SEASON 1, EPISODE 21

Blood. Glistening, shimmering, crimson blood was spewing out of the man's neck, and for once, Mara wasn't the reason the warm liquid was trickling down his chest.

Meg had done it. She'd raised a knife high in the air, its blade short and sharp, and had sliced the man's throat without a second thought. He hadn't even been able to scream - the murder had left no time for negotiations and futile cries for mercy. After all, Meg was too busy negotiating with John Winchester. She couldn't afford to take time away from John to discuss deals with anyone else.

At least, that's what Mara told herself as the man's limp body collapsed on the rickety, wooden chair he was tied to. It made her feel less guilty about her current situation. The man - his corpse already vacant of a soul - was one of John Winchester's friends. After digging around in the recesses of Mara's mind(courtesy of a certain red ring), Meg had discovered a photographic memory that the reaper hadn't even remembered: Sam's phone number.

After much thought, Mara realized that the death of John's friend was ultimately her fault. Meg had gotten Sam's number from her memories. She was the one who'd thought it was a good idea, many months ago, to search through Kat's phone for John's contact information. She was the one who'd seen Sam's number by accident. It was her subconscious that had stored that bit of information in the deepest crevice of Mara's memory. She was lucky Meg hadn't found her recollections of the time spent with the Winchesters, but she supposed that wasn't what Meg had been looking for. And now, as Meg was threatening John Winchester over the phone through Sam's number, she couldn't help but feel responsible for the death of John's friend.

"Can you hear that? That's the sound of your friend dying," Meg's voice came out in a purr as she brought her phone up to her ear. She'd been holding it by the lips of John's friend, a guarantee that John would hear his friend's desperate gasps for air. Mara scowled. She wished she'd never memorized Sam's number. She wished that Sam had never given his phone to John in the first place, that he had pretended he didn't know where his father was. And she wished, more than anything, that she could be free of Meg's control so she'd never have to think of her again.

Meg rested her hand on the chair John's friend sat on, and her tone grew harsh as she continued with her torment, saying, "Now let's try this again. We know you have the gun, John. Word travels fast. So, as far as we're concerned, you just declared war. And this is what war looks like - it has casualties."

'War,' Mara thought with a sardonic scoff. 'Of course. That's exactly what this is.'

It was the war that destroyed Mara's life, as all warfare tends to. She was being held hostage in the chaotic battle between demonkind and humanity, and being forced to work as a spy for the wrong side. And, as with most wars, it could simply end if one side would offer their pride as a sacrifice. But both combatants had a chip on their shoulder that was too poisonous to wash away, and neither Azazel or John would admit defeat. They would rather hold their pride close to their heart than save the people their war was hurting.

Mara glanced at the limp body whose gasping had finally ceased, her heart beating in a rhythm of sorrow for the poor man. His death could have been avoided. He could be walking the streets right now, finding his way home to whatever family he had left. Alas, Meg could not bear passing up the opportunity to take an innocent man's life.

"I'm gonna kill you," John's voice sounded through the speaker in Meg's phone, thin and quiet as if he was shouting from the end of a tunnel. "You know that?"

Meg laughed, but Mara wasn't certain that she should be. She had no doubt that John would kill her for what she'd done, and if not him, then one of his children would.

"Oh, John, please. Mind your blood pressure," Meg retorted, and her voice sounded vibrant, as if she was weaving her words into an appalling song of torture and demise. "So this is the thing...we're gonna keep doing what we're doing. And your friends...anyone who's ever helped you, gave you shelter, anyone you ever loved...they'll all die unless you give us that gun."

Mara inhaled a deep, slow breath, but her chest didn't deflate. She held that breath just behind her lips, her lungs constricting as she waited anxiously for John's answer. She wanted to shout. To plead with him, beg him to surrender the gun and give up his hunt for Azazel, if only so she wouldn't have to continue serving Meg - her hands were stained with enough blood as it was - but she doubted John would. His pride was too precious to him, and his revenge too sweet.

There was a pause on the other side of the line, coaxing Meg's lips to spread and a dark chuckle to bubble from her lips as she spewed taunts. Finally, after Meg had thoroughly rushed John to give an answer to her bribery, John said, "Okay."

"Sorry?" Meg teased, a smug grin adorning her pale face. "I didn't quite get that."

Mara frowned. She hadn't either. Had he really agreed to Meg's terms?

"I said okay," John repeated, and Mara could imagine the incredulous looks his children were probably wearing. "I'll bring you the colt."

A victorious smile donned Meg's pink lips, but Mara knew better. For once, she knew better than the demon who seemed to know everything. John was too close to his victory to raise a white flag, so why would he surrender the only thing that would guarantee his victory against Azazel? He wouldn't. Mara knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that John was up to something. It wasn't because their souls were the same, because they most definitely were not, or because she knew him better than she knew anyone else, because she hardly knew him at all.

She knew because she knew his son, and his son's green eyes would never waver when conquest was in sight. And Dean and John...they were made of the same fragments of humanity, of twin celestial dust that made up a human's soul. If Dean wouldn't back down when faced with the death of his loved ones, then John wouldn't, either. They would find another way.

Even as John agreed to meet Meg in an abandoned warehouse to give her the colt, her eyes shining with a false victory that boasted of her accomplishments, Mara simply shook her head. The demon was laughing, but if she knew John Winchester half as well as she thought she did, she would know the wise thing to do was flee, for the Winchesters never surrendered to a black-eyed deity of any kind.

◈◈◈

Waiting games were the worst sorts of games. Despite all the torment Meg had caused her in the past few days, and despite all the innocent, wailing souls she'd forced Mara to send to hell, she had at least one thing to be grateful for: her conquests with Meg had never granted her the opportunity to ponder the events of the past few months. She'd never had enough time between her kills to think about the Winchesters. Not Kat and Sam, and if they still believed the lies about her identity, and not about Dean, and whether or not she still lingered in his thoughts. As far as Mara knew, he'd forgotten about her completely.

But she hadn't forgotten about him. She couldn't. As hard as she tried, his crooked grin and vibrant emerald eyes would not leave her conscious state of mind, and she could still distinctly remember the coolness of his leather jacket as he wrapped his arms around her for the first time.

It was only when John Winchester entered the warehouse that she forgot about how tight Dean's shoulders had felt beneath her fingertips. Even then, it was only because her warm feelings of reminiscence were replaced with icy feelings of worry and a lingering sense of foreboding.

Months ago, she would have been happy to hear John's words of surrender. She wouldn't have been pleased to send him to hell, but at least her contract with Azazel and Meg would be over. She would have her freedom back, her shackles of illegal servitude fallen from her wrists, and wasn't that all that mattered?

But now, as John Winchester stood in front of her, Meg, and a low-level demon named Tom, thoughts of freedom never once crossed her mind. She could only think of the impression she was leaving on John. He'd seen her with Meg before, and she'd just barely managed to convince him of her innocence with the help of his children. There was no way she would be able to do that now. There was no way around it - John Winchester was going to learn where her loyalties lied, and even if he made it out of the warehouse alive enough to relay the information to his children, Mara wouldn't be able to stop him.

She inhaled slowly, her posture tightening with every ounce of air that passed through her nostrils. She had to prepare herself. She was about to send John to hell forever - it was an action that would require more willpower than she'd ever known.

"John, you made it," Meg greeted, turning around to face the greatest prey she'd ever hunted. "Too bad, really. I was hoping to kill more of your friends."

"Sorry to disappoint," John retorted, his gaze drifting lazily across the premises of the dim warehouse.

Mara took a step forward, her brow furrowing in disconcertment. Had he not seen her yet? Surely he would recognize her - unless he held a knife to someone's neck every day of his life, it was likely he remembered holding a blade to hers. Mara watched John's every movement, every shift of his eyes and every rise and fall of his chest, and she was confounded by the nonchalant body language he was displaying. The steady, rhythmic twitch under his eye was the only sign that he was anxious at all.

Meg rose an eyebrow. She must have noticed his careless composure, too, but she didn't let it sway her sing-song tone as she effused, "I can see where your kids get their good looks from. Though I must admit, considering what they say about you, I thought you'd be taller."

John simply stared at Meg in return. There was a grin hiding behind the irises of his eyes, but it wasn't one he let travel to his lips, and he didn't voice his amusement in the form of playful banter like Meg had wanted. Shadows danced across his face, causing the demon to squint in an effort to make out the expression he wore.

"Well, aren't you the chatty one?" the she-demon quipped.

A grin crept onto Mara's lips. No one would be able to tell, if they hadn't spent as much time around Meg as she had, but the servant of hell was growing annoyed. She wanted the meeting over with - her victim wouldn't submit to her animalistic taunting, so what was the point in dragging out the gathering for longer than what was necessary?

Silence fell over the group once more, like a large blanket of unnerving silence, and it continued to settle, wrapping around each individual until Meg snapped, "You want to get to business? Fine."

She strode over to where John stood, her gaunt figure bending at the will of the shadows that passed over her. "Why don't you hand over the gun?"

This time, John was quick to answer, his voice tight and gravelly. "If I give you the gun, how do I get out of here?"

As Meg and John continued with their banter, it passed through Mara's mind that John may be right. Meg had never explicitly stated that John could leave safely after surrendering the colt, and Mara knew for a fact that she wouldn't let him. Why else would she need a reaper?

Mara glanced at the low-level demon that stood beside her. He'd begun walking towards Meg and John, revealing his presence as he walked out of the shadows and into the danger of the light. Mara didn't follow. Where she stood - in the shadows of the back corner of the warehouse, hidden from any person who didn't know she was there - it was the safest place she could be. John couldn't see her. She couldn't disappoint him with her demonic affiliations, and her fragile heart would remain safe.

At least, that's what she'd thought. All of a sudden, as if the dial of a game spinner had landed on her, all attention in the room turned to her. Meg had called for her, apparently, and in the midst of the whirlwind of thoughts that enveloped her mind, she hadn't noticed. Now, Meg's fingertips rested upon the gem in her ring and she had to notice.

"There you are," Mara announced, her voice bringing a shiver down Mara's spine like nails down a chalkboard. After all, that's what Mara was reminded of every time the demon's voice reached her ears.

"As you can see," Meg began, her attention now turned to John, who Mara refused to look at. "We have you outnumbered, Johnny. So I suggest you give us the gun. The real gun."

"I thought you were one of us."

Mara's blood ran cold. I thought you were one of us. Hearing John Winchester say that, hearing his voice sound so pathetic and weary...she'd never imagined a man with John's stature could sound so wounded. Had he really possessed such a profound trust in her that he was hurt by her actions?

In the moment, it didn't matter to her that, while she'd gotten lost in her thoughts, she'd missed the fact that John had presented Meg with a fake colt instead of the real one. It didn't even matter that Tom, the other demon, had shot her with it just to test its authenticity. All that mattered was that John Winchester knew her true identity.

Mara's lips fell open, their strawberry curves bleeding with every word Mara wanted to say but couldn't. 'I am,' she wanted to tell him. But she wasn't. Not really, she wasn't. Shed felt like one of them, sure. She'd gone on adventures worthy to have ballads sung about them, she'd learned what human emotion felt like, how a tongue couldn't possibly have enough tastebuds to appreciate the ecstasy a cheeseburger provided - and she experienced it all with his children. But that didn't make her one of them. To be part of their group - their family - she would have to be with them. She would have to protect them, and to value their lives above hers.

Yet, in the endgame of all the Winchesters had been fighting over for their entire lives, she was fighting on the wrong side. It wasn't her fault, of course. She'd never agreed to the contract Azazel bound to her. But she was still obeying him, still doing the things he and Meg wanted her to do.

And she felt sorrow. Sorrow so deep and embedded in her body that the best archaeologist in the world wouldn't even be able to dig it out. She supposed that was part of humanity. If you opened yourself up to the very things that made you human - emotions, passion, loyalty - you also opened yourself up to the things that made humanity less desirable. You couldn't have the good without the bad, and Mara...she was an inhumane act of nature that was welcoming humanity with open arms. She couldn't have expected to live free of any lacerations.

"What did you say?" Meg's eyes were flicking between John and the would-be hunter, the fire in her words making Mara want to melt into the shadows behind her.

Mara shook her head and closed her eyes. Accept the good with the bad.

She couldn't. John Winchester hated her. Meg was about to find out about her disloyalties to the contract - that she'd made friends with John rather than turn him in. And, perhaps worst of all, the Winchesters would soon discover her acts of treachery towards them.

"Mara, when did you meet John?" Meg questioned. Mara's eyes snapped open, but she remained silent, able to do nothing but stare at the dismay in John's eyes.

"I thought she was a friend of Dean's," John spoke, and his words felt like a dagger in Mara's side as her secrets started to unfold themselves for everyone to see. "Turns out she was just a demon like that rest of you."

Meg didn't miss a beat between John's statement and her next one, a statement of rage that was aimed at none other than Mara. "You've been talking to them this whole time? All this time, we thought you were looking for John, and you were hanging out with his sons and his bastard daughter?"

John grunted in protest to how Meg was speaking about his children, but he was no longer the demon's concern. Temporarily, Mara and her treasonous actions were the only things on Meg's mind. And Mara found herself shivering under the demon's gaze.

"Don't talk about Katerina like that," Mara said, her eyes boring into the demon that was staring her down. She knew she was risking her life by speaking in opposition to her master, but at the time, she hadn't minded at all. That was what it took to be a part of the Winchesters' family, right? Value their honor over your own?

A cruel chuckle escaped Meg's lips. "I only speak the truth. She's not Mary Winchester's legitimate daughter, is she, John?"

"I didn't cheat on Mary," John growled, and Mara was astounded at how he uncharacteristically felt he had to prove himself to a demon. "Kat came years after her death. She's more legitimate than you demon scum ever will be."

Mara's eyes widened. That's what the word 'bastard' meant, after all: an illegitimate child. How had she not known that Kat didn't belong to Mary? It should've been obvious - Sam had merely been an infant at the time of his mother's death, and Kat was years younger than him. Perhaps she didn't know the Winchesters as well as she'd thought.

Megs hand drifted to her abdomen as she pressed her fingers tenderly against her side. When she pulled them away from her red-stained shirt, they came back with drops of crimson liquid embedded in her fingertips, igniting her fury once more.

"Mara!" she shouted. "If you're so fond of John's children, why don't you go visit them for me? Get the real colt. If he doesn't have it, they will."

"No," John protested, repeating the word fervently. "No, Mara. Please. They don't have anything to do with this."

Meg scoffed. "Sweetheart, you brought them into this the moment you trained them to be hunters."

Meg brushed her hand against her ring, and an all-too familiar stirring sensation wove itself into Mara's gut. The reaper shook her head, her hands gripping the skin that enclosed the core of her body, her limbs inadvertently trying to tear temselves apart. Her nails scratched at her chest as cries of agony flew from her lips, willing to do anything to stop the transportation that was about to happen.

She would not steal the real colt from the Winchesters. She would not.

"Mara, please."

John's pleads pierced her eardrums, and a single tear escaped her eye as she managed to choke out, "I have to."

◈◈◈

The Winchesters had been happy to see her. Really, truly happy, for they didn't know the sins Mara had committed in their time apart. They didn't know that the reaper had just seen their father, that she knew of his whereabouts that they were so desperately searching for. They just celebrated in joyous harmony at seeing their friend again.

Dean had muttered a phrase of relief under his breath, a brief "Thank God" in gratitude that Mra was okay. Sam had stopped trying to call his father for a moment, stating that they'd been worried after she'd disappeared out of nowhere.

She'd even received the second hug of her life, this time from Kat, but she hadn't had the time nor mental capacity to deeply appreciate it. All she could focus on was the look of abandonment in Dean's eyes as Meg answered the phone instead of John, the glaze of hopelessness as he heard the words "you're never gonna see your father again", the spreading layer wetness in his eyes that said he was scared of losing everything he ever cared about. Because that's what they were about to lose.

Everything.