SPN: "This is Halloween"
Category: Supernatural, This Christmas Day 'verse
Title: This is Halloween
Word Count: 8920
Rating: PG (language)
Summary: It's Maggie's second Halloween with the Winchesters, and something is seriously wrong with Dean.
Notes: Time to branch into the other holidays.
Thanks to nwspaprtaxis and firesign10 for the readovers!
Marcy stepped off the elevator and heard a man shouting. By the immediate flashback she had to Sam's first visit, it was from her place. Oh, good. Just what I need after a long day of telling Sean where to shove it.
It was Thursday, which meant Claire would be here; her parents were going through a rough patch and had marriage counseling on Thursdays. Claire was older than Maggie-they knew each other from soccer rather than school-but Maggie was mature for her age, so they got along well, and having Claire stay here was one less thing for her parents to stress at each other about, not to mention way better than sending her to an empty house or making her sit in a therapist's waiting room. Marcy fully expected that the girls were fighting and Dean was trying to break it up.
Instead, she walked in to find Dean shouting at Maggie, Maggie in tears, and Claire frozen in place, looking utterly terrified. She was used to her parents yelling at each other, not at her.
"What is going on here?" Marcy demanded, slamming the door behind her. "I could hear you guys at the elevator! What-"
The words skidded to a stop when she got a good look at her husband.
Dean's eyes were hard, his expression murderous. This wasn't the man she'd married. "I said no," he said to Maggie, his voice so harsh it was unrecognizable, and he turned his chair and rolled out of the room.
Marcy suddenly had her arms full of sobbing, heartbroken nine-year-old. If Claire shrank any further back into her chair, she'd come out the back in even slices. "What happened?"
Maggie was crying too hard to answer, so Claire did. "We were talking about-" She stopped, swallowed hard, looked over her shoulder. "About Halloween costumes," she whispered, like she thought the mere words would bring Dean storming back in here.
"What?" Dean didn't like Halloween, but she understood why he didn't, and they'd agreed last year that she'd handle all the Halloween things and keep the in-house decorations to a minimum. If they'd said something that brought up bad memories, why didn't he just ask them nicely to not discuss it in front of him? He'd managed to do that last year when Maggie started talking haunted houses.
"Me and Maggie, we're-I mean, we want to go trick-or-treating as angels, and Mr. Winchester, he heard her say that, and he-he-"
Christ, now Claire was crying. "It's okay, Claire, I get the idea." Claire nodded, silent tears running down her cheeks, and Marcy sighed. "C'mere, there's room for two."
And she just stood there, her arms full of two scared, crying little girls, wondering what the hell was wrong with her husband.
***
She finally got the girls calmed down-Claire stopped crying altogether, but Maggie remained in sniffle mode-and back to their homework, with the added bonus of some cookies to make up for Dean being...whatever. Then-and only then-did she brave their bedroom.
He was sitting by the window, staring outside.
She slammed the door behind her. He didn't so much as flinch. "What the fuck was that?" she demanded, kicking her shoes into the closet and beginning to strip off her suit.
Marcy knew she was really in trouble when her husband didn't so much as look at her. Dean never let anything-not even imminent anesthesia-distract him from appreciating her struggle out of work clothes and into something more practical. "Claire said they were just talking about Halloween costumes." She slammed her hair combs into the dish on her nightstand. "Dean, we've been through this. I will handle the Halloween stuff. I told you-"
"Leave me alone." Still that alien voice, flat and emotionless and all the more threatening, like thunderheads piling up in the west.
"Dean-" She jerked on a shirt and jeans and crossed the room to him. "Dean, please, just talk-"
"No."
"And what do you expect me to tell Maggie about why you've apparently lost your mind?"
No answer. No acknowledgement.
"Fine," she said, and stalked out. Maybe with some time to cool down-or whatever-she'd be able to figure out what was going on with him. If only he didn't still go so belligerently silent when something hit him like this....
They'd made progress; he hardly ever did this anymore. Not like this. Definitely not since they'd gotten Maggie. And Halloween was only two days before the anniversary of his mother's death, which probably meant that whatever he was really reacting to was old. Very old.
If she wound up having to call Sam over this, she was going to kill him.
***
Dean didn't come out for supper. Or to watch TV. Or to help Maggie with her homework. Or to tell Maggie good-night.
By that point, Maggie's eyes were so red it looked like she'd dumped the entire bottle of shampoo into them. Marcy hadn't heard another crying jag, which meant it had probably happened in the shower. Maggie hadn't survived foster care this long without learning how to hide emotional breakdowns.
And the fact that she thought she had to....
"Is he coming in?" Maggie asked in a tiny little voice while Marcy was tucking her in, and Marcy fought down a sudden urge to go drag her husband out of their room and make him face this mess he'd caused. So far, his track record on resisting those big blue eyes was very, very poor. He stood up to Sam better than he did to Maggie.
"I don't think so, sweetie," Marcy said. "I'm sorry."
"It was just a costume," Maggie whispered. "I didn't think it would make him mad."
"This is not your fault, Maggie," she said sternly. "I don't know what it is, but it's all him." New tears welled up. "Just- I'll get this figured out, I promise."
Maggie nodded miserably, and Marcy-feeling just about that miserable herself-turned the light out and headed for her own bedroom.
Dean was already in bed. He wasn't asleep-wasn't even pretending-but the mere fact that he was already under the covers spoke volumes. He always waited for her so she could check his legs for DVTs, even though he was perfectly capable of doing it himself. It was one of their little rituals-one they'd been doing since before they got married.
There was also a faint smell of liquor in the air. Whiskey, maybe, or bourbon. Another habit he still hadn't completely overcome: keeping a bottle near to hand. Not enough to get him really drunk-she didn't think he'd been full-on drunk since they got married-but he still automatically turned to alcohol when he reached a certain point.
They were going to be lucky to get this sorted out before Halloween at this rate.
Marcy went through her nighttime routine and climbed into bed. He didn't even look at her. "I don't suppose at any point you're going to tell me what the problem is," she said.
"There's not a problem."
"Dean. You promised not to lie to me."
"I'm not. She's not going, so there's no problem."
"Oh, there's a big problem if you think this family is a one-man dictatorship," she snarled, but he only rolled over, away from her, and didn't say another word.
***
When the alarm went off, Marcy was already awake. She hadn't really slept. Dean was lying on his back, eyes closed, but she knew he wasn't asleep; he hardly ever slept in that position, for starters, and she could practically see the tension in his muscles. Maggie was probably no better. When Marcy had gotten up for a drink around three, she'd caught the soft sounds of sobbing from Maggie's room.
This is going to be a long-ass day.
She forced herself out of bed. "Dean? You getting up?"
He moved-barely. Just enough for her to know that he no longer cared if she knew he was awake. "Can you take her to school today?" he asked, without even turning to look at her.
Marcy hesitated. She shouldn't indulge him. But Maggie was probably still a mess, and with Dean still like this-
Maggie might be Dean's, but she was Marcy's too, and damned if she was going to let anybody, even Dean, hurt her like that. "You won't need Bruce later?" she asked instead. On Fridays, she usually rode in with Firth, and Dean took Maggie to school and went in for a shift at the store.
"Nothing to do today," he said listlessly.
"Dean-" No, he was gone again, lost in whatever he was seeing when he looked at the walls. And she just didn't have time right now to deal with this. She had to get to work, and Maggie had to get to school. "You better be ready to talk about this when I get home," she told him.
There was no answer, not that she had expected one. And he didn't watch her get dressed. Didn't even look when she tripped and wound up hopping halfway across the room in her underwear with one foot caught in her skirt.
Yep. This is definitely going to be A Day.
Maggie, bless her heart, was still sniffling, and then she tried to sneak out without eating breakfast, not so much as a Pop-Tart. Since they really didn't have time to make something, Marcy stopped by Bojangles for biscuits to eat on the way. Maggie ate hers without any enthusiasm at all, forcing it down only because she knew she had to eat. She loved those damn biscuits. And she was being extremely careful about crumbs-so careful that it took Marcy almost all the way to the school to realize that Maggie was scared.
Maggie hadn't been scared-not like this-since just after she came to them. Not since she finally realized that vampire stories and nightmares weren't going to frighten them off.
In the drop-off line, Marcy watched Maggie silently undo her seat belt-so very carefully, as if any noise might set Marcy off-and made an executive decision. "Refasten that," she ordered, and Maggie gave her a confused look. "How does going to work with me sound?"
A flicker of hope. "Really?"
"You bet." No point in having all those relatives lurking around the building if she couldn't put them to good use. It'd save Maggie a day of trying to avoid teasing from idiot classmates about the tears that kept hovering-and possible school shrink intervention, with the attendant report to Bill and Jenn-and then it would be the weekend. Maybe by Monday they could have this all sorted out.
The seat belt clicked back in place, and Marcy drove away from the curb, leaving a confused drop-off monitor in their wake.
***
"Here, Maggie. Behold your future inheritance."
"Inheritance?" Maggie stared wide-eyed around the lobby-the public lobby, the one designed specifically to intimidate and awe any visitors, all polished marble and dark wood, with a chandelier bigger than Maggie's bedroom above them and a twenty-foot-high stained glass mural over the entrance. Half their hotels didn't have a lobby this grand.
Hard to believe that the man who designed it wouldn't even have carpet in his house because it was too pretentious.
"Once your adoption's final, you too will have a share of this in your name."
Maggie looked up at her, eyes wide. "Do I have to work here like you?"
She sounded terrified. Not that Marcy blamed her. "Oh, God, no, sweetheart. Only if you want to. Come on." She led Maggie to the very unobtrusive card-locked side door, which led to a plainer hall and an elevator that would drop them off in the corner of the fourth floor, much closer to her office. Taking the public elevators meant hiking halfway around the building-and walking by Third's office. Even if he wasn't there yet, Lynda would be, and Lynda was not only the senior secretary, she was also (as Firth put it) vice president in charge of gossip.
They'd learned very young to avoid Lynda at all costs unless they wanted their father to know what they were up to.
Firth was waiting for the elevator, which meant Marcy spent the ride trying to explain without telling him the details. She thought she'd managed, but then-
"My God, the interns just keep getting younger," Mike said behind her while she was holding the door for Firth to get out, and Maggie giggled.
"Just for the day, Mike." She didn't miss the way Firth warned him off. Big brothers. Sheesh.
"Really," Mike said, and there was more of that annoying silent big brother communication before he said, cheerily enough, "Well, even interns for the day have to be properly supplied. C'mon, Maggie, let's get you set up."
"Mama Marcy?"
"You can stay in my office if you want, but it'll be more boring." No one could misinterpret the look in Maggie's eyes. "Here, give me your bag. I'll stash it for you. Don't torture your uncle too much."
"Now, now. You know nobody tortures me but Janet," Mike said with a grin. Marcy just rolled her eyes. "This way, Maggie, let's go ransack Aunt Janet's desk." He led Maggie off towards the office he and Janet shared, because they got along just that disgustingly well.
"Marcy-"
"Not getting into it now, Firth," she said, turning and walking toward her office. He followed, of course, his office was right next to hers, but he didn't ask again, and went right past her when she stopped at Dottie's desk to get her messages, snag a cupcake from the batch that Dottie always brought in on Friday, and give her the head's up about Maggie-and warn Dottie to not stuff the poor girl full of sweets. She dropped Maggie's backpack on the couch in her office, where Maggie could find it easily, turned on the computer, then dug out her cell and dialed a number she hardly ever used.
Sam was undoubtedly at work already; he was a morning person, there were fewer distractions before business hours, and the earlier he started, the fewer hours working in a dark, dank basement after sunset. Marcy knew from Sarah that Sam's office had no reception, but she also knew from Dean that he was very good about checking messages on his breaks.
If Dean wouldn't talk to her, fine, but he'd better not bitch because she resorted to drastic measures.
"Hi, Sam," she said to his voicemail. "It's Marcy. You remember, your brother's wife? Is there any reason you can think of that Dean would have a fucking meltdown just because Maggie wants to be an angel for Halloween? I will leave this message twice a day until you answer me. Hours will vary. My number, not his, and don't even think about pretending you don't have it."
She hung up, sat down at her desk, and opened up her scheduling program. That meeting could be cancelled and replaced with a few well-chosen e-mails; that one could be moved; the Friday lunch meeting was sacrosanct; she couldn't change the linens meeting, but there was no reason on earth she needed to be in on yet another repeat of Sean's Cancun proposal, because she wasn't going to oppose it or get involved in it.
Mike brought Maggie back with an ID badge around her neck (it said "Maggie Winchester," and Marcy wasn't sure if she should hug her brother for the acceptance or hit him for jinxing an adoption that was nowhere near final yet) and an armful of stationery and markers-undoubtedly things Janet kept in her desk to distract their kids. But Maggie had hardly gotten settled at the table when Third barged in. "What's this I hear about a new intern?" he bellowed, giving Maggie a fit of the giggles. Marcy rolled her eyes, but smiled when her father ordered the "new intern" to collect her things and come help him on a "special project."
Marcy knew all about those special projects. First there would be a tour of the building, stopping at every desk from the maintenance office in the basement to the architects who rented the fifth floor to make sure everybody met the newest grandchild (legal niceties be damned). Then-since it was Friday and the weather was nice-he'd probably take Maggie to his weekly lunch and afternoon golf game. Massive amounts of sugar would be involved at some point, and if there wasn't at least one milkshake ingested before five, Marcy would eat Bruce's steering wheel.
"Don't let her stuff herself sick," she said mildly, earning herself an I raised you just fine, ingrate glare from her father and a delightfully unworried trill of laughter from Maggie.
And that was why Marcy wasn't going to argue with her father's plans. Maggie needed a little spoiling right now. Four grandfathers were always better than one, and since the rest of Third's golf buddies didn't have local grandchildren, they were always up for spoiling. On the golf course, at least, Dottie wouldn't be stuffing her full of candy and measuring her for a new quilt.
She wasn't wrong. Once Third claimed Maggie, Marcy didn't see them. She got a text around eleven telling her that they were heading for lunch, which meant Maggie would be spending the next several hours playing pretend caddie. If Marcy was lucky, none of those grandfathers would be measuring Maggie for her own golf clubs before the afternoon was out. If she was really lucky, Maggie wouldn't come back with a year's worth of prepaid golf lessons.
Pity she couldn't escape that easily.
Marcy's job-well, it was a job, it was part of the family legacy, and she was okay at it, but it wasn't what she'd wanted. Her dream-before that damned poltergeist, anyway-had been to stay at home and raise a houseful of kids. If Neil hadn't been such an outright ass about their hypothetical kids being genetically theirs and damn the consequences....
Marrying Dean had, of course, put that notion to rest permanently. Between his record, his education, and his disability, there was just no way Dean could get a job that would support a couple, let alone a family, let alone a large family, not even if she'd found a way to hire him for RCE-and he was way too smart to get involved with another "family business." There was the family money, of course, but Junior had wanted to make sure his descendants learned the value of work even while he provided for them, so she wouldn't have complete access to her trust fund until she was forty-five. She got some money out of it, and could get some more, but not as much as they needed. There really hadn't been any question: If they were going to have kids, foster or adopted, Marcy would have to remain the breadwinner. Permanently.
And the pay and benefits of this job were, frankly, unmatched. Even allowing for all the travel and the hassle of dealing with family, she wasn't going to find anything better.
Her sisters were all smarter than she was. The only one who worked for RCE was Ally, and being a lawyer, she was in a different department altogether-in a different building, most days-and got to avoid their father and the Brothers Three. Mike had a bad case of Oldest Son syndrome, only partially alleviated by the fact that Janet worked with them, the only one of the in-laws who did. Firth was Firth. They were both big brothers, and never let her forget it. Sean....
There were four years between them-the same as Dean and Sam-but Marcy and Firth were separated by only ten months, so they'd been the ones who'd bonded. Anne had a story about they day they'd brought Sean home, in which not three hours later, she'd found Marcy in Sean's crib with a roll of stamps, sticking them on his forehead in the apparent belief that the U.S. Postal Service took babies if they had proper postage. The personality clash had only gotten worse from there-and had become all-out war when Hannah was born.
Needless to say, he'd never approved of Dean. Sean also didn't approve of Maggie, although after Dad threatened to fire him, Jenn gave him a black eye, Mama offered to break bones, and Liz read him multiple copies of the riot act, he quit dropping snide remarks about strays and waxing poetic about the golden age of orphanages.
Some days, she really wished they could keep Liz and kick Sean out. How on earth Sean had managed to lure such a warm, decent, loving human being into his bed, and then to the altar, was an utter mystery.
Fridays meant working lunches with the siblings for planning purposes. It was Firth's turn to pick the meal, which meant Chinese-though for some reason everybody made sure to keep the chopsticks away from Marcy. Nobody had mentioned Maggie yet, either, not even Janet.
Not yet.
Mike was saying, "I really think we should prioritize St. Louis for the remodel. We haven't touched it since-"
"So, at any point, are you going to tell us what your husband did?"
Marcy froze, a forkful of pepper steak halfway to her mouth. "Don't start with me, Sean." Firth and Mike could get away with calling Dean "your husband" in that tone of voice. Sean, not so much.
"We're worried, Marcy," Janet said quietly. "You've never brought Maggie to the office before, and it's a school day. Jenn's going to bite your head off when she hears about this, so there has to be a reason."
"And," Firth went on, "it means you didn't want to leave her home with Dean. Plus there's this special kind of thundercloud you get over your head when you've had a fight with him."
Great. They were ganging up on her. Well, she could shove that right back. "We didn't have a fight. You have to talk to have a fight."
Janet and Mike both flinched. "Ouch."
"I don't know why you're surprised," Sean said. "It's not like you didn't know this would happen eventually."
"Sean!" Mike shouted, and Firth threw a fortune cookie across the table. It bounced off Sean's nose.
"I'm serious," Sean said, snatching the cookie and throwing it back. Firth ducked and it hit the wall. Marcy rolled her eyes. "I told you, Marcy, the differences between you-"
Okay, maybe she did understand why her big brothers kept the chopsticks away from her. "Sean, kindly take that chopstick and shove it up your ass." She fished the last piece of beef out of her meal and tossed it back. "Sideways," she thought to add.
"But-"
"Jesus Christ, Sean." Jaws dropped, and every eye turned to Janet, who never took the Lord's name in vain. "It's a fight. It's what couples do. You and Liz have had more than a few. It doesn't mean Marcy should be running out for an annulment. It means she needs to vent and get a little support while she lets Dean have his time, and then she'll go home and they'll figure this out." She heaved a sigh. "I swear, I don't know what the hell Liz sees in you, you pretentious snot."
"Mike!" Sean protested.
"Beautiful, darling," Mike said, and gave his wife a kiss.
"Liz has nothing to do with this!"
"True," Mike said mildly. "Although we're all still trying to figure out how you lowered your lofty standards enough to marry somebody named Rivera."
"I am not a racist!"
"And the fact that Liz is a lily-white blonde has nothing to do with it," Firth muttered into his lo mein.
Sean glowered across the table. "I heard that."
"You were meant to." Firth cast around for another fortune cookie, couldn't find one, and balled up his napkin and gave it a hurl.
I'm surrounded by children. "Guys!" Everybody looked at Marcy. "Can we get back to work? Please?"
"But what are you going to-"
"I'm going to do exactly what Janet said, you fucking idiot, which was my plan all along." Marcy wished she hadn't given her fortune cookie to Mike. She had absolutely no ammunition. "I'm going to do my job, go home, feed Maggie her supper, and then I'm going to have a discussion with my husband. To which none of you are invited." Janet snorted. "And Firth and I have a meeting in an hour and a half about the linen contracts, so can we get back to which of these hotels we're remodeling next year so I can figure out which of the fucking estimates we're supposed to use, instead of killing a rain forest by printing them all out?"
"Marcy-"
She glared at Mike, and said firmly, "I second St. Louis. We haven't touched it since we bought it, and that's been going on ten years."
Sean shot her a nasty sideways glare. "Wasn't there a serial killer running loose in town about that time? Oh, I remember. Identified as Dean Winchester."
Mike calmly stood up, walked around the table, and hit Sean on the back of the head. Hard. Firth and Janet applauded. "You want me to tell Mama you said that?" he demanded. "Or Granny?"
"Sorry," Sean muttered, not sorry in the least.
Marcy just rubbed her temples, wondering if Dean had the right idea about moving to South Dakota.
***
Her phone started vibrating during the sheet meeting.
She made a dash for the hall. "Sam?" she demanded, before thinking that she should have checked the caller ID.
"He had a meltdown over a costume?" he asked, sounding a little shocked.
Marcy managed not to breathe a sigh of relief. She and Sam had their differences, but nobody else on earth cared more about Dean, and the concern in his voice made her feel better. At least she wasn't imagining that this wasn't normal. "Maggie and Claire were talking about costumes, and he just lost it. He didn't eat last night, Sam. He barely talked to me after I came to bed. He wouldn't even carry her to school this morning."
"Fuck," Sam muttered.
"I got home and he was screaming at Maggie. I know you guys have Halloween issues, and I understand why, but- He didn't do this last year. I took her, I didn't expect him to, I told him as much, but he didn't fucking explode. He managed to be polite over her costume, even."
"What was it? Last year, I mean?"
"One of the Disney princesses. It was last-minute, so we just raided Courtney's stash of hand-me-downs. None of her other foster homes ever let her go, so Maggie hadn't realized it was an option."
There was a moment's silence on the other end as Sam took that in. "You said he wasn't talking?"
"He told me to leave him alone, and then this morning he asked me to carry Maggie to school. That's all I've gotten out of him."
"Shit."
She didn't like the way he said that. "What?"
"Dean said once that he didn't talk after Mom died. Not for months. I didn't find out about it until after Dad was missing, and I meant to ask him-Dad, I mean-for more details about it eventually, but- Well. You know."
"Shit." If Dean was retreating into behavior that old, she might never get him back, let alone figure out what the fuck was going on.
"Would it help if I came down?"
"I don't know," she said, touched by the offer. It was like pulling teeth just to get Sam here for Christmas. "I was really hoping this was one of those things we just haven't gotten to, but if he hasn't told you...." She let that trail away. She and Dean didn't keep secrets, but it wasn't like they'd had a long engagement. There were tons of things that just hadn't come up yet.
The simple truth was that Sam had been there for more of Dean's life than she had. If this was something he didn't know about....
"Marcy, I don't know what else to tell you. We never did Halloween."
"Never?"
"It was too close to the anniversary. Dad usually spent the whole two weeks drunk, and half the time Dean wouldn't even go to school, if they were doing lots of seasonal things. Honestly, the first time a teacher brought out the jack-o'-lanterns, Dean usually managed to do something to get himself suspended. And that week.... Dad wouldn't even lecture him about it, if he even noticed."
"And at-um-home?"
"Or wherever?" he asked wryly, and she smiled. "More of the same. No TV specials, no Halloween movies. Not even monster or slasher flicks, and you know how Dean loves to heckle those things. I never knew what all the Great Pumpkin stuff was about until I got to Stanford and Jess was appalled at my ignorance and made me watch. If things got really bad, Dean wouldn't even eat candy-any candy, even if it came out of a vending machine. I always thought a free candy holiday would be right up his alley, but- I must have begged him a thousand times to take me trick-or-treating, and he flat-out refused, wouldn't even go outside that night. Not even if it was before dark. The one day a year where he'd come straight home from school, if he'd gone, or bring me straight home, and we didn't leave the building until the next morning. It was the only thing I could never get him to do."
Jesus. Dean was fairly constitutionally unable to tell Sam "no," especially face-to-face. That was why Sam had come down here for the confrontation over the wedding-and what had made it so surprising to their friends when Dean had put his foot down.
"And then I found out what Dad really did, and.... Well, knowing what's really out there puts a damper on pretending to be one, you know?"
"No, I get that, it's just-" Wait a second. "He never took you trick-or-treating."
"Not once."
"But Dean had four-no, five Halloweens before your mom died."
"I guess so- Hold on. You think this might be something from before Mom died?"
"Wouldn't it have to be? He didn't do this last year, Sam! He didn't like it, but he was okay with it as long as we didn't try to make him do anything!"
There was a thoughtful silence on the other end of the line. "What was the costume again?"
"An angel. Maggie's friend Claire has a thing and it's contagious."
"Uh-huh. There is something Dean said once, about Mom- She always told him angels were watching over him. I think it may have been the last thing she ever said to him."
It didn't take a genius to put those pieces together. Mary had believed in angels, and Mary had gotten killed anyway. "That's why he's so hostile about churches, too, isn't it?"
"I don't think it's all, but it's a big part, yeah. You didn't-"
"I don't push on religion, Sam." Going on five years and Sam still hadn't figured out that the only religious request Marcy had ever made of his brother was that they be married in the church.
"I was going to ask why you didn't suggest a different costume."
"When? All this happened while I was at work! I got more warning when I walked in on the two of you screaming at each other! At least I knew you were arriving! I haven't had a chance to address the possibility of another costume!"
"Okay, okay, sorry! Just-" He hesitated, then said, "I can't leave early, Mr. Blake's on a rampage again, but nobody needs me on the weekends. I can leave as soon as I'm done for the day. I can be there by morning if I drive all night-"
"No. You wreck his baby, we're both dead."
"You know, legally, it's my car now."
"Keep telling yourself that." She sighed. "Let me try this afternoon when I get home, and if he's still not cooperating, I'll send the jet."
"Won't that get you in trouble?"
"No, because I'm technically a co-owner of the damn thing. It came out cheaper that way, or helps the taxes, or something. We've got three cousins on standby-licensed pilots, don't make that noise at me, Sam Winchester."
"Is there anything you don't have in your family?"
"A psychiatrist."
Well, she'd made her brother-in-law laugh, at least.
***
Third had ulterior motives, it turned out-more ulterior than usual, anyway. "I'm taking Maggie home with me," he announced-announced, the bastard-when he and Maggie came back from the golf game to claim Maggie's backpack, just after four. Maggie was smiling and her nose was sunburned, and when Third told her to wait outside, she started chatting a mile a minute to Dottie. The magic of grandfathers. "It'll just be her. Your mama's making a cobbler, too."
And what was cobbler without ice cream? "She is going to get real food at some point tonight, right?"
"She had a very large BLT at the clubhouse-"
"With one of their very large chocolate milkshakes?"
Her father scowled. "So did I, Miss Nutrition Police, do you have a problem with that?" She chuckled. "And it's Friday."
Right. Fridays meant her parents went to that disgusting little fish house they were so fond of, on the other side of Lake Norman. Marcy despised it, but the long, scenic drive meant that the grandkids all saw it as a grand adventure. "Are you sure it's okay? You and Mama didn't have-"
"That doesn't matter. You need to get this fixed now, Marcella, before Jenn finds out and has to make a report and it jeopardizes the adoption. And we both know that'll be easier if Maggie's not underfoot."
God, she hated it when her father was right.
***
Dean was pretty much where she'd left him. Well, he was in his chair, and at some point he'd gotten dressed, but he was back to staring out the window. There was no smell of fresh liquor, though, so he hadn't gone out to get more. He wouldn't have needed Bruce for that; there was a store two blocks down.
"Dad took Maggie home with him," she said quietly, watching for a reaction. His fingers might have tightened on the arm of the chair. "She's getting dragged along for all-you-can-eat flounder night, and she'll spend the night over there. So it's just us."
"The school let him take her?"
"She didn't go to school. I took her to work with me."
That should have gotten a reaction. It didn't.
She changed clothes-if they were going to do this, dammit, she was going to be comfortable-and went over to the window. "Dean, please. Just talk to me."
"I'm fine. Just-"
"You're not fine, and I won't." She sat down cross-legged on the floor, back against the wall, where he'd only have to turn a little to see her. "I know this is a rough time of the year for you," she said softly, "but if you're going to take it out on Maggie, then maybe we should reconsider."
"Reconsider what?"
"The adoption."
That seemed to jolt him out of his funk. "What?" he demanded, jerking the chair around so he could face her.
Finally. "She thinks you want to send her back, Dean. That you hate her now."
"That's ridiculous! I don't-"
"I know that, but she- I know she's mature for her age, but she's still a little kid, she doesn't quite get all this yet."
"She knows-"
"She knows that you miss your parents, too, and that Halloween makes you miss them more. But she doesn't understand that sometimes grief comes out in angry outbursts, not crying jags. Did you understand when you were her age? That your dad's drinking and hunting was all about his grief?"
"Don't play shrink with me, Marcy."
"Then don't make it so I have to," she shot back, and he actually flinched. "It's one thing to mourn, Dean. It's another to hurt somebody with it."
"I'm not-"
"I know all about the significance of Halloween week in your family, remember? You're the one who told me about it."
"It-" He floundered for words. "Can't this just be one of those things I don't want to talk about?"
"If you'd been reasonable about it, if you'd just said that yesterday, then sure, I wouldn't push. But now- Maggie's traumatized, and I'm worried, and Sam is worried, and Mike and Firth and Janet and Dad are worried. Too much damage has been done. Now we've got to fix it."
"How does Sam know?"
"I called him."
His eyes went wide. "You called Sam? My brother Sam?"
"Desperate times, desperate measures. It's entirely up to you as to whether or not I send the jet to fetch him."
"You wouldn't."
"Wanna bet?" she asked, and her fierce ex-hunter husband actually went pale. It was never easy for him when his brother and his wife were in the same place. "There's one thing Sam and I agree on. We both worry about you. Especially when you pull stunts like this." He said nothing. "What is it that's different from last year, Dean? You managed to ignore it all. You were maybe a little quieter on the anniversary, but-"
"It's not the anniversary. I mean, it's not about it." He took a deep breath. "It- I just got reminded of something, that's all, it's not important, all right?"
Deflecting, right on cue. "If it made you yell at our daughter, it is important."
"No, it's just- It's me being stupid, okay? There's no point in dragging it all up. I'll do better. Make it up to her."
"Dean, I don't want you to do better, I want you to talk to me!"
He just shook his head. He was retreating again. Dammit.
She hated to do this. But anger and logic hadn't worked, and the only other way she'd ever found to distract Dean when he was so wholly focused on his misery was to show him someone else's. "Do you remember our first Easter?"
He frowned, undoubtedly confused by the topic change. "Not really."
"It was the Sunday when there wasn't any pie." Since she'd first brought Dean over, there was only one family dinner where that had happened. Anne had liked Dean from the moment she met him, and was highly amused by what she called his "pie fixation." By the time they'd gotten married, it had been a family joke-and pies had been a permanent addition to the dessert table.
"That was Easter? I never could keep track. It's not big with monsters."
"I know. But the reason there wasn't any pie was because nobody expected us to be there."
"Yeah, because getting out of holiday dinners with your-" He stopped. "You're serious. Anne wasn't just teasing me when she said that?"
"No." She leaned her head back against the wall. There was an unobtrusive little sigil painted in the upper corner of the window, behind him, that she didn't remember putting there. She focused on that, because if she looked at him, she wasn't sure she could get this all out. "That was the first time I'd gone to an Easter dinner since the one where Courtney announced she was expecting Tori." She forced herself to take a deep breath. "We were all sitting at the table, all the traditional Easter stuff, and Court announced that, and.... I'd known since the poltergeist that there would be no kids. But that day, it became real. That I was never going to be anything but an aunt."
"That's not-"
"It was what I believed at the time, remember?" He winced; he hated when she reminded him of that. "Anyway. It was like getting the rebar all over again. I sat at that table with Firth on one side and Hannah on the other and listened to everybody congratulate Court and Nick, and I swear to God, Dean, the only thing that kept me there was Firth grabbing my hand under the table and squeezing so hard he nearly broke something. He was just barely out of rehab, still adjusting, still half out of his mind with the depression, and he was keeping me under control. I finally managed to get out of there and I ran to the bathroom and I puked for the better part of an hour. I haven't been able to eat ham since. I used to love Easter lilies; now they make me sick. I see Easter bunnies and candy eggs and it all comes back, I'm lying in that hospital bed listening to doctors argue about whether or not it's more important for me to live or be able to have kids. I feel every incision. All I see is blood on the concrete. I can fucking smell it, blood and antiseptics and hospital sheets and-" She shuddered at the memory. "I can't even go to an Easter Mass, Dean. The most important holiday of the Church's year, and I cannot do it."
"The dinner I get, but-"
"It's just how my brain got wired about it. One of my therapists had a theory that it was because I wouldn't let myself blame my family-because even though part of me was so utterly miserable, part of me was still happy for Courtney-and so the trigger got focused on things specific to the holiday."
"But-" He frowned at her. "Marce, you bought Maggie an Easter basket. You went on a full-on expedition to get her an Easter dress. And you went to church."
"Technically, I went to the church parking lot." The old, familiar ache of tears started building up in her throat and behind her eyes at the memory.
Dean saw it. He flipped the brakes and slid out of his chair to the floor, in front of her, as close as he could manage.
"I didn't make it inside," she went on, cursing the sudden tremor in her voice. "Somebody had put Easter lilies in the entry. Mama took Maggie in for Mass. I wound up hurling into the hydrangeas at the rectory. Then I just sat in the car and sobbed."
"Why?" he demanded. "Why didn't you ask me to-"
She deliberately lowered her gaze. Met her husband's eyes. Waited.
"Because it was a church thing," he breathed, realizing-and maybe a little bit aghast. "Jesus Christ, Marcy, I'm not that much of an ass, I would've-"
"I promised I would never ask you to do that," she reminded him gently, and his eyes went dark. "Just like you promised to talk to me." One of his feet was bent up underneath him in a bad position. She leaned over, straightened it out, and since she couldn't get her arms around him from this angle, reached for his hands. They were cold. "What is it about a silly costume that bothers you so much?"
His breath hitched. He looked down at their hands-staring, it seemed, at the matching silver bands, as if he'd never really seen them before. "It-" She didn't think she'd ever seen him fighting so hard to get words out. Not even when he'd confessed the visions to her. "It was what she wore," he finally managed, his fingers clenching on hers. "On Halloween, I mean. The-the last one."
Oh, God. "Your mom?" He nodded. "Dean-"
"I told you it wasn't-"
"Yes, it is." She extricated her hands from his, reached to tilt his face up so he was looking at her. Tears brimmed in his eyes. "Tell me," she ordered softly.
"It-" He drew a shuddering breath, fighting the tears. "I don't know why she wanted to do it. Just that- Sammy was only a baby, right, what did he care about candy? So Mom decided-God, she decided this in, like, September-that on Halloween, Dad could just come home from work early and take care of Sammy alone for a couple of hours, hand out candy at the door, whatever, and we'd go trick-or-treating. Just me and her. We- I hadn't gotten a lot of one-on-one time with her that summer. I mean, I understood, babies take more attention, I wasn't jealous or anything, but it wasn't like it had been before Sammy, you know?" She nodded. "I think she was more excited than I was. She worked on that costume for a month. Mine was a lot quicker. It- It was magical, Marcy- Not the witch magic shit, but little-kid magic, like Santa before you stop believing in him, or the way the kids down here are when they see snow- It was fucking magical, and then two days later, she was gone, I hadn't even finished all the damn candy, I tripped over the bag trying to get to the hall when Dad yelled-"
She didn't think it was voluntary, the way the words stopped, but that maybe his voice just stopped working, the unshed tears strangling the sounds before they could emerge.
She changed position so that she could slide her arms around him. "It's okay," she whispered, and then he was holding onto her so fiercely she could barely breathe, like she might float away if he let go.
He wouldn't give in to those tears; he never did. It wasn't his way. Too many years of shoving it down, trying to prove he was strong enough. All she could do was be here.
At times like these, Marcy really wished she could give her dead father-in-law a piece of her mind. Revenge was no replacement for proper grieving.
"What were you?" she asked softly. "Your costume, I mean."
"A fireman. She-" He closed his eyes, fighting it. "She told everybody she was my guardian angel," he finally managed, hardly more than a whisper. "That the fires wouldn't-couldn't-" His voice broke again.
That the fires wouldn't touch him, so long as she was there. Oh, Dean. No wonder Maggie and Claire's innocent planning had caused such a severe overreaction.
"You two are kinda fixated on the guardian angels," she said, when he'd gotten control again. He looked at her blankly. "You didn't even ask Maggie why, did you?" He shook his head. "I did. Last night. And she said it was because she has two guardian angels now." Dean's eyes went dark. "They-we saved her from the shrinks and the vampires and being in a mental hospital the rest of her life, and now we're giving her a home, a real home. If she dresses like a normal person, the way her guardian angels look, nobody will understand what she's trying to honor."
"She actually said all that?"
"Yes." It had taken awhile to get it out of her, Maggie had been fighting so hard not to burst into tears again- She and Dean were so much alike; if Marcy didn't know, for certain, that Dean had not been anywhere near this area when Maggie had been conceived....
"She's going to hate me."
Marcy allowed herself an eye-roll. "No, she's not. If she hated you, she wouldn't care what you thought about this."
"But how-"
"You don't have to give her the details. Just apologize for yelling at her."
"I thought one of the perks of being the parent was never apologizing."
"No, the parents don't have to explain. You can't expect her to apologize when she does something wrong if you never do. Remember, the goal is to raise kids who are not as fucked in the head as we are."
That made him chuckle-a little weakly, maybe, but enough to know they were through the worst. "I really did fuck this one up, didn't I?" he asked.
"There were bound to be a couple of rough spots."
"I screamed-"
"Hey. No wallowing." She tapped on his forehead. "Hear me? It's done. It can't be changed. You apologize, and we move on, and if I catch you dwelling, I will make you pay in unpleasant and highly celibate ways, got me?"
He managed a smile-a pale cousin of his usual grins, but still. "Do I still get to sleep in our bed, or is this a Firth's couch thing?"
"That depends on how much you piss me off." She gave him a quick kiss. "Did you eat anything today?"
"No," he admitted.
"Didn't think so. Pizza okay? I don't feel like going out."
"Real pizza or Domino's?"
"I like Domino's." He gave her a look. "Fine, we'll get Capri's." She waited a moment. "Dean, you have to let go of me."
"I don't want to."
She chuckled. "Okay, then, let's put it this way. I have to take Ter off standby by nine or he's flying to New York to pick up Sam, and if Sam doesn't get a text by nine, Sarah's taking him to the airport."
"You made the arrangements even before you left work?"
"It's easier to cancel than arrange." Dean groaned. "So either we cancel it, and I'll go call the pizza order in, and then we will enjoy the hell out of our alone time, or you get to find a place for Sam to sleep. Deal?"
***
Last year, she'd dressed up. This year, she wasn't really feeling it. It was warm enough that she wouldn't need a jacket, at least, and her little seraphim were able to wear their gilt-laced sandals without socks. She'd still need to keep the top up on Bruce, though, or one of them might accidentally take real flight. Where the hell had Courtney found those wings? "All set?" Marcy asked, and a pair of giggles answered. "You already hit the rest of the building, didn't you?"
"Uncle Firth gave us Kit Kats," Maggie said, halo bobbing, and fished one out of her bag-a more complicated maneuver that it should have been, considering the little plastic trumpet, spray-painted gold of course, that was tied to her wrist.
It wasn't a candy bar that she pulled out, though-it was an entire tray-pack, at least six full-sized bars. Never let it be said that Uncle Firth skimped on the candy. And that was on top of the box of gourmet chocolate Uncle Sammy had sent down, with a note to Marcy that it was so Maggie would have candy even if she decided not to go trick-or-treating after all.
Uncles.
"Remind me to send you to stay at Uncle Firth's when all that chocolate kicks in," Marcy said dryly, shoving her keys in a pocket and picking up the bowl of candy-what she'd managed to hide from Dean, anyway-and a chair to put it on outside their door, so Dean wouldn't be bothered by the knocking of any trick-or-treaters. Maggie shoved her candy bar back into her bag-this time smacking Claire with her wings. The resultant tugging and shoving somehow got them tangled up with Claire's scabbarded "fiery sword." This was going to be such a fun night. "C'mon, Michael and Gabriel-"
"I'm not Michael, Michael's an-"
Marcy had already heard Claire's opinion of Michael. It was.... Well, a girl her age shouldn't know those words. "Lighten up on the blasphemy there, okay, Claire?" she interrupted quickly. "Gabriel and Whoever, let's load up the angel taxi and fly to-"
"Hey!" Dean came out of their room. "I don't get to see the costumes?" he asked.
"I thought you didn't want to be reminded," Maggie said, her voice shaky, before Marcy could.
Dean's eyes darkened. "C'mere, Maggie May." Maggie went over, a little hesitantly, but he pulled her into a hug, wings and all, and whispered something in her ear. "Okay?"
"Got it," Maggie said, nodding.
Dean leaned back before he took a halo to the eye. "Off you go. Keep your wings straight."
"Easier said than done," Marcy said dryly, earning a chuckle. "Onward, seraphim. We've got miles to go before you crash."
"Wait, wait." Marcy froze with her hand on the doorknob, but Dean only reached into one of the pockets on the chair and came up with his phone. "Sarah wants a picture."
"A picture?" Marcy asked. "Why?"
"Because it's the only way I can get her to send me one of Sam in his costume."
Marcy raised an eyebrow as the girls struck a properly angelic pose. Sarah's father hated Sam, and had somehow found out just how much Sam hated Halloween, so naturally he'd instituted a company-wide Halloween party-attendance and costumes mandatory. "I thought he was going to come down with the 24-hour flu."
Dean snapped a picture. "So did Sam," he said with a wicked grin, leaving no doubt at all about who'd told Sarah of Sam's desperate escape plan.
the end
Title: This is Halloween
Word Count: 8920
Rating: PG (language)
Summary: It's Maggie's second Halloween with the Winchesters, and something is seriously wrong with Dean.
Notes: Time to branch into the other holidays.
Thanks to nwspaprtaxis and firesign10 for the readovers!
Marcy stepped off the elevator and heard a man shouting. By the immediate flashback she had to Sam's first visit, it was from her place. Oh, good. Just what I need after a long day of telling Sean where to shove it.
It was Thursday, which meant Claire would be here; her parents were going through a rough patch and had marriage counseling on Thursdays. Claire was older than Maggie-they knew each other from soccer rather than school-but Maggie was mature for her age, so they got along well, and having Claire stay here was one less thing for her parents to stress at each other about, not to mention way better than sending her to an empty house or making her sit in a therapist's waiting room. Marcy fully expected that the girls were fighting and Dean was trying to break it up.
Instead, she walked in to find Dean shouting at Maggie, Maggie in tears, and Claire frozen in place, looking utterly terrified. She was used to her parents yelling at each other, not at her.
"What is going on here?" Marcy demanded, slamming the door behind her. "I could hear you guys at the elevator! What-"
The words skidded to a stop when she got a good look at her husband.
Dean's eyes were hard, his expression murderous. This wasn't the man she'd married. "I said no," he said to Maggie, his voice so harsh it was unrecognizable, and he turned his chair and rolled out of the room.
Marcy suddenly had her arms full of sobbing, heartbroken nine-year-old. If Claire shrank any further back into her chair, she'd come out the back in even slices. "What happened?"
Maggie was crying too hard to answer, so Claire did. "We were talking about-" She stopped, swallowed hard, looked over her shoulder. "About Halloween costumes," she whispered, like she thought the mere words would bring Dean storming back in here.
"What?" Dean didn't like Halloween, but she understood why he didn't, and they'd agreed last year that she'd handle all the Halloween things and keep the in-house decorations to a minimum. If they'd said something that brought up bad memories, why didn't he just ask them nicely to not discuss it in front of him? He'd managed to do that last year when Maggie started talking haunted houses.
"Me and Maggie, we're-I mean, we want to go trick-or-treating as angels, and Mr. Winchester, he heard her say that, and he-he-"
Christ, now Claire was crying. "It's okay, Claire, I get the idea." Claire nodded, silent tears running down her cheeks, and Marcy sighed. "C'mere, there's room for two."
And she just stood there, her arms full of two scared, crying little girls, wondering what the hell was wrong with her husband.
***
She finally got the girls calmed down-Claire stopped crying altogether, but Maggie remained in sniffle mode-and back to their homework, with the added bonus of some cookies to make up for Dean being...whatever. Then-and only then-did she brave their bedroom.
He was sitting by the window, staring outside.
She slammed the door behind her. He didn't so much as flinch. "What the fuck was that?" she demanded, kicking her shoes into the closet and beginning to strip off her suit.
Marcy knew she was really in trouble when her husband didn't so much as look at her. Dean never let anything-not even imminent anesthesia-distract him from appreciating her struggle out of work clothes and into something more practical. "Claire said they were just talking about Halloween costumes." She slammed her hair combs into the dish on her nightstand. "Dean, we've been through this. I will handle the Halloween stuff. I told you-"
"Leave me alone." Still that alien voice, flat and emotionless and all the more threatening, like thunderheads piling up in the west.
"Dean-" She jerked on a shirt and jeans and crossed the room to him. "Dean, please, just talk-"
"No."
"And what do you expect me to tell Maggie about why you've apparently lost your mind?"
No answer. No acknowledgement.
"Fine," she said, and stalked out. Maybe with some time to cool down-or whatever-she'd be able to figure out what was going on with him. If only he didn't still go so belligerently silent when something hit him like this....
They'd made progress; he hardly ever did this anymore. Not like this. Definitely not since they'd gotten Maggie. And Halloween was only two days before the anniversary of his mother's death, which probably meant that whatever he was really reacting to was old. Very old.
If she wound up having to call Sam over this, she was going to kill him.
***
Dean didn't come out for supper. Or to watch TV. Or to help Maggie with her homework. Or to tell Maggie good-night.
By that point, Maggie's eyes were so red it looked like she'd dumped the entire bottle of shampoo into them. Marcy hadn't heard another crying jag, which meant it had probably happened in the shower. Maggie hadn't survived foster care this long without learning how to hide emotional breakdowns.
And the fact that she thought she had to....
"Is he coming in?" Maggie asked in a tiny little voice while Marcy was tucking her in, and Marcy fought down a sudden urge to go drag her husband out of their room and make him face this mess he'd caused. So far, his track record on resisting those big blue eyes was very, very poor. He stood up to Sam better than he did to Maggie.
"I don't think so, sweetie," Marcy said. "I'm sorry."
"It was just a costume," Maggie whispered. "I didn't think it would make him mad."
"This is not your fault, Maggie," she said sternly. "I don't know what it is, but it's all him." New tears welled up. "Just- I'll get this figured out, I promise."
Maggie nodded miserably, and Marcy-feeling just about that miserable herself-turned the light out and headed for her own bedroom.
Dean was already in bed. He wasn't asleep-wasn't even pretending-but the mere fact that he was already under the covers spoke volumes. He always waited for her so she could check his legs for DVTs, even though he was perfectly capable of doing it himself. It was one of their little rituals-one they'd been doing since before they got married.
There was also a faint smell of liquor in the air. Whiskey, maybe, or bourbon. Another habit he still hadn't completely overcome: keeping a bottle near to hand. Not enough to get him really drunk-she didn't think he'd been full-on drunk since they got married-but he still automatically turned to alcohol when he reached a certain point.
They were going to be lucky to get this sorted out before Halloween at this rate.
Marcy went through her nighttime routine and climbed into bed. He didn't even look at her. "I don't suppose at any point you're going to tell me what the problem is," she said.
"There's not a problem."
"Dean. You promised not to lie to me."
"I'm not. She's not going, so there's no problem."
"Oh, there's a big problem if you think this family is a one-man dictatorship," she snarled, but he only rolled over, away from her, and didn't say another word.
***
When the alarm went off, Marcy was already awake. She hadn't really slept. Dean was lying on his back, eyes closed, but she knew he wasn't asleep; he hardly ever slept in that position, for starters, and she could practically see the tension in his muscles. Maggie was probably no better. When Marcy had gotten up for a drink around three, she'd caught the soft sounds of sobbing from Maggie's room.
This is going to be a long-ass day.
She forced herself out of bed. "Dean? You getting up?"
He moved-barely. Just enough for her to know that he no longer cared if she knew he was awake. "Can you take her to school today?" he asked, without even turning to look at her.
Marcy hesitated. She shouldn't indulge him. But Maggie was probably still a mess, and with Dean still like this-
Maggie might be Dean's, but she was Marcy's too, and damned if she was going to let anybody, even Dean, hurt her like that. "You won't need Bruce later?" she asked instead. On Fridays, she usually rode in with Firth, and Dean took Maggie to school and went in for a shift at the store.
"Nothing to do today," he said listlessly.
"Dean-" No, he was gone again, lost in whatever he was seeing when he looked at the walls. And she just didn't have time right now to deal with this. She had to get to work, and Maggie had to get to school. "You better be ready to talk about this when I get home," she told him.
There was no answer, not that she had expected one. And he didn't watch her get dressed. Didn't even look when she tripped and wound up hopping halfway across the room in her underwear with one foot caught in her skirt.
Yep. This is definitely going to be A Day.
Maggie, bless her heart, was still sniffling, and then she tried to sneak out without eating breakfast, not so much as a Pop-Tart. Since they really didn't have time to make something, Marcy stopped by Bojangles for biscuits to eat on the way. Maggie ate hers without any enthusiasm at all, forcing it down only because she knew she had to eat. She loved those damn biscuits. And she was being extremely careful about crumbs-so careful that it took Marcy almost all the way to the school to realize that Maggie was scared.
Maggie hadn't been scared-not like this-since just after she came to them. Not since she finally realized that vampire stories and nightmares weren't going to frighten them off.
In the drop-off line, Marcy watched Maggie silently undo her seat belt-so very carefully, as if any noise might set Marcy off-and made an executive decision. "Refasten that," she ordered, and Maggie gave her a confused look. "How does going to work with me sound?"
A flicker of hope. "Really?"
"You bet." No point in having all those relatives lurking around the building if she couldn't put them to good use. It'd save Maggie a day of trying to avoid teasing from idiot classmates about the tears that kept hovering-and possible school shrink intervention, with the attendant report to Bill and Jenn-and then it would be the weekend. Maybe by Monday they could have this all sorted out.
The seat belt clicked back in place, and Marcy drove away from the curb, leaving a confused drop-off monitor in their wake.
***
"Here, Maggie. Behold your future inheritance."
"Inheritance?" Maggie stared wide-eyed around the lobby-the public lobby, the one designed specifically to intimidate and awe any visitors, all polished marble and dark wood, with a chandelier bigger than Maggie's bedroom above them and a twenty-foot-high stained glass mural over the entrance. Half their hotels didn't have a lobby this grand.
Hard to believe that the man who designed it wouldn't even have carpet in his house because it was too pretentious.
"Once your adoption's final, you too will have a share of this in your name."
Maggie looked up at her, eyes wide. "Do I have to work here like you?"
She sounded terrified. Not that Marcy blamed her. "Oh, God, no, sweetheart. Only if you want to. Come on." She led Maggie to the very unobtrusive card-locked side door, which led to a plainer hall and an elevator that would drop them off in the corner of the fourth floor, much closer to her office. Taking the public elevators meant hiking halfway around the building-and walking by Third's office. Even if he wasn't there yet, Lynda would be, and Lynda was not only the senior secretary, she was also (as Firth put it) vice president in charge of gossip.
They'd learned very young to avoid Lynda at all costs unless they wanted their father to know what they were up to.
Firth was waiting for the elevator, which meant Marcy spent the ride trying to explain without telling him the details. She thought she'd managed, but then-
"My God, the interns just keep getting younger," Mike said behind her while she was holding the door for Firth to get out, and Maggie giggled.
"Just for the day, Mike." She didn't miss the way Firth warned him off. Big brothers. Sheesh.
"Really," Mike said, and there was more of that annoying silent big brother communication before he said, cheerily enough, "Well, even interns for the day have to be properly supplied. C'mon, Maggie, let's get you set up."
"Mama Marcy?"
"You can stay in my office if you want, but it'll be more boring." No one could misinterpret the look in Maggie's eyes. "Here, give me your bag. I'll stash it for you. Don't torture your uncle too much."
"Now, now. You know nobody tortures me but Janet," Mike said with a grin. Marcy just rolled her eyes. "This way, Maggie, let's go ransack Aunt Janet's desk." He led Maggie off towards the office he and Janet shared, because they got along just that disgustingly well.
"Marcy-"
"Not getting into it now, Firth," she said, turning and walking toward her office. He followed, of course, his office was right next to hers, but he didn't ask again, and went right past her when she stopped at Dottie's desk to get her messages, snag a cupcake from the batch that Dottie always brought in on Friday, and give her the head's up about Maggie-and warn Dottie to not stuff the poor girl full of sweets. She dropped Maggie's backpack on the couch in her office, where Maggie could find it easily, turned on the computer, then dug out her cell and dialed a number she hardly ever used.
Sam was undoubtedly at work already; he was a morning person, there were fewer distractions before business hours, and the earlier he started, the fewer hours working in a dark, dank basement after sunset. Marcy knew from Sarah that Sam's office had no reception, but she also knew from Dean that he was very good about checking messages on his breaks.
If Dean wouldn't talk to her, fine, but he'd better not bitch because she resorted to drastic measures.
"Hi, Sam," she said to his voicemail. "It's Marcy. You remember, your brother's wife? Is there any reason you can think of that Dean would have a fucking meltdown just because Maggie wants to be an angel for Halloween? I will leave this message twice a day until you answer me. Hours will vary. My number, not his, and don't even think about pretending you don't have it."
She hung up, sat down at her desk, and opened up her scheduling program. That meeting could be cancelled and replaced with a few well-chosen e-mails; that one could be moved; the Friday lunch meeting was sacrosanct; she couldn't change the linens meeting, but there was no reason on earth she needed to be in on yet another repeat of Sean's Cancun proposal, because she wasn't going to oppose it or get involved in it.
Mike brought Maggie back with an ID badge around her neck (it said "Maggie Winchester," and Marcy wasn't sure if she should hug her brother for the acceptance or hit him for jinxing an adoption that was nowhere near final yet) and an armful of stationery and markers-undoubtedly things Janet kept in her desk to distract their kids. But Maggie had hardly gotten settled at the table when Third barged in. "What's this I hear about a new intern?" he bellowed, giving Maggie a fit of the giggles. Marcy rolled her eyes, but smiled when her father ordered the "new intern" to collect her things and come help him on a "special project."
Marcy knew all about those special projects. First there would be a tour of the building, stopping at every desk from the maintenance office in the basement to the architects who rented the fifth floor to make sure everybody met the newest grandchild (legal niceties be damned). Then-since it was Friday and the weather was nice-he'd probably take Maggie to his weekly lunch and afternoon golf game. Massive amounts of sugar would be involved at some point, and if there wasn't at least one milkshake ingested before five, Marcy would eat Bruce's steering wheel.
"Don't let her stuff herself sick," she said mildly, earning herself an I raised you just fine, ingrate glare from her father and a delightfully unworried trill of laughter from Maggie.
And that was why Marcy wasn't going to argue with her father's plans. Maggie needed a little spoiling right now. Four grandfathers were always better than one, and since the rest of Third's golf buddies didn't have local grandchildren, they were always up for spoiling. On the golf course, at least, Dottie wouldn't be stuffing her full of candy and measuring her for a new quilt.
She wasn't wrong. Once Third claimed Maggie, Marcy didn't see them. She got a text around eleven telling her that they were heading for lunch, which meant Maggie would be spending the next several hours playing pretend caddie. If Marcy was lucky, none of those grandfathers would be measuring Maggie for her own golf clubs before the afternoon was out. If she was really lucky, Maggie wouldn't come back with a year's worth of prepaid golf lessons.
Pity she couldn't escape that easily.
Marcy's job-well, it was a job, it was part of the family legacy, and she was okay at it, but it wasn't what she'd wanted. Her dream-before that damned poltergeist, anyway-had been to stay at home and raise a houseful of kids. If Neil hadn't been such an outright ass about their hypothetical kids being genetically theirs and damn the consequences....
Marrying Dean had, of course, put that notion to rest permanently. Between his record, his education, and his disability, there was just no way Dean could get a job that would support a couple, let alone a family, let alone a large family, not even if she'd found a way to hire him for RCE-and he was way too smart to get involved with another "family business." There was the family money, of course, but Junior had wanted to make sure his descendants learned the value of work even while he provided for them, so she wouldn't have complete access to her trust fund until she was forty-five. She got some money out of it, and could get some more, but not as much as they needed. There really hadn't been any question: If they were going to have kids, foster or adopted, Marcy would have to remain the breadwinner. Permanently.
And the pay and benefits of this job were, frankly, unmatched. Even allowing for all the travel and the hassle of dealing with family, she wasn't going to find anything better.
Her sisters were all smarter than she was. The only one who worked for RCE was Ally, and being a lawyer, she was in a different department altogether-in a different building, most days-and got to avoid their father and the Brothers Three. Mike had a bad case of Oldest Son syndrome, only partially alleviated by the fact that Janet worked with them, the only one of the in-laws who did. Firth was Firth. They were both big brothers, and never let her forget it. Sean....
There were four years between them-the same as Dean and Sam-but Marcy and Firth were separated by only ten months, so they'd been the ones who'd bonded. Anne had a story about they day they'd brought Sean home, in which not three hours later, she'd found Marcy in Sean's crib with a roll of stamps, sticking them on his forehead in the apparent belief that the U.S. Postal Service took babies if they had proper postage. The personality clash had only gotten worse from there-and had become all-out war when Hannah was born.
Needless to say, he'd never approved of Dean. Sean also didn't approve of Maggie, although after Dad threatened to fire him, Jenn gave him a black eye, Mama offered to break bones, and Liz read him multiple copies of the riot act, he quit dropping snide remarks about strays and waxing poetic about the golden age of orphanages.
Some days, she really wished they could keep Liz and kick Sean out. How on earth Sean had managed to lure such a warm, decent, loving human being into his bed, and then to the altar, was an utter mystery.
Fridays meant working lunches with the siblings for planning purposes. It was Firth's turn to pick the meal, which meant Chinese-though for some reason everybody made sure to keep the chopsticks away from Marcy. Nobody had mentioned Maggie yet, either, not even Janet.
Not yet.
Mike was saying, "I really think we should prioritize St. Louis for the remodel. We haven't touched it since-"
"So, at any point, are you going to tell us what your husband did?"
Marcy froze, a forkful of pepper steak halfway to her mouth. "Don't start with me, Sean." Firth and Mike could get away with calling Dean "your husband" in that tone of voice. Sean, not so much.
"We're worried, Marcy," Janet said quietly. "You've never brought Maggie to the office before, and it's a school day. Jenn's going to bite your head off when she hears about this, so there has to be a reason."
"And," Firth went on, "it means you didn't want to leave her home with Dean. Plus there's this special kind of thundercloud you get over your head when you've had a fight with him."
Great. They were ganging up on her. Well, she could shove that right back. "We didn't have a fight. You have to talk to have a fight."
Janet and Mike both flinched. "Ouch."
"I don't know why you're surprised," Sean said. "It's not like you didn't know this would happen eventually."
"Sean!" Mike shouted, and Firth threw a fortune cookie across the table. It bounced off Sean's nose.
"I'm serious," Sean said, snatching the cookie and throwing it back. Firth ducked and it hit the wall. Marcy rolled her eyes. "I told you, Marcy, the differences between you-"
Okay, maybe she did understand why her big brothers kept the chopsticks away from her. "Sean, kindly take that chopstick and shove it up your ass." She fished the last piece of beef out of her meal and tossed it back. "Sideways," she thought to add.
"But-"
"Jesus Christ, Sean." Jaws dropped, and every eye turned to Janet, who never took the Lord's name in vain. "It's a fight. It's what couples do. You and Liz have had more than a few. It doesn't mean Marcy should be running out for an annulment. It means she needs to vent and get a little support while she lets Dean have his time, and then she'll go home and they'll figure this out." She heaved a sigh. "I swear, I don't know what the hell Liz sees in you, you pretentious snot."
"Mike!" Sean protested.
"Beautiful, darling," Mike said, and gave his wife a kiss.
"Liz has nothing to do with this!"
"True," Mike said mildly. "Although we're all still trying to figure out how you lowered your lofty standards enough to marry somebody named Rivera."
"I am not a racist!"
"And the fact that Liz is a lily-white blonde has nothing to do with it," Firth muttered into his lo mein.
Sean glowered across the table. "I heard that."
"You were meant to." Firth cast around for another fortune cookie, couldn't find one, and balled up his napkin and gave it a hurl.
I'm surrounded by children. "Guys!" Everybody looked at Marcy. "Can we get back to work? Please?"
"But what are you going to-"
"I'm going to do exactly what Janet said, you fucking idiot, which was my plan all along." Marcy wished she hadn't given her fortune cookie to Mike. She had absolutely no ammunition. "I'm going to do my job, go home, feed Maggie her supper, and then I'm going to have a discussion with my husband. To which none of you are invited." Janet snorted. "And Firth and I have a meeting in an hour and a half about the linen contracts, so can we get back to which of these hotels we're remodeling next year so I can figure out which of the fucking estimates we're supposed to use, instead of killing a rain forest by printing them all out?"
"Marcy-"
She glared at Mike, and said firmly, "I second St. Louis. We haven't touched it since we bought it, and that's been going on ten years."
Sean shot her a nasty sideways glare. "Wasn't there a serial killer running loose in town about that time? Oh, I remember. Identified as Dean Winchester."
Mike calmly stood up, walked around the table, and hit Sean on the back of the head. Hard. Firth and Janet applauded. "You want me to tell Mama you said that?" he demanded. "Or Granny?"
"Sorry," Sean muttered, not sorry in the least.
Marcy just rubbed her temples, wondering if Dean had the right idea about moving to South Dakota.
***
Her phone started vibrating during the sheet meeting.
She made a dash for the hall. "Sam?" she demanded, before thinking that she should have checked the caller ID.
"He had a meltdown over a costume?" he asked, sounding a little shocked.
Marcy managed not to breathe a sigh of relief. She and Sam had their differences, but nobody else on earth cared more about Dean, and the concern in his voice made her feel better. At least she wasn't imagining that this wasn't normal. "Maggie and Claire were talking about costumes, and he just lost it. He didn't eat last night, Sam. He barely talked to me after I came to bed. He wouldn't even carry her to school this morning."
"Fuck," Sam muttered.
"I got home and he was screaming at Maggie. I know you guys have Halloween issues, and I understand why, but- He didn't do this last year. I took her, I didn't expect him to, I told him as much, but he didn't fucking explode. He managed to be polite over her costume, even."
"What was it? Last year, I mean?"
"One of the Disney princesses. It was last-minute, so we just raided Courtney's stash of hand-me-downs. None of her other foster homes ever let her go, so Maggie hadn't realized it was an option."
There was a moment's silence on the other end as Sam took that in. "You said he wasn't talking?"
"He told me to leave him alone, and then this morning he asked me to carry Maggie to school. That's all I've gotten out of him."
"Shit."
She didn't like the way he said that. "What?"
"Dean said once that he didn't talk after Mom died. Not for months. I didn't find out about it until after Dad was missing, and I meant to ask him-Dad, I mean-for more details about it eventually, but- Well. You know."
"Shit." If Dean was retreating into behavior that old, she might never get him back, let alone figure out what the fuck was going on.
"Would it help if I came down?"
"I don't know," she said, touched by the offer. It was like pulling teeth just to get Sam here for Christmas. "I was really hoping this was one of those things we just haven't gotten to, but if he hasn't told you...." She let that trail away. She and Dean didn't keep secrets, but it wasn't like they'd had a long engagement. There were tons of things that just hadn't come up yet.
The simple truth was that Sam had been there for more of Dean's life than she had. If this was something he didn't know about....
"Marcy, I don't know what else to tell you. We never did Halloween."
"Never?"
"It was too close to the anniversary. Dad usually spent the whole two weeks drunk, and half the time Dean wouldn't even go to school, if they were doing lots of seasonal things. Honestly, the first time a teacher brought out the jack-o'-lanterns, Dean usually managed to do something to get himself suspended. And that week.... Dad wouldn't even lecture him about it, if he even noticed."
"And at-um-home?"
"Or wherever?" he asked wryly, and she smiled. "More of the same. No TV specials, no Halloween movies. Not even monster or slasher flicks, and you know how Dean loves to heckle those things. I never knew what all the Great Pumpkin stuff was about until I got to Stanford and Jess was appalled at my ignorance and made me watch. If things got really bad, Dean wouldn't even eat candy-any candy, even if it came out of a vending machine. I always thought a free candy holiday would be right up his alley, but- I must have begged him a thousand times to take me trick-or-treating, and he flat-out refused, wouldn't even go outside that night. Not even if it was before dark. The one day a year where he'd come straight home from school, if he'd gone, or bring me straight home, and we didn't leave the building until the next morning. It was the only thing I could never get him to do."
Jesus. Dean was fairly constitutionally unable to tell Sam "no," especially face-to-face. That was why Sam had come down here for the confrontation over the wedding-and what had made it so surprising to their friends when Dean had put his foot down.
"And then I found out what Dad really did, and.... Well, knowing what's really out there puts a damper on pretending to be one, you know?"
"No, I get that, it's just-" Wait a second. "He never took you trick-or-treating."
"Not once."
"But Dean had four-no, five Halloweens before your mom died."
"I guess so- Hold on. You think this might be something from before Mom died?"
"Wouldn't it have to be? He didn't do this last year, Sam! He didn't like it, but he was okay with it as long as we didn't try to make him do anything!"
There was a thoughtful silence on the other end of the line. "What was the costume again?"
"An angel. Maggie's friend Claire has a thing and it's contagious."
"Uh-huh. There is something Dean said once, about Mom- She always told him angels were watching over him. I think it may have been the last thing she ever said to him."
It didn't take a genius to put those pieces together. Mary had believed in angels, and Mary had gotten killed anyway. "That's why he's so hostile about churches, too, isn't it?"
"I don't think it's all, but it's a big part, yeah. You didn't-"
"I don't push on religion, Sam." Going on five years and Sam still hadn't figured out that the only religious request Marcy had ever made of his brother was that they be married in the church.
"I was going to ask why you didn't suggest a different costume."
"When? All this happened while I was at work! I got more warning when I walked in on the two of you screaming at each other! At least I knew you were arriving! I haven't had a chance to address the possibility of another costume!"
"Okay, okay, sorry! Just-" He hesitated, then said, "I can't leave early, Mr. Blake's on a rampage again, but nobody needs me on the weekends. I can leave as soon as I'm done for the day. I can be there by morning if I drive all night-"
"No. You wreck his baby, we're both dead."
"You know, legally, it's my car now."
"Keep telling yourself that." She sighed. "Let me try this afternoon when I get home, and if he's still not cooperating, I'll send the jet."
"Won't that get you in trouble?"
"No, because I'm technically a co-owner of the damn thing. It came out cheaper that way, or helps the taxes, or something. We've got three cousins on standby-licensed pilots, don't make that noise at me, Sam Winchester."
"Is there anything you don't have in your family?"
"A psychiatrist."
Well, she'd made her brother-in-law laugh, at least.
***
Third had ulterior motives, it turned out-more ulterior than usual, anyway. "I'm taking Maggie home with me," he announced-announced, the bastard-when he and Maggie came back from the golf game to claim Maggie's backpack, just after four. Maggie was smiling and her nose was sunburned, and when Third told her to wait outside, she started chatting a mile a minute to Dottie. The magic of grandfathers. "It'll just be her. Your mama's making a cobbler, too."
And what was cobbler without ice cream? "She is going to get real food at some point tonight, right?"
"She had a very large BLT at the clubhouse-"
"With one of their very large chocolate milkshakes?"
Her father scowled. "So did I, Miss Nutrition Police, do you have a problem with that?" She chuckled. "And it's Friday."
Right. Fridays meant her parents went to that disgusting little fish house they were so fond of, on the other side of Lake Norman. Marcy despised it, but the long, scenic drive meant that the grandkids all saw it as a grand adventure. "Are you sure it's okay? You and Mama didn't have-"
"That doesn't matter. You need to get this fixed now, Marcella, before Jenn finds out and has to make a report and it jeopardizes the adoption. And we both know that'll be easier if Maggie's not underfoot."
God, she hated it when her father was right.
***
Dean was pretty much where she'd left him. Well, he was in his chair, and at some point he'd gotten dressed, but he was back to staring out the window. There was no smell of fresh liquor, though, so he hadn't gone out to get more. He wouldn't have needed Bruce for that; there was a store two blocks down.
"Dad took Maggie home with him," she said quietly, watching for a reaction. His fingers might have tightened on the arm of the chair. "She's getting dragged along for all-you-can-eat flounder night, and she'll spend the night over there. So it's just us."
"The school let him take her?"
"She didn't go to school. I took her to work with me."
That should have gotten a reaction. It didn't.
She changed clothes-if they were going to do this, dammit, she was going to be comfortable-and went over to the window. "Dean, please. Just talk to me."
"I'm fine. Just-"
"You're not fine, and I won't." She sat down cross-legged on the floor, back against the wall, where he'd only have to turn a little to see her. "I know this is a rough time of the year for you," she said softly, "but if you're going to take it out on Maggie, then maybe we should reconsider."
"Reconsider what?"
"The adoption."
That seemed to jolt him out of his funk. "What?" he demanded, jerking the chair around so he could face her.
Finally. "She thinks you want to send her back, Dean. That you hate her now."
"That's ridiculous! I don't-"
"I know that, but she- I know she's mature for her age, but she's still a little kid, she doesn't quite get all this yet."
"She knows-"
"She knows that you miss your parents, too, and that Halloween makes you miss them more. But she doesn't understand that sometimes grief comes out in angry outbursts, not crying jags. Did you understand when you were her age? That your dad's drinking and hunting was all about his grief?"
"Don't play shrink with me, Marcy."
"Then don't make it so I have to," she shot back, and he actually flinched. "It's one thing to mourn, Dean. It's another to hurt somebody with it."
"I'm not-"
"I know all about the significance of Halloween week in your family, remember? You're the one who told me about it."
"It-" He floundered for words. "Can't this just be one of those things I don't want to talk about?"
"If you'd been reasonable about it, if you'd just said that yesterday, then sure, I wouldn't push. But now- Maggie's traumatized, and I'm worried, and Sam is worried, and Mike and Firth and Janet and Dad are worried. Too much damage has been done. Now we've got to fix it."
"How does Sam know?"
"I called him."
His eyes went wide. "You called Sam? My brother Sam?"
"Desperate times, desperate measures. It's entirely up to you as to whether or not I send the jet to fetch him."
"You wouldn't."
"Wanna bet?" she asked, and her fierce ex-hunter husband actually went pale. It was never easy for him when his brother and his wife were in the same place. "There's one thing Sam and I agree on. We both worry about you. Especially when you pull stunts like this." He said nothing. "What is it that's different from last year, Dean? You managed to ignore it all. You were maybe a little quieter on the anniversary, but-"
"It's not the anniversary. I mean, it's not about it." He took a deep breath. "It- I just got reminded of something, that's all, it's not important, all right?"
Deflecting, right on cue. "If it made you yell at our daughter, it is important."
"No, it's just- It's me being stupid, okay? There's no point in dragging it all up. I'll do better. Make it up to her."
"Dean, I don't want you to do better, I want you to talk to me!"
He just shook his head. He was retreating again. Dammit.
She hated to do this. But anger and logic hadn't worked, and the only other way she'd ever found to distract Dean when he was so wholly focused on his misery was to show him someone else's. "Do you remember our first Easter?"
He frowned, undoubtedly confused by the topic change. "Not really."
"It was the Sunday when there wasn't any pie." Since she'd first brought Dean over, there was only one family dinner where that had happened. Anne had liked Dean from the moment she met him, and was highly amused by what she called his "pie fixation." By the time they'd gotten married, it had been a family joke-and pies had been a permanent addition to the dessert table.
"That was Easter? I never could keep track. It's not big with monsters."
"I know. But the reason there wasn't any pie was because nobody expected us to be there."
"Yeah, because getting out of holiday dinners with your-" He stopped. "You're serious. Anne wasn't just teasing me when she said that?"
"No." She leaned her head back against the wall. There was an unobtrusive little sigil painted in the upper corner of the window, behind him, that she didn't remember putting there. She focused on that, because if she looked at him, she wasn't sure she could get this all out. "That was the first time I'd gone to an Easter dinner since the one where Courtney announced she was expecting Tori." She forced herself to take a deep breath. "We were all sitting at the table, all the traditional Easter stuff, and Court announced that, and.... I'd known since the poltergeist that there would be no kids. But that day, it became real. That I was never going to be anything but an aunt."
"That's not-"
"It was what I believed at the time, remember?" He winced; he hated when she reminded him of that. "Anyway. It was like getting the rebar all over again. I sat at that table with Firth on one side and Hannah on the other and listened to everybody congratulate Court and Nick, and I swear to God, Dean, the only thing that kept me there was Firth grabbing my hand under the table and squeezing so hard he nearly broke something. He was just barely out of rehab, still adjusting, still half out of his mind with the depression, and he was keeping me under control. I finally managed to get out of there and I ran to the bathroom and I puked for the better part of an hour. I haven't been able to eat ham since. I used to love Easter lilies; now they make me sick. I see Easter bunnies and candy eggs and it all comes back, I'm lying in that hospital bed listening to doctors argue about whether or not it's more important for me to live or be able to have kids. I feel every incision. All I see is blood on the concrete. I can fucking smell it, blood and antiseptics and hospital sheets and-" She shuddered at the memory. "I can't even go to an Easter Mass, Dean. The most important holiday of the Church's year, and I cannot do it."
"The dinner I get, but-"
"It's just how my brain got wired about it. One of my therapists had a theory that it was because I wouldn't let myself blame my family-because even though part of me was so utterly miserable, part of me was still happy for Courtney-and so the trigger got focused on things specific to the holiday."
"But-" He frowned at her. "Marce, you bought Maggie an Easter basket. You went on a full-on expedition to get her an Easter dress. And you went to church."
"Technically, I went to the church parking lot." The old, familiar ache of tears started building up in her throat and behind her eyes at the memory.
Dean saw it. He flipped the brakes and slid out of his chair to the floor, in front of her, as close as he could manage.
"I didn't make it inside," she went on, cursing the sudden tremor in her voice. "Somebody had put Easter lilies in the entry. Mama took Maggie in for Mass. I wound up hurling into the hydrangeas at the rectory. Then I just sat in the car and sobbed."
"Why?" he demanded. "Why didn't you ask me to-"
She deliberately lowered her gaze. Met her husband's eyes. Waited.
"Because it was a church thing," he breathed, realizing-and maybe a little bit aghast. "Jesus Christ, Marcy, I'm not that much of an ass, I would've-"
"I promised I would never ask you to do that," she reminded him gently, and his eyes went dark. "Just like you promised to talk to me." One of his feet was bent up underneath him in a bad position. She leaned over, straightened it out, and since she couldn't get her arms around him from this angle, reached for his hands. They were cold. "What is it about a silly costume that bothers you so much?"
His breath hitched. He looked down at their hands-staring, it seemed, at the matching silver bands, as if he'd never really seen them before. "It-" She didn't think she'd ever seen him fighting so hard to get words out. Not even when he'd confessed the visions to her. "It was what she wore," he finally managed, his fingers clenching on hers. "On Halloween, I mean. The-the last one."
Oh, God. "Your mom?" He nodded. "Dean-"
"I told you it wasn't-"
"Yes, it is." She extricated her hands from his, reached to tilt his face up so he was looking at her. Tears brimmed in his eyes. "Tell me," she ordered softly.
"It-" He drew a shuddering breath, fighting the tears. "I don't know why she wanted to do it. Just that- Sammy was only a baby, right, what did he care about candy? So Mom decided-God, she decided this in, like, September-that on Halloween, Dad could just come home from work early and take care of Sammy alone for a couple of hours, hand out candy at the door, whatever, and we'd go trick-or-treating. Just me and her. We- I hadn't gotten a lot of one-on-one time with her that summer. I mean, I understood, babies take more attention, I wasn't jealous or anything, but it wasn't like it had been before Sammy, you know?" She nodded. "I think she was more excited than I was. She worked on that costume for a month. Mine was a lot quicker. It- It was magical, Marcy- Not the witch magic shit, but little-kid magic, like Santa before you stop believing in him, or the way the kids down here are when they see snow- It was fucking magical, and then two days later, she was gone, I hadn't even finished all the damn candy, I tripped over the bag trying to get to the hall when Dad yelled-"
She didn't think it was voluntary, the way the words stopped, but that maybe his voice just stopped working, the unshed tears strangling the sounds before they could emerge.
She changed position so that she could slide her arms around him. "It's okay," she whispered, and then he was holding onto her so fiercely she could barely breathe, like she might float away if he let go.
He wouldn't give in to those tears; he never did. It wasn't his way. Too many years of shoving it down, trying to prove he was strong enough. All she could do was be here.
At times like these, Marcy really wished she could give her dead father-in-law a piece of her mind. Revenge was no replacement for proper grieving.
"What were you?" she asked softly. "Your costume, I mean."
"A fireman. She-" He closed his eyes, fighting it. "She told everybody she was my guardian angel," he finally managed, hardly more than a whisper. "That the fires wouldn't-couldn't-" His voice broke again.
That the fires wouldn't touch him, so long as she was there. Oh, Dean. No wonder Maggie and Claire's innocent planning had caused such a severe overreaction.
"You two are kinda fixated on the guardian angels," she said, when he'd gotten control again. He looked at her blankly. "You didn't even ask Maggie why, did you?" He shook his head. "I did. Last night. And she said it was because she has two guardian angels now." Dean's eyes went dark. "They-we saved her from the shrinks and the vampires and being in a mental hospital the rest of her life, and now we're giving her a home, a real home. If she dresses like a normal person, the way her guardian angels look, nobody will understand what she's trying to honor."
"She actually said all that?"
"Yes." It had taken awhile to get it out of her, Maggie had been fighting so hard not to burst into tears again- She and Dean were so much alike; if Marcy didn't know, for certain, that Dean had not been anywhere near this area when Maggie had been conceived....
"She's going to hate me."
Marcy allowed herself an eye-roll. "No, she's not. If she hated you, she wouldn't care what you thought about this."
"But how-"
"You don't have to give her the details. Just apologize for yelling at her."
"I thought one of the perks of being the parent was never apologizing."
"No, the parents don't have to explain. You can't expect her to apologize when she does something wrong if you never do. Remember, the goal is to raise kids who are not as fucked in the head as we are."
That made him chuckle-a little weakly, maybe, but enough to know they were through the worst. "I really did fuck this one up, didn't I?" he asked.
"There were bound to be a couple of rough spots."
"I screamed-"
"Hey. No wallowing." She tapped on his forehead. "Hear me? It's done. It can't be changed. You apologize, and we move on, and if I catch you dwelling, I will make you pay in unpleasant and highly celibate ways, got me?"
He managed a smile-a pale cousin of his usual grins, but still. "Do I still get to sleep in our bed, or is this a Firth's couch thing?"
"That depends on how much you piss me off." She gave him a quick kiss. "Did you eat anything today?"
"No," he admitted.
"Didn't think so. Pizza okay? I don't feel like going out."
"Real pizza or Domino's?"
"I like Domino's." He gave her a look. "Fine, we'll get Capri's." She waited a moment. "Dean, you have to let go of me."
"I don't want to."
She chuckled. "Okay, then, let's put it this way. I have to take Ter off standby by nine or he's flying to New York to pick up Sam, and if Sam doesn't get a text by nine, Sarah's taking him to the airport."
"You made the arrangements even before you left work?"
"It's easier to cancel than arrange." Dean groaned. "So either we cancel it, and I'll go call the pizza order in, and then we will enjoy the hell out of our alone time, or you get to find a place for Sam to sleep. Deal?"
***
Last year, she'd dressed up. This year, she wasn't really feeling it. It was warm enough that she wouldn't need a jacket, at least, and her little seraphim were able to wear their gilt-laced sandals without socks. She'd still need to keep the top up on Bruce, though, or one of them might accidentally take real flight. Where the hell had Courtney found those wings? "All set?" Marcy asked, and a pair of giggles answered. "You already hit the rest of the building, didn't you?"
"Uncle Firth gave us Kit Kats," Maggie said, halo bobbing, and fished one out of her bag-a more complicated maneuver that it should have been, considering the little plastic trumpet, spray-painted gold of course, that was tied to her wrist.
It wasn't a candy bar that she pulled out, though-it was an entire tray-pack, at least six full-sized bars. Never let it be said that Uncle Firth skimped on the candy. And that was on top of the box of gourmet chocolate Uncle Sammy had sent down, with a note to Marcy that it was so Maggie would have candy even if she decided not to go trick-or-treating after all.
Uncles.
"Remind me to send you to stay at Uncle Firth's when all that chocolate kicks in," Marcy said dryly, shoving her keys in a pocket and picking up the bowl of candy-what she'd managed to hide from Dean, anyway-and a chair to put it on outside their door, so Dean wouldn't be bothered by the knocking of any trick-or-treaters. Maggie shoved her candy bar back into her bag-this time smacking Claire with her wings. The resultant tugging and shoving somehow got them tangled up with Claire's scabbarded "fiery sword." This was going to be such a fun night. "C'mon, Michael and Gabriel-"
"I'm not Michael, Michael's an-"
Marcy had already heard Claire's opinion of Michael. It was.... Well, a girl her age shouldn't know those words. "Lighten up on the blasphemy there, okay, Claire?" she interrupted quickly. "Gabriel and Whoever, let's load up the angel taxi and fly to-"
"Hey!" Dean came out of their room. "I don't get to see the costumes?" he asked.
"I thought you didn't want to be reminded," Maggie said, her voice shaky, before Marcy could.
Dean's eyes darkened. "C'mere, Maggie May." Maggie went over, a little hesitantly, but he pulled her into a hug, wings and all, and whispered something in her ear. "Okay?"
"Got it," Maggie said, nodding.
Dean leaned back before he took a halo to the eye. "Off you go. Keep your wings straight."
"Easier said than done," Marcy said dryly, earning a chuckle. "Onward, seraphim. We've got miles to go before you crash."
"Wait, wait." Marcy froze with her hand on the doorknob, but Dean only reached into one of the pockets on the chair and came up with his phone. "Sarah wants a picture."
"A picture?" Marcy asked. "Why?"
"Because it's the only way I can get her to send me one of Sam in his costume."
Marcy raised an eyebrow as the girls struck a properly angelic pose. Sarah's father hated Sam, and had somehow found out just how much Sam hated Halloween, so naturally he'd instituted a company-wide Halloween party-attendance and costumes mandatory. "I thought he was going to come down with the 24-hour flu."
Dean snapped a picture. "So did Sam," he said with a wicked grin, leaving no doubt at all about who'd told Sarah of Sam's desperate escape plan.
the end