Okay, Petunia's been really talkative, so here's the deal: I'll put up another chapter, and you lot don't skimp on reviews just because you've got two more chapters to read instead of one. (Yeah, yeah, I'm an addict. I admit it. I'll sulk. It's pathetic, I kid you not.) So, do we have a deal? You don't even have to go to a crossroads, and I do NOT want your souls (I know where they've been, you depraved Denizens *shudder*)...
Chapter Sixteen
Dean and Sam stood looking at Sister Felicity with expressions of stunned disbelief.
Neither of them were strangers to expressions of stunned disbelief. When you lived your entire life as a Hunter, you had plenty of opportunity to work on your expression of stunned disbelief, although as you got older and saw more, they tended to become fewer and farther between. And when you were a Winchester, you were always going to have extra opportunities to work on your expression of stunned disbelief.
For example, the first time Sam had come back to their cruddy apartment from the library early and inadvertently walked in on fifteen-year-old Dean, and Melanie Coverdale, wearing nothing but eager smiles and so engaged that they didn't even notice him, he wore an expression of stunned disbelief. The time he was scanning one of the 'Supernatural' books for a small detail, and found out about Rhonda Hurley and the pink panties, he also wore an expression of stunned disbelief.
Further to that, the time that Dean had come home from an after-school job to another cruddy apartment and found their Dad helping Sam rehearse for a school drama class by reading the part of Juliet, complete with a dishcloth wimple, breathy falsetto voice and dramatic swooning, he had worn an expression of stunned disbelief. Likewise, when a seventeen-year-old Sam had asked him for a couple of condoms, and Dean had given him three with a complimentary eyebrow waggle, then Sam came home from a female friend's house complaining 'We needed more, and yours weren't big enough; it's okay, she stole some from her brother', he once more wore an expression of stunned disbelief. (He later found out that they were using them to set up an experiment measuring the expansion rate of various salt solutions with the variation of temperature, but that didn't stop him from ribbing Sam mercilessly.)
The first time Sam saw Dean in a dress, he wore an expression of stunned disbelief. (Actually, the second time, he wore an expression of stunned disbelief, too.)
The first time Dean saw Sam with his hair in pigtails, he wore an expression of stunned disbelief. It was very closely followed by hysterical laughter, but the stunned disbelief came first.
Dean came back with his hair dyed green, and his eyebrows waxed.
Sam came back with a pair of fluffy bunny slippers glued to his feet and butterfly clasps in his hair.
Dean came back wearing a sarong, garlands of marigolds, and a henna tattoo that looked remarkably like some sort of fertility symbol.
Sam came back with rope marks, a confused look, his shirt missing and a phone number in lipstick disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.
Yep, the Winchester brothers were really good at expressions of stunned disbelief.
But the ones they had as they looked at Sister Fic were the most stunned and disbelieving that they'd ever worn.
"That's... that's..." stuttered Sam. "Can I have a look at that?" In a daze, he took the paper from her, and read it carefully. "The dates fit," he confirmed, "Mother's place and date of birth, father's place and date of birth, it all fits..."
"You gotta be kidding me," breathed Dean, staring at Sister Felicity.
She gave him a dubious look back. "You see something green?" she asked.
"Winchester," Sam said faintly. "The demon's memo. It wasn't a location."
"But... that's where I was," the nun sounded confused, "Where they were looking for me. What do you mean?"
"It means," Dean began, taking the piece of paper from Sam to confirm it with his own eyes, "It means... I don't believe this... " He looked up at her. "You're our sister, Fic."
"Yeah," she nodded, "That's me, Sister Fic Morgan." She cocked her head. "Is this some sort of post-traumatic stress thing brought on by high schoolers or bored confessing housewives?" She asked. "Father Tran was okay for about a day afterwards, then he had a second round attack of the vapours..."
"No, no, no," Sam shook his head, "You are our sister, Fic. You are our sister. Full stop. Fic. Another full stop. You're a Winchester. Our name is Winchester. John Winchester was our father, and Mary Campbell, she was our mother, and they got married when he came home, and, and, and..."
"I was born in 1979," Dean cut in. "And named for our maternal grandmother. Our mom wanted to name her eldest after her own mom, because her parents had died." Somehow, he found a grin. "Sounds like she did just that. Twice."
Felicity looked from one of them to the other. "Is this... this little Darth Vader moment your idea of a joke?" she asked incredulously. "It's about as funny as, as, something that's not funny at all!"
"No!" Sam almost yelped, "It's not a joke! If this is real..."
"It's real," Sister Agnes said softly but clearly, "It's definitely real. Those are the details of your birth parents."
"Then, you're... you're..." he ran out of words. "Felicity, you are our sister," he finished.
Sister Felicity shook her head. "This is impossible," she stated, "Nobody goes looking for their birth mother, and finds their family standing in the same room. It just doesn't happen..."
"Here." Sister Agnes was fishing around in the records box. She came up with a yellowing square or card. "I did this, for some of them," she explained, "Although if I'd been caught, I'd probably have been thrown out of the order altogether. But some of them, they were so desperate to have something, just a little fragment of memory, to know that their baby was real, it was a risk I was glad to take."
She handed over the piece of card. Sam took it. It was a fading polaroid picture of a young blonde woman, tired but smiling, with a small baby in a pink blanket.
Sam's mouth dropped open. "It's Mom," he whispered. "Dean, it's her. It's Mom. She looks younger, but it's definitely her."
Dean scrabbled for the small picture he kept in his wallet, and they put the two side by side.
Sister Felicity wore an expression of stunned disbelief.
"Jumping Jesus K. Reist on a fucking pogo stick," she eventually said, jaw hanging in bewilderment. "It's the same woman. It's..." she swallowed. "That's... my Mom?"
"Yeah," smiled Dean. "That's Mom. She was a babe."
"You look like her," Sam said distractedly.
"You think?" Felicity sniffled, gazing at the picture. "Dean's right, she is beautiful..."
"No, Dean," Sam corrected, staring from his big brother to his, well, his big sister... "I didn't notice it before, but... you two. You look like Felicity. You look alike. I'm not kidding, there is... it's a family resemblance."
"So... what now?" asked Dean, completely bewildered.
"Well," mused Felicity, her eyes welling, "Is it okay if I hug my... little brothers?"
Sam burst into tears and grabbed her in a happy octopus hug. "God, yes!" he told her. "Oh, God, we've got a sister, Dean!"
"Yeah," Dean smiled, and surreptitiously wiped his eyes, "A sister who's a Sister, no less, which is kind of weird, and maybe a bit creepy, but..."
"Shut up or I'll twist your arm again," Felicity growled at him, pulling him in, "Little brother."
"You're definitely mean enough to be a big sister," he sniffled. "Cow."
"Dean!"
"Shut up, bitch."
"Dick. Don't tease the sissy."
"Harpy."
"Please do me the favour of putting the boxes back when you're done here," smiled Sister Agnes, "I'm too old to be doing it now." With that, she left them, and slipped quietly out of the room, where she stiffly seated herself on the stairs, and sat sentinel.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
They spent the afternoon sitting in the secluded little garden where Sister Agnes had offered to speak with Felicity.
"Wow," she said, handing over the bottle she'd found to Dean (Sam had pulled a face, and stuck to a cup of coffee). "Just... wow. So, how many times have you actually, er, died, then?"
"I've kind of lost count," Dean said sheepishly. "But more than him," he indicated Sam.
"So," she concentrated, "John – Dad – sold his soul for you, and then helped you kill the yellow-eyed demon, and later you sold your soul for Sam, and Castile..."
"Castiel," corrected Dean.
"Yeah, him, Castiel, Cas, raised you from Hell, then you killed a demon called Lilith, then you killed a demon called Ruby, then the Apocalyse started, and demons were trying to kill you, but angels were trying to kill you too because most of them are dicks with wings, but you jumped into Hell with Lucifer and dragged Michael along for the ride..."
"It was his own stupid fault," muttered Sam.
"... Then part of you got out, but your soul got left behind, and you screwed your way through every hooker from one coast to the other..."
"I don't remember that bit," Sam flushed, and scowled at Dean.
"...Then you found out about it when your angel Cas did a sort of soulectomy scan, then a demon called Crawly offered to get it back, but he couldn't..."
"Crowley," growled Dean, "Self-proclaimed King of Hell, and all around asshole."
"...Okay, then Death got you back, then Castiel ended up swallowing a whole bunch of souls from Purgatory, set himself up as the new god – really, that was him? I thought it was just one more religious loony – and then he had a really spectacular bout of diabolo-celestial gastroenteritis and blew up your surrogate father's house, and he's the guy who says 'Balls' a lot..."
"That's kind of it, in a nutshell," shrugged Sam. "Give or take the odd angel, demon or other fugly that gets in the way."
"Right," she nodded dubiously. "And your dog is half-Hellhound, and his sister lives with his mom and Mr Bobby Balls, and his other sister Hunts with a really cranky werewolf who is congenitally incapable of understanding football..."
"She's hopeless," asserted Dean. "Some sort of mental disability there, I think."
"We had a dog when I was a kid," Felicity told them. "He was a mutt from a shelter. Mom used call him a Hellhound when he farted..." she reached down and patted Jimi, who panted happily and butted under her hand. "You make my life sound positively mundane."
"Mundane has its good points," Sam opined. "Sometimes, mundane is a positive relief."
"I'm afraid that your life may now be a little more interesting than you'd really prefer, Fic," Dean warned her. "We're still faced with the question of why a demon is looking for you. That's what started this little road trip, remember? We may have mistaken the name Winchester for your location, rather than your name, but now we know who you are – by blood – it could mean trouble. If demons are looking for an unknown Winchester, they are not interested in throwing you a 'Welcome To Our Favourite Family!' party."
"What do you mean?" asked Felicity.
"We told you before, bloodlines are important," Sam elaborated. "We mattered because we were able to be human suits, vessels, for a couple of flying dicks who wanted to swing their handbags at each other over their Daddy issues. We have been jerked around by Heaven, Hell, and all sorts of assholes in between. But we've never even suspected that we had another full-blood sibling. You were never even mentioned, even when Michael stooped to using our half-brother Adam for his little spat."
"Could they be trying to re-start the Apocalypse?" Sister Fic wondered.
"I don't' think so," Dean grinned. "Last we saw of the two oldest flying dicks, one was working as a police dog, and the other was happily working as a lap warmer for a circus strong man..."
"It's a long story," Sam told her. "But they're... otherwise occupied. But we've thwarted, crossed and pissed off so many demons, it's impossible even to guess what they want you for, except to get at us somehow."
"Sounds like I'd better make sure I've got a jug of holy water on hand at all times," she observed drily.
"We've got an anti-possession charm you can have, too," Sam told her. "Although given that you're a Winchester, it might be sensible to have a tattoo done.
"A tattoo?" she repeated.
"Yeah," Dean told her, pulling down his shirt to display his, "Like this."
She peered at it. "Oh, okay," she shrugged, "But does it have to be there?"
"Well, not really," Sam replied, "But surely that's not a problem for a nun – I mean, you don't wear dresses that show décolletage or anything."
"Oh, I'm not worried about that," she gave them a smile, "It's just that if I'm going to get inked again, that spot's already taken. I suppose I could get it done on a shoulder blade..."
"You got ink already?" Dean gawped.
"Told you, I had a life before I got nunified," she reminded him.
"But..." Sam seemed to find the idea of a tattooed nun equally difficult to comprehend. "But... you're a nun!"
"Nah," she grinned as she stood up, "I'm just a novice. And I'm starving. Let's go get dinner."
Castiel's rehabilitation from Godstiel, as it happened in the Jimiverse, is the subject of the story 'The Man Who Spewed Too Much'. Michael and Lucifer's current whereabouts in the Jimiverse are explained in the story 'Pack Up Your Troubles'. It has angels. And dogs. And donkeys. And fairy floss. And even Sam-In-A-Box. And veal scallopini.
Reviews are the Unexpected Tattoos on the Nun Of Life!
No?
How about the Unexpected Winchester Hugs In The Attic Of Life?
...
You can't possibly want the pirates thing again...
Oh, please yourselves, you reprobates.