SPN Fic: To Everything A Season (Pt 9/12) (Gen, R, FutureFic)
So here's the two sections that got lopped off part 8. I, myself, view this as part of chapter 8, as I felt it got a little shorted on the non-exposition parts of the story, as these two scenes were the gut kickers I meant to top off all that exposition and chit-chatting and waiting about, but LJ wouldn't let me post them. Argh!
So anyways, here they are. As always, love to hear what y'all think!
Title: To Everything A Season (Part 9/12)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Memory
Genre: Gen (some het, not graphic), FutureFic
Word Count: 110,000 (total)
Pairings/Characters: John/OFC, Dean/OFC, Sam/OFC (hey, did I mention it was Future Fic?)
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sexual situations (not graphic)
Spoilers: Oh yeah. Everything S1
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Timeline Note: Set seven years after the events of Devil's Trap. John, Dean and Sam all survived the crash to hunt down and destroy the Demon. For Sam, life goes on. For Dean, life stalls. For John, life has no more meaning, and he begins to self destruct.
Summary: A little piece of good advice: Never hunt a wendigo when you're drunk.
Part 9
Sammy was watching him in the rearview mirror, her small face serious with concern rather than shining with the excitement of yet another day in the grand adventure that was her most excellent life. "How come Daddy’s sick?" she asked.
"Not sure, Sammy." Danny flashed her a quick "don’t worry" grin in the rearview as he drove. "But he is, so we’ve just got to do our best to get him well."
"Is he sick with headcrackers again?" she asked.
"That’s part of it."
"Big headcrackers or little headcrackers?"
"Pretty big ones this time," Danny said.
"Is he going to erase things again?"
"That might happen. We’ll just have to wait and see."
"He won’t erase me, will he?"
Danny glanced back to the rearview. She was still watching him with those big, serious, too-smart-for-her-own-good eyes. "Nah. He’d never erase you, Sammy-Girl. I think he’s got you drawn on the inside of his eyelids with permanent magic marker."
"You can’t draw on the inside of your eyelids," she said.
"Your daddy can. He has all sorts of special skills."
"Like Latin," she offered.
"Like Latin," Danny agreed. He pulled into his driveway and shifted the range rover into park. "Here we are, Your Very Specialness. Please don’t forget to tip your driver on the way out."
"Are you going to take me to school tomorrow?" she asked.
"I think Aunt Sarah’s going to do that. She needs the money, and I made the mistake of telling her you’re a very good tipper."
She wasn’t playing yet. She was going to make him try harder. "Because you’ll be busy making Daddy better?"
"That’s the plan."
"Will you give Daddy kisses for me?"
The front door to his house opened, and Sarah came out, heading for the rover, her face constructed for playing Sammy happy, but her eyes a very specific shade of John worried.
"Oooo. Yuk. Do I have to?" Danny asked.
"Yes." Sammy said.
"But boys don’t kiss boys, do they?"
"Sometimes they do," Sammy said.
Danny’s gaze flicked back to the rear view, wondering where in the fuck a pre-schooler got that from in a town this size. She was still watching him there, still looking at him with those big, serious eyes.
"Well they do," she insisted when he gave her his "are you playing with me?" one-eyebrow-up, "The Rock" look.
"Hmph," Danny said. "Well maybe they do sometimes, but your dad has a really stickery beard -" he used her word, the word John told him only three days ago as he laughed over the dramatically different reviews his facial hair got from a daughter who found it irritating and a wife who threatened to divorce him - for reasons FAR too intimate for John to be telling his wife’s brother, which is exactly why John told him - if he shaved it off "- and I don’t kiss anybody with a stickery beard, not even your Aunt Sarah."
"Aunt Sarah doesn’t have a beard."
"She does sometimes."
Sammy was playing now, giving him back his one-eyebrowed Rock skeptical expression in the mirror. It was much funnier on her than it was on him.
"Well she does," Danny insisted.
Throwing herself forward against the back of the middle seat, Sammy draped her upper body up and over so she could talk to him directly now, requiring him to damn near twist his head off his neck to look at her while she spoke. "Okay. Then give Mommy kisses and let her give Daddy kisses."
"Oooo. Yuk. Do I have to?"
"Mommy doesn’t have a stickery beard," Sammy pointed out.
"Yeah, but she’s my sister. Yuk. Gross. And she has cooties, too."
"She does not."
"Does to."
"Does not."
"Does to."
Sammy rolled her eyes. "You’re impossible, Uncle Danny," she told him, sounding four going on twenty-seven. Or at least four going on seven.
"Yeah. But I’m cute."
Sammy leaned his direction to wrap her arms around his neck and squeeze. He made all sorts of exaggerated gagging and choking sounds until she let him go. "Give Daddy that," she said. "And make him better fast so he can come to my vegetable play next week, okay?"
"What? Your daddy gets all that neck squeezing and strangulating, and I get bubkus? You think I have cooties or something? I’m going to tell your Aunt Sarah you’re a sucky tipper. That you’re the worst tipper ever, and she should make you walk to school tomorrow."
"It’s five MILES," Sammy said, like just thinking that far exhausted her down to the tips of her toenails. "I can’t walk that far."
"Well then you’d better dig me up a better tip, hadn’t you?" he returned, making his voice as melodramatically over-exhausted as hers."
"Fine." She leaned forward again and gave him a big kiss right on his ear, her aim unintentional but effective.
"Oooo. Yuk. Spit in my ear," he protested.
Instead of pulling back with another expressive eyeroll as he expected, Sammy looped her arms around his neck and put her head on his shoulder. She stayed that way for almost a minute before he announced, "Okay, that’s all the tip I can stand. Get out, little girl. I still have other little girls to torture today."
"Is Daddy going to be okay?" she asked.
"Are you doubting my super powers, Your Very Specialness?" he countered.
"No."
"Then you let me worry about your daddy’s headcrackers, and you worry about being a good vegetable."
"Okay."
Her head was still on his shoulder. He let her stay there for another minute before whooping in the tone and volume of a fire alarm going off, "Too much tip! Too much tip! Too much tip! Too much -"
The fire alarm went silent the second she picked her head up and dropped the lose embrace around his neck. "Make him better soon, okay?" she said.
"I’ll do my best, little vegetable."
"And make him better better so he doesn’t erase my vegetable play like he did the Christmas pageant. Cause I’m a carrot, so I get to make people see good; and that’s the most important role except the green pepper."
"What does the green pepper make people do?" Danny asked.
"Green peppers make Daddy poof," Sammy said. "But Mrs. Bassett won’t let Peter do that -"
"Your daddy poofs?" Danny interrupted.
"Yes. He poofs when he eats green peppers. But Mrs. Bassett won’t let -"
"What does that mean … poofs?"
Sammy frowned at him: a very reproachful expression. "You know what it means, Uncle Danny," she said scoldingly. "You know Mommy won’t let me say the other word."
"Which other word is that again?" he asked disingenuously.
She’d fallen into this trap before; she wasn’t falling for it again. "The one she won’t let me say."
"I don’t remember that one."
"Yes, you do. Anyway -" she gave him a look that dared him to interrupt her again, " - Mrs. Bassett won’t let Peter do that, so the green pepper just gets to stand there and -"
"Won’t let Peter do what?"
"- POOF - stand there and be green; but it’s the biggest vegetable so that makes it important. But I’m the only orange one."
"What about … apples?"
"Apples aren’t vegetables," Sammy assured him. And then, after thinking about it for a moment, she added, "And they aren’t orange, either."
"They aren’t?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I’m very sure, Uncle Danny. Apples are red. And sometimes, they’re yellow. But they’re never orange. Only carrots are orange. And pumpkins. But there isn’t a pumpkin in the vegetable play cause pumpkins aren’t vegetables either."
"They aren’t?" Danny asked.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Sammy sighed. He was frustrating her. He loved doing that; loved hearing her sigh that huge, Sammy frustrated sigh. "I’m very sure," she assured him again. "I can bring you my vegetable book from school if you want to read it."
"You read books in pre-school?"
"I was a really good camel in the Christmas pageant," she said, changing the subject entirely. Or perhaps more accurately, going back to her original subject before he began teasing her into the open waters of Sammy-is-a-smart-kid world.
"Yes, you were," he agreed. "I especially liked the spitting part."
Her whole face lit up. "You did?"
"Yup. You are the best spitting camel I ever met."
"That was my idea. Mrs. Bassett didn’t like it. She told me I couldn’t do it even after I brought her the book Daddy gave me to prove that camels really do spit. But I did it anyway. Mrs. Bassett got kind of mad, but Daddy told me it was okay, that some teachers just didn’t have much of a sense of humor. I think he must have had Mrs. Bassett for his pre-school teacher, too; because he sure got that right about her."
"Well your daddy is kind of an expert on people who don’t have a sense of humor. He can spot them from ten miles away, and they never even see him coming."
"Mrs. Bassett doesn’t like Daddy very much. She thinks Daddy’s silly."
"I think Mrs. Bassett is silly," Danny countered.
"She’s not silly. She’s just old. But anyway, can you fix Daddy so he doesn’t get a headache at my vegetable play like he did at the Christmas pageant? Cause it isn’t fair that his headache erased my camel, because he’s the one who taught me how to spit like a camel, and he said for a whole week that he was really looking forward to seeing me spit in Mrs. Basset’s Christmas Pageant; but now he can’t even remember me spitting, and I did it just like he taught me, but it all got erased so he doesn’t remember it any more at all. So can you fix him so that doesn’t happen again this time?"
"I’ll sure give that my best shot, Sammy-Girl," Danny said quietly.
"Because that’s really not fair, Uncle Danny," she said seriously. "I think Daddy really wanted to remember that, so it’s not fair it got erased. Right?"
"Life’s not always fair," Danny said.
"But it’s always beauuuuuuuuuuutiful," she responded without missing a beat, quoting her daddy’s favorite saying the way he and Julie taught her to, pursing her lips and singing it like a long, extended howl from a tone-deaf hyena. For John, it was just one more silly way to amuse his daughter; but for Julie, it was a mantra to help her daughter cope with a daddy who forgot things other daddies didn’t, things Sammy wasn’t allowed to mention again once her daddy erased them.
"Hey, look," Danny said, tilting his head to where his wife was still standing outside the range rover, watching them through the window with a patient smile. "Aunt Sarah’s growing a beard."
"She is not."
"She is to."
"I’m going to tell her you said that."
"I mean she’s growing roots," Danny corrected. "Look, she’s growing roots right there in the driveway, and if you make her wait one more second before you go give her a hug, those roots will have grown so long and so deep that she’ll have to live in the driveway forever, and stand out in the rain and the snow and the flies, and it will be all your fault."
"It will be your fault because you’re teasing me," Sammy said.
"Uh uh. Am not."
"Uncle Danny," she said in full Sammy frustrated voice.
"Don’t Uncle Danny me, little girl. Get out there and give your Aunt Sarah a hug. And don’t forget to take your books with you; I don’t want people thinking I read about vegetables."
"I don’t have any books. I just have a sweater."
"Well take your sweater then cause I don’t want people thinking I read sweaters."
"You’re silly," Sammy announced.
"No I’m not, I’m just old. Now hop to it. Time’s ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick. Can you hear me getting older? I don’t have much time left, better hurry. Tick. Tick. Tick …"
Laughing, Sammy scrambled to grab her sweater and crawl out of the back of the rover. "Okay. Bye. Love you; kiss you; hug you." She slammed the door so hard behind her it rocked the whole vehicle, then gave her aunt an enormous bear hug around the waist before running inside to find the cookies that were always waiting for her when Uncle Danny or Aunt Sarah picked her up early from school when she didn’t know they were going to.
Danny rolled down the window as Sarah walked up to it. "Bad?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah. I won’t be home tonight."
"Okay. Anything I can do?"
"Still believe in God?"
She smiled at him. "Yes. Still do."
"Then pray. Tell Him He owes us a couple, and this would be a really great time to pay up."
"You can’t tell Him that yourself?"
"I suppose I could, but He doesn’t really listen to me any more. Got tired of being called a mother fucker, I think."
Sarah leaned over, reached through the window to kiss him. "Sometime you’re going to get struck by lightening for saying that."
"I dare Him," Danny said. Then, sticking his head out the window and looking straight up at the sky, he called, "I dare You, ya big pussy!" He waited a three beat then added, "Come on, big boy. Show me what You’ve got." He waited another couple of moments before pulling his head back into the rover and looking at his wife, one eyebrow lifting as he said, "See? Don’t you feel kind of silly now? Being all educated and shit and still believing in a myth?"
"Lightening, Danny," she said. "Big, bright, zig-zaggy stuff. If you see it coming your direction, run."
"Fuck Him. What’s He going to do? Take away someone I care about?"
Sarah reached through the open window again to rest her hand against the side of his face. "John’s going to be okay. He’s the strongest man I’ve ever met except maybe his best friend. He’ll get through this. You just have to have a little faith."
"Faith hasn’t done me a fuckload of good so far, Sarah," Danny said, his tone bitter. "Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t noticed God working in mysterious ways so much as just not working at all. At least not for us little guys who aren’t asking for donations in His name on Sunday morning cable. I’ve come to the personal conclusion that He’s a lazy, fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch who gets His large and impressive rocks off torturing people just because He can. And an abusive parent, to boot: God, the father all mother fucker. I should report Him to DFS, have them take all His children away and give them to a deity who isn’t such a mean, negligent bastard."
"I thought you didn’t believe in Him today," Sarah said gently.
"I don’t. But if I did, that’s where I’d put my money in the God pot. On the ‘fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch who gets His large and impressive rocks off torturing people’ square. Cause trust me, that’s where the payoff is. That being said and lightening being courted, I’m outta here. Watch your toes, woman."
Putting the range rover into gear, Danny backed out of the driveway.
"Hey, Father Blasphemy," Sarah called from where she was still standing.
"Yes, my wicked child?" he returned.
"I love you."
"Yeah, yeah. What the fuck ever. When you’re talking to Him tonight, tell Him it was a really pretty day, and He did a bang-up job in creating chocolate ice cream. Maybe if you suck up, He’ll show a little fucking mercy this time."
"I’ll be sure and tell Him you said hello."
"Tell Him I called Him a mother fucker, will you? But say it in a suck-up way that sounds real polite and shit."
"I can do that."
"I figured you could. I’ll call if anything changes."
"Okay. Tell Julie to hang in there."
"Right. Like I can tell Julie anything." He put the rover in gear and started to drive away. Sarah turned, heading back to the house. Fifty yards down the street, he threw the SUV into reverse and back up until he was once again in front of his own driveway.
"Hey!" he called as Sarah opened the front door to go inside.
She turned, surprised to see him back.
"You’re okay for a wicked child who believes in myths."
She laughed. "Thank you."
"So if you see any of that glowy, zig-zaggy shit coming your direction, run. Cause just on the FYI front? If I care about you, you can damn straight bet the mother fucker’s got you on His hit list. Which means - this week at least - you’re probably in some pretty serious mortal fucking danger."
"Just this week?"
"You pissed me off last week, and the jury’s still out on next week. And how can that be a bad thing, given that we’re talking about mortal danger here?"
"Good point," she agreed. "I’ll keep an eye out for sudden storms this week. Let me know what the forecast looks like for next week."
"I got a storm for you right here, baby," he said. "Big thunder, serious lightening."
She took him at his meaning, walking down the driveway to the street, crossing in front of the range rover to get to the open driver’s window. She kissed him, her hands on his face, her body leaning through the open window to show him how wicked girls who believe in myths create serious warm fronts and high pressure systems with threats of flash flooding if the weather man doesn’t quit playing games and looking for trouble.
Danny pulled her in, held on to her. The storm he taunted her with was boiling just under his skin. He was trying to keep it at bay and not entirely succeeding. Because he closed his eyes when she pulled her mouth away from his, she stayed with him, stroking his face, his neck, his chest.
When her hand moved lower, brushing his belt, he caught it, pulled it up to his face again. His eyes still closed, he held her hand, his fingers entwined with hers, putting his lips in her palm, breathing against her skin. It was a far more intimate gesture than the one she’d offered. It surprised her that he’d indulge it in public.
Danny was intensely private about their relationship. He always had been. He didn’t like to be seen for who he was. He didn’t like others knowing what - or who - was important to him and what - or who - wasn’t.
"I can find someone to watch Sammy if you want me to come with you," she offered when he hadn’t said anything for almost three minutes. "Lisa would do it. Or Pam. She knows them both, and they love her."
"No." He opened his eyes again. He kissed her palm, then gave her back her hand. "I want her with you. She’s scared enough as it is. The last thing she needs right now is to understand what’s going on any more than she already does."
"Sammy’s scared like you’re pious," Sarah said.
"She’s scared," Danny assured her. "She asked me if John’s going to erase her this time. She puts up a pretty good smart kid front; but she’s Daddy’s girl to the bone, and him being sick fucks with her world on every level she’s got."
"Is that why you were torturing her?"
"Yes. Because John isn’t here to do it, so someone has to."
"As long as you don’t teach her how to spit."
"She already knows how to do that. I was thinking about adding chewing tobacco to her skill set though."
"You do, and you’re on your own when Julie finds out."
"I’m not afraid of Julie. Just don’t tell her I said that."
She reached out, traced his eyebrow, his cheekbone, the line of his jaw with her fingertips. "Call me if you change your mind. I can have someone here in ten minutes any time of the day or night."
"9-11 Kid Call?"
"Something like that."
"Huh. If women ruled the world, bet it would work better."
"You won’t get any argument from me."
"That would be a first. I could use a little more tongue for the road if you’ve got any to spare."
She kissed him again, and kept kissing him until he pulled away this time. There was something in his eyes he didn’t want her to see, so he looked away, staring though the windshield to study the street before him.
"Call Him sir, if you think it will help," he said after a long beat. "Tell Him I’ll get on my fucking knees and lick His balls if that what He wants."
"Danny."
"This can’t happen, Sarah," he said, still staring straight ahead. "Tell Him not to let it happen. I’ll do whatever He wants. Just don’t let it happen."
"Danny," she said again, her voice gentle, worried like she didn’t think he knew he was being a fucking idiot, expecting her to be able to tell God what He could and couldn’t allow to transpire.
"Yeah, yeah," he said. "I know. But that’s what it’s come to. All that money for an education, and I’m down to offering God a blowjob for one half-assed mercy for a guy who deserves it more than anyone I’ve ever met. Ain’t life just a box of chocolates."
Sarah left his window, walking in front of the range rover again as she crossed to the passenger side, opened the door, and slid in beside him. He looked at her. His eyes were raw, his expression sharp. There was salt in the open wound of him, and he let her see it now, showed it to her in every line of his face.
It was the deepest intimacy he had to offer: letting her see him, letting her see him in pain.
"Fuck," he whispered.
She reached out, put her arms around him. He let her hold him like he was a seven year old sitting in a hospital hallway while a doctor with the empathy skills of a stone told he and Julie their mom was gone, sorry kids, you can go sit in the waiting room until your dad can come pick you up. Let her hold him like he was a first-year intern who’d lost his first patient, sitting by a friend’s back door until two o’clock in the morning, sitting there until she got home from her date, until she found him in the dark, his knees bunched to his chest, just waiting for her in the rain, waiting there because it was the only place he knew to go to find someone who would care as much about his failure as he did.
Someone who understood him enough to help him find a way to survive that failure rather than trying to tell him it wasn’t a failure when he knew it was.
He let her hold him like he was a man nearly crippled by the revelation that he would never have a child of his own, and because of that, neither would she. Let her hold him like he was a fool who’d been up for seventy six hours straight, his body shaking with exhaustion because he couldn’t stop fighting to save the life of a stranger he knew couldn’t be saved just because that man would not give up the fight. Would not die. Would not give in.
Danny pulled away from her when he could, gave her a smile that had sold a hundred grieving families on the lie that everything would get better with time, that death was a part of life and there was a chapel at the end of the hall where they could go ask God to watch over their departed loved one or call Him a fucked up, capricious, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch, if they wanted to. Personally, he liked to recommend the latter. It was much better for the blood pressure, and as long as you stayed away from lightening rods, it didn’t really have a down side. At least, not one he’d discovered so far.
"I’d better get back," he said. "I need to pick some things up at the hospital, then I’m going to try and get Julie to lie down for a while. She’s pushing herself too hard. It’s not good for her, and it’s not good for the baby."
"Try not to carry the weight of the world, Danny," she said.
"Somebody has to. I’ll call you when I can."
"I love you."
"I love you, too." The fact that he actually said it shocked her. She looked at him like he’d called her a mother fucker or something. "Oh, shut up," he said. "And get out. I’m an important man. I’ve got places to be."
Sarah leaned in, kissed him again, then slipped out of the rover and shut the door. He drove off, leaving her standing in the middle of the street, watching him go.
He went to the hospital and picked up the things he needed, then headed back to John’s. He stopped by a church on the way and spoke to a minister who knew him as a neighbor and a doctor and a civic leader and a snow shoveler, but not as a parishioner. He asked several questions about why shit happened the way it did, and whether or not someone could actually piss God off enough to get a vendetta called in on their ass. Or a jihad. Or a crusade. Or whatever the Methodist version of such things might be.
The minister looked at Danny like he thought he was kidding. Danny assured him he wasn’t, so the minister gave him a whole handful of by-the-book answers that were about as helpful as nothing. Maybe a little less helpful than nothing, even.
Most of them involved attending church every Sunday and tithing.
Because it would have done absolutely no good to say anything else, Danny told the minister that all sounded pretty reasonable to him, and then he left. He called Sarah on his cell from the rover. She said a prayer with him, her sitting in the kitchen, him sitting in the parking lot of a church. He didn’t call God a mother fucker once during the conversation, but he did call Him a sadistic son of a bitch on three separate occasions across the breadth of an eight minute prayer.
Sarah said that was quite an accomplishment. Danny told her she could be a bit of a condescending bitch when she wanted to be. She said she loved him. He said yeah, yeah, what the fuck ever, then hung up and pulled out of the church parking lot to drive the three miles back to his sister’s house, remembering the essential comfort of his wife’s arms around him in the dark, in the rain, at two o’clock in the morning, long before she’d become his wife but long after she’d become the only friend he ever had whose name wasn’t either John or Julie, on the second worst night of his life; the night he learned that sometimes it didn’t matter how hard you tried, or how much you wanted something, or how smart you were, or how much education you had, or who you knew, or who knew you, or how hard you prayed, or if you even prayed at all: sometimes bad things happened to good people.
It was a lesson Danny learned, but it was never a lesson he could accept. He couldn’t accept it because no matter what kind of vindictive, capricious, fucked up, sadistic, mother fucker of a son of a bitch God might be, he was pretty sure God existed, and God made him the way he was: someone who couldn’t give up the fight even when everyone else knew the war was already over.
But until a stranger named John rolled into his life on a gurney, cut to shit, gutted, bleeding out by the bucketful, cursing and spitting and kicking and fighting, refusing to die, refusing to give in, refusing to give up even though he was already so far gone as to be already over; he’d thought God made a mistake.
He thought God fucked up with him.
He thought he was the only one who couldn’t let it go.
Who wouldn’t let it go.
But John proved otherwise. One was a mistake. Two was a pattern. In bringing John into his ER to live instead of leaving him out in the Ochoco to die, God almost made up for the day he let Danny’s mother fade away in the hands of a doctor who didn’t care enough about the woman she was to the children who needed her to fight for her.
To not give up on her.
To not let her go.
*
Dean was leaning against the car; Mary was leaning against him. His hands were flat against her belly. The baby kicked every couple of minutes, just to let him know she knew he was there.
Danny pulled up in his range rover, idling beside them in the middle of the street, blocking traffic in both directions without giving a passing thought to doing so. Small towns: Gotta love ’em.
"Everything okay?" he asked, his eye flicking to Mary’s belly for a moment before returning to her eyes.
"We’re good," Mary said.
Danny shifted his focus to Dean. "You?"
"Yeah. I’m just fucking peachy, Danny," Dean said quietly.
"Anything from your dad?"
"No."
Danny nodded. "Probably good news."
Dean didn’t respond.
"Why don’t the two of you come back inside?" Danny said after a long beat. "I’ll call the café and have something sent over. If you haven’t eaten for as long as it looks like you haven’t slept, you could probably use a little food about now."
"Mary’s leaving," Dean said. "We’re just waiting for Meredith to get her panties packed."
Danny considered that for a long moment before commenting. "Plenty of room for everyone," he said. "I have a couple of rooms open at my place, too, if you need somewhere to go that isn’t here."
"That where you took his kid?" Dean asked.
"Sammy," Danny supplied as if Dean’s choice wasn’t a statement deliberately made.
"Right. Don’t know how I could have forgotten that one."
"There are a number of other places, too," Danny said easily. "Kyle across the street would treat you like royalty. He thinks the sun rises and sets on John. He’d do anything he could to make it convenient for you to stay close without having to sleep like sardines in a can."
"No thanks," Dean said.
Danny gave Mary a moment to respond differently, but when she didn’t, he nodded. "Okay. I’m going to call the café anyway. You want something in specific Dean, speak now or live with what I have them send. I’ll be inside if you need me. Mary, don’t drive for too long a stretch without getting out to walk around. I’m sure you already know that, but I’m a nosy sort, so thought I’d mention it anyway."
"Thank you," Mary said. Then, after a beat, she added, "For everything."
"What I’m here for." Danny shifted the rover back in gear.
"Hey," Dean said as the SUV began to roll away. "Doctor Danny."
Danny put his foot back into the break. "Yeah?"
"I’d appreciate it if you’d step aside when Meredith rolls through. This isn’t about an upgrade in accommodations, it’s about family, and Meredith isn’t one of us. She and my dad have history; she’s a complication he doesn’t need right now."
"John found Meredith charming," Danny said after a beat. "I think ‘classy’ is the word he used."
"That’s heartwarming," Dean said. "Really. It is. But my dad calls Meredith a haughty cunt - and that’s when he’s playing nice - so I have to vote for the farther away, the better. Just to be on the safe side, if nothing else."
Danny let a long moment pass, then another. "I guess that would be up to Meredith," he said finally. "And Sam."
"Sam doesn’t need her here. Meredith’s just not bright enough to realize it."
"I thought you were the one who called her, told her to come."
"I was. Things changed."
"Because you’re here now?"
Dean didn’t answer.
Danny gave him several beats of opportunity before turning to Mary to say, "Drive safe, Mary. Don’t forget what I said about stretching your legs every couple of hours."
"Do you think it’s a good idea?" Mary asked suddenly.
"What? You driving 600 miles when you’re a month shy of popping? Or you and Meredith leaving?"
"I’m not worried about the drive," she said.
Danny studied her, then Dean, then her again. "I think Sam will get along fine without Meredith," he said, conspicuous in what he didn’t say. "He seems like a pretty stable guy."
Dean snorted lightly. "Yeah. Thanks there, Doctor Danny. That was very helpful."
"What I’m here for," Danny said again. "And Dean? Don’t call me Doctor Danny. That’s what you dad calls me, and I’ll kick your ass if you do it again. We clear?"
Dean looked at him for several seconds before he nodded, saying, "Sure. Didn’t know it was a sore spot."
"It is," Danny said. "I may look all calm and well-adjusted, but your dad going down fucks me in ways I won’t even try to explain to you. Julie and I are doing our best to be respectful of what you and your brother need. You do the same for us, and we can keep the focus of this thing on John where it belongs."
"Fair enough," Dean said.
Danny inclined his head slightly at Mary by way of goodbye, then drove the block and a half to his sister’s driveway, pulled in, shut off the range rover and went inside without ever giving them another glance.
Dean and Mary watched him, saying nothing until he was several minutes gone.
"You understand why I’m asking you to go, don’t you?" Dean asked finally. "That it isn’t the same thing as wanting Meredith gone?"
It was the first thing he’d said to her since they left his father’s house. He said it near her ear, his lips brushing against her neck as he spoke.
"Yes," she lied. "I understand."
He nodded. "Good. Hate to stick you with her for the ride back, but I don’t really see any way around it. She’s not going to go unless you do, and I really don’t want you driving that far alone."
"Don’t think you’re getting off that easy," she said quietly. "Come game night, it’s lady’s choice for the next month."
Chuckling, he kissed her neck, nuzzled in behind her ear. "I can live with chick schtick for a month." He buried his face in her hair for a moment, breathing deeply, smelling the comforting familiarity of it before shifting to rest his cheek to hers again, whispering secrets near her ear, telling her things he wouldn’t even tell his brother, or his father.
Like admitting he was afraid.
Like telling her he wanted to leave too, but he couldn’t.
Not yet.
"I could drive it by myself, you know," she said. "It isn’t like it’s Australia or anything; and I’m pregnant, not a prima donna."
"I know you could. I’d just rather you didn’t."
"So I’m the sacrificial offering to get Meredith gone?"
"Pretty much."
"Two months, then."
She could hear the smile in his tone when he said, "Still a hell of a deal."
"Why do you want her gone? Other than the obvious reasons, of course."
"Like I told Doct- … Danny: This is going to be hard enough without her being part of it. I don’t want to have to work around the way she and Dad feel about each other. Not to mention the way she feels about me."
"So, basically, just the obvious reasons then? Not because you want Sam all to yourself?"
He pulled back from her a little, surprised. "You saying I’m jealous of Meredith?" he asked, studying her.
"Are you?"
"Oh. Yeah. Definitely. You caught me. If Sam just loved me half as much as he loves her, all would be right with the world."
"No need to be a bitch about it," she commented.
"Well where the fuck did that come from?"
"Just trying to understand you, baby."
He frowned at her like she was talking nonsense, then shook his head, snuggling his face back in close to hers, saying, "That’s never been your short suit. You understand me better than I understand myself most of the time."
"Not really clear on why you need Meredith out of the way," she said.
He misunderstood her, thought she was talking about Meredith. "I’m not running a game here, Mary. It really is as black and white as it looks. Dad’s fucked. He doesn’t need the added weight of Meredith looking for payback while he’s down and out, open for the kicking."
"Meredith can be a pain in the ass, but she’s not much for hurting people. Even the way you tell it, more a case of your old man doing the kicking than her. In fact, I think she’s shown a lot of restraint. If he’d done some of the things to me he’s done to her, he’d be missing a few of the more essential family jewels."
Dean smiled slightly. "You and she buddies now, are you?"
"Fuck you. You know what I’m saying."
"Yes," he agreed. "I do. And you’re right. But why take the risk? And more importantly, why risk him waking up to the sight of her and going back down for the count again, her being the one who stole Sammy away from him and all?"
"Sam wasn’t stolen. Sam left."
"You know that. I know that. Sam knows that. But dad thinks he was stolen, and that’s what matters."
"Are you afraid he’s going to think you’ve been stolen, too?" she asked.
Dean didn’t answer that immediately. She let it stand, listening, waiting for his reply as she stood with her hands on his hands on her belly.
The baby kicked.
"He broke, Mary," Dean said finally. "I saw it in his eyes. He remembered what I said to him as he was going down, and it broke him."
"What did you say to him?"
She hadn’t ever asked that. He hadn’t ever offered it.
"I told him I was leaving," Dean said after a long beat of silence. "That I was done with him. That I’d had enough, and I didn’t care whether he lived or died any more."
"You said it that way?"
"No. But he understood what I was saying. Understood it more than I did, I think."
"Did you mean it?"
"Yes." The word was less than a whisper against her skin. He said it so quietly she didn’t actually hear it, only felt it in the way his lips moved, and in the tiny exhalation of breath as it passed his lips.
"Do you still mean it?"
He shrugged, but didn’t answer.
She thought about that, staring at the lush yard across the street from where they were leaning against their car. The trees were rich with leaves, and the lawn needed a good mowing to get it down to San Jose’s Home Owner’s Associations specs and standards. The air was clean here, and it smelled fresh like pending rain.
"At least he thinks Sam was stolen," Dean said finally. "He thinks I walked away. And I don’t know how to fix that. How to make it better. To keep what I did from breaking him again or killing him. Or worse, giving him permission to kill himself."
"You can’t fix it, Dean," she said gently. "You can’t make it not have happened. All you can do is try and find your way through it."
"Not sure I can. Not sure he can."
"All you can do is try."
"What if that isn’t enough?"
"He has a family now," she reasoned. "A woman he loves. Children. Friends. A life he wants to live. He didn’t have any of those before, right? He didn’t have anything left but you."
"I turned my back on him," Dean said.
Mary sighed. "My point is that it isn’t completely up to you any more. He has other things in his life that mean something now. Other things he wants to live for."
"My point is that I turned my back on him," Dean said again.
"You tried to find him for over a year. That’s hardly turning your back."
"I gave up on him when I found you."
She considered that for a long moment before responding. "Is that why you don’t want me here?" she asked finally. "Because you think you replaced him with me?"
"Isn’t that what I did?"
She turned a little in his arms, looked at him, watched his eyes as she said, "No. It isn’t, Dean."
"That’s how he’ll see it."
"I don’t care how he sees it. You don’t have to chose between us. He’s your father. I’m your wife. You don’t have to give up one to have the other."
"I’d chose you," Dean said.
"I don’t want you to chose me."
"I would," he said.
And then she understood. She understood exactly why he was sending her away.
"You’re kidding me." She turned a little more in his arms, studying him a little more intently. "You don’t trust yourself?"
"I would," he repeated. "I love you, Mary. I love what we have. I can’t do without that again. I can’t. I won’t."
"You don’t have to."
"If he doesn’t remember her … if all he remembers is my mother …." Dean’s voice trailed off to nothing.
"You don’t have to chose between us," Mary said again.
"I can’t be that for him again," Dean whispered. "I don’t want to any more. I have my own life, now. I want to keep that more than I want him back."
"You don’t have to choose," she said a third time.
"I think I do," he confessed to her.
"And that’s what you’re afraid of?"
"Yes."
"Then choose him, Dean. For heaven’s sake, choose your father."
"No. He isn’t who I need. Who I want."
"You do need him," she argued. "He’s everything to you, and you know it."
"He isn’t everything," Dean said. "You are."
"I don’t want to be everything," she countered a little sharply. "I want to be your wife, the mother of your children; but I don’t want to be everything. You need your father. He and Sam have defined you for longer than I’ve even known you. So if you feel like you have to choose between us, then choose him. Put a big number one on his chest and call him The One. Because no matter who you choose, Dean; I’m always going to be here. I’m not leaving. I love you. I’m having your child. There’s nothing that can get in the way of that. Not your father. And not you."
He didn’t answer her.
"Do you understand me, Dean?" she pressed. "Do you understand what I’m saying to you?"
"Yes," he said.
She turned in his arms until she was facing him. With her belly between them, intimacy was awkward; but she reached out, one hand hooking behind his neck, pulling him to her. "No you don’t," she said. She kissed him then, like he usually kissed her. She didn’t give him any distance, didn’t give him any buffer to mitigate the raw need in her mouth, the demand of it, the hunger in the way every ounce of her body told him she was starving for everything he had to offer.
She left fingerprints on his neck and on the side of his face when she finally let him go. Trembling, she watched him try to remember how to breathe. He was holding on to her arms, his fingers digging into her flesh like he thought losing this moment might be the worst thing that could ever happen.
"I’m not El," she whispered, her tone so fierce it cut him. "I’m not Arianna. You don’t get to choose with me, Dean Winchester. You want to choose somebody? You choose you father, because he’s the only one available for that game. I’m here. I’m staying here. I need you, Dean. Not want you. Need you." She grabbed his face again, her fingertips white with the pressure of them against his skin. "The way Sam needs you," she said, glaring into his eyes. "That’s the way I need you. I can’t live without you. I won’t live without you. And nothing about your father changes that. Nothing."
She kissed him again, and he met her there. For a moment, the only thing between them was the memory of a truth known in a single realization. An epiphany as he held her against him - trembling, stunned, a little frightened of the intensity of her body in his hands - that a one night stand had just turned to love in the fucking of it. That laughter and bad sex had turned to something so far beyond good sex it couldn’t be measured in the same context; that it had turned to marriage, to a life, to a family, to a future.
For just a moment, they were both there again, four years ago, lying in her bed, alone in their togetherness; both of them remembering the feel of it, the feel of how everything before that moment and everything after it were two completely different lives.
She broke away from his lips, from his tongue, from his teeth. Unlocked by the key of that single memory, she could see straight through the open door of him to the broken child he’d always been simply by looking into his eyes and needing him.
"Do you understand me, Dean?" she whispered. "I’m not leaving. I won’t leave. You can choose him, and I’m still here. I will always be here. Nothing changes that. Not your dad. Not you. Nothing. It isn’t a choice. It isn’t something you get to choose. It just is. It is, Dean. It is."
He was staring at her. He didn’t say anything, didn’t speak.
"Do you understand me?" she demanded more fiercely.
"Okay," he breathed.
"Not okay. Tell me you understand."
"I understand."
She studied him, tried to read him. And failed. Her heart was pounding. She could always read him. Everything Dean needed was in his eyes. He’d never been able to lie to her because he couldn’t hide what was in his eyes.
But she couldn’t see it now. She couldn’t see what he needed, what he wanted. For the first time since they met, she couldn’t see anything in his eyes that told her how to play him, how to help him, how to love him.
She realized suddenly it was because, for the first time since they met, he could see those things in her eyes.
"I understand," he said again, putting his hands on her face, kissing her gently, tenderly, a contrast of light to dark from how she’d kissed him. "I get it. I’m slow sometimes, but I’m not stupid. I get it."
"You’d better," she said.
"I do." His lips were on hers, tasting her as he spoke, pulling at her, teasing her, seducing her instead of fucking her. "You’re the boss. You get to choose. I’m just the guy along for the ride." The way his mouth owned her, the way his fingers comforted her and his eyes loved her reminded Mary why the thought of losing him made her frantic when nothing else she’d ever experienced even scared her.
"Remember that," she said.
"I will," he agreed. "I promise."
The door to John’s house opened. Meredith stepped out, rolling a suitcase behind her. Sam followed, the swing of his scanning gaze finding them before he’d fully cleared the threshold. He walked their direction as Meredith continued down the driveway to her rental.
"Here comes Sam," Mary said, watching her brother-in-law draw closer with every step.
"Fuck him," Dean said. "He can get his own ride."
He was still kissing her when Sam reached them; still kissing her while Sam stood around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other; still kissing her when Sam said, his voice quiet with long-suffering tolerance, "PG-13 neighborhood, guys. The NC-17 one’s around the block and down the street."
"Fuck you, Sammy," Mary said.
Meredith drove up in her rental. She stopped in the middle of the street, waiting for Dean and Mary to finish their goodbyes, to finish the kinds of intimacies they indulged whenever the spirit struck them, a sharp contrast to the polite decorums that marked the boundaries of Sam and Meredith’s public relationship.
"I’m going to stop at every gas station and rest stop between here and Portland," Mary told her sister-in-law when she finally left Dean’s arms. "You want to just meet up at the rental return?"
"I’m not in any hurry," Meredith said. "I’ll stop with you."
Mary nodded. Taking the keys Dean handed her, she said, "Three."
Dean smiled. "I thought we agreed on two."
"You want to haggle now?"
"No, ma’am."
"Three then."
"Three," he agreed.
He laid his hands flat against Mary’s belly. The baby kicked him. "That’s my girl," Dean said as he stepped back, opening the car door for Mary, then closed it again once she’d settled into the driver’s seat. Mary started the car, rolled down the window.
"I’ll call you," Dean assured her.
"You’d better."
He kissed her one last time through the open window, then stepped back so she could pull a U-turn and follow Meredith down the narrow, tree-lined street. Sam and Dean stood by the curb, watching them drive away.
"Three what?" Sam asked.
"Months," Dean answered.
"Of what?"
"Toys."
Sam grinned. "I think I’ll stop while I’m ahead."
"Good choice," Dean said.
Together, they walked back to their father’s house.
*