And We Are Ashes: Chapter Five, Part 1
Nov. 7th, 2007 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thecatevariToday was actually so much better and worse. The writing itself went really well and feels wonderful. I feel like I really hit a stride here. But this was all complicated by the fact that I completely messed up my eye and so I've been suffering through a headache from hell, a stuffy/runny nose and watering eyes ALL DARNED DAY.
13,977 / 50,000 words. 28% done!
Today's Word Count: 2,366 (WOOT, MOTHERFUCKERS!)
Current Total Word Count:
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I scratched my cornea. That made every word of this REALLY DIFFICULT TO TYPE.
What's good: Everything else! I've been having issues with how close the last chapter was to canon, feeling like I was just retelling instead of reinterperting, but this chapter is really a lot more AU, giving me room to do new and different things. It's also a lot more fun to write when I have this room to embroider and go off the beaten path. I really need to add some physical description for Zach, but I like how he's shaping up, young and powerful and amoral and just a little too excited to be doing this. And I think that, although Mary's was stubborn and codproud to let Sam walk away the way she did, her regret afterward is ringing true.
What pleases me: "So what brings you to Burkitsville?" Emily asks, once she's got the nozzle in and the pump is loudly clicking over the gallons.
Mary stubs the END button quickly and looks up into Emily's guileless eyes. "Not a damn thing," she admits. "Just passing through, looking for some breakfast."
Emily nods, pleasant expression not budged in the least. "Best place…" Her smile turns rueful. "Well, pretty much the only place is Scotty's Café over there." She points. "But the food's good. And the apple pie is first rate."
Mary makes a face. "I'm not much for canned apples."
"Oh, no! They're fresh. Or…last year's harvest, anyway. Believe me, they taste as fresh as when they came off the branch." She holds up her hand. "Swear."
"Never really thought of Indiana as an apple state." Mary tucks the cell back in her pocket—though not without yet another pang of misgiving—and tucks her hands into her armpits for warmth. It's a lot warmer than standing on the road in the dark of night with Sam, but April in the Midwest is still a damp, chilly time.
Emily laughs. "Well, it isn't. Really, it's just us."
"So you're a local?" Mary's not really one for small talk, but the low level kibitzing of interrogation has become second nature.
Emily shrugs. "My parents died when I was thirteen." She jerks her thumb back at the shadowed interior of the gas station. "My aunt and uncle took me in. They're nice people." Another shrug. "Everybody's nice here."
"The perfect little town?" Mary asks, careful not to let disbelief enter her tone.
Another smile and Emily's cheeks must ache all day from all this smiling. "Well, it's the boonies. But I love it. The towns around us, Scottsburg, Salem… It's not the same. People losing their homes, their farms, drugs coming in and the crime rate rising. But not here. My aunt says we've been blessed."
CHAPTER FIVE
"No!" Sam slams a hand down on the dashboard, the gesture tingling in his fingertips. "You want my trust, but you don't want to do anything to earn it!"
"You know, I'd think that being your mother and saving your ass for all these years would be proof enough that you should trust me," Mary replies thinly in the low and dangerous voice that never fails to terrify Sam…or would if he was less angry. She doesn't look at him, hunched over the steering wheel and squinting into the night, her shoulders rigid as iron.
"Saving me? Saving me from what Mom?" They've been fighting nearly nonstop since Rockford with only a short truce for Sam to pick all the rock salt from Mary's back. "You and Dean always said what happened to Dad wasn't my fault…but it was, wasn't it? That's why Jess died, because that thing…"
"Demon," Mary interrupts, in the same flat, soulless voice.
"Fine." He's too old to be distracted by his mother's distraction games. "Demon, then. The point is, the same demon killed Jess that killed Dad and the only thing they have in common is me!"
Mary shrugs. "What do you want me to say, Sam? I can't give you answers I don't have."
"But you don't even give me the answers you do have, Mom. This whole thing with your powers, my powers… That's what all this is about, right?"
"Look, I know how you feel…"
"Do you? Dad died over two decades ago, Mom. Jess has only been dead six months. How the hell would you know how I feel?"
"I think I can remember that far back, thank you."
"Why is the demon's going after me and not Dean? It's the powers, right? Or is the demon after Dean too? Is that why he's running? Jesus Christ, do you even care?"
He'd missed Dean's call. Three am had come and gone while they'd been battling the ghost of Ellicot in Roosevelt Asylum. Sam had checked his voice mail compulsively for the next several hours in the vain hope that Dean had left a message that had somehow gotten tied up in wireless traffic, but to no avail. And his calls to Dean's cell only got the same frustrating result as always, dumping straight into Dean's voice mail, message unchanged.
"You don't get to ask me that question, Sam. Not now. Not after all this time." Mary's voice is shaking, but Sam doesn't mistake it for anything other than anger.
"Then when? Because we both know you don't tell me anything unless there's no other choice."
"You know, this is getting really repetitive and really old."
"Yeah, it really is," Sam agrees vehemently. "Dean's been missing for six months. Six months. And I think you know why."
"No, Sam, your problem is that you don't think at all! I'm so tired of this constant whining from you! If I could wave a magic wand and make your brother appear, I would do it. I don't know why he disappeared…"
"You have suspicions, don't you?"
"But I don't know, Sam. I don't know. You want me to come up with some miracle answer for you and I don't have it. Do you think this has been easy? Do you think I've been doing this for kicks all these years? You think I enjoy living from pillar to post and dragging you and Dean behind me like pieces of luggage?"
"I wonder why you even bothered to do it in the first place," Sam retorts thinly. "Since you never wanted me or Dean in the first place."
"Oh, that is such bullshit!"
"Oh, and now I get it! Is that why? I mean, it was one thing when we thought Dean might be dead, but he's not dead. He's out there somewhere. He's out there and he's in trouble and what the hell are we doing about it?"
Mary screeches the Impala to an abrupt halt in the middle of the deserted highway, almost pitching Sam into the dashboard. "You know, I don't even know where to start with you. Are you angry with me, or Dean, are you angry about…about Jess or not being a Real Boy or do you even know what the hell it is you're angry about?"
"I'm angry that Dean's given up every moment of his life trying to make you happy and now he needs you, he really fucking needs you and you…I don't even know what you want to do anymore, but it sure doesn't seem to be finding Dean!" He's not really thinking about it, but he jerks the car door open, wintry air pouring in to chill him through in seconds.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out of the car," Sam answers, like she's stupid. And really, right now, he can't say he's too far off in that assessment. "I'm getting out of all this. You don't want to find Dean, fine. I'll find him myself." He reaches over her to tug the trunk release and climbs out, shivering in his too thin coat. He never did get the chance to get a warmer one. Or hat. Or gloves.
A moment later, Mary scrambles out of the Impala. "Sam, you're not serious."
"I am serious."
"Sam. It's the middle of the night and the middle of nowhere."
Sam doesn't answer, just slings his backpack over his shoulder and takes off in the direction they came from. He thinks it's three or five miles back to the nearest intersection. The hike will keep him warm and hopefully there'll be more traffic than there is on this deserted two-lane. He doesn't know where he's going yet, but he'll figure it out. Winchesters always do, right?
"Sam," his mother calls, her warning tone, "don't do this. I will leave your ass, you hear me?"
Sam scuffs to a halt and turns back to face her. She looks tiny next to the Impala's bulk. Tiny and pale, almost fragile, but Sam knows it’s a lie. His mother is the toughest, hardest, most stubborn person he's ever known.
That doesn't make her right, though.
"That's what I want you to do," he says finally. He feels a pang of guilt at abandoning his quest for Jess's killer, for revenge, but the demon—or whatever the hell it is—has waited for twenty-two years and Jess is dead. All he can do for her is avenge her. He might be able to save his brother's life. And that has to take precedence.
He and his mother stare at each other for several weighted moments. Then, finally, Mary nods at him. It looks like a nod of respect. "Goodbye, Sam." She closes the trunk with a muted thud without looking, turns on her heel and gets back into the car.
Sam watches her go. Watches the Impala pull out and away. Watches the taillights flash bright and bloody and then fade.
He didn't expect that she would do it. Not really and not after all her insistence that they stick together. At the same time, he's aware that it doesn't feel nearly as big or scary as it would've before he left or even before Roosevelt.
You know, you've got some deep-seated abandonment issues, hon.
Jess. Enough with the psychobabble, okay? I'm fine.
Mary's keeping secrets, that much is clear.
And between Dean's note and his own strange, unexplained experiences with his mom, Sam just doesn't trust that those secrets won't get one—or all—of them killed. Not anymore.
And miles to go, before I sleep, Sam thinks, resigned, and hitches his bag higher on his shoulder again? Jesus, Sam…what are you doing?
***
Jesus, Mary, what are you doing? Mary thinks as she pulls into the tiny town of Burkitsville, lodged deep in its surrounding orchards. She didn't mean for this to happen—oh, just the contrary, dammit—but Sam has a way of finding that button that pushes her into an instant rage and then repeatedly jumping up and down on it. He's just gotten her so angry. And then with the two of them standing there on the road, it'd felt like there was no way to back down. Not without opening the door to a lot more stuff that Sam has no business messing in.
And when are you planning to talk to Sam about 'all this stuff'? she wonders, pulling into the gas station, climbing out of the car and stamping her boots on the damp asphalt. It must have rained not too long ago, the streets slick and the iron smell of it still heady and thick.
"Good morning!" The girl that comes out from the portico of the garage is young, in that indeterminate teenage period that could be anything from sixteen to early twenties. Her long, blonde hair is falling out of her ponytail into her round, friendly face; she brushes it back with a blunt little hand in which the grease has been ingrained and smiles.
God, she makes Mary feel old.
"Good morning." Mary nods back, still too agitated—and let's face it, too worried about Sam—to return the smile or knock the surly off her voice. She glances up at the old fashioned wooden sign: Full Service. "Fill 'er up?"
"Sure thing. I'm Emily. Nice to meetcha."
"Mary. Same." She leans against the Impala and fishes her cell from her pocket, gritting her teeth as her shoulders flex. If she had to carry the burden for the McCoy blood, why couldn't she have gotten a useful Gift, like healing? She flips through the menu for Sam's number.
"So what brings you to Burkitsville?" Emily asks, once she's got the nozzle in and the pump is loudly clicking over the gallons.
Mary stubs the END button quickly and looks up into Emily's guileless eyes. "Not a damn thing," she admits. "Just passing through, looking for some breakfast."
Emily nods, pleasant expression not budged in the least. "Best place…" Her smile turns rueful. "Well, pretty much the only place is Scotty's Café over there." She points. "But the food's good. And the apple pie is first rate."
Mary makes a face. "I'm not much for canned apples."
"Oh, no! They're fresh. Or…last year's harvest, anyway. Believe me, they taste as fresh as when they came off the branch." She holds up her hand. "Swear."
"Never really thought of Indiana as an apple state." Mary tucks the cell back in her pocket—though not without yet another pang of misgiving—and tucks her hands into her armpits for warmth. It's a lot warmer than standing on the road in the dark of night with Sam, but April in the Midwest is still a damp, chilly time.
Emily laughs. "Well, it isn't. Really, it's just us."
"So you're a local?" Mary's not really one for small talk, but the low level kibitzing of interrogation has become second nature.
Emily shrugs. "My parents died when I was thirteen." She jerks her thumb back at the shadowed interior of the gas station. "My aunt and uncle took me in. They're nice people." Another shrug. "Everybody's nice here."
"The perfect little town?" Mary asks, careful not to let disbelief enter her tone.
Another smile and Emily's cheeks must ache all day from all this smiling. "Well, it's the boonies. But I love it. The towns around us, Scottsburg, Salem… It's not the same. People losing their homes, their farms, drugs coming in and the crime rate rising. But not here. My aunt says we've been blessed."
Mary widens her eyes and nods, keeping her eye rolling for the inside.
It's Emily's turn to pull a face. "I didn't mean it like that. I just mean…Burkitsville's a nice place to live. A good place. Better than someplace where I'd have to worry about my meth-head neighbor blowing up their house and poisoning the whole neighborhood or sleeping in the tub because I'm afraid of gangs. People look out for each other here." The gas pump ka-chunks, cutting off the flow. Emily gives Mary another quick grin and turns away.
In Mary's experience, people are largely the same regardless of geography, but it's not her job to disabuse Emily of her illusions. She digs out her wallet and carefully fishes out a credit card with the first initial of M, aware she's already staked herself to the name Mary.
Dammit, Sam. I don't need this kind of distraction! she thinks viciously, canting her hip a little and feeling her cell against the bone. "Scotty's, huh?" she asks, when Emily comes back with the card and slip.
Emily nods vigorously. "And I know it's early, but you should really try the pie!"
Mary smiles and draws the Impala's door open with the familiar rusty squeak that always reminds her of John. "Maybe I will."
"You'll thank me if you do!" Emily calls after her.
***
There's only one other customer in the café when Mary comes in, a skinny and dark-haired man in an expensive black leather jacket. She remembers seeing an equally expensive red sports car parked in one of the garage bays of the gas station and she can guess what he's doing here.
Another man, grey streaked through the darkness of his hair, comes from the back, wiping his hands on a towel. He glances at her briefly and then past her. It's such a strange gesture that Mary halts mid-step and turns to look behind herself to see if there's anyone else there. There is a couple at the foot of the steps, middle-aged and graying, clearly bent on the café themselves. Reassured, she takes a seat at the long, planked bar and reaches for her cell again.
She doesn't know yet what she's going to say to Sam, but she dials his number and hits SEND anyway.
"Coffee?" The guy from the back—presumably the Scotty from the sign—comes to the counter with a pot and waves it at her. Mary flips the white porcelain cup upright on the saucer and shoves it in his general direction while the phone rings in her ear.
C'mon, Sam…pick up. Don't make your old mother worry.
Once he's poured her hot cuppa—and thank God, because Mary is in bad need of some caffeine—Scotty moves off to the door that presumably leads to the kitchen. The old couple that came in behind her hustles over to confab with him, the woman glancing over at Mary several times with her mouth pinched into a disapproving line. Mary wonders what it is this time; her lack of proper feminine garb and posture, her deplorable lack of make up or the fact that she looks like a hundred miles of bad road. Not that it matters.
Sam doesn't answer. The call drops into his voicemail and Mary's feeling an ugly sense of deja-vu. Hi, this is Sam Winchester. I'm not available to take your call right now, so if you'd please leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Though it's the same message Sam's had for years, its very bland politeness strikes Mary as particularly ominous this time around and she curses herself for a superstitious idiot at the same time she wraps her free hand around the coffee, warming her fingers on the glass.
"Sam," she begins, after the tone, "I…" And here she slams right up against her inability to think ahead and come up with the right words to say. "Look…just call me when you get this message, all right?" She sighs and hangs up, tucking the phone into her jacket pocket before wrapping both hands around the coffee mug and inhaling the life giving vapors.
The couple seems to have given up on whatever bee was in their collective bonnet and have gone to sit at a table in the corner near the door where they're talking in low voices. Mary gives a mental shrug.
"So what can I getcha?" Scotty asks, returning to her side.
"Well, I haven't had a chance to look at the menu yet, but I'm told on good authority that the apple pie is to die for."
"That it is," Scotty agrees, warm pride in his voice and his expression thawing a little bit.
"I'll take a slice of that and then I'll get back to you on the rest."
Scotty nods. "Will do. You want cheese on it?"
Mary suppresses her shudder. She's never really understood that particular touch. "No, thanks."
Scotty nods a second time, approvingly. "Gotcha. Be right back with that pie."
"Thanks." Mary lowers her head back to her coffee and wonders where she can snag a paper. She might not be on the hunt right now, but just the act of going through it looking for anything out of the ordinary has become a soothing ritual all its own. Besides, if she's going to get in touch with Ash regarding the Elkins from the Roosevelt patient diary, it would help to have information to trade.
Of course, she thinks, reaching down between her legs to unzip her backpack and fish the journal in question from within, it's not like she has a lack of reading material at the moment.
Back in 1835, Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun, made for a hunter. And with the gun, he made thirteen bullets. I thought it was a myth, I really did. Everyone told me it was a myth. But I was so desperate to avenge Emmy, I would've done anything.
According to the legend, the hunter, Colt's friend, used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. But they also said that the gun could kill anything. And I needed a gun like that, to bring down the monster that did this to me, that killed my Emmy. And our son. Our poor little boy, that never got a chance to live, only six months old…
"Hey."
Mary felt a frisson of cold slink-creep down the spiral of her spine at the same time that the voice, so close to her elbow, startles her out of her musings. She jumps, slamming the journal shut at the same time she looks up into the eyes of Mr. Leather Coat.
"I'm sorry; didn't mean to startle you." He steps over the stool next to hers and settles, putting his own coffee cup on the countertop. "Do you mind?"
Mary puts the journal back in the backpack and zips it shut. "I really wasn't looking for any company," she admits, though not in as rude a voice as she would've otherwise.
Leather Coat gives a short, nervous laugh. "Yeah, me either, but that old couple in the corner's been giving me fish eye for the last five minutes and I think I'm about to go crazy if I have to try and make more polite conversation with Scotty there."
Mary laughs herself. "Yeah, I suppose I understand that. By all means." She gestures. "So you're not from around here either?"
"Me? No." He draws the word out emphatically and holds out his hand. "I'm Zach."
"Mary." She shakes his hand briefly. His grip is strong but he doesn't try to dominate her with it.
"Nice to meet you. You traveling alone?"
Mary blinks. "Nah, not really," she says. "I'm meeting up with my son in Indianapolis."
"Oh, now you don't look old enough to have kids," Zach says, looking at her disbelievingly. Mary just smiles politely, as though she's never heard that line before. "That where you live?"
"No," she says without offering further information. "What about you? What are you doing in Burkitsville?"
"Oh, I'm kind of an investigator," Zach admits modestly.
"Oh yeah?" Mary tilts her head, wondering if they're in the same business. "What're you investigating?"
"Funny you should mention that." The tone of Zach's voice changes, turning eager and a little edgier. "I'm looking for a woman and her son. They ran away from their home."
"Maybe they had a good reason." Mary shifts her weight on the stool, uneasiness scratching at the back of her neck.
"I'm sure they did," Zach says and there's something about the way he says it draws her gaze up sharply. Under the ridge of his eyebrows, Zach's eyes are black, aphotic, the white and pupil consumed. "That doesn't mean it's not time for them to come back, Lillith."
Panicked, lurching up from the stool, Mary never manages to see who hits her from behind.
Today's Word Count: 2,366 (WOOT, MOTHERFUCKERS!)
Current Total Word Count:
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I scratched my cornea. That made every word of this REALLY DIFFICULT TO TYPE.
What's good: Everything else! I've been having issues with how close the last chapter was to canon, feeling like I was just retelling instead of reinterperting, but this chapter is really a lot more AU, giving me room to do new and different things. It's also a lot more fun to write when I have this room to embroider and go off the beaten path. I really need to add some physical description for Zach, but I like how he's shaping up, young and powerful and amoral and just a little too excited to be doing this. And I think that, although Mary's was stubborn and codproud to let Sam walk away the way she did, her regret afterward is ringing true.
What pleases me: "So what brings you to Burkitsville?" Emily asks, once she's got the nozzle in and the pump is loudly clicking over the gallons.
Mary stubs the END button quickly and looks up into Emily's guileless eyes. "Not a damn thing," she admits. "Just passing through, looking for some breakfast."
Emily nods, pleasant expression not budged in the least. "Best place…" Her smile turns rueful. "Well, pretty much the only place is Scotty's Café over there." She points. "But the food's good. And the apple pie is first rate."
Mary makes a face. "I'm not much for canned apples."
"Oh, no! They're fresh. Or…last year's harvest, anyway. Believe me, they taste as fresh as when they came off the branch." She holds up her hand. "Swear."
"Never really thought of Indiana as an apple state." Mary tucks the cell back in her pocket—though not without yet another pang of misgiving—and tucks her hands into her armpits for warmth. It's a lot warmer than standing on the road in the dark of night with Sam, but April in the Midwest is still a damp, chilly time.
Emily laughs. "Well, it isn't. Really, it's just us."
"So you're a local?" Mary's not really one for small talk, but the low level kibitzing of interrogation has become second nature.
Emily shrugs. "My parents died when I was thirteen." She jerks her thumb back at the shadowed interior of the gas station. "My aunt and uncle took me in. They're nice people." Another shrug. "Everybody's nice here."
"The perfect little town?" Mary asks, careful not to let disbelief enter her tone.
Another smile and Emily's cheeks must ache all day from all this smiling. "Well, it's the boonies. But I love it. The towns around us, Scottsburg, Salem… It's not the same. People losing their homes, their farms, drugs coming in and the crime rate rising. But not here. My aunt says we've been blessed."
CHAPTER FIVE
"No!" Sam slams a hand down on the dashboard, the gesture tingling in his fingertips. "You want my trust, but you don't want to do anything to earn it!"
"You know, I'd think that being your mother and saving your ass for all these years would be proof enough that you should trust me," Mary replies thinly in the low and dangerous voice that never fails to terrify Sam…or would if he was less angry. She doesn't look at him, hunched over the steering wheel and squinting into the night, her shoulders rigid as iron.
"Saving me? Saving me from what Mom?" They've been fighting nearly nonstop since Rockford with only a short truce for Sam to pick all the rock salt from Mary's back. "You and Dean always said what happened to Dad wasn't my fault…but it was, wasn't it? That's why Jess died, because that thing…"
"Demon," Mary interrupts, in the same flat, soulless voice.
"Fine." He's too old to be distracted by his mother's distraction games. "Demon, then. The point is, the same demon killed Jess that killed Dad and the only thing they have in common is me!"
Mary shrugs. "What do you want me to say, Sam? I can't give you answers I don't have."
"But you don't even give me the answers you do have, Mom. This whole thing with your powers, my powers… That's what all this is about, right?"
"Look, I know how you feel…"
"Do you? Dad died over two decades ago, Mom. Jess has only been dead six months. How the hell would you know how I feel?"
"I think I can remember that far back, thank you."
"Why is the demon's going after me and not Dean? It's the powers, right? Or is the demon after Dean too? Is that why he's running? Jesus Christ, do you even care?"
He'd missed Dean's call. Three am had come and gone while they'd been battling the ghost of Ellicot in Roosevelt Asylum. Sam had checked his voice mail compulsively for the next several hours in the vain hope that Dean had left a message that had somehow gotten tied up in wireless traffic, but to no avail. And his calls to Dean's cell only got the same frustrating result as always, dumping straight into Dean's voice mail, message unchanged.
"You don't get to ask me that question, Sam. Not now. Not after all this time." Mary's voice is shaking, but Sam doesn't mistake it for anything other than anger.
"Then when? Because we both know you don't tell me anything unless there's no other choice."
"You know, this is getting really repetitive and really old."
"Yeah, it really is," Sam agrees vehemently. "Dean's been missing for six months. Six months. And I think you know why."
"No, Sam, your problem is that you don't think at all! I'm so tired of this constant whining from you! If I could wave a magic wand and make your brother appear, I would do it. I don't know why he disappeared…"
"You have suspicions, don't you?"
"But I don't know, Sam. I don't know. You want me to come up with some miracle answer for you and I don't have it. Do you think this has been easy? Do you think I've been doing this for kicks all these years? You think I enjoy living from pillar to post and dragging you and Dean behind me like pieces of luggage?"
"I wonder why you even bothered to do it in the first place," Sam retorts thinly. "Since you never wanted me or Dean in the first place."
"Oh, that is such bullshit!"
"Oh, and now I get it! Is that why? I mean, it was one thing when we thought Dean might be dead, but he's not dead. He's out there somewhere. He's out there and he's in trouble and what the hell are we doing about it?"
Mary screeches the Impala to an abrupt halt in the middle of the deserted highway, almost pitching Sam into the dashboard. "You know, I don't even know where to start with you. Are you angry with me, or Dean, are you angry about…about Jess or not being a Real Boy or do you even know what the hell it is you're angry about?"
"I'm angry that Dean's given up every moment of his life trying to make you happy and now he needs you, he really fucking needs you and you…I don't even know what you want to do anymore, but it sure doesn't seem to be finding Dean!" He's not really thinking about it, but he jerks the car door open, wintry air pouring in to chill him through in seconds.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out of the car," Sam answers, like she's stupid. And really, right now, he can't say he's too far off in that assessment. "I'm getting out of all this. You don't want to find Dean, fine. I'll find him myself." He reaches over her to tug the trunk release and climbs out, shivering in his too thin coat. He never did get the chance to get a warmer one. Or hat. Or gloves.
A moment later, Mary scrambles out of the Impala. "Sam, you're not serious."
"I am serious."
"Sam. It's the middle of the night and the middle of nowhere."
Sam doesn't answer, just slings his backpack over his shoulder and takes off in the direction they came from. He thinks it's three or five miles back to the nearest intersection. The hike will keep him warm and hopefully there'll be more traffic than there is on this deserted two-lane. He doesn't know where he's going yet, but he'll figure it out. Winchesters always do, right?
"Sam," his mother calls, her warning tone, "don't do this. I will leave your ass, you hear me?"
Sam scuffs to a halt and turns back to face her. She looks tiny next to the Impala's bulk. Tiny and pale, almost fragile, but Sam knows it’s a lie. His mother is the toughest, hardest, most stubborn person he's ever known.
That doesn't make her right, though.
"That's what I want you to do," he says finally. He feels a pang of guilt at abandoning his quest for Jess's killer, for revenge, but the demon—or whatever the hell it is—has waited for twenty-two years and Jess is dead. All he can do for her is avenge her. He might be able to save his brother's life. And that has to take precedence.
He and his mother stare at each other for several weighted moments. Then, finally, Mary nods at him. It looks like a nod of respect. "Goodbye, Sam." She closes the trunk with a muted thud without looking, turns on her heel and gets back into the car.
Sam watches her go. Watches the Impala pull out and away. Watches the taillights flash bright and bloody and then fade.
He didn't expect that she would do it. Not really and not after all her insistence that they stick together. At the same time, he's aware that it doesn't feel nearly as big or scary as it would've before he left or even before Roosevelt.
You know, you've got some deep-seated abandonment issues, hon.
Jess. Enough with the psychobabble, okay? I'm fine.
Mary's keeping secrets, that much is clear.
And between Dean's note and his own strange, unexplained experiences with his mom, Sam just doesn't trust that those secrets won't get one—or all—of them killed. Not anymore.
And miles to go, before I sleep, Sam thinks, resigned, and hitches his bag higher on his shoulder again? Jesus, Sam…what are you doing?
Jesus, Mary, what are you doing? Mary thinks as she pulls into the tiny town of Burkitsville, lodged deep in its surrounding orchards. She didn't mean for this to happen—oh, just the contrary, dammit—but Sam has a way of finding that button that pushes her into an instant rage and then repeatedly jumping up and down on it. He's just gotten her so angry. And then with the two of them standing there on the road, it'd felt like there was no way to back down. Not without opening the door to a lot more stuff that Sam has no business messing in.
And when are you planning to talk to Sam about 'all this stuff'? she wonders, pulling into the gas station, climbing out of the car and stamping her boots on the damp asphalt. It must have rained not too long ago, the streets slick and the iron smell of it still heady and thick.
"Good morning!" The girl that comes out from the portico of the garage is young, in that indeterminate teenage period that could be anything from sixteen to early twenties. Her long, blonde hair is falling out of her ponytail into her round, friendly face; she brushes it back with a blunt little hand in which the grease has been ingrained and smiles.
God, she makes Mary feel old.
"Good morning." Mary nods back, still too agitated—and let's face it, too worried about Sam—to return the smile or knock the surly off her voice. She glances up at the old fashioned wooden sign: Full Service. "Fill 'er up?"
"Sure thing. I'm Emily. Nice to meetcha."
"Mary. Same." She leans against the Impala and fishes her cell from her pocket, gritting her teeth as her shoulders flex. If she had to carry the burden for the McCoy blood, why couldn't she have gotten a useful Gift, like healing? She flips through the menu for Sam's number.
"So what brings you to Burkitsville?" Emily asks, once she's got the nozzle in and the pump is loudly clicking over the gallons.
Mary stubs the END button quickly and looks up into Emily's guileless eyes. "Not a damn thing," she admits. "Just passing through, looking for some breakfast."
Emily nods, pleasant expression not budged in the least. "Best place…" Her smile turns rueful. "Well, pretty much the only place is Scotty's Café over there." She points. "But the food's good. And the apple pie is first rate."
Mary makes a face. "I'm not much for canned apples."
"Oh, no! They're fresh. Or…last year's harvest, anyway. Believe me, they taste as fresh as when they came off the branch." She holds up her hand. "Swear."
"Never really thought of Indiana as an apple state." Mary tucks the cell back in her pocket—though not without yet another pang of misgiving—and tucks her hands into her armpits for warmth. It's a lot warmer than standing on the road in the dark of night with Sam, but April in the Midwest is still a damp, chilly time.
Emily laughs. "Well, it isn't. Really, it's just us."
"So you're a local?" Mary's not really one for small talk, but the low level kibitzing of interrogation has become second nature.
Emily shrugs. "My parents died when I was thirteen." She jerks her thumb back at the shadowed interior of the gas station. "My aunt and uncle took me in. They're nice people." Another shrug. "Everybody's nice here."
"The perfect little town?" Mary asks, careful not to let disbelief enter her tone.
Another smile and Emily's cheeks must ache all day from all this smiling. "Well, it's the boonies. But I love it. The towns around us, Scottsburg, Salem… It's not the same. People losing their homes, their farms, drugs coming in and the crime rate rising. But not here. My aunt says we've been blessed."
Mary widens her eyes and nods, keeping her eye rolling for the inside.
It's Emily's turn to pull a face. "I didn't mean it like that. I just mean…Burkitsville's a nice place to live. A good place. Better than someplace where I'd have to worry about my meth-head neighbor blowing up their house and poisoning the whole neighborhood or sleeping in the tub because I'm afraid of gangs. People look out for each other here." The gas pump ka-chunks, cutting off the flow. Emily gives Mary another quick grin and turns away.
In Mary's experience, people are largely the same regardless of geography, but it's not her job to disabuse Emily of her illusions. She digs out her wallet and carefully fishes out a credit card with the first initial of M, aware she's already staked herself to the name Mary.
Dammit, Sam. I don't need this kind of distraction! she thinks viciously, canting her hip a little and feeling her cell against the bone. "Scotty's, huh?" she asks, when Emily comes back with the card and slip.
Emily nods vigorously. "And I know it's early, but you should really try the pie!"
Mary smiles and draws the Impala's door open with the familiar rusty squeak that always reminds her of John. "Maybe I will."
"You'll thank me if you do!" Emily calls after her.
There's only one other customer in the café when Mary comes in, a skinny and dark-haired man in an expensive black leather jacket. She remembers seeing an equally expensive red sports car parked in one of the garage bays of the gas station and she can guess what he's doing here.
Another man, grey streaked through the darkness of his hair, comes from the back, wiping his hands on a towel. He glances at her briefly and then past her. It's such a strange gesture that Mary halts mid-step and turns to look behind herself to see if there's anyone else there. There is a couple at the foot of the steps, middle-aged and graying, clearly bent on the café themselves. Reassured, she takes a seat at the long, planked bar and reaches for her cell again.
She doesn't know yet what she's going to say to Sam, but she dials his number and hits SEND anyway.
"Coffee?" The guy from the back—presumably the Scotty from the sign—comes to the counter with a pot and waves it at her. Mary flips the white porcelain cup upright on the saucer and shoves it in his general direction while the phone rings in her ear.
C'mon, Sam…pick up. Don't make your old mother worry.
Once he's poured her hot cuppa—and thank God, because Mary is in bad need of some caffeine—Scotty moves off to the door that presumably leads to the kitchen. The old couple that came in behind her hustles over to confab with him, the woman glancing over at Mary several times with her mouth pinched into a disapproving line. Mary wonders what it is this time; her lack of proper feminine garb and posture, her deplorable lack of make up or the fact that she looks like a hundred miles of bad road. Not that it matters.
Sam doesn't answer. The call drops into his voicemail and Mary's feeling an ugly sense of deja-vu. Hi, this is Sam Winchester. I'm not available to take your call right now, so if you'd please leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Though it's the same message Sam's had for years, its very bland politeness strikes Mary as particularly ominous this time around and she curses herself for a superstitious idiot at the same time she wraps her free hand around the coffee, warming her fingers on the glass.
"Sam," she begins, after the tone, "I…" And here she slams right up against her inability to think ahead and come up with the right words to say. "Look…just call me when you get this message, all right?" She sighs and hangs up, tucking the phone into her jacket pocket before wrapping both hands around the coffee mug and inhaling the life giving vapors.
The couple seems to have given up on whatever bee was in their collective bonnet and have gone to sit at a table in the corner near the door where they're talking in low voices. Mary gives a mental shrug.
"So what can I getcha?" Scotty asks, returning to her side.
"Well, I haven't had a chance to look at the menu yet, but I'm told on good authority that the apple pie is to die for."
"That it is," Scotty agrees, warm pride in his voice and his expression thawing a little bit.
"I'll take a slice of that and then I'll get back to you on the rest."
Scotty nods. "Will do. You want cheese on it?"
Mary suppresses her shudder. She's never really understood that particular touch. "No, thanks."
Scotty nods a second time, approvingly. "Gotcha. Be right back with that pie."
"Thanks." Mary lowers her head back to her coffee and wonders where she can snag a paper. She might not be on the hunt right now, but just the act of going through it looking for anything out of the ordinary has become a soothing ritual all its own. Besides, if she's going to get in touch with Ash regarding the Elkins from the Roosevelt patient diary, it would help to have information to trade.
Of course, she thinks, reaching down between her legs to unzip her backpack and fish the journal in question from within, it's not like she has a lack of reading material at the moment.
Back in 1835, Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun, made for a hunter. And with the gun, he made thirteen bullets. I thought it was a myth, I really did. Everyone told me it was a myth. But I was so desperate to avenge Emmy, I would've done anything.
According to the legend, the hunter, Colt's friend, used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. But they also said that the gun could kill anything. And I needed a gun like that, to bring down the monster that did this to me, that killed my Emmy. And our son. Our poor little boy, that never got a chance to live, only six months old…
"Hey."
Mary felt a frisson of cold slink-creep down the spiral of her spine at the same time that the voice, so close to her elbow, startles her out of her musings. She jumps, slamming the journal shut at the same time she looks up into the eyes of Mr. Leather Coat.
"I'm sorry; didn't mean to startle you." He steps over the stool next to hers and settles, putting his own coffee cup on the countertop. "Do you mind?"
Mary puts the journal back in the backpack and zips it shut. "I really wasn't looking for any company," she admits, though not in as rude a voice as she would've otherwise.
Leather Coat gives a short, nervous laugh. "Yeah, me either, but that old couple in the corner's been giving me fish eye for the last five minutes and I think I'm about to go crazy if I have to try and make more polite conversation with Scotty there."
Mary laughs herself. "Yeah, I suppose I understand that. By all means." She gestures. "So you're not from around here either?"
"Me? No." He draws the word out emphatically and holds out his hand. "I'm Zach."
"Mary." She shakes his hand briefly. His grip is strong but he doesn't try to dominate her with it.
"Nice to meet you. You traveling alone?"
Mary blinks. "Nah, not really," she says. "I'm meeting up with my son in Indianapolis."
"Oh, now you don't look old enough to have kids," Zach says, looking at her disbelievingly. Mary just smiles politely, as though she's never heard that line before. "That where you live?"
"No," she says without offering further information. "What about you? What are you doing in Burkitsville?"
"Oh, I'm kind of an investigator," Zach admits modestly.
"Oh yeah?" Mary tilts her head, wondering if they're in the same business. "What're you investigating?"
"Funny you should mention that." The tone of Zach's voice changes, turning eager and a little edgier. "I'm looking for a woman and her son. They ran away from their home."
"Maybe they had a good reason." Mary shifts her weight on the stool, uneasiness scratching at the back of her neck.
"I'm sure they did," Zach says and there's something about the way he says it draws her gaze up sharply. Under the ridge of his eyebrows, Zach's eyes are black, aphotic, the white and pupil consumed. "That doesn't mean it's not time for them to come back, Lillith."
Panicked, lurching up from the stool, Mary never manages to see who hits her from behind.
