Scrapbook (a family album)
Page 1: When the Beauty Queen Surrenders Her Crown
by MaygraSupernatural, all audiences, future-fic. Characters: Sarah (Dean & Sam)
(459 words) Set in eighth-horizon's Salvation universe, by permission (possibly by coercion).
November 4th, 2010
Holy Cross Cemetery reminded Sarah of the cemeteries back east, except it was November and there was no snow on the ground and it wasn't cold enough to need anything but a sweater. Her mother's grave would be under snow right now, crystal and hard and bright. But in California...the grass was still green and the sky was blue, not gray. The only winter storms she had to worry about were likely to have nothing to do with the weather.
She felt odd stopping at the information office. She had to ask and it wasn't like she could ask Dean, even if he knew where the grave was. But the office was helpful; public record, name and plot and a little map.
It wasn't hard to find, but she felt awkward as she got closer. She fiddled with the flowers; a spray of lilies and roses, and found herself wondering how appropriate they were, this was...when she wasn't here out of friendship or grief and only a little regret.
She was almost surprised to see flowers already there, cornflower blue and poppy red. The grave wasn't forgotten but her eyes took in other stones and saw similar arrangements. Only one of the copper vases fitted to the headstone was filled. The other held a few dry, brown strands of another arrangement already dead and removed.
She hadn't expected the picture.
She didn't see them back home -- no, no...not home. This was home now. This place, this town, this life she'd chosen over her father's approval, in the face of his disapproval.
They didn't often do pictures on headstones back east. The extremes of temperature were too great. And even this one was a little faded by time and the sun. Five years took its toll.
She settled the flowers in the empty vase and wished she'd brought water. She had a bottle in the car but hadn't thought to bring it. She had to break the stems a little and that left a mess; flower sap on her hands, sticky and pungent.
"Wow, I feel really kind of silly," she said softly, breaking the stems into ever smaller pieces, then knelt down, arranging the pieces end to end, eyes glancing over the picture, the name inscribed in the marble.
Jessica Lee Moore. Beloved DaughterJanuary 24, 1984 - November 2, 2005
Her mother's headstone said, Allison Randolph Blake -- Beloved Wife and Mother
"You could have been that," she said, still arranging bits of green and brown stem bits on the grass. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. I kind of feel like I should introduce myself...I'm Sarah. Sarah Blake Winchester," she said and almost felt like she should apologize.
She hadn't expected to cry either.
++++
08/18/2006
Comment? drop me an email at maygra [@] bellsouth.net or leave a comment in my livejournal.