When the Cradle Falls
Chapter Twenty-Two: Church Bells
Sam stared at himself in the foggy bathroom mirror. The white dress shirt, unbuttoned, already has noticeable sweat stains. Not noticing them, Sam ran a comb through his wet hair, trying to get it to look somewhat managed, for once in his life.
He pulled the comb away, only to see there was a persistent cowlick standing proud on the back of his head. With an autonomic shout of frustration, he seized the plastic comb in both hands and snapped it in half. Breathing heavily, he threw the pieces down to the ground, catching his rabid appearance in the mirror.
His hair was in disarray once again, shirt wrinkled from the burst of anger.
Feeling an inexplicable rage pushing up against his chest, Sam's face twisted in disgust at the pathetic image of himself: the pinnacle of insanity. Adhering to his reflection, Sam's fist drew back and pounded forward, the glass buckling, creating a sharp crater around it.
Gasping at the adrenaline fleeing his body, Sam felt an electrical pain traipse the length of his arm. He groped behind him for the wall. Sense of perception thrown off by the pain in his arm and the tears beginning to sting his eyes, Sam went to lean back, but had misjudged how close the wall was. Slipping, he several feet into the distant wall, head slamming against is ferociously.
There was a knock at the bathroom door. "Sammy?" Dean asked quietly.
Not responding, Sam quickly stood up and brushed himself off. He exited the bathroom, not making eye contact with his brother. Pretending nothing was wrong, he focused on buttoning up his shirt, which now had blood on the sleeves.
Dean checked the bathroom, and saw the broken comb and the shattered mirror, noticing Sam's bloody knuckles, along with the splatters on his shirt. "You should take care of that hand. It might get infected."
"It's fine."
Dean observed his little brother. For the past week, never had he seen Sam cycle through so many emotions. He would be angry, numb, and devastated all within an hour. However, the one constant was the new determination he had in finding Jess' killer. They both knew better than it being a freak accident. Dying just like the way their mother had, the only thing Sam could focus on was researching and chasing down leads. He had barely slept, barely ate, running purely on vengeance.
"Right…" Trailing off, Dean didn't want to be a nag. He smoothed down the lapel of the FBI monkey suit he wore. "Well, we should leave soon."
"Just gimme five," Sam muttered, looking down at his bloodied fist.
"I'll be in the car."
The funeral was held in tiny, limestone Methodist church in Salinas, California. About an hour away from Stanford, it was where Jess had been born and raised.
The heavy wooden doors were propped open, and Sam and Dean fell into the stream of somber funeral-goers, all clad in black. The inside of the church was vaulted, with wooden beams serving as an endo-skeletal support system. Everyone slowly milled around, some sitting in pews, other quietly conversing with one another. Over the soft murmur of the crowd was quiet piano music, coming from the right side of the altar. The player was an older woman with frosted blonde hair, large earrings, and bifocal glasses. Sam recognized her as an aunt or someone of the sort from the Christmas he had spent with her family last year.
A lump formed in Sam's throat as his eyes scanned to the altar, where an ivory casket was set up. Flowers of all colors covered and surrounded the casket. Sharp tears began to prick Sam's eyes and with frustration, he remembered the casket was merely a symbol. It was empty, as there had been no body to bury.
Jess had burned away to nothing in the fire.
Vision flitting to the left of the casket, Sam apprehensively walked up to the couple standing on the altar. The woman's hair was pulled back in a simple bun. Even with no makeup and figure hidden under a shapeless dress, Jess's mother, Andrea Moore managed to look radiant. And beside her was Jess's father, Matthew. He had white buzzed hair and a suit that barely seemed to fit his large frame. The man had served in the military for nearly twenty, had fought in several wars.
Andrea was the first one to spot Sam. With a sob, she rushed down the stairs and wrapped him into a bone-crushing hug. "Oh Sam…" she whispered quietly. He guiltily returned the hug. The two slowly pulled away when Matthew stepped down beside his wife.
Sam submissively made eye contact with Matthew. The man had not initially liked him, thinking he hadn't been good enough for Jess-and he was right. Not sure exactly how he would react, Sam carefully opened his mouth. "Mr. Moore, I'm sorry for your loss," he said, operating robotically.
Breaking the tension, Matthew grabbed Sam in a stiff, short, one armed hug. "Our loss," he said, voice breaking. Undoubtedly he had seen many horrible things, but the funeral of his only child was the worst thing he'd been through, evident in the shakiness of his voice, and the shininess of his icy eyes.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save her," Sam apologized, feeling any emotional walls of protection he had built up come crumbling down.
"It was an accident, a tragic accident," Matthew supplied, jaw twitching. He patted Sam on the shoulder before gently guiding his wife back up beside the coffin, where the greeted several other guests.
There was a clattering sound near the entrance of the church that reverberated painfully throughout the entire room. All conversation ceased, the piano notes stopped in an unpleasant discord, and heads turned to the source of the noise.
Trying to rebalance an unused lectern that had been knocked over, the culprit tumbled sideways while trying to right the fallen furniture. There were several gasps of disgust as the figure gripped a nearby pew and staggered himself up. Still holding the bench for support, Sam felt a gathering of rage when he recognized the familiar figure. Wearing a wrinkled, stained dress shirt, no jacket, and with sunglasses, and messy hair, was Brady, a friend of Sam's and Jess's. He had been the one to introduce the two of them.
Now Sam knew Brady had a tough time since sophomore year. His friend had fallen into drugs and bad company. The past few years had been difficult, but Sam always considered him a friend.
Straightening up, Brady gestured sloppily around the chapel. "Where's the booze? Let's get this party started!"
Teeth clamping together, Sam's muscles coiled as he marched down the aisle of the church, shoving past clumps of people frozen in shock at Brady's inappropriate comment. Once reaching his used-to-be-friend, Sam grabbed him by the unironed collar of his shirt and dragged him-nearly choking him-out the doors of the church.
Dean had been standing off to the side, not wanting to impose on the funeral of a woman he had known for roughly five minutes. He quickly slinked around the perimeter of the church, following his brother out of the building.
Rushing down the stairs, Dean quickly found Sam, who had Brady pinned to the side of the church. A way's away from them was the small graveyard where Jess would be buried. Upon seeing that, Sam's temper slowly became more and more out of control.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Sam shouted into Brady's face. With one hand, he snatched the sunglasses off his friend's face and paused when he saw Brady's bloodshot eyes. "You come here drunk and high? How fucking dare you! Her parent's and family are in there, man!"
Brady blinked, seemingly trying to sort out where he was. "She was my friend. I'm mourning, too."
Sam slammed his against the limestone wall. "You're disrespecting her memory by showing up like this!"
"Sam, come on man-"
"No! I'm not gonna calm down! You know how much she meant to me and now you're here shitting on all of that!"
"How do you think I feel, Sam?" Brady slurred. "I was the last person to see her alive!"
"What does that mean?" Sam demanded lowly. His one hand held Brady to the wall, the other clenched in a fist, raised high, ready to strike.
"The weekend trip you and your brother went on? She called me, confused and upset, worried about you. I came over to talk to her. She was making cookies-" Sam remembered the note and batch of cookies she had left for him when he came home. "I should've stayed. I shouldn't have left her," Brady whispered quietly. "Maybe I could've stopped it."
Fist dropping, Sam released his hold on Brady. "You couldn't have," Sam muttered, stepping away from his friend. "There's nothing you could've done."
Slumping down, Brady sniffled and replaced the sunglasses on his face.
"You should go."
Surprised, Brady glanced up at Sam. "What?"
"Go home. Sober up. Jess deserves better than that."
Slowly coming to terms with that, Brady nodded, and patted Sam on the shoulder. "She was a great girl."
"The best," Sam whispered. He clapped Brady back and watched as his friend limped away from the church, out of sight.
With a cough, Sam turned to Dean, who had watched silently from the side, there to make sure the situation hadn't gotten too out of hand. "Friend of yours?" he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral, but he couldn't say he was particularly impressed by the fratty looking boy.
"He introduced me to Jess. Brady's a good guy. He's just been going through a rough patch."
Dean nodded but didn't comment any further.
The two brothers stood in silence for a moment, before returning to the church, just as the bells began to ring, indicating the beginning of the service.
Everyone was long gone. Cleared out. They were all at a bar down the road, the Moore's Irish heritage manifesting itself in copious amounts of whiskey, loud laughing, and offkey singing, a stark difference from the tone of the funeral. Dean had readily embraced the festivities, fitting right in the family. It had made Sam wonder what kind of relationship Jess and Dean would've had if they had really gotten to know each other.
However, the scene of the bar had quickly overwhelmed Sam, and he had slipped out of the bar unnoticed, and ended up back at the graveyard.
By the time he made it to the freshly dug grave, the sun was beginning to set. Knees buckling, he collapsed in front of the headstone. It was marble, with a small picture of Jess on it. Below that was her name, Jessica Lee Moore, "Beloved Daughter" scrawled beneath that.
One hand gently moved forward and ran down the small picture of her. She looked radiant in it, hair blown back by the wind, a white smile on her face. Sam tried to sear that image into his brain, wanting that to be how he remembered her, for all he saw now was her burning on the ceiling, staring down at him in excruciating pain.
"I'm so sorry. I should've saved you." Sam hadn't told anyone and never would, but Jess's death was his fault. For weeks before her death, he had dreams of her burning. Of course, he thought it was some weird symbolic feeling of his mother. He didn't take them seriously or literally. Of course they were offsetting, but something like that couldn't happen.
But it had.
It was a burden he was going to have to carry the rest of his life, something he would think about every morning he woke up and everything he went to bed, gazing up at an empty ceiling.
Next, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black, velvet box. Snapping it open, he revealed a simple golden ring with a small diamond in the middle. He had picked it out a few weeks ago, and had been carrying it around with him, waiting for the right opportunity to give it to her. She had been the one he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. This ring was for no one else.
Removing the ring from the box, Sam dug a small hole in the fresh dirt, deep enough that it wouldn't be disturbed. Pressing the ring into the dirt, Sam refilled the hole and patted down the dirt until it compacted. "I know it's not much, but it was the best I could do," Sam said. He looked up at the sky, which was now a pinkish color.
Wiping away the tears, he sniffled and look back at her picture. "I promise I'll find who did this to you. I'll never stop looking. I'll make them pay."
Standing, Sam kissed his fingers and pressed it against the top of the headstone. "I love you, Jess. Rest easy."
Turning away from the headstone, Sam stiffly walked out of the graveyard, feeling oddly at peace and burdened at the same time. He couldn't let himself look back, knowing he would break if he did.
As if on cue, Sam spotted the Impala, parked nearby, with Dean leaning up against it, a flask in one hand. He was silent as he watched Sam approach, who came and leaned on the car beside him. Dean passed the flask to him. "How you doing?"
Sam shrugged and took a swig. "Couldn't tell you."
Dean nodded and squinted off into the distance, taking the flask back. "Lemme tell you her family sure knows how to party."
Feeling himself letting out an involuntary chuckle, Sam agreed. "You should've seen them at Christmas. And Jess. She was always the life of the party."
"She seemed like a great girl, Sam. I mean it."
"She was."
They shared the flask until it was empty, and watched as the sun finally disappeared beyond the church and the graveyard. Once there was no light left and the sky turned dark, Dean pocketed the flask and stood up straight, looking to his brother. "What now?"
With a sigh, Sam looked out over the landscape, breathing in the air that had become sharper in the waning light. There was nothing left for him here, anymore. "We dug around for a week and didn't find anything. Now, we go to Blackwater Ridge. We find Dad. And we find the thing that killed Jess and Mom."
"I like the sound of that," Dean agreed, moving to the other side of the car. He fished the keys out of his pocket and stared at them for a moment. "You wanna drive?" He looked up at Sam.
Eyebrows shooting up, Sam contemplated the words for a moment. Dean had never offered to let him drive. It was Dean's way of sympathizing with Sam. Recognizing the significance of the moment, Sam graciously accepted the keys from his brother.
Once the two were settled in the car, they pulled away from the limestone church, leaving the little cemetery in the rearview mirror.
We're officially over 100,000 words! A short chapter originally part of a longer one, I thought it stood better by itself. But don't worry! I have a good portion of the next chapter written, and I promise it'll be what many of you have been waiting for! ;)
As usual, thanks to everyone who reads and enjoy my story! And I've decided to keep this story as a massive fic as opposed to several shorter ones. It'll certainly be a very long one, but I promise it'll be worth it!
Be on the lookout for the next chapter!