Fic: Good Girls Don't (The Bandit Queen Remix) [Supernatural; Rebecca Warren; PG-13]
Title: Good Girls Don't (The Bandit Queen Remix)
Author: ishafel
Summary: "She's the belle of the ball of the insurgency." (The Decemberists, "Bandit Queen")
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Rebecca Warren
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Used without permission.
Original story: The Rebel Kind, by unperfectwolf
Notes: Spoilers for Season 1 only.
***
The first thing they always say about her is, “She seemed like such a nice person.” Kind of like the things the neighbors say about serial killers--kind of like the things people said about Sam Winchester, just after his face showed up all over the news. They talk about the community service she did, how she loved puppies and went to church regularly.
They don’t mention the way she disappeared for weeks on end, or the arsenal the police found in her basement, or the salt lines across her windowsills and doorways. They don’t mention these things because they don’t know about them, because even though they kept in touch with her for ten years after Stanford, even though most of them like her and some of them loved her, none of them really knew Rebecca Warren. They liked Sam Winchester, too. They thought he was a nice, normal guy. For smart people, they’re surprisingly bad judges of character.
Now they sit in their big houses, windows closed and air conditioning on, and they tell their husbands and wives and perfect children about Rebecca and Sam, Sam and Rebecca. Most of them don’t mention Dean Winchester, or if they do, they whisper his name, like saying it out loud will bring him into their lives. Sam was one of them once, and Rebecca still is one of them, but Dean is a legend, Dean is the stuff of which horror movies are made. Sam and Rebecca are Bonnie and Clyde; Dean is Jack the Ripper. They blame him for everything that went wrong, because it’s easier than accepting the truth.
They can’t imagine what Rebecca’s life’s like, living on the run. Does she have a gun? The closest most of them have come to heavy artillery are the discreet weapons carried by Secret Service agents and movie stars’ bodyguards. They wonder whether she’s sleeping with Sam, or Dean, or both of them. They wonder if it was going on while Jess was alive. They like to think of themselves as open-minded, but they aren’t, not really. They can’t imagine that anyone lives that way, and certainly not that Rebecca would choose to.
After that, after they’ve dissected how much money she gave to charity, how many volunteer hours she worked to build houses for the homeless--then they talk about how smart she was. She could have gone anywhere, literally anywhere, for college: CalTech, M.I.T., Harvard, Yale. She chose Stanford. She was good at almost everything, interested in everything, math and languages and ancient history, but she was best at computers.
There was a time, they say, when they thought she’d be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Now she’s the next Sam Winchester, a fugitive, her face on the flyers in post offices with the killers and bank robbers and child molesters. Now there’s someone else infamous and brilliant they could compare her to if they dared. They don’t even whisper Ted Kaczynski’s name, as if voicing the thought would be enough to make it true, but they all think it.
They wonder about the back doors Rebecca spent ten years building into government computer systems, whether she’s infiltrated the FBI or the NSA. They wonder how safe they really are, with her out there. She could be anyone, anything, and worse still--so could the Winchester brothers. They’re names to conjure by, if you believe in magic. Black magic. Dean Winchester alone is suspected of a hundred murders on both coasts, in almost every state.
They have a picture Rebecca took one summer, the two Winchesters and a big black car. Two dangerous, handsome men, who were able to bewitch the smartest girl at Stanford University: they knew she’d been in contact with them for a long time, of course, but they’d seen it as kindness on her part, nostalgia. She’d loved Jess, they all had. She’d loved Sam. She’d want to stay in touch. They tell the police they’d never dreamed she was helping them. She wasn’t the kind of girl, the kind of woman, who broke the law easily or often. Only when she believed she was doing the right thing, they say. Only then. They don’t think about what that might mean for Sam and Dean Winchester.
Rebecca is kind, and clever, but she was always a little crazy, they say. A little wild. You never knew what she was going to say or do. She was always up for anything: clubs on the wrong side of town, road trips with no destination, mountain climbing and bungee jumping and sky diving, piercings and tattoos and crayon-bright hair colors.
Sometimes, they whisper, she even let her health insurance lapse, went months between jobs. She didn’t have an I.R.A., or a husband, or children. She didn’t worry about the future. It’s charming, but not really very responsible. She didn’t even have a Blackberry, or a day planner. They know now why she wasn’t interested in retirement planning, in promotions or stock options. Wherever Rebecca is now, handguns and ski masks are probably more use than 401ks.
They’re skeptical of Rebecca’s reasons for going, worried about how things will turn out. They don’t want to have to visit her in jail. They don’t want to have to identify her body in a morgue in a nameless town in the Midwest. They don’t want her heartbroken, or hurt, or regretting the bad choices she’s made. And she has made bad choices, they all agree on that. If she really and truly believed Sam and Dean were innocent, she should have tried to clear their names. They would have helped. Some of them are high-priced lawyers, state senators, powerful men and women who know people. She only had to ask, and they would have done anything they could. Not just for her, but also for Sam, and because it would be the right thing to do.
None of them say it. They don’t even really think it, because even thinking it would be a betrayal of everything they live for, home and family and career. But most of them are a little jealous of Rebecca. Whatever price she’s paying--whatever price she’ll end by paying--she’s free in a way none of them will ever be.
Author: ishafel
Summary: "She's the belle of the ball of the insurgency." (The Decemberists, "Bandit Queen")
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Rebecca Warren
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Used without permission.
Original story: The Rebel Kind, by unperfectwolf
Notes: Spoilers for Season 1 only.
***
The first thing they always say about her is, “She seemed like such a nice person.” Kind of like the things the neighbors say about serial killers--kind of like the things people said about Sam Winchester, just after his face showed up all over the news. They talk about the community service she did, how she loved puppies and went to church regularly.
They don’t mention the way she disappeared for weeks on end, or the arsenal the police found in her basement, or the salt lines across her windowsills and doorways. They don’t mention these things because they don’t know about them, because even though they kept in touch with her for ten years after Stanford, even though most of them like her and some of them loved her, none of them really knew Rebecca Warren. They liked Sam Winchester, too. They thought he was a nice, normal guy. For smart people, they’re surprisingly bad judges of character.
Now they sit in their big houses, windows closed and air conditioning on, and they tell their husbands and wives and perfect children about Rebecca and Sam, Sam and Rebecca. Most of them don’t mention Dean Winchester, or if they do, they whisper his name, like saying it out loud will bring him into their lives. Sam was one of them once, and Rebecca still is one of them, but Dean is a legend, Dean is the stuff of which horror movies are made. Sam and Rebecca are Bonnie and Clyde; Dean is Jack the Ripper. They blame him for everything that went wrong, because it’s easier than accepting the truth.
They can’t imagine what Rebecca’s life’s like, living on the run. Does she have a gun? The closest most of them have come to heavy artillery are the discreet weapons carried by Secret Service agents and movie stars’ bodyguards. They wonder whether she’s sleeping with Sam, or Dean, or both of them. They wonder if it was going on while Jess was alive. They like to think of themselves as open-minded, but they aren’t, not really. They can’t imagine that anyone lives that way, and certainly not that Rebecca would choose to.
After that, after they’ve dissected how much money she gave to charity, how many volunteer hours she worked to build houses for the homeless--then they talk about how smart she was. She could have gone anywhere, literally anywhere, for college: CalTech, M.I.T., Harvard, Yale. She chose Stanford. She was good at almost everything, interested in everything, math and languages and ancient history, but she was best at computers.
There was a time, they say, when they thought she’d be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Now she’s the next Sam Winchester, a fugitive, her face on the flyers in post offices with the killers and bank robbers and child molesters. Now there’s someone else infamous and brilliant they could compare her to if they dared. They don’t even whisper Ted Kaczynski’s name, as if voicing the thought would be enough to make it true, but they all think it.
They wonder about the back doors Rebecca spent ten years building into government computer systems, whether she’s infiltrated the FBI or the NSA. They wonder how safe they really are, with her out there. She could be anyone, anything, and worse still--so could the Winchester brothers. They’re names to conjure by, if you believe in magic. Black magic. Dean Winchester alone is suspected of a hundred murders on both coasts, in almost every state.
They have a picture Rebecca took one summer, the two Winchesters and a big black car. Two dangerous, handsome men, who were able to bewitch the smartest girl at Stanford University: they knew she’d been in contact with them for a long time, of course, but they’d seen it as kindness on her part, nostalgia. She’d loved Jess, they all had. She’d loved Sam. She’d want to stay in touch. They tell the police they’d never dreamed she was helping them. She wasn’t the kind of girl, the kind of woman, who broke the law easily or often. Only when she believed she was doing the right thing, they say. Only then. They don’t think about what that might mean for Sam and Dean Winchester.
Rebecca is kind, and clever, but she was always a little crazy, they say. A little wild. You never knew what she was going to say or do. She was always up for anything: clubs on the wrong side of town, road trips with no destination, mountain climbing and bungee jumping and sky diving, piercings and tattoos and crayon-bright hair colors.
Sometimes, they whisper, she even let her health insurance lapse, went months between jobs. She didn’t have an I.R.A., or a husband, or children. She didn’t worry about the future. It’s charming, but not really very responsible. She didn’t even have a Blackberry, or a day planner. They know now why she wasn’t interested in retirement planning, in promotions or stock options. Wherever Rebecca is now, handguns and ski masks are probably more use than 401ks.
They’re skeptical of Rebecca’s reasons for going, worried about how things will turn out. They don’t want to have to visit her in jail. They don’t want to have to identify her body in a morgue in a nameless town in the Midwest. They don’t want her heartbroken, or hurt, or regretting the bad choices she’s made. And she has made bad choices, they all agree on that. If she really and truly believed Sam and Dean were innocent, she should have tried to clear their names. They would have helped. Some of them are high-priced lawyers, state senators, powerful men and women who know people. She only had to ask, and they would have done anything they could. Not just for her, but also for Sam, and because it would be the right thing to do.
None of them say it. They don’t even really think it, because even thinking it would be a betrayal of everything they live for, home and family and career. But most of them are a little jealous of Rebecca. Whatever price she’s paying--whatever price she’ll end by paying--she’s free in a way none of them will ever be.