SPN: "Through the Fire and Flames," Chapter 5
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The family didn't so much return to the house as storm it. The last time Sam had felt the air change like that, there had been a demon involved.
"Uncle Sammy!" someone in the confusion shrieked. Before he could check to see if his ears were bleeding, a child launched herself out of the chaos, straight into his arms. She was starting to get some height on those leaps.
"Hi, Parasite," he gasped, trying to get Ananda's weight settled so that her knee wasn't permanently lodged in his diaphragm, and that was all the encouragement she needed to start chattering at top speed.
And then two more small children slammed into his legs.
Of course. Where Parasite went, Chaos and Mayhem were sure to follow. If Nyssa's father's rights ever did get terminated, Sam might never come to this house again.
"Have fun camping?" he asked, and got something screechy and happy-sounding in answer. "Whatcha got?" He ducked the-er-whatever-it-was Ananda was waving. It looked like a stick wrapped in felt.
"I made you a present!"
Shit. Where the hell was Dean? Or even Marcy?
Dean had just rolled into the room. He took one look, and drove out of traffic and parked. By the grin, he could only be waiting to see Sam's reaction.
Sam stifled a sigh and accepted the-doll?-gingerly. It was exactly what he'd thought at first: a stick that branched in two at the bottom, with pipe cleaners for arms and wrapped in felt for clothes. A piece of bark had been glued to one end for a face. Sam assumed it was meant to be his face, given the mixed brown and green glitter used for the eyes, the black mark that cut diagonally across it, and the unkempt fuzzy stuff serving as the doll's hair. Where the hell did you even find brown glitter?
"Unca Sammy!" Kara said, and shoved another makeshift doll into his hands. It was almost identical to Ananda's, except that this one had green glitter eyes, a gold bead on a string around its "neck," a twig cane in one pipe-cleaner hand, and the fuzzy stuff was shorter. It must be intended to represent Dean.
He eyed Nyssa suspiciously, but all she had was a rock painted black. A rock that was vaguely shaped like-
"'Pala!" she shouted (and if his ears weren't bleeding this time, it was a miracle).
Sam glared at his brother across the room. Glitter? he mouthed.
Dean only shrugged, and pointed at Marcy as she walked by. Arts and crafts, he mouthed back.
And then Sam saw the fresh new cast on Dean's leg. "You broke it again?" he demanded.
"It was last night, Sam, calm down. We stopped by a clinic on the way back in and Marcy's already made the appointment for tomorrow. C'mon, guys, you gave him his presents, now go unload your stuff." Ananda hopped down and Kara and Nyssa let go, Nyssa shoving the rock into his now-free hand as she went, and the Trio scampered for the garage.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with these?" Sam hissed.
"Well, you can either play with them, Samantha-" Sam growled. "-or you can put them on the mantel and dust them occasionally. Dude, they're presents. Do what you normally do with knickknacks." He glanced around, but everybody seemed to be managing the unloading well. "Quick, in here," he said, and wheeled into the dining room. "Shut the door."
Sam obeyed, confused, but it gave him a chance to set his handful of makeshift toys on the table. Nyssa's rock Impala was better-painted than he'd thought; it even had white-paint "chrome" in the right places. "Did you-" He looked up.
Dean had gotten between him and the door. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"You two getting along better?"
Of course. He'd known they'd have this conversation, he'd just expected Dean to get everybody into the house first. Sam sighed inwardly and pulled out a chair.
"Oh, shit," Dean said as Sam sat down. "This can't be good."
"She's your kid. It's fucking complicated."
"Great, now I'm proud and scared."
Sam had nothing to say to that. "We had a talk the day after her second nightmare. We've...come to an agreement."
"Sam-"
"We're not going to be friends. Not now, maybe not ever. Just-accept that."
"But-"
"Dean. You need to accept this."
"You're family!" Dean protested. "You can't act like-"
"We can be civil to each other, and she's not running away from me anymore, and that's all that matters," Sam said, with way more conviction than he actually felt. "Trying to force more won't help either one of us, and it'll just make her hate me. She's not as scared as she was. Be happy with that."
"But-" Dean clearly couldn't get his head wrapped around this. "You're family," he said again, a little helplessly.
And that was the problem, just like Hannah said. For Dean, family was everything, and their family had been so small, he just couldn't comprehend the idea of not being close. "That's not an automatic solution," Sam said. "Maybe we can work towards something more, between her growing up and me marrying Hannah. Maybe she can get used to me. Just don't force it. I don't want to wind up the Sean to her Marcy."
Dean made a show of shuddering. "I don't think anybody wants that. Two of them in the family is more than enough."
"Amen." Sam picked up Ananda's doll and fiddled with the pipe-cleaner arms. "There is one thing you need to know."
"About what the problem is?"
"No. She's going to have to tell you that on her own." That was one confidence Sam had no intention of breaking. It would destroy their little truce, and he might never earn another one. "But there is something you need to know. About why she won't tell you herself."
"Which is?"
"She thinks if she does, if you find out, you'll send her back."
Dean just stared at him. "What?"
"It-this thing- She thinks it's enough that, because she's not perfect-" It was very hard to find words with Dean looking at him that murderously. Sam focused on the doll. "She thinks if you find out, you'll cancel the adoption-"
"That's not possible."
"She's scared, Dean, it doesn't have to make sense. She honestly thinks you'll send her back to the foster system. Because the poltergeist is gone now, so it wouldn't be risking lives to do it."
"She can't possibly-"
"Dean, she's more terrified of that than she is of me." He hesitated. Made himself put the doll down and look his brother in the eye. "It turns out it's not just me, by the way. It's also T.J."
"T.J.?" Dean's eyes darkened-undoubtedly as he thought back over any time Rissa and T.J. had been in the house together. "Fuck," he finally whispered. "You're right. She avoids him like- He's just never home anymore. But the two of you don't have-"
The words skidded to a stop. For all that Dean constantly downplayed his intelligence, he wasn't stupid, especially when it came to his kids. "Shit," he muttered. "Shit, shit, shit! She sees fire, doesn't she? Nothing else would make her react the way she does."
Sam had only said he wouldn't tell. He'd said nothing about not confirming it if Dean guessed. "I don't know how, but yeah. I told her I wouldn't tell you."
"Jesus Christ! I thought that fucker was done making our lives miserable when we fucking killed him!" By the look in his eyes, Dean wanted to hit something-but there was only the table, and that thing was so massive it would probably do more damage to him. "No fucking wonder she runs, if she thinks it means something's-"
"I explained. As best I could, anyway. That we killed it and it wouldn't be coming after us-or her. But...."
"She has no reason to trust you, not if she's seeing fire." Dean gave up and slammed his fist into the table. "Fuck."
"Dean-"
"No, I'm okay. I mean, I will be. Just-" He shook his head. "Every fucking time, man. Every time I think we are done with that goddamned fucker, something else comes up. First it was T.J., now this-"
"There won't be any more," Sam reminded him quietly.
"No, but that still leaves us with fixing the damage the asshole already did. God." Dean took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself down. "I wish she'd said something. Anything. If I'd known, I wouldn't have-"
"And I wouldn't have let you," Sam said, cutting off the guilt. "But we didn't know, and the damage has been done, and- Sorry, Dean, but I'm just the uncle. Fixing this one is your job."
Dean gave him a sour glare. "I'm so gonna remind you of this when that kid turns out to be a girl and you get stuck living with two Reynolds women."
Sam cringed. He could barely handle one. "You don't mean that."
"Right now? I sure as hell do." He sighed. "I hate it when you're right. But- We'll fix it. Somehow. I just don't know where she'd get the idea that we'd send her back because of a little wacky vision. Especially after Ananda and Kara. I mean, she's seen what they do, it took us weeks to get it through Kara's head that it was dangerous to play with Rissa's needles, not to mention just how annoyed it made Rissa."
"I don't think she got it from you, if that helps."
Dean snorted. "It actually doesn't, Sammy, but thanks for trying." He leaned back in his chair. "Is there any good news?"
"Your guest room is a guest room again, and free of Lisa's shit, and I even managed to air it out a little so it doesn't smell like a nursing home. Do I need to turn in my keys?"
"Keep 'em. You'll wind up back over here."
"I will?"
"Everybody else married to a pregnant Reynolds has. Including Deb. Why should you be special?"
"Thanks. I think."
"They wind up here because Marcy won't lecture them the way the others will. And you will get kicked out at least once. In fact, you might want to go back and make the guest room bed, unless you plan on sleeping upstairs."
"Oh." That was...less than reassuring. "At least nobody will be in the bed who's not supposed to be."
Dean grinned. "What are you going to do without Ananda sneaking in every night?"
"Enjoy my sleep."
"Like Hannah's gonna let you sleep."
"She's pregnant. Eventually- What?"
Dean just smirked at him. "Yeah, you should probably ask Andy about how he and Kim scandalized the hell out of some poor ultra-conservative Southern Baptist nurse right after they got her checked in. Come to think of it, I think that's how David and Jenn jump-started labor when she went-"
"God, Dean, I don't need to know that!" If nothing else, Sam needed to be able to look his in-laws in the eye.
"She's a Reynolds, Sam. You so do. The things Third can tell-"
"Dean! I am not listening to stories about my future mother-in-law's sex life!"
"Oh, you won't have a choice. Once you guys announce your surprise, they'll all be trying to warn you. I think Nick has slides." He grinned-the scary kind of grin that meant Dean was planning something. "Don't worry. Me and Ash will make sure the bachelor party is a horror-story-free zone."
"Oh, God," Sam groaned, and considered beating his head against the dining table. He hadn't even thought about the possibility of a bachelor party, let alone that Dean was conniving with Ash-and probably Bobby and the future in-laws-on it. "Why won't she let us elope?"
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Do you honestly think you'll get off that easy?"
***
To be honest, Dean wasn't sure if he'd won or lost the coin toss.
The Three Stooges had been wild ever since they got home, to the point that even Maggie and the boys had skedaddled to their rooms and locked the doors. And Ananda hadn't even noticed that Uncle Sammy was gone yet. She'd noticed that he wasn't at dinner, of course, but that wasn't unusual these days. What she was going to do when she figured out that he wasn't living here anymore....
Anyhow, Marcy had gotten the bed-and-bath roundup with them, even though it was cheating to toss all three of them in the same bath. He got Rissa.
Under any other circumstances, this would have called for both of them-but this wasn't something he wanted to let fester another night. Neither did Marcy. Marcy would corner Rissa for her own talk, and there'd still be a full conference at some point, but lancing this infection now was more important than who dealt with it.
Rissa's door was propped open a little, which was unusual. Maybe she'd just missed the noise. Dean didn't know how, but after a couple of weeks of silence, he supposed it was possible. Maybe she just wanted the reassurance that the family was back.
He knocked and pushed the door open far enough that he could see in. She wasn't reading, which he'd expected at this time of night, but was sitting in the old armchair Anne and Third had donated for a stitch chair, with her craft lamp angled straight into the pile of gauzy white fabric that filled her lap. "Hey, little phoenix," he said. "Can I come in?"
"Sure." She stuck her needle in the arm of the chair and started to fumble her way to the bottom of that armful of cloth so that she could get up.
"Stay there, I got it," he told her, and proceeded to prove it, getting the chair into the room and closing the door behind him. Dean couldn't do this with a lot of the kids, especially with his less-maneuverable upstairs chair, but the fall hazard presented by her bad leg forced Rissa to keep the clutter to a minimum. "This your project for camp?" he asked, and she nodded. "Don't guess you'd want to tell me what it is?"
"It's a present."
"Not for me, I hope." She gave him a look that she had definitely learned from her mother. Clearly it wasn't. "Shouldn't you have it in one of those hoop thingies?"
What? He paid attention.
"The fabric's too fragile."
"Fragile, huh? Well, at least I know it's not for Sage. That boy's kind of a klutz." That got him a snicker. "Anyway, I thought you might want to know your uncle is officially moved out," he went on. "He's all your aunt's problem now." She tried, but she couldn't hide her relief at that announcement. "He said the two of you had come to an understanding. But he wouldn't tell me what. He said that was between you and him."
"Oh."
"Wanna let me in on the secret?"
"It's nothing-"
Oh, sure, make me pull out the Daddy Voice. "Rissa."
She caved. "I won't run out of the room or hide anymore, and he won't try to sit beside me or talk to me."
"That's it?"
"For now."
That went with what Sam had said, about it maybe easing off as the years went by. It was ridiculous, of course, they were family, they shouldn't be-
Then again, like Sam said, they could be like Marcy and Sean. Maybe it was better this way. "I know you had an attack while we were gone," he said. "Was it something he did?" He didn't think it was, but he needed to make sure. Anything that could trigger one of her attacks needed to be handled carefully.
"Oh, no," she said, so quickly that he knew she wasn't lying. "They were showing us a burn test, but whenever we sat in the back, Sage's crutches kept sticking out in the aisle and people were tripping, so Mrs. Kinsey insisted he sit up front so he could lay them on the floor without anybody stumbling, and-"
"And of course you couldn't let Sage sit up front without you," Dean finished, and managed to not roll his eyes.
"He was having trouble with his crutches," she protested.
"Still, maybe next time let him handle the burn test on his own, okay? Friends understand your limits."
"He didn't ask, Dad, I just didn't think about it. Don't take it out on him."
"Me?" he asked innocently, and got that Marcy look again. "You about to a stopping place? It's almost bedtime, and we-"
She froze, the way she always did when presented with a threat. "I-" She stopped.
"What is it, little phoenix?" Sam wouldn't tell him what the problem was that made her think they'd send her back, but had he somehow convinced Rissa to tell them?
"Dad-" Her voice shook. "I need to show you something."
"Something with the stitching?"
"No. Something-" She hesitated, looking down at her burned fingers. "Something else."
This was definitely not good. "You can tell me anything, Rissa, you know that," he said, keeping his voice steady, reassuring.
She shook her head. "Not tell. It'll be easier if-if I show you."
"Show me?"
She nodded, and carefully folded up her project-then handed him the little book-thing that she used for her needles. "Hold this," she said.
Dean looked at her. "Just hold it? That's all?"
"Just hold it." She switched off the craft lamp, then walked over to the switch for the overhead light. "Ready?"
"Ready for what?"
"Just hold the needle case. Switch it between your hands a few times."
"I don't-" The lights went out, leaving him stranded in a room as pitch-black as demon eyes. Not so much as the glimmer of electronic light. It was what she'd insisted on having, from the time she moved in, but he hadn't realized just how thick the darkness was in here. "Munchkin, not that I don't trust you, but this is kind of creepy."
"Just a minute," she said.
"Oookay." He sat there, in the darkness, flipping the needle case from right to left and back again, wondering what the hell was-
Scarred fingers touched his hands, stopping the movement, and took the needle case. They didn't fumble, and she wasn't feeling around for it. She shouldn't have known which hand he had the thing in, either. It was almost like she could see. "What the-"
The craft lamp flared on-the craft lamp, not the overhead light, and that was not only on the other side of the room from the main switch, if she'd tried to walk a straight line for it, she would've had to walk through him. Rissa stood there, holding the needle case, looking at him with-fear? Worry? "How did you pull that off?"
"I keep the room neat so you can come in," she said, and there was honest-to-God fear in her voice, "not so I don't trip. I can walk through Maggie's in the dark without hitting anything."
There was no way anybody could get through Maggie's room in the dark without breaking their neck, unless.... "You can see in the dark," he realized, and she nodded miserably. "Both eyes?" Another nod. That would certainly explain why she had never reacted to losing the sight in that eye the way the docs said she should; she'd only lost normal vision. "And you see fire around your uncle and T.J.-no, he didn't rat you out, I guessed. That about it?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He hadn't seen her this terrified since-since the hospital, before he explained what a poltergeist was and gave her the octopus and told her how the jade inside would keep it away. "Rissa, is this what you're worried about? This is why you think we'll send you back?" Her head jerked up. "Hey, I said Uncle Sammy didn't talk about why you don't like him, not that he didn't tell me anything else."
"I'm not normal."
"Of course you're not," he said, and her bad arm jerked. "You're a Winchester, little phoenix. Normal's just not something we do. Actually, all things considered, you're kinda screwed on both sides. Sorry about that."
"But- I can-"
"Rissa." He rubbed his temple. "You're not the only one in the family with powers. I know it's not something we talk about-"
"Ananda and Kara, and I know that's why-"
"Well, actually, no. That's not why we adopted them. We adopted them for the same reason we adopted you. You're ours, Rissa. You were from the second Bill brought us your case. When we saw you- You weren't just a little phoenix, you were our little phoenix."
"Because no one else would take me."
She stretched her burned fingers as she said that, and it didn't take a genius to follow her line of thought. "No, because you were ours. Nobody else was going to get a chance to get you."
"Kara and Ananda need you-"
"And you don't?" he asked gently. "I know you're thirteen and you think you can take care of yourself, but trust me, little phoenix, you can't. Not yet."
"No, I don't think that! I know better! That's why-" She choked on the words, the tears overflowing.
"C'mere, sweetheart." She practically lunged into his open arms, and he squeezed her tight. "You are never getting rid of us," he told her. "No matter what. Not me, not your mother, not your brothers or sisters. Not when you go to college, not when you move out, not even when you get married. Not if you see fire, or see the future, or if you give birth to a spice rack because you marry that klutzy little geek named for turkey seasoning." That got a weak giggle. "You are always going to be ours, even if you decide you don't want to be."
"Never," she vowed, and her arms around him tightened, the right almost as strong as the left.
"Besides," he said, when she finally let go, "now that I know what you can do, you are going to have a much more important job as part of your chores." She blinked at him. "Somebody in this house has to be able to get the generator started up when the power goes out at night, especially since the flashlights keep wandering off. How 'bout I show you how tomorrow?"
"Okay."
"And maybe, just maybe, you can try calling your uncle by his name? Instead of him?"
She looked down at her feet. "I'll try," she said, "but no promises."
"You've been around your mother too long," he said, "but points for honesty." There was a yell out in the hall, followed by what sounded like a stampede, then enough shrieks to make a banshee wince. "Think your mom needs help, or were we just invaded by very loud elephants?"
"I think Mom needs help," she said dryly, "and you'd probably better get in there before she has to yell for you."
"I always knew you were the smart one," he said. "We'll talk more about this when your mom's not got her hands full, okay?" She nodded. "Don't stay up too late."
"I won't."
Dean wheeled his chair around and headed for the door, just in time for another round of shrieks. Oh, it's gonna be one of those nights.
"Daddy?"
He froze. Daddy. Rissa hadn't called him that in-hell, he wasn't even sure that she ever had. She'd been well past the "daddy" stage by the time she came to them, her birth father not even a memory. And her voice was shaky, unsure, like she expected him to leave and come back with her adoption papers and burn them in front of her. He turned around. "Yeah?"
"Finger wiggle?"
It was that tiny, broken voice again, the one he'd first encountered when she was in a hospital burn ward, when she hated the world for not letting her die in that last fire. God, he hated that voice. And the question in it, like this time she might not get it, broke his heart.
"Gimme a finger wiggle, little phoenix," he ordered gently, waggling the fingers of his once-broken arm at her, "and watch out for us in the dark, okay?"
She finally smiled, a little knowing smile that he'd expect from Maggie, but not from his somber little phoenix. "I always have," she said, and wiggled her scarred fingers back at him.
***
Sam finally figured out what the "showcase" at Rissa's camp was when Hannah dragged him to it. It was a kind of fair, where all the kids displayed their projects.
To be honest, Sam had assumed he wasn't invited now that Dean and Marcy were home to take care of it, but Hannah insisted that he come along-Being an uncle isn't all about coloring and nail polish and Legos was the kindest thing she'd said when he argued-so he just trailed behind her and Dean and Marcy as they walked through the gallery of displays, feeling painfully out of place and hoping Rissa wouldn't get too pissed when she saw him here. They had a truce; that didn't mean she wanted him at her personal milestones.
Most of the fiber kids had the same projects, varying only in colors and design: a tapestry piece about the size of a coffee-table book, four placemats labeled "huck weaving," some knitted and crocheted things (the beginners had potholders and scarves, the more advanced kids had gloves, socks, and hats), bits of handmade lace, and a double handful of small embroidery, needlepoint, and cross-stitch designs, probably meant to be Christmas tree ornaments. Every kid also had a larger main project, geared to his or her particular interests, and those things were actual works of art. These kids knew their stuff.
They caught up with Dean and Marcy right before they got to Sage's display. Sage was finally off the crutches and into a walking cast. The kid had enough self-preservation to not say anything about Dean's cast, although he did give it an arch look that spoke volumes, even while he gave them the rundown on the various techniques and yarns that had gone into the wardrobe's worth of scarves he'd knitted.
"You guys are in so much trouble," Sam muttered while Sage was explaining that the thing on his tapestry was supposed to be a winged lion, not Grumpy Cat, and got Hannah's elbow in the ribs for his trouble-but it came with a wide grin. She knew exactly what he meant.
Rissa's space was two rows over. ("How'd they get her that far away from Sage?" Hannah asked, earning herself a glare from Dean and a smack on the arm from Marcy.) Rissa's tapestry had an eagle that was much better done than Sage's lion, but it faced the opposite direction, meaning they could be hung up as a set, her placemats had the exact same color scheme, and none of the ornaments were exactly the same designs as the ones Sage had done. Thirteen years old and they had a hefty start on their household linens and future Christmas tree. And the others might not think anything of it, but Sam had a hunch as to why Rissa had an eagle and Sage a lion: the eagle was the symbol of St. John the Apostle, patron saint of burn victims, while the lion often represented St. Mark-one of the patron saints of lawyers, and Sage's mother was a lawyer.
Sam leaned close to Hannah's ear. "Should we buy the wedding present now or wait until they get to high school?" She laughed.
Then they were close enough to see the Rissa's display. In the center of Rissa's space was a mannequin's head on a pedestal, with yards of embroidered white gauze draped over it, pooling on the table. If Sam hadn't known better-if he hadn't gotten the occasional glimpse of her working on it-he'd have thought she'd cheated and bought the thing. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything that elaborate, except maybe in a museum.
"Look at that," Hannah breathed, the first of them to manage anything. "That is fucking exquisite work, Rissa-"
"Hannahbelle!" Marcy reprimanded.
"Oh, like you don't use worse getting out of bed," Hannah retorted. "And it is."
Sam had to agree with her. He was impressed enough with the embroidery Rissa did on actual fabric; this stuff was transparent, the stitching that wound around the edges about ten times more solid than the backing fabric itself. And she'd done that by hand, all in the white she'd asked him to buy. "What is it?" he asked, trying not to smile at his fiancée. Hannah wanted to touch that thing so badly he could taste it.
"It's a wedding veil," Rissa said.
"You're a little young for that, aren't you, munchkin?" Dean asked. "Or do I need to have another talk with Sage?"
"DAD!" Sam choked down a laugh at Rissa's outrage. Marcy didn't bother. Dean just smirked. "It's a present for Aunt Hannah. Grandma's dress doesn't have a veil to go with it."
Hannah's jaw dropped. Finding a veil was one of the things stressing her out; apparently, trying to match a new veil with an antique dress wasn't easy, and the dress was too traditional a style to do without one. "Me?" Hannah finally managed. "But-"
Rissa gave her a hesitant little smile. "I changed my mind. See?" She reached in and lifted part of the veil, holding it up. Vines and flowers twined around two elaborate letters: an R and a W. "Mrs. Kinsey told me how to put clips or combs in it, once you decide how you want to wear it, and I have enough leftover tulle to make a blusher if you want to go that route, and it'll be easy to attach it."
"Rissa-" Hannah stopped, at a loss for words. This might be a first. "What about-"
"I've got plenty of time."
"I-" That was all Hannah could manage, for so long that Dean and Marcy exchanged worried glances and Sam wondered if he should poke her or something. "C'mere, squirt," she said finally, holding her arms out, and Rissa stepped into them.
***
"What did Rissa say?"
"Huh?" Hannah tore her eyes away from the veil in its protective box and nest of tissue paper. She hadn't been able to stop looking at it, and her periodic exclamations over some new discovery in the complicated designs had nearly made him wreck a couple of times. (Who didn't know better than to shout "BEES!" in a moving car?)
"That hug after she told you it was for you. She whispered something in your ear. What did she say?"
The corner of Hannah's mouth quirked up. "She said she'd love her cousin even if he was the spawn of Satan."
Sam rolled his eyes. "She did not."
"Not in so many words, no." She ran her fingers lightly over the spot where the R and W twined together. "She said she still couldn't be in the wedding, there was too much fire, whatever that meant-"
"She sees-" He bit that off, but too late. Hannah was giving him a look. "She has some kind of sight. Night-vision or some kind of infrared, I think-that's why there's no light in her room and how she could tell you were pregnant-but even during the day, when she looks at me, she sees fire. Like some kind of halo or aura, I think. It's always there, no matter what. With her history-"
"That's what it is? Holy fuck. No wonder she kept running like hell away from you. Do-"
"I don't know if she told them or not. It hasn't come up."
"God. That poor girl."
This was awkward. Sam tried to change the subject. "It's a hell of a present, though."
"It's not a present, Sam. It's a blessing."
He shot her a sideways glance. "What?"
"This wasn't supposed to be for me. She was stitching this for her own wedding. She showed me the pattern when I was over that night she had the attack. There weren't any initials on it. She had the alphabet, but she told me that she wouldn't be adding those until she knew who she was marrying. She couldn't even put the W on until then, because of the way she wanted the letters to wrap around each other. Like this." She touched the twined letters again.
"Oh, so that's what she meant when she said she had time."
"Yeah. She's got years before she gets married. Plenty of time to make a new one for herself and S-whoever."
"You have no faith in the epic romances of teenagers?" he asked dryly.
"No, my money's totally on Sage. But Rissa's too smart to commit to it this early. And the last time I saw this, Sam- It was still hers. Sometime since that attack, she changed her plans and put in our initials and made her wedding veil a gift to me. To us. This is Rissa's way of giving her blessing to us."
"I don't understand." It was an impressive gift, sure, but it was still just a veil.
"She thought she was losing me. Not just losing me, losing me to a monster." He flinched, he couldn't help it. "But giving this to me- This is Rissa saying that it's okay, because you're not a monster."
"She's still scared of me."
"Yeah, but- She's not scared of a monster anymore, Sam. She's scared of a human. It's a subtle difference, I know, but-"
"No, I get it." He'd rather have her be scared of him yet acknowledge that he was a human any day than have her thinking of him as an actual monster. Human was more hopeful.
"She didn't say it in so many words, of course-you know how Winchesters are about actually saying shit-"
"Which one of us won't tell anybody why we have to be married before the surprise gets here?" Sam retorted, earning himself a smack on the arm.
"Anyway, what she said was that she hoped this would help me forgive her. For not being able to be in the wedding." Her voice caught, a little. "I told her there was absolutely nothing to forgive. From either one of us."
There was an edge of challenge in her voice, daring him to say otherwise.
"No," Sam agreed. "Not a thing."
the end
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The family didn't so much return to the house as storm it. The last time Sam had felt the air change like that, there had been a demon involved.
"Uncle Sammy!" someone in the confusion shrieked. Before he could check to see if his ears were bleeding, a child launched herself out of the chaos, straight into his arms. She was starting to get some height on those leaps.
"Hi, Parasite," he gasped, trying to get Ananda's weight settled so that her knee wasn't permanently lodged in his diaphragm, and that was all the encouragement she needed to start chattering at top speed.
And then two more small children slammed into his legs.
Of course. Where Parasite went, Chaos and Mayhem were sure to follow. If Nyssa's father's rights ever did get terminated, Sam might never come to this house again.
"Have fun camping?" he asked, and got something screechy and happy-sounding in answer. "Whatcha got?" He ducked the-er-whatever-it-was Ananda was waving. It looked like a stick wrapped in felt.
"I made you a present!"
Shit. Where the hell was Dean? Or even Marcy?
Dean had just rolled into the room. He took one look, and drove out of traffic and parked. By the grin, he could only be waiting to see Sam's reaction.
Sam stifled a sigh and accepted the-doll?-gingerly. It was exactly what he'd thought at first: a stick that branched in two at the bottom, with pipe cleaners for arms and wrapped in felt for clothes. A piece of bark had been glued to one end for a face. Sam assumed it was meant to be his face, given the mixed brown and green glitter used for the eyes, the black mark that cut diagonally across it, and the unkempt fuzzy stuff serving as the doll's hair. Where the hell did you even find brown glitter?
"Unca Sammy!" Kara said, and shoved another makeshift doll into his hands. It was almost identical to Ananda's, except that this one had green glitter eyes, a gold bead on a string around its "neck," a twig cane in one pipe-cleaner hand, and the fuzzy stuff was shorter. It must be intended to represent Dean.
He eyed Nyssa suspiciously, but all she had was a rock painted black. A rock that was vaguely shaped like-
"'Pala!" she shouted (and if his ears weren't bleeding this time, it was a miracle).
Sam glared at his brother across the room. Glitter? he mouthed.
Dean only shrugged, and pointed at Marcy as she walked by. Arts and crafts, he mouthed back.
And then Sam saw the fresh new cast on Dean's leg. "You broke it again?" he demanded.
"It was last night, Sam, calm down. We stopped by a clinic on the way back in and Marcy's already made the appointment for tomorrow. C'mon, guys, you gave him his presents, now go unload your stuff." Ananda hopped down and Kara and Nyssa let go, Nyssa shoving the rock into his now-free hand as she went, and the Trio scampered for the garage.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with these?" Sam hissed.
"Well, you can either play with them, Samantha-" Sam growled. "-or you can put them on the mantel and dust them occasionally. Dude, they're presents. Do what you normally do with knickknacks." He glanced around, but everybody seemed to be managing the unloading well. "Quick, in here," he said, and wheeled into the dining room. "Shut the door."
Sam obeyed, confused, but it gave him a chance to set his handful of makeshift toys on the table. Nyssa's rock Impala was better-painted than he'd thought; it even had white-paint "chrome" in the right places. "Did you-" He looked up.
Dean had gotten between him and the door. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"You two getting along better?"
Of course. He'd known they'd have this conversation, he'd just expected Dean to get everybody into the house first. Sam sighed inwardly and pulled out a chair.
"Oh, shit," Dean said as Sam sat down. "This can't be good."
"She's your kid. It's fucking complicated."
"Great, now I'm proud and scared."
Sam had nothing to say to that. "We had a talk the day after her second nightmare. We've...come to an agreement."
"Sam-"
"We're not going to be friends. Not now, maybe not ever. Just-accept that."
"But-"
"Dean. You need to accept this."
"You're family!" Dean protested. "You can't act like-"
"We can be civil to each other, and she's not running away from me anymore, and that's all that matters," Sam said, with way more conviction than he actually felt. "Trying to force more won't help either one of us, and it'll just make her hate me. She's not as scared as she was. Be happy with that."
"But-" Dean clearly couldn't get his head wrapped around this. "You're family," he said again, a little helplessly.
And that was the problem, just like Hannah said. For Dean, family was everything, and their family had been so small, he just couldn't comprehend the idea of not being close. "That's not an automatic solution," Sam said. "Maybe we can work towards something more, between her growing up and me marrying Hannah. Maybe she can get used to me. Just don't force it. I don't want to wind up the Sean to her Marcy."
Dean made a show of shuddering. "I don't think anybody wants that. Two of them in the family is more than enough."
"Amen." Sam picked up Ananda's doll and fiddled with the pipe-cleaner arms. "There is one thing you need to know."
"About what the problem is?"
"No. She's going to have to tell you that on her own." That was one confidence Sam had no intention of breaking. It would destroy their little truce, and he might never earn another one. "But there is something you need to know. About why she won't tell you herself."
"Which is?"
"She thinks if she does, if you find out, you'll send her back."
Dean just stared at him. "What?"
"It-this thing- She thinks it's enough that, because she's not perfect-" It was very hard to find words with Dean looking at him that murderously. Sam focused on the doll. "She thinks if you find out, you'll cancel the adoption-"
"That's not possible."
"She's scared, Dean, it doesn't have to make sense. She honestly thinks you'll send her back to the foster system. Because the poltergeist is gone now, so it wouldn't be risking lives to do it."
"She can't possibly-"
"Dean, she's more terrified of that than she is of me." He hesitated. Made himself put the doll down and look his brother in the eye. "It turns out it's not just me, by the way. It's also T.J."
"T.J.?" Dean's eyes darkened-undoubtedly as he thought back over any time Rissa and T.J. had been in the house together. "Fuck," he finally whispered. "You're right. She avoids him like- He's just never home anymore. But the two of you don't have-"
The words skidded to a stop. For all that Dean constantly downplayed his intelligence, he wasn't stupid, especially when it came to his kids. "Shit," he muttered. "Shit, shit, shit! She sees fire, doesn't she? Nothing else would make her react the way she does."
Sam had only said he wouldn't tell. He'd said nothing about not confirming it if Dean guessed. "I don't know how, but yeah. I told her I wouldn't tell you."
"Jesus Christ! I thought that fucker was done making our lives miserable when we fucking killed him!" By the look in his eyes, Dean wanted to hit something-but there was only the table, and that thing was so massive it would probably do more damage to him. "No fucking wonder she runs, if she thinks it means something's-"
"I explained. As best I could, anyway. That we killed it and it wouldn't be coming after us-or her. But...."
"She has no reason to trust you, not if she's seeing fire." Dean gave up and slammed his fist into the table. "Fuck."
"Dean-"
"No, I'm okay. I mean, I will be. Just-" He shook his head. "Every fucking time, man. Every time I think we are done with that goddamned fucker, something else comes up. First it was T.J., now this-"
"There won't be any more," Sam reminded him quietly.
"No, but that still leaves us with fixing the damage the asshole already did. God." Dean took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself down. "I wish she'd said something. Anything. If I'd known, I wouldn't have-"
"And I wouldn't have let you," Sam said, cutting off the guilt. "But we didn't know, and the damage has been done, and- Sorry, Dean, but I'm just the uncle. Fixing this one is your job."
Dean gave him a sour glare. "I'm so gonna remind you of this when that kid turns out to be a girl and you get stuck living with two Reynolds women."
Sam cringed. He could barely handle one. "You don't mean that."
"Right now? I sure as hell do." He sighed. "I hate it when you're right. But- We'll fix it. Somehow. I just don't know where she'd get the idea that we'd send her back because of a little wacky vision. Especially after Ananda and Kara. I mean, she's seen what they do, it took us weeks to get it through Kara's head that it was dangerous to play with Rissa's needles, not to mention just how annoyed it made Rissa."
"I don't think she got it from you, if that helps."
Dean snorted. "It actually doesn't, Sammy, but thanks for trying." He leaned back in his chair. "Is there any good news?"
"Your guest room is a guest room again, and free of Lisa's shit, and I even managed to air it out a little so it doesn't smell like a nursing home. Do I need to turn in my keys?"
"Keep 'em. You'll wind up back over here."
"I will?"
"Everybody else married to a pregnant Reynolds has. Including Deb. Why should you be special?"
"Thanks. I think."
"They wind up here because Marcy won't lecture them the way the others will. And you will get kicked out at least once. In fact, you might want to go back and make the guest room bed, unless you plan on sleeping upstairs."
"Oh." That was...less than reassuring. "At least nobody will be in the bed who's not supposed to be."
Dean grinned. "What are you going to do without Ananda sneaking in every night?"
"Enjoy my sleep."
"Like Hannah's gonna let you sleep."
"She's pregnant. Eventually- What?"
Dean just smirked at him. "Yeah, you should probably ask Andy about how he and Kim scandalized the hell out of some poor ultra-conservative Southern Baptist nurse right after they got her checked in. Come to think of it, I think that's how David and Jenn jump-started labor when she went-"
"God, Dean, I don't need to know that!" If nothing else, Sam needed to be able to look his in-laws in the eye.
"She's a Reynolds, Sam. You so do. The things Third can tell-"
"Dean! I am not listening to stories about my future mother-in-law's sex life!"
"Oh, you won't have a choice. Once you guys announce your surprise, they'll all be trying to warn you. I think Nick has slides." He grinned-the scary kind of grin that meant Dean was planning something. "Don't worry. Me and Ash will make sure the bachelor party is a horror-story-free zone."
"Oh, God," Sam groaned, and considered beating his head against the dining table. He hadn't even thought about the possibility of a bachelor party, let alone that Dean was conniving with Ash-and probably Bobby and the future in-laws-on it. "Why won't she let us elope?"
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Do you honestly think you'll get off that easy?"
***
To be honest, Dean wasn't sure if he'd won or lost the coin toss.
The Three Stooges had been wild ever since they got home, to the point that even Maggie and the boys had skedaddled to their rooms and locked the doors. And Ananda hadn't even noticed that Uncle Sammy was gone yet. She'd noticed that he wasn't at dinner, of course, but that wasn't unusual these days. What she was going to do when she figured out that he wasn't living here anymore....
Anyhow, Marcy had gotten the bed-and-bath roundup with them, even though it was cheating to toss all three of them in the same bath. He got Rissa.
Under any other circumstances, this would have called for both of them-but this wasn't something he wanted to let fester another night. Neither did Marcy. Marcy would corner Rissa for her own talk, and there'd still be a full conference at some point, but lancing this infection now was more important than who dealt with it.
Rissa's door was propped open a little, which was unusual. Maybe she'd just missed the noise. Dean didn't know how, but after a couple of weeks of silence, he supposed it was possible. Maybe she just wanted the reassurance that the family was back.
He knocked and pushed the door open far enough that he could see in. She wasn't reading, which he'd expected at this time of night, but was sitting in the old armchair Anne and Third had donated for a stitch chair, with her craft lamp angled straight into the pile of gauzy white fabric that filled her lap. "Hey, little phoenix," he said. "Can I come in?"
"Sure." She stuck her needle in the arm of the chair and started to fumble her way to the bottom of that armful of cloth so that she could get up.
"Stay there, I got it," he told her, and proceeded to prove it, getting the chair into the room and closing the door behind him. Dean couldn't do this with a lot of the kids, especially with his less-maneuverable upstairs chair, but the fall hazard presented by her bad leg forced Rissa to keep the clutter to a minimum. "This your project for camp?" he asked, and she nodded. "Don't guess you'd want to tell me what it is?"
"It's a present."
"Not for me, I hope." She gave him a look that she had definitely learned from her mother. Clearly it wasn't. "Shouldn't you have it in one of those hoop thingies?"
What? He paid attention.
"The fabric's too fragile."
"Fragile, huh? Well, at least I know it's not for Sage. That boy's kind of a klutz." That got him a snicker. "Anyway, I thought you might want to know your uncle is officially moved out," he went on. "He's all your aunt's problem now." She tried, but she couldn't hide her relief at that announcement. "He said the two of you had come to an understanding. But he wouldn't tell me what. He said that was between you and him."
"Oh."
"Wanna let me in on the secret?"
"It's nothing-"
Oh, sure, make me pull out the Daddy Voice. "Rissa."
She caved. "I won't run out of the room or hide anymore, and he won't try to sit beside me or talk to me."
"That's it?"
"For now."
That went with what Sam had said, about it maybe easing off as the years went by. It was ridiculous, of course, they were family, they shouldn't be-
Then again, like Sam said, they could be like Marcy and Sean. Maybe it was better this way. "I know you had an attack while we were gone," he said. "Was it something he did?" He didn't think it was, but he needed to make sure. Anything that could trigger one of her attacks needed to be handled carefully.
"Oh, no," she said, so quickly that he knew she wasn't lying. "They were showing us a burn test, but whenever we sat in the back, Sage's crutches kept sticking out in the aisle and people were tripping, so Mrs. Kinsey insisted he sit up front so he could lay them on the floor without anybody stumbling, and-"
"And of course you couldn't let Sage sit up front without you," Dean finished, and managed to not roll his eyes.
"He was having trouble with his crutches," she protested.
"Still, maybe next time let him handle the burn test on his own, okay? Friends understand your limits."
"He didn't ask, Dad, I just didn't think about it. Don't take it out on him."
"Me?" he asked innocently, and got that Marcy look again. "You about to a stopping place? It's almost bedtime, and we-"
She froze, the way she always did when presented with a threat. "I-" She stopped.
"What is it, little phoenix?" Sam wouldn't tell him what the problem was that made her think they'd send her back, but had he somehow convinced Rissa to tell them?
"Dad-" Her voice shook. "I need to show you something."
"Something with the stitching?"
"No. Something-" She hesitated, looking down at her burned fingers. "Something else."
This was definitely not good. "You can tell me anything, Rissa, you know that," he said, keeping his voice steady, reassuring.
She shook her head. "Not tell. It'll be easier if-if I show you."
"Show me?"
She nodded, and carefully folded up her project-then handed him the little book-thing that she used for her needles. "Hold this," she said.
Dean looked at her. "Just hold it? That's all?"
"Just hold it." She switched off the craft lamp, then walked over to the switch for the overhead light. "Ready?"
"Ready for what?"
"Just hold the needle case. Switch it between your hands a few times."
"I don't-" The lights went out, leaving him stranded in a room as pitch-black as demon eyes. Not so much as the glimmer of electronic light. It was what she'd insisted on having, from the time she moved in, but he hadn't realized just how thick the darkness was in here. "Munchkin, not that I don't trust you, but this is kind of creepy."
"Just a minute," she said.
"Oookay." He sat there, in the darkness, flipping the needle case from right to left and back again, wondering what the hell was-
Scarred fingers touched his hands, stopping the movement, and took the needle case. They didn't fumble, and she wasn't feeling around for it. She shouldn't have known which hand he had the thing in, either. It was almost like she could see. "What the-"
The craft lamp flared on-the craft lamp, not the overhead light, and that was not only on the other side of the room from the main switch, if she'd tried to walk a straight line for it, she would've had to walk through him. Rissa stood there, holding the needle case, looking at him with-fear? Worry? "How did you pull that off?"
"I keep the room neat so you can come in," she said, and there was honest-to-God fear in her voice, "not so I don't trip. I can walk through Maggie's in the dark without hitting anything."
There was no way anybody could get through Maggie's room in the dark without breaking their neck, unless.... "You can see in the dark," he realized, and she nodded miserably. "Both eyes?" Another nod. That would certainly explain why she had never reacted to losing the sight in that eye the way the docs said she should; she'd only lost normal vision. "And you see fire around your uncle and T.J.-no, he didn't rat you out, I guessed. That about it?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He hadn't seen her this terrified since-since the hospital, before he explained what a poltergeist was and gave her the octopus and told her how the jade inside would keep it away. "Rissa, is this what you're worried about? This is why you think we'll send you back?" Her head jerked up. "Hey, I said Uncle Sammy didn't talk about why you don't like him, not that he didn't tell me anything else."
"I'm not normal."
"Of course you're not," he said, and her bad arm jerked. "You're a Winchester, little phoenix. Normal's just not something we do. Actually, all things considered, you're kinda screwed on both sides. Sorry about that."
"But- I can-"
"Rissa." He rubbed his temple. "You're not the only one in the family with powers. I know it's not something we talk about-"
"Ananda and Kara, and I know that's why-"
"Well, actually, no. That's not why we adopted them. We adopted them for the same reason we adopted you. You're ours, Rissa. You were from the second Bill brought us your case. When we saw you- You weren't just a little phoenix, you were our little phoenix."
"Because no one else would take me."
She stretched her burned fingers as she said that, and it didn't take a genius to follow her line of thought. "No, because you were ours. Nobody else was going to get a chance to get you."
"Kara and Ananda need you-"
"And you don't?" he asked gently. "I know you're thirteen and you think you can take care of yourself, but trust me, little phoenix, you can't. Not yet."
"No, I don't think that! I know better! That's why-" She choked on the words, the tears overflowing.
"C'mere, sweetheart." She practically lunged into his open arms, and he squeezed her tight. "You are never getting rid of us," he told her. "No matter what. Not me, not your mother, not your brothers or sisters. Not when you go to college, not when you move out, not even when you get married. Not if you see fire, or see the future, or if you give birth to a spice rack because you marry that klutzy little geek named for turkey seasoning." That got a weak giggle. "You are always going to be ours, even if you decide you don't want to be."
"Never," she vowed, and her arms around him tightened, the right almost as strong as the left.
"Besides," he said, when she finally let go, "now that I know what you can do, you are going to have a much more important job as part of your chores." She blinked at him. "Somebody in this house has to be able to get the generator started up when the power goes out at night, especially since the flashlights keep wandering off. How 'bout I show you how tomorrow?"
"Okay."
"And maybe, just maybe, you can try calling your uncle by his name? Instead of him?"
She looked down at her feet. "I'll try," she said, "but no promises."
"You've been around your mother too long," he said, "but points for honesty." There was a yell out in the hall, followed by what sounded like a stampede, then enough shrieks to make a banshee wince. "Think your mom needs help, or were we just invaded by very loud elephants?"
"I think Mom needs help," she said dryly, "and you'd probably better get in there before she has to yell for you."
"I always knew you were the smart one," he said. "We'll talk more about this when your mom's not got her hands full, okay?" She nodded. "Don't stay up too late."
"I won't."
Dean wheeled his chair around and headed for the door, just in time for another round of shrieks. Oh, it's gonna be one of those nights.
"Daddy?"
He froze. Daddy. Rissa hadn't called him that in-hell, he wasn't even sure that she ever had. She'd been well past the "daddy" stage by the time she came to them, her birth father not even a memory. And her voice was shaky, unsure, like she expected him to leave and come back with her adoption papers and burn them in front of her. He turned around. "Yeah?"
"Finger wiggle?"
It was that tiny, broken voice again, the one he'd first encountered when she was in a hospital burn ward, when she hated the world for not letting her die in that last fire. God, he hated that voice. And the question in it, like this time she might not get it, broke his heart.
"Gimme a finger wiggle, little phoenix," he ordered gently, waggling the fingers of his once-broken arm at her, "and watch out for us in the dark, okay?"
She finally smiled, a little knowing smile that he'd expect from Maggie, but not from his somber little phoenix. "I always have," she said, and wiggled her scarred fingers back at him.
***
Sam finally figured out what the "showcase" at Rissa's camp was when Hannah dragged him to it. It was a kind of fair, where all the kids displayed their projects.
To be honest, Sam had assumed he wasn't invited now that Dean and Marcy were home to take care of it, but Hannah insisted that he come along-Being an uncle isn't all about coloring and nail polish and Legos was the kindest thing she'd said when he argued-so he just trailed behind her and Dean and Marcy as they walked through the gallery of displays, feeling painfully out of place and hoping Rissa wouldn't get too pissed when she saw him here. They had a truce; that didn't mean she wanted him at her personal milestones.
Most of the fiber kids had the same projects, varying only in colors and design: a tapestry piece about the size of a coffee-table book, four placemats labeled "huck weaving," some knitted and crocheted things (the beginners had potholders and scarves, the more advanced kids had gloves, socks, and hats), bits of handmade lace, and a double handful of small embroidery, needlepoint, and cross-stitch designs, probably meant to be Christmas tree ornaments. Every kid also had a larger main project, geared to his or her particular interests, and those things were actual works of art. These kids knew their stuff.
They caught up with Dean and Marcy right before they got to Sage's display. Sage was finally off the crutches and into a walking cast. The kid had enough self-preservation to not say anything about Dean's cast, although he did give it an arch look that spoke volumes, even while he gave them the rundown on the various techniques and yarns that had gone into the wardrobe's worth of scarves he'd knitted.
"You guys are in so much trouble," Sam muttered while Sage was explaining that the thing on his tapestry was supposed to be a winged lion, not Grumpy Cat, and got Hannah's elbow in the ribs for his trouble-but it came with a wide grin. She knew exactly what he meant.
Rissa's space was two rows over. ("How'd they get her that far away from Sage?" Hannah asked, earning herself a glare from Dean and a smack on the arm from Marcy.) Rissa's tapestry had an eagle that was much better done than Sage's lion, but it faced the opposite direction, meaning they could be hung up as a set, her placemats had the exact same color scheme, and none of the ornaments were exactly the same designs as the ones Sage had done. Thirteen years old and they had a hefty start on their household linens and future Christmas tree. And the others might not think anything of it, but Sam had a hunch as to why Rissa had an eagle and Sage a lion: the eagle was the symbol of St. John the Apostle, patron saint of burn victims, while the lion often represented St. Mark-one of the patron saints of lawyers, and Sage's mother was a lawyer.
Sam leaned close to Hannah's ear. "Should we buy the wedding present now or wait until they get to high school?" She laughed.
Then they were close enough to see the Rissa's display. In the center of Rissa's space was a mannequin's head on a pedestal, with yards of embroidered white gauze draped over it, pooling on the table. If Sam hadn't known better-if he hadn't gotten the occasional glimpse of her working on it-he'd have thought she'd cheated and bought the thing. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything that elaborate, except maybe in a museum.
"Look at that," Hannah breathed, the first of them to manage anything. "That is fucking exquisite work, Rissa-"
"Hannahbelle!" Marcy reprimanded.
"Oh, like you don't use worse getting out of bed," Hannah retorted. "And it is."
Sam had to agree with her. He was impressed enough with the embroidery Rissa did on actual fabric; this stuff was transparent, the stitching that wound around the edges about ten times more solid than the backing fabric itself. And she'd done that by hand, all in the white she'd asked him to buy. "What is it?" he asked, trying not to smile at his fiancée. Hannah wanted to touch that thing so badly he could taste it.
"It's a wedding veil," Rissa said.
"You're a little young for that, aren't you, munchkin?" Dean asked. "Or do I need to have another talk with Sage?"
"DAD!" Sam choked down a laugh at Rissa's outrage. Marcy didn't bother. Dean just smirked. "It's a present for Aunt Hannah. Grandma's dress doesn't have a veil to go with it."
Hannah's jaw dropped. Finding a veil was one of the things stressing her out; apparently, trying to match a new veil with an antique dress wasn't easy, and the dress was too traditional a style to do without one. "Me?" Hannah finally managed. "But-"
Rissa gave her a hesitant little smile. "I changed my mind. See?" She reached in and lifted part of the veil, holding it up. Vines and flowers twined around two elaborate letters: an R and a W. "Mrs. Kinsey told me how to put clips or combs in it, once you decide how you want to wear it, and I have enough leftover tulle to make a blusher if you want to go that route, and it'll be easy to attach it."
"Rissa-" Hannah stopped, at a loss for words. This might be a first. "What about-"
"I've got plenty of time."
"I-" That was all Hannah could manage, for so long that Dean and Marcy exchanged worried glances and Sam wondered if he should poke her or something. "C'mere, squirt," she said finally, holding her arms out, and Rissa stepped into them.
***
"What did Rissa say?"
"Huh?" Hannah tore her eyes away from the veil in its protective box and nest of tissue paper. She hadn't been able to stop looking at it, and her periodic exclamations over some new discovery in the complicated designs had nearly made him wreck a couple of times. (Who didn't know better than to shout "BEES!" in a moving car?)
"That hug after she told you it was for you. She whispered something in your ear. What did she say?"
The corner of Hannah's mouth quirked up. "She said she'd love her cousin even if he was the spawn of Satan."
Sam rolled his eyes. "She did not."
"Not in so many words, no." She ran her fingers lightly over the spot where the R and W twined together. "She said she still couldn't be in the wedding, there was too much fire, whatever that meant-"
"She sees-" He bit that off, but too late. Hannah was giving him a look. "She has some kind of sight. Night-vision or some kind of infrared, I think-that's why there's no light in her room and how she could tell you were pregnant-but even during the day, when she looks at me, she sees fire. Like some kind of halo or aura, I think. It's always there, no matter what. With her history-"
"That's what it is? Holy fuck. No wonder she kept running like hell away from you. Do-"
"I don't know if she told them or not. It hasn't come up."
"God. That poor girl."
This was awkward. Sam tried to change the subject. "It's a hell of a present, though."
"It's not a present, Sam. It's a blessing."
He shot her a sideways glance. "What?"
"This wasn't supposed to be for me. She was stitching this for her own wedding. She showed me the pattern when I was over that night she had the attack. There weren't any initials on it. She had the alphabet, but she told me that she wouldn't be adding those until she knew who she was marrying. She couldn't even put the W on until then, because of the way she wanted the letters to wrap around each other. Like this." She touched the twined letters again.
"Oh, so that's what she meant when she said she had time."
"Yeah. She's got years before she gets married. Plenty of time to make a new one for herself and S-whoever."
"You have no faith in the epic romances of teenagers?" he asked dryly.
"No, my money's totally on Sage. But Rissa's too smart to commit to it this early. And the last time I saw this, Sam- It was still hers. Sometime since that attack, she changed her plans and put in our initials and made her wedding veil a gift to me. To us. This is Rissa's way of giving her blessing to us."
"I don't understand." It was an impressive gift, sure, but it was still just a veil.
"She thought she was losing me. Not just losing me, losing me to a monster." He flinched, he couldn't help it. "But giving this to me- This is Rissa saying that it's okay, because you're not a monster."
"She's still scared of me."
"Yeah, but- She's not scared of a monster anymore, Sam. She's scared of a human. It's a subtle difference, I know, but-"
"No, I get it." He'd rather have her be scared of him yet acknowledge that he was a human any day than have her thinking of him as an actual monster. Human was more hopeful.
"She didn't say it in so many words, of course-you know how Winchesters are about actually saying shit-"
"Which one of us won't tell anybody why we have to be married before the surprise gets here?" Sam retorted, earning himself a smack on the arm.
"Anyway, what she said was that she hoped this would help me forgive her. For not being able to be in the wedding." Her voice caught, a little. "I told her there was absolutely nothing to forgive. From either one of us."
There was an edge of challenge in her voice, daring him to say otherwise.
"No," Sam agreed. "Not a thing."
the end