The Good Life (Book 11, The Life Series, Supernatural)

The Raid

That same night, Amara and I were still sitting at the table with Aiden. Sam and Dean were still standing behind us.

Mary was still standing in front of us, trying to explain why she was working with the British Men of Letters even after they had tried to kill us. "Just hear me out. Please."

"Wow," Amara told her. Sam cleared his throat. "Just wow."

"Dean..." Mary trailed off. "What the British Men of Letters are doing, what we're doing... it's a better way. They..." She sighed. "Look, I'm not blind to who they are or what they've done, but--"

"When?" Sam asked. "When? When did you start working with them?"

"Since before the lake house," Mary answered. Sam scoffed. "It wasn't Wally. They brought me that case."

"You were running an errand for the Brits," Dean told her. "And you kept it from us. Cas almost died."

Mary sighed. "I..."

"A hunter got killed," I told her. "One of my friends. Wally was my friend. I had to burn his body. I had to tell his wife."

Mary looked down in shame. "I'm sorry. I watch him die every night."

"Good," Dean told her.

Mary sighed heavily.

      *********** 

We were still trying to talk through this.

"I'm doing this for you," Mary told us. "I'm playing three decades of catch up here."

"And we're not?" Dean asked. "How do you think this has been for us? Sam and I are your sons, and you've been gone. Our whole lives, you've been gone. Amara and Aiden, your grandchildren. Ness, your daughter-in-law, my wife, who was shot, kidnapped and forced to leave our son behind because the people that you are working for took her from our home to torture her for information about American hunters. You said that you needed time. No, you said you needed space. So we gave you your space. But you didn't need just space. No, you needed space from us."

"That's not true," Mary told us. "I'm trying--"

"How about for once, you just try to be a mom?" Dean asked.

"I am your mother, but I am not 'just a mom'," Mary told him. "And you are not a child."

"I never was," Dean told her. "Neither was Sam, or Ness, or even Amara. Aiden's the only one out of us that gets a childhood, because we are doing everything we can to make sure that he gets it, because that privilege was taken away from us. So, between us and the Brits--"

"It's not like that," Mary told us.

"Yeah, Mary, it is," Dean told her. Amara and I looked down, not entirely surprised that he called her by her name. "And you made your choice. So there's the door."

Dean walked away.

Sam stood.

"Sam..." Mary trailed off.

"You should go," Sam told her, walking away.

Mary looked at Amara and me in shamed silence. We didn't answer or look directly at her. Mary sighed, slowly making her way up the stairs to the door to leave.

      *********** 

A few days later, Amara and I were sitting in the library.