Supernatural fic: Now Ashes Rise in My Footprints 1/3

[kattahj]

Title: Now Ashes Rise in My Footprints (1/3)
Author:Katta
Fandom:Supernatural
Characters:John (wee!Dean, baby!Sam, OCs)
Rating: PG-13
Thanks to: roniabirk and koshkaphoenix for the beta, and beanside for helping me translate the title properly.
Disclaimer: The Winchesters belong to Kripke &co, as do all other characters mentioned in canon. Everyone else belongs to me, except Ms. Watson, who is heavily inspired by the film Desk Set. Names of characters come from all sorts of places. All mythology found in this story is genuine, though I've remixed it quite a lot. The title's from a poem/song by Ylva Eggehorn.
Summary: After Mary's death, John struggles to find a purpose.


Now Ashes Rise in My Footprints

At first, John focuses on the little tasks: sleeping, eating, changing Sammy's diapers, talking to policemen and firemen, punching a reporter in the face because no comments means no comments, damn it.

He tells people what happened, and they tell him that it didn't happen that way, over and over again, until he believes it too - or pretends to believe it. There's not much of a difference; sometimes he feels it's all a game of make believe.

Spending too much time around other people, even friends, becomes a burden. He flees the house as often as he can, takes the boys out for a meal rather than enduring another sympathetic conversation. Sammy only just got started on cereals, and it's a bitch to get him to eat. People at McDonald's are used to children screaming, but that doesn't stop John from getting a hell of a headache. There are times when he's ready to give up, make a call to someone - anyone - to take those kids off his hands, because he just can't take it anymore. It only lasts for a couple of minutes each time, then he thinks of what it would be like to be all alone, and the thought scares him more than he'd ever admit to anyone.

This one day, Sammy's fussing as always and there's a young woman who's trying to court Dean into playing with her. John is eternally grateful to her, because one kid is about all he can manage at the moment.

Then she looks up and says, with evident disappointment that she tries to hide under a smile, ”He doesn't talk much, does he?”

John starts to reply and then shuts his mouth, because his brain finally catches up with him and he realizes: no, he doesn't. And that's not the way things used to be. He breaks into a cold sweat trying to figure out when he last heard a word from Dean, and is ridiculously relieved when he remembers a muttered reply only a couple of days earlier. At least that's one thing that hasn't been taken away from them.

That night, though, he makes sure to ask Dean what he wants for supper. When all he gets is a shrug, he asks again, sharper. ”Answer me when I'm talking to you!”

Dean stares back at him, wide-eyed, and John has almost given up hope when the boy says, ”Pancakes.”

Pancakes is a ten mile trip, but he doesn't care.
The cops close the case, after first spending a month trying to nail John to it. Motherfuckers, he thinks, but doesn't say out loud, because even if Dean's only saying a word every second day or so, he sure as hell doesn't want it to be that one.

Accident, they call it, but they have no explanation, and he's determined to find someone who can tell him what really happened. Missouri's a Godsend, both for taking him seriously and for what she's doing for the boys. She makes him feel like they're a family again; he's calmer than he's been in weeks, Sammy is laughing and gurgling away, and Dean won't shut up for hours.

But at the end of the day, they still have to go home, and he finds that nothing has really changed, except that he now has even more fears lurking in the shadows. He watches the boys, and he's sorely tempted to drive them back to Missouri, hand them over and say, Please, they're happy here. Let them stay. Later, he adds to this fantasy: let me stay. He considers contacting real estate agents, to see if there's a house nearby where he could settle down and get his life back on gear.

Instead, he takes the boys with him to Kansas City, then to KU, and then further still. He spends weeks in libraries and archives, reading through their old newspapers. At first, he looks at fires, any fires, but then he notices a pattern and gets more specific: fires, nurseries, six-month-old babies. Far too many stories like that, though the details are different, as are the deaths - sometimes it's the father, or an older child, but most of the time it's the mother. Makes sense, the kids are six months old, the mother would be there a lot.

He gets scared sometimes as he's reading; even if the boys are in the same room he has to put down his reading material when those times come, hold his kids, keep Sammy cooped up in his arms so nothing can harm him.

He has to stop doing that, he knows. It scares Dean. But when he reads some particularly grisly detail, he just can't stop himself.

Most of the articles don't have names, but that's something he doesn't even think about until one day, in a library cellar room, he comes upon a very unusual one in an article only three years old: Phennapha Keacham. He stops and stares at the words, realizing that it can't be hard to find a name like that in a telephone directory.

”I'll be right back,” he tells Dean, rushing up the stairs to find a payphone. Once he does (by the toilets, near the door), he has to find a directory too, running around half the place before he finds the right shelf. He's going much too scatter-brained, and he makes an effort to pull himself together as he searches out the right book and number and returns to the phone.

To his surprise, Ms Keacham is willing not only to talk to him, but to see him too. Her light, girly voice sounds remarkably calm on the phone, and he can't believe his luck. He drives back to the motel where he's been staying and starts packing his things. Three shirts and a pair of pants are already packed, and he's thinking that he should pack his journal in the outer pocket so it's easy to reach, when he remembers that his journal is still at the library - and that so are the boys.

He drops everything and rushes outside to the car. Drives so fast that it's a miracle no cops turn up to complain. Once back at the library, he returns to the table where he'd been sitting, but his sons aren't there, even the books aren't there anymore.

”Excuse me,” he tells the closest librarian, trying to sound as if he's heart isn't racing like crazy in his chest. ”My boys... They were here when I left... I forgot them...”

Her mouth turns smaller than a chicken's ass, and he hates people who make faces like that, hates their sour little sanctimonious souls, but how can he blame her after what he did? She directs him to the staff's area, though, where he finds the boys in a tiny little office with another librarian. Sammy's sleeping in his carrier, and Dean is sitting by the desk, with a large book on his chair to help him reach - whatever it is he needs to reach.

”And then the stamp,” the librarian tells him. ”Good. You're a natural at this. Maybe you could be a librarian when you grow up. No? Don't knock it yet, it's a fine profession.”

John is so relieved that he can't even speak at first, just sags against the doorframe. Eventually, he clears his throat. ”Dean...”

Dean practically jumps out of his skin, face lighting up like it's Christmas - a Christmas different from the shitty one they just left behind.

As Dean runs up to him, John can see that his son is now decorated with blue stamps on the forehead and both hands declaring him library property. He'd laugh at that if he wasn't still so shook up.

”I'm so sorry,” he tells Dean, and then the woman by the desk. ”I'm really sorry - I plain forgot...”

”Don't worry about it,” she says with a smile. ”These things happen. I left my youngest at the supermarket once - my daughter was the one to realize it, not me.”

John smiles politely as he wraps his shaking arms around his son, but he can't help but wonder if ”these things happen” is still valid when something strange and evil has killed your wife and your sons have to sleep in the same bed to sleep at all.

He gets his journal back and returns to the motel with the boys, still shook up, but ready to leave ASAP. Once they get back, though, Sammy is hungry, and when Sammy has eaten he needs changing, and all in all John is forced to settle down for an hour and face facts: you can't rush a baby.

He fixes a bite for himself and Dean as well, because they both have to eat, after all, and now is as good a time as any. Once that's done, though, and everything is packed down, he gets them all into the car and leaves the motel behind, along with the town and the state.
Phennapha Keacham lives in a small New York apartment, and he blinks when he sees her, because she's a lot younger than he expected. Sure, short and skinny no-curves women usually look younger than they are, but he's pretty certain that it's more than that, that she actually is young.

He's tempted to ask for her mother, but decides against it and instead simply asks, ”Phennapha Keacham?”

”Penny,” she says, and he recognizes her voice from the phone. ”Yeah. Are you John Winchester?”

”That's right.” He nudges Dean to let go of his jacket and take a step forward. ”And these are my boys, Dean and Sammy.”

”Nice to meet you,” she says, the polite phrase coming out as exactly that. She's not hostile, but not all that interested either. Her gaze rests on Dean for a moment, and she says, ”I have a little girl about your age. Ing.”

”A bit younger, I think,” John says. ”Dean's almost five now. Your daughter's three and a half, isn't she?”

Her eyes narrow with suspicion. ”How do you know?”

”She was six months old when... it happened. Like Sammy.”

”Right.” Interest lost again. ”Well, you'd better come in, then.”

All things considered, little Ing is probably the one who benefits the most from the visit. She's drawn to Sammy from the moment she lays eyes on him, declaring him ”her baby”. Dean looks less than thrilled about this concept, but tolerates it, and the three kids play in relative peace while John talks to Penny.

He doesn't know what he has been expecting. More clues to find the thing that murdered Mary, perhaps. Or at the very least someone to talk to who understands, who's been there.

That's not who Penny is. It only takes him a few minutes to realize it, and yet he keeps the conversation up, to be polite or in vain hope that he's wrong - he doesn't know why.

She tells him her story, without hesitation or passion, like it's homework she learned a hundred years ago and has been repeating ever since. About the fire, how she entered the nursery, found her mother dead, grabbed Ing and ran for it. Every word his own terror, but retold as something of no more interest than the periodic table. It's obscene.

”Where did you find her?” he asks. ”Your mother?”

She frowns. ”In the nursery.”

”Yes, but where? On the floor, leaned over the crib... on the ceiling?”

For the first time, there's emotion evident in Penny's face. Sheer, uncensored fear. ”I never told anyone...”

”That's where I found Mary,” he says. ”On the ceiling, bleeding from her stomach.” He makes a gesture over his own stomach to show the cut.

There's an indignated cry from the children - Ing has just run straight into Dean, who's standing still as a statue instead of running about like the game requires - but John barely sees them in the corner of his eye. His gaze is on Penny, who has paled considerably.

”Just like Mom,” she says. ”And your Sammy was six months old...”

”Exactly six months old,” he says.

She shakes her head. ”That's not possible. Accidents don't happen like that.”

”Are you so sure it was an accident?”

She rises from her seat, turning her back on him. Now even Ing has stopped playing, standing by Dean with her mouth agape. ”That's crazy talk. I can't afford any crazy talk.”

Her voice is quivering, and John suddenly sees it, in a flash of understanding, what it is she has so carefully not said: ”You saw something else that night, didn't you? Someone else.”

”I didn't see him,” she says. ”I heard my mother saying my name - she thought I was in there with her. And then she screamed, and when I came...” She shakes her head.

”You never told the police?”

”All the doors were locked,” she says, turning back to face him again. ”The windows too. She always made sure of that. No one could have entered that we didn't know about. She found someone in the nursery, but she couldn't have found anyone in the nursery. She died on the ceiling, but she couldn't have died on the ceiling, because people don't die on ceilings.”

”And so you just lied,” he says slowly.

”I was seventeen with a baby,” she says. ”She was all mine - for the first time, she was all mine. I had the police and the OCFS swarming me, do you think for a second I would have told them a crazy story like that? I told them something they could believe, and they let me keep Ing. The house was still gone, Mom was dead, what difference did it make?”

”It never occured to you that this thing could kill again?”

She looks thoughtful. ”No. It never did. It should have, I suppose.” She sits down, offering him her hand. ”I'm sorry... about your wife. Do you think if I'd said something, that I could have stopped it?”

He sighs. ”Truth be told, I don't.” It's not just comfort; he suspects that if she had said something, the result would have been exactly what she feared: a loony stamp on her and little Ing taken away.

”Mommy?” Ing tugs at her mother's slacks, not old enough to understand what's going on, but knowing that something is. ”Mommy!”

Penny rises again and scoops her daughter up in her arms. ”Do you and the boys want some milk and cookies?” she asks her.

”Yes, mommy!” she squeals, all worries instantly forgotten with the promise of milk and cookies. She's young enough for that to work. John catches Dean's expression and knows that he isn't. One day, some time soon, they're going to have to talk about what's going on. He puts that off, because the thought of what he will say terrifies him.

And so, for now, they have milk and cookies in Penny's kitchen, and maybe the day has been wasted for him, but he suspects that it hasn't been wasted for Penny, and that's got to count for something.

They're on their way out before he asks the question he's been meaning to ask for a while: ”Not to be rude, but... your mother... were you two...”

She gives him that disinterested look, but then apparently changes her mind, because she says, ”Have you ever had neighbors that played music in the middle of the night? Really loud, crappy music, and you just couldn't get them to stop?”

”Sure,” he says, wondering who hasn't, and also what this has to do with anything.

Her gaze is fixed on something far away. ”You go to bed at night, and you can't sleep, and it's driving you crazy, but it's the same every night, and finally you learn to sleep anyway. To sleep around it. And one night you wake up, and there's no more music. The neighbors have moved. There's never gonna be any music ever again, and now you can't sleep because of that. It drives you nuts for years, and then you miss it.”

”I understand,” he says, and he does. ”I'm sorry.”

Her eyes find their way back to his, and she nods. ”I hope you find what you're looking for.”

What you're looking for, he notices. On his way down in the elevator, he holds the boys close but still feels more lonely than ever.

He can't do this alone. He won't.

But what else is there?
He keeps searching out newspaper articles, but resists the urge to call any of the other victims. The longer he goes on, the easier it gets - he tells himself that the trail is cold, that the people involved will be impossible to reach, and eventually, as the dates of the newspapers enter the twenties and beyond, that they're all bound to be dead.

He digs himself into the past, moving on to books on folklore and myths that are full of stories of fire, yet none that fit. He's so wrapped up in things that once were, that he's not ready when one day he opens the newspaper - today's newspaper - and find the words ”fire”, ”nursery”, and ”mother killed”.

Ordinary rules no longer apply. There's no name in the paper, no matter where he looks, and so he buys another, and yet another. Still no names, but one of the papers give him the name of the Oregon town where the fire took place, and looking it up, he finds that it has only a couple of hundred thousand inhabitants - small enough that he's got to be able to find the right family just by asking around.

Life on the road is becoming second nature, for the boys as well as him: they sleep and play in the car and in the libraries, eat at diners, shower and sleep some more in motels. Dean's only sign of surprise is when they reach the town, throw their bags into the motel, and head for a playground instead of a library.

John figures that gossip is gossip anywhere, a playground's as good a place as any. It also has the added benefit of being a pretty distracting place for a child. Dean may not talk much, but he listens, and the questions John need to ask he doesn't want his son to hear.

Sammy half-stands in the carriage when he sees the playthings, clapping his chubby hands and laughing. John lifts him out and sets him down on the ground, asking Dean, ”You two want to go play in the sandbox?”

Dean's eyes widen, and he stands for a moment looking at John, all deer in the headlights.

”It's all right,” John says, sitting down on a long bench where a bunch of women are already seated. ”I'll be right here. Take your brother.”

Dean takes Sammy's hand, and the two of them walk off to the sandbox, Dean with slow considerate steps, Sammy with wobbly ones. It occurs to John that he remembers exactly when Dean took his first steps, but he has no idea when Sammy went from sitting to crawling and from crawling to walking. Somehow, he just did.

”Are you new in town?” the nearest woman asks.

He manages a smile, reminding himself that this is why he's here, to chit-chat with curious strangers, no matter how awkward it feels.

”That's right,” he says. ”Just arrived today, as a matter of fact. It seems like such a good place for the kids to grow up.”

”Oh, it is,” she assures him, and some other mothers lean in closer to say that it really, really is.

He offers a few more inane comments and then moves in for the big one: ”Of course, the first thing I hear about moving in is someone dying in a fire, so I guess there are hazards here as well.”

”Oh, the one down south?”

”I hear it was an electrical fault.”

”Always a trouble with old houses like that.”

”Which house was it?”

The bottom line is, he may not get a name, but he does get an address. He keeps the chitchat up for a while, but is actually relieved when Sammy starts wailing. There are swings at the playground, and Sammy likes swings, and obviously Dean isn't big enough to haul his brother up into one, much less give him speed.

So John swings his boys for a while, thinking about what to do next. Say that he does find the family - asking the neighbors or whatever. Say that he talks to them. What could he possibly tell them that would make them want to talk to him? He remembers what it was like, those first few weeks. Too many questions from too many people, and no one had anything real to offer.

He should show them enough respect to wait a little, until the cops and reporters have had their dues, at least.

By which time the trail will be cold again.

No. He can't. He takes the boys with him to the southern part of town and the old house that's not there anymore. Asks around, tries to come off as good-natured and affable. Having the boys around really helps with that, because what kind of a reporter would drag kids with him on a job?

The mother's dead, they tell him. The father had a breakdown. The baby's staying with the grandfather. Which grandfather? The father's father. And finally, there's a name: Ross Quentin.

Standing outside the Quentin door, he has a story ready, prepares the details in his head, but they all disappear when the door opens and he faces a man, not old, but with endless weariness written on his face.

He introduces himself, and the words stumble out: ”I heard about your daughter-in-law... My wife died like that. I wanted to... I wanted to talk.”

The man looks at him, and at the boys, and then lets them in without a word.

”You're Ross Quentin?”

”I am.” His voice is soft and gravelly. ”Can I get you anything? Coffee?”

”I'm fine, thanks.”

”Juice for the children?”

He looks down at the boys. Dean makes no motion that he has heard, and Sammy's playing with his socks, but John nods. ”That would be great. Thanks.”

Mr. Quentin goes off to get the juice, and they all sit down in the livingroom - the boys in a sofa with some picture books, the adults in the other end of the room, speaking in low voices. There's a baby sleeping in a cot by the wall, smaller than Sam was when Mary died, but similar enough to be uncomfortable to watch.

John talks about Mary, slowly, haltingly, glossing over the details such as where he found her and what he's been doing ever since. Mr. Quentin says what he knows about the fire, which, as it turns out, isn't much.

”Hasn't your son told you...?” John asks.

”My son hasn't told anyone much,” Mr. Quentin replies with a deep sigh. ”He's taking this very hard.”

”I'm sorry. I'm asking so many questions, but I have to know...”

”Because your wife died the way Linda did?” Mr. Quentin studies him closely.

”Yes. I suppose so. Yes. The fire in the nursery, the six-month-old baby...”

”Bobby's five months,” Mr. Quentin says.

John stops short, staring at him.

”That's neither here nor there. If I understand you correctly, you fear that there may be some connection, some kind of fire hazard in nurseries, is that right?”

”That's one way of putting it,” John says. Five months?

”But that wouldn't explain the other fires.” Mr. Quentin shakes his head. ”No. You're grasping at straws. I understand your feelings - I've been there - but I think you're wrong about this.”

”What other fires?” John asks. ”Nursery fires?”

”No.” Mr. Quentin closes his eyes, pain evident in his face. ”The forest fire, fifteen years ago, that killed my brother. Three years later, the fire that burned his widow's house down. Eight years ago, my wife's death. Two years ago, Melanie's face - that was in church. And now this.”

John gets very still.

”No common cause,” Mr. Quentin says. ”No common denominator of any kind, except that it all happened to our family.”

”Jesus,” John breathes.

Mr. Quentin gives a humorless chuckle. ”Sometimes... sometimes I think fire hates us. That it wants to destroy us any way it can.” His gaze moves to something behind John, and he adds with apologetic kindness: ”Just a joke.”

But it isn't, John thinks. He turns to see what Mr. Quentin is looking at, and finds Dean standing a few feet away, holding both the juice glasses. Catching John's gaze, he holds up the glasses.

”Well, don't ask me,” John says, more harshly than he feels. ”Ask Mr. Quentin.”

Dean holds up the glasses for Mr. Quentin to see.

”Well, of...” Mr.Quentin starts, but John shakes his head at him.

”Dean, ask politely.”

There's a long pause, and then Dean murmurs in a barely audible voice, ”Can we have some more juice, please?”

”Of course,” Mr. Quentin says, rising from his chair. ”There's more in the kitchen.”

They all go into the kitchen, which puts a stop to the conversation for the time being. The boys have more juice, and now John accepts a cup of coffee, Mr. Quentin having one as well.

John supposes he could leave it at that. Whatever haunts the Quentin family, it's not the thing that took Mary. He doesn't have time to head into a road he knows is a dead end.

But something is haunting the Quentin family. Bad luck, people would call it, but he doesn't believe in bad luck anymore, not this kind of bad luck. And as far as he knows, he's the only one around who doesn't. He doesn't have a clue how to help, but he knows more or less where to start looking. That gives him an advantage.

His choice is between going down the dead end or deserting them - a family with too much bad luck and a man who's forced to laugh when he reveals his fears so that people won't think he's crazy.

It's almost an hour before John drops the question, and they're already getting ready to leave. ”So what were the causes?”

Mr. Quentin has been smiling at Sammy's attempt to eat his own foot, but now his smile disappears. ”Electrical fault. Lightning. A candle flaring up... and my wife fell into a bonfire.” He sounds different saying that last thing. Doubtful.

”Fell how?”

He shrugs, closing his eyes for a second. ”She tripped over something, I guess.”

”Like what?”

”I don't know.” He sounds defensive and - to John's ears - insincere.

”But you saw her fall? What did it look like?”

”It looked like the fire... snatched her in,” Mr. Quentin says, his gaze far away.

”Maybe it did. You said that you think the fire hates you?”

He pulls himself back. ”I didn't mean it.”

”Yes you did.” John continues before he can protest: ”Here's what I think. I think something is targetting your family. Something dangerous and inhuman.”

Mr. Quentin starts to laugh, and then stops. ”You sound like Melanie,” he says.

It takes a second to place the name. ”Melanie who burned her face?”

”My daughter. She thinks a witch is doing it.”

John frowns. ”Why?”

A vague, helpless gesture. ”Because she's thirteen and needs someone to blame.”

Yes, he thinks, that's the reasonable explanation. The adult explanation. And if this is anything like it looks - the dead wrong explanation.

”May I speak to her?”

”She's at school.”

”Well, can I leave the number to my motel so she can call me when she comes back?”

Mr. Quentin watches him for a very long time. ”Of course,” he says finally.”But you don't really think...?”

”I'm not ruling anything out,” he says and lifts Sammy into his carriage.
Part 2