Title: "One Night on Earth"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13/Light R
Character/Pairing: Bela, Bela/Dean
Spoiler: "On the Head of a Pin"
Length: Part I of III
Summary: Bela returns from hell with a mission of her own.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author's Note: It's been about two years since I've written SPN fanfic but this idea has been niggling at my brain since the season premiere and with my extra time over spring break it's finally seeing fruition. It started as a one part but has evolved into three chapters. As the fic progresses, the structure should be come more clear. Title courtesy of The Veils. Enjoy.
It takes her a bit longer but Bela claws her way out of hell too.
It's dark when she gulps down her first breath of free air, milky clouds sliding like ghosts over the face of the moon, and it's so black she thinks she's back in the pit with her sins closing around her like a fist.
Something cool brushes over her dirty cheeks and for a moment her heart clutches in her chest before she realizes it's not the icy chill of metal scraping over her skin and it's only the night breeze washing her nightmares away. She's at a crossroads, arms and legs splayed and pebbles digging into her back as the pale moon lights the way towards the yarrow flowers twisting down the path.
Her eyes slam closed, bloody irises flashing across the landscape of her mind as the hellhounds scratch holes in her clothes and tear flesh from her bones and drag her to a fate worse than the dark recesses of her daddy's bedroom.
"Bela," a voice breaks through but she keeps her eyes closed, curls into a ball in the middle of it all. She spent a century in hell; she knows their tricks too well to let them fool her again. "Bela," the voice says again, soft and steady, and a hand reaches down to gently clasp her shoulder.
She flinches and recoils, hugs her knees to her chest and tries to bury her face between them. On the rack, the eyes were always the first to go.
"Bela," the voice says for a third time and this one's the charm. "Bela, open your eyes."
It takes a long moment but she opens one eye and then the other, and there isn't acid splashing against the smooth skin of her cheeks or a sleek shaft of steel penetrating the flesh between her breasts, and even as she blinks at the face peering down her eyes widen because he's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.
"Hello Bela," he says and his beautiful lips curve into a smile. His blue eyes pierce hers like Alastair's favorite needle, but there's warmth and comfort there and no malice in his gaze. "Welcome home," he says and they're the most beautiful words she's ever heard.
She struggles to sit, knees hugged hard against the fragile bones of her chest, protecting her ribs, protecting her lungs, and she peers up into the face of the most beautiful man on earth. "Where am I?" she manages to say and there's a trace of Britain in the garbled words the spill from her mouth but it doesn't sound anything like the girl she used to be. She knows she shouldn't be surprised; three lifetimes of screaming would ruin anyone's voice.
He shrugs down beside her, doesn't grimace at the dirt staining the pale tan of his coat. "Nebraska," he says. "Not exactly Eden but it will have to do in a pinch." There's amusement in his smile now and it only makes him more beautiful. She relaxes a bit, despite the danger nipping at her heels like hellhounds on her trail.
"I don't understand," she says and rakes her eyes away from his face to take in her surroundings, the four spokes of the road and the flowers lighting the way and she stares at him desperately and waits for his eyes to glow crimson in the moonlight.
His eyes don't pulse like the blood Alastair spilled and they don't fade into the glittering gold that hid the deception beneath. His eyes glow blue in the moonlight, like the ocean lapping at a slumbering shore, and her grip loosens slightly on her tightly drawn knees.
"You're not dead, Bela," he explains. "Far from it in fact." He reaches out with his free hand and holds it out like a lifeline. "I'm Castiel," he says and she warily lets him wrap his fingers around hers.
"I'm not in hell any longer am I?" she asks and he shakes his head.
"We brought you back," he says by means of explanation. "We have work for you."
She blinks and scoots back in the dirt, ignores the pebbles ripping the fragile skin of her palms. She made one deal and suffered the consequences. She won't do it again. "No," she whispers. "I don't want it. Send me back."
His expression doesn't change but confusion rings around his pupils and he holds out a hand she refuses to take. "Bela, we pulled you out of hell. We saved you. Isn't this what you want?"
The breeze brushes over her, her father's hands on her skin and Alastair carving his name in the pale flesh of her stomach and a little girl with laughing eyes promising to make it all go away, and she sucks down a breath that doesn't reek of pain and regret because she's finally free. She's made enough mistakes in her life; she won't let anyone else make them for her. "I'd rather go back than be someone's slave again."
He doesn't give her a choice when his fingers wrap around her wrist and draw her to her feet. He stands before her and his face is still the most beautiful she's set eyes on but he's towering over her and his eyes pierce through her like the wires of the rack. "This isn't a choice, Bela," he says and something dark rises behind him.
"Who are you?" she whispers and her voice is low but it's starting to sound more like the one she left behind. "What do you want from me?"
"I'm an angel of the lord," he says and the wings flap, covering the face of the moon. "There's a war coming. We need you to help us win."
She'd laugh if she had the energy, because she was many things in her time on earth but a hero was never one of them. "You want me?"
"Thief, traitor…that's who you used to be, Bela, but it's not who you have to be anymore." The wings disappear and he's just a slight man with beautiful eyes and a more beautiful face standing before her on a dark, chilly night. "God created sin so you might know his mercy." He pauses, reaches out to brush her hair from her brow. "God forgives you, Bela. He's offering you a chance to forgive yourself."
She died alone in a motel room with ugly wallpaper and a bed with squeaky springs. She looks around, breathes in the fresh air and feels the night air ghost across her skin. She fought her way back to the living through the dirt and weeds that held her living tomb and when she pushed through her prison and into the light it was an unmarked grave waiting for her.
Bela Talbot is but a memory but she still existed. She remembers her life as a shadow in the night, the smoke and mirrors and million dollar pay offs. She remembers the fine clothes and finer jewels and faster cars. She remembers that for all she had that glittered, she still died alone. She doesn't want her past to be the last thing she ever does with the life she's been given.
She looks into Castiel's beautiful eyes and sees the faith shining there. She wants some of it for herself. "Okay," she says. "Tell me what I have to do."
-----
They give her a week before her assignment lands on her doorstep.
She takes her time, relearns her world before she's tasked with saving it. The colors seem brighter, the smells stronger, the people more vibrant. When they smile at her as they pass on the street, there's nothing mocking in their expressions.
She can't sleep, won't even close her eyes, the visions battling for center stage in the theater of her mind refusing to allow her to move on even as she pleads to let go. She spent a century beneath the dirt; she can't go through reliving it above ground.
She walks around town and watches TV and steals a nail polish from the Walgreen's on Main Street. Old habits die hard.
She salts her door and windows every night before bed and there's a hex bag under her mattress and a devil's trap painted on the ceiling and she sleeps with her own version of the Colt under her pillow just in case. The angels have promised her freedom but she spent too long in the pit to trust her saviors anymore than their counterparts beneath the dirt.
On her third morning, she tires of the TV because, really, is a liberal agenda such a big deal compared to ten decades of waterboarding? She feels trapped within the motel's walls, feels it closing in around her with its ugly wallpaper and the old-fashioned alarm she unplugged the moment she arrived. It's a recreation of the last place to see her alive and it mocks her, throws in her face the life she had while gloating over the life she's been given on terms she didn't set for herself.
She can practically hear her last night on earth, Dean's cold laughter ringing in her ears and the hellhounds nipping at her door and the beat of her own heart drowning out what was left of her life.
She escapes from the motel the way she can't escape her second go at living and the air is cool but she doesn't notice as she steps onto Lincoln's main drag and blots out the horns as the rushing cars kick up dust and stale air around her. The wind rushes through her hair and it's harsh against her skin, tiny pieces of gravel lodging in the corners of her eyes and the thin line where her lips meet, but there's no fear in her heart. She already died once; they didn't bring her back to let it happen again.
They're waiting for her when she returns, arms crossed and mouths drawn into frowns, but she just shrugs her shoulders and begins running a comb through her hair. It's tangled and knotted, the rush still caught between its strands, and but she withholds a wince. Her body was torn limb from limb for a century; she doesn't even feel this.
"What were you thinking, Bela?" Castiel asks and turns those beautiful blue eyes on her. It's hard to say no to him, an angel sent from heaven to with the face to match, and she doesn't pause in her ministrations but does answer him.
"I've already died once. What's the worst that can happen?"
The other one, Uriel, dark-eyed and with a darker expression, folds his arms over his chest. "We didn't pull you out of hell to play in traffic. I don't think we're making ourselves clear. We brought you here. We can send you back whenever we want."
She pauses, flashes a smile to rival the brilliance in Castiel's eyes. "Any time now. I've been waiting."
"Bela, please," Castiel breaks in. He's still beautiful but there's weariness lurking in his eyes and a soft set to his shoulders. "This is the end of the world we're talking about." She wants to laugh, because Bela Talbot – earth's savior? – but she can feel the desperation rolling off him in waves and she knows it's the truth he's telling. Something is coming, something bigger than herself and bigger than him, and she wasn't brought back to choose the wrong side again.
She sighs, because she can't argue with the sadness in his eyes and holds up her hands in surrender. "I'll start using crosswalks."
"You have four days," Uriel reminds her. "Get your game face on."
When they leave, they don't bother with a goodbye.
She shudders at his words but takes them to heart.
She's avoided the mirror in the days since her rising because the last time she saw her reflection it was the ugliness inside herself smiling in return. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and jumps off the ledge.
It's not what she remembers but it's not what she expected either.
Her wind-whipped hair stands back from her face and there's a rosy tinge to her cheeks but when she looks harder and searches for what's beneath, there's no bones and sinew where her flesh should be. Her cheeks are smooth and her lips are full and when she smiles her teeth are blindingly white in the dim light. It's the shadows in her eyes that throw her off. The angels can pull her out of hell but they can't hide what happened there.
She switches off the light and hangs a towel over the mirror's too-seeing gaze. She might look like her old self but it's not Bela Talbot they brought back from hell.
-----
It's dark and it's late and he's alone when she finds him.
The angels tell her where to go and like a good puppy she follows their lead. There's a bar in Indiana and a sad, lonely boy nursing a beer and she sidles up beside him like the last time they spoke she wasn't begging him to save her life while he told her no.
"Hello, Dean," she says and the bar is loud and he's tired but there's no mistaking the accent lilting her voice.
He blinks a few times, fingers tightening around his glass, before his eyes spread wide as he takes her in. "Bela," is all he says. Then, "How'd you get out?"
She shrugs out of her jacket, slide onto the stool beside his. "I have my ways. It's been a while. How's saving the world?"
He smirks like old times and it's still dark and it's hard to make out his face in the gloom but she can't miss the shadows resting under his eyes or the bright flash of pain that flares behind his pupils. "You know how it is," he says and his tone is sarcastic. "It's a dirty place we call home. Someone has to keep it clean." She doesn't expect any less, a Winchester returned from hell and still fighting to keep people safe from things they don't even know exist. "What about you?" he asks. "Economy's in the tanker these days. How's the market for ruining people's lives?"
She closes her eyes, feels silk sliding over her skin and diamonds resting against the column of her throat and the scratchy motel comforter she clutched to her chest as the hellhounds bore her away and there was no one there to save her. "I'm out of the game," she explains and turns into the light so it falls over the raised flesh marring the pale softness of her shoulder. "That isn't my life anymore."
Dean is silent beside her and his fingers still on the sweating glass before him. "What do they want from you?"
"Don't you know?" she laughs but there's no humor. "I've been tasked with saving the world."
He raises his beer. "Welcome to the club."
"I asked them to send me back," she confesses and watches his reaction, the way his jaw tightens and his spine stands a bit straighter. "If they sent me back, at least it would be my own choice. I'd rather be on the rack than doing someone else's bidding."
Dean doesn't agree but he doesn't dismiss her either. "It's a lot of fun, isn't it? Having the weight of the world on your shoulders?"
"At least you don't have to do it alone. Where's Sam?" she asks and his eyes darken and his jaw tightens for entirely different reasons.
"Sammy's got a mission of his own," is all he says and turns back to the beer, signals to the bartender and orders one for her.
""To saving the word," he says and their glasses clink, the sound harsh to her ears, shrill like the screams that used to make up her world. She can't hold the wince this time and when she looks into his eyes they burn green and she knows he's hearing the same cries.
"To rising from the dead," she says and locks their eyes, sinks into the pools of burning green.
He sucks in a breath but doesn't break their gaze, one work-worn palm scraping over the back of her hand. "How long did you make it?" he asks and his voice is rough, like hers when she pushed through the earth that was once her prison to meet a sky full of hope.
Her eyes slide closed as Alastair's scalpel scrapes against her mouth as he carves her face into a joker's grin and she tries to scream but the words get caught in her throat as she drowns in her own blood. "I never gave in," she whispers and subconsciously presses a finger to her mouth, feels the fullness there; after a century beneath the dirt, she still has to check. She thinks about her first life, the way she lived it, the way it ended. "I know what it means to sin, Dean. I wanted to repent."
His own eyes slide closed and she can only imagine what lurks behind his eyelids: the knife in his grip, the blood smearing his hands, the brutal smile splitting his lips. His eyes open and they still burn green through the haze of regret glinting on the surface. "I wish you could show me how."
She leans forward, chin tilting towards the terrified shake of his lips, and presses her mouth softly against his. "Just let me in."
-----
It doesn't happen the way she thought it would.
He's been back from the dead for only a few months but his body doesn't show the wear and tear of his time below. He's all muscle and sinew, and he's slain every evil thing under the sun and tortured every hopeless creature buried beneath it, but when he touches her his fingers skim over her skin like she might break if he presses too hard.
She's been there, done that, heard the crunch of her own bones splintering beneath the heel of Alastair's boot, felt her body turn to dust and ash before her own bleeding eyes.
She…she wants to feel. She wants to feel something, anything, that takes her mind from the stench of death caught in her hair and the decay lingering on her tongue. She wants to feel his skin against hers, warm and smooth, his heart beating in rhythm with hers. The memory of her time below has a tight grip on her soul but when she kisses him all she feels is his body pressed against hers and all she smells is the sweat beading on his skin and all she sees is the shared fire kindling in his eyes. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, her thighs around his hips, and he slides inside like it's where he belongs.
She ignores the way heat spears through her like a red-hot poker or her fingers thread through hers and hold tight like the clamps locking her to the table or the or the way he smiles when she shatters in his arms like she has so many times before.
She's whole and alive as the world goes white and she forgets what was and concentrates on what is, the feel of his hips shifting against hers and the strong planes of his chest pressed against her breasts and the spark of life burning deep in his eyes. She can't change the past but she can change the future.
When it's over, she doesn't stick around to cuddle and there's no small talk. He won't look at her and she doesn't force the issue. She avoids the mirror as is; she doesn't need to rest her eyes on a living reflection of herself.
She pauses in the doorway, draws her jacket tighter around her shoulders and hugs it to her waist with one forearm. She turns, for one last look, and he's watching her. Her return to the living didn't give her the ability to see in the dark, but she can still feel the burn of those eyes on her. She doesn't know what to say. The truth is out of the question and "thank you" feels inadequate so she settles for, "I'll see you around, Dean."
He opens his mouth to say something but stops himself and it's only out of habit that she leans a hip against the door jamb and waits. "They really pulled you out of hell?" he asks and steps into the light, bare-chested so the brand on his shoulder stands out against his otherwise smooth skin.
She wants to hate him, for letting her die once and prolonging the agony a million times over in the great beyond, but she can't help herself, can't stop herself from feeling her own chains through his, and her fingers mold to the raised skin embedded in his shoulder. His eyes slide closed and she shrugs out of her jacket, takes her hand in his to press it to the mark she also carries. "You aren't alone," she whispers. "There's someone else out there who knows what you're going through." She manages a smile. "Too bad it's me."
"Bela…" he starts but she drops her hand and slips out of his grasp and pulls her jacket back on.
"I have to be going," she explains and inclines her head towards the sun peeking through the clouds. She won't look at him any longer, because if she rests her eyes on the weary planes of his face she'll see the shared agony in his eyes and it isn't the time for weakness. The night has already been too much for her. She's back from the dead and she's ready to forgive but she can't quite forget. A year ago, Dean Winchester laughed through the static of a cheap motel phone while her life slipped through her fingers and hellhounds clawed at her door. Eight months ago, his lips parted in a savage smile while his knife streaked across the skin of her belly and her insides spilled from the gaping cavity like they belonged on the outside.
She walks out his door into the breaking dawn and doesn't look back.
-----
They're waiting for her (again) when she returns to the motel.
It's where she's staying but she won't call it home. Home was a manor buried in trees (before daddy ruined everything) and home was a loft overlooking a lake (before her past stole her future), and she won't let home be the last place she saw in her first life.
Home…home is something she's still waiting for.
She's been there a week and made some changes, new towels in the bath and her own sheets on the bed, but it still isn't much different than the place she breathed her last breath. She pauses in the doorway, like she does every time she steps over its threshold, just to remind herself that every motel doesn't mean death beating down her door.
Uriel is leaning against a wall, arms crossed across his broad chest, while Castiel sits on her bed, hands folded demurely in his lap. She'd almost laugh, the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other, if the whole thing didn't fill her with disgust.
"Yes?" Uriel asks when she pushes herself through the door. He raises an eyebrow in question, and if she hadn't tired of their party tricks from the moment she met Castiel, she'd blow right past him and lock herself in the shower for eternity.
"It's done," she says and dumps her bag on the table, can't help frowning over an errant stitch in the trim. It's cheap, something she picked up at an estate sale, but it's sturdy. These days, stable is what she needs. She's already paid the price for fancying the finer things.
"That's all you're going to say?" Castiel asks and turns that beautiful face towards her. His expression is its usual blank slate, but there's something that almost looks like yearning in his blue eyes and the emotion is so raw it nearly takes her breath away.
She turns her attention to Uriel, because she can look at him all day long and never feel anything less than hatred, and smirks. "Do you really want details?" she asks. "Shall I rate his performance on a scale of one to ten?" Uriel's face remains impassive, but irritation brims in his eyes. Her smirk only widens. "He's a Winchester," she says smugly. "Use your imagination."
"Enough!" Castiel breaks through and jumps from the bed. "You're being counterproductive." He's visibly agitated, his hands drawn into tight fists, an emotion she doesn't recognize flitting through his gaze. "Bela, has done her job."
"And we thank you for it," Uriel sneers. "Must have been so hard for you."
She looks him dead in the eye and it takes everything inside to withhold the flinch at the memory of Dean's skin against hers and the easy way he fit against her like he was made that way when the only way she used to remember him was his laughter ringing in her ears every time he cut her in two. "I did my part," she whispers. "Now I want to be alone."
"We really do thank you, Bela," Castiel says and there's nothing left in his eyes but weary sadness. "This gift you're giving us. Words can't describe its meaning."
Uriel isn't made of gratitude and the irritation is back in his voice when he interrupts. "We'll be seeing you, Bela. Take care of yourself. Eat, sleep, stay off the highway."
She nods like the good girl she's become, the girl she couldn't be for her daddy, and closes her eyes because she knows when she opens them they'll be gone if not forgotten. She can't see them watching over her but a cage is still a cage – her leash is long but the tether pulls tight.
A cheap motel comes close but it isn't hell. The water from her shower is hot but her skin doesn't blister and boil, only flushes with warmth and glows in the dim light of the florescent bulb; her hair doesn't fall out in pieces as she pulls a comb through the long strands; her bones don't constrict and shatter as the towel cinches tight over her breasts.
Hell isn't a cheap motel but it's never quite left her, the one she endured on the earth and the one she survived below. She takes another shower, and then a third, scrubs at her skin until it's red and raw, like the time Dean stood over her with evil burning in his green eyes and rubbed her down with sandpaper like a block of wood.
She doesn't stop. Forgiveness was never supposed to come easy.
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