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She felt ill, feverish, still. It’d been days – plagued with nightmare inducing delirium, migraines, cold sweats and the inability to keep absolutely anything in her stomach at any given time. She groaned as she felt the nausea sweep upwards again, and struggled briefly with the blankets she’d wrapped herself in. She debated briefly over her glasses, before leaving them and standing.
Black spots danced before her and white-hot pain stabbed through her head and shoulder blades, she stumbled across her floor– tripping and falling forward. She heard more than felt the crack of skull against wood as she hit the desk on the way to the floor, blackness swallowing her before she could react to the pain.
She sank into that welcoming oblivion, and prayed she never woke.
*~*
John Winchester was staring into the yellow eyes of the demon who murdered his wife, contemplating their dialogue and negotiations. He tensed and stepped back when he heard the crack, and smelled ozone – thinking it was the demon’s tricks he glared.
“What are you doing?” he growled.
“Absolutely nothing!” the yellow eyed demon seemed genuinely surprised and was studying the air above them with some concern.
John glanced up to the point where the yellow-eyed demon was looking and his eyes widened slightly - something seemed to have torn through it as if it were fabric, blackness radiated out from it like heat but felt of nothing. A strong wind blew through the basement of the hospital where they stood and a blinding flash of light forced them all to look away.
The light vanished but the tear in the air was now glowing gray. They all stared tensely at it.
When a softly glowing young teenaged looking girl fell to the floor between them they both were startled. She laid still, blood splattered in her hair from a cut at her temple. The curled charcoal grey locks pooling around her, she had pale, freckled skin and had a petite, gently chubby shape to her.
John could have sworn she had wings, two sets of them, white and much bigger than she. But the glow died and he thought he imagined them.
John looked up at the demon, seeing real terror in his eyes as he stared at the child. Azazel stepped back and those horrific yellow eyes widened as the girl groaned and shifted, slowly pushing her self into a semi-upright position.
Blue-white eyes rimmed in thick, grey lashes blinked slowly, focusing and becoming clearer with each blink. She looked up and her eyes widened.
“Holy sh- CRISTO!” she yelled flinging her hand as if to ward the demon away.
Azael gasped as if in pain, then fled, his possessed lackeys vanishing with him. John merely stared at her in awe and confusion and not a little anger.
Then she tried to get to her feet and his conscious wouldn’t let him watch her struggle, so he helped her to her feet, steadying her when she flinched startled. She swung to look at him, he watched her eyes widen before rolling back in her head as she slumped against him.
“For some reason, I do believe you’re going to be trouble.” John muttered to her unconscious form, before half lifting her, half dragging her back up stairs to get her medical attention. He’d have to find another way to save Dean.
~*~*~
Meredith groaned, sitting up right in her bed. She clutched her head feeling it throb and hoped it wouldn’t turn into a migraine. Through her exhaustion and pain she felt bandages under her finger tips and her eyes snapped open. Blurry though they were she could make out her knees were covered by white linen – not blue, and she was definitely dressed in hospital clothing because she had the tell tale itch of industrial laundry detergent on her skin. So, not her bed then.
She felt for her hair, some one had braided it so they could bandage her head it seemed. She pulled the elastic band off the end and put it around her wrist, then shook her hair loose. That made her head stop throbbing. When you had thigh length hair and near constant head aches, you never really put your hair up. She sighed and looked around fuzzily, blinking myopically at the white and pale blue blur that was her hospital room.
Then she saw him. Perfectly clear, like all unnatural things appeared to her with out her glasses on. He was leaning against the wall facing the bed, in the corner where the window was. He had his arms crossed over his similarly hospital clothed chest, and was staring out the window.
“Dean Winchester?!” her surprised gasp came out with out any real consent or thought and she was suddenly the focus of moss green eyes.
“You can see me? Hear me?” he asked, starting towards her.
Then immediately stilling when she shrank back, paling even more than she already was naturally.
“You’re not real. You can’t be! You are a T.V. show character!” she exclaimed, voice hoarse with panic.
Dean’s eyes widened in shock at the proclamation of his reality, then watched as she forcibly calmed herself down, waving away the nurses that had rushed to her bedside when her panic had set off the monitoring machines attached to her.
When they were left alone again, she looked at him and breathed deeply. He heard the tell tale rasp of asthma in her lungs and felt a pang of guilt for freaking her out.
“Okay, there is a logical explanation or a supernatural one. Logical: I’m dreaming, possibly comatose from my fall.” She said, mainly to herself.
Dean blinked, she reminded him of a flight attendant that was a nervous flyer.
“Or supernatural: my inherent weirdness struck gold this time and transported me to an alternate plane of existence where the Winchesters do exist, and so does everything else creepy, dark and in need of therapy.” She sighed.
Dean shook his head, screw the flight attendant – this girl was the most adjusted person in the world, he thought staring at her with widened eyes.
“I’m not really mentally capable of this kind of dreaming. So we’ll go with door number two, Bob.” She muttered then looked at Dean; blue-white eyes rimmed white with exhaustion.
“You haven’t gotten back into your body yet, I’ll assume?” she asked, and he sat heavily on the foot of her bed.
“No. What’s your name, since you already know mine?” Dean asked, his demeanor a little more gentle than he normally would have been. She blinked.
“Meredith. But please call me Mary. Has Sammy tried the Ouija board yet? Or have we gotten to the equally ignored pretty girl running around like you?” she asked, inwardly amused at the comically widening green eyes.
“Both. I just figured out she’s the reaper.” Dean admitted.
This girl seemed to radiate warmth infused light like a beacon in the dark. She didn’t seem to be quite human, but her soul seemed to be like Sammy’s, more humane than anyone else’s’ in the world.
As a “spirit” he could see that, and he’s trusted her implicitly almost as soon as he’d first seen her lying in the bed. He’d been called to her, an inexplicable tugging on his being to hers. He couldn’t explain it, but he found that she would probably be important to them soon and wanted her to be. Jesus Christ, he was turning girly in his catatonic state.
“Good. Stay here. She’ll come and then we can bargain.” Mary said, settling back into her pillows.
Dean found himself actually remaining where he was, following her order as if he were accustomed to following them his whole life. He knew it was strange, but found nothing inherently wrong with it, so he didn’t worry.
All in all, they didn’t have to wait long.
The young girl with bobbed black hair and wide, guileless black eyes timidly entered the room, as if she weren’t there to try and persuade Dean to follow her to Hell.
Blue-white eyes flicked open as the reaper stood at the foot of her bed, watching Dean.
“Leave him alone. It is his right to choose death or life, leave him his peace.” Mary murmured, heard perfectly clear by both Dean and the reaper.
“You cannot presume to tell me what to do, child!” the reaper hissed even as she backed away from Dean.
Dean noted the reaper seemed startled and a little upset that Mary could see her, much less know anything about her.
“I presume nothing. I know you have a focus somewhere, a focus I can smash if you don’t return him to his body and leave him and all of the Winchesters alone.” Mary said idly.
Dean was amazed at the balls this girl had. She was threatening a reaper! And it looked like it was working too. But the energy she was expending was enormous, and it looked like it was definitely taking a toll on her vitals. Dean felt unease creep into his abdomen.
“You will leave me alone if I let him live and put him back in his body?” she asked.
“Yes. You deserve life just as much as he does.” Mary nodded.
Dean knew those words sold the reaper, watched the respect shine from the black eyes covering the grim spectre. The reaper nodded then walked out the door.
Mary looked at Dean and smiled, a little weakly.
“Come visit me.” She murmured before passing out. Then the machines monitoring her went crazy.
Dean fought back the panic as nurses and a few doctors rushed into her room, as he was tugged away and back into his own body. He had to remember to go see her. He had to.
He woke with Sammy’s misty moss green eyes above him, and a grinning John in a chair beside him. And all he could remember were pale, tired eyes tinted blue and the plea to visit.
~*~
After the doctor left having explained that Dean was a medical miracle, another doctor came in and pulled John outside to tell him something. The boys looked at each other curiously when John ran down the hall.
Dean looked at Sam, there was silence for a few beats and then Sam rolled his eyes with a sigh. He helped Dean get out of bed and to stand up right.
They followed Dad to his old room, where he sat next to the occupied bed. Sam looked curious as he settled Dean in the chair on the other side of the bed and Dean stared wide-eyed at the girl in the bed.
“She argued with the reaper for me.” Dean breathed, remembering.
“What?” Sam and John asked simultaneously.
“I came in here as a spirit because she glows warmth, and we waited for the reaper and Mary told the chick to fuck off or she would kill her. She said if I was put back in my body, the reaper would be left alone.” Dean told them, awe coloring his voice.
The boys ignored John’s flinch at the girl’s name.
They all looked at the frail, pudgy girl lying on the bed surrounded by an ocean of pale blue curls, so pale even her freckles dimmed. Dean took one of her tiny hands in his, and noticed for the first time that she looked barely fifteen years old like this, but when she was awake she seemed so much older. Nearly ancient in her exhaustion.
Sam smiled a little at the care Dean was treating the girl with, sitting in the chair vacated by John after muttering something about supplies, moving on and Bobby. He took the girl’s other hand and hoped she would open her eyes, for both her sake and Dean’s.
~*~
Mary woke abruptly, like she’d fallen in a dream and had been jerked awake. It was dark in her room, and she felt two hairy weights on her hands and pressed into her sides. She looked at the top of their heads and smiled briefly before slipping her hands carefully from beneath their faces to card gently through their hair.
“Dean. Sam. Wake up, time to wake.” She murmured to them.
Both heads turned towards her, eyes blearily seeking hers. Green eyes cleared instantly a smile lighting them, identical moss green eyes cleared a little slower but when they did, they too equally smiled.
“Are you feeling better, Mary?” Sam asked, taking her hand again and rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
“Yes, thank you. How are you two? Not causing any trouble?” she grinned weakly at them, and felt a little warmth blossom in the ice of her soul at the concerned smiles that tilted their mouths.
“Us, trouble? You got us confused with someone else, lady.” Sam chuckled. Dean nodded trying to look as innocent as possible.
She snorted inelegantly at him, and he blinked mock-offended.
“You couldn’t pull innocent if it had bells and whistles.” She told him and Sam grinned at the pouting Dean.
Something about this girl brought the playful side of him out, brought the peaceful side out. Sam could tell it was the same with Dean, from the way his eyes were soft and twinkling.
John leaned against the door frame, watching them all intently. He saw Sam flick on the bedside table lamp and help Mary sit up more by stuffing more pillows behind her. The boys sat in chairs on either side of her and watched her with affection and curiosity.
John was amazed, all she did was argue for Dean’s life and she’d secured their love forever – Dean because he’d seen something in her as a spirit, Sam because she’d saved Dean. His because, well, she had saved his eldest son and saved him from making the worst mistake for him to have made – bargaining with the Devil himself; she also reminded him so damn much of his wife that it was nearly frightening. Smaller, but with the same wide eyes, long curls of hair (differences of color aside), pale freckled skin and gentle heavenly warmth around her. Same name too.
“We’ve gotten everyone’s papers sorted out, as soon as it’s light – we move out. We’re stopping by Bobby’s before heading to the Roadhouse.” John told them, a little gruff.
Mary caught his eyes and raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“The Roadhouse, John?”
“Yeah, what of it?” He narrowed his eyes at her, regretting it immediately when she paled a little. Both of his boys glared at him too.
“You so sure of your welcome there, then?” she asked, voice almost biting, but too weak to be more than a husky murmur, the rasp of asthma too heavy in each breath.
John sighed and scrubbed his face with his good hand.
“No, but we have to try. We need a safe place. And I’m not even going to ask what the hell you know about any of it, because you probably know it all.” John said, blinking when her only response was a nod.
“I’ll give Bobby a call, and then we can leave.” He said, leaving again.
Sam remembered what the doctor had given him to give her a few hours earlier and dug the delicate black frames out of the bag. He handed the glasses to Mary with a grin.
“The doctor had temporary glasses made up for you, but said you’ll need to go to an optometrist for permanent ones.” He told her.
She slid the glasses on her face and blinked her eyes into focus and grinned.
“Now I can actually see you two. And where I’m going, but then, even with my glasses I’m a klutz.” She said.
They helped her out of bed and Sam laid out the clothes they’d gathered for her and when she began to protest, blushing rather brightly, Dean told her to shush and wear the clothes because it wasn’t at all a problem.
They stepped out after making sure the blinds on both windows were closed and stood guard outside her door.
Mary simply stared for a moment at the clothes laid out for her. One of Dean’s black AC/DC tees, one of Sam’s plaid over shirts, a simple pair of blue boxers – she didn’t know whose, and a pair of what had to be John’s smallest pair of jeans. She felt her face get hotter as she dropped her chin to her chest.
She dressed quickly, rolling up the legs of the jeans and sleeves of the shirt and very grateful for her wide hips negating the need for a belt. She carefully folded the hospital clothing and left them on the bed. She padded barefoot to the door and opened it, poking her head out.
John had returned and all three of them turned to look at her as she stepped through the door, nervously snapping the hair band on her wrist.
All three men smirked. She narrowed her eyes at them, daring to say one thing.
“Aww, it’s the little sister we always wanted! How cute!” Sam drawled jokingly.
Mary raised an eyebrow.
“Aww, look it’s the dweeb the milkman left for us on the doorstep. How cute!” she looked imploringly at John, “Daddy can we keep him?” she asked sweetly, making John choke, Sam snort and Dean laugh so hard Sam would have been worried about stitches had there been any left.
“I wonder, why haven’t we seen social services around?” Sam asked, John shrugged.
Only Dean saw Mary scowl. Oh, this would be good, he thought.
“She’s gotta only be around fifteen, at most. They might’ve assumed we were related.” John commented back.
Dean smirked as Mary’s scowl deepened.
“Thanks Gramps, but I’m twenty.” She snarked at John, making Dean snicker and Sam blush. John gave her an apologetic look before loading everyone in the truck and heading for Bobby’s.
~*~*~
After more than twelve straight hours on the road, the only person that wasn’t restless was Mary. And she seemed to be in the most uncomfortable position – her feet were on the seat, knees bent and pressed into the back of the front passengers chair that Sam had moved back with her permission when he’d needed to stretch out or lose feeling in his legs. She had one arm folded over her middle and the other bent on the window ledge, her head lolled against the juncture of her elbow. Her long hair was all tumbled over the shoulder closest to Dean, and it pooled between them on the bench.
Dean glanced at her as he shifted once again, hearing her sigh and drop her arm folded against the window down to where she could snap the band on her wrist. She would turn her wrist over so that the band connected with the white inside and the sharp, steady staccato of rubber and flesh would continue until the paper thin skin was ruby red and very close to bleeding. Then she would stop, lick her thumb and wipe the spot, fold her arm again, lay her head down, then go completely still again.
He noticed she did this quite often, just long enough for the redness to fade, and wondered if it were motion sickness or comfort or something darker that drove her to that mindless habit. He looked out the window and recognized the road they were on, they were very close to Bobby’s.
Dean reached out and tugged gentle on a curl, making those strange eyes focus on him, brows raised in question.
“We’re on the road to Bobby’s, we’ll be there really soon.” He told her, and watched with amusement as she nodded and excitement filled her eyes, he could feel the anxious tension vibrating through her. Bobby wouldn’t know what hit him until that girl looked up at him and smiled.
She didn’t say anything when he didn’t stop twirling her hair around his fingers, she merely laid her head back down and sighed.
TBC