|| Re-Introduction: If You Need Him, He'll Be There Again ||
[SPOILERS for Supernatural up to 5x22 in this post, and likely in the course of play with my Dean. Sorry.]
( Beautiful loser, never take it all 'cause it's easier and faster when you fall; you just can't have it all. )
She's wearing wrist warmers and is bundled in a shawl, and though it's early in the day, still, Sugar took a moment to light a fire in the furnace nearby. She wants to hear the quiet crackling of the wood, to feel the fire's cleansing warmth, and, most of all, to let herself mourn.
She's been holding up well enough: having a child to worry about gave her untold resources, and there's not telling what Nik might have done, had he not felt compelled to look out for her and Sophie. Still, she realizes she has to be strong - she's seen her beloved's brother pace like a caged lion in the common room more than was healthy (if it ever was), and she can tell the man is holding together with little more than tattered rope and second-hand wire.
And so she might cut a rather quiet figure, alone at the desk, scribbling and scribbling, until her mind accepts to quiet again.
As agreed, this one will eventually involve the Holy Family. Er.
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Research.
It takes him a moment to notice the woman as he prowls among the shelves, trying to discern some kind of sorting system. He's not really surprised to find it's not the Dewey Decimal System, because he's broken into his fair share of small town libraries that basically did whatever they wanted to do, but that does make his search a little harder. Makes it more necessary to stop the second time he passes and interrupt her.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, because he's not exactly feeling flirty yet. His lips do smile, though, muscle memory and old habit. "You know where I might find the newspaper clippings?"
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And so it was that in the days of old, the women of London Island were left alone to tend to the babes while their men died, fighting enemies greater than they. In truth it was a battle on its own - one hardly recorded at the time, but this is a tale my grandmother told me, one of sadness, loss and despair, though I have ever derived hope from it.
She pauses, dips her quill in the inkpot, goes on, It was a frozen winter of 1567, and they were then a small coterie of youths, living in a cozy cottage, off the road that leads to Birming---
And an interruption.
"... I beg your pardon?"
She was completely focused, now she lost her sentence.
Well, bugger.
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And really, he should've known, maybe. Except he hadn't been paying that much attention to how she's dressed or, really, how the rest of this house seems to be stuck somewhat further behind than he's accustomed to. That's actually fairly standard for houses as big as this in his experience. Usually he's trying to get out before anyone knows he's there, of course, not asking for directions.
Times have changed, he supposes. He holds the smile he doesn't really feel, already bracing for the annoyance of a woman interrupted. He's familiar enough with that, too.
"Newspaper clippings. Is there a place for 'em in here or am I up shit creek without a paddle?"
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And then, she lights up brightly - as if Dean was a long lost family member, suddenly sprouting from the grave. Excellent, unexpected news. A present on a chill afternoon. She stands, as if on a spring.
“Dean!” Oh, Mary, how happy she is! “Now you rotten scoundrel,” she goes on as she closes the distance, and slaps him, if he doesn’t dodge, on the shoulder. “You come here, like nothing’s happened, as if I didn’t have an 8 year old terrified about you and half her uncles.”
She frowns at him, then clicks. Maybe he was among the dead, maybe he returned. The young hooker’s been here so long, none of this is weird to her anymore.
“Well bugger you. What happened to you during the quake? You have gall, waltzing in here like no-one worried.”
But under this unexpected anger, there’s warmth, a lot of it, and unbearable joy. Because maybe, just maybe, if this one came back, than another might: the one who saved her, back then, from herself.
Cal.
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Except he doesn't know who she is at all. Christ. An eight year old? Crap.
"I uh," he hedges intelligently. "Wait, what?" There it is. "Quake? Uncles? I don't know any kids. Who're you?"
And why are you so goddamn happy to see me?
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Despite the comical disarray of their reunion, Sugar spots that Dean is completely lost. Oh, dear, oh dear. Or rather, oh, shite. Because she's seen this happen before, people coming back, not remembering their past at the Mansion.
She's been repeatedly hoping this wasn't going to be the case with Cal.
“I'm Sugar,” she says. “And I have a daughter called Sophie, who loves you very much.”
She blinks, stares at him.
“Fucknuts, Dean, you don't remember a bloody thing, do ya? Well that'll mess with everyone and everything.”
She frowns.
“Good to see ya regardless. Still want those clippings, or should we wander off to the kitchen, have tea, and catch up?”
She's not even questioning that he'll believe her. Because, quite simply, he'd better.
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...only his eyebrows pull together as he frowns back at her. "I uh. Shit." Just, shit. He knows his own instincts, honed in the past year by being on the run from pretty much everything and everyone they can be, have developed a hair trigger for paranoia, but it's just not coming for her. He doesn't feel threatened, which is new, just confused.
Okay. It seems like it'd be okay to admit to the pretty damn obvious.
"No, I don't. Uh... sorry?" She doesn't seem like she wants an apology though, so he steps back a bit before answering. "We should probably talk. The clippings were for information, anyway, so no loss there."
He can always just find them later for fact-checking.
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“Jolly grand,” Sugar drawls in her slightly less than posh accent - she's from the bowels of Dickensian London, after all. “Let's scarper off, aye, and I'll put the kettle on. No scones o'whutnot, tho, not wiv all I got hangin' of late. But I'll rabbit as much as you like, got nothing to hide.”
She winks at him, and starts to gather her notes, puts away her quill.
“It's right good you're here, even though you don't remember a bloody thing,” Sugar goes on. “Gives hope, even if your noggin's all messed with. Feckin' house, messing with us this way.”
And if Dean allows, she'll lead him back to (we're so sorry) the kitchen. She couldn't write now if she tried, anyway - she's much too excited by this new development, she's even lost all her polish in the process.
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And that she's someone who he'd have been glad to know a few years earlier; maybe he could be again. He certainly feels more amused than annoyed, which is unusual for him.
"Well, if it helps, I'm a pretty quick study," he offers, following her after the smallest hesitation. He does need information and, if nothing else, she seems friendly. He tries to rouse some wariness for where she might be leading him, but there's none of it; either he's already under her spell if she's something he would normally hunt, or he can trust her.
He does his best to keep that in mind until he hears more. "And besides, ask anyone: My noggin's been messed with pretty much from the go."
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“Did you just come?” she asks, slower, enunciating better, like she would for the bourgeois johns who came for her, in another life.
She's trying to act casual, but her excitement is probably visible, palpable.
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