SPN FIC - Mary, Did You Know?
Have some more! Because patience is occasionally overrated.
I might get Kripked at least to some extent by 3.08, but figure this comes before that and after Fresh Blood. The quotes from John's journal are canon: it's a bonus feature on the Season 1 DVDs and you can find it all transcribed here.
He was good at puzzles. There wasn’t a puzzle in existence that he couldn’t work his way through. Except the one that mattered. Except the one that would cost him Dean.
Characters: Sam, Ruby, Dean (by phone)
Pairings: none
Rating: PG, for language
Length: 2318 words
Spoilers: specifically, AHBL, Sin City; generally, anything up through Fresh Blood
Disclaimer: Nope. No money. Just melancholy.
Mary, Did You Know?
By Carol Davis
Ruby was behind him, two or three pews back.
There was just no way Sam was going to turn around and acknowledge her. If he did, she’d greet him with that smug little smile, the one that said I see all, I know all, I’m your Magic 8-Ball.
She’d followed him all the way here from the motel, staying a dozen paces behind as he walked through gently falling snow, from avenue to narrow side street to another side street, back to avenue. At one point he caught a glimpse of her reflected in a store window - then saw her look at herself in the glass of a different window, more curious than preening. It made him wonder if she’d deliberately selected the body she’d stolen, or if the girl had simply - unfortunately - been handy. Either way, she was pretty, young, normal, to anyone who might pass her by.
She could have been one of Jess’s friends. One of his friends.
Maybe, in her demon version of logic, she thought she was his friend. Showing up when he needed a hand. Offering the carrot he couldn’t resist: the chance to save Dean.
A couple of times over the past few months, he’d thought that if he managed not to piss her off, she’d become comfortable enough to let things slip. To tell him what she really wanted. Or at least give him enough of a hint that he could puzzle it out himself.
He’d been good at puzzles, as far back as he could remember. Liked grabbing a pencil and tracing his way out of the maze in the kids’ section of the Sunday paper. Crosswords and word scrambles when he was old enough to have the words handy in his head. Rubik’s Cube? No big deal. And the hunting…
Dad’s face the first time Sam put together the pattern behind a series of deaths before he did?
Priceless.
He was good at puzzles. There wasn’t a puzzle in existence that he couldn’t work his way through.
Except the one that mattered.
Except the one that would cost him Dean.
Silently, Sam shifted up from a seat worn smooth by generations of backsides and knelt on the narrow strip of floor between pews, folded hands resting on the lip of the seatback in front of him.
Closed his eyes.
“Don’t let me interrupt your little chat,” Ruby said. “I’ll just sit here and read.”
She was like a drunk at a golf tournament, blurting out comments when the guy who’s trying desperately to take the lead is in mid-swing.
Hell, she was like Dean.
Nope, not fair. Dean’s occasional ass-hattedness wasn’t mean. Annoying, yeah. Frustrating, yeah. But not cruel.
It had surprised Sam only a little when, a few seconds after the heavy door of the church had swung shut behind him, it squeaked open again to admit Ruby. In theory, nothing that had crawled up out of Hell could cross the threshold of holy ground, but that theory had more loopholes than a contract slapped together by a fifty-buck-an-hour lawyer. In truth, the sanctity of God’s house didn’t stop much of anything above the rodent level of Hellspawn.
“What’s the matter, Sam?” she asked. “You’re twitching.”
He ground out, “I thought maybe you’d -“
“Let you pray in peace? Fine by me. Say hi to the big fella for me.”
“It’d be a lot more peaceful if you’d get out. Unless you’ve got something to say.” The space between the pews was too confined to allow him to swing around as purposefully as he would have liked, but he did manage to get to his feet without looking like a newborn giraffe falling over its own legs. He and Ruby made faces at each other for a minute - his pinched and impatient, hers coy and winsome - until he saw that she had indeed pulled a Bible out of the book rack and had it lying open on her lap.
“I like the stories,” she told him. “They’re very…colorful.”
“I imagine the Book of Revelation is a big crowd-pleaser down below.”
“I like the earlier ones better. The ones with all the begatting. They were horny little bunnies back in those days, weren’t they? Hundreds of children? That’s impressive.” She paused, winding up for the punch line. “But my real favorite? Cain and Abel. The drama, the violence, the bloodshed. Brother against brother. It’s like HBO.”
“Make your point,” Sam said.
“You walked out on Dean. All the poor guy was trying to do was enjoy his movie.”
“I needed some peace and quiet.”
Ruby nodded contemplatively. “The Omen might not have been the best choice for a relaxing afternoon,” she agreed. “But you’ll get yourself into trouble identifying with it too much. Really, Sam? It wasn’t your fault your mother died.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Oh, Sam. Demons lie. Don’t you have that tattooed on you somewhere?”
“You also tell the truth. When it suits you.”
“You break my heart. Really, you do. I come to you willing to help you out with the one thing that matters most to you, and what do I get? Suspicion. Distrust. You’ve fought me every step of the way.”
“Because you still haven’t told me -“
“What you don’t need to know.”
“Then how do I trust you?” Sam demanded. “Huh? I’m supposed to just follow you blindly, without any proof that you can do what you claim you can do?”
“I helped Bobby fix the Colt.” When Sam didn’t respond with anything more than a silent glower, Ruby glanced up at the vaulted ceiling of the sanctuary. “You don’t have any proof that God can do what they claim He can do. It’s just a lot of hearsay, if you ask me. I gave you something you can lay your hands on: the Colt. That ought to be worth a few points.” Smiling absently, she got up from the pew and strolled up the aisle to the altar. The church was small enough that when she reached it, she could still address Sam without raising her voice. “You haven’t said anything to Dean, have you? About your mother.”
“No.”
“That everyone she might have confided in is dead.”
“No,” Sam said again.
“Because it would kill him.”
“He doesn’t need to know.”
“That your mother might not have been what he believes she was?” When Sam flinched, she told him, “Tales have been told around the campfire about the lovely Mary Winchester.”
The struggle to keep his face impassive was worthy of Pay Per View. “What did they say?”
“That she was…special. That she might have dreamed about the yellow-eyed demon long before you did. That she was in the habit of writing things down.” Ruby tipped her head back and closed her eyes for a minute, basking in a sun that wasn’t shining even outside. “I told you: someone’s good at covering their tracks. There’s nothing like a nice, cleansing fire to destroy evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“I think you know.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“And you say demons lie.” She was chuckling softly as she walked back down the aisle. When she reached Sam she rested a small, neatly manicured hand flat against his chest. “I’ll leave you to your devotion. You should have the church to yourself for quite a while. Four days till Christmas - the faithful are probably still bitching their way through the mall. You should have plenty of time to figure things out. Assuming that’s even possible.”
A minute later she was gone. Gone out the door, like a normal human - but Sam knew that if he pulled the door open and looked up and down the street, he’d find no trace of her. The footprints in the snow on the church steps would all lead up to the door; there would be none going back down.
How she could do that…
He sank down into the pew she’d been sitting in and looked blearily at the Bible she’d left lying open on the seat.
Evidence.
Evidence of…
His father had looked for evidence for weeks, in what was left of their house in Lawrence. He’d combed the wreckage again and again, in the company of police and insurance investigators and without them. Came away from it with some toys, a few photos, a gun that he began tucking underneath his pillow at night.
Mary used to write in these books she kept by the bed. She said it helped her remember the little things, about the boys, me… I wish I could read her journals, but like everything else, they’re gone. Burned into nothing… even our safe - the safe with Mary’s old diaries…all gone. How could my house, my whole life, go up like that, so fast, so hot? How could my wife just burn up and disappear?
“All the little things, Mom?” Sam said softly. “What did you write down? What was so important that you had to write it down to remember it - and then lock it in a safe?”
I wish I could read her journals, but like everything else, they’re gone.
Burned into nothing.
How could my wife just burn up and disappear?
None of that had burned up: it was all written down in John Winchester’s untidy hand in the leather-covered journal he had passed on to Dean. The journal that seemed to not say as much as it did say.
“Did you know, Dad?” Sam whispered. “You knew about me. Did you know about her?”
The fire leapt out…like someone was controlling it.
How could my house go up like that, so fast, so hot? How could…
I wish I could have seen her diary. Maybe it would clue me in to some of her secrets.
Some of her secrets…
With the book in his hands Sam walked quietly up the aisle and sat down in the pew at the front. The wood creaked a little under his weight.
“Why does it have to go that far?” he asked softly. “Why can’t he hold on to the one thing he needs from back then? He thinks she was perfect. Why does that have to be wrong? He can’t have just that one thing?”
He remembered Dean slamming him up against the cold metal of a bridge.
“Don’t you talk about her like that.”
“She was never perfect. If she was human, she had flaws. But he didn’t see any of that. If she gossiped about people, or spent too much money on clothes, or wasn’t that great a cook…it wouldn’t matter. Dad didn’t give him what he needed, his whole life. But Mom… He wanted to hold on to her. And she knew the fucking demon? What is that?”
He remembered his mother’s face in the vision the demon had shown him: the “instant replay” of that night in his nursery. There was conflict in her eyes. Fear, yes, but something more. Anger? Disgust?
“It’s you.”
A lie? Not a lie?
“You caught me in a charitable mood.”
Sam’s hands moved over the cover of the book, its pebbled surface smooth and thin in spots, in others turned darker by the oils of touch.
Funny how all were welcome in this place.
How all but the lowest kinds of Hellspawn could walk right through the door.
Of course, he’d had to pick the lock first.
Funny how no one had come to question him.
He began to wonder if, after he had left, there would be any footprints at all in the snow on the church steps.
The ringtone of his cell phone made him flinch. He let it ring a couple of times, keyed it on just before the call would have gone to voicemail.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“The hell’d you go, man? I’ve been looking all over the place. Where are you?”
Why can’t he have what he needs? That one small thing. The thing he keeps safe from everybody.
“Where are you?” he countered.
“Uh…shit, I don’t know. In front of some bar. I thought we were gonna hang out, man. I bought stuff. Pizza. Where the hell are you?”
“Go back to the motel. I’ll be there in a little while.”
“Sam,” Dean said firmly. “Don’t jack with me, man. My leg hurts like a bitch, and the cold ain’t helping.”
“Then go back to the motel.”
After a moment of silence, Dean said, “Did I say something? I mean…fuck, Sammy, we can’t do this. I’m trying, man. Really. I’m trying the best I can.”
“I know.”
“Then what’d you get up and walk out for?”
Because even if I save you, I can’t save you from everything. I don’t know if I can save you from the thing that might hurt you the worst.
“It’ll take me maybe twenty minutes to walk back there. Go back where it’s warm.”
More silence, then, “I’m tryin’, Sam.”
“Yeah. I know. Go back. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
He snapped the phone shut before Dean could say anything more.
I wish I could read her journals, but like everything else, they’re gone. How could my house, my whole life, go up like that, so fast, so hot?
Sam laid the book down on the pew and stood up. His height seemed to give him a lot of distance from the worn, stained cover, the words it held inside. He looked around slowly, at winter-dim light streaming through colored glass, at the rows of empty wooden seats. If anyone had seen him tampering with the doors, they’d done nothing about it. Maybe no one had realized the doors were locked, or thought he was anything but a soul in need of comfort.
Without a key, he couldn’t lock the doors on the way out. But maybe that was just as well.