Disclaimer: Still own nothing.
Author's Note: Oh the bitter, horrid angst!
The sound of silence, in all its unacknowledged emptiness, utter solemnity, seemed the most deafening. Now that the phone had stopped ringing and all mourners had gone, returned to their normal lives, moved on.
Now that Bobby had finally gone home, an awful and somber task, him knowing that the silence of his own empty house would only exacerbate the terrible lack of her voice they'd all been feeling for over a week now. And now that Dean and Ava and their kids were at the very least sleeping at their own house, one or all still filtering in throughout the days and nights, just to check, just to be near. Now, the walls seemed to echo with nothing.
Sarah cried. All the time. For the first few days she did nothing but plan, plan, plan. She picked out the outfit for her daughter, a navy blue silk dress that Ava had bought her on a whim last year, saying she just knew it'd be perfect with her complexion, her relatively new curves, her long legs and long arms and…and she'd been right.
Maya only wore it once, to Dean's fiftieth birthday party last month.
She'd been frantic, Sarah, about finding just the right casket, even though they'd decided, as though there were ever any question in a family like theirs, that she'd be cremated. And she broke two different phones, on two different occasions, hurling them into walls when anger overtook her. Once when the florist informed her that this time of year, where they were, finding blue water lilies would be virtually impossible. Only some of the profanity so uncharacteristically spewed from her lips, did he hear, the handset crashing into several large pieces before she ever even got out the go fuck yourself.
She made some calls around, after calming down a bit, finally getting a hold of an old friend in New York who told her not to worry, they had everything out there and she'd get some shipped right away. Which was good, better than good really, for a while there Sarah thought she might have to cancel the funeral. Blue Lotus being the only flower her daughter ever really claimed to have liked, roses being too cliché, other lilies somehow boring or morose, daisies nothing but a weed.
The other phone incident occurred following a conversation with Maya's soccer coach wherein the man expressed his grief, said how much he'd miss her, and told Sarah, the most awful thing she'd heard from any of the dozens of mourners to date, "She was so good, had so much potential. Coach Robertson's already told me how sorry he is that he won't get to work with her." Coach Robertson being one of the premier coaches in the nation, one Maya hadn't stopped talking about since she was twelve and first began to dream about going to his youth soccer camp.
It was a highly selective program. She never told anyone she'd gotten in.
But once all the arrangements had been made, casket and clothes and crematorium and urn, place of interment and travel plans for out-of-towners and catering. Once there were no more calls to make and every mourner who had to be properly greeted, placated and fed, had left, and it was just them, just her with nothing left to do, then, she broke. As long as she was busy everything was fine. But sitting there that night, alone in her dark kitchen, counters and table peppered with the leftovers none of them would eat, her hands were empty. With nothing to do, she couldn't keep it in any longer. With no plans to distract her, she couldn't deny it any more.
She hasn't stopped crying since.
Sam, on the other hand, had yet to really start.
There were moments – that first night without her, sitting up and waiting as though there were something to wait for, as though she might actually return, come sauntering in just past curfew. And calling Rachel. Calling her so early in the morning, waking her long before she'd ever intended on getting up, not having had a class scheduled until noon, and hearing her go utterly silent on the other end, breath stilling, voice stopping. He'd wondered if her heart had even halted mid-beat. And then she said, "No," quiet and deep and firm, a denial, an invocation, a grief-filled plea.
But Sam had been through enough grief in his life to know that crying never did any good, wishing and hoping and praying, letting his mind roll through all the what-if's and but-for's, wouldn't bring her back. Wouldn't mitigate his pain. So he did nothing. Sitting and staring aimlessly at any near diversion, the television, the window, the little girl dancing and laughing and trying so desperately to cheer them all up – Samantha, a little whirlwind just like Michael, with hair as dark and wavy as his Maya.
He would sit, slumped and bent, beaten and broken, not thinking about her, working so hard to not think of his little girl when she was that age, any age, just last week even when she so uncharacteristically whispered an I love you before heading out, never to come back. He had gotten so good, over the past several days, at being still that sometimes the only thing he could hear was the rush of his own blood through his veins, his own traitorous heart beating out a mournful rhythm in his chest.
He was too young to remember the death of his mother, the one event that, more so than any other, had shaped and formed his life. And what he hadn't blocked out of those days and weeks following Jessica's fiery demise – and Jessica, it'd been so long since he'd thought of her – had been primarily find dad, figure out what happened. Why, why, why?
His father's death brought simple sorrow, a long denied ache for the man he never really knew. But no matter how much of a shock it had been at the time, to find him dead and gone on that cold linoleum floor, the fact that he fell was never a surprise. He'd been asking for it for over twenty years.
This…death, this loss, seems like so much more. Even without thinking, without really feeling, he knows that this will shape and alter the remainder of his days, an ever-present absence that looms just in his periphery, no matter how much time passes, how much revenge enacted, how much good blossomed from it. It's like his mother all over again, fleeting images rushing through his mind of what could have been, what never will be.
Where once he thought of bedtime stories and booboos kissed away, blond hair falling like a curtain over his face when tucked in at night, the scent of fresh baked cookies greeting him when coming home from school in the afternoons, now he dreams of a tall lithe girl drowning in a cheap polyester cap and gown, so joyful, having overcome so much. A long white aisle, looking simultaneously like a plank off the ship and the yellow brick road, handing over his daughter to a man he surely knows well, more than approves of. Holding his grandchild in his arms, noticing her dark hair and dark eyes, and thinking to himself, my baby.
The rest of his life, he knows, will be peppered by those sweet and simple images of a future lost.
So he sits, still as can be, enveloped in his own little world, his own little hell where thinking about Maya is too much to bear, and forgetting her is akin to murder.
And then there's Rachel. Rachel who, being four years older than her sister, was never anything other than a protective force, a guarding entity, even when neither wanted her to be.
She gave her bottles as a baby, Maya's tiny form taking up her whole lap as she sat Indian-style on the couch, Mom or Dad, or Aunt Ava or Uncle Dean, perching by her side should the baby roll – as though she'd ever let her fall. She helped change her diapers, small wooden chair placed by the side of the changing table just for her, to stand on so she could see, so she could easily hand over wipes or powder, distract Maya with silly faces or goofy voices while she squirmed.
Even then, Maya was hard to please, every smile earned. Every giggle hard-won. And Rachel took on the challenge with fervor and glee.
She may have been young, but she can still remember Dean putting her to bed one night – because in those days, with a small child and two brand new babies, the Winchesters took up an almost communal lifestyle, sharing the parenting, the responsibilities – and telling her she was the best big sister ever.
Because she shared her toys, at least the ones that weren't her favorites. And she was always ready and willing to help, with either baby really, though Maya appeared to be her pride and joy. Because as they got older, she'd kept her sister from drowning in the tub during bath time, managed to etch wide grins on her little moody face by building bubble castles and beards. She brushed and braided her hair when Mom was too busy, Dad too clumsy with his giant fingers, and taught the bunny method of shoe tying, just like her dad taught her, just like Dean had taught him.
But all those reasons meant nothing, were nothing, not now.
Maybe if they hadn't been so far apart in age, or if Maya hadn't grown even moodier with time, transitioning into a tyrant of a teenager. Maybe if Rachel hadn't been so eager to have a life of her own – training, seemingly for her sister and cousins, though really for herself, having friends and boyfriends and academic successes, going to college, away to college. Maybe if she had been here, even just for a visit, just last week. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
But they had grown apart, each having their own interests and lives. And even when together, during training sessions or mere lazy afternoons in front of the TV, each girl knew that she no longer really knew the other. Because if she had actually known, realized what was going on inside her sister's head, in her heart, then maybe…maybe.
She knows it won't make any damn bit of difference now, but she says it none the less, feels the words travel over her tongue, tumble into the air, the huge space between herself and her father. "I'm not going back."
He looks up, her words seeming to have startled him as though he hadn't known she was there, hadn't sensed her presence looming in the doorway for the past several minutes, waiting and watching. Watching as Sam stared eerily off at nothing. "What?" he asks simply.
"I'm not going back," she repeats, voice so small it nearly breaks his heart, as though there were anything left to break. "To school," she adds, almost as a question, her eyes pleading with him for…something.
He looks away, the sudden realization that he's not the only one in pain, that though one daughter may be dead the other is almost dying, being too much to bear. Clearing his throat with a forced casualty he asks, "Why not?"
"Because I don't want to," she responds, tone of a child, not the twenty-year-old woman she has become.
"Okay." He nods his head absently, chances a glance back up at her so familiar face, her now glistening eyes. "Okay," he repeats, softer than before, and he scoots over a bit on the couch, an unspoken invitation for her to join him.
She does, crossing the room in three long strides and lowering herself cautiously down next to him. They both sit staunchly still for one long moment, the only sound in the room being their breathing, a rhythm that seems to match so effortlessly. He places one large, warm hand on her knee. She drops her weary head to his shoulder, falling seamlessly into him.
Her hair smells like oranges, tangerines. California. "You sure you want to stay here?" he whispers to the top of her head. She nods against him. "I thought you really liked it there," he says, knowing it's true. As much he loved his time at Stanford, so often longed to go back, he could tell she loved his Alma Matter even more. She belonged there.
"I want to stay," she says, nothing but uncertainty in her voice.
He pulls his hand from her knee, loops his arm around her, pulling her close, leaning back with her into the soft cushions of the couch. And he doesn't say a word, not at first. Because the fact of the matter is, he wants her to stay too. He needs it. And though he's barely exchanged two words with Sarah over the last few days, he has a feeling she'd want it too. But it's not about him, or her, or what either of them in their grief filled stupor may want.
She cries against him, silent tears soaking through his shirt. Silent and unobtrusive, like all the Winchesters had managed to perfect throughout the years. This is the legacy he's left for his children, for his child, a quiet, lonely, ashamed method of dealing with grief, one that had come from too much practice. And it isn't right.
"Maybe you should finish out the semester first," he says, voice grim and raspy.
She stiffens in his arms, pulls away just enough to sit upright before him, glare into his eyes. "You don't want me to stay?" she says, teary tone tearing him apart.
He can feel the onslaught rising, all those tears so long repressed forcing their way up his throat, making his words hard and choked. "No, baby. No, it's not that."
She stares at him, studies his face, notices how much it's seemed to age just within the past week. "Dad," she starts, reaching a hand out to his cheek. "Daddy," she squeaks, forcing his eyes shut to hold off the tears. "I'm sorry. So sorry."
He shakes his head and scoffs, though it comes out more like a cry. "You didn't do anything, Rache."
Her face drops, red-rimmed eyes falling to her lap. "Exactly," she mutters, guilt, regret, and a sort of jaded bitterness her words had never held before.
"No," he says, nearly booms, voice so deep and firm she startles, memories of impending punishments, awful arguments rising to the surface. But of course she's not in trouble, realizes that as he grasps her chin in his hand, brings it up to meet his gaze. "You did nothing wrong." Tears stream down his face, long glistening lines of beautiful agony setting a sheen to his pale skin. "It wasn't your fault," he says slowly, trying to bore the words into her, make them true whether they really are or not.
She wants to believe him, she does. But she can't, every voice in her head berating her for not being there when it mattered, not being there at all. For missing any clues, not even bothering to look for any. For being ignorant and complacent and simply gone. "I'm sorry," she whispers again, face contorting with real sobs this time, no silent, masked tears, just white-hot heaving, choking sobs. "I'm sorry," barely even discernable.
This is the legacy he's left his children, his child. A sense of guilt for every wrong not done, every tragedy not prevented. A feeling of aching responsibility for every person loved, unnamable, undeniable culpability for every person lost.
He holds her tight, never wanting to let go, and tries to shut his eyes against the pain, the tears, halting his own lament just long enough to breathe into her hair, "I'm sorry. So sorry," before rocking her slowly, steadily, like when she was so young, so new, so…untouched. "So, so sorry."