#youngmarynatural

[angelsdean]

youngmarynatural 1/?

↳ Mary struggles to accept her strange new reality, riddled with grief as she mourns the babies she lost.

Sam: We're right here, mom.

Mary: I know. In my head. But I'm still mourning them as I knew them... Just feels like yesterday, we were together in heaven, and now...I'm here, and John is gone, and they're gone. And every moment I spend with you reminds me every moment I lost with them.

[angelsdean]

also, *whispers* mary is 28. not 27. not 29. it's a little confusing bc numbers (trust me i get it i am not a numbers girlie) but, she dies just a month shy of her 29th birthday. her bday is dec 5th, 1954. she dies nov 2nd, 1983. she is 28, would've been 29 the following month.

[angelsdean]

Mary is 28. The year is 2016. Her whole life has been stolen from her. Some cosmic being plucked her from Heaven, took her away from her home, her husband, her babies, and placed her in this strange new world.

Her babies are gone, replaced with strangers a foot taller than her and nearly a decade older. They call her mom in gruff voices. They are hunters, something she never wanted for them. She has to hold back tears just looking at them. She sees glimmers of herself in Dean. His hair has darkened since he was a little boy, but she sees herself in other parts. The shape of his face, his cheekbones, his smile. She sees herself in Sam too, though he feels stranger. She can't quite match her pudgy little baby to this man.

At night, she moves through the bunker like a ghost. Nothing feels quite real. She takes scissors to her hair, thinks a drastic change will make this all feel more real. Throws herself into hunting. The adrenaline helps. Her racing heart reminding her she's alive, alive, alive. This isn't a dream.

This isn't a dream.

She sobs into her pillow, as the reality of it hits once more. She will never see her babies again.

These strange men look at her like she's a wonder. She understands what they lost. Understands they never had a mother. She imagines she'd look at her babies the same way, if she could see them again.

But she doesn't know how interact with this Sam and this Dean. All she knows is rocking babies to sleep to the tune of "Hey, Jude" and cutting the crusts off PB&J's and warming up store-bought pies for her sweet little toddler. She feels like she's failing at something she never really felt she succeeded at in the first place. So she focuses on the one thing she was ever good at: hunting.

When the British Men of Letters approach her, she goes in with good intentions. She's doing this for her boys. It's the one thing she can do right, she thinks.

Except things go wrong. They always go wrong.

"Cas almost died," Dean says, a hard edge to his voice and his eyes swimming with emotion.

She feels terrible, tries to explain. "I'm doing this for you. I'm playing three decades of catch up here." She wants to say, I'm trying to fix things. If I can rid the world of monsters, if I can make it safe then you won't have to fight anymore. You can have normal lives. You can be free. But she doesn't know how to talk to them.

Mary watches Dean's expression cloud with his own grief. "And we're not? How do you think this has been for us? We're your sons, and you've been gone. Our whole lives, you've been gone," he says. And she understands. She's been gone. And her babies are gone. And it's all so unfair.

"You said that you needed time. No, you said you need space," Dean continues, and she can feel herself losing him. Them. Sam won't even look at her. "So we gave you your space. But you didn't need just space. No, you needed space from us."

He's not wrong. She told them when she left, how hard it was to be around them.

"That's not true," she lies. "Dean, I'm trying –"

"How 'bout for once, you just try to be a mom?" Dean cuts in, hurt, angry.

And it hits her harder than she expected. Because she wishes, wishes she could be a mom again. To her babies. But that's never going to happen. And if she's stuck here, then she needs to figure out some other way to be.

"I am your mother," she says, sternly, "but I am not 'just a mom.' And you are not a child." It's not fair. Part of her knows that's not what Dean was asking. Not how he meant it. She's the one wishing he were a child. Wishing she could be "just" a mom. But she can't be a mother to them. Not this Dean. Not this Sam.

Dean looks her in the eyes, his expression vacant, haunted, and says, "I never was." His lip trembles for just a moment before he regains his composure.

She was a hunter's kid once. She knows what it's like. There's little room for childhood innocence. But she also doesn't know. She had a stable home. She had two parents. She had no siblings to look after.

"So between us and them –" Dean continues, the question hanging in the chasm that has opened up between them.

"It's not like that." Can't you see I'm choosing you. This is the only way I know how to keep you safe.

"Yeah, Mary, it is." She hates how it doesn't exactly break her heart, hearing her name come from his mouth instead of "mom." It feels more normal. Because these are not her children. "You made your choice. So there's the door."

Dean walks out of the room without a second look. Sam rises from the table, averting his eyes. She understands this too. Struggling to look. To see.

But this isn't how she wanted things to go. She didn't mean to upset them. And she doesn't want to lose them completely. She just--needs more time. "Sam," she tries. Maybe it would be easier to get through to him. He never really knew her, has no memories of her.

But he tells her to go too.

And maybe part of her is glad for the easy out. This will give her more time. She just needs to focus on hunting. Save the world. Put her babies to rest. Then she can come back and they can...be a family. However that might look for them.

[angelsdean]

mary and jack looking closer in age than mary and her own sons. mary and jack bonding over being "new" to his world, struggling to keep up and fit in. mary finding it easier to be a "mom" figure to jack (more like older sister, looking as young as she does) because jack just lost his mother, whereas she doesn't know how to interact with her own sons as a mom. jack and mary learning all the new lingo and technology together. mary and jack being besties.

[angelsdean]

like, my parents were 27 when i was born. and whenever i look at old pictures of them with me as a baby i am still like, those are my parents. like yea that's my mommy, even though i am now older than she is in those pictures. no matter how much time passes they are always going to feel older than me, even in those pictures. and that's how it is for dean and sam, though even moreso because mary never ages beyond those photos. they only ever know her as a young adult. and she's still their mommy, even as they get older than her. she's always going to be their mom. and they're not insane for seeing her, resurrected, and now younger than them, and still thinking "mom." and this is the hill i will live on, build a beautiful house on, and take others down on.

[angelsdean]

i said it here in longer form but it needs to be said succinctly as well, youngmarynatural wouldn't be jarring to dean (or sam). they have always known their mother as a young woman. from memories and photographs, to her ghost, djinn dream, and time travel, they have always known her as her young 20-something self. that's their mom. always has been. what would be jarring in s12 youngmarynatural is the fact that dean and sam are now older, wiser, and more mature than her. her immaturity would stand out more than it had when they'd met her before.

[angelsdean]

i know there was no way to really do this and have it match up with the mary we know from the pilot but s12 mary really should have looked 28 while her sons are in their 30s and they should have had her mourning her babies more and have her see moms with their young kids on the playground and in grocery stores and just stare at them with a look of utter grief and longing. she has to help someone with their baby for some reason and holds the child and for a second she loses herself looking down at the baby and the scene flashes to her holding sam in the nursery. a child with floppy blonde hair runs past her and she sees 4 yr old dean for a split second and almost bends down to scoop him up