Benediction - SN fic - PG13
Nov. 5th, 2006 02:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigriswolfTitle: Benediction
Fandom: "Supernatural"
Disclaimer: not my characters, anyone you recognize. lyrics excerpted from "Who You'd Be Today" by Kenny Chesney. just for fun.
Warnings: far in the future
Pairings: it's non-incestous het
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1088
Point of view: third
It ain't fair; you died too young,
like a story that had just begun
but death tore the pages all away.
-
There is one word that Jo never says. No matter what the circumstances of the leaving are, she never says it. Never thinks it.
She shares a smile with Sam and he kisses her forehead, pulls her gently to his chest. “Be back soon,” he murmurs into her hair and she nods, answers, “See you then.”
Johnny always follows Sam down the drive to the car, begging to be taken along. Sam kneels in front of him and explains, every single time, that he can come after he’s grown big and strong like his daddy.
Jo blinks back tears. It shouldn’t hurt so much anymore. It shouldn’t.
-
Mom visits sometimes. Johnny always demands stories of hunters and Mom gives in to the request. She tells stories of Daniel Elkins, the greatest vampire hunter; of Caleb, the best marksman America ever had; of Pastor Jim, the man of faith who sent untold numbers of evils back to Hell’s caverns.
She never mentions the Winchesters. Jo asked her not to.
-
When Mom leaves the final time, Jo doesn’t say goodbye. She says, “I love you,” “Be safe,” “Sam’ll be sorry he missed you,” but not “Goodbye.”
Mom smiles at her and hugs her hard, says, “You’re doing good, sweetie,” and kisses Johnny’s cheek. Jo hands over Marian, and Mom gently takes her youngest grandbaby, croons to her, kisses the top of her head, and hands her back.
“I love you, Joanna,” Mom says. She doesn’t say goodbye, either.
That word is no longer in any of their vocabularies.
-
Marian cries at the funeral, and so do Johnny and Sam. But Jo’s eyes are dry. Her arms are steady around her daughter, and Sam’s holding Johnny with one hand and Jo with the other. She leans into him, offering comfort, but taking none.
Hunters from all over the country have come. To remember, to mourn, to honor, to say goodbye.
Jo stands by the casket, open and showing her mother’s body, but she has no goodbye to say. She’s forgotten the word, turned her back on it.
That night, with Marian asleep and Johnny pretending in his room, Jo cries in Sam’s arms.
-
Sam still hunts, despite everything. It’s in his blood, a part of him he can no longer deny. Jo understands and offers her approval; it’s hard to stay close to the dead if you turn away from the very basic parts of them.
Not that Sam ever tells her that’s why he hunts. After all, that’s why she does, too.
-
She goes to Mom’s headstone every now and then, alone. Mom isn’t buried there; she’d been scattered to the wind, per her request. But some of the hunters who’d known her chipped in to pay for a stone.
Jo couldn’t thank them, but Sam did.
She doesn’t say much, just sits, back to the pale marble, feels the engraved words through her shirt. She sometimes talks about the kids, about Johnny who just turned seven and Marian who’s three. About Heather who was just born and has her daddy’s eyes.
The sun is bright in the sky, warm on her skin. Memories play in front of her eyes.
She still can’t say goodbye.
-
“Do you think he ever forgave me?”
She feels Sam look over, reach out, but she jerks away from the touch.
“It never crossed his mind not to,” Sam answers softly and reaches out again. She lets him, this time, moves into it, curls up in his arms.
“Johnny looks so much like him,” she says brokenly. “Sometimes, I can’t meet his eyes.”
It’s been almost ten years and she has yet to cry for him. Sam holds her tight, kisses her hair, her cheeks, her lips, and she sobs into his neck.
-
The day Johnny turns fifteen, Jo tells him the truth. Sam stands behind her chair, hands warm on her shoulders. Marian and Heather play outside, with Eli their Wolfhound for protection.
They are too young, yet, to know.
All things considered, Johnny takes it well.
That night, it’s Sam who cries. Jo just wraps her arms around him and waits it out.
-
“I never told him goodbye,” Jo says to Mom’s stone. “Either of them.” She laughs. “Sometimes, I look over my shoulder and I expect to see him, either of ‘em, gloriously alive.” She licks her lips, looks to the sky. “Sam’s good, Mom. You know that. And I love him, I do. I do.” She can’t form the words, can’t give them life.
“I miss you, Momma,” she says instead. “I miss you so much.”
-
On Johnny’s twentieth birthday, he comes home.
He’s grown, since he stormed out, cursing her for her lies, cursing Sam for his pretending, cursing the world for not being what he expected.
He looks so much like his father it hurts Jo to look at him, but she does. He meets her eyes and tells her he’s sorry, so sorry. She smiles and pulls his head down so she can kiss his forehead.
“I love you,” she whispers and he wraps his arms around her.
“I love you, Mom,” he replies.
Marian and Heather hug him next. Marian knows the truth, knows that while Sam is her and Heather’s daddy, he’s not Johnny’s.
For Marian, it changes nothing.
Sam waits to the side. Jo looks up at him and smiles sadly.
It’s been almost twenty years since he’s seen his brother. And Johnny looks so much like him…
-
“He wouldn’t blame you,” Jo murmurs to Sam the night after her son returns. “He wouldn’t.”
“I know,” Sam answers. “I know.”
-
There is a word Jo hasn’t said to anyone in almost her entire life. She didn’t say it to her father or the man she loved or her mother. She doesn’t say it to her children or her husband. She doesn’t say it to her friends.
She’ll never say it again. Never.
-
Sam still hunts. He’s old now, tired, and Jo knows it won’t be long.
Johnny and Marian don’t call that often; life is hectic and full. Heather visits almost every week.
Whenever Sam shuffles in, Jo takes his hands and leads him to bed. Nearness is all they need anymore. Nearness and warmth, and the shared memories of days long gone.
And then one day, Sam doesn’t come back.
Jo hasn’t said goodbye to anyone in a lifetime.
She calls up Heather and Johnny and Marian and she tells them goodbye.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Mesmerizing
Date: 2006-11-05 07:39 am (UTC)Thanks for your lovely words. They made my night.
Re: Mesmerizing
Date: 2006-11-05 07:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-05 08:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-05 08:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-05 09:10 pm (UTC)Wow. This is brilliant. Because at first I was like "...Sam?" And then I was like "...oh. Okay. Yeah."
Geez. I need a hug.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-05 09:31 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-06 04:19 am (UTC)THANK YOU!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-06 04:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-06 12:10 pm (UTC)thank you! one for the memories.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-06 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-06 07:18 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-07 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-07 02:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-11 07:50 pm (UTC)This is well-written, angsty and just so very painfully beautiful. It is my favourite Sam/Jo fic. I love the flow of the story, I love that Jo tells her mom Sam is a good man and I love that they don't tell eager Johnny the truth until later. But most of all I love that Jo doesn't say goodbye until the end. It's just touching and I could see this happening in the show.
Wonderful, wonderful work. Hats off to you.
And may I suggest you post this beauty in
Once again, good work.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-11 07:52 pm (UTC)Whenever Sam shuffles in, Jo takes his hands and leads him to bed. Nearness is all they need anymore. Nearness and warmth, and the shared memories of days long gone.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-11 10:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-06 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-06 07:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-31 02:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-31 03:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 03:54 pm (UTC)Great job. Be proud!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 04:11 pm (UTC)That was beautiful and heartbreaking. Excellent work. Gosh this fandom never ceases to make me all emo for the day! Hehehe.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 04:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 04:46 pm (UTC)I've always thought Jo had so much potential for this kind of stories, but never actually came across one that moved me this much. Hell, I don't think I've ever been moved by Jo at all. Until now that is.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 04:52 pm (UTC)Thank you so much!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 05:55 pm (UTC)Also that fic that is a stand in for the Shane/SPN fic we plotted is up, if you wanted to see it. [here (http://rememberbefore.livejournal.com/35801.html)]
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-03 07:21 pm (UTC)And, off to read.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 02:28 pm (UTC)This is why I love the Harvelle/Winchester relationship. There's so much history and so much potential for a future too.
Thanks for writing and sharing.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-05 12:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-06 03:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-06 03:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-04-08 02:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-13 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-13 02:54 pm (UTC)