Title:A Woman Left Lonely
Rating: PG
Spoiler Warnings: Up through Season 2 Episode 10 (Hunted). But not really.
Summary: Her world has not so much tilted on its axis as it has turned inside out and imploded. This is the brief tale of how an unnamed hunter came to be.
Author's Notes: Written for StarryLizard over at SPN Thurs Nights. This is my first foray into SPN fiction. And barely that to be honest (note the summary). In fact, if I accomplished what I was trying for, no real knowledge of SPN is needed for this story to make sense. Prompt is listed at the end.
Disclaimers: Title snagged from the Janis Joplin song A Woman Left Lonely. Playing in Kripke's universe, but this character is all mine :-)
Word Count: 1428
It's 1992, and she's young and in love. Her heart so swollen with the thought of him, that everything else seems dull by comparison. He's not so much handsome, as he is rugged. Not so much tall, as he is thick. His skin is darkened from long days working in the sun (this is Oklahoma, not Hollywood after all), and wrinkles have already begun to form by his eyes and lips. And his sense of tact is buried in an unmarked grave somewhere, along with the ability to do his own laundry. But from the moment his liquid brown eyes met hers, and that too rough mouth slide into a smile from across the counter at Harry's Burger Barn, she was lost.
It's 1994, and as she gazes into the face of her newborn daughter for the first time, she's scared shitless. This is an entire life dependent on her. It's more responsibility then she has ever had to deal with before. What if she doesn't make enough milk? What if the baby won't eat? Won't sleep? What if she forgets to lay her on her back and not her stomach when she's in the crib? What if her daughter hates her? One frightening thought after another begins taking over her brain, and for a moment she simply can't breath. But then her husband brushes a hand across the sweat-dampened locks on her forehead, and places a tender kiss across her brow and actually coos at her and their baby. Her eyes close, and she focuses on the feeling of their daughter cuddling up against her chest, lips seeking out her breast on instinct alone. A tiny fist wraps around her pointer-finger, and she feels a knot of emotion inside of her begin to loosen, and something that she recognizes as contentment seeps in the edges to fill up the now empty space. Suddenly, she's having a hard time remembering why she was so scared in the first place.
It's 1997, and in the space of one day, one hour, one minute her life has jerked to a halt. She thinks that something must be wrong in her head. Somehow her brain has become all twisted up, and she got herself stuck in a stop-motion nightmare. Because what she sees before her can't possibly be real. And if she just closes her eyes tight enough, whispers, pleads, begs long enough everything will be fine again. But when her eyes open, the scene before her is unchanged. Her legs and wrists are bound so tightly by an invisible cord, that she knows not even wrenching her shoulder from it's socket will allow her to get free. Doesn't stop her from trying.
As she struggles, she is forced to watch and wonder why she isn't choking on the sulfur suffusing the air like her husband and child. The air is frozen tundra around her, yet the tears threatening to fall are dried up by the heat of the flames licking at her home, licking at them, in some obscene parody of a kiss. When their blackened bodies stop twitching, and crumble to the ground, finally free of their bonds, her screams give way to sobs, and cries of “Why?!”
Then the face, if it can even be deemed a face, moves into her field of vision from the still burning embers of the house, and smiles with such malicious glee through the smoke, that it is burned forever onto her soul. Meeting it's eyes, watching it laugh at her with so much mirth, a dark pit settles in her stomach, and she understands that there is no why beyond its own enjoyment. Her world has not so much tilted on its axis as it has turned inside out and imploded. She feels something inside her crack and splinter, and recognizes it vaguely as the last vestiges of her happiness.
It's 2001, and she has just been released, for hopefully the last time, from Griffin Memorial. It took her two years of constant battling with the authorities, and her mother, to realize that no one was ever going to believe that the face she saw in the fire that night was real. It took another two years for her to convince everyone that she had accepted the “fact” that the face in the flames was just a “manifestation of her inner turmoil over not coming home in time to save her husband and child from dying in a simple house fire.” Four years in total, pretending that the things that go bump in the night aren't real, pretending that she is a whole, complete human being. That she didn't watch as her family was burned alive. But she knows better, and she will never be whole again. There is a vastness inside of her that will always be empty. The face that she sees whenever she closes her eyes has made sure of that.
It's 2006, and solitaire is more then just a game of cards for her now, it's a way of life. She moves from one hunt to the next, with few breaks in between. She revels in the chance for a cool draft and company that she knows won't ask questions. It's why she makes a point of returning to Ellen's every few months. There is something calming about the place, which is both its biggest draw, and simultaneously the main reason she never stays long. She has worked too long, and too hard, to allow herself any creature comforts. She can't chance going soft. It took her a full year after being released that last time to develop enough of the needed skills to survive her first hunt. Another year allowed her a chance to hone those skills into as near to perfection as she could ever hope to achieve. A third allowed her the time to build up enough connections in the hunting community to be able to find the bastard responsible for all the misery she had suffered. Ellen had been a lot of help in that area, she had understood what it was like to lose a husband, and could imagine what it would mean to lose her only child as well.
The fourth year had been spent tracking it down, and sending it's ass back to hell. The satisfaction that she had assumed she would feel, never came to pass. All in all it had been a surprisingly easy kill, and in the end, was little more then a disappointing hunt. She had spent so long planning for the day when she could look it in the eyes again, that she hadn't given any real thought as to after.
It's been a year since she finally tracked it down, and she has found that very little has changed in the after. She still hunts. She still trains. She's still better friends with Jim Beam then her liver appreciates. In some regards, she has moved on she supposes. The touch of someone else's roughened fingers across her slowly aging skin no longer sends her into a panic attack. So after a good hunt, a few shots, and some quiet solace at a safe house like Ellen's, she has brought the occasional hunter back to whatever room is passing for home that night. They never stay long, and she never asks them too. Better that they leave while the lights are still dim, and all their secrets still clothed.
She still wakes up in the middle of the night fighting back waves of nausea that have nothing to do with the alcohol in her stomach. And that face, damned to hell as it may be, haunts her every night. The sound of its laughter more clear in her memory then the tinkling giggle of her daughter, or the throaty chuckle of her husband. She hates herself the most for that.
Everyday she betrays their memory, refusing to think, to dwell, to long for them during her waking hours. She has compartmentalized herself into a before and after, with no blending in between, and no room for the memory of the dead. In the lonely and still moments of dawn and dusk, she allows herself a chance to pause and mourn. No more then that. It's so much less then what they deserve, but it is all she has in her to give.
~End. The specs for this story were as follows: Character requested: Unnamed female hunter Timeline: Pre-Episode 2x10 Prompts (up to 3 objects, words or phrases): I've always wanted to know what this hunter's story was. Anyone care to fill me in? She's seen in episode 2x10 (~37:30 mark) sitting in the Roadhouse.