Save Our Souls
Title: Save Our Souls
Wordcount: ~1500
Rating: PG
Pairings: implied Dean/Cas and... Celine Dion/René Angélil *hides*
Genre: Crack+Angst=Crangst?
Contains: Philosophical crap and Celine Dion
Beta: pyjamagurl
Disclaimer: I don't like Celine's music (I agree with Balthazar: makes me want to smite myself), but I have no opinion on the person herself. Anything about her life in this fic was taken from Wikipedia. I don't know the real Celine, I don't know what she would do in this situation, I'm making no profit... PLEASE DON'T SUE!
Summary: Before he sends Balthazar back to re-sink the Titanic, Castiel decides to get a human perspective from someone in a similar situation as his.
She walks through her small apartment, still wearing the oversized t-shirt from her first tour that she slept in. There's a picture frame on the mantle of her ridiculously small fireplace. A simple wooden frame guarding the picture from hers and René's wedding.
"Good morning, mon amour," she tells the photo. "Well, afternoon, but I was working last night, so it still counts as morning."
"You were very beautiful that day."
She shrieks and turns around to see a man in a dirty trench coat looking at her.
"Who are you?" she asks him, while grabbing the fireplace poker. "How did you get in here?"
"Who I am is of no import, Celine," he answers, stepping in her direction.
Celine holds the poker with both hands and waves it towards his face.
"Don't come near me!"
The man tilts his head and with a simple movement of a finger he makes the poker fly from her hands and bury itself in the wall. Celine stares at the poker and then back at the man, pulling her t-shirt down her thighs, desperately trying to hide her legs.
"I assure you I mean you no harm."
"What do you want from me?" Her voice breaks on the last syllable and she feels like throwing up, panic making her legs almost buckle under her.
The man observes her for a moment and then sighs. It would be a perfectly human gesture, if it weren't for the out-of-this-world weariness in his eyes. He looks around and, seeing the small battered couch, he sits down and puts his hands on his knees.
"Tell me, Celine, are you happy with your life?" he asks her.
"What?"
"It's a simple enough question."
Celine considers him for a few moments. She's terrified of him. Not because she doesn't know how he got inside her apartment, nor what he wants from her, but simply of him. He's not that tall or strong or particularly menacing and he looks tired and old beyond his years. But there’s still something terrifying about him.
"I guess," she answers him. "I consider myself lucky that I can live from what I love to do. Of course, singing in bars at nights doesn't make me wealthy, but it's not like I have a family to sustain. And…" Her eyes flicker instinctively to the photograph on the mantle. "He may be gone now, but at least I got to live a great love story. Better to have loved and lost, than to not have loved at all, right?"
The man doesn't blink once while she talks.
"What if I told you that one single event in the past could have changed your entire life?"
She snorts despite herself.
"I'm pretty sure that's how it goes, isn't it?" She shakes her head. "Every single little moment in everyone's past could have brought forward completely different outcomes."
"Indeed," the man says, nodding. "But I'm thinking of a very specific event with a very specific outcome. If, on April 14, 1912, the HMS Titanic, a passenger liner on her maiden voyage across the North Atlantic had struck an iceberg and sunk on the following day, she had became legendary."
"Okay…"
"So much, that in 1997 James Cameron would debut a movie about her, that would become one of highest-grossing movies in History."
"James Cameron, that guy who does those sci-fi movies," she states, disbelieving. "Right. And what would that have to do with me?"
"You'd be the one recording the soundtrack."
"Oh."
"Multiple-platinum all around the world. You'd be rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams. And then your husband would be diagnosed with esophageal cancer."
Celine steps back and presses herself against the wall like she was pushed, her eyes never leaving the man.
"So the outcome is still the same," she says, blankly.
"Not at all: with your fame and your fortune you'd be able to get him the best doctors, the best treatments. And while the five-year survival rate of that type of cancer is only fifteen percent, René would defy all the odds and survive for five years, for ten, for more."
"You son of a bitch!" she yells. How dare he bring René into this sick spiel of his? How dare he joke with this?
"And that's not all," he continues, unfazed by her outburst. "That same fame and fortune would allow you to undergo these two surgeries that would cure you of your infertility-"
"No…" Celine lets herself slip to the floor, her back still pressed against the wall. "Please…"
"… And in 2001 you'd give birth to a boy named René-Charles. By then you'd be living in Las Vegas with your family. Unlike other pop-singers, you wouldn't need to tour, because people would flock from all over the world to see you perform every night at Caesar's Palace." He stops to watch her while she lets out a sob, still pulling futilely at the hem of her t-shirt. "In 2009 you'd suffer a miscarriage, but it would hardly matter, because in 2010 you'd give birth to two boys, fraternal twins Eddie and Nelson and your happiness would be complete."
"Shut up!" she wails. "Why are you doing this to me?"
He shakes his head and in the back of her mind she registers that there's not an ounce of cruelty in his eyes.
"I'm not doing anything to you, Celine. I'm just telling you what would have happened had the Titanic sank that night, one century ago: 1,517 people would have died then. 1,517 people who originated 50,000 more people."
"What…"
"Those 50,000 souls would not find eternal rest like the 1,517 killed. They'd simply cease to be. All those bubbles of love, those sparks of dreams, of hope, they would never be. Like Anne Hartley, who in 1952 saved David Loeb from survivor's guilt and introduced him to one of her students, who he ended up marrying. Or William Olsen. What can I tell you about William, other than his grandmother crossed the ocean in the Titanic when she was just a small child and that his greatest dream was to save the world? He will, in a way. William Olsen works for the United Nations and in two months he will pass a groundbreaking bill that will force pharmaceutical companies to donate medical cocktails to women in Africa-"
"Oh, God…"
"… Which will help prevent them from giving their unborn children HIV."
"Stop that!" By now Celine is crying, hugging her knees and unable to look at the stranger in her living room.
"If you could go back in time, would you sink the Titanic, kill those people, prevent those tens of thousands of people from being born, risk the future of so many African AIDS orphans and save René?"
"Are you the Devil?" she asks, her head snapping up, eyes wide and wild.
The man seems caught by surprise and he almost looks human.
"Excuse me?"
"I asked are you the Devil?" she asks, oddly calm. "You come here and you give me all these scenarios where I'm happy at the expense of others. Is that what you'll give me for my soul?"
He blinks owlishly at her and suddenly lets out a short hoarse bark of laughter. He seems as startled as she is, like laughing is something foreign, something he has never done before.
"What's so funny?"
"If you knew how ironic that is…" The man shakes his head. "Especially considering that the last time someone asked if I was someone I'm not, they thought I was God. No, I'm not the Devil. And I'm sorry if I misled you, but I don't have anything to offer you."
Celine takes a deep breath, feeling her heart break just like it did the day she had to say goodbye to the crippled husk that was once René, so thin and twisted she could pick him up in her arms.
"Then what do you want from me?" she asks him, voice shaking once again.
"Validation." It's the short answer and he slips from the couch to kneel before her, giving her a smile so sad, she has to fight the urge to reach out and touch his hand. "Would you willingly interfere with the Big Picture so deeply, that it would irrevocably destroy something so much bigger than you, if it meant saving the one you love?"
Celine wants to stop the answer from forming. She knows that, intellectually and morally there's no excuse, no logic behind it. But the life he painted before her eyes rendered her own life, the life she thought meaningful and good, obsolete, and before she knows it the word is out of her mouth.
"Yes," she says.
The man nods and disappears.
The End
Wordcount: ~1500
Rating: PG
Pairings: implied Dean/Cas and... Celine Dion/René Angélil *hides*
Genre: Crack+Angst=Crangst?
Contains: Philosophical crap and Celine Dion
Beta: pyjamagurl
Disclaimer: I don't like Celine's music (I agree with Balthazar: makes me want to smite myself), but I have no opinion on the person herself. Anything about her life in this fic was taken from Wikipedia. I don't know the real Celine, I don't know what she would do in this situation, I'm making no profit... PLEASE DON'T SUE!
Summary: Before he sends Balthazar back to re-sink the Titanic, Castiel decides to get a human perspective from someone in a similar situation as his.
She walks through her small apartment, still wearing the oversized t-shirt from her first tour that she slept in. There's a picture frame on the mantle of her ridiculously small fireplace. A simple wooden frame guarding the picture from hers and René's wedding.
"Good morning, mon amour," she tells the photo. "Well, afternoon, but I was working last night, so it still counts as morning."
"You were very beautiful that day."
She shrieks and turns around to see a man in a dirty trench coat looking at her.
"Who are you?" she asks him, while grabbing the fireplace poker. "How did you get in here?"
"Who I am is of no import, Celine," he answers, stepping in her direction.
Celine holds the poker with both hands and waves it towards his face.
"Don't come near me!"
The man tilts his head and with a simple movement of a finger he makes the poker fly from her hands and bury itself in the wall. Celine stares at the poker and then back at the man, pulling her t-shirt down her thighs, desperately trying to hide her legs.
"I assure you I mean you no harm."
"What do you want from me?" Her voice breaks on the last syllable and she feels like throwing up, panic making her legs almost buckle under her.
The man observes her for a moment and then sighs. It would be a perfectly human gesture, if it weren't for the out-of-this-world weariness in his eyes. He looks around and, seeing the small battered couch, he sits down and puts his hands on his knees.
"Tell me, Celine, are you happy with your life?" he asks her.
"What?"
"It's a simple enough question."
Celine considers him for a few moments. She's terrified of him. Not because she doesn't know how he got inside her apartment, nor what he wants from her, but simply of him. He's not that tall or strong or particularly menacing and he looks tired and old beyond his years. But there’s still something terrifying about him.
"I guess," she answers him. "I consider myself lucky that I can live from what I love to do. Of course, singing in bars at nights doesn't make me wealthy, but it's not like I have a family to sustain. And…" Her eyes flicker instinctively to the photograph on the mantle. "He may be gone now, but at least I got to live a great love story. Better to have loved and lost, than to not have loved at all, right?"
The man doesn't blink once while she talks.
"What if I told you that one single event in the past could have changed your entire life?"
She snorts despite herself.
"I'm pretty sure that's how it goes, isn't it?" She shakes her head. "Every single little moment in everyone's past could have brought forward completely different outcomes."
"Indeed," the man says, nodding. "But I'm thinking of a very specific event with a very specific outcome. If, on April 14, 1912, the HMS Titanic, a passenger liner on her maiden voyage across the North Atlantic had struck an iceberg and sunk on the following day, she had became legendary."
"Okay…"
"So much, that in 1997 James Cameron would debut a movie about her, that would become one of highest-grossing movies in History."
"James Cameron, that guy who does those sci-fi movies," she states, disbelieving. "Right. And what would that have to do with me?"
"You'd be the one recording the soundtrack."
"Oh."
"Multiple-platinum all around the world. You'd be rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams. And then your husband would be diagnosed with esophageal cancer."
Celine steps back and presses herself against the wall like she was pushed, her eyes never leaving the man.
"So the outcome is still the same," she says, blankly.
"Not at all: with your fame and your fortune you'd be able to get him the best doctors, the best treatments. And while the five-year survival rate of that type of cancer is only fifteen percent, René would defy all the odds and survive for five years, for ten, for more."
"You son of a bitch!" she yells. How dare he bring René into this sick spiel of his? How dare he joke with this?
"And that's not all," he continues, unfazed by her outburst. "That same fame and fortune would allow you to undergo these two surgeries that would cure you of your infertility-"
"No…" Celine lets herself slip to the floor, her back still pressed against the wall. "Please…"
"… And in 2001 you'd give birth to a boy named René-Charles. By then you'd be living in Las Vegas with your family. Unlike other pop-singers, you wouldn't need to tour, because people would flock from all over the world to see you perform every night at Caesar's Palace." He stops to watch her while she lets out a sob, still pulling futilely at the hem of her t-shirt. "In 2009 you'd suffer a miscarriage, but it would hardly matter, because in 2010 you'd give birth to two boys, fraternal twins Eddie and Nelson and your happiness would be complete."
"Shut up!" she wails. "Why are you doing this to me?"
He shakes his head and in the back of her mind she registers that there's not an ounce of cruelty in his eyes.
"I'm not doing anything to you, Celine. I'm just telling you what would have happened had the Titanic sank that night, one century ago: 1,517 people would have died then. 1,517 people who originated 50,000 more people."
"What…"
"Those 50,000 souls would not find eternal rest like the 1,517 killed. They'd simply cease to be. All those bubbles of love, those sparks of dreams, of hope, they would never be. Like Anne Hartley, who in 1952 saved David Loeb from survivor's guilt and introduced him to one of her students, who he ended up marrying. Or William Olsen. What can I tell you about William, other than his grandmother crossed the ocean in the Titanic when she was just a small child and that his greatest dream was to save the world? He will, in a way. William Olsen works for the United Nations and in two months he will pass a groundbreaking bill that will force pharmaceutical companies to donate medical cocktails to women in Africa-"
"Oh, God…"
"… Which will help prevent them from giving their unborn children HIV."
"Stop that!" By now Celine is crying, hugging her knees and unable to look at the stranger in her living room.
"If you could go back in time, would you sink the Titanic, kill those people, prevent those tens of thousands of people from being born, risk the future of so many African AIDS orphans and save René?"
"Are you the Devil?" she asks, her head snapping up, eyes wide and wild.
The man seems caught by surprise and he almost looks human.
"Excuse me?"
"I asked are you the Devil?" she asks, oddly calm. "You come here and you give me all these scenarios where I'm happy at the expense of others. Is that what you'll give me for my soul?"
He blinks owlishly at her and suddenly lets out a short hoarse bark of laughter. He seems as startled as she is, like laughing is something foreign, something he has never done before.
"What's so funny?"
"If you knew how ironic that is…" The man shakes his head. "Especially considering that the last time someone asked if I was someone I'm not, they thought I was God. No, I'm not the Devil. And I'm sorry if I misled you, but I don't have anything to offer you."
Celine takes a deep breath, feeling her heart break just like it did the day she had to say goodbye to the crippled husk that was once René, so thin and twisted she could pick him up in her arms.
"Then what do you want from me?" she asks him, voice shaking once again.
"Validation." It's the short answer and he slips from the couch to kneel before her, giving her a smile so sad, she has to fight the urge to reach out and touch his hand. "Would you willingly interfere with the Big Picture so deeply, that it would irrevocably destroy something so much bigger than you, if it meant saving the one you love?"
Celine wants to stop the answer from forming. She knows that, intellectually and morally there's no excuse, no logic behind it. But the life he painted before her eyes rendered her own life, the life she thought meaningful and good, obsolete, and before she knows it the word is out of her mouth.
"Yes," she says.
The man nods and disappears.
The End