Hey guys:)
I know it´s been quite a while, but instead of boring you with my excuses, I´ll make up for it by getting to the chapter really quickly:)
You guys are awesome for reading and reviewing, Soncnica is awesome for making this readable and the Winchester´s are awesome, even though they still don´t belong to me.
The two scenes you may recognize are taken from the episodes 2x04, "Children shouldn´t play with dead things" and 11x23, "Alpha and Omega".
Also, fair warning: this story takes place on a graveyard, which is as much of a warning as I can give you if I don´t want to take the point of the chapter away, but please notice that if the topic of death is triggering for you, you might want to skip this one.
Graham´s there, on the day of the funeral.
It´s his second week on the job, so this is the first he´s ever seen from this perspective, and yet he can already tell that there´s something strange about this one. Some guy named Roger Campbell took care of the formalities. He´s the only one who comes, too, no ceremony, nothing.
Also, no casket.
He doesn´t ask. He´s just the gardener here, after all.
Later, after he closes the gates of the graveyard for the day, he finds himself drawn over to the new headstone, polished marble, a single flower placed carefully on fresh black earth.
Mary Winchester
1954-1983.
Only 29.
He wonders, briefly, what kind of woman she was, whether she had family, what happened to her that her life ended in an empty grave. Then he straightens himself and turns towards the parking lot and forgets about her.
Times passes.
Life goes on and so does death.
Spring fades into summer fades into autumn, then snow covers the graveyard before the circle repeats itself. He tends to the flowers and keeps the paths free of ice and the walls free of graffiti. And comes to learn that a graveyard is anything but a dead place.
When he took this job, a young businessman who pokered high and lost higher, all he wanted was to hide. Lock himself away and forget about the world and at first, it seemed like he succeeded.
But then he got to know the people.
Greenville is a small community and there´s hardly a person in town that doesn´t have a loved one buried here. Annabelle Johnson comes every Sunday, lighting a few candles and saying her prayers for Mr. Johnson, never leaving without taking a few minutes to chat with him. Mr. and Mrs. Makintosh come about once a month, sometimes alone, sometimes together. They´re always carrying a little toy to place on their son´s grave. Lilly Millerton brings her violin whenever she comes to visit her fiancée, filling the graveyard with ethereal music.
He learns their faces and they learn his, and maybe it´s the place itself, the fact that they´ll all end up here eventually, that makes it so easy to feel connected. Sometimes they nod at each other, sometimes there´s a little chat, he helps with a flower arrangement here or offers words of support there.
He stands by for every burial.
It takes him a while to notice that no one ever comes to visit Mary Winchester`s grave, not even the man who organized her burial. Of course she´s not the only one who doesn´t have relatives living nearby, but even if they can´t come, they usually ask him to make sure everything stays in order. Mary, it seems, has nobody. And yes, he knows it´s sentimental, bordering on ridiculous even, but every now and then, he places a little candle next to her headstone before he leaves. Just because.
Of course it´s not always easy. Sometimes, late at night, he sits in his living room and thinks about how many of the people whose headstones he walks by every day were too young, how they left unfixable holes in the lives of those who come to visit. But he never allows himself to dwell on it for long.
It´s the day after Mrs. Johnson joined her husband in the afterlife he knows she believed in when Graham first sees him. Initially, he pays him no mind, simply continuing to pick up the fallen leaves from the old oak next to the entrance gate. The man´s not from around here, but that in itself isn´t so unusual. That is, until he sees where he stops: At Mary Winchester´s grave.
In the seven years since she´s been buried here no one ever came and even though it´s not his business and he knows it, he can´t help but wonder.
Who and why now, after all this time?
The stranger just stands in front of her grave, staring at the words scripted in the headstone for the longest time. Graham really tries not to stare, but whenever his work takes him near the grave curiosity beats will power and he quickly glances over.
The man stands straight, shoulders stiff, hands clenched into fists by his sides. No need to see the dog tags around his neck to know he used to be military. And as much as he wants to know, one look at the strangers face quickly convinces him he´s better off leaving him alone. He makes a sharp turn, away form the grave and the man, trying to shake himself out of the confusion his appearance had caused.
Might as well get a head start on cutting that hedge.
When he comes back from the shed, tools in hand and mind set on getting back to his work, he can´t help but notice that the man has taken a small step forward. His palm´s hovering hesitantly in the air over the headstone, as if he doesn´t dare touch it. As if that would shatter the stone or his hand or something else altogether.
Graham quickly turns his attention towards the hedge, suddenly overcome by the feeling of intruding on something not meant for his eyes. He´s halfway finished through with cutting when the early evening silence is broken by a low keening sound, brimming with a grief that nearly robs it of all humanity.
He doesn´t turn around, but he can see the man in his mind´s eye: Maybe he has touched the headstone, maybe he´s still standing straight maybe he´s sunken on his knees. Maybe his eyes are open, maybe they´re closed; in the end, it doesn´t make a difference. Not to the empty grave he´s standing in front of. And even though Graham´s heard it many times before, the crying, the wailing, the pleading and cursing and breaking, he´s never ever heard it quite like this.
By the time he does turn around, the man is gone.
He sees the man again, after that.
He comes in irregular intervals and mostly in the evenings. Never speaks to anybody, eyes faraway, dark jacket blending in with the fading daylight, the closest thing Graham´s ever seen to a ghost.
At first he considers asking him who, from where, why, but in the end, he never does. He finds that he actually likes the mystery. And takes comfort in the fact that Mary wasn´t all alone in her life, after all. When he watches the stranger come and leave and come and leave, his mind makes him her long lost brother or loving husband, an English teacher or an archaeologist or maybe a soldier, still.
He used to consider ignorance an inexcusable character flaw, but now, he´s not so sure anymore. Because these days, it feels more like a gift.
In all his nearly thirty years at the job, he´s never seen anything quite like this. The sun´s barely over the horizon and he´s just about finished with his morning round when he comes to a violent stop before Angela Mason´s grave.
The service´d been held yesterday, nearly the entire town coming to mourn to young college student who got killed in a car accident and no matter how many years he´s done this now, burying a kid never got any easier.
But that is still no explanation for what he´s seeing: All the flowers friends and family placed on the temporary grave the day before has wilted to brown, lifeless scrub. The tree next to the grave looks like it fouled down to the roots overnight and the grass around the wooden cross has turned grey in a perfect circle.
He scratches his head, closes his eyes, opens them again, stares, but not for long, because something about the sight makes him uneasy in a way he has not felt since he believed in monsters under the bed. He tears his eyes away and walks swiftly towards the office, trying to ignore the growing sense of dread that makes the hair on his arms stand on edge.
Something´s not right about this. Not at all.
The thought comes unbidden and nearly makes him laugh out loud at how silly he´s being.
Getting superstitious in our old age, are we?
He shakes his head, sits down at the desk and boots up the computer.
I´m sure there´s a reasonable explanation for all of this.
Three hours of fruitless research in about every botanical resource he can think of and he´s slowly going insane. No insects, no pesticides, no disease, there is absolutely nothing that could explain the sudden dying of the plants.
"Yes Mrs. Rogers, I´ve seen the tree, I´m already on it!" He snaps, harsher than intended, at the woman who enters the office without bothering to knock. Mrs. Rogers, who carries an overweight, bored looking pug on her arm, jerks back at his sudden outburst and he immediately feels bad.
"I´m sorry, I meant to say: thanks for letting me know. It´s just- it´s been a busy morning, is all."
She raises her right eyebrow in this way that always reminds him of his old primary school teacher, a mixture between superiority and graciousness that is just this side of patronizing and sets the dog down with a long-suffering sigh.
"Of course. Be it as it may, I do hope you find a solution for this problem. Oh and there are some people out there I´ve never seen before and they´re behaving somewhat suspicious if you ask me." With that, she whirls around and leaves the office.
Now it´s his turn to sigh, and he takes a moment to bury his face in his hands. Mrs. Rogers is not exactly known for her deductive skills, reporting suspicious behaviour almost once a month when she gets bored of playing bridge and spoiling her dog and she feels that the town´s gossip could do with some refreshing. From nightly teenager gatherings over grave desecration to supernatural creatures there is literally nothing she has not claimed to have seen on the graveyard and so far, there´s always been a completely reasonable explanation for all of her accusations. After one last look at the pile of useless books he´d gone through over the course of morning he heaves himself out of the chair.
Might as well have a look at these mysterious people.
It´s around noon and the graveyard nearly abandoned when he steps out the door. That makes spotting the two Mrs. Rogers referred to easier and even though he resents to admit it even to himself, he has to agree with her that there is something slightly off about them. They are two guys, one wandering aimlessly around and looking at the headstones as if he´d rather be anywhere but here and the other kneeling in front of Mary Winchester´s grave, his head bowed in silent prayer.
Mmh. Well, that´s curious.
It´s been over half a year since her regular visitor had last come and he is absolutely certain he´s never seen these two before. Even though they are standing apart, it´s obvious they belong together, the walking man always throwing furtive glances at the kneeling one when he thinks the other won´t see. And while the casual observer might find that they don´t look much alike, Graham prides himself in being quite skilled when it comes to memorizing faces and he´d bet good money they´re related.
More out of unwillingness to go back to his work than actual suspicion he decides to keep an eye on them for a while. He picks up a watering can and goes back to tending the flowers where he got interrupted earlier, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Out of the corner of his eye he can see that the kneeling man starts digging a small hole in the earth over Mary´s grave with his hand. When he is done, he lifts up a small metallic chain and, after hesitating shortly, drops it into the hole.
The dog tags.
Graham only sees them for a split second and yet, with these two guys at Mary´s grave and the look on both of their faces, he´s sure. They know the man who used to come here. That man is dead. They know the woman who does not lie under the earth in that grave meant something to him. Maybe they knew her too, even though they might be a little too young for that, hard to tell from a distance. Whatever the case is, right now there´s a lump in his throat that he can´t swallow and he doesn´t even know these people.
He makes an effort not to look anymore after that, just goes about his business and tries to ignore the persistent ache in his chest until he eventually ends up at Angela Mason´s resting place, hoping the riddle it poses can distract him.
"Hey, uhm, you got any idea what´s going on here?"
He startles violently and finds himself face to face with one of the strangers, who quickly raises his hands in apology.
"Whoa, sorry, didn´t mean to scare you."
"Oh no, it´s fine, don´t worry about it." He puts the watering can down, tries not to show how much this whole day´s rattled him.
The man who stands in front of him is young, just like he´s assumed. Stance and features nonchalant, but his voice doesn´t quite match the rest, the words a little too intense for casual interest.
"As a matter of fact, no, I don´t know." Graham nods towards the dying tree.
"The woman died three days ago, a tragic car accident and as I came here this morning, the place looked like this." He briefly wonders if it is wise to tell the stranger all that, but on the other hand, what harm can it do?
"Mmh, I see." The other mumbles, eyes focussing on the rotting plants as if he´s searching for something. "You using any weird pesticides here, if you don´t mind me asking?"
He cocks his head, trying to tame his curiosity. "No, no pesticides at all."
The stranger nods slowly, pulls his lower lip between his teeth. "Have you noticed anything strange around here? Maybe weird smells or…cold spots?"
He looks at Graham as if he knows exactly what his questions sounds like and is still completely serious about them.
"No, I haven´t. Now, why would you ask that?"
The man grins, looking slightly sheepish. "Well, I guess it sounds pretty strange but my brother-", he jerks his chin towards the other man who´s currently standing up from his kneeling position and throwing a questioning look in their direction, "-and I, we´re researching local urban legends, lore, the works, to put a book together."
Brother it is, then. I see.
Graham holds the man´s gaze, eyebrows just high enough that the challenge is noticed and acknowledged, but the other doesn´t budge.
Well, doesn´t mean that I believe you, but that´s one fine poker face you got there, kid.
Out loud he says: "Ah, alright. Well, in that case I´m sorry to disappoint you, but there´s nothing noteworthy going down here."
The guy shrugs dismissively, but he´s no fool either, clearly understanding the doubt in the subtext and appreciating not being called out on it.
"No worries. Anyway, thank you for your help." He nods respectfully, then turns back towards his brother. Graham watches them as they walk away, brows drawn, hands gesticulating wildly. After one last look at the rotten plants, he heads back towards his office, back to his own research. But, for some reasons, the sense of dread he felt this morning is gone.
When he comes back the next day, he sees it immediately. Someone dug up Angela Mason´s grave.
Whoever did it clearly made an effort to cover it up, but he knows every inch of this property by heart. There´s no doubt about who did it either: the two men from yesterday. He already suspected the story about the book to be lie and their appearance had simply been too coincidental to actually be a coincidence. He should call the police.
He would, normally, no hesitation, but there is also the fact that the grass around the grave is green again. All of it.
Slowly, he bends down, sinks his fingers into the blades. Alive and healthy, like nothing ever happened. The tree, too.
If I didn´t know better, I´d say there´s magic at work here.
He shakes his head slowly, smiles to himself. Well I guess I truly don´t know better.
All he knows is that, whatever they did here; it worked. And while he´s still curious, he´s also old enough to know that, sometimes, it´s better to just accept the not-knowing.
He straightens up, eyes wandering over the once-again-green vegetation and finally landing on Mary´s headstone.
It`s truly a shame that I never got to meet you alive. Judging by your acquaintances, I´ve got a feeling you´d have been a most interesting person.
The graveyard is filled with a kind of frantic activity that the place has never seen before. People hurry around with jittery steps, lighting candles and mumbling desperate prayers as if they fear that today might be the last day they´ll get to say the words. And it might be, for all he knows.
He´s seen the reports, heard the news and the truth is, it´s not looking good.
The sun´s dying.
And all the science experts and political spokesmen examine and speculate and try to make it look like they´re not completely at a loss, but it´s not a very strong façade. There´s something in the air, in the ground, something that goes deep through his bones and straight to his core that tells him that this is it. The end.
And even though this is certainly not the way he´d imagined it to happen, he feels surprisingly calm.
While most people are at least somewhat aware that death is the only truly unavoidable thing in life, hardly anyone experiences it as closely as him and maybe that´s why he can look at the others run around in mindless hectic and just watch as the light slowly grows dimmer. He feels sympathy for them, sure, feels like they would have all deserved a more merciful ending, but it is how it is. And even though he´s never been particularly faithful, all the years spend tending to final resting places made him hopeful that there might be something, after all, and he tells himself that´s all the hope he needs.
At first, he doesn´t notice them in the steady stream of people coming and leaving and then he doesn´t immediately recognize them, because it´s been years. But when they stop where they stopped before, recognition hits him like a punch in the gut. Two brothers stand in front of Mary Winchester´s headstone, heads bowed like they´ve come to pay their last respects.
Seeing them again stirs something in his heart, tugs at the resigned acceptance he felt until now, because-
Because he never forgot how green grass grew over what´d previously been dead earth and maybe there is something about them, maybe they can save them-
The rational part of his mind recognizes it for the foolish hope of a dying man that it is and yet he can´t tear his eyes away from them.
They´re not alone, this time. Three men and one woman stand a little behind, patiently waiting. They are an odd group, looking like they were randomly thrown together by an uncaring hand, united only through the solemn expression on all of their faces.
Eventually, the slightly shorter brother, the one he talked to all these years ago, turns around to the waiting group. He starts speaking with arms open wide, like he´s holding a rally, or speaking to an army, calling to the weapons. His brother remains at the grave a little longer, slowly raising his fingertips to his mouth, then gently bringing them down at the headstone.
There are hugs and whispered words, spoken with the faces of men who´d come to accept they will be the last they´ll ever share and the hope he´d initially felt at their arrival slowly drains away.
This is not a rescue mission. This looks like a funeral.
He blinks the sudden wetness from his eyes and when his sight clears, one of the brothers is gone. Vanished.
Normally, Graham would be certain that this must be some trick, some clever illusion, but today it´s hardly the strangest thing that happened. The five who remain stare at the place where their companion just stood like they, too, have trouble believing he´s not there anymore. Then the woman and two of the men turn around and walk towards the entrance with heavy steps, as if they know there´s no point in hurrying anymore. The brother who is left behind doesn´t move, resisting the man who wears a trench coat like armour as he tries to tug him along.
But eventually, he gives up.
When they walk past him towards the gate, Graham´s taken aback by the look on the tall man´s face, the emptiness in his eyes. Because all he can see is a dead man walking.
He can´t stand to watch for long, and only as he looks after their retreating forms he truly begins to believe that the world is doomed. He closes his eyes against the tears that threaten to fall again and fails. When he opens them again, blurry with salty water, his gaze wanders back towards the sky, watching the weaning daylight. And he waits.
People are screaming, some are crying, some are lifting their hands towards the sky when the sun returns, bright and warm and promising life.
He stands among them in stunned silence, unable to grasp what he´s seeing, joy filling every cell of his body with blinding intensity.
But somehow, even the burning rays of sunlight can´t completely erase the memory of the two brothers, one looking ready to die, one looking like he´s already dead and while he doesn´t know, can´t even begin to understand what happened and what kind of role they´ve played in all of it, he finds himself uttering silent words of Thank you.
It´s raining, heavy drops drenching everyone who dares to venture outside in seconds, but he forgot the keys for the tool shed in the office and getting wet never really bothered him much. He opens the front gates and hurries towards the office door, sparing the rest of the graveyard only a passing look.
He´d have missed her had it not been for her white coat.
A woman, short blond hair curling over the collar, staring at Mary Winchester´s headstone as if she doesn´t even feel the rain. It´s late and the graveyard is closed, so she shouldn´t be here. She also shouldn´t get wet.
He makes a quick detour in the office, grabs the forgotten keys and the umbrella he always stores in a side cabinet and walks towards her.
"Ma´am?"
She doesn´t turn around, doesn´t even move.
"Ma´am, the graveyard is closed, I have to ask you to leave-"
He´s only a few feet away now, close enough to see her shoulders shaking even through the downpour. He doesn´t like to do this, doesn´t want to interrupt her in her obvious grieving, not one to hold a grudge against her trespassing.
Maybe she´ll want to wait in the office until the rain stops.
"I´m sorry for your lo-"
She whirls around like a cornered lion, eyes two deadly slits over tear-stained cheeks.
"What do you know about my loss?!" She hisses, then brushes past him, knocking their shoulders together powerfully enough to make him stumble to the side. When he gets his bearings back, she´s already through the gate, a blurred white shape growing smaller in the distance.
"And this is were you save the files for the city council, they will ask you to report numbers once a year-"
He squints, points at the screen and Sirius Davidson leans over his shoulder, nodding his understanding. The young man is the kind of person who can easily vanish in a room full of people, shy and silent but a quick learner with a true hand for plants. When Graham turns 75 next week, Sirius will take over the business and he´s no doubts the boy will do a fine job.
When today´s lesson is over, he watches the door close behind his will-be-successor and leans back in his chair, eyes tired after staring at the screen for two hours. God knows I´ll miss this place.
He lets his thoughts wander for a moment, thinking back to his first years on the job, how he came to feel like he belonged here. Back to the people he´d met over the years, many who have already found their place among the headstones and yet, he´ll always remember them fondly. To his first funeral and the slowly weathering gravestone of Mary Winchester.
That´s the moment the door opens again and a man steps in. His face is drawn and weary and while he doesn´t look older than forty, his shoulders are sagging like they carried the weight of more than one lifetime. He´s wearing a trench coat.
"I need a grave."
They clear the formalities quickly, the man so innocently clueless about most of them that it would have been comical if not for the grief written in every line of his body. Graham has recognized him immediately and he knows he could ask him. Knows that this is most likely his last chance to understand everything that happened back then, but he doesn´t. Because, somehow, it doesn´t feel that important to know anymore.
The only thing the man is really specific about is where the grave should be situated. Next to Mary Winchester. And while that is a little difficult to arrange, Graham doesn´t give up until it´s done.
He´s there, on the day of the funeral. This time, he stands next to the only attendant as they shovel soil over an empty grave in front of a simple white stone.
Sam and Dean Winchester
1983-2023, 1979-2023
They stand shoulder to shoulder in silence, watching the candles reflect on the polished surface of the stone until the sun goes down.
That´s it guys:)
Obviously, the death dates of our favourite brothers are pure speculation on my part and I do sincerely hope they´ll outlive them by far. On another note, I will preliminary call this chapter the end of the shot collection, because I currently have a lot going on and don´t want to keep you hanging for eternities with the promise of another chapter. That doesn´t mean i won´t come back to this when the muse strikes again, but until then, thank you all for coming on this journey with me and never forget to Alway keep fighting!