Fic: Her Better Half 2/2
Title: Her Better Half
By: Ada C. Eliana
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Ths is my response to the
spn_epific ficathon. My prompt was for 'No Rest for the Wicked' How much does the little girl remember of her possession?
This fic is still a little rough around the edges, not quite up to snuff, but I hope you all enjoy it!
Summary: Abigail Fremont's life was completely uprooted the night she woke to find a man standing over her bed with a knife.
Her Better Half
By: Ada C. Eliana
Part II
Another year passed and Abby hadn’t improved at all. The woman (was Samm her name? Was that it?) she spoke to on her sixteenth birthday made comments periodically, usually telling Abby what to do, who to trust, who not to talk to, what to do, what not to do. She had more blackouts, and she took to being reclusive, not letting anyone too close to her, tired of losing people. But as usual she couldn’t keep to her own rules, and despite the mystery woman’s continuous chastising she began dating Michael Davis. Michael was never quite honest with her, but Abby found herself in love, not wanting to believe that he was anything less than the perfect boyfriend. But when Abby was out walking at night, clearing her head, and found herself outside of the corner café, frozen, her image of him was shattered. Underneath the dim lighting of the closed coffeehouse Michael was practically eating Angela Brody’s face, arms wrapped around each other as they bumped into the walls and the tables, hungrily groping one another. That rage she fought against welled up inside of her and a strong, somehow comforting voice said, “I’ll handle this” just before her awareness evaporated.
-------------------------------------------
“I know something bad happened, but I - I swear it wasn’t me!” Abby cried, sitting in the interrogation room at the police station, bewildered and frightened. She remembered waking up in the café, remembered hot blood on her skin, and then turning to see someone watching from outside, watching with a phone pressed to her ear. The cops had arrived, arrested her, dragged her away as she finally noticed the bodies littering the floor.
“You were found at the scene, covered in Michael’s and Angela’s blood, holding the knife that murdered them. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“It was… it was the girl in the mirror,” Abby whispered. “It had to be her…”
“What do you mean?” the detective asked.
Abby opened her mouth to speak but then paused, her eyes rolling up slightly. A moment later her eyes rolled back down and her expression changed from fearful into a satisfied smirk. She flexed her fingers in the cuffs, as if testing to see that they really did work. “She means me,” she responded confidently. “Abby didn’t have anything to do with those murders. I did.”
Abby’s lawyer turned to her in confusion. “Abigail, stop talking,” he said.
“Abigail isn’t here,” she smiled.
“Then who are you?” the detective questioned, leaning across the table towards her.
“I’m Samm. Abby’s better half.”
“Okay… Samm. Why did you kill Michael Sinclair and Angela Brody?” the detective said, apparently willing to play along if it meant getting some answers.
“Abigail enough!” the lawyer shouted. “Clearly my client is not completely in control of her faculties. I would like a psych evaluation right away!”
“Oh shut your mouth,” Samm snapped. “Who wants to listen to you anyway?” She turned her attention back to the detective. “Angela Brody was a mindless slut and Michael Sinclair a serial liar. They hurt Abby, they deserved to die.”
“So you were protecting Abby?”
“Well she can’t exactly be counted on to protect herself, now can she? She’s just a little mouse, fearful, courage-less, powerless to defend herself from anything. People use people like Abby, they use them and they hurt them and they throw them away without caring about what they’ve done to them.”
“But you’re not like that, you’re not vulnerable,” he said.
“No, I don’t let anyone hurt me. Not anymore.”
“Not anymore? Not since when, Samm?”
“I’m not going to tell you that,” she replied. “I’m not telling you anything else until you let me out of here!”
“You just confessed to two murders, Samm, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with!” she shouted.
“No wait - don’t listen to her, she’s crazy!”
The detective creased his forehead. “Don’t listen to who?”
“To Samm!” Abby shouted. “She’s insane, she-”
“I’m insane? I’M insane?! I’m trying to look out for you!”
“No you’re not! If you cared about me you wouldn’t have done anything to those people, all of those people!”
“Shut UP.”
“All of what people?” the detective pressed.
“Enough of this. Can’t you see that she’s not well! Get a psychiatrist in here right now!” Abby’s lawyer finally interrupted.
“Fine, we’ll get her an evaluation,” the detective responded, sounding disappointed.
“Thank you,” Abby whispered, her hands shaking.
-------------------------------------------
The psychiatrist assigned to Abby’s case was a Dr. Drake Townsend. Abby felt comfortable in his presence, felt as if someone was finally going to be able to help her. “I need to speak with Samm,” Drake said hesitantly, sitting across the table from Abby. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, standard protocol for dealing with a dangerous person. Of course Abby knew that the person they were protecting themselves against was not her, it was Samm. Throughout the weeks she spent at the asylum Abby had told Drake all she knew about the other girl, about the diary and the things she said, the blackouts, she just wanted this to be over.
“Can you make her go away?” Abby asked. “Can you make me normal?”
“That depends on what she’s willing to tell me, Abby. Something must have happened to you to cause this break, to create this alternate personality. The one person who can tell us what that was is Samm.” Drake pushed his short black hair back with one hand, leaving it unkempt looking. He put his files on the table, opened them up.
Abby nodded. She thought of something that could make her very angry, thought of Michael and Angela together, and then felt herself slip away.
Samm blinked as she took over the body, staring smugly at Drake. “So here you are, come to save the day,” she said.
“Samm, it’s good to meet you,” he responded, smiling at her. “I wonder if we could talk.”
“Save it. I heard everything you said to her, I know what you want.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want…” Samm stopped, staring out before her as she tried to finish the sentence. But she didn’t know what she wanted, never had. “I want to go back in time,” she finally said. “To before I was born, I want to stop all of this.”
“When were you born?” Drake asked. “What happened to Abby that she needed you?”
“I’m not a fool. If I tell you this it’ll help you get rid of me.” Samm leaned forward fingers sliding towards Drake’s files.
“Wouldn’t that be best for Abby? If you and her could coexist as one person instead of fighting this war between the two?”
“Abby will never be strong enough to live by herself.”
“I didn’t say she would be alone, the two of you would be one person.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Drake asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Because then she would know everything. She would know what happened, what she’s done, what I’ve done.” Abby leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. “I’m so tired of keeping these secrets, but… but she needs me to, she couldn’t live with this… this anger… that I live with.”
“Why don’t you let someone try to help, Samm. You’ve been keeping it together for so long, it’s time you shared this with someone. I really am trying to help.”
Samm considered what he was saying and then nodded somewhat reluctantly. “Lilith,” she whispered, as if the name itself was something to recoil from.
“Who’s Lilith?” he asked, leaning forward with interest.
“Not who, what. Lilith she… I think she had to have been a demon or something… like in one of those psycho horror films. She possessed Abby when she was ten, made her do terrible… awful things.” Samm closed her eyes, recalling all of it, her grandpa staring at her, pleading with her, that awful silence after she killed him.
“A demon?” Drake asked, sounding more curious than disbelieving.
“I’m not insane, she was real.”
“Is she with you now?” he asked.
“No, no, she’s been gone a long time. But… she left something behind… I… the anger I feel… I was born out of it, but she’s the one who left it there.” Samm’s fingers deftly gripped the paperclip sticking out of the file with her name on it, quickly hid it in her palm and slid her hands off of the table.
“And your name… why Samm?” he asked.
“Lilith was only afraid of one person… a man named Sam. I thought… hey, why don’t I use his name, then maybe she’ll be afraid of me too. Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Considering you were ten at the time, no, not stupid at all.”
“I’ve never told any of this to anyone,” Samm said quietly. “Never,” she added menacingly.
“Sometimes it’s good to share, get it off of your chest,” Drake said.
“Yeah you’re right doc, I feel so much better now,” Samm smiled. A click echoed in the space between them and suddenly Samm’s hands were free, the cuffs clattering to the floor.
“What are you-” Drake reached for the button to call for security, but Samm had already launched her attack.
Samm stood over Drake’s unconscious form. “Abby needs me,” she whispered. “She can’t know what happened, it would destroy her. I’m the secret-keeper, and I’m not going anywhere.”
-------------------------------------------
Escaping the asylum was difficult, more difficult than Samm thought it would be. But she stayed in control and she made it out. She caught a bus and headed for Dallas, as far from New York as some stolen cash could get her. She settled for a town outside the city, small enough so she was less likely to be recognized and turned in, and large enough so everyone wouldn’t be trying to figure out what brought her there, what she was running from. With Abby’s cute face and naturally honest expressions, it was easy to get a job that paid under the table, an apartment in an old woman’s attic.
Samm stood in front of the mirror in her new apartment’s bedroom. Her reflection morphed, features relaxing, hard lines softening. “Hey Abby,” she said. “Look… I know that I made a mess of things. I was just… I wanted to protect you, but I know I went too far.”
“Why did you have to kill them?” Abby asked. “Why did you ruin my life?”
“I was trying to help you,” she responded uncertainly. “I didn’t want them to hurt you. But I… I shouldn’t have done that. When you get angry, I take over, and I have more rage inside of me than you could possibly imagine.”
“I want my life back,” Abby cried. “I want to be back in control.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to fix things. I got you a job, an apartment. Just… keep a lid on that anger, okay? And don’t get caught, or they’ll send you away again,” Samm explained.
“So I’m just supposed to go on, pretending that nothing ever happened?”
“That’s exactly what you have to do,” Samm said with finality.
“And I’m not supposed to get mad…”
“They won’t like me when you’re mad,” Samm smiled. “Cause making you mad, that means they have to deal with me, and that usually doesn’t work out too well for anyone.”
“Samm… I…” Abby began, suddenly trying to put something unexplainable into words, fearing it would be her last chance. She hated Samm as much as she needed Samm, as much as she feared being alone without her. Samm was the one who knew what happened, she carried some sort of burden, and Abby was ashamed to admit that if that secret made Samm so vengeful, so angry, then maybe she didn’t want to know what had happened. Eventually she would change her mind, eventually she would seek out the truth, but not now, not today.
“Save it Abby, I’ll still be around.” She winked at the mirror and then let herself fade, let Abby take the reins.
Abby flexed her fingers, stared around the unfamiliar room. She turned to the mirror and saw no one except herself, just her, just Abby. But she also knew Samm was still there, still waiting to step up and take control the moment Abby lost her temper, the moment everything became too much for her. She would have to do whatever it took to remain calm, remain in control. She thought about Samm’s parting words and smiled, if the Incredible Hulk could do it, she reasoned, so could she.
“Don’t make me mad… you won’t like me when I’m mad.”
By: Ada C. Eliana
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Ths is my response to the
spn_epific ficathon. My prompt was for 'No Rest for the Wicked' How much does the little girl remember of her possession?
This fic is still a little rough around the edges, not quite up to snuff, but I hope you all enjoy it!
Summary: Abigail Fremont's life was completely uprooted the night she woke to find a man standing over her bed with a knife.
Her Better Half
By: Ada C. Eliana
Part II
Another year passed and Abby hadn’t improved at all. The woman (was Samm her name? Was that it?) she spoke to on her sixteenth birthday made comments periodically, usually telling Abby what to do, who to trust, who not to talk to, what to do, what not to do. She had more blackouts, and she took to being reclusive, not letting anyone too close to her, tired of losing people. But as usual she couldn’t keep to her own rules, and despite the mystery woman’s continuous chastising she began dating Michael Davis. Michael was never quite honest with her, but Abby found herself in love, not wanting to believe that he was anything less than the perfect boyfriend. But when Abby was out walking at night, clearing her head, and found herself outside of the corner café, frozen, her image of him was shattered. Underneath the dim lighting of the closed coffeehouse Michael was practically eating Angela Brody’s face, arms wrapped around each other as they bumped into the walls and the tables, hungrily groping one another. That rage she fought against welled up inside of her and a strong, somehow comforting voice said, “I’ll handle this” just before her awareness evaporated.
-------------------------------------------
“I know something bad happened, but I - I swear it wasn’t me!” Abby cried, sitting in the interrogation room at the police station, bewildered and frightened. She remembered waking up in the café, remembered hot blood on her skin, and then turning to see someone watching from outside, watching with a phone pressed to her ear. The cops had arrived, arrested her, dragged her away as she finally noticed the bodies littering the floor.
“You were found at the scene, covered in Michael’s and Angela’s blood, holding the knife that murdered them. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“It was… it was the girl in the mirror,” Abby whispered. “It had to be her…”
“What do you mean?” the detective asked.
Abby opened her mouth to speak but then paused, her eyes rolling up slightly. A moment later her eyes rolled back down and her expression changed from fearful into a satisfied smirk. She flexed her fingers in the cuffs, as if testing to see that they really did work. “She means me,” she responded confidently. “Abby didn’t have anything to do with those murders. I did.”
Abby’s lawyer turned to her in confusion. “Abigail, stop talking,” he said.
“Abigail isn’t here,” she smiled.
“Then who are you?” the detective questioned, leaning across the table towards her.
“I’m Samm. Abby’s better half.”
“Okay… Samm. Why did you kill Michael Sinclair and Angela Brody?” the detective said, apparently willing to play along if it meant getting some answers.
“Abigail enough!” the lawyer shouted. “Clearly my client is not completely in control of her faculties. I would like a psych evaluation right away!”
“Oh shut your mouth,” Samm snapped. “Who wants to listen to you anyway?” She turned her attention back to the detective. “Angela Brody was a mindless slut and Michael Sinclair a serial liar. They hurt Abby, they deserved to die.”
“So you were protecting Abby?”
“Well she can’t exactly be counted on to protect herself, now can she? She’s just a little mouse, fearful, courage-less, powerless to defend herself from anything. People use people like Abby, they use them and they hurt them and they throw them away without caring about what they’ve done to them.”
“But you’re not like that, you’re not vulnerable,” he said.
“No, I don’t let anyone hurt me. Not anymore.”
“Not anymore? Not since when, Samm?”
“I’m not going to tell you that,” she replied. “I’m not telling you anything else until you let me out of here!”
“You just confessed to two murders, Samm, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with!” she shouted.
“No wait - don’t listen to her, she’s crazy!”
The detective creased his forehead. “Don’t listen to who?”
“To Samm!” Abby shouted. “She’s insane, she-”
“I’m insane? I’M insane?! I’m trying to look out for you!”
“No you’re not! If you cared about me you wouldn’t have done anything to those people, all of those people!”
“Shut UP.”
“All of what people?” the detective pressed.
“Enough of this. Can’t you see that she’s not well! Get a psychiatrist in here right now!” Abby’s lawyer finally interrupted.
“Fine, we’ll get her an evaluation,” the detective responded, sounding disappointed.
“Thank you,” Abby whispered, her hands shaking.
-------------------------------------------
The psychiatrist assigned to Abby’s case was a Dr. Drake Townsend. Abby felt comfortable in his presence, felt as if someone was finally going to be able to help her. “I need to speak with Samm,” Drake said hesitantly, sitting across the table from Abby. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, standard protocol for dealing with a dangerous person. Of course Abby knew that the person they were protecting themselves against was not her, it was Samm. Throughout the weeks she spent at the asylum Abby had told Drake all she knew about the other girl, about the diary and the things she said, the blackouts, she just wanted this to be over.
“Can you make her go away?” Abby asked. “Can you make me normal?”
“That depends on what she’s willing to tell me, Abby. Something must have happened to you to cause this break, to create this alternate personality. The one person who can tell us what that was is Samm.” Drake pushed his short black hair back with one hand, leaving it unkempt looking. He put his files on the table, opened them up.
Abby nodded. She thought of something that could make her very angry, thought of Michael and Angela together, and then felt herself slip away.
Samm blinked as she took over the body, staring smugly at Drake. “So here you are, come to save the day,” she said.
“Samm, it’s good to meet you,” he responded, smiling at her. “I wonder if we could talk.”
“Save it. I heard everything you said to her, I know what you want.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want…” Samm stopped, staring out before her as she tried to finish the sentence. But she didn’t know what she wanted, never had. “I want to go back in time,” she finally said. “To before I was born, I want to stop all of this.”
“When were you born?” Drake asked. “What happened to Abby that she needed you?”
“I’m not a fool. If I tell you this it’ll help you get rid of me.” Samm leaned forward fingers sliding towards Drake’s files.
“Wouldn’t that be best for Abby? If you and her could coexist as one person instead of fighting this war between the two?”
“Abby will never be strong enough to live by herself.”
“I didn’t say she would be alone, the two of you would be one person.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Drake asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Because then she would know everything. She would know what happened, what she’s done, what I’ve done.” Abby leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. “I’m so tired of keeping these secrets, but… but she needs me to, she couldn’t live with this… this anger… that I live with.”
“Why don’t you let someone try to help, Samm. You’ve been keeping it together for so long, it’s time you shared this with someone. I really am trying to help.”
Samm considered what he was saying and then nodded somewhat reluctantly. “Lilith,” she whispered, as if the name itself was something to recoil from.
“Who’s Lilith?” he asked, leaning forward with interest.
“Not who, what. Lilith she… I think she had to have been a demon or something… like in one of those psycho horror films. She possessed Abby when she was ten, made her do terrible… awful things.” Samm closed her eyes, recalling all of it, her grandpa staring at her, pleading with her, that awful silence after she killed him.
“A demon?” Drake asked, sounding more curious than disbelieving.
“I’m not insane, she was real.”
“Is she with you now?” he asked.
“No, no, she’s been gone a long time. But… she left something behind… I… the anger I feel… I was born out of it, but she’s the one who left it there.” Samm’s fingers deftly gripped the paperclip sticking out of the file with her name on it, quickly hid it in her palm and slid her hands off of the table.
“And your name… why Samm?” he asked.
“Lilith was only afraid of one person… a man named Sam. I thought… hey, why don’t I use his name, then maybe she’ll be afraid of me too. Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Considering you were ten at the time, no, not stupid at all.”
“I’ve never told any of this to anyone,” Samm said quietly. “Never,” she added menacingly.
“Sometimes it’s good to share, get it off of your chest,” Drake said.
“Yeah you’re right doc, I feel so much better now,” Samm smiled. A click echoed in the space between them and suddenly Samm’s hands were free, the cuffs clattering to the floor.
“What are you-” Drake reached for the button to call for security, but Samm had already launched her attack.
Samm stood over Drake’s unconscious form. “Abby needs me,” she whispered. “She can’t know what happened, it would destroy her. I’m the secret-keeper, and I’m not going anywhere.”
-------------------------------------------
Escaping the asylum was difficult, more difficult than Samm thought it would be. But she stayed in control and she made it out. She caught a bus and headed for Dallas, as far from New York as some stolen cash could get her. She settled for a town outside the city, small enough so she was less likely to be recognized and turned in, and large enough so everyone wouldn’t be trying to figure out what brought her there, what she was running from. With Abby’s cute face and naturally honest expressions, it was easy to get a job that paid under the table, an apartment in an old woman’s attic.
Samm stood in front of the mirror in her new apartment’s bedroom. Her reflection morphed, features relaxing, hard lines softening. “Hey Abby,” she said. “Look… I know that I made a mess of things. I was just… I wanted to protect you, but I know I went too far.”
“Why did you have to kill them?” Abby asked. “Why did you ruin my life?”
“I was trying to help you,” she responded uncertainly. “I didn’t want them to hurt you. But I… I shouldn’t have done that. When you get angry, I take over, and I have more rage inside of me than you could possibly imagine.”
“I want my life back,” Abby cried. “I want to be back in control.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to fix things. I got you a job, an apartment. Just… keep a lid on that anger, okay? And don’t get caught, or they’ll send you away again,” Samm explained.
“So I’m just supposed to go on, pretending that nothing ever happened?”
“That’s exactly what you have to do,” Samm said with finality.
“And I’m not supposed to get mad…”
“They won’t like me when you’re mad,” Samm smiled. “Cause making you mad, that means they have to deal with me, and that usually doesn’t work out too well for anyone.”
“Samm… I…” Abby began, suddenly trying to put something unexplainable into words, fearing it would be her last chance. She hated Samm as much as she needed Samm, as much as she feared being alone without her. Samm was the one who knew what happened, she carried some sort of burden, and Abby was ashamed to admit that if that secret made Samm so vengeful, so angry, then maybe she didn’t want to know what had happened. Eventually she would change her mind, eventually she would seek out the truth, but not now, not today.
“Save it Abby, I’ll still be around.” She winked at the mirror and then let herself fade, let Abby take the reins.
Abby flexed her fingers, stared around the unfamiliar room. She turned to the mirror and saw no one except herself, just her, just Abby. But she also knew Samm was still there, still waiting to step up and take control the moment Abby lost her temper, the moment everything became too much for her. She would have to do whatever it took to remain calm, remain in control. She thought about Samm’s parting words and smiled, if the Incredible Hulk could do it, she reasoned, so could she.
“Don’t make me mad… you won’t like me when I’m mad.”