Watching Over You

Mary Winchester was in the middle of doing the laundry when she heard her young son wake up from his nap and start yelling.

Sighing, she put the laundry basket down and headed upstairs to where four-year-old Dean was jumping up and down on his bed, performing somersaults.

"Mom! Look at me, Mom! Look what I can do!"

Mary tried to smother a smile at Dean's antics, one hand on her belly where the baby lay.

"That's great, honey. But you shouldn't jump on your bed. You could get hurt."

"I won't get hurt, Mom. It's easy!"

"All the same, you might break the bed, and then where would you sleep?"

Dean's eyes lit up.

"Upside down, like a bat!"

This time, Mary couldn't suppress a smile.

"Maybe. Come on, honey. I'll fix you a snack."

Dean bounced off the bed and sped away, racing down the stairs like a Tasmanian Devil. It never ceased to amaze Mary how much energy her boy had. Much as she loved him, he was exhausting, especially now she was pregnant again. This baby didn't kick and wriggle as much as Dean had, for which she was thankful. It took enough just keeping up with Dean.

She went back downstairs to the kitchen, pouring juice into a beaker for Dean and handing him a handful of crackers before sitting him down in front of a cartoon, in the hope he'd stay still long enough for her to finish the laundry.

There were still moments when she found herself surprised that this cosy, domestic vision really was her life. She had a life that was her own, her and John together, with their children. She missed her parents – god, did she miss them – but she was free of her old life, free from hunting. She got to have a house, a regular life and she could almost forget that she'd grown up surrounded by violence, evil and death.

But the second she went back into the kitchen and saw a stranger standing by the window, all that vanished and she was Mary Campbell once more, the instincts trained into her since childhood resurfacing as if they'd never gone away. She grabbed a knife from the chopping block on the counter, measuring the distance between the stranger and the door, trying to remember where she'd stored the rock salt. She might have wanted a normal life, but she wasn't stupid.

The intruder looked at her, brow furrowing as he took in her pregnant belly.

"Mary Winchester?" he asked.

Mary raised the knife, holding it out in front of her, readying herself to fight, if she had to.

"Who's asking?"

Her voice didn't shake; she was proud of that.

The man held up his hands in front of him, perhaps trying to show he meant no harm, but Mary's senses were still flaring, recognising potential danger, knowing she could defend herself and her family, if she needed to. Admittedly, he didn't look especially dangerous; in fact he looked exhausted, as if it had taken him a great effort to get there, but Mary couldn't care less about that. He was in her home, uninvited, had gotten past the wards on the door and window frames (again, she wasn't stupid enough to believe that just because she wasn't a Hunter anymore that there weren't still things out there).

And there was definitely something strange about him; he didn't seem quite, well, human. He looked human enough, a dark-haired man in a rumpled suit and trenchcoat, with piercing blue eyes that appeared to be trying to read her through to her very soul. But that wasn't it.

"My name is Castiel," he replied. "I came here to find you, but I-" he glanced around, confused.

"I think I may have made a mistake somewhere. This is not where I intended to be."

"But you said you came to find me," Mary pressed. "Here I am. Why are you here?"

"This is not right," Castiel insisted, eyes fixed on her baby bump. "What year is this?"

Mary couldn't believe her ears.

"What? It's 1983. How can you not know that? What are you, Castiel?"

This time he met her eyes and Mary felt something settle over her, a feeling of some kind of serenity that she didn't understand.

"I am an Angel of the Lord," he said and Mary felt the world shift around her.

Was this what it felt like for other people when they learnt monsters were real? But this wasn't frightening, the opposite in fact.

She set the knife down on the counter, putting both hands on her belly as the baby began to kick.

"Mom?" Dean came pelting into the room in his customary fashion, skidding to a halt as he saw the strange man. Castiel tilted his head to one side as he took in the four-year-old version of the man he knew.

"Hello, Dean."

"Hello." Dean stared back, completely unafraid, curious even.

"Do you like He-Man?"

Castiel stared down at the boy.

"I don't know what that is."

Dean's eyes were shining with excitement.

"It's on TV now. It's totally awesome!"

"Why don't you go back to your cartoons, sweetheart," Mary suggested, smoothing down Dean's hair without taking her eyes from the Angel in her kitchen.

Thankfully, the boy did, more concerned with not missing any more of his show to worry about this intrusion into his life.

"Why would an Angel be looking for me?" Mary asked.

"It is – complicated."

"You knew my son's name."

"I can't tell you about that right now. But your sons will both be very important in the future, and I'm trying my best to ensure their safety right now."

"You and me both."

Castiel gave her a strange look, as if both reassured to hear that, but also a little sad. He was not as all what Mary had expected an Angel to be like – no wings, no halo, no background harp music, which she was a little glad of - but she could feel, somehow, that he was being completely truthful.

"This baby's a boy too, huh?"

It clearly had not occurred to Castiel that she wouldn't already know that.

"Samuel, then."

She stroked a hand over the bump, where the baby was still moving around enthusiastically, her face radiating maternal affection.

"If it's a girl, we thought about calling her Anne, or Anna."

Castiel visibly flinched, but Mary didn't seem to notice.

"But I want to call him Sam, after my father."

Without any warning, Castiel stepped right up close to Mary and put a hand to the side of her face.

Mary gasped. She didn't understand what was happening, but it was like stepping out from the cold and the dark into warm sunlight, like suddenly being aware of everything in the Universe at once. It was unlike anything she'd ever encountered before, but it was wonderful. Mary felt safe, protected and, if it wasn't too strong a word, blessed. Baby Sammy clearly felt something too, kicking harder.

And then Castiel was gone, vanishing into thin air, as if he'd never been there before.

Dean, seemingly unable to settle on anything for more than a minute at a time that day, came dashing back in again.

"Where'd that man go, Mommy?"

Mary had no idea how to answer that, in all honesty.

"I don't know, sweetie. But I think we might see him again, one day."

He'd said her sons would be important. She hadn't asked what he meant by that. Why hadn't she asked him that?

But then again, what did you ask an Angel when he appeared in your kitchen?

"Can I go out and play, Mom?" Dean asked, the stranger forgotten already and as if in a dream, Mary opened the door to let him out into the back yard. She stood at the door, watching him race around like a pinball in a machine, stopping briefly to kick a ball against the wall.

"Angels are watching over you," she murmured.

Disclaimer: No, not mine, yadda yadda.

And just in case anyone didn't get it, this is supposed to have occurred during 'The Song Remains The Same.' There are a few seconds between Sam and Dean landing in 1978, and them finding Castiel, so I'm positing that, due to the amount of effort it took Cas to get them there, he could have gotten a little lost along the way.