SPN FIC - The Courtship of Lizzie's Mother
For the Hope Verse fans -- a small interlude between Morgan and her brother, a few hours after 2-year-old Liz has latched onto a stranger in the Walmart and decided he's a keeper.
CHARACTERS: Morgan and Aidan (with much discussion of Dean and Liz)
GENRE: Het
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 812 words
THE COURTSHIP OF LIZZIE'S MOTHER
By Carol Davis
"Weird," Aidan said after they'd settled in back at the motel, after dinner, after Lizzie-bizzie-belle had been tucked into bed and he and Morgan were sitting in companionable near-silence in a pair of battered green plastic chairs out on the room's tiny balcony.
His sister raised a brow at him and took another sip of her beer. "What is?"
"That whole thing with Dean."
Of course they both thought so. The whole family thought so, though none of them had, before now, expressed their puzzlement in words - not during the drive back from Walmart, not during dinner, and not while Liz was being bathed and pajama'ed and snuggled in bed, cocooned in her favorite Minnie Mouse fleece blanket.
She was a couple of months past turning two, and as social as she might be with the various members of her family (and a few trusted friends), she'd never once flung herself at a stranger the way she had a few hours ago with Dean Winchester.
Just as well, Aidan thought, being that they lived in what was basically a hotel, a place where strangers came and went all the time and with the exception of a very few rooms, had the run of the place. There was no good way to screen all of them, no way to fully ensure that they all bore only good intentions, particularly toward a pretty, funny, playful, two-year-old girl. It was just as well, then, that Lizzie-bean had from the get-go avoided people she didn't know with the speed and agility of a flustered cat, and would offer hugs and kisses to a stranger only when a member of her family asked her to.
Not out of distrust, or fear, exactly; more like, her preference had always been to stand back and observe.
Wait. Watch. Learn.
In her two-years-and-a-bit, she'd made an exception only this one time.
With Dean.
Whom she'd never laid eyes on before she found him in the pharmacy-sundries aisle at Walmart. He'd spent more than a week at the Lodge during the spring three years ago, but at that point she was only a tadpole, an inch-long proto-baby unable to hear, see, or speak, her existence known only to her mother. So Dean Winchester meant (and could mean) nothing to her - he was nothing more than a random stranger pushing a cart full of first-aid supplies, the type of person she'd normally run from, would normally observe from the safety and shelter of a piece of furniture, a cardboard merchandise display, or her mother's legs.
Yet, a couple of minutes after she'd first spotted him, she'd all but leaped into his arms.
"He's… charming," Morgan said after a minute.
"A lot of people are charming."
"What do you want me to say?" Morgan asked, prodding the edge of the beer bottle's damp paper label with her thumbnail.
"We share a brain, Mo," Aidan told his twin. "I don't want you to say anything."
"Then why bring it up?"
"Because you like him. And I wonder how this is all going to play out, now that Lizzie McBean has given him her stamp of approval."
"Play -" Morgan sputtered. "It's not going to -"
Grinning, Aidan drained the last of his beer and set the bottle down on the balcony's chipped concrete floor. "Are you sure?" he asked.
She looked out across the parking lot, past the cluster of cars in the rows nearest the building, past the motel's big, flickering neon sign. There wasn't much to look at beyond the sign, but Morgan gave it a good, long, lingering span of attention. The way her daughter would, Aidan thought.
The two of them, mother and daughter, were two years-and-change past losing Liz's father to a roadside IED - enough time for them to consider moving on.
Consider someone charming and determined and good-hearted and stubborn enough to be a positive addition to their lives.
"I really don't need a matchmaker," Morgan said.
"Don't tell me. Tell her. She's the one who latched onto him. I didn't even say anything to him. Didn't know who he was until you told me. No, ma'am. You are not blaming this on me."
"Really."
"I won't even point out that I didn't see you running for the exit. Or that, as I remember it, you stood there talking to him for… what, an hour?"
Morgan sat picking at the wet Heineken label for a minute, then said archly, "You suck."
"I do," Aidan agreed. "And I'll go as far as to confess to you, and the world at large, that, under the right circumstances, I enjoy the hell out of it. But that has no bearing at all on you and Dean Winchester. Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."
"Bastard," Morgan said.
But she was laughing as she got up from the green plastic chair and went back into the room.
* * * * *
CHARACTERS: Morgan and Aidan (with much discussion of Dean and Liz)
GENRE: Het
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 812 words
THE COURTSHIP OF LIZZIE'S MOTHER
By Carol Davis
"Weird," Aidan said after they'd settled in back at the motel, after dinner, after Lizzie-bizzie-belle had been tucked into bed and he and Morgan were sitting in companionable near-silence in a pair of battered green plastic chairs out on the room's tiny balcony.
His sister raised a brow at him and took another sip of her beer. "What is?"
"That whole thing with Dean."
Of course they both thought so. The whole family thought so, though none of them had, before now, expressed their puzzlement in words - not during the drive back from Walmart, not during dinner, and not while Liz was being bathed and pajama'ed and snuggled in bed, cocooned in her favorite Minnie Mouse fleece blanket.
She was a couple of months past turning two, and as social as she might be with the various members of her family (and a few trusted friends), she'd never once flung herself at a stranger the way she had a few hours ago with Dean Winchester.
Just as well, Aidan thought, being that they lived in what was basically a hotel, a place where strangers came and went all the time and with the exception of a very few rooms, had the run of the place. There was no good way to screen all of them, no way to fully ensure that they all bore only good intentions, particularly toward a pretty, funny, playful, two-year-old girl. It was just as well, then, that Lizzie-bean had from the get-go avoided people she didn't know with the speed and agility of a flustered cat, and would offer hugs and kisses to a stranger only when a member of her family asked her to.
Not out of distrust, or fear, exactly; more like, her preference had always been to stand back and observe.
Wait. Watch. Learn.
In her two-years-and-a-bit, she'd made an exception only this one time.
With Dean.
Whom she'd never laid eyes on before she found him in the pharmacy-sundries aisle at Walmart. He'd spent more than a week at the Lodge during the spring three years ago, but at that point she was only a tadpole, an inch-long proto-baby unable to hear, see, or speak, her existence known only to her mother. So Dean Winchester meant (and could mean) nothing to her - he was nothing more than a random stranger pushing a cart full of first-aid supplies, the type of person she'd normally run from, would normally observe from the safety and shelter of a piece of furniture, a cardboard merchandise display, or her mother's legs.
Yet, a couple of minutes after she'd first spotted him, she'd all but leaped into his arms.
"He's… charming," Morgan said after a minute.
"A lot of people are charming."
"What do you want me to say?" Morgan asked, prodding the edge of the beer bottle's damp paper label with her thumbnail.
"We share a brain, Mo," Aidan told his twin. "I don't want you to say anything."
"Then why bring it up?"
"Because you like him. And I wonder how this is all going to play out, now that Lizzie McBean has given him her stamp of approval."
"Play -" Morgan sputtered. "It's not going to -"
Grinning, Aidan drained the last of his beer and set the bottle down on the balcony's chipped concrete floor. "Are you sure?" he asked.
She looked out across the parking lot, past the cluster of cars in the rows nearest the building, past the motel's big, flickering neon sign. There wasn't much to look at beyond the sign, but Morgan gave it a good, long, lingering span of attention. The way her daughter would, Aidan thought.
The two of them, mother and daughter, were two years-and-change past losing Liz's father to a roadside IED - enough time for them to consider moving on.
Consider someone charming and determined and good-hearted and stubborn enough to be a positive addition to their lives.
"I really don't need a matchmaker," Morgan said.
"Don't tell me. Tell her. She's the one who latched onto him. I didn't even say anything to him. Didn't know who he was until you told me. No, ma'am. You are not blaming this on me."
"Really."
"I won't even point out that I didn't see you running for the exit. Or that, as I remember it, you stood there talking to him for… what, an hour?"
Morgan sat picking at the wet Heineken label for a minute, then said archly, "You suck."
"I do," Aidan agreed. "And I'll go as far as to confess to you, and the world at large, that, under the right circumstances, I enjoy the hell out of it. But that has no bearing at all on you and Dean Winchester. Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."
"Bastard," Morgan said.
But she was laughing as she got up from the green plastic chair and went back into the room.
* * * * *