Corner of Your Eye (12/14)
Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate SG-1
Title: Corner of Your Eye
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Jack O'Neill, Dean Winchester
Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Crossover, Angst
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Pilot for SPN, up to Season 9 for SG-1
Summary: Jack O'Neill is not very good at being retired. Dean Winchester is not very good at staying out of trouble. And there's something lurking in these here woods….
Word Count: 1954
Disclaimer: As soon as I own them, you'll know. Oh yes, yes, the day is coming.
Author’s Note: Gearing up for the end here, folks. I know exactly where this story is going and what I want it to do, now, so I may very well have it finished in just a few days. Or not, you know, because I’m lazy and easily distracted.
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
12
Susanna Milner had been the oldest child in a family with seven kids. They found that tidbit in a book of records from some old church, the names of the children, when they were born and baptized. (Jack was actually the one who found this info-Dean had been suitably impressed.) Unfortunately, the same book did not mention where she was buried, only that she had died and there was a service. So presumably not on church property.
“Maybe on the family homestead, then,” Dean said. “Or near where she died. Sometimes people do that. Seems kinda creepy to me.”
Jack attempted to give him the Teal’c face, one eyebrow up, mouth straight and stern. He probably didn’t look as awesome as the Jaffa warrior, but at least he tried. “This whole business is kinda creepy.”
“Yeah, but that’s extra creepy.”
It was Vince Emerson’s memoir that yielded the most useful information, though, scattered and senile as it was-the beginning of the story at the end of the book, other bits scattered throughout. Took Dean for-freaking-ever to gather it all, and he wasn’t quiet about the headache it gave him, either. Jack just told him to take more Advil. Because, seriously, what was he supposed to do with that information? He’d already given the kid waffles and pie. That was pretty much the limit of Jack’s nursing skills.
It was Susanna Milner’s younger brother who had gotten lost in the wilderness, Vince Emerson told them in his spidery old man’s script sprawled over the pages of his forgotten memoir. Abraham, eight years old when Susanna was seventeen in 1853, the youngest child of the large pioneer family. The people of the small settlement were afraid that he’d been captured by Dakota Indians-already the land disagreement that would later break into bloody war was brewing in the woods of Minnesota. There had been searches by lantern light, men carrying rifles and axes in fear of red-skinned terrors.
Susanna had been frantic for her little brother. After everyone else gave up, she still went out there whenever she had the chance, sometimes taking supplies, sometimes taking nothing, just calling and calling. Emerson’s spare style put it plainly: Susanna out there yelling for her brother at all hours, people come to think it was a ghost, high and wailing. Pretty much she was. Her parents stopped looking but she never did. And elsewhere in the book: Susanna went out in the storm that night, thought she heard little Abe calling for her. Flashflood that night and she couldn’t get back over the bridge. Took five days and all the men in a day’s ride to put the bridge right.
Yet another passage: She died lonely, that Milner girl. Not a kind way to go. Her other sisters and brothers cried for her, so did her mammy and pappy, but she only had tears for Abe. Allus wondered what it was between those two that made her love him so. She had other brothers. Folks are odd, all I can tell.
Dean rubbed both hands over his face when he finished reading that bit, looking away, eyes dark and shadowed. “She must have been so scared,” he said in a voice not meant for anyone but himself. Jack wanted to touch his shoulder, but he was across the table, too far away, so he cleared his throat and looked down at the book in front of him, a long ledger of birth and death notes, dry as dust.
The young man shook his head, hard, and looked up with that lethal glint back in his eyes. “That would do it. That would be enough to make someone hold on. Unfinished business, looking for her brother. Lonely and frightened in the woods, poor little thing, but now she’s killing people and it’s time to end it.”
“You think we have the right one, then.” It wasn’t a question. Jack was starting to get the hang of this whole ghost-hunting thing, too. “Whatever happened to little Abe?”
“Dude, who cares? Now we just have to find out where she’s buried.”
Jack felt himself going mulish on this one, and wasn’t really sure why. But it was there, hard and strong in his chest. ”I care. Here, gimme Emerson’s memoir. You can go back to looking at the church records.”
Dean twisted his eyebrows into a pretzel, clearly bewildered at this, then seemed to shrug and chalk it up to an old guy’s eccentricities. “Fine. You want to find out what happened to Abe, be my guest. I’m telling you that it’s not important, though.” He handed over the gray tome, taking the record book from under Jack’s hands. “Looking through that thing for yet another rambling story is going to give you a major headache. And I’m not sharing the Advil, man. It’s mine.”
The corner of Jack’s mouth twisted up. “Because you bought it with your own hard-earned cash?”
“No, because I stole it from you fair and square.” Dean grinned back. “Just fair warning, I’ve adopted this bottle and I’m not giving it back. No poor little Jessica, here.”
“Okay, Daddy Dean, but I don’t remember giving up my visitation rights.”
“You signed the papers, I swear. Maybe you were a little drunk at the time, but it still counts.”
Jack shook his head, grinning fully now. “Kid, how do our conversations always end up going so weird?”
“It’s not my fault, old guy. You bring the weirdness with you. I’m just trying to keep up.”
“Well, you do a helluva job, I gotta say.”
Dean flapped a hand. “Oh, read your dusty old memoir. Find out what happened to little Abe. I have important books to read.”
“Yeah, you have fun with that.”
They went back to their research.
X
Susanna had indeed been buried on the family homestead. Dean found that in another memoir, written by some woman a generation or two down on the Milner family tree, a wannabe Laura Ingalls Wilder born a little too late for the interesting stuff. After he found that bit, he gave the book to Jack so he could keep looking for what happened to little Abe. It might be in there, though that author seemed a lot more interested in the Dakota Conflict, which happened a decade after Abe disappeared and Susanna died.
Then he had to go through an old book of claim records to find out where the Milner homestead was, and more records to find out if it was still standing, not paved over or retaken by the woods. That took a nice long time, too, but he finally had an address and a little map. No one was living there now, but it looked like it would be easy enough to find a road that would take them there.
Jack had moved over to the computer, checking his email, by the time Dean finished and looked up, rubbing his sore eyes with a knuckle. He fought a yawn for a little bit, then gave in, feeling his jaw crack with it. He was tired, but satisfied, having found everything he needed to know in an afternoon of solid work. At times like this, he could almost understand what Sam enjoyed about research, the pleasure of fitting a puzzle together, using only persistence and sheer brainpower to find all the pieces and make sense of them. It just took way too freaking long and was much too boring most of the time, that was all.
Dean pushed himself out of his chair, and sauntered the three steps over to the computer. “Anything good? Sometimes those offers of free girly pictures are legit.”
Jack did a little pursed-lip lowered-eyebrows thing that packed just as much disapproval into one expression as Dean’s dad could get out in an hour-long lecture. He just shook his head, though, and leaned back to show Dean what he was looking at. A text document full of obituaries-not near as fun as Dean had been hoping. “Daniel sent me the raw info from that list of deaths he gave me. Check it out…all the kids that you think Susanna got? Older siblings, every single one of ‘em. Big brothers, big sisters, out in the woods doing whatever, and bang, death from above. Death from somewhere, anyway.”
Dean nodded, barely looking at the text Jack scrolled through, pointing out the lines where the obits listed survivors-parents, grandparents, younger siblings. “Yeah, that’s interesting. But hey, while you were doing that? I found out where she’s buried. So we can go end this thing. You ready, or are you still curious about what happened to little Abe?”
“I found out what happened to him. I’ll tell you in the car.” Jack closed out the documents and logged off, then stood up from the computer and stretched broadly, forcing Dean to step back and bump into a bookcase. Fortunately, he didn’t hit his head, but he gave the older man a glare anyway. Jack grinned, slow and mischievous. “You know, curiosity’s not such a bad thing, some of the time. It kept me from dying of boredom in here.”
“I’m glad that worked for you, dude. Now, can we get out of here? Much as I just love hanging out in tiny libraries all day, duty calls. And I want a burger.”
“Sure, sure. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
On the way out, Dean made sure to thank Marcy the Reference Librarian for her help. Never knew when he might have to pass this way again. And there was the slightest chance that she might be open to further…relations…later. She beamed up at him and invited him, somewhat breathlessly, to come back anytime.
Dean was grinning as he hopped down the steps, into the slanting sunlight of the gravel parking lot. He was finally back on track for the hunt: location pinned down, directions firm, salt and shovels and kerosene in the trunk, a balmy spring evening ahead, a solid, competent guy backing him up, and a nice-looking librarian smiling after him. Things couldn’t really be going much better.
He was even feeling magnanimous enough to switch from Metallica to a more oldies-rock mix tape, before he pulled out on the main drag in search of a burger joint. “So, what happened to Abraham Milner?”
Jack leaned back into the bench seat, finger tapping on his thigh in time to the music. “It was like Emerson said people thought. He was kidnapped by some Dakotas, dragged out into the wilderness. Probably miles away before anyone even noticed he was missing-no chance was Susanna ever gonna find him. He grew up among them, adopted their ways. In 1862 he was killed in the Dakota Conflict, fighting on the Dakotas’ side. Buried on the battlefield.”
“Man, that’s rough.” Dean shook his head, staring out the windshield. “So Susanna’s baby brother never came home.”
“Yeah. It pretty much sucks all around.”
Dean kept his eyes peeled for a likely looking restaurant and deliberately did not think about what that would have been like, losing your little brother, never seeing him again, dying alone looking for him, and then not even being buried near each other. Yeah, that would suck out loud.
The little McDonald’s was built into an older building, peeling green paint and that weird false front some old buildings still sported, making it look like it had two stories instead of one, but the logo in the window was the same familiar golden arches. Dean pulled into the slanting parking spot and threw the car in park. “Well, it’s time that she finally got some peace. Right after I get me some fries.”
Part 13
Title: Corner of Your Eye
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Jack O'Neill, Dean Winchester
Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Crossover, Angst
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Pilot for SPN, up to Season 9 for SG-1
Summary: Jack O'Neill is not very good at being retired. Dean Winchester is not very good at staying out of trouble. And there's something lurking in these here woods….
Word Count: 1954
Disclaimer: As soon as I own them, you'll know. Oh yes, yes, the day is coming.
Author’s Note: Gearing up for the end here, folks. I know exactly where this story is going and what I want it to do, now, so I may very well have it finished in just a few days. Or not, you know, because I’m lazy and easily distracted.
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
12
Susanna Milner had been the oldest child in a family with seven kids. They found that tidbit in a book of records from some old church, the names of the children, when they were born and baptized. (Jack was actually the one who found this info-Dean had been suitably impressed.) Unfortunately, the same book did not mention where she was buried, only that she had died and there was a service. So presumably not on church property.
“Maybe on the family homestead, then,” Dean said. “Or near where she died. Sometimes people do that. Seems kinda creepy to me.”
Jack attempted to give him the Teal’c face, one eyebrow up, mouth straight and stern. He probably didn’t look as awesome as the Jaffa warrior, but at least he tried. “This whole business is kinda creepy.”
“Yeah, but that’s extra creepy.”
It was Vince Emerson’s memoir that yielded the most useful information, though, scattered and senile as it was-the beginning of the story at the end of the book, other bits scattered throughout. Took Dean for-freaking-ever to gather it all, and he wasn’t quiet about the headache it gave him, either. Jack just told him to take more Advil. Because, seriously, what was he supposed to do with that information? He’d already given the kid waffles and pie. That was pretty much the limit of Jack’s nursing skills.
It was Susanna Milner’s younger brother who had gotten lost in the wilderness, Vince Emerson told them in his spidery old man’s script sprawled over the pages of his forgotten memoir. Abraham, eight years old when Susanna was seventeen in 1853, the youngest child of the large pioneer family. The people of the small settlement were afraid that he’d been captured by Dakota Indians-already the land disagreement that would later break into bloody war was brewing in the woods of Minnesota. There had been searches by lantern light, men carrying rifles and axes in fear of red-skinned terrors.
Susanna had been frantic for her little brother. After everyone else gave up, she still went out there whenever she had the chance, sometimes taking supplies, sometimes taking nothing, just calling and calling. Emerson’s spare style put it plainly: Susanna out there yelling for her brother at all hours, people come to think it was a ghost, high and wailing. Pretty much she was. Her parents stopped looking but she never did. And elsewhere in the book: Susanna went out in the storm that night, thought she heard little Abe calling for her. Flashflood that night and she couldn’t get back over the bridge. Took five days and all the men in a day’s ride to put the bridge right.
Yet another passage: She died lonely, that Milner girl. Not a kind way to go. Her other sisters and brothers cried for her, so did her mammy and pappy, but she only had tears for Abe. Allus wondered what it was between those two that made her love him so. She had other brothers. Folks are odd, all I can tell.
Dean rubbed both hands over his face when he finished reading that bit, looking away, eyes dark and shadowed. “She must have been so scared,” he said in a voice not meant for anyone but himself. Jack wanted to touch his shoulder, but he was across the table, too far away, so he cleared his throat and looked down at the book in front of him, a long ledger of birth and death notes, dry as dust.
The young man shook his head, hard, and looked up with that lethal glint back in his eyes. “That would do it. That would be enough to make someone hold on. Unfinished business, looking for her brother. Lonely and frightened in the woods, poor little thing, but now she’s killing people and it’s time to end it.”
“You think we have the right one, then.” It wasn’t a question. Jack was starting to get the hang of this whole ghost-hunting thing, too. “Whatever happened to little Abe?”
“Dude, who cares? Now we just have to find out where she’s buried.”
Jack felt himself going mulish on this one, and wasn’t really sure why. But it was there, hard and strong in his chest. ”I care. Here, gimme Emerson’s memoir. You can go back to looking at the church records.”
Dean twisted his eyebrows into a pretzel, clearly bewildered at this, then seemed to shrug and chalk it up to an old guy’s eccentricities. “Fine. You want to find out what happened to Abe, be my guest. I’m telling you that it’s not important, though.” He handed over the gray tome, taking the record book from under Jack’s hands. “Looking through that thing for yet another rambling story is going to give you a major headache. And I’m not sharing the Advil, man. It’s mine.”
The corner of Jack’s mouth twisted up. “Because you bought it with your own hard-earned cash?”
“No, because I stole it from you fair and square.” Dean grinned back. “Just fair warning, I’ve adopted this bottle and I’m not giving it back. No poor little Jessica, here.”
“Okay, Daddy Dean, but I don’t remember giving up my visitation rights.”
“You signed the papers, I swear. Maybe you were a little drunk at the time, but it still counts.”
Jack shook his head, grinning fully now. “Kid, how do our conversations always end up going so weird?”
“It’s not my fault, old guy. You bring the weirdness with you. I’m just trying to keep up.”
“Well, you do a helluva job, I gotta say.”
Dean flapped a hand. “Oh, read your dusty old memoir. Find out what happened to little Abe. I have important books to read.”
“Yeah, you have fun with that.”
They went back to their research.
X
Susanna had indeed been buried on the family homestead. Dean found that in another memoir, written by some woman a generation or two down on the Milner family tree, a wannabe Laura Ingalls Wilder born a little too late for the interesting stuff. After he found that bit, he gave the book to Jack so he could keep looking for what happened to little Abe. It might be in there, though that author seemed a lot more interested in the Dakota Conflict, which happened a decade after Abe disappeared and Susanna died.
Then he had to go through an old book of claim records to find out where the Milner homestead was, and more records to find out if it was still standing, not paved over or retaken by the woods. That took a nice long time, too, but he finally had an address and a little map. No one was living there now, but it looked like it would be easy enough to find a road that would take them there.
Jack had moved over to the computer, checking his email, by the time Dean finished and looked up, rubbing his sore eyes with a knuckle. He fought a yawn for a little bit, then gave in, feeling his jaw crack with it. He was tired, but satisfied, having found everything he needed to know in an afternoon of solid work. At times like this, he could almost understand what Sam enjoyed about research, the pleasure of fitting a puzzle together, using only persistence and sheer brainpower to find all the pieces and make sense of them. It just took way too freaking long and was much too boring most of the time, that was all.
Dean pushed himself out of his chair, and sauntered the three steps over to the computer. “Anything good? Sometimes those offers of free girly pictures are legit.”
Jack did a little pursed-lip lowered-eyebrows thing that packed just as much disapproval into one expression as Dean’s dad could get out in an hour-long lecture. He just shook his head, though, and leaned back to show Dean what he was looking at. A text document full of obituaries-not near as fun as Dean had been hoping. “Daniel sent me the raw info from that list of deaths he gave me. Check it out…all the kids that you think Susanna got? Older siblings, every single one of ‘em. Big brothers, big sisters, out in the woods doing whatever, and bang, death from above. Death from somewhere, anyway.”
Dean nodded, barely looking at the text Jack scrolled through, pointing out the lines where the obits listed survivors-parents, grandparents, younger siblings. “Yeah, that’s interesting. But hey, while you were doing that? I found out where she’s buried. So we can go end this thing. You ready, or are you still curious about what happened to little Abe?”
“I found out what happened to him. I’ll tell you in the car.” Jack closed out the documents and logged off, then stood up from the computer and stretched broadly, forcing Dean to step back and bump into a bookcase. Fortunately, he didn’t hit his head, but he gave the older man a glare anyway. Jack grinned, slow and mischievous. “You know, curiosity’s not such a bad thing, some of the time. It kept me from dying of boredom in here.”
“I’m glad that worked for you, dude. Now, can we get out of here? Much as I just love hanging out in tiny libraries all day, duty calls. And I want a burger.”
“Sure, sure. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
On the way out, Dean made sure to thank Marcy the Reference Librarian for her help. Never knew when he might have to pass this way again. And there was the slightest chance that she might be open to further…relations…later. She beamed up at him and invited him, somewhat breathlessly, to come back anytime.
Dean was grinning as he hopped down the steps, into the slanting sunlight of the gravel parking lot. He was finally back on track for the hunt: location pinned down, directions firm, salt and shovels and kerosene in the trunk, a balmy spring evening ahead, a solid, competent guy backing him up, and a nice-looking librarian smiling after him. Things couldn’t really be going much better.
He was even feeling magnanimous enough to switch from Metallica to a more oldies-rock mix tape, before he pulled out on the main drag in search of a burger joint. “So, what happened to Abraham Milner?”
Jack leaned back into the bench seat, finger tapping on his thigh in time to the music. “It was like Emerson said people thought. He was kidnapped by some Dakotas, dragged out into the wilderness. Probably miles away before anyone even noticed he was missing-no chance was Susanna ever gonna find him. He grew up among them, adopted their ways. In 1862 he was killed in the Dakota Conflict, fighting on the Dakotas’ side. Buried on the battlefield.”
“Man, that’s rough.” Dean shook his head, staring out the windshield. “So Susanna’s baby brother never came home.”
“Yeah. It pretty much sucks all around.”
Dean kept his eyes peeled for a likely looking restaurant and deliberately did not think about what that would have been like, losing your little brother, never seeing him again, dying alone looking for him, and then not even being buried near each other. Yeah, that would suck out loud.
The little McDonald’s was built into an older building, peeling green paint and that weird false front some old buildings still sported, making it look like it had two stories instead of one, but the logo in the window was the same familiar golden arches. Dean pulled into the slanting parking spot and threw the car in park. “Well, it’s time that she finally got some peace. Right after I get me some fries.”
Part 13