But Deadly 'verse: Reverence
Title: Reverence
Author: Bella Temple
Category: SPN, AU, Gen, drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: AU, some language, rewrite of canon
Spoilers: "Faith"
Characters: Sam, Dean, Layla Rourke, OCs
Disclaimer: The characters and basic premise within are property of Warner Bros, Eric Kripke, etc. No money is being made off this work of fiction.
Author's note: Part of my But Deadly 'verse. It's really recommended that you read the other three fics before starting this one. I hope you enjoy it.
Summary: The thing about faith is, you can't just have it when the good things happen. Something that Layla Rourke and Uncle Dan may learn the hard way.
ETA Now available as a podfic, read by diane_mckay
"Well, alright, baby." Carrie said, the phone pinched between her shoulder and her head as she made a few final notes on the paper she was grading. "Just know that Dan and I are thinking of you, you hear? Both of you. Don't let Dean drag you to too many car shows." She paused, then laughed lightly, dropping her pen and bringing her hand up to the receiver. "You, too. Goodbye, Sam."
Dan closed the lid of the laptop he was working on and folded his arms across it, leaning forward towards his wife. "They doing alright?"
"They're fine." She offered him a small smile, though he could see the hints of concern in the lines beside her eyes. "In Nebraska, this time. They're getting closer, Dan."
"They'll come home when they're ready." Dan reached up and scratched under his ear, tilting his head and staring across the room at the window. "Where in Nebraska?"
"Didn't say." Carrie's smile dropped and she looked down at the paper she'd been working on. "It's been nearly six months since the fire. He should be back in school, by now."
Dan nodded and lifted his shoulder in a shrug. "Everyone deals with grief in their own time, Carrie. You know that."
"I don't like it."
"You haven't liked much that Dean's done since he was seventeen. Why should Sam be any different?"
Carrie's hand slammed into the table hard enough to make both of them jump. Dan finally pulled his gaze away from the window and focused it on his wife, who was staring down at her hand like it belonged to someone else. She raised her eyes to meet his, her mouth set in a hard line. Then she stood without saying a word, gathered up her papers and her pens, and left their shared office.
For all that she'd taught Dean and Sam over the years, Dan reflected, Dean had taught her just as much.
Like how to throw a guilt trip at a person without ever saying a single word.
He sighed and leaned back, opening the laptop and firing up a search engine. It took a while, but he finally found an obituary for a young man about Dean's age who'd unexpectedly died in a swimming facility in Nebraska when his lungs collapsed. The same paper had an "unrelated" article on another man, much older and in a town not far away, who claimed to have had his emphysema cured by a faith healer. He pursed his lips and looked over the interview, reaching up to rub at his jaw.
* * *
Layla first saw them outside the tent before what she'd promised herself would be her last service with Roy Le Grange, no matter what her mother had to say. After so many weeks and witnessing so many miracles, she was exhausted. She could only let herself be disappointed at being passed over so many times before she had to admit to herself that maybe being healed wasn't God's plan for her. Today, she told herself, she would be healed or she would accept her fate. Either way, she wasn't coming back.
She was really, really hoping for the first option. Especially if being healed would let her spend more time enjoying the good things in life, like the company of men who looked like the two who were bickering in the parking lot next to the shining black behemoth of a sedan.
To be absolutely fair, it was the taller of the two, the young man with the long, bedraggled brown hair and casually hunched shoulders who was making all the noise. The other, leaning against the side of the car with his hands stuck deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, didn't say a word. Layla wondered if that was the reason they were here. Laryngitis was rarely life threatening, as far as she knew, but perhaps he had some sort of throat cancer, or a lung disorder like the man from the week before. He didn't look sick -- his skin was pale, but a healthy sort of pale that spoke of spending most of one's time out of the sun rather than of blood loss or exhaustion, like so many of the others.
Then again, Layla knew she didn't look sick, either. And there really wasn't much reason to come to Roy Le Grange's services than in search of a miracle.
That was what the tumor had done to her. Everywhere she looked, now, she saw the fragility of life, and everyone she saw got their own special, imaginary diagnosis. She wanted to think that the services with Reverend Le Grange had shown her the hope in that fragility.
Maybe, if today was the day, she'd come back after all. Just to keep seeing that hope.
She broke away from her mother and made her way closer to the two men.
". . . I'm just saying Dean. Maybe this isn't what you're thinking. Maybe this guy's the real deal. Maybe he can. . . ." The taller one trailed off as the shorter -- Dean, apparently -- stared back at him, his eyes hard. ". . . Maybe he can help you," the taller one finished finally, quietly, not looking at Dean. Layla had seen scenes like these before, played over and over, one person filled with faith and the other not daring to believe. She'd never seen the look of anger and betrayal that she saw cross Dean's face, though, barely hiding under a mask of confusion, as though Dean understood exactly what the other man meant, but wanted to pretend he could be wrong. She felt the need, suddenly, to break into this one-sided conversation and wipe that look from Dean's face.
"You never know until you try," she said, stepping up next to the taller one and giving Dean a bright, confrontational smile. Dean looked at her, his brows drawing together, then turned his head, pushed off the car, and started off. Layla supposed she ought to have expected that. From the way the tall man's shoulders hunched even further, she decided he had. She let out a slight sigh and ran a hand carefully through her hair. "Sorry about that. I . . . tend to try to help. Even when maybe I shouldn't."
The man shook his head, staring off after Dean. "No, that's okay. He's just -- he's really stubborn." He finally looked at her, the edges of his mouth straining up in what would probably be a rather nice smile, if he weren't distracted by thoughts that weren't smile-worthy. "I'm Sam. That's my brother, Dean."
"It's nice to meet you, Sam. I'm Layla. Do you. . . ." She hesitated, not sure if this was anywhere near her place, but wanting to try and offer Sam something in light of how much she'd managed to not help with his brother. "Do you mind if I ask. . . ?"
Sam shook his head. "No, it's okay. Everyone wonders. He's mute."
Layla nodded. "The reverend usually deals with illnesses, or accidents. But I'm sure he could help with something, uh." What was the word? "Congenital."
Another head shake, with a faint laugh. "Brain damage. When he was young."
"Oh." Layla forced her tone to be bright. "Well, that's right up the reverend's alley, then. You're in luck."
"Only if Dean gets his head out of his ass," Sam said darkly, shoulders rising once and then lowering back to their slumped position. "Sorry. It's . . . we've had kind of a rough time, recently."
"It's okay. Maybe. Maybe he's just scared."
Sam snorted. "I doubt that."
Layla laughed. "You never know. It's hard, getting up the kind of hope you need to really have faith in someone like Reverend Le Grange. Even when you've seen the miracles, yourself." She looked off towards where Dean had positioned himself, leaning now against the railing that lined the steps up to the reverend's house, watching the people shuffle and file their way to the tent. "It might help if I talked to him. I should at least apologize for butting in, like that."
Sam's mouth quirked up again in that not-quite-smile. "You're free to try. But I doubt it'll get you anywhere."
"Well. I'll stick to what I said before. You never know until you try. It was nice to meet you, Sam."
"Uh. Yeah. You, too." He tilted his head, shoulders moving back, lifting his whole being in a way that really showed off his height. "Do you know sign language?"
Layla pursed her lips and frowned. "Oh. No, I don't. That's -- that's going to make it a little harder, isn't it."
"He's got a notebook. But, yeah. It might. I could translate, if you like."
She shook her head. "No. . . ." What she hoped to say was probably best only between two people. "No, that's alright. I'm sure I'll manage."
He nodded. "Okay. I'll . . . I'll be here, I guess. If you need me."
"Thank you," Layla said simply. She considered patting his arm, the way her mother did with her when she wanted to reassure her of something, but decided against it. She was already butting into Sam and Dean's lives enough as it was. Her father, when he'd still been around, used to say that she'd make the perfect missionary, the way she always had to get involved with people. She'd never had the guts to leave home, though. Maybe, she thought, her mission was to stay right here. Maybe it was to help Sam's brother believe.
* * *
There were things about Mary Winchester that everyone believed to be true. That Carrie was her best friend. That she'd loved her husband and her sons. That she'd died trying to save them from the fire that took her home.
As far as Dan knew, these things were true. He also knew that they weren't the only things that were.
Carrie was Mary's best friend, certainly. They'd met in college, the University of Kansas, in fact, and had been close friends ever since. Officially, Dan and Mary had met through that friendship, after he'd started dating Carrie while they were both doing their graduate work in Lawrence. Most people, including Carrie and John, had believed that Mary's choice of Carrie and Dan for Dean's godparents had been based on that friendship.
It had. It simply hadn't been the only reason for it.
Dan and Mary had actually met a few years before Dan had ever even started dating Carrie, before he'd ever come to Lawrence or the University of Kansas. They'd met in an abandoned frontier town, in fact, one he'd never known the name of and didn't care to ever think too hard about again. Mary had picked them because she loved Carrie. But she'd also picked them because she knew from experience that Dan would be able to help protect Dean.
Mary had absolutely loved her husband and her sons. Dan had never had any doubt about that. It was clear in her face every time she looked at them. But Dan knew she'd also been terrified by them. For them. They'd hoped with all their hearts, when the two of them had finally managed to walk out of that frontier town all those years ago, that everything was over and that their lives could return to normal. But they'd both feared that "normal" could never really happen again. That the yellow eyed man would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Mary hadn't wanted a family, after that. She'd fallen in love with John by accident. Had let him talk her into a family and a home and a life, let him make her believe that she could have all three of those things and live happily ever after. She'd worked so hard and kept so quiet to try and make that true.
Mary had died for her family in that fire. Dan knew that as well as he knew anything else. He didn't know if the fire had had anything to do with the horrible dreams and visions he'd suffered in his early adulthood, or with Mary's eerie ability to convince anyone she met to do anything she pleased. He didn't know if the yellow eyed man had somehow made it back from the exorcism they'd worked out in that frontier town, if he was the reason Dean had been so hurt getting out of that house. He knew that, when Mary had met up with Dean and Sam on the front lawn that night, she'd looked terrified. He knew that she'd caught his eye when she ushered the boys over to him and Carrie on the street, whispering to Dean as she went. He knew that her words had kept him standing still when she'd turned back to go back into the house after John, when all he'd wanted to do was rush after her and pull her back. He knew that the only reason why he and Carrie had been on the street that night was because of his nightmares, showing him the flames bursting out the windows and the terror in his godson's eyes as he clutched his baby brother to his chest and watched his house burn.
And he knew, thirteen years later when his godson had returned home, bandaged and broken, but burning internally with a new fire and determination, that Dean had learned the truth about the world, if not the truth about his mother.
And he knew, above all else, that Mary had wanted to keep these things from Carrie. That she'd wanted to shelter her best friend from the darkness she'd experienced.
So Dan never told his wife what he knew. He tracked the boys' progress on their road trip, keeping track of the deaths that seemed to lead them around, but he made sure that Carrie never found out the real reasons for their destinations. And he waited for the nightmares to return, hoping all the while that they'd show him how to keep the boys safe from the fiery fate of the rest of their family.
* * *
Dean looked up at her as she approached, his features drawn down into a faint scowl, then looked away, towards the tent. She kept her own expression light and distant, stopping a few feet away from him and following his gaze. "Hey."
He let out an audible breath through his nose that she supposed could count as a greeting.
"I'm Layla."
He looked up at her, then over her shoulder towards where she knew his brother was standing, then back to her.
"You're Dean, I know. I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have stepped in, like that."
He shrugged, looking back towards the tent like he didn't care, but she saw his scowl ease off.
"Your brother -- Sam -- he only wants to help, you know."
The scowl returned and he shifted against the railing.
"You don't want help, though, do you."
He shook his head, a blank, detached expression falling over his features.
Layla took a step closer and turned her body outward, standing next to him and mimicking his pose, slightly. "That's good, you know. Means less competition for me." She turned her head towards him and grinned to show she was joking, and she saw his mouth twitch slightly as he looked back. His eyebrow rose and he looked her over. "You're allowed to ask. I don't mind." He snorted, pursing his lips, and looked away. "That's alright," she said. "Let's me keep my mystery."
Another snort, this one more amused, and that lip twitch reappeared. He turned his head again after a moment and just looked at her, and she held his gaze and smiled back. Finally, he pulled his hands out of his pockets, revealing a small notebook and a pencil. He flipped it open to a blank page in a practiced motion and quickly wrote something down before holding the notebook up so she could see it.
Ur here 2 B healed?
"You're not?"
The scowl reappeared again for a moment. Nothing wrong w/ me. Sam's an idiot
She laughed. "Or maybe he's just an optimist."
Same thing He paused, pencil hovering over the page, then wrote again. I'll bite. What's wrong w/ U?
She took a breath. It never got easier to say out loud. "I have -- I have this thing. A tumor." He was looking at her fully, now, his attention no longer divided between her, his brother, and the tent. "It's inoperable. Reverend Le Grange is -- he's my last hope."
He closed his eyes and shook the pencil up and down for a moment, his hesitation to write what he wrote next clear in every line of his body. He's not
She couldn't keep the harsh tone out of her voice. "You know some other miracle brain tumor cure?"
Another hesitation, then: No. Le Grange. He's not hope
"I've met a lot of formerly dying people over the last several weeks who'd disagree with you."
Don't go in the tent
She took a step back. It was her turn, now, to pull her attention away from him and take on the standoffish attitude he'd had only a few minutes before. "Why not?"
I can't tell explain
"You can't tell me not to go in there without telling me why."
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. People R dying
"I know. That's why they're here. Just because you don't think he can help you --"
His hand shot up, cutting her off, and he brought his pen back to the phrase he'd just written, underlining and adding to it. Other People R dying. When Le Grange heals.
Layla sucked in a breath, not wanting to believe what Dean was trying to tell her. "That's not true."
He dug into his back pocket with the hand holding the pencil and handed her a folded piece of newspaper. She took it out and looked it over. It was an obituary, for someone named Marshall Hall. "This -- it doesn't prove anything."
He held up the notebook again, pointing to the words on the page.
"That's not true." She crumpled the obituary in her hand. "You're just another one of the people who wants to bring down everything that the reverend is doing here. Roy Le Grange is a good man. He was blessed by the Lord, so he can share that blessing with other people." She took another step back, and found that she wanted to keep going. Her mother was waiting. Today was going to be the day. She knew it. She couldn't let this -- this barrier to her faith stop her. This was a test. She was going to pass it. "He's our only hope." She shook her head. "Don't tell anyone else that. Don't take this from us. Just -- go home, Dean. If you don't want the reverend's blessing, then just go home."
She turned then, walking quickly and blinking sharply against the dreary gray light of the day. What Dean had said wasn't true. He was just another nonbeliever. Just another obstacle -- a test of her faith.
Her mother held out a hand for her when she approached. "What did that boy say to you?"
She shook her head, wiping at her eyes. "Nothing. I thought he was -- but he's just -- nothing."
Her mother patted her arm. "Are you ready?"
She nodded, forcing herself to smile for her mom. "Yeah. Today's the day. I can feel it."
Her mother smiled back and they stepped into the tent. "That's right. Today's your day."
* * *
Dan hadn't dreamed of Jessica's death, so he let himself believe that it had nothing to do with Mary or himself or the fire that had happened 22 years before. He and Carrie hadn't gotten to meet Jessica, though they'd known how deeply Sam had cared for her in the way he spoke of her on the phone and in his emails. Carrie had known, though she hadn't told him until after they'd heard the news, that Sam had been planning to ask her to marry him. It was a tragedy, certainly, and a nigh-unholy coincidence that the fire had happened on the day it had happened.
But he hadn't dreamed, so he believed that that was all that it was.
He hadn't dreamed -- hadn't had one of those dreams, at the very least -- since 1983, when he'd woken in the middle of the night to drag his wife out the door with no more explanation than a simple "we have to go". What Carrie thought of that, of the way he'd simply known that something was wrong with the Winchesters, he didn't know. He was afraid to ask. If they hadn't immediately had their hands full with the two boys, he suspected all of his and Mary's secrets might have been forced out, that night.
Dan was a religious studies professor. He'd considered, before the frontier town and his encounter with an evil all too real, going into the seminary. Carrie knew he believed in things that couldn't be explained, though she herself was Catholic in name only, preferring the observable reality of the what she saw around her. For her, magic was only a literary device she taught to her students in her English classes.
There were those who thought that faith and belief in the unprovable were necessary things to a full life in this world. Before that frontier town, Dan had been one of them.
These days, he did everything he could to preserve his wife's apathy towards religion. He wanted to believe she was safer, that way.
* * *
Layla was back at the tent for the next service, this time without her mother on her arm. The reverend's miracle had been all it was cracked up to be -- she'd received a clean bill of health from her doctors, not even a shadow on the scans to show where the tumor had once been. The headaches were gone. The exhaustion was gone. But the fear -- the fear was still there.
Because she'd heard the reports. A young woman had died of an aneurysm while running through the woods, the same day that she'd been cured.
She didn't want to believe it. She wished she hadn't heard. She wished she had never approached Sam and Dean in the parking lot. Her faith, the love for her God which had supported her and carried her through her entire life, was shaking. And it hurt.
She came back because she wanted answers. She came back because she wanted people to tell her that Dean had been wrong. That the woman running in the woods had been an unlucky accident. That Roy Le Grange was exactly who she'd believed him to be, a good man who loved God and wanted to share his blessing with the rest of the world.
But faith in the good brought faith in the bad. And she knew, deep down, that Dean had been right. She lived because someone else had died in her place.
Sam and Dean were there, huddled into each other in the parking lot and casting glances from the tent to the house and back again. She hurried over to them, hoping, though she wasn't entirely sure why, that no one would see her.
Dean noticed her first, lifting his head and gesturing quickly. Sam turned, eyes wide. "Layla."
"It's true, isn't it."
Sam bit his lip. Dean nodded.
"Why?"
The brothers exchanged a glance, Dean hurriedly signing away. Sam watched him, then gestured Layla closer, keeping his voice low. "We think it's Sue Ann."
"The reverend's wife?" Layla shook her head. It didn't make sense.
"She's -- do you believe in grim reapers?"
Layla opened her mouth, then closed in, shaking her head. "I -- I don't know."
Dean shot her a sympathetic look and Sam continued. "We think that's what's happening here. That Sue Ann has bound a reaper, somehow, and is using it to give the members of Le Grange's congregation other people's lives."
"But -- but why?"
Dean held up his notebook. She thinks she's doing God's work
Layla felt her jaw tense. "That --" She wanted to say it didn't make sense, but the trouble was exactly the opposite. She knew what faith felt like. She knew how easy it was for people to use it as excuse for what they did. But she also knew that the God she had faith in would never want something like this to happen. "What can we do?"
"You don't do anything. It's probably safer if you leave. Now."
"No. I'm part of this. The reverend healed me. Even if it wasn't a miracle, I can't let that happen for no reason."
Dean elbowed Sam to get his attention, his hands flying. Sam swallowed, then nodded. "Can you -- do you think maybe you could try to delay the service? Dean and I need to find the altar that Sue Ann's using."
Layla's heart was racing, but she nodded. "I . . . yeah. I can do that." She took a few steps away, towards the tent, trying to think of a stall tactic she could use. She paused, then turned back. "How do you guys know about all this?"
Sam frowned, shrugged, and looked at his feet. Dean huffed a silent snort, pencil moving swiftly over his notebook.
It's what we do.
Layla shook her head. "Right. Ask a stupid question." She set out for the tent at a jog, thinking back to the last time she'd met up with the brothers, how she'd thought that her mission had been to make Dean believe.
It hadn't, she decided. It had been for her to let them make her believe. And if she could do this, if she could delay the reverend so that they could have a chance to stop his wife, then maybe that could be a reason why she'd been healed. It wasn't enough -- she didn't think anything ever could be enough to make up for the life that had been lost -- but it was a start. A first step.
And, though the fear wasn't gone, she felt the hope well up again.
* * *
Dan dreamed of Carrie on the ceiling. He had set up protections around the house when they'd first moved in -- as a religious studies professor, he hadn't even had to try that hard to come up with a reason for the arcane symbols hanging like art around the place -- but in all the research he'd done over the years since the frontier town, he'd never found anything concrete saying "this is how you keep the yellow eyed man out". So when he dreamed of blood and fire and his wife, he went looking for someone who might be able to help.
He went to Missouri.
She told him his symbols would help. She gave him other tools, as well, told him about salt and gris-gris and things that he'd never connected to his experiences, before.
She told him that she could sense his abilities, that once they had been powerful, but over time, they'd diminished. She gave him tea and a squeeze to his shoulder and she wished him luck.
He hid a ladder in the closet and a fire extinguisher under the bed, just in case luck and salt and gris-gris weren't enough. He considered calling Sam and Dean. He considered telling Carrie the truth. He considered packing her into the car and taking them both as far away from Lawrence and its history of housefires and tragedy as they could get.
In the end, he waited.
It was all he could do.
* * *
Layla met up with Sam and Dean again at their car. "I couldn't stop them. But it didn't work. The healing didn't work."
The brothers looked exhausted, run into the ground. "It's over," Sam said, resting his hands on the roof of the car. "The reaper's unbound. Everything's back to how it should be."
Layla reached up instinctively, her hand hovering at the side of her head, trembling. Sam's eyes went wide and he shook his head. "It's not reversed. You're still -- you're still healed. But the rest of it -- it won't happen again."
She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and wrapped her arms over her chest. "Sue Ann?" The brothers exchanged a look and she swallowed. "You didn't. Kill her, did --"
"The reaper." Sam said simply. "I think it turned on her."
Layla's hand came up again, this time to her mouth as her stomach jolted. This was all too much. She wished it had never happened. She wished she'd never met the men standing across from her. Dean met her eyes, an apology as clear on his face as it would have been written down in his notebook. Sam swallowed.
"I'm sorry, Layla. I know you believed --" He was cut off by his phone ringing. He tugged it from his pocket, frowned at the caller ID, then took a few steps away, looking between Dean and Layla. "I'm going to -- I'll be right back." He hurried several feet away, flipping the phone open. Dean watched him go, then turned back to Layla.
She offered him a slight smile, though it hurt to do so. "I still believe." Dean lifted an eyebrow and she continued. "Maybe it doesn't make sense, to you. But -- I still think that everything has its purpose. I still think that God's looking out for us, or will, if we let Him. I guess -- I guess if you're going to have faith when the miracles happen, you have to have faith when the bad things do, too."
Dean nodded slowly, pulling out his notebook. He made the letters large, going over each of them several times with his pencil to make them nice and visible with the car between them.
You're a good person, Layla.
She felt her cheeks tighten and a slight burn in her eyes, but forced herself to smile at him. "You're learning grammar." He smirked, his shoulders shaking slightly, and pointed to the words again with his pencil.
"Thank you. That means a lot to me. Even if you don't believe."
He tilted his head and lifted one shoulder, and though he didn't write anything, she chose to think that he was saying "maybe I'm starting to".
Sam came back, slipping his phone back in his pocket, his face pale. "Dean." Dean turned, and Layla started to back away. She couldn't help but hear Sam's words as she left.
"That was the Lawrence P.D. There's been an accident."
She heard something slam into the metal of their car and forced herself not to turn around. She knew she couldn't help with whatever Sam had just found out. She knew that she would probably never see the two brothers again. She didn't look back until she heard their engine starting up and the car rumbling over the uneven ground that served as the parking lot.
As she watched the black car roll off into the distance, she wrapped her arms over her chest. Sometimes, bad things happened to good people, and you couldn't stop it.
"I wish you guys luck," she whispered. "I really do." She pressed her fingers to her lips, then held them in the air. "I'll pray for you."
That was all she could do.
Continued in Home is Where
Author: Bella Temple
Category: SPN, AU, Gen, drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: AU, some language, rewrite of canon
Spoilers: "Faith"
Characters: Sam, Dean, Layla Rourke, OCs
Disclaimer: The characters and basic premise within are property of Warner Bros, Eric Kripke, etc. No money is being made off this work of fiction.
Author's note: Part of my But Deadly 'verse. It's really recommended that you read the other three fics before starting this one. I hope you enjoy it.
Summary: The thing about faith is, you can't just have it when the good things happen. Something that Layla Rourke and Uncle Dan may learn the hard way.
ETA Now available as a podfic, read by diane_mckay
"Well, alright, baby." Carrie said, the phone pinched between her shoulder and her head as she made a few final notes on the paper she was grading. "Just know that Dan and I are thinking of you, you hear? Both of you. Don't let Dean drag you to too many car shows." She paused, then laughed lightly, dropping her pen and bringing her hand up to the receiver. "You, too. Goodbye, Sam."
Dan closed the lid of the laptop he was working on and folded his arms across it, leaning forward towards his wife. "They doing alright?"
"They're fine." She offered him a small smile, though he could see the hints of concern in the lines beside her eyes. "In Nebraska, this time. They're getting closer, Dan."
"They'll come home when they're ready." Dan reached up and scratched under his ear, tilting his head and staring across the room at the window. "Where in Nebraska?"
"Didn't say." Carrie's smile dropped and she looked down at the paper she'd been working on. "It's been nearly six months since the fire. He should be back in school, by now."
Dan nodded and lifted his shoulder in a shrug. "Everyone deals with grief in their own time, Carrie. You know that."
"I don't like it."
"You haven't liked much that Dean's done since he was seventeen. Why should Sam be any different?"
Carrie's hand slammed into the table hard enough to make both of them jump. Dan finally pulled his gaze away from the window and focused it on his wife, who was staring down at her hand like it belonged to someone else. She raised her eyes to meet his, her mouth set in a hard line. Then she stood without saying a word, gathered up her papers and her pens, and left their shared office.
For all that she'd taught Dean and Sam over the years, Dan reflected, Dean had taught her just as much.
Like how to throw a guilt trip at a person without ever saying a single word.
He sighed and leaned back, opening the laptop and firing up a search engine. It took a while, but he finally found an obituary for a young man about Dean's age who'd unexpectedly died in a swimming facility in Nebraska when his lungs collapsed. The same paper had an "unrelated" article on another man, much older and in a town not far away, who claimed to have had his emphysema cured by a faith healer. He pursed his lips and looked over the interview, reaching up to rub at his jaw.
* * *
Layla first saw them outside the tent before what she'd promised herself would be her last service with Roy Le Grange, no matter what her mother had to say. After so many weeks and witnessing so many miracles, she was exhausted. She could only let herself be disappointed at being passed over so many times before she had to admit to herself that maybe being healed wasn't God's plan for her. Today, she told herself, she would be healed or she would accept her fate. Either way, she wasn't coming back.
She was really, really hoping for the first option. Especially if being healed would let her spend more time enjoying the good things in life, like the company of men who looked like the two who were bickering in the parking lot next to the shining black behemoth of a sedan.
To be absolutely fair, it was the taller of the two, the young man with the long, bedraggled brown hair and casually hunched shoulders who was making all the noise. The other, leaning against the side of the car with his hands stuck deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, didn't say a word. Layla wondered if that was the reason they were here. Laryngitis was rarely life threatening, as far as she knew, but perhaps he had some sort of throat cancer, or a lung disorder like the man from the week before. He didn't look sick -- his skin was pale, but a healthy sort of pale that spoke of spending most of one's time out of the sun rather than of blood loss or exhaustion, like so many of the others.
Then again, Layla knew she didn't look sick, either. And there really wasn't much reason to come to Roy Le Grange's services than in search of a miracle.
That was what the tumor had done to her. Everywhere she looked, now, she saw the fragility of life, and everyone she saw got their own special, imaginary diagnosis. She wanted to think that the services with Reverend Le Grange had shown her the hope in that fragility.
Maybe, if today was the day, she'd come back after all. Just to keep seeing that hope.
She broke away from her mother and made her way closer to the two men.
". . . I'm just saying Dean. Maybe this isn't what you're thinking. Maybe this guy's the real deal. Maybe he can. . . ." The taller one trailed off as the shorter -- Dean, apparently -- stared back at him, his eyes hard. ". . . Maybe he can help you," the taller one finished finally, quietly, not looking at Dean. Layla had seen scenes like these before, played over and over, one person filled with faith and the other not daring to believe. She'd never seen the look of anger and betrayal that she saw cross Dean's face, though, barely hiding under a mask of confusion, as though Dean understood exactly what the other man meant, but wanted to pretend he could be wrong. She felt the need, suddenly, to break into this one-sided conversation and wipe that look from Dean's face.
"You never know until you try," she said, stepping up next to the taller one and giving Dean a bright, confrontational smile. Dean looked at her, his brows drawing together, then turned his head, pushed off the car, and started off. Layla supposed she ought to have expected that. From the way the tall man's shoulders hunched even further, she decided he had. She let out a slight sigh and ran a hand carefully through her hair. "Sorry about that. I . . . tend to try to help. Even when maybe I shouldn't."
The man shook his head, staring off after Dean. "No, that's okay. He's just -- he's really stubborn." He finally looked at her, the edges of his mouth straining up in what would probably be a rather nice smile, if he weren't distracted by thoughts that weren't smile-worthy. "I'm Sam. That's my brother, Dean."
"It's nice to meet you, Sam. I'm Layla. Do you. . . ." She hesitated, not sure if this was anywhere near her place, but wanting to try and offer Sam something in light of how much she'd managed to not help with his brother. "Do you mind if I ask. . . ?"
Sam shook his head. "No, it's okay. Everyone wonders. He's mute."
Layla nodded. "The reverend usually deals with illnesses, or accidents. But I'm sure he could help with something, uh." What was the word? "Congenital."
Another head shake, with a faint laugh. "Brain damage. When he was young."
"Oh." Layla forced her tone to be bright. "Well, that's right up the reverend's alley, then. You're in luck."
"Only if Dean gets his head out of his ass," Sam said darkly, shoulders rising once and then lowering back to their slumped position. "Sorry. It's . . . we've had kind of a rough time, recently."
"It's okay. Maybe. Maybe he's just scared."
Sam snorted. "I doubt that."
Layla laughed. "You never know. It's hard, getting up the kind of hope you need to really have faith in someone like Reverend Le Grange. Even when you've seen the miracles, yourself." She looked off towards where Dean had positioned himself, leaning now against the railing that lined the steps up to the reverend's house, watching the people shuffle and file their way to the tent. "It might help if I talked to him. I should at least apologize for butting in, like that."
Sam's mouth quirked up again in that not-quite-smile. "You're free to try. But I doubt it'll get you anywhere."
"Well. I'll stick to what I said before. You never know until you try. It was nice to meet you, Sam."
"Uh. Yeah. You, too." He tilted his head, shoulders moving back, lifting his whole being in a way that really showed off his height. "Do you know sign language?"
Layla pursed her lips and frowned. "Oh. No, I don't. That's -- that's going to make it a little harder, isn't it."
"He's got a notebook. But, yeah. It might. I could translate, if you like."
She shook her head. "No. . . ." What she hoped to say was probably best only between two people. "No, that's alright. I'm sure I'll manage."
He nodded. "Okay. I'll . . . I'll be here, I guess. If you need me."
"Thank you," Layla said simply. She considered patting his arm, the way her mother did with her when she wanted to reassure her of something, but decided against it. She was already butting into Sam and Dean's lives enough as it was. Her father, when he'd still been around, used to say that she'd make the perfect missionary, the way she always had to get involved with people. She'd never had the guts to leave home, though. Maybe, she thought, her mission was to stay right here. Maybe it was to help Sam's brother believe.
* * *
There were things about Mary Winchester that everyone believed to be true. That Carrie was her best friend. That she'd loved her husband and her sons. That she'd died trying to save them from the fire that took her home.
As far as Dan knew, these things were true. He also knew that they weren't the only things that were.
Carrie was Mary's best friend, certainly. They'd met in college, the University of Kansas, in fact, and had been close friends ever since. Officially, Dan and Mary had met through that friendship, after he'd started dating Carrie while they were both doing their graduate work in Lawrence. Most people, including Carrie and John, had believed that Mary's choice of Carrie and Dan for Dean's godparents had been based on that friendship.
It had. It simply hadn't been the only reason for it.
Dan and Mary had actually met a few years before Dan had ever even started dating Carrie, before he'd ever come to Lawrence or the University of Kansas. They'd met in an abandoned frontier town, in fact, one he'd never known the name of and didn't care to ever think too hard about again. Mary had picked them because she loved Carrie. But she'd also picked them because she knew from experience that Dan would be able to help protect Dean.
Mary had absolutely loved her husband and her sons. Dan had never had any doubt about that. It was clear in her face every time she looked at them. But Dan knew she'd also been terrified by them. For them. They'd hoped with all their hearts, when the two of them had finally managed to walk out of that frontier town all those years ago, that everything was over and that their lives could return to normal. But they'd both feared that "normal" could never really happen again. That the yellow eyed man would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Mary hadn't wanted a family, after that. She'd fallen in love with John by accident. Had let him talk her into a family and a home and a life, let him make her believe that she could have all three of those things and live happily ever after. She'd worked so hard and kept so quiet to try and make that true.
Mary had died for her family in that fire. Dan knew that as well as he knew anything else. He didn't know if the fire had had anything to do with the horrible dreams and visions he'd suffered in his early adulthood, or with Mary's eerie ability to convince anyone she met to do anything she pleased. He didn't know if the yellow eyed man had somehow made it back from the exorcism they'd worked out in that frontier town, if he was the reason Dean had been so hurt getting out of that house. He knew that, when Mary had met up with Dean and Sam on the front lawn that night, she'd looked terrified. He knew that she'd caught his eye when she ushered the boys over to him and Carrie on the street, whispering to Dean as she went. He knew that her words had kept him standing still when she'd turned back to go back into the house after John, when all he'd wanted to do was rush after her and pull her back. He knew that the only reason why he and Carrie had been on the street that night was because of his nightmares, showing him the flames bursting out the windows and the terror in his godson's eyes as he clutched his baby brother to his chest and watched his house burn.
And he knew, thirteen years later when his godson had returned home, bandaged and broken, but burning internally with a new fire and determination, that Dean had learned the truth about the world, if not the truth about his mother.
And he knew, above all else, that Mary had wanted to keep these things from Carrie. That she'd wanted to shelter her best friend from the darkness she'd experienced.
So Dan never told his wife what he knew. He tracked the boys' progress on their road trip, keeping track of the deaths that seemed to lead them around, but he made sure that Carrie never found out the real reasons for their destinations. And he waited for the nightmares to return, hoping all the while that they'd show him how to keep the boys safe from the fiery fate of the rest of their family.
* * *
Dean looked up at her as she approached, his features drawn down into a faint scowl, then looked away, towards the tent. She kept her own expression light and distant, stopping a few feet away from him and following his gaze. "Hey."
He let out an audible breath through his nose that she supposed could count as a greeting.
"I'm Layla."
He looked up at her, then over her shoulder towards where she knew his brother was standing, then back to her.
"You're Dean, I know. I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have stepped in, like that."
He shrugged, looking back towards the tent like he didn't care, but she saw his scowl ease off.
"Your brother -- Sam -- he only wants to help, you know."
The scowl returned and he shifted against the railing.
"You don't want help, though, do you."
He shook his head, a blank, detached expression falling over his features.
Layla took a step closer and turned her body outward, standing next to him and mimicking his pose, slightly. "That's good, you know. Means less competition for me." She turned her head towards him and grinned to show she was joking, and she saw his mouth twitch slightly as he looked back. His eyebrow rose and he looked her over. "You're allowed to ask. I don't mind." He snorted, pursing his lips, and looked away. "That's alright," she said. "Let's me keep my mystery."
Another snort, this one more amused, and that lip twitch reappeared. He turned his head again after a moment and just looked at her, and she held his gaze and smiled back. Finally, he pulled his hands out of his pockets, revealing a small notebook and a pencil. He flipped it open to a blank page in a practiced motion and quickly wrote something down before holding the notebook up so she could see it.
Ur here 2 B healed?
"You're not?"
The scowl reappeared again for a moment. Nothing wrong w/ me. Sam's an idiot
She laughed. "Or maybe he's just an optimist."
Same thing He paused, pencil hovering over the page, then wrote again. I'll bite. What's wrong w/ U?
She took a breath. It never got easier to say out loud. "I have -- I have this thing. A tumor." He was looking at her fully, now, his attention no longer divided between her, his brother, and the tent. "It's inoperable. Reverend Le Grange is -- he's my last hope."
He closed his eyes and shook the pencil up and down for a moment, his hesitation to write what he wrote next clear in every line of his body. He's not
She couldn't keep the harsh tone out of her voice. "You know some other miracle brain tumor cure?"
Another hesitation, then: No. Le Grange. He's not hope
"I've met a lot of formerly dying people over the last several weeks who'd disagree with you."
Don't go in the tent
She took a step back. It was her turn, now, to pull her attention away from him and take on the standoffish attitude he'd had only a few minutes before. "Why not?"
I can't tell explain
"You can't tell me not to go in there without telling me why."
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. People R dying
"I know. That's why they're here. Just because you don't think he can help you --"
His hand shot up, cutting her off, and he brought his pen back to the phrase he'd just written, underlining and adding to it. Other People R dying. When Le Grange heals.
Layla sucked in a breath, not wanting to believe what Dean was trying to tell her. "That's not true."
He dug into his back pocket with the hand holding the pencil and handed her a folded piece of newspaper. She took it out and looked it over. It was an obituary, for someone named Marshall Hall. "This -- it doesn't prove anything."
He held up the notebook again, pointing to the words on the page.
"That's not true." She crumpled the obituary in her hand. "You're just another one of the people who wants to bring down everything that the reverend is doing here. Roy Le Grange is a good man. He was blessed by the Lord, so he can share that blessing with other people." She took another step back, and found that she wanted to keep going. Her mother was waiting. Today was going to be the day. She knew it. She couldn't let this -- this barrier to her faith stop her. This was a test. She was going to pass it. "He's our only hope." She shook her head. "Don't tell anyone else that. Don't take this from us. Just -- go home, Dean. If you don't want the reverend's blessing, then just go home."
She turned then, walking quickly and blinking sharply against the dreary gray light of the day. What Dean had said wasn't true. He was just another nonbeliever. Just another obstacle -- a test of her faith.
Her mother held out a hand for her when she approached. "What did that boy say to you?"
She shook her head, wiping at her eyes. "Nothing. I thought he was -- but he's just -- nothing."
Her mother patted her arm. "Are you ready?"
She nodded, forcing herself to smile for her mom. "Yeah. Today's the day. I can feel it."
Her mother smiled back and they stepped into the tent. "That's right. Today's your day."
* * *
Dan hadn't dreamed of Jessica's death, so he let himself believe that it had nothing to do with Mary or himself or the fire that had happened 22 years before. He and Carrie hadn't gotten to meet Jessica, though they'd known how deeply Sam had cared for her in the way he spoke of her on the phone and in his emails. Carrie had known, though she hadn't told him until after they'd heard the news, that Sam had been planning to ask her to marry him. It was a tragedy, certainly, and a nigh-unholy coincidence that the fire had happened on the day it had happened.
But he hadn't dreamed, so he believed that that was all that it was.
He hadn't dreamed -- hadn't had one of those dreams, at the very least -- since 1983, when he'd woken in the middle of the night to drag his wife out the door with no more explanation than a simple "we have to go". What Carrie thought of that, of the way he'd simply known that something was wrong with the Winchesters, he didn't know. He was afraid to ask. If they hadn't immediately had their hands full with the two boys, he suspected all of his and Mary's secrets might have been forced out, that night.
Dan was a religious studies professor. He'd considered, before the frontier town and his encounter with an evil all too real, going into the seminary. Carrie knew he believed in things that couldn't be explained, though she herself was Catholic in name only, preferring the observable reality of the what she saw around her. For her, magic was only a literary device she taught to her students in her English classes.
There were those who thought that faith and belief in the unprovable were necessary things to a full life in this world. Before that frontier town, Dan had been one of them.
These days, he did everything he could to preserve his wife's apathy towards religion. He wanted to believe she was safer, that way.
* * *
Layla was back at the tent for the next service, this time without her mother on her arm. The reverend's miracle had been all it was cracked up to be -- she'd received a clean bill of health from her doctors, not even a shadow on the scans to show where the tumor had once been. The headaches were gone. The exhaustion was gone. But the fear -- the fear was still there.
Because she'd heard the reports. A young woman had died of an aneurysm while running through the woods, the same day that she'd been cured.
She didn't want to believe it. She wished she hadn't heard. She wished she had never approached Sam and Dean in the parking lot. Her faith, the love for her God which had supported her and carried her through her entire life, was shaking. And it hurt.
She came back because she wanted answers. She came back because she wanted people to tell her that Dean had been wrong. That the woman running in the woods had been an unlucky accident. That Roy Le Grange was exactly who she'd believed him to be, a good man who loved God and wanted to share his blessing with the rest of the world.
But faith in the good brought faith in the bad. And she knew, deep down, that Dean had been right. She lived because someone else had died in her place.
Sam and Dean were there, huddled into each other in the parking lot and casting glances from the tent to the house and back again. She hurried over to them, hoping, though she wasn't entirely sure why, that no one would see her.
Dean noticed her first, lifting his head and gesturing quickly. Sam turned, eyes wide. "Layla."
"It's true, isn't it."
Sam bit his lip. Dean nodded.
"Why?"
The brothers exchanged a glance, Dean hurriedly signing away. Sam watched him, then gestured Layla closer, keeping his voice low. "We think it's Sue Ann."
"The reverend's wife?" Layla shook her head. It didn't make sense.
"She's -- do you believe in grim reapers?"
Layla opened her mouth, then closed in, shaking her head. "I -- I don't know."
Dean shot her a sympathetic look and Sam continued. "We think that's what's happening here. That Sue Ann has bound a reaper, somehow, and is using it to give the members of Le Grange's congregation other people's lives."
"But -- but why?"
Dean held up his notebook. She thinks she's doing God's work
Layla felt her jaw tense. "That --" She wanted to say it didn't make sense, but the trouble was exactly the opposite. She knew what faith felt like. She knew how easy it was for people to use it as excuse for what they did. But she also knew that the God she had faith in would never want something like this to happen. "What can we do?"
"You don't do anything. It's probably safer if you leave. Now."
"No. I'm part of this. The reverend healed me. Even if it wasn't a miracle, I can't let that happen for no reason."
Dean elbowed Sam to get his attention, his hands flying. Sam swallowed, then nodded. "Can you -- do you think maybe you could try to delay the service? Dean and I need to find the altar that Sue Ann's using."
Layla's heart was racing, but she nodded. "I . . . yeah. I can do that." She took a few steps away, towards the tent, trying to think of a stall tactic she could use. She paused, then turned back. "How do you guys know about all this?"
Sam frowned, shrugged, and looked at his feet. Dean huffed a silent snort, pencil moving swiftly over his notebook.
It's what we do.
Layla shook her head. "Right. Ask a stupid question." She set out for the tent at a jog, thinking back to the last time she'd met up with the brothers, how she'd thought that her mission had been to make Dean believe.
It hadn't, she decided. It had been for her to let them make her believe. And if she could do this, if she could delay the reverend so that they could have a chance to stop his wife, then maybe that could be a reason why she'd been healed. It wasn't enough -- she didn't think anything ever could be enough to make up for the life that had been lost -- but it was a start. A first step.
And, though the fear wasn't gone, she felt the hope well up again.
* * *
Dan dreamed of Carrie on the ceiling. He had set up protections around the house when they'd first moved in -- as a religious studies professor, he hadn't even had to try that hard to come up with a reason for the arcane symbols hanging like art around the place -- but in all the research he'd done over the years since the frontier town, he'd never found anything concrete saying "this is how you keep the yellow eyed man out". So when he dreamed of blood and fire and his wife, he went looking for someone who might be able to help.
He went to Missouri.
She told him his symbols would help. She gave him other tools, as well, told him about salt and gris-gris and things that he'd never connected to his experiences, before.
She told him that she could sense his abilities, that once they had been powerful, but over time, they'd diminished. She gave him tea and a squeeze to his shoulder and she wished him luck.
He hid a ladder in the closet and a fire extinguisher under the bed, just in case luck and salt and gris-gris weren't enough. He considered calling Sam and Dean. He considered telling Carrie the truth. He considered packing her into the car and taking them both as far away from Lawrence and its history of housefires and tragedy as they could get.
In the end, he waited.
It was all he could do.
* * *
Layla met up with Sam and Dean again at their car. "I couldn't stop them. But it didn't work. The healing didn't work."
The brothers looked exhausted, run into the ground. "It's over," Sam said, resting his hands on the roof of the car. "The reaper's unbound. Everything's back to how it should be."
Layla reached up instinctively, her hand hovering at the side of her head, trembling. Sam's eyes went wide and he shook his head. "It's not reversed. You're still -- you're still healed. But the rest of it -- it won't happen again."
She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and wrapped her arms over her chest. "Sue Ann?" The brothers exchanged a look and she swallowed. "You didn't. Kill her, did --"
"The reaper." Sam said simply. "I think it turned on her."
Layla's hand came up again, this time to her mouth as her stomach jolted. This was all too much. She wished it had never happened. She wished she'd never met the men standing across from her. Dean met her eyes, an apology as clear on his face as it would have been written down in his notebook. Sam swallowed.
"I'm sorry, Layla. I know you believed --" He was cut off by his phone ringing. He tugged it from his pocket, frowned at the caller ID, then took a few steps away, looking between Dean and Layla. "I'm going to -- I'll be right back." He hurried several feet away, flipping the phone open. Dean watched him go, then turned back to Layla.
She offered him a slight smile, though it hurt to do so. "I still believe." Dean lifted an eyebrow and she continued. "Maybe it doesn't make sense, to you. But -- I still think that everything has its purpose. I still think that God's looking out for us, or will, if we let Him. I guess -- I guess if you're going to have faith when the miracles happen, you have to have faith when the bad things do, too."
Dean nodded slowly, pulling out his notebook. He made the letters large, going over each of them several times with his pencil to make them nice and visible with the car between them.
You're a good person, Layla.
She felt her cheeks tighten and a slight burn in her eyes, but forced herself to smile at him. "You're learning grammar." He smirked, his shoulders shaking slightly, and pointed to the words again with his pencil.
"Thank you. That means a lot to me. Even if you don't believe."
He tilted his head and lifted one shoulder, and though he didn't write anything, she chose to think that he was saying "maybe I'm starting to".
Sam came back, slipping his phone back in his pocket, his face pale. "Dean." Dean turned, and Layla started to back away. She couldn't help but hear Sam's words as she left.
"That was the Lawrence P.D. There's been an accident."
She heard something slam into the metal of their car and forced herself not to turn around. She knew she couldn't help with whatever Sam had just found out. She knew that she would probably never see the two brothers again. She didn't look back until she heard their engine starting up and the car rumbling over the uneven ground that served as the parking lot.
As she watched the black car roll off into the distance, she wrapped her arms over her chest. Sometimes, bad things happened to good people, and you couldn't stop it.
"I wish you guys luck," she whispered. "I really do." She pressed her fingers to her lips, then held them in the air. "I'll pray for you."
That was all she could do.
Continued in Home is Where