AN: epic loves to all who reviewed, after an amazingly cruddy day you guys put a real bounce back in my step. You all guessed right for the ID on the mystery blonde, and I'm glad everyone's on board with Tara. So, without further ado, here's the beginning of our baby girl's story…
25.
Jo sits on the steps of the golden ziggurat, her toes drifting back and forward through the waters of the Aletheia River.
The sun is sinking in the west, and the luxurious sunlight is turning from amber to burnt orange. Choruses of bird song can be heard in the trees, along with the whoop of monkeys and the laughter of passing dreamers.
Jo stares across to the opposite bank of the Aletheia and thinks.
It feels like the moment she got here, she's been meeting people. It's wonderful, but there are so many, and so very many of them know the Winchesters in some way.
There's Molly, who was laid to rest by them over a decade after she died, and Nancy who they rescued from a hoard of demons only to be killed by Lilith.
The man in the blue suit is Agent Victor Hendrickson, who died in the same blaze of demon fire as Nancy and before then had pursued the boys across the country thinking they were psychotic criminals. Before he died, he and Dean were on their way to being friends.
One of the guys playing cards is Daniel Elkins, former owner of the legendary Colt, and the other is Steve Wandell, a hunter who met his end at the hands of Erzsébet Báthory, though she was wearing Sam Winchester at the time. He told Jo his daughter is about her age.
Ten minutes after she arrived with John, Caleb Reaves arrived in another boat with Isaac Mahon. The Mahons were regulars at the Roadhouse two years back. Jo looked up to Tamara as one of the few female hunters in the field. She hadn't known that Isaac had died…or that he'd died going after the Seven Deadly Sins with the Winchesters.
"It was my own stupid fault," Isaac confessed. "We went in half-cocked, got cornered and in my case got dead." Familiar anxiety filled his face. "I hope Tamara got out okay."
Levayah laid her small hand on his shoulder, eyes as green as new olives, wings only just visible (a faint print of feathers shimmering upon the air) over her slender shoulders. "She did, Isaac. She's alive and well and with friends."
And that's another thing; the angels.
There's three of them here in Amavasya. Rogues of a sort, though Levayah and her siblings aren't warriors like Cas is. They were keepers before they came here, discovering the seeds of the fledgling sanctuary and using their own power to help it grow into a tiny paradise.
Levayah looks like something out of a John William Waterhouse painting in her dress that actually is made out of autumn leaves. She spends her time looking after the children that live here, teaching them, keeping them entertained. She loves each and every one of them.
Saritiel is the young archer that Jo spotted before. He and some of the younger hunters watch Amavasya's boarders, keeping out unwelcome interlopers and guarding against the discovery of less compassionate angels. Behind her, upon on of the upper platforms, Jo can hear him playing a duet with Olivia Lowry; he on his guitar, she on her harp…
And then a voice makes the duet a trio; Harayel has a warm tenor that eases the soul, but little is known about him, as far as Jo can tell, and he is hardly ever seen.
When he looked at her, it was like he saw everything inside her. Like he knew. Like he cared.
Jo shivers and rubs the goose bumps covering her arms.
"Cold?"
She looks up to see Mary Winchester looking back at her.
"Oh," Jo says, "no, I'm okay, just…"
Mary's look is knowing. "Harayel, huh?"
"Am I that obvious?"
Mary shrugs and sits beside her. "He has that effect on people. It's a memory thing."
"So he's…an angel of memory?"
"And of pain, and decisions. Three of the things that people really dread in life."
"And death," Jo murmurs, eyes going back across the water.
Mary nods. "Very true."
They sit quietly for a little while, shoulder to shoulder, simply gazing at the luxuriant world around them.
"Jo," Mary says softly, "I feel I owe you some kind of explanation."
Jo blinks, mind momentarily blanking. "What for?"
Mary looks at her, and in that lovely face Jo can see both her sons.
And her daughter.
"For Tara," Mary says. "I know you have to be curious about her."
The elder woman's eyes flick up and to the right. Near where the trio is being played, John Winchester crouches by the water channel and shows Tara how to float little origami lanterns on its surface. They bob and sparkle towards the top of the temple; the channel runs from the river to feed the fountain, its current flowing up instead of down. Tara claps and laughs and dances excitedly from foot to foot, clinging to her father's shirt.
Mary is smiling too, though very sadly.
"I was so frightened when I got pregnant," she begins. "It was a month after John proposed, and I'd made that deal with Azazel the same night. He killed my parents then, too. John was all I had in the world and I didn't feel ready to…but I was going to be a mother. And when she arrived…"
She draws a great breath, light filling her eyes. Love.
"Oh, she was so beautiful. She was the light of our lives from the word go, and we couldn't get enough of her. She came just after Christmas, you know, and John used to call her the best present ever. He wanted to call her Christina, but I…Tara's mostly a Gaelic name, but in Sanskrit…"
"It means 'star'," Jo murmurs.
Mary smiles. "Yes. She was my bright star, my guiding light. My gift. There's nothing quite like having a child, Jo, having a piece of yourself to hold. Her first year was a learning curve, but her second was dream. Everything was new for her, so it was new for us, too. Colors were brighter, sunrises better, food – especially sweet things – were a miracle to behold. And language… She was talking then, words coming a mile a minute and learning new ones all the time. I taught her to sing, and she surprised John on his birthday when he came home, piping 'Happy Birthday' from the doorway when he got home.
"I thought, 'this is how life is supposed to be.' No hunting, no demons, no omens or signs. I still put salt on windowsills and doorways, but only when John wasn't looking. I still hung herbs, but said they were for cooking. I traced wards in holy water and pretended I was washing windows. But they were only motions. Just echoes from a bygone era.
"And they didn't protect us."
"What happened?" Jo whispers.
For a moment, Mary's eyes are ancient with remembered grief.
"Tara got sick."
AN2: 'Aletheia' is the Greek word for truth. Saritiel is an angel of freedom and companionship. Harayel is an angel of pain, decisions and memory. Levayah is an angel of regeneration, confession and sanctuary. Well, according to the internet anyway…