Just Muse Me 27.7.1 Five life changing and one life changing day
1.
The bed was warm. She didn't want to get up.
It was warm because there was another person in it. Another living, breathing person, chest rising and falling with every slow breath, smooth and flat. Lips slightly parted. Not quite snoring, more like making a cute little wheezy burbly exhale. Brown hair lightened by the dawn sun into something caramel colored, gold where the sun touched it direct. She knew this because she could see it through half-open eyes, through her lashes.
It was the first time they'd slept together, spent the night together. They'd been on several dates but this one he'd made dinner for her at his home, in his half-finished kitchen. He'd been so nervous about that kitchen, too. The whole place. His eyes darting back and forth around the room to her face to see her reactions.
Her, she'd loved it. She'd loved the idea that he was remodeling his own house, bit by bit, turning it into a real home. She'd said as much. And one thing had led to another, as they do, and when they came back from the commercial break it was the next morning and she was here, in his bed, in his arms.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
She was awake. Had been awake for a little while, and she figured by that she'd set her alarm earlier than he normally did his, just because she usually woke five minutes before the alarm, these days. And she'd get up eventually. Clamber around him to wash up a little, as much as she could anyway, get her stuff, run home to shower and change before they both had to be at work. If they had to be at work. What day was it?
She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to disturb this peace. One minute more. She'd just lie here for one more minute, resting her head back on his chest, and enjoy this.
2.
"Hey, Mom, did you want this..." Pam turned the magazine back around. "Glamour Weekly?"
It looked pretty stupid. Diet pills and getting dates, not that her mother needed any more of either. What her mother needed was some time in a rehab clinic to dry out, not that that was going to happen. Neither of them had the money for it. We don't have the money for her to keep drinking like this, either.
"Mom?"
Passed out again. Pam finished picking up the entryway and sorting through the mail before she went upstairs.
Her mother was slumped over in the chair, but it didn't look like she was passed out. Her wrist was slightly chilled when Pam took it, nothing that a good blanket couldn't cure, if anything could cure her ever again.
Pamela glanced over at the clock and counted down the seconds. Waited for the pulse to jump beneath her fingers. Nothing. Thirteen. Fourteen. Silence in the hall. In the room. Twenty nine. Thirty. Thirty one. No movement. No breath that she could see. She kept her eyes on the clock. Fifty two. Fifty three. Her mother's face was pale yellow-gray, her lips were blue. Fifty nine. Sixty.
No pulse.
Pam sat crouched with her elbows dug into her thighs and her head buried in her hands for another uncounted minute before she got up and reached for the battered white handset to call for the ambulance, or whoever it was who handled things like this.
3.
She'd just about given up on the job search and was ready to start going around to fast food places begging for a hairnet. All right, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was getting there. Bills piling up. She could defer school loan payments but the water and power was going to be shut off if something didn't come around soon, and maybe it was just time to give up on her chosen career path and a long string of bouncing from temp job to temp job.
Maybe not that bad. The bills weren't that high, but she had three figures in the bank right now, and the lower three figures at that. Not where she wanted to be.
There was a letter from the city. No department on the return address. Did that mean something good? Back into the apartment, and she opened up the letter with a shaking hand and a wooden letter opener.
It was a note about recycling. A form letter reminding her of the regulations and notifying her of the new drop-off points for blah blah blah. She heeded the letter's directives by recycling it straight into the paper bin.
Five minutes before her evening soap of the week. Enough time to make a cup of tea, at least, and she had just put the water on to boil when the phone rang. "This is Pamela Barnes."
Another minute later and the boiling water in the kettle was starting to rattle, the phone was almost slipping from numbed fingers, and she had to fight to concentrate on what the person on the other end of the line was saying rather than jump around in a circle and shriek with glee.
4.
It took her the better part of a minute to collect the scattered pieces of her mind back together, say yes, and erase that terrified look from his face.
5.
Deep breaths. They kept telling her, steady breaths, breathe into the rhythm. His blue eyes were wide with the kind of benign panic of a man whose wife is going through something he can only help her with so much.
And it was a hell of a something. It hurt, a little, the kind of pain that comes from muscles bound up and tight and straining, and it did not feel comfortable. At all. It made her think of all the jokes of watermelons and bowling balls and things like that, and they weren't all that funny right now. They were true. And she was living it, and she wanted it over and done with.
Next time, if there was a next time at this rate, they were having the goddamn Caeserian section birth. Fuck all this natural birth shit.
It hurt. And it felt like it was going on forever, like there wasn't a space between ache and stress and no ache and no stress, and they were saying something encouraging. Part of her registered it and obeyed and the rest of her was making up entirely new swear words. But everything did seem to be building to a finish and then, in the next minute, it was easier.
And almost exactly one minute later, a tiny, weak but strident voice just as unhappy as she was with the situation split the air.
1.
She resorted to taking a pill to sleep the night before, the first time she'd done it in her life. But if she didn't get to sleep she wouldn't look at all good the next morning, so she did. And she did look good the next morning. Jo told her that it wouldn't matter if she had the worst case of acne ever, but she wanted to look good. And when she looked in the mirror after she'd gotten made up and laced up... well, hell. She did.
Her dress had to go over her head so they didn't put the finishing touches on her hair until she was in it. Made up, dolled up, and laced into her dress, simple and white. Corseted, sort of. A corset underneath with all that lightly frothing lace. He could explore it in more detail, after. Over the undergarments, though, it was a simple dress with draping sleeves and a flowing skirt, no taffeta. Silk, but no taffeta. No sparkles, either. A crown of white flowers held the veil in place. It didn't feel as weird anymore, to be getting married in the church, at least, not this first time. Plus, the sisters were here and helping her get ready. They were crying until she asked them to stop, or her makeup would run and she'd be all blotchy and raccoon-like. And then they laughed.
"God?" she murmured, eyes flicking upwards as she waited for her cue outside the doors. "I'm, um. Sorry if this offends you?" And then, a moment later, with a tiny little grin. "Though, somehow, I don't think it does."
They'd gone through a lot to get to this point. A whole lot. They'd put in a lot of work, the both of them, and it hadn't seemed like work at the time, but thinking about it... painstaking, carefully, they'd made it here. Someone up there, whosever divinity it was, had to be smiling.
And then the music changed. And the doors opened. He wasn't fidgeting down there at the end of that very long aisle (had it been that long the other day, at the rehearsal?) but he looked just as wide-eyed as she felt. She could see the blue of his eyes all the way over here, so beautiful. Bobby cleared his throat and took her arm, standing in loco parentis since, hell, he was like a father to the whole unit anyway. The whole lot of them was out here, and the sisters, and everyone. Sam and Jo and Dean and even Cassie had joined in to see this.
Yeah, they'd have to go back to work in a week, they couldn't get that much time off. Yeah, somewhere out there Circe was probably laughing over her little wedding "gift" and plotting how to get him again, or helping her little underground hell-empire, or something. Outside the world was falling apart in bits and pieces and they would have to put the pieces back together again, and keep doing it, in a week. Maybe as soon as tomorrow if a really bad case came down.
But today, this day? This was theirs.
The bed was warm. She didn't want to get up.
It was warm because there was another person in it. Another living, breathing person, chest rising and falling with every slow breath, smooth and flat. Lips slightly parted. Not quite snoring, more like making a cute little wheezy burbly exhale. Brown hair lightened by the dawn sun into something caramel colored, gold where the sun touched it direct. She knew this because she could see it through half-open eyes, through her lashes.
It was the first time they'd slept together, spent the night together. They'd been on several dates but this one he'd made dinner for her at his home, in his half-finished kitchen. He'd been so nervous about that kitchen, too. The whole place. His eyes darting back and forth around the room to her face to see her reactions.
Her, she'd loved it. She'd loved the idea that he was remodeling his own house, bit by bit, turning it into a real home. She'd said as much. And one thing had led to another, as they do, and when they came back from the commercial break it was the next morning and she was here, in his bed, in his arms.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
She was awake. Had been awake for a little while, and she figured by that she'd set her alarm earlier than he normally did his, just because she usually woke five minutes before the alarm, these days. And she'd get up eventually. Clamber around him to wash up a little, as much as she could anyway, get her stuff, run home to shower and change before they both had to be at work. If they had to be at work. What day was it?
She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to disturb this peace. One minute more. She'd just lie here for one more minute, resting her head back on his chest, and enjoy this.
2.
"Hey, Mom, did you want this..." Pam turned the magazine back around. "Glamour Weekly?"
It looked pretty stupid. Diet pills and getting dates, not that her mother needed any more of either. What her mother needed was some time in a rehab clinic to dry out, not that that was going to happen. Neither of them had the money for it. We don't have the money for her to keep drinking like this, either.
"Mom?"
Passed out again. Pam finished picking up the entryway and sorting through the mail before she went upstairs.
Her mother was slumped over in the chair, but it didn't look like she was passed out. Her wrist was slightly chilled when Pam took it, nothing that a good blanket couldn't cure, if anything could cure her ever again.
Pamela glanced over at the clock and counted down the seconds. Waited for the pulse to jump beneath her fingers. Nothing. Thirteen. Fourteen. Silence in the hall. In the room. Twenty nine. Thirty. Thirty one. No movement. No breath that she could see. She kept her eyes on the clock. Fifty two. Fifty three. Her mother's face was pale yellow-gray, her lips were blue. Fifty nine. Sixty.
No pulse.
Pam sat crouched with her elbows dug into her thighs and her head buried in her hands for another uncounted minute before she got up and reached for the battered white handset to call for the ambulance, or whoever it was who handled things like this.
3.
She'd just about given up on the job search and was ready to start going around to fast food places begging for a hairnet. All right, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was getting there. Bills piling up. She could defer school loan payments but the water and power was going to be shut off if something didn't come around soon, and maybe it was just time to give up on her chosen career path and a long string of bouncing from temp job to temp job.
Maybe not that bad. The bills weren't that high, but she had three figures in the bank right now, and the lower three figures at that. Not where she wanted to be.
There was a letter from the city. No department on the return address. Did that mean something good? Back into the apartment, and she opened up the letter with a shaking hand and a wooden letter opener.
It was a note about recycling. A form letter reminding her of the regulations and notifying her of the new drop-off points for blah blah blah. She heeded the letter's directives by recycling it straight into the paper bin.
Five minutes before her evening soap of the week. Enough time to make a cup of tea, at least, and she had just put the water on to boil when the phone rang. "This is Pamela Barnes."
Another minute later and the boiling water in the kettle was starting to rattle, the phone was almost slipping from numbed fingers, and she had to fight to concentrate on what the person on the other end of the line was saying rather than jump around in a circle and shriek with glee.
4.
It took her the better part of a minute to collect the scattered pieces of her mind back together, say yes, and erase that terrified look from his face.
5.
Deep breaths. They kept telling her, steady breaths, breathe into the rhythm. His blue eyes were wide with the kind of benign panic of a man whose wife is going through something he can only help her with so much.
And it was a hell of a something. It hurt, a little, the kind of pain that comes from muscles bound up and tight and straining, and it did not feel comfortable. At all. It made her think of all the jokes of watermelons and bowling balls and things like that, and they weren't all that funny right now. They were true. And she was living it, and she wanted it over and done with.
Next time, if there was a next time at this rate, they were having the goddamn Caeserian section birth. Fuck all this natural birth shit.
It hurt. And it felt like it was going on forever, like there wasn't a space between ache and stress and no ache and no stress, and they were saying something encouraging. Part of her registered it and obeyed and the rest of her was making up entirely new swear words. But everything did seem to be building to a finish and then, in the next minute, it was easier.
And almost exactly one minute later, a tiny, weak but strident voice just as unhappy as she was with the situation split the air.
1.
She resorted to taking a pill to sleep the night before, the first time she'd done it in her life. But if she didn't get to sleep she wouldn't look at all good the next morning, so she did. And she did look good the next morning. Jo told her that it wouldn't matter if she had the worst case of acne ever, but she wanted to look good. And when she looked in the mirror after she'd gotten made up and laced up... well, hell. She did.
Her dress had to go over her head so they didn't put the finishing touches on her hair until she was in it. Made up, dolled up, and laced into her dress, simple and white. Corseted, sort of. A corset underneath with all that lightly frothing lace. He could explore it in more detail, after. Over the undergarments, though, it was a simple dress with draping sleeves and a flowing skirt, no taffeta. Silk, but no taffeta. No sparkles, either. A crown of white flowers held the veil in place. It didn't feel as weird anymore, to be getting married in the church, at least, not this first time. Plus, the sisters were here and helping her get ready. They were crying until she asked them to stop, or her makeup would run and she'd be all blotchy and raccoon-like. And then they laughed.
"God?" she murmured, eyes flicking upwards as she waited for her cue outside the doors. "I'm, um. Sorry if this offends you?" And then, a moment later, with a tiny little grin. "Though, somehow, I don't think it does."
They'd gone through a lot to get to this point. A whole lot. They'd put in a lot of work, the both of them, and it hadn't seemed like work at the time, but thinking about it... painstaking, carefully, they'd made it here. Someone up there, whosever divinity it was, had to be smiling.
And then the music changed. And the doors opened. He wasn't fidgeting down there at the end of that very long aisle (had it been that long the other day, at the rehearsal?) but he looked just as wide-eyed as she felt. She could see the blue of his eyes all the way over here, so beautiful. Bobby cleared his throat and took her arm, standing in loco parentis since, hell, he was like a father to the whole unit anyway. The whole lot of them was out here, and the sisters, and everyone. Sam and Jo and Dean and even Cassie had joined in to see this.
Yeah, they'd have to go back to work in a week, they couldn't get that much time off. Yeah, somewhere out there Circe was probably laughing over her little wedding "gift" and plotting how to get him again, or helping her little underground hell-empire, or something. Outside the world was falling apart in bits and pieces and they would have to put the pieces back together again, and keep doing it, in a week. Maybe as soon as tomorrow if a really bad case came down.
But today, this day? This was theirs.