Chapter Text
Morning sickness didn’t just strike in the morning, Mary Winchester had quickly discovered, much to her misfortune. Round the clock random bursts of nausea had been kicking her ass for the last month, ever since right around when she skipped a period. She’d never been late before, not by more than a day or two, anyway, and after a week, well, she was pretty sure even before she went to her doctor’s appointment. Mary was ecstatic and terrified and so nervous about telling John. They wanted this, they’d planned this, but…
This was huge and life changing and Mary might’ve been silently freaking out about it because holy crap. She was gonna be a mom and John was gonna be a dad. And that was just… a lot to take in. A major shift in their tiny little family. Plus, there was the whole impending process of giving birth. Because that was mildly horrifying. In the end, though, it’d be worth it. She just knew it. Inside of her a tiny little life was growing and she couldn’t wait to meet him or her.
When John had found out, he’d been over the moon. He’d laughed excitedly and kissed her breathless and then he’d dropped to his knees and pressed a gentle kiss to her stomach—told her he was saying hi to the little guy and her heart melted all over again at those gorgeous eyes filled with love.
From the start, John’d been convinced they were having a boy. Mary didn’t much care either way, and when you got down to it, neither did John. He just liked the idea of having a son. He wouldn’t love a daughter any less, Mary knew.
Stubbornness wasn’t just a Winchester family trait, the Campbell’s had it in spades too. So Mary was sure, that like his mom and dad, her little bean was gonna be a force to be reckoned with. Said stubbornness was the reason that Mary found herself in the middle of the woods, just outside their campsite curled over in the dirt and emptying the contents of her lunch onto the forest floor.
Last week, John’d suggested that they cancel their plans to go camping because of Mary’s ‘state’ and well, that’d rubbed her the wrong way. She was pregnant not bedridden. Just because she got nauseous sometimes didn’t mean she couldn’t still go have fun. Despite what John obviously thought, she could still do things that she wanted to. So she’d out stubborned John, and they’d gone camping in the end.
There was a possibility, Mary thought, leaning back against a nearby tree and closing her eyes while she caught her breath—a small possibility—that just this once… John might’ve been right. He didn’t say a thing though, when she finally got back to camp and instantly set about brushing her teeth. He just pulled her into his lap when she was done and held her.
Thankfully, she made it through the rest of the day without another incident, and by the time it got dark out, Mary was beyond ready to sleep. She crawled into her sleeping bag next to John and fell asleep with his thickly muscled arm as her pillow.
The next time she woke up, it was still dark and for a second she wondered why she was awake until her bladder swiftly alerted her to the pressing need to pee. She sighed and quietly extricated herself from her sleeping bag, trying not to wake John as she unzipped the tent and crawled outside. The air was colder than it had been inside and she shivered as she made her way to the campground’s washrooms.
It was eerie in the dark, with just a flashlight that she’d grabbed on her way out of their tent to light the way. Clouds that were thick in the sky above meant no moon or stars brightened up the path. Twigs snapped to her left, and Mary spun to face the noise, fist bunched at her side and ready to defend herself but nothing happened. She stared into the woods for a minute, flashlight barely making a dent in the shadows and then she sighed in relief.
A quick trip to the bathroom later and she was on her way back when she walked smack into someone. An old man caught her before she could fall, steadied her and Mary’s heart thumped wildly in her chest, a scream locked in her throat. She was half scared out of her mind until she really looked at him—suddenly, she was caught in his brilliant green eyes, swirls of caramel and flecks of yellow, somehow she knew everything was going to be fine.
In slow motion he reached his weathered hands up, softly cupped her cheeks and offered her a smile that bordered on sad. Her heart ached with the emotion in his eyes and he hadn’t spoken a word to her, but something about him felt timeless and so much older than the body she saw in front of her.
From somewhere inside of him, blue flames erupted, dancing along his skin in spirals and whorls that leapt from him and bridged the gap between them. Mary's body seemed to be absorbing whatever magic he was putting out and she watched, still unafraid as she saw it happen until she was forced to close her eyes against a bright white flare of blinding light before everything went completely dark.
The next morning Mary woke slowly, stretched in the morning light that flooded in through her bedroom window. She cuddled down under the covers, into the warmth of John’s body next to her. Hazy with sleep, it took her a long second to remember why something felt off—wrong with this picture. Camping.
She bolted upright and blinked, took in the familiar surroundings of their bedroom, confused. Had she dreamt the whole damn thing? Her hand slipped protectively down to her stomach as she shivered at the memory of paper-thin skin against her cheeks and blue fire that didn’t burn.