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Entry tags:
'Winter For A Year' - SPN - Amelia Novak
I was gonna make just the one fanmix for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spnrarepairs, but then I started writing drabbles for each song, which quickly became full-blown fic, and then I got cold feet because I realized that the fic is kinda the opposite of my requester's list of preferred kinks and special elements... So. I'll just post this here, then.
Winter For A Year
Supernatural. Amelia, Claire, Jimmy, brief Team Free Will; Amelia/Jimmy. PG. Spoilers for 4x20. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zempasuchil for betareading.
The mix for the fic is available for download here: Breathe On Mirrors
Amelia Novak after her husband's disappearance. ~3000 words
Amelia likes to think she's open-minded, and that she loves her husband. She likes to think that she loves God. This isn't the first time these things have butted heads, but this is the first time the conflict has terrified her. Jimmy's wide eyes, his hands around her wrists, he's telling her believe and she thinks of worst-case scenarios. Amelia thinks about times in the past when she had second thoughts about loving this man, and he is telling her he is chosen. An angel told him so. He is telling her that everything is going to be okay.
*
She hasn't heard from Jimmy all day, and suddenly Claire comes forward with her little story about last night.
Amelia says, “Your father said what to you?”
She's going to kill him.
*
And then, she just wants him back.
*
And then, she just wants to know if he's okay.
*
Jimmy is dead. He is lying in a ditch. He is lying in a morgue, and his name is John Doe. Jimmy is alive, and he has another woman. He has a man. He has for years. He never loved Amelia.
He loves her still, and still thinks of her every day, thinks of Claire. He misses making jokes that Claire is too cool to laugh at. He misses kissing Amelia where her shoulder curves into her neck.
He doesn't miss any of these things.
Jimmy is dead. His blue eyes are open and unseeing. He is six feet underground. He has been cut up into pieces. Jimmy is alive.
He's been kidnapped. Jimmy is a ghost. Jimmy is in Thailand. He is in Montana. This is a dream.
Amelia closes her eyes and count backwards from twenty, like Dr. Everett said. She gets to three, two, one, zero, and starts all over again.
*
Amelia's sister comes over and puts Jimmy's things in a box so she doesn't have to. These boxes will sit in the attic. Amelia has more room in the closet now, but Jimmy's memory is treacherous in its omnipresence. She’s reorganizing the bookshelf in the den and she comes across the Chronicles of Narnia, and she stops. Visions of him reading to Claire, the images unfurling in her head, in her heart. He was good at doing the voices - excitable Tumnus and haughty Jadis, and Edmund, at first petulant but then grown wise. He let Claire be Lucy.
Claire is too old to read to now, but once upon a time she was just a little thing in pajamas curled up next to her father, trying to stay awake until the end of the chapter. More than once Amelia saw Claire fast asleep with her arms around her dad, and Jimmy sitting back against the headboard, The Silver Chair on his lap. He didn't want to get up because he didn't want to wake her. He didn't get up because he simply didn't want to, and he would stroke Claire's hair and stare into space with aimless contentment, smiling at Amelia when she leaned against the doorway, amazed to be in this moment, blessed to be in this tableau.
Before Amelia knows it, she's sitting on the floor halfway through Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and she doesn't even hear Claire come in until she's asking her why she's crying.
“I'm okay, I'm okay,” which isn't the answer to her question at all.
Amelia wipes away her tears, and Claire sits with her and takes the book from her hands, and then she looks down at the page. After a few seconds' pause, Claire's voice is clear and steady: “After all this, they sailed for three days more and saw nothing but sea and sky. On the fourth day the wind changed to the north and the seas began to rise...”
*
Amelia is getting better at not being better. Bills need to be paid. Groceries need to be bought. Claire needs help with algebra. Amelia gets a job as a receptionist, another as a waitress. On weekends she gives piano lessons, and it's barely enough. She looks into food stamps, but doesn't qualify. She receives sympathy casseroles from friends and wonders which one of them started the rumor that Jimmy has been cheating on her for years. Sleep-deprived and full of aches, she is saying to Claire, “Just square the two shortest sides, and add the products. Get the square root of the sum. Good girl.”
*
In her dream, Amelia is standing ankle-deep in the Atlantic Ocean, and she knows she's in Hyannis, Massachusetts. It was the first vacation that she, Jimmy, and Claire ever took together as a family. Jimmy's there beside her, overdressed in a suit and that coat she always teases him about, the one that's slightly too big on him. It makes him look like he's wearing his father's clothes.
He's so still and serious, so she laughs and asks him what he's so grumpy about and he says, Amelia. He says, Amelia, I have a message from your husband.
Even in her dreams, Jimmy is crazy.
He says he loves you, and Claire, and he promises he'll be back as soon as he can.
And Amelia says, Jimmy-- and then he's gone.
Her breath catches, her heart seizes up, and a salt breeze carries the sound of Claire's laughter. Amelia spends the rest of the dream following her daughter's voice but never seeing her, waves whispering in her ear and sand sticking to her wet soles.
*
There's a day – and Amelia won't remember the date or time – but there's a day when someone stops her on the street and asks her for directions. Amelia is on her way to the bookstore maybe, or to that coffeehouse in the center of town because she has been craving their cranberry scone, but either way this little old lady stops her and asks where the – she looks down at a slip of paper – where Hamilton Towers is.
Yeah. Yeah, Amelia knows where that is. That's right next to where Jimmy used to work. Just go down this block, make a left, et cetera. Amelia tells her landmarks. She sketches out a rough map on the back of a receipt she finds in her purse, and says, “If you reach the Bed Bath and Beyond, you've gone too far.”
She thanks Amelia, this little old lady with her wrinkly mouth and worried eyes, and Amelia asks if she's from out of town and of course she is. Granite City, she says. She's visiting her niece, who is a sweet girl, just one of those really sweet girls, you know? Always remembers birthdays, and laughs graciously at other people's bad jokes.
The old lady's name is Wanda, and Amelia introduces herself too, and then hey, why not, she offers the old lady a ride to Hamilton Towers.
Walking back to her car to dropping the old lady off, the whole thing doesn't take more than fifteen minutes. Wanda talks at her the entire time, comforted and smiling in that way people have when their problems have just become someone else's. Wanda was born in Washington, town called Puyallup, you know Puyallup? (Amelia doesn't.) Moved out here when she got married, but Harry died five years ago, bless his soul. It was a heart attack. She always did tell him to go easy on the cholesterol, but Harry never listened to anyone and he clogged his arteries all he wanted, the stubborn lug. Wanda chuckles fondly, and Amelia wonders if one day she'll chuckle fondly about Jimmy too.
She says, “You from here, Amelia? What's there to do in Pontiac?”
And Amelia doesn't really know what to tell her. There are some restaurants that she likes, some nice parks, but it's not like she goes to the museums or anything. True New Yorkers never go to the Empire State Building, right? True salt of the Pontiac earth never go to the Livingston County War Museum.
Maybe Amelia should. She's been living here all her life, and what does she really know about it? What has she really seen of it?
Wanda asks Amelia about Amelia, and she starts telling her about Claire, but by then they're already pulling up in front of Hamilton Towers. “Thank you very much,” Wanda says. “You take care, Amelia. Take care now, bye bye.”
Amelia tells her to take care, too. Enjoy Pontiac! The building where Jimmy worked is just across the street, and Amelia remembers one time when she picked him up from work – come outside, I'm almost there – and he was waiting on the sidewalk. Just standing there with his hands in his pockets, patient and unaware, knowing she was close and that Claire was at home doing her geography project. He startled when Amelia beeped the horn, and the expression on his face made her laugh.
She waits until Wanda disappears inside the building, and then Amelia just sits there for a bit, she's not sure for what or for how long. Amelia won't remember the day or time, but she'll remember the feeling of pieces settling, sitting there in the peace of her car. Cloudless sky above and a couple of cars passing by, a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk and Amelia will remember the dog was a Boston terrier. She's going to be okay.
Birds chirp. Up ahead, a couple of teenagers jaywalk across the street. A man walking by on his cellphone says, “But I've already seen that movie like three times.”
She's going to be okay.
*
Amelia is getting a drink of water in the middle of the night and she thinks she sees Jimmy. Out of the corner of her eye, out there in the yard, a blur of tan and shadows that her gut insists is familiar. She blinks, she turns: her yard is empty.
*
One time, in college, Amelia and Jimmy skipped classes for the day and drove to the lake. “We have to move quick,” Jimmy said, “before either of us are sensible again.” He had a Spanish oral on Wednesday, she had an economics exam the next day, and, heart racing, the two of them hopped into his car and drove, drove, drove. A Hard Day's Night was playing on the tape deck, and she and Jimmy sang every word of “Can't Buy Me Love”.
It was one of the last days of spring before summer swallowed it whole, and as soon as she got out of the car, Amelia grabbed Jimmy's hand and ran for the water. They ended up racing each other, laughing, breathless. She kicked water at him, and he splashed her back. He said, “C'mere,” and Amelia threw herself into his arms, and how was it that the crook of his neck was perfectly sculpted to fit against her head? His hand on her nape and his mouth in her hair, breathing her name. It was the second time he told Amelia he loved her, and she said she loved him too, and was giddy with the words, the truth of them.
That's what Amelia keeps in her heart. That's what she chooses to remember. But maybe it's unfair, choosing to gloss over what came after. Those days when Jimmy would veer wildly between insomnia and marathon sleeps, when his eyes focused on things she couldn't see. He would suddenly lift his head and look around like someone just called his name. He'd leaf through the Bible for hours and ask Amelia questions she didn't know how to answer, didn't want to answer, because the fervent light in his eyes made her nervous.
So on the shore of Lake Michigan, years ago, Jimmy kissed her long and slow.
*
It's wintertime, and Amelia is helping Claire build a snowman, unless it's the other way around. Claire dumps on the snow and Amelia pats it down. Claire brings Amelia bare branches and Amelia chooses which one will make the best arms. A snowman deserves good arms.
“What should we name the snowman, Claire?” And Claire shrugs, asks Amelia what she wants to name it. Her daughter's tone is light, but her eyes are attentive, and Amelia doesn't know what to call the snowman at all. It's wearing one of Jimmy's scarves, and Claire shuffles closer to her and says maybe it doesn't need a name anyway.
Later they have a snowball fight and pretend to be every legendary battle. Claire is David and Amelia is Goliath, and Claire's snowball smacks her in the face. Claire is Beowulf and Amelia is Grendel, Claire is Theseus and Amelia is the Minotaur, and then Claire insists on being Medusa because she's bored of being the hero. Amelia as Perseus slays her and takes off her head, and Claire writhes dramatically in the snow.
Jimmy had good aim and usually came out on top in snowball fights.
Later Claire's on her back making snow angels, and Amelia goes quiet. She doesn't realize how quiet until Claire asks if she's okay. Amelia asks if she wants hot chocolate, and then the both of them go back inside.
*
Not even a hello or an I love you, not a hug or a kiss, but a we stopped looking for you. An I'm so sorry from Jimmy, his blue eyes creasing, hopeful with apology.
A we thought you were dead, inviting the reply I'm okay.
Amelia considers just closing the door in his face.
*
She's making sandwiches for dinner, and she thinks, Maybe a few months. Give it a few months, then he can move back in. Maybe a few weeks, and then...
Amelia has Lake Michigan in mind. She is thinking of the wonder in his voice and the twist in her gut when he said the angel told him he was special, and then Amelia thinks about the first time he told her he loved her.
Once, in college, Amelia told him she wasn't sure if she believed in God anymore, and Jimmy's response had been swift, almost a reflex. “How can you not believe in something that loves you so much?” he asked. Jimmy took her hands, looked into her eyes, and asked with genuine curiosity, “Why wouldn't He love you, Amelia? Why?”
But that wasn't her question. The causal logic did at least make intuitive sense to her: before you believe in something, you have to love them first. Amelia loves Jimmy - she thinks she will never not love him - but she wonders how long before love can become faith again, and whether one should trump the other.
*
He's tricked her, life's tricked her, or life's tricked him, and nothing is better at all. Jimmy is babbling about demons and shoving Amelia and Claire in the pantry, and there is a sliver of a moment between everyone's terror where Amelia regrets not letting herself hate him after he left, because look at him. The desperation of his convictions, so far gone.
And then life tricks her again: Roger, whole and bloody, a knife to Claire's throat. “Hey, pal!” he says, like he just dropped by to borrow the drill. Then Laura out of nowhere, beating the crap out of Jimmy, and her eyes are entirely black. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is crazy? Amelia can barely keep up with the whiplash, but love or instinct kicks in, and she launches herself at Laura, or not-Laura, or--
An explosion of pain, and the world goes black.
*
And then she wakes up.
It's like in those movies and books – 'and then she wakes up' – a sign that the dream is over, except now the nightmare is just beginning. Her body gets up. Her hands brush herself off, and in her aching haze Amelia doesn't notice what's wrong.
Wakey wakey, eggs 'n bakey, says something in her head.
Her hands grab her family's coats from the coatstand, and when she tries to call for Claire, she can't.
Hello, Amelia.
She tries to speak. She tries to move. She tries to scream.
*
I'm going to flay the skin from him, Amelia. I'm going to cut the flesh from his bones.
Her mouth is saying, “I pretty much owe you the biggest apology ever.”
And your pretty little daughter, oh, the fun we'll have. You and me, and little Claire. Do you know how much blood is in a human body? I'll show you.
Jimmy says, “Hell, I thought I was crazy half the time.”
Let's see how long Claire can scream before her throat gives out, before I rip it out of her.
Amelia's mouth says, “Demons, huh?” and smiles.
*
These missed connections. Amelia gains her body back and Jimmy loses his. Castiel walks towards her and she brushes past him with only the slightest hesitation, and even that small touch feels like walking over her own grave. Amelia gathers Claire in her arms and looks at the thing that used to be her husband. Its gaze is distant and clinical, and she wonders what the angel is saying to Jimmy in his head, whether it is as cruel or kinder than the demon that rode her. Amelia wonders what it said to Claire.
Jimmy had said this was a blessing and the most important thing. Eleven years ago, the morning after Amelia came back from the hospital, she found Jimmy leaning against the window by Claire's crib, just watching her quietly. When he heard Amelia, he looked up, smiled that smile that warmed her to the bone, and told her the exact same thing.
What is the distance between love and faith?
And then Jimmy, Castiel, is gone.
*
“Let's try this again,” Dean says, tight-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Sam hotwires another car, and the Winchesters give her their numbers.
“Call us if anything comes up,” he adds, and behind him, Sam is wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve.
“Mom,” says Claire, and Amelia says hush, baby, get in the car.
She puts the Winchesters in the rearview mirror, and they get smaller as she pulls away.
Claire asks, “Where are we going?” but Amelia figures they'll cross that bridge when they get to it.
spnrarepairs, but then I started writing drabbles for each song, which quickly became full-blown fic, and then I got cold feet because I realized that the fic is kinda the opposite of my requester's list of preferred kinks and special elements... So. I'll just post this here, then.Winter For A Year
Supernatural. Amelia, Claire, Jimmy, brief Team Free Will; Amelia/Jimmy. PG. Spoilers for 4x20. Thanks to
zempasuchil for betareading. The mix for the fic is available for download here: Breathe On Mirrors
Amelia Novak after her husband's disappearance. ~3000 words
Amelia likes to think she's open-minded, and that she loves her husband. She likes to think that she loves God. This isn't the first time these things have butted heads, but this is the first time the conflict has terrified her. Jimmy's wide eyes, his hands around her wrists, he's telling her believe and she thinks of worst-case scenarios. Amelia thinks about times in the past when she had second thoughts about loving this man, and he is telling her he is chosen. An angel told him so. He is telling her that everything is going to be okay.
*
She hasn't heard from Jimmy all day, and suddenly Claire comes forward with her little story about last night.
Amelia says, “Your father said what to you?”
She's going to kill him.
*
And then, she just wants him back.
*
And then, she just wants to know if he's okay.
*
Jimmy is dead. He is lying in a ditch. He is lying in a morgue, and his name is John Doe. Jimmy is alive, and he has another woman. He has a man. He has for years. He never loved Amelia.
He loves her still, and still thinks of her every day, thinks of Claire. He misses making jokes that Claire is too cool to laugh at. He misses kissing Amelia where her shoulder curves into her neck.
He doesn't miss any of these things.
Jimmy is dead. His blue eyes are open and unseeing. He is six feet underground. He has been cut up into pieces. Jimmy is alive.
He's been kidnapped. Jimmy is a ghost. Jimmy is in Thailand. He is in Montana. This is a dream.
Amelia closes her eyes and count backwards from twenty, like Dr. Everett said. She gets to three, two, one, zero, and starts all over again.
*
Amelia's sister comes over and puts Jimmy's things in a box so she doesn't have to. These boxes will sit in the attic. Amelia has more room in the closet now, but Jimmy's memory is treacherous in its omnipresence. She’s reorganizing the bookshelf in the den and she comes across the Chronicles of Narnia, and she stops. Visions of him reading to Claire, the images unfurling in her head, in her heart. He was good at doing the voices - excitable Tumnus and haughty Jadis, and Edmund, at first petulant but then grown wise. He let Claire be Lucy.
Claire is too old to read to now, but once upon a time she was just a little thing in pajamas curled up next to her father, trying to stay awake until the end of the chapter. More than once Amelia saw Claire fast asleep with her arms around her dad, and Jimmy sitting back against the headboard, The Silver Chair on his lap. He didn't want to get up because he didn't want to wake her. He didn't get up because he simply didn't want to, and he would stroke Claire's hair and stare into space with aimless contentment, smiling at Amelia when she leaned against the doorway, amazed to be in this moment, blessed to be in this tableau.
Before Amelia knows it, she's sitting on the floor halfway through Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and she doesn't even hear Claire come in until she's asking her why she's crying.
“I'm okay, I'm okay,” which isn't the answer to her question at all.
Amelia wipes away her tears, and Claire sits with her and takes the book from her hands, and then she looks down at the page. After a few seconds' pause, Claire's voice is clear and steady: “After all this, they sailed for three days more and saw nothing but sea and sky. On the fourth day the wind changed to the north and the seas began to rise...”
*
Amelia is getting better at not being better. Bills need to be paid. Groceries need to be bought. Claire needs help with algebra. Amelia gets a job as a receptionist, another as a waitress. On weekends she gives piano lessons, and it's barely enough. She looks into food stamps, but doesn't qualify. She receives sympathy casseroles from friends and wonders which one of them started the rumor that Jimmy has been cheating on her for years. Sleep-deprived and full of aches, she is saying to Claire, “Just square the two shortest sides, and add the products. Get the square root of the sum. Good girl.”
*
In her dream, Amelia is standing ankle-deep in the Atlantic Ocean, and she knows she's in Hyannis, Massachusetts. It was the first vacation that she, Jimmy, and Claire ever took together as a family. Jimmy's there beside her, overdressed in a suit and that coat she always teases him about, the one that's slightly too big on him. It makes him look like he's wearing his father's clothes.
He's so still and serious, so she laughs and asks him what he's so grumpy about and he says, Amelia. He says, Amelia, I have a message from your husband.
Even in her dreams, Jimmy is crazy.
He says he loves you, and Claire, and he promises he'll be back as soon as he can.
And Amelia says, Jimmy-- and then he's gone.
Her breath catches, her heart seizes up, and a salt breeze carries the sound of Claire's laughter. Amelia spends the rest of the dream following her daughter's voice but never seeing her, waves whispering in her ear and sand sticking to her wet soles.
*
There's a day – and Amelia won't remember the date or time – but there's a day when someone stops her on the street and asks her for directions. Amelia is on her way to the bookstore maybe, or to that coffeehouse in the center of town because she has been craving their cranberry scone, but either way this little old lady stops her and asks where the – she looks down at a slip of paper – where Hamilton Towers is.
Yeah. Yeah, Amelia knows where that is. That's right next to where Jimmy used to work. Just go down this block, make a left, et cetera. Amelia tells her landmarks. She sketches out a rough map on the back of a receipt she finds in her purse, and says, “If you reach the Bed Bath and Beyond, you've gone too far.”
She thanks Amelia, this little old lady with her wrinkly mouth and worried eyes, and Amelia asks if she's from out of town and of course she is. Granite City, she says. She's visiting her niece, who is a sweet girl, just one of those really sweet girls, you know? Always remembers birthdays, and laughs graciously at other people's bad jokes.
The old lady's name is Wanda, and Amelia introduces herself too, and then hey, why not, she offers the old lady a ride to Hamilton Towers.
Walking back to her car to dropping the old lady off, the whole thing doesn't take more than fifteen minutes. Wanda talks at her the entire time, comforted and smiling in that way people have when their problems have just become someone else's. Wanda was born in Washington, town called Puyallup, you know Puyallup? (Amelia doesn't.) Moved out here when she got married, but Harry died five years ago, bless his soul. It was a heart attack. She always did tell him to go easy on the cholesterol, but Harry never listened to anyone and he clogged his arteries all he wanted, the stubborn lug. Wanda chuckles fondly, and Amelia wonders if one day she'll chuckle fondly about Jimmy too.
She says, “You from here, Amelia? What's there to do in Pontiac?”
And Amelia doesn't really know what to tell her. There are some restaurants that she likes, some nice parks, but it's not like she goes to the museums or anything. True New Yorkers never go to the Empire State Building, right? True salt of the Pontiac earth never go to the Livingston County War Museum.
Maybe Amelia should. She's been living here all her life, and what does she really know about it? What has she really seen of it?
Wanda asks Amelia about Amelia, and she starts telling her about Claire, but by then they're already pulling up in front of Hamilton Towers. “Thank you very much,” Wanda says. “You take care, Amelia. Take care now, bye bye.”
Amelia tells her to take care, too. Enjoy Pontiac! The building where Jimmy worked is just across the street, and Amelia remembers one time when she picked him up from work – come outside, I'm almost there – and he was waiting on the sidewalk. Just standing there with his hands in his pockets, patient and unaware, knowing she was close and that Claire was at home doing her geography project. He startled when Amelia beeped the horn, and the expression on his face made her laugh.
She waits until Wanda disappears inside the building, and then Amelia just sits there for a bit, she's not sure for what or for how long. Amelia won't remember the day or time, but she'll remember the feeling of pieces settling, sitting there in the peace of her car. Cloudless sky above and a couple of cars passing by, a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk and Amelia will remember the dog was a Boston terrier. She's going to be okay.
Birds chirp. Up ahead, a couple of teenagers jaywalk across the street. A man walking by on his cellphone says, “But I've already seen that movie like three times.”
She's going to be okay.
*
Amelia is getting a drink of water in the middle of the night and she thinks she sees Jimmy. Out of the corner of her eye, out there in the yard, a blur of tan and shadows that her gut insists is familiar. She blinks, she turns: her yard is empty.
*
One time, in college, Amelia and Jimmy skipped classes for the day and drove to the lake. “We have to move quick,” Jimmy said, “before either of us are sensible again.” He had a Spanish oral on Wednesday, she had an economics exam the next day, and, heart racing, the two of them hopped into his car and drove, drove, drove. A Hard Day's Night was playing on the tape deck, and she and Jimmy sang every word of “Can't Buy Me Love”.
It was one of the last days of spring before summer swallowed it whole, and as soon as she got out of the car, Amelia grabbed Jimmy's hand and ran for the water. They ended up racing each other, laughing, breathless. She kicked water at him, and he splashed her back. He said, “C'mere,” and Amelia threw herself into his arms, and how was it that the crook of his neck was perfectly sculpted to fit against her head? His hand on her nape and his mouth in her hair, breathing her name. It was the second time he told Amelia he loved her, and she said she loved him too, and was giddy with the words, the truth of them.
That's what Amelia keeps in her heart. That's what she chooses to remember. But maybe it's unfair, choosing to gloss over what came after. Those days when Jimmy would veer wildly between insomnia and marathon sleeps, when his eyes focused on things she couldn't see. He would suddenly lift his head and look around like someone just called his name. He'd leaf through the Bible for hours and ask Amelia questions she didn't know how to answer, didn't want to answer, because the fervent light in his eyes made her nervous.
So on the shore of Lake Michigan, years ago, Jimmy kissed her long and slow.
*
It's wintertime, and Amelia is helping Claire build a snowman, unless it's the other way around. Claire dumps on the snow and Amelia pats it down. Claire brings Amelia bare branches and Amelia chooses which one will make the best arms. A snowman deserves good arms.
“What should we name the snowman, Claire?” And Claire shrugs, asks Amelia what she wants to name it. Her daughter's tone is light, but her eyes are attentive, and Amelia doesn't know what to call the snowman at all. It's wearing one of Jimmy's scarves, and Claire shuffles closer to her and says maybe it doesn't need a name anyway.
Later they have a snowball fight and pretend to be every legendary battle. Claire is David and Amelia is Goliath, and Claire's snowball smacks her in the face. Claire is Beowulf and Amelia is Grendel, Claire is Theseus and Amelia is the Minotaur, and then Claire insists on being Medusa because she's bored of being the hero. Amelia as Perseus slays her and takes off her head, and Claire writhes dramatically in the snow.
Jimmy had good aim and usually came out on top in snowball fights.
Later Claire's on her back making snow angels, and Amelia goes quiet. She doesn't realize how quiet until Claire asks if she's okay. Amelia asks if she wants hot chocolate, and then the both of them go back inside.
*
Not even a hello or an I love you, not a hug or a kiss, but a we stopped looking for you. An I'm so sorry from Jimmy, his blue eyes creasing, hopeful with apology.
A we thought you were dead, inviting the reply I'm okay.
Amelia considers just closing the door in his face.
*
She's making sandwiches for dinner, and she thinks, Maybe a few months. Give it a few months, then he can move back in. Maybe a few weeks, and then...
Amelia has Lake Michigan in mind. She is thinking of the wonder in his voice and the twist in her gut when he said the angel told him he was special, and then Amelia thinks about the first time he told her he loved her.
Once, in college, Amelia told him she wasn't sure if she believed in God anymore, and Jimmy's response had been swift, almost a reflex. “How can you not believe in something that loves you so much?” he asked. Jimmy took her hands, looked into her eyes, and asked with genuine curiosity, “Why wouldn't He love you, Amelia? Why?”
But that wasn't her question. The causal logic did at least make intuitive sense to her: before you believe in something, you have to love them first. Amelia loves Jimmy - she thinks she will never not love him - but she wonders how long before love can become faith again, and whether one should trump the other.
*
He's tricked her, life's tricked her, or life's tricked him, and nothing is better at all. Jimmy is babbling about demons and shoving Amelia and Claire in the pantry, and there is a sliver of a moment between everyone's terror where Amelia regrets not letting herself hate him after he left, because look at him. The desperation of his convictions, so far gone.
And then life tricks her again: Roger, whole and bloody, a knife to Claire's throat. “Hey, pal!” he says, like he just dropped by to borrow the drill. Then Laura out of nowhere, beating the crap out of Jimmy, and her eyes are entirely black. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is crazy? Amelia can barely keep up with the whiplash, but love or instinct kicks in, and she launches herself at Laura, or not-Laura, or--
An explosion of pain, and the world goes black.
*
And then she wakes up.
It's like in those movies and books – 'and then she wakes up' – a sign that the dream is over, except now the nightmare is just beginning. Her body gets up. Her hands brush herself off, and in her aching haze Amelia doesn't notice what's wrong.
Wakey wakey, eggs 'n bakey, says something in her head.
Her hands grab her family's coats from the coatstand, and when she tries to call for Claire, she can't.
Hello, Amelia.
She tries to speak. She tries to move. She tries to scream.
*
I'm going to flay the skin from him, Amelia. I'm going to cut the flesh from his bones.
Her mouth is saying, “I pretty much owe you the biggest apology ever.”
And your pretty little daughter, oh, the fun we'll have. You and me, and little Claire. Do you know how much blood is in a human body? I'll show you.
Jimmy says, “Hell, I thought I was crazy half the time.”
Let's see how long Claire can scream before her throat gives out, before I rip it out of her.
Amelia's mouth says, “Demons, huh?” and smiles.
*
These missed connections. Amelia gains her body back and Jimmy loses his. Castiel walks towards her and she brushes past him with only the slightest hesitation, and even that small touch feels like walking over her own grave. Amelia gathers Claire in her arms and looks at the thing that used to be her husband. Its gaze is distant and clinical, and she wonders what the angel is saying to Jimmy in his head, whether it is as cruel or kinder than the demon that rode her. Amelia wonders what it said to Claire.
Jimmy had said this was a blessing and the most important thing. Eleven years ago, the morning after Amelia came back from the hospital, she found Jimmy leaning against the window by Claire's crib, just watching her quietly. When he heard Amelia, he looked up, smiled that smile that warmed her to the bone, and told her the exact same thing.
What is the distance between love and faith?
And then Jimmy, Castiel, is gone.
*
“Let's try this again,” Dean says, tight-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Sam hotwires another car, and the Winchesters give her their numbers.
“Call us if anything comes up,” he adds, and behind him, Sam is wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve.
“Mom,” says Claire, and Amelia says hush, baby, get in the car.
She puts the Winchesters in the rearview mirror, and they get smaller as she pulls away.
Claire asks, “Where are we going?” but Amelia figures they'll cross that bridge when they get to it.
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Oh, Novaks.
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I find the idea of Castiel in Amelia's dreams, no matter how well intentioned, deeply creepy.
Well, Castiel is a deeply creepy character. XD Part of his charm?
Thank you very much!
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