Spirit Fall, Chapter Seven
A/N: This fic has become some kind of monster. If you'll believe it, it was really supposed to be a chapter out of another fic I had in mind and then it was just supposed to be a one shot and now we have the longest anything I have ever written. Okay then. It just makes me happy that you all are continuing to read this and enjoy it. This chapterexposition (yay) and other random fluff. Thanks, as always, to chocolate rules.I won't be able to update for awhile after this, because I'll be out of town (Boston and Cape Cod, my first trip in four years!) butI hope to have the next parts ready when I get back. Until then. Read on. :)
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They find an apartment in southwestern Arizona. It's a decently sized complex, wider than it is tall, with sprawling dirt lawn and a gravel lot. Cheap though, and furnished. The town itself is tiny, with a movie theater, a school, a hospital and not much else. The hospital is supposed to be good though, which is what really matters.
It's a few weeks after they settle in that Dean has his second round of chemo, no easier than the first. It's not easier being a thousand miles from where the whole thing started. Turns out you can't run from something that's inside of you.
John's there for the whole thing this time, no ghosts to hunt, nowhere to slip away to. In the bathroom, he keeps a hand on Dean's back and an eye on Sammy, wondering if it was like this last time and, if it was, how the hell had Sam, or either of them for that matter, managed. He aches for the times he could fix all their hurts with a band-aid or some gauze and tape. He carries Dean again, from bathroom to bed, cringing with every step. The sickness is the same, but he notes the subtle shift of weight. Dean seems somehow both lighter and heavier in his arms, leaning against him and he hates that this could ever become habit. Even though Dean had been eating well the past few weeks, he'd never regained the weight he lost the first time around and John can only imagine more sliding off after this bout.
Maybe, he thinks, this is how cancer kills. Little pieces falling away until there's nothing left but a broken spirit.
Dean's oddly quiet in the days after his treatment. It takes John awhile to figure it out, but he feels it too. Moving so far from the Wellington House, all hope that this could have been something supernatural is lost. It's why Dean burnt that house down and why John insisted on moving them. This isn't something paranormal though. This is human weakness, something even Winchesters fall victim to. John prays to God that he might've been able to beat this thing with rock salt, a loaded gun, and incantations, but it isn't like that. This is Dean's battle, a normal battle, and one that John and Sam must stand on the sidelines for.
The doctors run Dean's blood work again and find the numbers not much changed at all. It's not bad, they concede, but certainly not what they hope for. Dean takes the news stoically.
"They said it wasn't bad," Sam offers hopefully. "Not bad means it has to be at least sort of good."
"Not bad," Dean states purposefully. "Means not bad."
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"Hey Sammy?" John asks a few days later, still puzzling over Arthur Wellington's last words to him. "Do you have that information you got on the Wellington house?"
"Yes sir," Sam moves off the couch, where he'd been reading and Dean was dozing, to switch on the laptop, opening the proper file.
"Thank you," John nods quietly, a dismissal, but Sam remains next to him in the pause that follows, standing silently, apprehensively.
"Dad?" he starts in that too cautious, almost fearful tone. It isn't fear though, not really. Sam's still nervous all the time, still scared, but more like himself around his father. Maybe, John considers, he'd been mistaking Sam's anxieties over his brother's illness for something related to the possession. They'd happened so closely and there'd been little time to deal with either. Or, maybe, the move had done at least one of them some serious good. A thousand miles from Arthur Wellington, John can only be Sam's Dad and not that someone else wearing his skin. "I think I left a pair of jeans in Albuquerque," Sam finishes in a rush. John turns away from the computer screen.
"Which pair?"
His son shifts uncomfortably.
"The good ones."
"Sam, damn it," he exhales loudly. "You've got to keep track of your stuff. We can't afford this."
"I know."
John gets a good look at the jeans his son's wearing now, holes in the knees, a tear on one pocket, and a stain around one ankle that couldn't be anything but blood.
"Alright," he sighs, taking out his wallet. "There was a thrift store a few blocks south. Can you manage that?" Sam nods, accepting the ten-dollar bill quietly. Dean rolls off the couch, shoving a baseball cap over his thinning hair.
"I'll go with him."
"Fine," John agrees. "Make sure he doesn't get distracted."
"Yes, sir."
John accepts the answer, turning back to the screen as they stroll out the door. Sam had been pretty thorough on this one, while John had only gotten the cliff notes before going in. There are birth records for Arthur Wellington, his wife, two daughters and a son. A death certificate for the wife, died in 1801 giving birth to the youngest child, the son. Dated ten years later, a death certificate for the son. The cause of death is listed as 'unknown illness.' John shrugs at that one. Lots of illnesses were unknown back then. It's unlikely they even had a doctor look at him.
John opens the next file; one Sam has labeled 'news.' There are several articles, from 1805 up through the twenties mentioning deaths in the area from an 'unknown illness.' The disease puzzled doctors of the time, which wasn't saying much. Symptoms included high fever, cough, and hallucinations. Nothing too out of the ordinary there, probably some kind of extreme flu strain. The fever would certainly explain the hallucinations.
After that, Sam had found death records for all three of the remaining Wellington's; all dated the fifteenth of May 1814. Cause of death for all three was obvious. Asphyxiation for Arthur and what the coroner had described as 'disembodiment' for his daughters. There are further notes though. Apparently, both daughters had been suffering with the mysterious illness and the report guessed that Arthur had shown symptoms as well. Probably, John decides, what had made him crazy enough to butcher his children. The disease, whatever it had been, did sound gruesome. It wasn't a quick way to die, and with no treatment available, the victims were sure to suffer.
John closes the file and then the computer, leaning back in the chair and pulling out his journal. Arthur Wellington must have decided to take matters into his own hands to end things for his daughters quickly. He'd already seen one child lost to the disease and didn't want to see more suffer. His own illness contributed to the grisly way he went about it and subsequent suicide.
No wonder the guy had stuck around his house for so long. Talk about issues. The man was ill and perhaps in death he could see what he did was wrong and feel regret, but could do nothing to change it. He couldn't break the pattern and he was angry with himself for it, that burning emotion John had felt when possessed.
Not that it matters now. Still, John wonders just how sick you would have to be to kill your own children in such a way. To kill your children at all even. He can't imagine it, no matter how they might be suffering. And yet, at the same time, he's seen so much death, he knows it brings some peace. It isn't all bad. He understands mercy killings all too well.
He's considered suicide himself, more times than he will ever admit. Late nights, with his children sleeping mere feet away, any necessary method spread before him. He's stood there, gun held in dry fingers, thinking, and waiting for that moment of impulsivity. His mind screaming do it, get it over with and his heart knowing he can't, won't ever do that. Suicide is the easy way out and John Winchester has never taken the easy way.
But to do that for someone else, he might be able to. To end a child's suffering he might be able to. But his children are another story. With Dean so sick, if it ever came to that, it's hard to say. Could he ever be desperate enough to end his child's suffering?
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They return an hour or so later and, despite their father's earlier warning, it becomes clear that someone got very distracted. Sam comes in; grinning big with new jeans slung over his shoulder, and lays the change on the table next to John's hand. He pauses in his writing and looks up, eyes widening at the sight of the thing on his son's head.
It may have been tan or even white at some point, but the stiff felt is dirtied dark brown and worn around the edges. The brim is curved perfectly though and Dean smiles wide beneath it.
"What," John asks. "Is that?"
"A hat," Sam laughs. "A cowboy hat." He dances around his brother, pointing out the features like a salesman trying to make a sell. "See? It'll cover his head and protect him from the sun and it was only fifty cents and--"
"And," Dean interrupts, pointing at his head and grinning. "It looks damn good."
John can't help the slow smile that pulls at his features. He stands and crosses the room to them, laying a heavy hand on his son's shoulder.
"How about some pizza?"
Sam gapes at him.
"You're not mad."
"Not mad." John shakes his head.
"And…pizza?" Sam stutters.
"Aren't you hungry?"
Sam nods quickly, glancing up at Dean for help through this odd behavior of their father's, but his brother only smirks and shoves him toward the door.
"I told you he wouldn't care."
"Pizza?" Sam asks again carefully, just to be sure. John nods. He didn't think he'd been so strict all the time that some freaking pizza would be a reason to be suspicious or to celebrate, but apparently, he needs to take a closer look at his parenting habits. Sam leaps out the door after Dean in a moment of unrestricted energy, feet crunching across the gravel, kicking up dust.
"Pizza!" he hollers, throwing himself at his brother. For as old an eighteen as Dean is, Sam is an even younger thirteen and they always choose the oddest moments to surprise him by acting their ages.
"Sam!" John yells after him, hastily grabbing his jacket and wallet. "Wait a minute!" He hurries out the door after them, ensuring it's locked and closed properly. He turns to catch up with them, but they're already across the parking lot, already next to the car, ready to go. He has to squint against the blinding sun, reflected sharply in every car window, just to see them, shoving each other and laughing, a careful dance of normality. Dean in his cowboy hat and Sam with that maniac grin. Happy.
John knows then, seeing them, no matter how little hope might remain, no matter how much pain, no matter how much loss, he could never end anything. They will always keep fighting, until the bell rings at the end of the last round and they're hanging on to the ropes just to stand.
It's the only thing they know how to do.
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tbc