milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Susannah is once again working in the bar, although she has less of a pile of documents with her tonight. All she has is a notebook, in which she is alternately taking notes, scratching out notes, and doodling.

She is not a bad teacher, but some things are hard to approach.

She also has a large bottle of water, because proper hydration is important.

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"What about you?" Sam asks.

"Are you a pragmatist too?"

"Oh, I suppose," she says. "With a romantic streak, but mostly. The older I get, the more the philosophical questions get to me, but there's still evil to deal with in the meantime."

Dean's expression says 'romantic. Uh huh."

What he actually says, though, is a little different.

Kinda.

"Pretty sure the open road's enough philosophy for me, eh, Sammy?"

Sam's smile is easy and relaxed, even if there's a flicker of something deep down in the depths of his glance.

"Seems to work well enough."

"Well," she says, "that's not the life I lead anymore."

And she doesn't envy them it.

"That's gotta suck."

What? To Dean's mind it does.

Maybe this lady is Sammy's kind of woman.

Who the hell knows?

"No," she says. "It's good. It's been good."

"I'm still... involved. And the past has a way of not staying in the past." Not to mention the future. "But I have a family again, and that's worth a lot."

Sam's glance doesn't flick to Dean, not even for an instant.

(It doesn't have to. The careful way he doesn't look at his brother says enough.)

"Yeah. I can see that."

"But our road was a little different from yours, anyway," she says. "There was plenty of miscellaneous trouble on the way, but we had our goals. One of them we reached, at a cost, and one of them I decided wasn't worth it."

"Pragmatic decision."

"Yeah," Dean says.

It's hard to stay freaking casual, but he manages it. By the skin of his teeth.

"I know how that goes."

His voice isn't even tight. He just ain't looking at Sam.

He's pretty sure Sam remembers, too. Dean's just--

Dean's not sure he doesn't regret it.

She looks down into her notebook, all half-started sentences and crossed out ideas.

"I do miss the simplicity," she says. "Or maybe that's the wrong word. The starkness of it all. There was the trail, and we followed it. There was the job, and we did it. However cruel the choices got to be. And whatever came next wasn't up to us."

It's an unhealthy thing to miss, she knows, and maybe she would apologize for it, if she was talking to anyone else.

Sam looks a little startled.

"Wasn't up to you?"

She blinks at his startlement. "Well, we didn't get a menu. Or even much of a map, come to that. Just a destination. Whatever was on the road between us and there..." She shrugs. "We were up for it."

Dean snorts.

"Pretty sure no line of work comes with a map, sweetheart. Fuckin' instruction booklets're useless anyway."

Dean is a man infinitely capable of programming a VCR.

Or building one.

That earns him a sharp look. "I wasn't the one who asked the question, sugar," she says sweetly. "Just explaining the way it was."

Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Dean.

"So you guys were on your way somewhere, and were gonna get there come hell or high water," Sam sums up. "I'm guessing from what you said that this wasn't the sort of trip with a lot of different routes."

"Our leader was the kind of man who thought in straight lines," she says. She sounds a little amused. "But no. Not a lot of options. Like the train--Blaine was crazy, but he was the only one who could take us where we needed to go."

"Most of the time, there was just one way forward, and we took it. Come, as you say, hell or high water."

Yeah, so this is one of those times where Dean's got nothing to say.

Could be because Sammy's trying to drive a point home. Could be because he thinks all this is bullshit.

Whatever it is, he just crosses his arms and leans back against the table.

Might as well be comfortable while they hash it out, right?

"So what changed?"

She takes a sip of her cocktail. "That's a pretty personal question, Sam. And not a short story."

"The question I have in my mind to ask is--will you open to me as I open to you? Or is this just an interrogation?" Her expression is calm and pleasant, even open, but there's something like steel in her eyes.

Dean's jaw tightens, but he stays right the hell where he is.

Could be he wants to see which way Sam'll jump before he opens his big mouth.

Could be he already knows.

And if Susannah's got something like steel in her eyes, there ain't no mistaking the steel in Dean's.

There never has been.

Sam shrugs.

"Thought it was a conversation."

He meets her gaze and holds it.

"Generally interrogations involve badges and things."

"Is that a no?"

"Can't say yes without knowing what you wanna know."

Dean's casual as anything.

"Gotta watch our backs, right?"

"That's fair enough," she says. She considers.

"Tell you what; we'll drop it. There's nothing you can use to hurt me or anyone else in your question, nothing important. It's just not fun to talk about. You're doing good work and I don't mean you any harm. I'd like to help you, if I could." That's the point of the questions, ultimately.

"You can decide how much you want to trust me in your own time."

Edited 2008-10-12 04:22 (UTC)