Mary Winchester (Jr) (marygoround) wrote in bizarroworld, @ 2014-11-16 19:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | - alternate alternate universe, johnny outlaw, mary winchester |
Wild Horses (Mary and Johnny)
Eventually, the planets blended together for Mary. It didn’t matter because there was always a new culture to learn. Always some threat or other to worry about. Her family was there, but Johnny wasn’t. She’d stopped hoping that she’d wake up and he’d be there a few planet hops ago. She’d even lost the hope that they’d eventually find a way to take the fight to the aliens and get them to send everyone home. Even if she was sent home, she wasn’t sure if it would be to her time period.
So when she woke up in a bed that smelled very strongly of Johnny’s shampoo, she thought at first that it was just another plan that the aliens had of screwing with her head. Once she had enough time to open her eyes and look around, she realized with a start that it was the motel room she’d been staying in before that angel spirited her away back into the past and started this whole nightmare.
It could be another fake Earth. The aliens had suckered them all in with that fake Electric City. She wasn’t going to just fall for it. Not this time. Not even when she got out of bed and spotted the all-too familiar cowboy hat on the table. Nor when she heard the hot water running in the bathroom.
She didn’t call out. Even as much as she wanted to. Instead, she just stared at the door to the bathroom. Waiting, perhaps, for someone to come out. Maybe this was just another forced roommate situation. If it was, then she really wanted to shoot whatever alien had put the cowboy hat here in the face. In spite of herself, her fingers stretched towards the hat, trembling. They hovered just a half an inch away, as if she couldn’t bring herself to confirm that it was just an illusion.
----
The shower was warm, pleasant, but Johnny knew that he couldn’t stay in it forever. They had work to do. That’s why they were here in Michigan. On the trail of something big and bad and mysterious, moreso than normal. At least life never got boring. Also, Mary was just on the other side of that door, asleep. Maybe he could slide back into bed with her before she woke up and wrap her up in his arms. Maybe he could convince her to stay that way for a few more hours, and she’d never know that he’d already been up. Not that he’d be able to hide that for long. He didn’t lie to her if he could help it, not when there were so many things he kept hidden.
Sighing, the vigilante turned the handles until the water was only a drip that wouldn’t stop. He toweled himself off and began the exit procedure, trying to be quiet in hopes that he’d be able to follow through on that idea.
When he opened the door though, he saw that Mary was up. Awake already and reaching for his hat? He was about to speak, ask her what she was doing, tease her about trying to wear the hat when he wasn’t looking, and it hit him. A great blinding pain through the whole of his head. He saw visions of him and Mary, things that he somehow felt as memories, things that he’d never lived through, but they were so goddamned real.
Johnny crumpled in the doorway of the bathroom, feeling like his skull was going to split open. Somehow the knowledge that nothing had killed him yet was not at all comforting.
---
Mary looked up as soon as she heard the door open. Her mouth fell open, forming his name even if the sound didn’t get past her lips. Especially when he fell. There had been times over the last few months since he’d disappeared that she’d been angry and times that she’d talked herself into doubting him, even times when she’d been convinced that he’d had a choice in leaving her. All of that fell away and she crossed the room to kneel beside him.
“Johnny?” she asked, her voice just loud enough to be heard. “Stay with me.”
She reached out and her hand rested on his arm. It was only then that she realized that this was all real. He was here. She still didn’t know which point in time this Johnny was from, but she didn’t care all that much right now. At the very least, she was pretty sure that he knew who she was, judging by their surroundings. So that was a step up from when she’d first found him in the past.
All that she knew right now was that she wasn’t moving her hand until he asked her to. She needed that tactile reassurance that he was her and he was real. She also needed him to know that she was here until he came out of whatever had just happened to him.
-----
Her voice.
Through all of it, Johnny could still hear Mary’s voice. In his head, it echoed into words that he’d never heard, arguments they’d never had. Conversations he’d never expected to partake in. There was a bright flash, and then it was over. All the knowledge was still in there, he could see it, but the pain was gone now. He could feel the drip of blood from his nose, and he wiped it away before he looked up.
His hand was gripping her arm, perhaps a little too tightly, and he forced himself to loosen up, though he didn’t let go. He couldn’t let go.
“I ….” Johnny bowed his head again, feeling a bit dizzy. “Oh god… I have memories…”
---
Mary stared, still trying to work out what had just happened here.
"Okay, this is going to sound nuts, but do you remember anything about aliens?"
She put her free hand on the side of his face and gently wiped at some of the sweat that had formed there. She had to know which version of Johnny she was dealing with. Had to know if he knew what she'd just been through or not.
Just stay here. I've got you," she said softly. Whatever had just happened, and whatever memories might have resurfaced, she wasn't going anywhere. They'd definitely need to have a talk at some point if he didn't remember her time in the past or the alien abduction, but for now she just needed to make sure that he was okay and that she knew what she could and couldn't say around him until he had the chance to recover from whatever had just happened.
----
“I remember everything.” Johnny realized how cryptic that sounded. He sat in silence for a few more beats until he felt the last of the dizziness pass. He knew he had to explain. That it would make her think that yes, he’d been there with her. Which, he didn’t know if this meant that he had, the memories.
Finally, he glanced up, focused on her face. He’d expected it to be different from what he recalled, somehow. More complicated to see, or something.
“I mean…” he said quietly. “I remember both. I have my memories of what I’ve lived with you, but I remember the aliens, too. I know all of it. I know both sides. I know what you went through in that weird black and white world. What we pretended to be. I know our first kiss here, and there. I know that we were still working on getting comfortable with one another and that we hadn’t… yet… how… how is any of this possible?”
----
Everything. Mary’s breath caught in her throat. When she’d first gotten stuck back in York and for some time after that, she’d run through scenarios of making it back home to the correct time. She’d tried to work through what she would say or do with the future Johnny who hadn’t been entirely honest with her. Who didn’t know what she knew about him. She’d always assumed that his memories would be wiped whenever she went back. And then the aliens had happened and for awhile, she’d given up hope on ever getting home. As she’d gotten closer to the past version of Johnny who didn’t have any secrets to keep from her and once she’d found out that maybe she didn’t have to age and grow old on him while he went on forever, she’d started to question whether or not she wanted to go home.
Then he’d disappeared and all her feelings on the subject and speculations didn’t matter one whit. She’d stopped hoping that she’d suddenly find a way home awhile back. She’d stopped believing that she’d ever see him again. And in all of it, she’d never prepared for this particular scenario. For him to have both sets of memories-to suddenly just get them back when she got home.
She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and tried to ignore the confused rush of emotions and focus on his question.
“Something-whether it was the aliens or the angels-must have taken those memories from you when the aliens dropped you back off at home. Whatever it was probably didn’t want to screw up the timeline. So you went home and you never knew that you left me behind.”
Her eyes clouded over with tears and she looked away. It wasn’t his fault that he’d left her behind, or his fault that he’d forgotten. But that didn’t make it any easier on her.
“I’m not sure why you got them back now though. I guess because it won’t change anything that’s already happened.” she shrugged helplessly. Time travel was always a little bit mind boggling.
----
“I couldn’t say.” Johnny admitted. He knew a lot of things now, but had no idea of why memories would be taken away or given back. He didn’t even know if they had been taken away, or if there had essentially been two of him. The one who had continued to live this life, and the one who had been taken away from this world entirely, and now they were merged as one. In the end, he wasn’t sure if it even mattered, or if he cared. The fact of the matter was that now he was one, or had the memories of the other as well as his own.
“I’m sorry.” He said after a long moment of studying her, of seeing the pain on her face. “I’m sorry that I kept things from you. I thought it was the best route.”
He couldn’t apologise for being taken from her, even though he knew that it must have hurt. He didn’t have a choice in the matter, he was sure. He wasn’t even positive he was the same man. He wanted to say that he was sorry for that, too, though he didn’t because he had a feeling that doing so would make his real apology ring hollow. It was important that she realize the truth in his words.
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you. I know that it has to be strange to be back here now, to be seeing me, and not him. To know that we’ve come all this way and I’ve still kept that from you, yet you know it. And he was so upfront and honest about all of it.”
---
Johnny was referring to himself as though he was separate from the Johnny that had been abducted alongside her. And maybe he was. She’d certainly thought of them as two different people at first too. It had made it a little easier to deal with the differences in their relationship. Even then, she’d asked him all the questions that he couldn't have answered. And now that she had this Johnny in front of her? Now that he was apologizing for lying to her? She wasn’t sure how to react. She took her hands back and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting against the wall and curling up into herself. She shifted her gaze to the ground.
“He didn’t have much of a choice, did he? Just tell me one thing-were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just going to disappear on me when I started getting older?”
That second question wasn’t necessarily a past tense thing. Even now that she knew about him, the fact remained that she was going to age and he wasn’t. That hadn’t really been a factor when nobody in their group would age, but it was back to the real world now.
----
Johnny chewed his lip, shaking his head. He wanted to be honest with Mary, even though it wasn’t easy. His instincts, everything he had built up until that moment, had been to hide himself from everybody he came into contact with. Falling in with Mary like he had, that had been an accident. He wouldn’t say mistake, because of how he felt about her, but he certainly hadn’t done it on purpose.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I keep putting off the idea of it entirely. The last friend I had…” Johnny realized now that Mary knew that friend was Jo. And that Jo was her mother. “The last friend I had was Jo, and I just vanished on her, because it was easier. Probably a good thing that you haven’t taken me to meet your folks. Except… in one timeline you have. This is so fucked.”
Feeling a little bit better, he wanted to get up. Not wanting to leave Mary on the floor, he didn’t move an inch.
“It’s strange to have his memories.” Johnny mused. “To see how you broke through walls even there. When everything was still so fresh. There’s something about you, Mary. I think, and don’t smack me for sounding stupid here, because it does, but you can’t deny it, I think that you and I are something like fated.”
---
He didn’t know. The question she’d been wondering about for her entire time back in York and then with the aliens, and he didn’t know if he would have just kept the secret and slipped away on her eventually. Mary wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She’d gotten past the fact that the secret was kept at all because she understood why, as much as anyone who wasn’t in the situation could. But the idea that he might have just left her without any explanation? That was the part that stung the most. And yet? There was no saying what might have happened. As she’d told the Johnny of the past, they weren’t exactly picking out china patterns. They were certainly more than just friends with benefits, but they’d never really defined it beyond that. They’d just sort of slowly eased their way into each new stage of the relationship without spending too much time on ‘where is this going?’ That wasn’t really a conversation that most hunters needed to have because the future was no guarantee.
“There’s a chance that my parents got their memories back when you did, you know.”
It was potentially something to deal with, though it was possible that it would make things easier. Mary pursed her lips a little at that last statement.
“For someone with my family’s history, that’s not exactly a romantic notion. It makes it seem like we don’t have a choice. I want to be the one you choose, not your destiny.”
Perhaps it was a subtle difference because the way they felt about each other was going to keep drawing them back. She already knew that, and she knew that it was the same end result of something being ‘written in the stars’ or whatever.
She looked over at Johnny.
“You feel up to getting back on your feet? There are more comfortable places that we could sit besides the floor.” She bit her lip as if trying to stop from saying something else. And then she gave his hand a squeeze. “I missed you.” The words were barely audible, though her expression communicated it just as much.
She’d missed both the past and present Johnny after he’d disappeared. But this version of Johnny? The one that she’d had so much history with? She’d missed him for the entire time that she’d been in York and then abducted. She wasn’t sure if she preferred one to the other, but she’d missed all of the little comforts that only came once you’d been with someone for awhile. She’d missed the physical side of their relationship, and she’d missed how much simpler things were when there wasn’t time travel and all of the other craziness of their time with the aliens thrown into the mix.