Title: Nothing and Everything

Chapter 25

~~~~~~~~~~

Sunlight filtered through a crack in the curtains, waking Gwen. She opened her eyes, yawning. The bed beside her was empty, the sheets cool. Sam had been up for awhile then.

She sighed and stretched, kicking the covers off. She was home. The base had definitely become a home in recent months, a refuge, and place to rest from the job. It was a safe place, at least as much as they could make it and she was glad they’d taken Ellen’s gift.

Gwen lay in bed listening to the sounds of the household around her. She was starting to feel like herself again, the stress of the months draining away. It was a relief to be around to hear the household noises and to be alive when she knew very well she should have died. When she’d looked over the accident report, that had been readily apparent. She should be dead right now and wasn’t. Every day seemed sweeter since she’d woken in the hospital and her natural optimism was returning full force from the vacation it had taken.

Raising her hand, she looked at the ring Sam had picked out with such sweet care. He’d admitted spending a lot of free time trying to find one that ‘looked like her’. The ring was perfect. It wasn’t a potential weapon like Jo’s engagement ring was, but it was exactly what she would have picked out herself if he’d taken her with him. He knew her that well.

Holy hell, I’m really married, Gwen thought. It felt strange, but in a good way, to be married to Sam. Different. Marriage felt different to her than being a girlfriend. It felt…grown up. Strange. She really felt like an adult now. Odd, considering her age, that it had taken getting married to feel like an adult completely.

Frankly, she’d never thought they’d reach the marriage stage. She’d thought she’d be his girlfriend for life.

It still didn’t feel real.

She was glad to be back. The past couple weeks had been busy ones. As soon as Dean and Sam had returned, she and Jo had left on a hunt. It hadn’t been anything earth-shattering or difficult, just something light to get them back fully into the swing of things. They’d returned just last night, fresh from their success, to anxious husbands who both tried to pretend they hadn’t been worried the entire time Jo and Gwen were gone.

Jack was making happy screeches at the top of his lungs, a thing he liked to do often, and she heard Sam and Dean talking in the living room, their voices not quite loud enough for her to hear them clearly. Elsewhere in the house, water was running. The shower upstairs it sounded like. She smelled strong coffee, bacon, and something with cinnamon. Dean getting creative with pancakes maybe? He’d built up quite a pancake recipe repertoire, much to Sam’s amusement. He seemed constantly surprised that Dean could cook. Gwen wasn’t though. Any guy that enjoyed his food as much as Dean? It was inevitable in her opinion that he’d attempt to cook something tasty and Jo encouraged Dean’s culinary efforts. Probably because when he cooked, it meant she didn’t have to. So far since they’d lived here, they’d been treated to apple pancakes, banana pecan pancakes, and something with strawberries, a custard-like filling, and tons of whipped cream.

Or were they heating up bakery rolls? Most mornings that was what they did, or simply ate toast or cereal.

Rolling over in bed, she looked at the clock. It was only seven. Why was everyone up already? What had she missed?

Gwen sat up and got out of bed, pausing in front of the dresser mirror to run a brush through her hair. Aside from a thin scar on her forehead, she hardly looked like she’d been in an accident. Her body was healed. Maybe some day her mind would catch up and allow her to remember the time after she’d picked up Mick. So far, she couldn’t remember any of it, not even the picking him up part, and Gwen wondered if that was best. Maybe she shouldn’t remember why she’d crashed to begin with.

Skirting the two trunks in the middle of the room, and noting one was open, she stepped into the living room. Jack was on a blanket on the floor, practicing his backwards crawl. His screeches had changed into a continuous ‘momomomom’ as he shuffled backwards on his hands and knees. He had to be one of the happiest babies she’d ever seen.

Dean and Sam were on the couch, coffee cups in hand and the box of pictures from one of the trunks on the table. Pictures were fanned out across the surface of the table and on one corner was a yellow legal pad.

Sam was shaking his head. “Didn’t label anything.” Exasperation was in his voice and he laid a picture off to one side.

“Who does?” Dean glanced at her. “Morning, Gwen. Sleep okay?”

“Slept fine.”

“Great.” His attention returned to Sam. “We take pictures for us to remember not so future generations can understand our lives better.”

She approached the couch and slid down the arm of it to sit between Sam and the arm. He adjusted his position to accommodate her, stopping the conversation long enough to kiss her good morning. “He documented everything else, Dean.”

Aaron Bennett’s failure to write who was in every picture on each one was a frustration to Sam, who’d been reading Aaron’s journals. To Gwen, it looked like he was looking for something, though any questions as to what he was trying to find received no answers. She peered over at the legal pad. It had Sam’s handwriting on it and a list of names, numbers, and question marks. She wondered if they should invite Ronnie over to go through the pictures. There was a chance Ronnie might know who some of the people were.

“So?” Dean reached into the box and brought out a few more pictures, dumping them on the table. “Not everyone is into scrap booking.”

“You a secret scrap booker, Dean?” Gwen rested her cheek against Sam’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of his aftershave with an appreciative sniff. He was already showered, shaved, and dressed, ready to tackle the day and probably the mysterious project he and Dean had been working on out in the garage. Neither one would say what it was. Jo had gone in and tried to figure it out, but with the amount of wood, sawdust, and projects half-completed, she hadn’t been able to figure out what they were actively working on. It could have been anything. It didn’t really matter. They’d spill all once they were finished with it anyway. “You been hiding your scrap booking stash from us?” She snapped her fingers. “That’s what you’re working on out in the garage, isn’t it? You’re trying to get Sam hooked on your terrible secret hobby.”

His eyes twinkled with good humor. “Caught me. You know I live for it. It’s a sickness. An addiction. I need serious help. Can’t get through a day without putting a special page together because there are certain pictures that just need highlighted.” He held up a picture of a rather ugly woman with a sour grimace wearing what looked to be an entire furry animal across her shoulders. “Doesn’t this just scream special? I was thinking flower cutouts and glitter. What do you think?”

“Flowers definitely. Glitter might be overkill. How are you familiar with scrap booking and do I want to know?” She reached across Sam and took the picture from him. The woman…was it a woman?…was even uglier up close. “Ugh. She won’t win any prizes for pretty will she?”

“Give a guess how he knows. I’ll give you three and the first two don’t count,” Sam told her, snatching the picture and holding it up to her face. “I think I see a faint family resemblance in the eyes….”

She tugged the picture back and set it down on the other side of the box. “Funny, Sam. I’m going to guess the ex that shall remain unnamed from here on out.” Gwen helped herself to a drink of Sam’s coffee, then handed the cup back.

Dean took a drink of his coffee and carefully set it down away from the pictures. “You’d be right. She had a couple friends who were really into it. I suffered through a few scrap booking parties. Not my idea of fun.” He skimmed a hand across the pile of pictures and picked one up, handing it to her. “Here. I think you’ll appreciate this. Take a look.”

“What’s this?” ‘This’ was two men on motorcycles, grinning at the camera. Bill Harvelle and Aaron Bennett. They looked thoroughly disreputable and happy. Gwen realized that Jo’s grin was just like her dad’s, as was that mischievous twinkle in the eyes. “He rode a motorcycle?”

“Looks like.”

“Kind of cool.” Between tidbits like this and the emails and calls from Ronnie and Ham, Gwen was starting to feel like she’d actually known Aaron. Of course, Neal and Patty Campbell would always be the parents who’d raised her, the ones she thought of as her parents, yet it was nice to know about Aaron. She was coming to a real sort of peace about him now. “Jo looks like her dad. I mean, you can tell he’s her dad by looking at this.”

“Sure can. Show that to Jo later. She went up for her shower before we got these out.”

Sam drained his coffee cup and gestured across the room. “Jack’s backed himself into the corner again, Dean.”

Jack had mastered crawling and moved on to standing while holding on to things and walking while holding on to people and things, but his favorite past time appeared to be backing himself into a corner and crying until someone (usually Dean) came and turned him around. It wasn’t that he couldn’t turn himself around, because he could. Gwen had seen him do it. He just wanted the adult attention, or more accurately, he wanted Dean’s attention and Dean gave it every time. Right now he wasn’t crying, but he’d work himself up to it in a minute.

“Little monkey,” Dean said, affection in his eyes as he got up and turned Jack around, but instead of returning to the couch, he got on the floor with him, stretching out on his side on the blanket. “Show her the others, Sam.”

Another showed Aaron on the motorcycle with Mia standing beside him, a possessive arm around his shoulders and a self-satisfied smirk on her lips. There were people Gwen didn’t recognize with him in other pictures. “You think Bill had the motorcycle when he met Ellen?”

“I think Ellen wasn’t always the responsible mom we know today. You ever listen, I mean really, to some of the things she says about her younger days?” Dean whistled. “She was no little miss innocent.”

“We think she had a wild period,” Sam translated.

Gwen rifled through the pictures. “I know she did. We used to talk when Jo would go out to do laundry or shop. Ellen told me a lot about when she was younger. She calls it her ‘young and stupid days’. Once, she admitted she’d done a few things that’d make Jo gag in embarrassment.”

Jo appeared on the stairs, dressed and with her wet hair braided. “What would make me gag in embarrassment?”

“Some of the things Ellen did when she was younger.”

She held up a hand to stop them. “No details, please. I was already grossed out yesterday, I don’t need it early in the morning.” She crossed the room and went into the kitchen.

The previous night, they’d all gotten a good view of Ellen and Bobby kissing good night. That wouldn’t have been so bad by itself if they hadn’t noticed him copping a feel at the same time. It had turned out that Gwen and Sam hadn’t had to tell Jo about Ellen and Bobby. She’d already known.

“Gwen, do you want coffee,” Jo called.

“Please.”

Jo brought her a mug. “You get any breakfast?”

“No, I just got up.”

She kicked a bare foot against Dean’s denim-clad shin. “Dean.”

“We got distracted,” he protested, but got up and followed Jo back into the kitchen.

“It’s my fault, Jo,” Sam explained, dumping the pictures back in the box. “I brought the pictures out, got looking through them --”

“And neither you nor Dean can resist poking fun at the clothes and hairstyles of dead people.”

Gwen held up the picture of the ugly woman. “Some of it is justified, Jo.”

She squinted at the picture before making a disgusted frown. “Is that a full-on dead animal on her shoulders?”

“Minks it looks like.”

“Three of them?”

Gwen turned the picture around and looked at it. Sure enough, it wasn’t one animal, but three, the other two heads barely visible. “It was the fashion at one point, wasn’t it? For evening wraps?”

Jo shrugged. “I guess.”

Sam took the picture from her, added it back to the box and took the box back into their bedroom.

Gwen reached for the two pictures that remained on the table and handed them to Jo. “Here. Take a look.”

Jo’s eyes widened as she studied the pictures. “Oh my God. My dad rode a motorcycle. How did I not know this?” She half smiled as she set the pictures down. “I wonder if my mom ever rode one. I can’t see her doing that…. She always told me not to date a guy that drove a motorcycle and I find out now that dad drove one? The secrets she’s been keeping….” She made a ‘tsk’-ing noise.

Gwen didn’t know the answer to that one and asked her own questions instead as she got up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen to see what Dean was making. “Why are you all up this early? And why is Dean making a special breakfast? What holiday did I miss?”

“You’ve been married two months today.” Jo said it like it was a special milestone and a thing to celebrate.

“And?”

“And what? Two months is special.”

She peered into the kitchen, staying out of Dean’s way. He had a ‘kiss the cook’ apron on and was crooning off-key as he mixed something in a bowl. The apron had been a gag gift that he actually wore. “You wanted an excuse for Dean to cook.”

“It’s a special day for you and Sam,” Jo protested, kissing the cook, and stealing a handful of chocolate chips from the bowl on the counter before heading back into the living room to make sure Jack was staying out of trouble.

Sam was on the floor with him now, keeping him corralled.

She didn’t see that two months was anything special, but Jo liked to have mini-celebrations like that. She claimed it was part of the ‘staying happy with her life’ plan she’d had in effect since getting her real life back. Gwen supposed it worked for Jo.

“How are the honeymoon plans coming,” Dean asked, pouring batter onto the pan and adjusting the heat.

He would have to ask. Sometimes she thought he and Jo were more interested in their honeymoon plans than she and Sam were. Gwen smelled the cinnamon even more clearly as the pancake cooked. “They’re not.”

“I thought I was bad at making plans. What’s the hold up? Most people take theirs right after the ceremony.”

She leaned against the doorframe. “This and that.”

“You do want to go on a honeymoon though, right?”

“Of course I do. I just…. We’ll get the plans made.”

He flipped the pancake. “Before you’re both seventy?”

She fully intended on getting Sam to look through some of the information she’d found, but as the day went by, it just didn’t happen and she resolved to do it tomorrow.

As part of a concession to Jo’s insistence they celebrate two months, she and Sam agreed to go out to an expensive restaurant alone. The behavior the two were exhibiting was rather like the behavior they’d shown when Gwen and Sam had their first date. Vaguely, Gwen wondered why they were so hot to get rid of them for a few hours. She wouldn’t be surprised to find Ellen had been shanghaied into babysitting and Dean and Jo had a romantic evening of their own planned. Probably something with costumes knowing Dean.

Jo helped Gwen pick out her clothes, which wasn’t hard, as the only remotely fancy dress she had was short, tight, and black, curled her hair for her, and suggested the jewelry set Patricia had bought.

Gwen opened the jewelry case, smiling as the only decent piece of jewelry she had, aside from her wedding ring, came on view. She wasn’t one to wear much jewelry, just the necklace Sam had given her and occasionally a pair of earrings and a watch. The necklace was gone now, lost somewhere between the crash and her waking up in that hospital room. She missed wearing it.

Lifting the pretty necklace Patricia had bought her, she put it on, then took the entire flat section out to unclasp the earrings from it. There, below the section, was a piece of paper. On it, in Patricia Campbell’s handwriting, was much of the information Ronnie had been sending her in twice-weekly emails. The start of a genealogy. If she’d taken the jewelry when Patricia had died, she might have found the information sooner.

What might have been different in her life if she’d found Ronnie and Ham when she was still a teenager? Would she even have met Sam? Would she have met any of them? Her life, undoubtedly, would have been very different.

Gwen set the note aside, finished getting ready, and went to have dinner with her husband.

~~~~~~~~~~

Humans were a nuisance.

It was a thing Balthazar firmly believed, yet kept to himself for the most part. He had a nice niche in New Heaven and admitting he wasn’t fully on board with the current administration would be death for his little corner. Castiel likely kept his real feelings in mind and he was sure Uzziel knew the truth. However, he kept it to himself, not wanting to lose his current position.

He regarded most humans as a nuisance, though there were those he occasionally liked to slip away and dally with or visit with.

Sam Winchester certainly wasn’t one of them.

Still, when Sam summoned him, he went -- more out of curiosity than anything. The Winchester clan, and they were becoming a clan now since they were breeding, rarely called on anyone save Castiel and Abby. Why call on him instead of them? It was a puzzle that had his curiosity high.

Sam was quite direct upon his arrival, wasting no time on stupid pleasantries Balthazar knew he wouldn’t mean. He held out a box. “Do you know what each of these symbols means?”

“I’m fine, thank you, how are you?” Balthazar was tempted to make a snarky comment about Sam cleaning up nice, since he was in a suit and tie, but the box grabbed his attention before he could loose the words from his tongue. He took it and barely managed to hide his shock as he looked it over. Bad. This was very…bad. Most of the symbols were carved into the wood, but a few were drawn on, ready for carving. He glanced up at Sam and shook his head. “Um…sorry…no.” Castiel needed to know about this, like yesterday.

“You sure about that?” Sam’s eyes narrowed and he held out his hand for the box.

Balthazar rubbed a thumb over one particularly troubling symbol. “Why would I lie?” Who had been leaking this information and why? Did they not realize what would happen if any hunter both had this power and understood the individual pieces of it?

“You’d lie for the principle of it.” He grasped the box, wrenching it from Balthazar’s grasp. “It’s no secret you don’t really like us.”

“And yet you called me anyway, assuming I’d lie to you?”

“These symbols look Enochian.” Sam traced one symbol with the tip of a finger, the same symbol that alarmed him the most. “Can you at least confirm that they are?”

“No, I can’t.” He waved a hand in the air towards the box. “I’ve never seen any of those before. Why did you call me?”

“Because I did.” A non-answer. Sam tucked the box under his arm. “That’s all I wanted. Thanks.”

“I mean,” he crossed his arms, “why not call Cas? He lives for arcane knowledge. It’s sort of his hobby. Or Abby? She was in the library for centuries. Either one of them would be more likely than I….”

Yes, they would, wouldn’t they? And they’d both been tight-lipped about recent events, both claiming they were too busy to chat. A suspicion grew inside him that he didn’t want to contemplate, that Castiel and/or Abby were sharing information that was never supposed to be shared with humans. Such action had ended badly for the last angels that had done that and he didn’t want to see either one of them end up dead for it.

“Where did you find the symbols,” Balthazar asked.

Sam shrugged and glanced away, confirming Balthazar’s suspicions. One of those two had given him the information, yet not told him what the symbols meant. Had to be one of them. “It’s not important.”

But it was important. It was very important and he couldn’t leave that box out in the open where anyone who knew how to use the symbols could find it. He followed Sam to the house, keeping out of sight. When all was silent, and the occupants of the house had all left for the evening, he lifted the box and headed for heaven. Someone had some explaining to do.