Title: When the painted birds laugh in the shade
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from William Blake
Warnings: pre-series, mostly
Pairings: Bill/Ellen, John/Mary
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 360
Point of view: third
Prompt: Ellen, Her maiden name was Campbell
When Ellen was little, knee-high and wearing pigtails, her best friend in the world was her cousin Mary. Mary knew all her secrets, her hopes and fears and dreams. She and Mary were only months apart in age, and they did everything together.
Uncle Samuel and Mama sometimes went on trips together, leaving Aunt Deanna and Daddy to look after the kids. Ellen and Mary made up all kinds of stories about what their parents did, but Ellen's favorites had Uncle Samuel and Mama as a prince and princess in hiding.
When Ellen and Mary were eight, Mama didn't come back from the trip. Uncle Samuel did, but he was bloody and crying and Daddy punched him in the mouth, so hard he fell down. Ellen screamed for Mama; Mama never answered, never swooped her up in a big hug and called her baby girl.
Daddy pulled Ellen into his arms and stormed out the house. Mary sobbed for her to come back, to stay, but Ellen never saw her again. When she was eighteen, Ellen went looking for her cousin Mary, her best friend from when she was too young to know what haunted the night, but Mary was gone. She couldn't find Uncle Samuel, Aunt Deanna, or the girl she used to think of as a sister. Daddy refused to tell her what he knew.
Her search led her to Bobby Singer, and Bobby introduced her to Bill Harvelle, and soon enough she had her own baby girl, named Joanna in honor of her mother.
When John Winchester blew in one day, Ellen offered him a beer and watched him leave with her husband. A few years later, when Joanna was still a tiny little thing, in pigtails and thinking the world was a bright place, John came back without Bill.
Joanna screamed for her daddy, but Daddy never answered.
And then John's boys, Dean and Sam walked into her saloon. And Dean, he looked so much like Ellen's cousin Mary. And the more time she spent around them, the more she saw her best friend, her sister, and she finally realized where Mary Campbell went.