(no subject)
Then As it Was, Then Again it Will Be
Supernatural
Ellen; PG
900 words
A/N: a coda, of sorts, to "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1." Spoilers only for that ep. I know nothing of what's to come. Thanks to mcee for read-through.
Ellen's hardly the sentimental type. She's known for a long time now that you take what life throws at you and hold on to what you can, when you can. You remember the good times and the bad ones in equal measure; it keeps you honest, reminds you that nothing is perfect. But even so, even imperfect as they are, some things are sacred: home, family.
She had a whole life before the Roadhouse, a hard life on unforgiving land. She worked her way out in stages: a job at the grocery when she was sixteen, her high school diploma at seventeen, waitressing at the diner out on 83 when she was eighteen, and that's where she met Bill. Not exactly a knight in shining armor, come to take her away from all this (even though he did, in the end), but he had kind eyes, a wide, easy smile. He didn't grab at her ass or stare at her tits. He said "please" and "thank you." He overtipped.
She left her mama a note the day they eloped at the county courthouse. Her daddy was three years gone by then, and Mama and her brothers and the farm were never quite the same after he passed. Ellen sent checks home every month, but it wasn't enough, and she's always been a little bit thankful that Mama died--peacefully, in her sleep--before the bank came to take the farm. She hasn't seen her brothers since the funeral, but they call every now and again.
The Roadhouse was a one-pump gas station and nameless ten-stool diner when they bought it. Falling down, falling apart. Forgotten, and the owner was all too happy to unload it onto two bright-eyed newlyweds for way less than even the land was worth.
They gutted the diner, left nothing but the kitchen intact, and built up and around it. Bill did most of the work himself, which accounted for the uneven floors and watch-your-fingers snap of the storm door. Small irritations--the chairs at the corner tables always wobbled, and Ellen got her knuckles bruised a time or two--that became small comforts, over the years. Quirks that made it home, not just a bar with a weirdly laid-out apartment over it.
Jo was conceived in the bright corner bedroom, that caught the late afternoon sun and had no cross-breeze to speak of even when both windows were wide open. The narrow shower stall that Ellen barely fit into the last two months of her pregnancy, the sunny yellow kitchen where Jo took her first wobbling steps, the penciled lines on the door marking her height every year until she was twelve... all gone, now. Reduced to rubble and ash, along with the single box of carefully chosen keepsakes Ellen kept in her closet. Bill's journals, a few photos, a stick-figure family portrait Jo drew when she was five.
And downstairs, those worn, warped floorboards that saw so much traffic over the years. Friends and strangers, hunters and civilians. A watering hole for truckers and bikers and the odd scenic-route road-tripper. A hub and a safehouse for hunters. She'd witnessed a hell of a lot from behind that bar: friendships and partnerships forged, deals made, information traded. Fights and reunions, plenty of laughter and tears and everything in between.
She knows her insurance covers "acts of god," but she's not so sure about acts of the man downstairs. Doesn't matter, really. They'll put it down to faulty wiring or a gas leak and cut her a check. But it's just money; it can't buy her back twenty-five years of memories.
It can't give her back the view from her bedroom window or the smoke-beer-wood polish smell of a Sunday morning down in the bar. It won't buy back the tiny swell of pride every time she came back from town and paused to survey all that she and Bill had made here.
So much reduced to so little, and she doesn't even want to look at it, much less touch it. There's nothing recognizable in the debris except a few blackened limbs, splintered wood. Ash's watch, but maybe not his arm, and at least there's that. At least there are still things to be hopeful about, even foolishly.
She thinks of John, suddenly. How he must have felt the night his wife died, watching his house go up in flames. She wonders if he went back there, to pick through the charred and fire-hose soaked remains of his life. Wonders what small things he might have rescued and carried with him, if there was even anything left to take. She never asked, and he never told. She wishes now that she had. Like it might help her figure out what to do, where to go from here. She thinks, irrationally, that John would know.
In the end, she does the only thing she can: stand in the sun and the wind and cry herself out, quietly, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. Take one last look at it all and see what was instead of what is. What might be again, someday.
She gets in her truck and backs out onto the empty road, wipes at her wet eyes. Breathes through the ache and puts what's left of Harvelle's Roadhouse in her rearview, but not behind her.
Supernatural
Ellen; PG
900 words
A/N: a coda, of sorts, to "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1." Spoilers only for that ep. I know nothing of what's to come. Thanks to mcee for read-through.
Ellen's hardly the sentimental type. She's known for a long time now that you take what life throws at you and hold on to what you can, when you can. You remember the good times and the bad ones in equal measure; it keeps you honest, reminds you that nothing is perfect. But even so, even imperfect as they are, some things are sacred: home, family.
She had a whole life before the Roadhouse, a hard life on unforgiving land. She worked her way out in stages: a job at the grocery when she was sixteen, her high school diploma at seventeen, waitressing at the diner out on 83 when she was eighteen, and that's where she met Bill. Not exactly a knight in shining armor, come to take her away from all this (even though he did, in the end), but he had kind eyes, a wide, easy smile. He didn't grab at her ass or stare at her tits. He said "please" and "thank you." He overtipped.
She left her mama a note the day they eloped at the county courthouse. Her daddy was three years gone by then, and Mama and her brothers and the farm were never quite the same after he passed. Ellen sent checks home every month, but it wasn't enough, and she's always been a little bit thankful that Mama died--peacefully, in her sleep--before the bank came to take the farm. She hasn't seen her brothers since the funeral, but they call every now and again.
The Roadhouse was a one-pump gas station and nameless ten-stool diner when they bought it. Falling down, falling apart. Forgotten, and the owner was all too happy to unload it onto two bright-eyed newlyweds for way less than even the land was worth.
They gutted the diner, left nothing but the kitchen intact, and built up and around it. Bill did most of the work himself, which accounted for the uneven floors and watch-your-fingers snap of the storm door. Small irritations--the chairs at the corner tables always wobbled, and Ellen got her knuckles bruised a time or two--that became small comforts, over the years. Quirks that made it home, not just a bar with a weirdly laid-out apartment over it.
Jo was conceived in the bright corner bedroom, that caught the late afternoon sun and had no cross-breeze to speak of even when both windows were wide open. The narrow shower stall that Ellen barely fit into the last two months of her pregnancy, the sunny yellow kitchen where Jo took her first wobbling steps, the penciled lines on the door marking her height every year until she was twelve... all gone, now. Reduced to rubble and ash, along with the single box of carefully chosen keepsakes Ellen kept in her closet. Bill's journals, a few photos, a stick-figure family portrait Jo drew when she was five.
And downstairs, those worn, warped floorboards that saw so much traffic over the years. Friends and strangers, hunters and civilians. A watering hole for truckers and bikers and the odd scenic-route road-tripper. A hub and a safehouse for hunters. She'd witnessed a hell of a lot from behind that bar: friendships and partnerships forged, deals made, information traded. Fights and reunions, plenty of laughter and tears and everything in between.
She knows her insurance covers "acts of god," but she's not so sure about acts of the man downstairs. Doesn't matter, really. They'll put it down to faulty wiring or a gas leak and cut her a check. But it's just money; it can't buy her back twenty-five years of memories.
It can't give her back the view from her bedroom window or the smoke-beer-wood polish smell of a Sunday morning down in the bar. It won't buy back the tiny swell of pride every time she came back from town and paused to survey all that she and Bill had made here.
So much reduced to so little, and she doesn't even want to look at it, much less touch it. There's nothing recognizable in the debris except a few blackened limbs, splintered wood. Ash's watch, but maybe not his arm, and at least there's that. At least there are still things to be hopeful about, even foolishly.
She thinks of John, suddenly. How he must have felt the night his wife died, watching his house go up in flames. She wonders if he went back there, to pick through the charred and fire-hose soaked remains of his life. Wonders what small things he might have rescued and carried with him, if there was even anything left to take. She never asked, and he never told. She wishes now that she had. Like it might help her figure out what to do, where to go from here. She thinks, irrationally, that John would know.
In the end, she does the only thing she can: stand in the sun and the wind and cry herself out, quietly, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. Take one last look at it all and see what was instead of what is. What might be again, someday.
She gets in her truck and backs out onto the empty road, wipes at her wet eyes. Breathes through the ache and puts what's left of Harvelle's Roadhouse in her rearview, but not behind her.