns his eyes to the sea. “Sometimes I tell myself that, too,” he says. “I’m usually right.”
Mary shifts where she sits. “I’m really not here to play guessing games. Or to share.”
The stranger raises an eyebrow. “So you’re running away from something.”
“What makes you say that?” she asks, eyes narrowing.
His mouth quirks, not really amused. “I guess you could say I’m drawn to people who are running away. Like a sixth sense.” He does a kind of spooky-finger-wiggle gesture, pulling his hand back before it gets close enough to touch her.
“Or maybe they just end up here,” Mary points out, nodding at the sea. “Hard to get much further without a plane ticket.”
The stranger grimaces slightly. “Yeah, I wouldn’t bet on that,” he says, but then collects himself. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d tell me what’s on your mind?”
Mary looks at him steadily. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d tell me why you’re so interested?” She hesitates a beat. “Or what you are?”
“So you are a hunter.” There’s no fear in his voice. More like… satisfaction.
A thought strikes her, outrage briefly overtaking her caution. “How did you—wait. Are you a friend of Sam and Dean’s? Did they get you to follow me?”
“Friend?” The guy makes a moue of distaste. “Wouldn’t go that far. But we’ve met.”
Mary snorts. “Oh yeah, I remember. Hunters don’t get to have friends. Just family.” That last part comes out involuntarily, a memory of her dad’s voice echoing down the years.
The stranger keeps smiling, but it looks a little pained. “It’s always family, isn’t it? They expect you to be somebody you’re not, or they aren’t there when you need them, and before you know it the whole thing’s a dumpster fire.” He makes a lazy, expansive motion with one hand, and somehow Mary thinks he could be talking about the whole world.
The night air’s colder than it felt when she got out the car. She pulls the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands.
“Look,” she says. “If this is leading up to you telling me that family’s the most important thing, it’s all we have in the end, all of that stuff—” She breaks off, swallowing. “I get it. I do. But I need some time. I already told them that. I need some time.”
“Hey.” The stranger spreads his hands. “That’s not what I’m saying. You can never go home again. Trust me, I got that. But being alone forever? That’ll drive you nuts. You might find you need somebody to—” He shrugs again. “—share with.”
Mary bites back a laugh. “And a not-so-random stranger on a beach in the middle of nowhere is gonna be my agony uncle?” She looks him in the eyes. “No offense, but I think I’ll pass. Hunters aren’t exactly known for giving sensible advice.”
“Okay.” There’s a pause, and then the guy gets to his feet. Mary half-expects him to pat her on the shoulder, but he doesn’t. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Sam and Dean I ran into you.” He pauses. “But I’ll see you around. Goodbye, Mary.”
She sighs. “Of course they sent you. That’s how you know my name.” She looks over her shoulder, but the guy’s already gone, vanished into the shadows.
----
She wakes shivering, lying on her side in the sand. There are waves lapping at her boots, and she has to brush wet sand out of her hair.
It’s strange—she doesn’t remember deciding to sleep here, or even feeling easy enough to sleep. The memories, the strange guy, how abruptly he vanished. All of it left her feeling too wired.
The strange guy. She should have gotten his name, asked Sam and Dean to tell her all they knew. Then again, if he’s meant her any harm, he could have gotten to her while she was passed out, and instead she still has all her limbs, money, cellphone (though right now it’s an inert lump, battery having died sometime in the night), car keys digging into her thigh. She’ll call the boys later, after she’s found a motel with one of those USB things in the wall.
She gets to her feet, wiping sand off her jeans—and then stops.
The guy was sitting right beside her in the sand. But there’s no indent there, though the tide hasn’t yet reached the spot, and no footsteps lead away across the beach.
----
She fiddles with the radio as she drives off, hoping for music to take her mind off her mounting unease. All of the tapes with John’s old music on them are still in the Impala, though, and every channel she picks up seems to be playing dreary college rock or chipmunk-voiced pop, so eventually she settles for a local news station that fades in and out as she drives.
...body was identified as rock musician Vince Vincente, who was reported missing last… the announcer says, before his voice grays out. …coroner has not yet reached… And it fades again. Mary turns the knob, but the radio stays stubbornly tuned to static. Not that she’s ever heard of the guy anyway.
She sighs and turns her eyes back to the road. The sensible thing to do would be to head back to the bunker, or at least pick up the phone and ask who that guy was—or that ghost, or whatever else can just make itself appear like that.
What he said plays on her mind, though. You can never go home again. Mary’s already sick with trying.
She turns the car south, and keeps driving.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1800
Warnings: Spoilers for 12x03.
Summary: Coda to 12x03. Mary drives as far from Lebanon as she can get. On the seashore, she meets a friendly stranger.
Author's Notes: Squeaking in under the wire before this gets Jossed! Anyway, here's some wild speculation.
Mary drives west.
She thinks about the Grand Canyon, about the Rockies, but in the end she heads for the ocean. She wants to look at something vast and indifferent and old; something that’s the same now as it was thirty-three years ago. She wants to be somewhere that isn’t trying to be her home.
Plus, if she’s honest, maybe some of what Sam told her has stuck with her. About how he tried to run, before John died, and how California looked like freedom. She’d like to tell herself she’s trying to understand them better, her boys, by retracing his steps—but mostly she’s just running.
She finds herself heading for Stanford, doesn’t ask herself whether that’s out of coincidence or instinct, veers south and keeps driving. Around midnight—she knows, because the insistently bright time display on the cellphone Sam insisted she bring won’t let her forget—she finds herself nodding behind the wheel and winds down the window, hoping that the night air will be cold enough to wake her up.
It isn’t, but there’s a startling tang of salt in it that does the job. She hadn’t realized she was so near the sea, but the next road sign tells her she’s a little north of Monterey. Not far at all.
That’s enough to make her give the roadside motels a pass and push on, imagining the vast, empty space of the ocean at night, the reassuring sigh of the waves. Yes, she knows there are dangerous things that haunt the waterfront, too—but those aren’t what she’s afraid of.
The car’s old even by her standards, and the space carved out of the black by its headlamps doesn’t reach far enough. She wouldn’t be able to brake in time if an animal ran out into the road. Or a grindylow, or a funayūrei, or a selkie. She saw a selkie, once, up around the Great Lakes. A naked, running girl-thing that looked at her with raw terror in the moment before Dad got its sealskin lit up and it crumbled to a pile of ash, its shriek dying to nothing on the wind.
It’s quiet when she parks the car. The waves shush and the breeze ruffles her hair gently, just like she imagined. The first thing since she got here that’s felt just like she imagined it.
Down to her right, there’s the flicker of a campfire: a knot of college kids sit around it, laughing and sharing beers (which she remembers) and pausing every couple minutes to snap pictures on their smartphones (which she doesn’t). They don’t seem to notice her, anyway, so she picks her way down to the water’s edge and sits.
The sand is cool beneath her, a little damp, so it’s probably gonna stick to her jeans and get all over the car seat later. John would’ve hated that.
One of the places—no, one of the memories—in her Heaven was of the two of them in the Impala, driving toward the sunset. John’s dad was long gone and her parents hadn’t exactly left them much, so a camping trip was all the honeymoon they could afford; but then again, John was all the escape she’d ever been able to imagine. For the first time since—since—she’d felt able to breathe free.
They’d gotten grass all over the seats, and John had grumbled about it all the way home; but even then, some ache inside her had been tempered by how normal he was, how normal all of it was. She’d told herself that was what their children were gonna have. Normal. She’d compartmentalized. She’d convinced herself, for a while.
Even now, that memory feels realer than the bunker she was standing in a couple days ago. It’s worn into the grooves of her brain, like the pops and scratches on a well-loved record that eventually seem to become part of the song.
So much so that, when she catches movement in her peripheral vision and feels somebody sit in the sand beside her, it doesn’t immediately occur to her to be suspicious. The unconscious part of her brain just thinks, Of course, it’s John, like a puzzle piece slotting into place.
Then the conscious part of it remembers that John’s gone, and she isn’t (anymore), and she starts back, turning to look at the newcomer with her heart thudding in her chest.
The newcomer gives her a faint smile that might or might not be intended as reassuring.
He looks… normal. Well, apart from the fact that he’s just walked up to her on a mostly-empty beach in the middle of the night, when nobody’s supposed to know that she’s here. Forty-something, unshaven, blond, dressed in the same jeans-shirt-boots combo as every hunter she’s met since the seventies. He’s looking at her steadily, eyes like ice-chips.
“Dangerous out here alone,” the newcomer offers. Not trying to be reassuring, then.
Mary watches him carefully, fingers digging into the sand. She has silver, holy water, salt, a gun—but they’re all in the trunk of the car. She’d left them behind, as though she could shed that life like on old jacket on her walk down to the beach. She should’ve known better. The car’s only a couple minutes away, but a couple minutes is too far if this guy’s a ghost or a demon, or even if he’s another hunter. You don’t trust hunters you don’t know.
You don’t show them weakness, either.
“I can take care of myself,” she replies, keeping her voice level.
He doesn’t respond to that like the warning she means it as, just shrugs and turns his eyes to the sea. “Sometimes I tell myself that, too,” he says. “I’m usually right.”
Mary shifts where she sits. “I’m really not here to play guessing games. Or to share.”
The stranger raises an eyebrow. “So you’re running away from something.”
“What makes you say that?” she asks, eyes narrowing.
His mouth quirks, not really amused. “I guess you could say I’m drawn to people who are running away. Like a sixth sense.” He does a kind of spooky-finger-wiggle gesture, pulling his hand back before it gets close enough to touch her.
“Or maybe they just end up here,” Mary points out, nodding at the sea. “Hard to get much further without a plane ticket.”
The stranger grimaces slightly. “Yeah, I wouldn’t bet on that,” he says, but then collects himself. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d tell me what’s on your mind?”
Mary looks at him steadily. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d tell me why you’re so interested?” She hesitates a beat. “Or what you are?”
“So you are a hunter.” There’s no fear in his voice. More like… satisfaction.
A thought strikes her, outrage briefly overtaking her caution. “How did you—wait. Are you a friend of Sam and Dean’s? Did they get you to follow me?”
“Friend?” The guy makes a moue of distaste. “Wouldn’t go that far. But we’ve met.”
Mary snorts. “Oh yeah, I remember. Hunters don’t get to have friends. Just family.” That last part comes out involuntarily, a memory of her dad’s voice echoing down the years.
The stranger keeps smiling, but it looks a little pained. “It’s always family, isn’t it? They expect you to be somebody you’re not, or they aren’t there when you need them, and before you know it the whole thing’s a dumpster fire.” He makes a lazy, expansive motion with one hand, and somehow Mary thinks he could be talking about the whole world.
The night air’s colder than it felt when she got out the car. She pulls the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands.
“Look,” she says. “If this is leading up to you telling me that family’s the most important thing, it’s all we have in the end, all of that stuff—” She breaks off, swallowing. “I get it. I do. But I need some time. I already told them that. I need some time.”
“Hey.” The stranger spreads his hands. “That’s not what I’m saying. You can never go home again. Trust me, I got that. But being alone forever? That’ll drive you nuts. You might find you need somebody to—” He shrugs again. “—share with.”
Mary bites back a laugh. “And a not-so-random stranger on a beach in the middle of nowhere is gonna be my agony uncle?” She looks him in the eyes. “No offense, but I think I’ll pass. Hunters aren’t exactly known for giving sensible advice.”
“Okay.” There’s a pause, and then the guy gets to his feet. Mary half-expects him to pat her on the shoulder, but he doesn’t. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Sam and Dean I ran into you.” He pauses. “But I’ll see you around. Goodbye, Mary.”
She sighs. “Of course they sent you. That’s how you know my name.” She looks over her shoulder, but the guy’s already gone, vanished into the shadows.
She wakes shivering, lying on her side in the sand. There are waves lapping at her boots, and she has to brush wet sand out of her hair.
It’s strange—she doesn’t remember deciding to sleep here, or even feeling easy enough to sleep. The memories, the strange guy, how abruptly he vanished. All of it left her feeling too wired.
The strange guy. She should have gotten his name, asked Sam and Dean to tell her all they knew. Then again, if he’s meant her any harm, he could have gotten to her while she was passed out, and instead she still has all her limbs, money, cellphone (though right now it’s an inert lump, battery having died sometime in the night), car keys digging into her thigh. She’ll call the boys later, after she’s found a motel with one of those USB things in the wall.
She gets to her feet, wiping sand off her jeans—and then stops.
The guy was sitting right beside her in the sand. But there’s no indent there, though the tide hasn’t yet reached the spot, and no footsteps lead away across the beach.
She fiddles with the radio as she drives off, hoping for music to take her mind off her mounting unease. All of the tapes with John’s old music on them are still in the Impala, though, and every channel she picks up seems to be playing dreary college rock or chipmunk-voiced pop, so eventually she settles for a local news station that fades in and out as she drives.
...body was identified as rock musician Vince Vincente, who was reported missing last… the announcer says, before his voice grays out. …coroner has not yet reached… And it fades again. Mary turns the knob, but the radio stays stubbornly tuned to static. Not that she’s ever heard of the guy anyway.
She sighs and turns her eyes back to the road. The sensible thing to do would be to head back to the bunker, or at least pick up the phone and ask who that guy was—or that ghost, or whatever else can just make itself appear like that.
What he said plays on her mind, though. You can never go home again. Mary’s already sick with trying.
She turns the car south, and keeps driving.
