Chapter 18 – In my Lady's house
The sun had decided not to shine upon that town, that week. It had taken refugee behind the fog the Gods had sent, covering the town in a gloomy and almost permanent twilight. At night, when the sky was pitching black, the moon shone above the clouds, reflecting its light in the foggy cold and heavy air.
The autopsy had been completed; the cause of death was severe internal bleeding, but no marks on his body that could indicate what had caused it. Now, the Colt family was missing a member that all his life fought to make to world a better place and had left before his time, yet leaving the Earth a little bit safer. And as the entire town began to grief, the Gods sent the clouds and the fog, the rain and the wind, to make nature as sad as the people who cried the premature death of a good man.
It was the afternoon of the ceremony. Balthazar's body was lying still and peaceful looking in his open coffin, while people walked towards him to have one last look and left words of love, objects for good luck in a previous life, roses to show they cared and that he would be missed. And in that room full of people dressed in black, Sam sat still on a long bench, with his hands crossed over his lap. He could see and hear people crying. He saw Castiel sharing the word of God, giving hope to people, telling them Balthazar was a good man and that he had a place stored for him in heaven, his own little slice of paradise. Dean was sitting with Ben; he took a sip of his 20 year-old Irish whiskey. His green eyes had been painted with a glow that you could only attribute to the sadness caused by Balthazar's death. Although it had been sudden, without any warning, you could not say it was unexpected; after all, hunters either die young or live to troubled old men.
Dean turned his eyes to his brother, with a sad grimace twisting his face, and Sam replied with a cheerless and poignant smile that would break anyone's heart. The youngest of the brothers then looked around and found the absence of his lady. He got up and abandoned the room and looked for her everywhere inside the building. It was only when he could not find her that he looked outside.
The fog had darkened the afternoon making it look as the sun was already setting. Dew had accumulated in the grass and the leaves of the camellia tree, that had grown to see decades pass. There was a swing next to the tree where a woman was sitting, with her back turned to the house and her eyes looking straight ahead to the forest and the green mountains – or at least she would be looking at them if the fog was not in the way.
Her jeans were the darkest anyone had ever seen, and her torso was covered with a dark grey cotton shirt and a furry vest. Her hair was curly, as it was naturally, and fell down her back, presenting itself as the only bright color in that image. How Sam wished he could do something to end her pain, how he wished she would at least let him try. If they were as crazy as the Winchesters, one of them would have sold his soul before they even had time to call the rest family to tell them Balthazar had died; but they were not crazy, they were not the Winchesters, and they had decided that if God had chosen that to be the way Balthazar was to pass, they would burn his body and give him rest.
Samuel silently walked towards the swing and sat next to Marie. He took a few deep breaths before taking a look at his lady's face. Her eyes were drowning in tears for she did not let them fall, not since the night she had received her mother's call; there was a total absence of light from her face, and no glimpse of joy in the warm golden brown that her irises had been painted with. In that moment, Sam felt like crying. All that she was had been overcome by the sadness of her father's death, but she didn't let herself suffer as her heart begged to. She wanted to cry, to scream, Sam knew she did, but she did not let herself do such; there was this uncontrollable need to be strong and to force herself to get used to it as quick as possible.
They did not share one word; Sam knew not what to say and Marie was afraid that if she spoke about it she would crumble into tiny pieces of glass, fearful that if she spoke her heart the barrier would break and the sea of tears she had been working so hard to keep up would come crashing down. Marie reached for his hand and Samuel grabbed hers without even needing to see it. He created a cocoon with both his hands around hers, gently, and caressed the back of her hand with his thumb. He then kissed her forehead and at last the tip of her nose, as he did almost every day, making her slightly smile.
Later that day, Marie would sit in front her father's favourite chair, holding a cup of Bell's, her father's favourite scotch, just to smell the perfume that filled the house after he got home, safe and sound, after a hunting trip, the perfume that house would never be gifted with again, along with the scent of gunpowder that found its way to penetrate in Balthazar's clothing.
Rose would lock herself in the room they shared since they were married, hugging in her arms her husband's most precious shirt, one that had a smudge of car oil, from one of the afternoon's he spent teaching his daughter the basics on how to fix a car, so she would never find herself alone in an unknown road, relying on help from strangers. That was no position for a pretty girl like her to be in, even if that pretty girl knew her way around guns.
Ben would disappear that night, found refugee on a stripers club or something, where he would drink himself almost to sleep, for he could not stand to be inside that house because everything reminded him of his father that would never grow old and see their grandchildren's face light up on Christmas' evening at grandma and grandpa's house.
And Sam… Well, Sam would be up all night, sitting in the stairs, powerless, looking at Marie, playing with his hands and clothing in some desperate way to occupy himself, afraid he would burst into tears confronted with her silent suffering. Then Marie would fall asleep without even noticing and Sam would carry her in his arms to her bedroom, where he would sit next to her and stroke her hair very carefully, until he himself fell asleep. She would then wake up, in distress, after what she thought was only a bad dream, covered in tears, and tell Sam she dreamt her father died, and that it was horrible.
Tears would blossom in Sam's eyes before her reaction, the relief in her face when she thought it was nothing but a nightmare, and Marie would remember what was real and what was not, and that time her dream was truthful to what had happen in the real world. She would pronounce a heartbreaking "Oh", as if she was a very small child that had just been reminded that Harry Potter is just a book, or that unicorns are only figures of imagination, and that "Oh" was all she could say for her heart was again shattered into tiny little pieces and she could not handle to say anything else.
As Sam reaches his arms to hold her, she would push him away, for she was too fragile to be held by him, she was afraid she would cry. His arms were her home, his arms were her resting place that made her feel safe and comfortable, she did not want to cry and she did not want to be hugged by him if she was too sad to appreciate it. And as she fought to keep him away, to prevent him from hold the sharp glass pieces that she was at that time, Sam would find a way to sit behind her and wrap him arms around her, creating a shell, a cocoon of safety, where she was not required to be strong, where she was not required to fight for her own safety or sanity, for he was all she needed. He was comfort; he was a shelter where she would be safe from everything and where she could just speak her mind. And although Sam wished he could do more, he was doing everything she needed: he was there. That night, she would allow herself to cry in front of Sam and she would allow herself to grief her father's death like her soul was begging her to. He too would share a tear, silently, without Marie even noticing, for his lady's suffering was heartbreaking.
But before all that took place, Sam would hold Marie's hand while she said one last goodbye to her father, while she kissed his cold forehead. He would place his hand on her shoulder while her father's body was taken for cremation and she would instantly search for his hand when her mother's cry felt like a knife right into her heart.
And after she cried in his arms, she would fall asleep for a couple hours. Sam would not sleep, he was to restless, to startled by her sudden waiting with a hopeful expression, believing in something it wasn't true.
Back in Toledo, she would resume to her normal life, working and waiting for Sam to get home from a hunting trip, more scared than ever that something would happen, but keeping that fear a secret. She would call her mother every day and talk with her for hours, she would call her brother and he would almost never pick up. And months would pass like that, and every day it would hurt a tiny bit less.