No-one Left To Care
DISCLAIMER - My Beta and bestest got to go to the Asylum convention in Birmingham. Alas, I did not. So I didn't get a chance to kidnap Jim Beaver or Samantha Ferris, therefore they're not mine. And neither is anything else to do with Supernatural. (Insert Sad Face Here)
A/N: Uni work/exams have killed my muse, briefly ressurected during a 3 hour period when I was alone in the shop I work in with no customers, she gave me this.
It was a crisp November evening when the past walked into her bar.
"Ellen." She almost missed the low grizzled voice in the normal noise of people unwinding or preparing. There was no missing the battered trucker cap or the 3 week beard at one end of her bar, however.
"Bobby," her smile, though small, was genuine. Something that hadn't happened for a while.
"You're a hard lady to track down," he offered his own smile in gratitude for the whiskey she placed in front of him.
"That's kind of the point Bobby, I didn't want to be found."
"You've got people worried about you, you know?" He took a mouthful of his whiskey and watched the emotions play across her face.
"Like who?" Ellen snapped, her smile transformed readily into the frown she wore a lot lately, "Joanna Beth is gone, Ash is gone, Bill is gone and so is his bar. Even the damn Winchester boys. There's no-one left to care Bobby."
She may have been talking too quietly for anyone else to hear but Bobby could see the way the other men in the bar were looking at her and knew that, though they may not know the story behind the strong domineering woman who ran their rest stop, they knew what she was, or had been once. And they also knew that the only one who would be reckless enough to take her on would have to be someone who knew her.
Bobby thought how it would look to these other hunters who watched them. He'd heard of this place through the nearby towns. The bar in the middle of nowhere, a haven for truckers, drifters and other unsavoury characters. Where college kids avoided and even the cops stayed away from. And the mysterious owner who could be found every night holding her own in a bar where not even the most hardened delinquents would dare to start a fight for fear of what she would do to them.
With that knowledge of the imposing figure the pretty lady cut, he knew that every guy in the bar had noticed the rare smile she'd given the stranger and now the fire in her eyes and tension in her body.
"Don't say that Ellen. I care and you know it. I care about you and I cared about those 'damn Winchester boys' just as much as you did, but I didn't run away afterwards and I never expected you to." He slammed his empty glass back onto the bar and stared at her straight.
"You try watching your daughter die, Bobby Singer and then you come back and talk to me. Until then, get the hell out of my bar before I shoot you."
Her raised voice and threat would have daunted almost anyone else in the place, but Bobby stood his ground before the blazing woman.
"Those boys were like sons to me, Harvelle, don't you dare try to act like they meant less to me than your daughter did to you."
When the retaliation he paused for didn't come, he carried on, "what's more, I know you loved them too, as much as you loved that daughter of yours. And seeing what happened to the 3 of them was a terrible thing, but you're not the only one carrying that guilt around."
Silence followed the outburst and he stared her dead in the eye, as one would an angry tigress who didn't like how close you'd gotten.
Even caught in the midst of their discussion, Ellen couldn't miss the hush that had descended on the bar as her customers watched their altercation.
"Jerry," she called behind her, "take over for me, I'm taking the rest of the night off." Ignoring the lanky man making his way from a corner table to the bar and the curious eyes of her patrons, Ellen gathered up a bottle of Jack and two glasses, motioning for Bobby to follow her through a door behind the bar.
Neither of them said another word until they were on the first floor of the building, settled in a sparse but comfortable living room with a glass of whiskey each and the bottle in the middle of the table between them.
"Why did you come here Bobby?" The fire and steel had drained from her southern drawl and all that was left was weary sadness.
"I was worried about you."
Ellen avoided his eyes, staring down to where her hands fidgeted with the glass she held, letting out a humourless chuckle, she raised her gaze for a split second before dropping it once more. "I can take care of myself," she drained the dark liquid and reached for the bottle.
"I know you can handle yourself in a bar fight or against a spirit or a wendigo or whatever. That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."
Once more, silence stretched between them as Ellen gulped down more of the hard liquor and considered her words.
"After Bill," she started quietly, "I stopped hunting. I promised Jo that I would stay with her and protect her from the bad things that took her Daddy away."
She paused to take another drink and even though Bobby knew she could handle her liquor probably better than him, an ingrained sense of chivalry wanted to tell her to slow down.
"But you know as well as I do, Bobby, that once you're in this life, it's just not that easy to get out. So I started the Roadhouse, so that at least I could help out other hunters. I didn't like Jo hanging around with them, but at least she was learning how to look after herself if she ever needed to. And then Sam and Dean walked in."
Shining eyes finally raised to meet Bobby's intense stare. "You're right. I did love those boys like they were my own. I couldn't help but mother them, despite what I may have felt for their father."
Her tears fell freely now as she lifted the glass to her lips with shaking hands.
"I still love them, I think. But I can't help blaming them for what happened, for getting Jo and themselves…I hate them for that."
Bobby watched the strong woman break down in front of him and for a split second saw the woman she might have been if she hadn't met William Harvelle or hadn't had her own personal tragedy early in life, or whatever it was that had turned her into the fiercely independent hunter she had become. Someone softer, who was unafraid to show their tears because they weren't a weakness to be held against her.
He saw his wife in the grief stricken woman and it was this more than the tears themselves that was the reason he found himself raising from his own seat to a place beside her on the sofa.
Many years since the death of his wife meant his experience of dealing with crying vulnerable women had long ago disappeared from his mind – replaced by exorcisms and symbols and weapons. So it was with some trepidation that he gently placed one hand on Ellen's shoulder and removed the glass from her slack fingers with the other before pulling her against him, face buried in his chest as she sobbed her heartbreak.
"It's going to be okay," he soothed quietly, praying to anyone listening that he wasn't lying to her, "I'm not going anywhere, I'll stay with you."
THE END
A/N2: Hope you liked it, please leave me a review letting me know what you think. For those who may be waiting for an update of Angel of a Devil, or See You in Hell, my humblest apologies, I'm trying, I swear to God! Thanks.