InsaneJournal

:: rp samples - mary winchester ::
WHO: Mary and John Winchester
WHERE: John Winchester's truck
WHEN: November 12, 2005; early evening
SUMMARY: Mary makes it to LA. Completed threaded play.
RATING: PG-13


Sacrificing herself was something that many people likely would have called selfless, but it brought Mary Winchester such a sense of peace that it didn't feel selfless at all. It was all so simple, she had a moment to see her sons, her now grown babies, to apologize to Sam, and then she forced the evil force inhabiting her home to leave. As she threw herself at the ceiling there was a bright burst of flames, but they were part of her now, not the enemy, and then there was nothing. No thoughts, no waiting on anything to happen, just blissful peace to follow the long, lonely years she had spent trapped in her own home.

It was the strangest thing in the world, how one moment there was nothing and the next...something. Slowly sensation started to return, the feeling of cloth under her, a slightly familiar smell, the sound of wind. Mary opened her eyes.

And that's where things got really strange. She was sitting in some stranger's car...no truck, in her nightgown. This was bad, this was most assuredly very bad. She took quick stock of her surrounding, not liking the fact that she was very literally in the middle of nowhere. What was going on? Was this some sort of hell? A twisted God's heaven? After all the years she had spent hunting hellish things with her father, after ten blissful years of peace with John, she wasn't sure if she even believed in such a thing. Then what was this?

Mary knew she needed to get out of the truck, but she wanted to have something to defend herself with as well, just in case. She didn't even bother trying to explain to herself just what she meant by 'just in case,' because she knew all too well that anything was possible. She ducked down, trying to rummage under the seat for something she could use.

Patting the hood of the Impala before Dean drove off, John turned back to the weapons locker in the back of his truck, giving it a last once over before locking it up, intending to be a few minutes behind his son in getting back into the city and to the apartment. At least, that was the intention, but that changed when he pulled open the door of his truck to find a blonde-haired woman hunched inside.

He had the gun beside the driver's side side in his hands a second later. "Hands up, move slow," he ordered, waiting for the woman to comply, then nearly forgot to breathe when she lifted her head and he saw her face. Yet something, from the moment his eyes landed on her hair, had quietly told him who she was.

Mary Winchester.

He had read of the duplicates on that message board, people who were the same person or people who looked like twins, but he hadn't encountered the phenomena himself. He couldn't set aside the fact that this could very well be a trick of Azazel's, but he couldn't ignore the way his heart had dropped to his feet either.

"Easy," he said quietly, and he wasn't certain if it was to her, or to pace himself.

The sound of a voice startled Mary, and her hand flew behind her to the handle on the truck's door. She'd escape first if she had to and worry about weapons later. However, a split second later before she could even open the door, she realized that she knew the voice and put her hands into the air.

John...

She could still remember how much her sons had changed. The firm maternal tug she had felt to them had been her biggest clue as to who the tall, handsome men in her home were, because her boys had grown up. In a way, John had as well. Yes, he was an adult the last time she saw him, but the life she had been living with him was almost too perfect. This man before her was scruffier, with eyes that Mary was certain she could see years of pain in. There were still traces of her John there, she could plainly see them, but it hurt to think of what had happened to him over the years. Worse, what had happened to her sons.

John had a gun. Not much of a surprise considering he was a past Marine, but it wasn't the sort of thing he had carried on him when they were married. Of course, if her babies were on the scene of a haunted house, there was the terrible chance that her husband had turned into a hunter...maybe even in an attempt to catch the Yellow Eyed Demon who had killed her.

She looked up at him, her face falling into a small, cautious smile. "John...it's me."

That smile was like finally coming home for John. He wanted to believe her. Everything that was John in him was straining to just believe, but everything that was a hunter in him was screaming to exercise caution, to not let his guard down no matter what or he'd end up dead.

In a concession – though, in all honesty, because he couldn't bear to aim a gun at her – the gun was pointed off to the side as he slid his hand into the inside pocket of the light jacket he wore, withdrawing a small bottle of holy water. After letting her see the bottle, he tossed it to her, then tried to find the words to explain what part of him realized she would likely recognize.

"I have to know," he finally said quietly.

"Holy water?"

Part of Mary knew enough to put the facts together before John gave her the bottle of holy water, but actually holding it in her hands took all doubt away. This was real. She was somehow here in a place that her older husband was and that meant she had missed out on far too much. Years of a marriage she should have been able to enjoy, all the childish milestones that came with a sweet chubby child melting into a tall, strong grown man...all of that was gone.

"God..." She whispered, her voice sounding high and more fragile than she could remember it ever sounding before.

She unscrewed the bottle's cap and took a long drink of the water. "Do you have a silver knife?" She asked tiredly. "I can prove that one too."

That single whispered word devastated John like years of horrors couldn't have. He had known, years ago when he had realized the truth, and more recently in facing the truth with the younger Mary, that the proof of what he had become, of what their sons had become, would break her heart if she ever realized it. Now she had, just like the younger Mary had, and for the second time John felt the guilt of his broken promises, even those made without full knowledge.

He had let her down, he had let his sons down and there wasn't anything he could say in the end to make up for the worst parts. He could tell her why he had hunted the demon all those years but it was only a reason, not an excuse.

He nearly didn't give her the knife to avoid seeing her cut herself, but, reaching back to the sheath on his belt, he eventually did withdraw it and held it out to her, hilt first. Somehow, he had already decided it was Mary, even if doing so prematurely was a huge risk.

Mary studied him intently, watching his every movement. She had questions, so many questions to ask him, things she needed to know, but she knew that if he was a hunter worth his salt he wouldn't be able to waste any time chit chatting before she had confirmed who she was. She knew John well enough to know he was smart enough to be an excellent hunter, if he had the motivation.

But he's everything that a hunter isn't. He's sweet and...

Mary knew too well the reason why most people got into hunting. It was just the thought of the life her sons had been raised into that made her feel queasy. She knew what that was like. What happened to her, what happened to John, it was sad, awful, even, but what happened to Sam and Dean? What they had likely seen? It was the worst thing she could imagine.

She reached out, thankful that somehow her hand remained steady, and took the knife from him. Easily she pulled up the sleeve of the nightgown a little bit, slicing a smooth, shallow cut into skin she hoped would be high enough to hide from the children when she saw them again.

The task done, she looked at John hopefully, wondering if that was confirmation enough or if there would be more hoops to go through before she could find answers.

When the line of red appeared on her skin, John dropped the gun back to its resting place – instinctively careful, as it was only instinct he functioned on now – and grabbed the side of his truck. It was his wife. His beautiful wife who he had spent nearly twenty-three years (alive) wanting to see again, hunting the bastard demon that had killed her, the same demon that had ruined parts of her life and forced her hand into making deals.

The ache to touch her was unreal, but something held him back from pulling her to him, a combination of the same reservations that held him back from the younger Mary, some weighted less strongly but still valid. He was a vastly different man than the John she had loved, even if she was exactly the Mary he remembered. She was only ten years older than the Mary already here, so in the scheme of things, every age objection still applied, but this was also the woman he had loved all these years.

But he couldn't go without touching her entirely, without confirming she was real, and so he reached out with life-roughened hand that shook despite his best efforts to control it. Her skin was warm beneath his, alive and real, and he knew he could do every test for every creature out there and it wouldn't matter, because he was certain it was her.

"God, Mary, it's really you," he whispered.

"I told you so..." She said, smiling hesitantly at him. The gun was down fully, the knife too. That was a start, wasn't it? His hand on her wrist was a good start too, it felt right, so right, and she wanted more. She wanted him to have his arms around her, to feel his lips again. She wanted John, her John, to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be alright, that he was going to keep her safe.

But the act of pulling him close, once second nature, was one that she resisted. It was so strange, too strange and full of unanswered questions, and things he didn't know as well.

"It is me, John," She said softly. "But I'm...different." She sighed, putting her hand on top of his, as though she was trying to draw strength from him to find the words she needed to say what she had to. "John, I don't know if the boys told you, but I was in the house... our house for a few years."

For a moment, John stared at her speechless. She was looking at him, had guessed what he was, and she was telling him she was different? And then he realized what she was truly saying, what she was feeling out. She had realized what he had done with his life, even if she didn't know all of it yet, and was testing the ground of a hunter. He had removed more than one spirit from a building and she was admitting to being one of the very things he had hunted.

But this was Mary. Even as a spirit, she hadn't been angry and vengeful, she had been Mary.

That she remembered it was a shock, but perhaps it shouldn't have been, given that he remembered Hell. "You remember that? All of it?"

She had destroyed herself to protect Sam and Dean. Missouri had been certain of it and John believed it because he knew his wife. He couldn't turn her aside because she had been a spirit in a house, but knowing she had been and remembered that left him feeling even more weighted. He hadn't been able to protect her and she had lived alone for years, in that spirit limbo, all alone.

"All of it." She shuddered, remembering how long, boring, how overwhelmingly lonely it had been to be trapped in the house, to stay still because she didn't want to bring the attention of a hunter who would send her to hell or end her troubled existence. Mary had not wanted to not exist anymore just as she had not wanted to die. She destroyed herself to save her sons, but that act had come after years of being alone. None of it was fair.

"Where are the boys?" She closed her eyes in a blink that lasted a moment too long, trying to focus herself, to prepare for what was to come. Who knew how much time had past since her last too brief glimpse of her babies. "Sammy and Dean, are they ok?" There was a hidden meaning to her words as well, because she wasn't just asking in the physical sense. Had they grown up alright? Were they living a normal life with a hobby of going to haunted houses on the weekend, or were they living the sort of messed up life she had feared?

John slid into the truck then and closed the door behind him, locking it with a click before reaching for her and pulling her close to him. If she resisted, if she tensed too much, he would let her go, but right now he wanted her to know she wasn't alone. And if she needed more than just someone to lean against while she adjusted to the changes in being alive, he would let her latch on and he would hold her, just for that brief time, and have ti only be about comfort.

"Dean and Sammy are here, they're alright." It was a lie, as Sam wasn't alright at all, but he wasn't going to burden her with that right now, if at all.

"We're in Los Angeles. Seems there are these higher powers, some good, some evil, bringing people here, not just from across the country, but all kinds of crazy places." His voice softened. "Even back from the dead."

But was she back from the dead, from Heaven? Or was she here from weren't she hadn't been anymore? They were answers he had never been granted. He let the information hang there, to let her adjust to it, so she would understand that it hadn't been any deal that brought here here, but other forces entirely.

Though maybe it hadn't been these higher powers. What if it had been that alleged angel? What if Mary was here because of what had happened with Sam, to play some part in keeping Sam from being lost?

When John pulled her into his arms in a hug, Mary relaxed minutely. She had always felt safe when he held her close, even when she was asking him for promises when he had no idea what he was agreeing to. Dean and Sammy were here. That was the most important thing. If they were here and relatively safe, she could deal with the rest, couldn't she?

She squeezed him hard for a minute, sad for him, worried about him. What had he been through the last few years? What had happened to 'her boys' when she was gone to put that look in his eyes, to make her sons into hunters? What had John gone through? Had he left the boys somewhere safe? Mary's heart clenched at the thought of her sons growing up with a friend, a relative, but without either parent. Had he taken them along? That thought made her shiver.

"I want to see them, John, I need to see the babies." Dean hadn't been the baby in a long, LONG time, even before Sammy was born, but Sam and Dean would always be Mary's babies. "Is there anything I need to know about them? Are they...hunters?"

Though it was a direct question, John avoided giving her the answer about the boys right away. "We'll head back home – Dean'll be wondering where I am soon, since I was supposed to be right behind him."

Looking down at her, he noted again the nightgown and was intensely grateful she had been dropped into his truck, rather than out in public. She had enough to deal with without being thrown into public half-dressed. But, even in his truck, she still needed covered up more, and he told himself that was for her own privacy and dignity, not for any reason he needed.

After taking his phone out, he shrugged out of the jacket, then the unbuttoned button-down shirt over his t-shirt as well. "Here." He wrapped the shirt around her shoulders and laid the jacket in her lap so she could put it on after she had the shirt situated.

Picking up his phone, he opened up the message board in its internet capabilities, as it saved answering the same questions twice if he texted them by phone separately, and left the message for Sam and Dean.

Mary put her arms through the shirt, John's shirt. She hadn't even realized how exposed she felt until she was back in a real shirt. Quickly she buttoned it over the nightgown and put the jacket on over that. She was still clearly clad in what could only be a nightgown, even if she was protected by John's clothing, but she was too eager to see her children to even consider the possibility of stopping somewhere to get something more suitable.

Mary snuggled into the jacket. It smelled like him, like the fall nights a year or so before Sam was born when they'd take Dean to go see the high school games and she'd steal his jacket in exchange for a kiss when she realized that her thin sweater wasn't going to be warm enough to last through the evening. It was nice to have that one small reminder of the way things used to be, even if the world had changed dramatically since then. She felt hopeful for the first time since her death that maybe things were going to work out, but she didn't relax. That would come later, when she saw her boys alive and well. When she had more answers about them.

Using the time she situated herself to message back and forth with Dean and Sam once they had responded, John couldn't stop himself from continually looking up at Mary, trying to accept this was really happening. It was possible, here, as he himself had been brought back, but finally having one of the things he had spent the rest of his life wanting was a shocking thing just the same.

When he had finished, he nodded to the phone, trying to explain. "New kind of telephone, called a cellular phone. Works with signals instead of telephone wires. This one, you can call people and send them typed messages."

Realizing the details of technology was a topic best saved for later when she'd had time to adjust, and realizing it would be the perfect thing for Sam to help her with, he cleared his throat, paused, then spoke again.

"About the boys, about what you asked," he said, quiet again before finally getting to the answer, looking out the front of the truck, eyes unfocused. "They're hunters, we all are."

She had to know, before they got back to the apartment. She deserved to not walk into the situation with all her questions unanswered. "After we lost you, I couldn't let it go. I found out the truth, about what was really out there, and I vowed I'd find what killed you and kill it myself. I couldn't leave the boys, I just couldn't, so I took them along with me, and I taught them the things that were taught to me over the years, so I could protect them and they could defend themselves while I hunted that yellow-eyed bastard down."

Then his gaze slid to her. "I know the truth now, about your family being hunters, about what happened the night your parents died. Sammy and Dean know too."

John had all but read her mind, because while John was busy on the phone Mary was looking at it curiously, trying to determine just what he was doing. It was just another reminder of the many things she was going to have to learn. Twenty five years was a long time to be gone, and it made sense a lot had changed in the world in addition to the changes she could see in her family.

And then he spoke again and in five short words took her breath away. They're hunters, we all are.

She hadn't been entirely fair, telling John to take her away and not telling him what she wanted away from, but Mary had never dreamed that things would turn out like this. She thought that John would take her to a new life, that they'd never really discuss hunting anything, let alone supernatural things, and that her old life would stay in the past where it belonged. Feeling as though she couldn't breathe, she watched John intently and listened as he spoke about the way he had come to hunt, and inadvertently dragged the boys into it as well. Finally, when he admitted to knowing the truth about her family, about what happened the night her parents died, Mary discovered she could breathe, but a lump in her throat prevented her from speaking for a long moment.

Her hand reached out, touching John's leg lightly. How was she supposed to find the words to deal with this? Was she expected to tell him that it was alright? It wasn't alright. She had never intended for her children to be raised the way that she was, it had been her worst fear when she was dating John and thinking about the future was that her children would grow up worrying about the things she had. She didn't like thinking that Sam and Dean had grown up that fast, that they had to know about the truly evil things that existed.

On the other hand, what had she really expected John to do? Look at her pinned on the ceiling like some absurd sort of nursery mobile and then accept it a few days later? Did she really think that he was going to go to church and mourn her loss and then go clock in at the garage and just forget what he had seen? No, Mary knew enough to know that the clueless police would likely say that what happened in the nursery that night was some sort of horrible accident, and John would have either had to have accepted that or he would have had to find his own answers...and she knew John well enough to know that he would want answers.

More than that, John would want revenge. He wouldn't just let something take her life and leave it at that, he would have wanted to make the creature pay, to make sure that it was gone so that his sons were safe. John had never been anything but sweet and gentle to her, but he had once been a Marine, and those years of training taught him how to track his prey, how to kill it.

Though she hated the thought of her sons as hunters, the one thing Mary was thankful for was that John had not left them behind. Losing a mother would have been hard enough for them, the last thing Sam and Dean needed was to be dropped off with some well meaning friend or relative. They needed their father, and if John's quest for answers led him in the direction of hunting...well she was glad that he kept the boys close enough to keep them safe.

Her voice cracked when finally she found her words again. "And did you get him? The yellow eyed demon? Did you kill him?"

The hand on his leg was more than John had ever expected with that revelation, though he wouldn't have ever thought it was any kind of acceptance. He expected her to be beyond disappointed, even angry, that the boys hadn't been raised in the life they had planned so much to have. He moved his hand until his covered hers, surprised to find she still wore her wedding rings. He didn't know why that was so surprising, considering he had been brought back with his, but feeling them under his hand for the first time in over twenty years was enough to bring that knot back into his own throat.

He nodded at her question in the affirmative, but giving details would mean telling her he had been dead and in Hell when he'd helped the boys finally bring that demon down. Talking about this also meant he had to tell her still more things before they could do much more, some for her own protection, some just to prepare her for going to the apartment.

"Like I said, people come back from the dead, come from different times, he said quietly. "It's 2005 here, but Dean, Sam and I are all from after 2005. And not everyone who comes back is good."

He reached for her again and this time it was for himself that he held her to him, despite all his reservations. He wouldn't let that bastard come after her again, not either Mary. "He's here. The yellow-eyed demon, Azazel. Lilith too. She's the one who holds all the contracts of the Crossroads Demon."

Mary let out a soft sigh of relief when John nodded, because while she wasn't used to hating things as intensely as she did hate the yellow eyed demon, she wanted that creature dead. He had tricked her, put her in an awful situation and then forced her to make a choice that let him hurt her son. The demon had killed her parents, killed her, and likely would have done the same to John had he arrived in the nursery a few moments sooner. That was enough to make Mary hate him.

She knew something was coming, something bad when he held her close again, not because of anything John had said or done but because of a feeling she had, a sense of dread she couldn't explain. And then he spoke, saying that the demon, Azazel, was here again, and Lilith too. Mary wasn't immediately familiar with Lilith, but if she held Crossroad contracts she couldn't be good news. While she was happy to be here with her family again (after all, she had over twenty years of waiting alone as a spirit in the house to miss them, to want to see them and wonder what they were doing)the thought of evil things coming back from the dead to harm them again wasn't one she liked...so she held tighter to him, trying to remember that for now the boys were safe. She was safe. John was safe.

And yet in so many was she still felt lost. She was going to go meet her sons, the ones who had last seen her as a spirit, a woman on fire. She had no way of knowing what they would or wouldn't remember about her, how they'd handle seeing her again...and she was going with John. John, the man who she had ten happy years with, but who had changed so much since then. Her John was still there, she could see traces of him, but he had evidently been to hell and back in the years since her death. Then again, so had she...How had things changed so much? What if her sons had? All that she knew about them was that they had grown up to be hunters, what sort of people had they become?

She held on to him a little more tightly to brace herself, not wanting to lose control of herself before she saw exactly how bad or good things were. She wanted to think she had worried for nothing...but there was no way to tell. "Is there anything else I should know before I see them?" She asked shakily.

"We'll get him again, we'll get them both," John said when she held on more tightly, a confidence that wouldn't be shaken because there was no other way but to get this demon bastard again. But he couldn't say much more than that, not even when she asked him. The list of things she should know, as their mother, and the list of things he didn't want to say right now, to give her time to adjust or to protect her from the information, clashed at most points. But there was another she needed to know.

"These powers, they can bring more than one of a person, from different points in their lives, he explained. "Sometimes it's common, sometimes it's not."

He shifted to face her then, as finding yourself alive was one sort of shock, but finding out you were going to see your younger self shortly was another one entirely. She had always been amazing at dealing with the unexpected – then he hadn't know a life growing up as a hunter was responsible for the way she took a lot of things so much better than most – but she had already received a lot of big shocks since 'waking up' here.

"Mary, a younger you showed up a few days ago, from not long after your parents died," he said, rubbing a hand up and down her arm, unconsciously comforting.

Mary needed all of the comfort that John had to offer her, becuase it was startling to say the least to think that there was a younger version of herself running around. Of course, she knew that she had not changed that much since the days when she was Mary Campbell, but it was jarring to say the least. What would she say when she 'met' the girl who she had been face to face? Would it alter the younger Mary somehow, to know so much about her future and to meet the woman who she would become? What if the she said the wrong thing to her younger self and caused the girl to make decisions that wouldn't lead her down the same road that would have Sam and Dean at the end? Worry was clear on her face, because she couldn't imagine her life without her two sons, and she didn't want Mary Campbell to make choices that deprived the young girl of the chance to have her own Sam and Dean one day.

She shook her head. She couldn't think of the 'what if's' because she knew it was likely far too late for that. John, Sam, and Dean had probably already met the girl, so the damage was already done.

"Is she alright?" she asked, still slightly anxious, but more for the younger woman than for herself. "How's she dealing with Mom and Dad being gone?"

Mary wanted nothing more than to go and see her sons, to have John at her side again, and to face the challenges of this place (including younger Mary) and resolve them. It was easy to focus on the bad, the danger, what could go wrong, but she just had to trust that things would work themselves out. Although trust was a difficult thing for a hunter to master, Mary reminded herself that she had left that lifestyle and its suspicions far behind her. Of course, she wasn't completely free of that life, she knew how to prepare for the worst, how to try to protect those closest to her, but the paranoia, the isolation was something that, Mary was determined, would be a thing of the past.

She gave John a slightly more hesitant smile, and rested her hand on top of the one he was rubbing her arm with. His hand felt a little more weathered than she remembered, but not rough, not hard...just different. Stronger. "We'll be fine." She said softly, giving his hand a squeeze. "I can help her with it if she needs me...let's just go home and see the boys."


WHO: John & Mary Winchester
WHERE: Winchester & co house
WHEN: November 19, 2005; afternoon
SUMMARY: Showing Mary the new house and proof that with age doesn't always come wisdom. Completed log.
RATING: PG-ish


After checking the knot on the scarf he'd used as a blindfold to drive them here, making certain it wasn't too tight or too loose, John lifted Mary out of the truck so she didn't slip – trying not to focus on how good it felt to have her in his arms, even briefly – and then steered her toward the new house.

This house was much bigger, but not as new, so there was an older feel to it the house in Kansas hadn't had, and he hoped it would appeal to her, that 'project' air about it. He and the boys would do the hard labor to get anything into shape, but he wanted the house to be hers and the girls to turn into a home in all those detailed ways John had never been able to manage. It wasn't a skill he dismissed, knowing the right furniture to choose or the colors to paint with or the fabrics to use, not by any means, but it was definitely one he didn't have and one she had always had a gift for.

The paint color, a light yellow, wasn't right, so he knew that would be the first thing to be changed, but he trusted her to look beyond it. Sucking in a breath, he brought them to a halt and then unknotted the scarf and slid it from her eyes.

"There, that's the surprise. It's ours, all of ours, to move in to as soon as it's livable," he said, watching her carefully.

Though the apartment felt a lot like home now, there were still times when Mary missed her little house in Kansas. There were things you could do in a home that you just couldn't do in an apartment, like the way they had started marking Dean's height on a wall in his room from the moment he had been old enough to toddle around. She had intended to do the same thing with Sammy, but fate had had other plans. That wasn't to say that she didn't appreciate what they had in LA, because she knew they really all did have a lot here, but at times the cramped quarters of the apartment left her wishing that they still had a real home with room for them all to run around and a little yard.

Mary shifted in the seat of the truck, trying to guess where they were going. She knew it had to be a pleasant sort of surprise, because John wouldn't have blind folded her with the scarf and come up with such an elaborate ruse to tell her bad news, but she had no idea what sort of surprise he could possibly be about to show her. She was alive, she had their children here, she had John, and, in some small miracle, her boys had found love. What could possibly be better than all of that?

John helped her out of the truck and she too found herself distracted. He had been nothing but nice to her since her arrival, but he did not often touch her. For a long moment she found her thoughts shifting in other directions, to the past, but she quickly forced her attention back to the present.

The scarf fell from her eyes and Mary gasped. A house? He was surprising her again with a house? A hand flew to her mouth and a look of pure wonder appeared in her eyes as she looked it over, overlooking things that she knew they would fix like the yellow exterior or minor cosmetic blemishes that came with the house being a little older. It was supposed to be their home, she could almost feel it.

“Ours?” She asked, turning to him almost breathlessly. There was certainly enough room for all of them here, and in this house Mary knew her family could put down real roots.

The look on her face alone was enough to satisfy John that he had 'done right', a look he recognized even after years of having only slowly fading memory to remind him of it. He nodded slowly, absorbing her expression for a moment like a man starved before inclining his head toward the house.

"Let's go inside so I can show you around. It's a big place," he said, then guided her inside as he explained how he had come into possession of the house without specifically stating the big details, as he was still conscious of protecting her, sheltering her from reminders of what she'd 'lived' through. Even if the spirit left in this house was nothing like her situation, it wasn't an easy subject, and while it sometimes didn't seem as though John Winchester knew the meaning of sensitive, for Mary, he did.

Mary listened intently as John spoke, but already her mind was racing with ideas for the place. She could almost see it filled up with furniture, could almost see herself and the girls cooking Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner here when the time came while John and Dean and perhaps even Sam tried to sneak in...it would be just like old times. The house, which had seemed spacious on the outside, felt cozy inside, but there was clearly enough room here for the growing Winchester clan and all of their friends.

She didn't even let John fully finish his explanation before she went to him, her arms wrapping around him in a loose hug. She knew he had likely gone through a lot to get the home, even if he was glossing over the finer details, but, what's more, she appreciated that he had taken the effort to surprise her with it as well.

“Thank you, John. It's a gorgeous house.” She looked up at him hopefully. “The boys, have they seen it? Do they like it too?”

John didn't stiffen so much as still, sluggish to react for once in his life before finally sliding his arms around her, just as loose as hers. He was holding her and the desire to close his arms around her tightly was so strong it was an ache. But he was careful with her, always careful, because even before he had gone to Hell, he hadn't been the man she married anymore. After it, that was just more apparent given what nightmares were starting to reveal. But that didn't change how much he loved her, even now, and thus how much he wanted even this simple contact.

But he couldn't keep it up, not right now.

"Boys were here last night, making it safe to be in," he said, then smiled as he released her and headed back up the stairs to the main floor. "And yeah, I think they like it. Not used to living in a real house, but they'll adapt quickly. They can have the top floor," he continued, then explained his idea for where everyone else could be, including his idea of possibly inviting Bobby to live with them too. The master bedroom was mentioned as they moved through the house again, but he mentioned it for her alone.

For a moment Mary too stilled, comforted by the feel of John's arms loosely wrapped around her. She relaxed, really, truly relaxed for a moment, and it was glorious. She wanted to tighten her arms around him, to hold tightly and never let him go again, but she resisted. It was only natural that things would need time to recover after all that they had been through, but Mary ached for him. It wasn't one specific thing she wanted so much as a combination of many things the physical closeness, the intimacy...everything.

His smile eased the separation and Mary followed him, listening intently as he described where everyone would stay. She was thrilled that he had included everyone in their new family, from Heather and Jo to a room that would be Bobby's, if he wanted it. At first, when he when he spoke of the Master bedroom, she assumed he was making a small mistake, because she assumed that by the time they were in a more permanent residence John wouldn't still be sleeping in another room, but then he mentioned the room that would be his on the top floor, next to the room that Heather would be sharing with Sam and Dean's room (which would also be Jo's on her frequent visits) and Mary knew there had been no mistake. Her own unmarried children were sharing rooms with their girlfriends of a few months, and though Mary was happy beyond belief for them she felt...jealous?

Don't be stupid, Mary, these things take time. You were both dead, you should just be happy he's alive.

She gave him a smile, one that somehow didn't go all the way to her eyes. “It all sounds great, John." She leaned in, kissing him on the cheek. "The house will be wonderful for Christmas, won't it?"

It was only sheer willpower that kept John from closing his eyes at the brush of lips across his cheek, but when he pulled back from it, the focus changed entirely. Suddenly she was too close, yet he couldn't bring himself to back away. His eyes flickered from hers to her lips and back again and John Winchester, a man who normally assessed a situation, decided what he could and couldn't do and then did what he could with single-minded determination, found himself at a loss.

There were a hundred reasons why he shouldn't do this right now. He was twenty-plus years older than her physically, they were unknown span apart in 'experience' ages, she had only recently come back from the dead and needed time to adjust to being alive again, he needed time to deal with curbing the hunt-and-kill revenge urges that had motivated him for years because, even though she was alive, her death had still happened, but there was no longer the hunger to make things pay as much as there had once been – those reasons and more.

But he could smell her hair, the fragrance she wore that was perfume and wholly her, and urges that had begun to make themselves known after two decades of celibacy were definitely looking to get his attention now.

Mary meant to pull back after kissing his cheek. She had intended for the gesture to be simple, brief, and to express her gratitude alone. However, things seemed very different when she was up close to him. Even this close, Mary still saw him as the man she had married. It had been an exceptionally bad idea, to allow herself that one small close encounter, because it left her wanting more.

Very slowly, Mary leaned in even closer, brushing her lips over his. The motion was almost self conscious, because she was still unsteady from the news that they would not be sharing a room, but the result was the same. Mary had kissed him, and she waited, lingering there, to see his reaction.

Though there was no overt outward reaction, Mary kissing him was like a jolt of electricity straight to his heart. He had been so controlled with her and the younger Mary, wanting there to be nothing that made them unhappy and no hint of anything less that innocent, but even he had his weaknesses, and her kissing him was one of them right now because he had wanted it that much. His nights weren't always filled with nightmares, sometimes they were filled with far different things, from old memories to just fantasies.

He leaned in before he could stop himself and kissed her back, not tentative, but hungry, the kiss of a man who had temptation put in front of him one too many times and had passed the limits of his restraint. He held her at her waist, fingers wrapped around it, thumbs resting on her stomach, and let himself have that kiss for count of ten or thereabouts before he pulled back entirely. It wasn't enough by far and he realized, even then, that he had just made the ache for her that he tried to hard to repress worse now by far.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Christmas here'll be good. The boys deserve to see what a real Christmas looks like after all these years." It was self-defeating behavior at its finest, bringing up a poignant reminder of why they hadn't had a real Christmas because of what he had done, the man he had become in those years of obsessive revenge.

The kiss was everything Mary hoped it might be. From the moment John gave in, Mary gave herself over to the kiss as well. The touch of his hands at her waist made her feel deliciously dizzy, and the kiss itself...God, had they kissed like that before? And if they had, what on earth had taken them so long to do it again?

For a long moment after John stepped back, Mary stood there entirely still, savoring the ten seconds or so that things made sense again. Finally, with a small, quiet sigh, Mary opened her eyes and gave him a soft smile. “They've never had a Christmas before where we were all together, I'm sure they'll get a kick out of it. We could have a big tree and put it over here....”

The location of the tree wasn't that important to Mary, because the living room was spacious enough to have several different locations that would be great for a nice Christmas tree, but the location she was indicating, at a window far away from John Winchester, kept her from losing control and kissing him again, or, worse, pulling him impulsively into the master bedroom. Not that Mary would have regretted either, but she knew John well enough to know that he had his own way of going about things...and his way in this situation just took time.

It was a good thing John didn't know her motivations, or what the alternatives flashing through her head were, as that might have wrecked his self control irrevocably. As it was, the talk of the holidays was what he focused on, though it was mostly not-focusing on the kiss than it was imagining what she was pointing out.

"Yeah, there'll be good," he said, relatively certain it was an acceptable opinion to have, given there was a window there and trees tended to look good in front of them – their Christmas tree had always gone in front of a window, after all. "I think plans like that will be just what we all need to get into the holiday spirit."

After a moment, he cleared his throat. "How about we go back to the kitchen and dining room and you can start telling me what you need," he said, then steered her in that direction. He would let pots and pans and tables be the distraction until it was a legitimate distraction from thoughts about his wife he still didn't think he ought to be having right now – and when, well, that was still in the air.