Firefly 'Verse – Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep – Chapter 20
By: Suz Mc
"Are you sure about this? Hannaley?" Sam was on his knees in the dirt, struggling to get Bobby's contraband historical artifact positioned as close to the opening of the corridor as possible. There was no way he was risking getting inside the spirit's strike zone.
"You think you're the only one who can put shit together?" Dean nudged him sideways, nearly toppling him over in the dirt. "When Bobby told me that it was Haight-Ashbury and not Eight Raspberries, I remembered that flyer you put away. It's her. The bees, the location, it's her, damn it."
Sam sat back and let Dean handle the spray paint for the ritual design around the stone. "What the hell was that about, anyway?"
"What?" Dean never looked up from his work. He might be sloppy and rough about some things, but Sam knew his brother was anal squared about rituals. Those lines would be perfect.
"Haight-Ashbury, stupid? Do you think Bobby was, and I shudder to say this, a flower child?"
"Dude, that's one blast from the past I'm not interested in stirring up." Dean stood upright to admire his handy work. "Bobby, a peace-nik. Bet he's got some Joan Baez album stashed in his bedroom." Dean stuck out his tongue and shook his entire body like a shiver had run up his back.
Sam let out a cackle, which seemed normal to the two of them. He and Dean had laughed their way through blood and death before. Had laughed themselves calm when they were facing walls of shit. Dean could make him laugh in cemeteries and morgues, and even now, ten feet away from Camden's moldering remains. Sometimes it was the only way to keep from falling into the despair.
He was still snickering with visions of Hippie Bobby permanently tie-dyed into his brain, when Dean smacked his shoulder and pointed toward Ray Jacks staggering his way out into the maze. It was eleven-forty-five and Ray had been passed out drunk for five hours. Sam wasn't shocked that he looked like worm dirt. Ray's hand kept reaching out to grab first one support then another. His face was pale and wrinkled and his shirt was smeared with something that didn't appear to belong in polite company.
The man looked like shit and smelled of puke and booze when he got within sniffing distance. But, he was sober enough to stand and look them in the eye and Sam thought he deserved to be there to see this nasty hand played out.
"Ray, you holdin' up okay?" Dean offered Ray an old white paint bucket to sit on, only to be waved off.
"I want to be here when you kill it." He held tight to the side of one block wall, knuckles white as he gripped part of a rearview mirror for support.
"Ray, that's not exactly—"
"You've earned it, Ray."
Dean turned to Sam, effectively shutting off his conversation in his normal tactful way. Sam wanted to make Ray understand that things aren't always so black and white, good and evil. He wanted to explain, but evidently Dean didn't think Ray needed explanations right now.
"Sam, you ready?"
"Yeah."
Sam unfolded the pages and began the incantation. It would take several minutes to read and as long as they dropped the final flash of ingredients at midnight and said Katherine Hannaley's name at the same time, it should work. He started reciting the words, keeping an ear open for what was going on in the corridor where the spirit had holed up, as well as what was going on with Dean and Ray.
"Dude, I know you're hurting, but you gotta hold it together out here. No matter what you see or what you hear, you don't set foot in there until this is done." Dean was using his no-shit-takers voice.
"Okay."
"I'm not shittin' you, Ray. This is the one shot to get this done and if you mess it up it won't just be you going into the meat grinder. It'll be anyone else that tangles with this thing if it gets away. You get what I'm saying?"
"I said I did." Ray pulled himself up a little straighter.
"Good."
The low hum of bees began to rise from inside the corridor, almost competing with Sam's voice to be heard. The cyclone of metal and dirt swirled into being, an angry force trying to drown out the words.
It was eleven fifty-nine.
***
John lifted Emily up onto the stool at the counter and she did exactly what every four-year-old does when their bottom hits a swiveling chair. The little girl pushed hard against the counter, spinning wildly in a circle and squealing with happiness. He sat down beside her and pulled open a menu.
It wasn't really necessary to read the specials because he'd imagined them there himself, but John liked immersing himself in these fantasies to make them more real for the both of them.
"Where are we, Grandpa John?" She'd stopped hard by grabbing the counter with both hands and almost slid off onto the floor. Emily folded her arms on the sparkling Formica counter top, resting her chin on her hands.
"Jay Bird's Diner. Your Grandmother and I came here when we were young." It made him grin to watch her taking in the entire place as if memorizing every inch. Dean looked at things that way, scanning and analyzing his environment so he could own it while he was there.
"Was that a very, very long time ago?" She'd opened her own menu, copying his movements, pretending she could read the entire thing.
He did the weird math in his head and calculated that in John Winchester time, it had been approximately one hundred and forty years. Most of them were calculated in Hell years, but Hell years were real enough if you were there.
"It was a while."
Reggie Bird finally noticed them at the counter and made his way over, pad and pen in hand. "What can I get for you guys?"
"Hey, Reg." John had conjured his old friend up in his 1973 version complete with fuzzy sideburns and paisley polyester shirt. "I'll have a Jay Bird Burger and coffee." He leaned over to look at Emily's menu as she studied it with a wrinkled brow. "What about you, baby girl?"
"I want some pie!" She popped the menu closed and did another spin on her stool. "My daddy likes pie and he lets me have ice cream on it."
"You heard the lady." John handed the menus to Reg, and then turned to find Emily studying him.
"Do you like pie, Grandpa?" Damn, she looked at him so hard with those big brown eyes.
"Not as much as your daddy does, but his mother, now there was a pie fanatic."
"Grandma Mary?"
"Yep, she ate pie like it was going out of style. When she was expecting your daddy, I had to come here every night on my way home from work and get her two pieces. One for before dinner and one for after." God, that woman ate pie. No wonder Dean had the pie monkey on his back. John could swear that when the doctor held Dean up to spank his bottom in the delivery room that the kid reeked of lemon icebox.
"I know what that means."
"What?"
"Ex-pecting. Mama said that's when a lady's having a baby in her tummy."
Oh shit. That expecting thing had just slipped right out and he hadn't figured on Emily latching on to that baby business. "That's right. That's what that means. Reg, can I get that coffee?"
"Mama says part of the daddy goes with part of the mama and makes the baby in her tummy." Reg slid Emily's plate in front of her and she dug into the cherry pie with a hungry fork. Only it didn't stop her mouth. "Our beside the house neighbors had a baby."
"Really?" Reg could get back with that food any time now.
"Stevie and Randall. They're like a mama and a daddy but they're both daddies."
"Oh."
"So they getted a lady to have a baby and give it to 'em."
"That was nice."
"I askeded Mama how some daddy stuff got with her stuff to make me." Another big bite in the middle of kindergarten sex ed stopped her from talking.
His burger arrived and he took a huge bite, hoping to resist the urge to ask what Calley had told her. Talk about babies was hard enough with a twelve-year-old boy. He swallowed a gulp of coffee, full well intending not to ask, but what the hell, right?
"What did she say?"
Emily swallowed hard and John rubbed a blob of cherries from her chin. "Mama said God put it there."
Thank God for the creativity of mothers. Calley had better answers than that cabbage patch bullshit. It was a shame God didn't have much to do with what made Emily. But he didn't care about the how of Emily's existence. All that mattered was that she was here and amazing.
He watched her swirl the remains of her pie and ice cream into a creamy mess. He'd never have let the boys sit there and play with their food. It was a waste of time and his life's work was too fucking important to let kids sit in peace and make a mess. Now, it's all he wanted to do. Grandpa John had walled up the monster outside in the parking lot and Emily was free to paint with her pie all night long if she wanted.
"Uncle Sammy and Daddy are making the ghost girl behave." Emily switched to a spoon and scooped up the pink mush, slurping it into her mouth.
"Good for them." Jay Bird burgers were better than he remembered. But, of course they would be because why the hell would he imagine them sucking?
"Daddy said to tell you he wants to talk to you," she scraped the last bite off the plate, "soon."
It wasn't a shock. Hell, he'd been sending subconscious messages to the boys by telling Emily about the ghost, telling her about Dean and the fuckin' jellyfish. This hadn't been a covert operation by a long shot, the way he'd been running his mouth. John knew his son well enough to read the intent behind that phrasing. It was a warning. Dean didn't like the interference and it was his way to telling his dad to get lost.
"Can we play songs on that thingie?" Emily pointed toward the jukebox and he pulled out a quarter for her to feed the machine.
John watched her bounce down to the ground and then stand on tiptoes to look at the songs as they flipped by. It was clear she couldn't read the labels, but she was going to fake it to look like a big kid and pick one anyway.
Dean could get over it. Mary, too.
As Emily struggled to reach the coin slot, John intervened. "Need a lift, kid?" With both hands under her arms, he lifted her up so that she could drop the quarter in herself.
TBC