SPN FIC - Legend (Part Four: Missouri and Pamela)
I'd heard whispered bits of the story since I was a kid. Just after Halloween, back in '83, the demon Azazel had crept into the nursery of a baby boy, intending to drip blood into the child's mouth and turn him into demon spawn. But Mary Campbell was waiting for him. She had a gun a stranger had brought to her family ten years before: a gun that could kill anything. She used it to kill Azazel that night. Saved her child. Then she disappeared.
Legends are told in bits and pieces, spread by word of mouth over the years. This is the story of Mary Campbell's family: the husband to whom she told the truth of who she was. The son who grieved the loss of her so deeply that he spent half his life on the road alone, searching for her. And the son who found success, and love, and peace ... until things went a little bit sideways.
I'll be posting a piece every day (possibly skipping a day here and there, depending on RL) for the next couple of weeks. Each piece is self-contained. They're told in chronological order, so it's best if you start at the beginning -- but you can probably skip around without being swamped with "Huh? What?"s. Got a favorite character who died on Show? Stick around -- they'll probably turn up, alive and kicking. :)
Part One: Dean and Jo
Part Two: Dean, Sam, and Jessica
Part Three: John and Deacon
CHARACTERS: Missouri Mosely and Pamela Barnes
GENRE: Gen (AU)
RATING: PG SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 847 words
LEGEND
By Carol Davis
Part Four: Missouri and Pamela
She asked no questions of the young woman who came to the door the night before Thanksgiving; instead, she stepped aside, the thick old wood of the door still gripped in one hand, and let the young woman come inside, shuddering with the cold and stomping slushy snow off her scuffed black boots.
Colder than a witch's tit out there.
Missouri Mosely smiled first. A moment later the young woman matched it. "I'm Pamela," she said. "Pamela Barnes."
"I know, honey."
It was a rare thing, being in the same room with another psychic as gifted as she, and that was just as well; knowing that you could have no secrets, put up no wall thick enough to protect yourself, was both liberating and terrifying. Missouri had learned that early on, in the presence of an old woman everyone called simply Mother.
In the old woman's native French, mère.
Missouri smiled again as the young woman slipped out of her coat and shook the melting snow off her thick dark hair, thinking of Friday evenings with a bowl of popcorn and a Pepsi, her toes tucked underneath her on the couch, watching a show called Dallas.
"Believe me," the young woman said. "I've heard it all before."
The quips are there, then, in the front of her mind: Hey, baby, how's J.R.? Find anybody good in the shower lately?
"It gets old," she told Missouri.
"I don't doubt it."
"No. I guess you wouldn't."
This Pamela Barnes looked past Missouri into the depths of the house, took in all of it that was visible and probably a good deal of it that wasn't. She frowned a little, then wiped her expression clean like taking a paper towel to a mud-spattered window. She closed her eyes and let herself be still, let herself take it all in.
"You can feel it," she said without opening her eyes. "How long has it been?"
"Twenty-eight years."
"But the stink of it's still here."
"Hard to get rid of something like that. Something that strong."
"But they stayed here. After it happened."
"Both times."
No invitation was offered; none was necessary. Pamela walked on into the living room, through it into the dining room, then the kitchen. When she reached the place that was directly beneath the nursery she stopped and tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling.
"Something that strong," she murmured.
"Didn't mean it was all that smart."
"And they didn't sell the house. Didn't try to get away."
"I think she was afraid to."
"Which?"
It wasn't just the sulfur smell of the demon that lingered here; the house was full of other things. Joy and sorrow. The laughter of children.
"Set someone else up to be killed," Missouri said.
"Like you?"
She let the young woman take a walk with her, neither one of them moving a single step from where they stood: showed her John Winchester as a man abandoned, confused, the sole witness to his wife's murder by gunshot of a stranger in a long, dark coat. Showed her the silent grief of Mary Winchester's firstborn, and the wide, startled eyes of Mary's second son, the one who claimed he saw the spirits of his grandparents walking through the house at night.
"They're still here," Pamela said. "The spirits."
"Yes."
"But not all the time."
"Often enough."
Missouri had grown accustomed to seeing Samuel Campbell stride through his house at night, shoulders hunched, weapon in hand. Sometimes it was a gun, sometimes a silver knife, sometimes both, sometimes neither. Who he was stalking was never clear. She saw the ghost of Deanna Campbell most often upstairs, in the room that had been Sam's nursery, later a bedroom more suited to a growing boy, a young man. They were connected, Deanna and her grandson - that had been clear from the get-go.
Going on ten years ago, Missouri had lost the house that had belonged to her own grandmother. The loss would have upset her more if she hadn't known for most of her life that it would happen, and that she'd be offered another home.
This one.
"I've got no reason to stay," John had told her, after he said he was moving on. "And you're the only one I know who won't overreact."
There'd been a lot of death in this house. A lot of life, too, but death had its way of tipping the scales.
"They're coming back," Pamela said.
"Mm-hmm."
"All of them."
"Mm-hmm."
"For Thanksgiving," Pamela said, and the corner of her mouth twitched.
"Oh, yes."
The living and the dead: they were all coming back.
"I'll get you some tea," Missouri offered, and felt the rush of gratitude and ease that replaced the younger woman's fatigue. Pamela had driven straight through, though she hadn't really needed to; they had hours to spare before the first set of footsteps would come clattering up onto the front porch.
Still, it would be good to have someone else here on this particular night.
It would be good to have another witness.
* * * * *
Legends are told in bits and pieces, spread by word of mouth over the years. This is the story of Mary Campbell's family: the husband to whom she told the truth of who she was. The son who grieved the loss of her so deeply that he spent half his life on the road alone, searching for her. And the son who found success, and love, and peace ... until things went a little bit sideways.
I'll be posting a piece every day (possibly skipping a day here and there, depending on RL) for the next couple of weeks. Each piece is self-contained. They're told in chronological order, so it's best if you start at the beginning -- but you can probably skip around without being swamped with "Huh? What?"s. Got a favorite character who died on Show? Stick around -- they'll probably turn up, alive and kicking. :)
Part One: Dean and Jo
Part Two: Dean, Sam, and Jessica
Part Three: John and Deacon
CHARACTERS: Missouri Mosely and Pamela Barnes
GENRE: Gen (AU)
RATING: PG SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 847 words
LEGEND
By Carol Davis
Part Four: Missouri and Pamela
She asked no questions of the young woman who came to the door the night before Thanksgiving; instead, she stepped aside, the thick old wood of the door still gripped in one hand, and let the young woman come inside, shuddering with the cold and stomping slushy snow off her scuffed black boots.
Colder than a witch's tit out there.
Missouri Mosely smiled first. A moment later the young woman matched it. "I'm Pamela," she said. "Pamela Barnes."
"I know, honey."
It was a rare thing, being in the same room with another psychic as gifted as she, and that was just as well; knowing that you could have no secrets, put up no wall thick enough to protect yourself, was both liberating and terrifying. Missouri had learned that early on, in the presence of an old woman everyone called simply Mother.
In the old woman's native French, mère.
Missouri smiled again as the young woman slipped out of her coat and shook the melting snow off her thick dark hair, thinking of Friday evenings with a bowl of popcorn and a Pepsi, her toes tucked underneath her on the couch, watching a show called Dallas.
"Believe me," the young woman said. "I've heard it all before."
The quips are there, then, in the front of her mind: Hey, baby, how's J.R.? Find anybody good in the shower lately?
"It gets old," she told Missouri.
"I don't doubt it."
"No. I guess you wouldn't."
This Pamela Barnes looked past Missouri into the depths of the house, took in all of it that was visible and probably a good deal of it that wasn't. She frowned a little, then wiped her expression clean like taking a paper towel to a mud-spattered window. She closed her eyes and let herself be still, let herself take it all in.
"You can feel it," she said without opening her eyes. "How long has it been?"
"Twenty-eight years."
"But the stink of it's still here."
"Hard to get rid of something like that. Something that strong."
"But they stayed here. After it happened."
"Both times."
No invitation was offered; none was necessary. Pamela walked on into the living room, through it into the dining room, then the kitchen. When she reached the place that was directly beneath the nursery she stopped and tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling.
"Something that strong," she murmured.
"Didn't mean it was all that smart."
"And they didn't sell the house. Didn't try to get away."
"I think she was afraid to."
"Which?"
It wasn't just the sulfur smell of the demon that lingered here; the house was full of other things. Joy and sorrow. The laughter of children.
"Set someone else up to be killed," Missouri said.
"Like you?"
She let the young woman take a walk with her, neither one of them moving a single step from where they stood: showed her John Winchester as a man abandoned, confused, the sole witness to his wife's murder by gunshot of a stranger in a long, dark coat. Showed her the silent grief of Mary Winchester's firstborn, and the wide, startled eyes of Mary's second son, the one who claimed he saw the spirits of his grandparents walking through the house at night.
"They're still here," Pamela said. "The spirits."
"Yes."
"But not all the time."
"Often enough."
Missouri had grown accustomed to seeing Samuel Campbell stride through his house at night, shoulders hunched, weapon in hand. Sometimes it was a gun, sometimes a silver knife, sometimes both, sometimes neither. Who he was stalking was never clear. She saw the ghost of Deanna Campbell most often upstairs, in the room that had been Sam's nursery, later a bedroom more suited to a growing boy, a young man. They were connected, Deanna and her grandson - that had been clear from the get-go.
Going on ten years ago, Missouri had lost the house that had belonged to her own grandmother. The loss would have upset her more if she hadn't known for most of her life that it would happen, and that she'd be offered another home.
This one.
"I've got no reason to stay," John had told her, after he said he was moving on. "And you're the only one I know who won't overreact."
There'd been a lot of death in this house. A lot of life, too, but death had its way of tipping the scales.
"They're coming back," Pamela said.
"Mm-hmm."
"All of them."
"Mm-hmm."
"For Thanksgiving," Pamela said, and the corner of her mouth twitched.
"Oh, yes."
The living and the dead: they were all coming back.
"I'll get you some tea," Missouri offered, and felt the rush of gratitude and ease that replaced the younger woman's fatigue. Pamela had driven straight through, though she hadn't really needed to; they had hours to spare before the first set of footsteps would come clattering up onto the front porch.
Still, it would be good to have someone else here on this particular night.
It would be good to have another witness.
* * * * *