Hi! A quick note before this chapter...these marks, ~~~, are going to stand for the beginning and end of a flashback.
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Mary tapped her pencil eraser lazily on her desk as the language arts teacher babbled on about something she didn't care about. Idioms, probably. Mary looked out the window at the parking lot. Was this how Dean felt when he went to school? It was so boring he just didn't do anything? Mary liked school. She liked having something to do to get her mind off hunting. And the electives were fun, art and cooking. Although, how did Sam make it through, what, seven years of school? Didn't he ever get bored?

"A project for today!" The teacher's words brought Mary's gaze away from the window and back on the board. "Today in class you will have to work on this and then if you don't finish, which you probably won't, you will have to complete it for homework," the teacher continued, "begin!"

All Mary's classmates took out paper and began writing. Mary tapped the girl in front of her. "Uh...I didn't hear what the assignment was," she said nervously, "what are we supposed to be doing?" The girl rolled her eyes and replied, "write about a time you did something fun as a child." And with that, she turned back around.

Something fun as a child? Mary had a lot of fun memories. Probably just not ones she could write for a school project. Mary put a hand under her chin. There had to be some memory of her childhood that didn't include angels and demons and all that. Mary silently smiled as she remembered one time. She grabbed paper and a blue pen and began to write the title. The zoo trip.
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"Come on, Sam!" Dean groaned as Sam piled stuff into the Impala trunk.

Mary giggled from inside in her carseat. Castiel was struggling to figure out the straps and mechanisms of the carseat seatbelt, and he couldn't quite get it. "Need some help, Cas?" Dean called but earned a frustrated grumble back from the angel. "I know how to buckle in a child, Dean," Cas said, finally giving up and tying the seatbelt in a knot before palnting a kiss on Mary's forehead and getting into the front seat of the Impala.

"Hey," Sam complained as Castiel took his usual seat. Dean chuckled and opened the left passenger door for his brother. "I need you to keep an eye on your husband," he smiled. Sam sighed and slipped inside, giving a bitchface to Gabriel, who was tickling Mary. Immediately at Sam's unamoosed gaze, Gabe stopped and rolled his eyes, snapping a lollipop into existence and putting it in his mouth.

Dean got in and started the engine, then began to drive to the zoo.

When they got there, Mary didn't want to go in her stroller. "I wanna walk awownd!" She whined. Dean sighed in frustration and threw his hands up in defeat. Cas looked at his upset husband and picked Mary up, carrying the girl on his shoulders. Dean smiled now, and began wrestling the stroller back into the Impala trunk. Sam and Gabriel walked up with five zoo tickets. "Got 'em," Sam smiled and they all made their way through the gates.

"Stop it, Gabe," Sam said, steering the archangel away from the candy stand on the side of the pebbled path. "Moosey I need sugar," Gabe complained.

"Oh my God, it's like raising two kids," Dean sighed and handed Gabriel a five dollar bill, "knock yourself out." The archangel ran to the stand, Sam chasing after him. Dean took Mary off Castiel's shoulders and put her on his own. "My turn," he said kindly, knowing Cas didn't want to carry around the girl the whole time, "we'll take turns, okay babe?"

"Thank you Dean," Cas smiled and kissed Dean once quickly on the lips before leading the way to the first exhibit. It was an aquarium. Dean brought Mary to every cage and she stared in wonder at all the fish, sharks, stingrays, and turtles, hands and face pressed up against the glass. Cas was transfixed by a bee hive outside. Dean chucked at both of them.

"My creations are beautiful," a voice said. Dean turned to see Chuck standing there, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Chuck," Dean breathed. Chuck smiled fully now, getting down on one knee so he was matched in height with Mary. "So this is Mary Grace Winchester," he said, "how are you, Mary?"

Mary smiled at Chuck. "Good," she replied, and went back to studying the aquatic animals. Chuck laughed a bit before putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Your daughter," he said quietly, "she will have some surprises in store for her when she's older. Lots of stress and pain, much like you have endured. Be there for her. You three stay together no matter what. I gave her to you for a reason," he glanced over at Castiel. Dean turned around to see Castiel poking the hive. "Wait, Chuck, what did you say at that last part? I didn't..." he whirled around to see Chuck gone, "...part."

Dean shrugged it off and took Cas and Mary to all the other exhibits, Gabe and Sam trailing after them. They talked and laughed and it almost felt like they were a normal family. Almost.
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Mary remembered having so much fun that day. Even though she was little at the time, only a toddler, but the memory of fun stayed.

She quickly wrote down a breif description of what happened and sooner than Mary thought, the bell rang.

All throughout the day she worked on the writing project in her free time. She even finished her math work early to work on it. Only in cooking class, last period, did she finally put the paper down.

"What were you writing?" Shayly asked as she poured the batter into the pan. They were making pancakes in today's class. "For language arts," Mary answered, "we were supposed to write about a fun childhood memory. So I'm writing about a time my family took me to the zoo."

"Oh man, I wish I had your teacher! Mine is just giving us vocabulary flashcards. It makes me want to kill myself it is sooo boring," Shayly said. Mary laughed a bit and then began helping her friend with the batter.

When Mary got home she dropped the small paper bag of pancakes, only slightly burnt, on the counter and searched her backpack for her paper. "Ugh," Mary muttered as she pulled out the notebook paper, which was now torn a bit and crumpled from being under other books and such. Nonetheless Mary went to the kitchen table and began writing. Soon after, Gabriel and Castiel came in.

"Hello Mary," Cas kissed her forehead. "Whatcha workin' on?" Gabriel asked.

"School assignment," Mary answered, still writing, "I'm writing about that one time we went to the zoo."

"Oh yeah," Gabe exclaimed, "I remember I threw up on the car on the ride home!" Castiel grimaced. "It was because you ate too much sugar, Gabriel," he commented, but Gabe just laughed, grabbed a soda from the fridge, and left. Mary smiled a little at Cas, who returned the smile before leaving the room as well.

All night Mary worked diligently on the paper. The next day she didn't even pay much attention to Mike she was so happy with her paper and excited to turn it in. Then finally, finally, finally it was time for language arts class.

"Mary Winchester," the teacher called out. Mary almost skipped to the front of the room to hand in her paper. She was so excited to finally get a good grade in this class! The teacher hardly sneered at the crumpled paper, but accepted it and scanned over it. Slowly her gaze turned from bored to confused. "Miss Winchester," she addressed her student, "this isn't right."

"What isn't right?" Mary asked, worry creeping into her mind. The teacher frowned. "The assignment was to wrote a persuasive essay on whether or not schools should have dress codes."

Mary closed her eyes and turned slowly to face the desks, her gaze seeking out the blonde girl she had talked to the other day who had told her the wrong thing. She stormed over to the girl, who was hiding a smile behind her hand, unlike the person next to her, who was laughing hysterically. Mary frowned. She couldn't do anything to this girl, she didn't want to get kicked out of school. So she just said, very quietly, inaudible to anyone but that one girl; "I've killed a man before." And then smiled and took her seat. She wished she could take a picture of the girl's face!

Nobody else heard luckily. The rest of class Mary just smiled to herslef. Her dad would be proud. In the last five minutes, the teacher began handing back papers. Mary's was the last. The teacher smiled kindly at Mary, which was strange. "Your story was very good, Miss Winchester," the teacher said, "just five points off for the wrong topic."

Mary looked at the grade at the top of the page. A 95 stared back at her in bright red pen. Mary silently cheered, earning another grin from her teacher before the bell rang. Mary grabbed her bag and started for the next class.

She couldn't wait to see Mike after school. She had begun "art tutorials," just as Shayly had suggested, except they hung out and talked more than worked on art projects. Which was fine by her.

Mary wondered about Mike as she strode down the hallway. Did he like her? It was hard to tell, he was hardly ever serious about anything. He always made her laugh and always seemed really "chill," as some of the students here would put it. But...did he like her? He was older than her but still. She felt some feelings for him. Would he think it's weird for her to have a crush on him? Or did he feel the same way?

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Hope you liked this extra long chapter! I will try to find a picture of someone who looks like Mike Joseph on Google to show you guys in next chapter. See you then!

Cas: That was a nice chapter.

Luci: I hated it.

Me: Ooof course you did. *sighs*