Hannah (goodbyecastiel) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-01-20 18:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, hannah, sam winchester |
Who: Hannah & Sam Winchester
When: Backdated to mid-December.
Where: At the Macy's in Herald Square.
What: Hannah & Sam discuss the meaning of humanity while viewing the Christmas window display. Brief mentions of the Big Issues: feelings, possible character death, apocalypse, Heaven.
Rating: Low.
Status: COMPLETE.
Hannah peered into the window labeled "Venus." It was late in the evening, and most of the tourist traffic had filtered away for dinner or ice skating or whatever it was that humans did in the evening. So, she was able to see up close the tiny Santa Claus and his fictional workshop. She didn't understand Christmas, not in the way that people here seemed to. What did the possible manifestation of Heaven on Earth have to do with endless shopping? And what of this war on Christmas that Castiel had spoken of? She turned to her companion, ignorant of the slight chill in the air. "Perhaps we could ask this Santa Claus for Castiel's original grace." Hannah didn't necessarily believe in little fat elves anymore than she believed that Heaven didn't exist here. Perhaps she had been cut off from her brothers and sisters, but that didn't mean they weren't there. "I am told that he grants wishes to those on his good list. Surely, you have achieved such an honor?" -- It hadn’t surprised Sam to hear that Hannah distrusted his brother. It had surprised him more that she was willing to spend time in his company; after all, he remembered being a little condescending to her and the other angels during the main time they’d met at home. But maybe only he had interpreted it that way; angels did tend to miss the subtler cues of human language. And there was the fact that it hadn’t even been him, strictly speaking, because he hadn’t lived it yet. But he liked her, or at least he’d liked the version of her he’d seen on screen, and he hadn’t been disappointed or even very surprised by meeting her in person. She cared about Cas, and about humans, and what else could he ask for in a friend of a friend, really? He’d finished up some Christmas shopping before meeting her here, and was carrying a couple of bags on his arm, idly looking into the window. At her question, he chuckled. “I’m flattered that you’d think so,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure Santa isn’t real. At least, not in this universe, and not unless the tesseract decides to bring him through from a world where he does exist.” Which was true of everything he’d once believed not to be real, wasn’t it? Life with the tesseract was more complicated than even he had been used to, despite how weird his life had been before coming here. “The tesseract could probably bring it here. But it isn’t in the habit of doing what we want it to do.” -- Hannah looked at Sam. The bond that the Winchesters and Castiel shared didn't make sense to her. She didn't understand their willingness to give up almost everything for each other, and she didn't want to. She was willing to sacrifice herself for the mission and humanity as a whole. But for a single human? What was it that made Sam and his brother merit such an extreme? The more she tried to puzzle it out the more it only confused her. Perhaps she simply had to spend time with the Winchesters to understand. "It seems the Tesseract has much in common with our own world." She thought of her own angelic mission and her relationship to a God who no longer was. It was difficult to know if she had been on the right path without guidance from above, and more so now. "But if Santa doesn't exist, who is the man who sits in all of the stores? Who receives all those letters?" She had seen the children putting letters into a mailbox specifically labeled for the North Pole, and she had seen, too, the strange men in red suits who seemed to draw long lines of both children and parents. She turned back to the displays in the windows. The workshops, the sleighs, the tiny elves who helped the larger one… It was such an elaborate construction to hide a lie. -- That got a small, wry smile out of Sam. “The tesseract’s been kinder to me than our world, in a lot of ways,” he said. “And just as cruel in others.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it seems like the more different other universes are, the more they’re the same. At least, I have more in common with people from other worlds than I’ve had with most people I’ve met at home.” He had some vague theories or ideas about that. A lot of people in his position, or similar, tended to be isolated by their circumstances in some way. Unable to tell people the truth of what they did or what they were going through, or simply not a part of normal society at all. Now, if nothing else, they had the shared experience of coming through the tesseract and adjusting to being a refugee in a new universe-- which was a very significant experience to have in common. It might even be the most significant thing that had ever happened to Sam, considering everything that had happened here. “He’s just… a shared idea. A story that people tell. They learn it as a child and then grow up to tell it to their children. People dress up in the costume to sit in the stores. Someone in the post office probably collects the letters. Maybe in some cases they go to some kind of charity who might grant wishes.” He looked at the Santa Claus in the window. “A lot of stories are real, in our universe and in this one, but so far as I know, Santa is just a myth. In this world as well as ours.” He tilted his head, remembering. “But I once met a few pagan gods who were pretty upset about his popularity.” -- Hannah didn't necessarily understand. But then again, she wasn't human, and she expected to have about as much in common with the people of this universe as she did in her own. Looking at the Christmas windows, talking about Santa Claus and shared human myths -- all of these were nice, to an extent. But they were human acts. When she did them, she liked to think of herself as almost human, as though she might pretend in that moment that all of these feelings and sensations made sense to her. Unfortunately, such moments of clarity were rare. She felt like -- to use a rather odd human expression -- a fish out of water. She only hoped that, unlike that poor fish, she would not drown here. "It must be similar to the shared concept of God." Yes, perhaps this Santa had something to do with the myths that humans spread about the Lord and her kind. Those didn't necessarily make more sense than fake fat elves, but they were at least familiar to her. "Perhaps it is necessary because your world is so overwhelming otherwise." She turned her gaze to the next set of windows, suddenly reminded of something else. "I heard that you were to be married in this universe," she said, abruptly. "Are you happy?" -- "It's similar," Sam agreed. "There is a religious aspect to this holiday. Celebrations of Christ's birthday were moved to the winter to overlap with the traditions of the winter solstice. But--" he glanced over at her. "Well, maybe you know better than I do when he was actually born." Or maybe not. After his conversations with Cas about marriage traditions, it was hard to tell exactly how much attention angels actually paid to human religious tradition. He'd have expected that Christ would have merited some attention, but it wouldn't have been the first time he'd been wrong about the affairs of celestial beings. And he knew almost nothing about this particular angel's experiences. Obviously Christmas traditions hadn't ever really caught her attention before. The change in topics from religious to personal startled him, and he took a moment to process it fully before answering. "Yeah, I am." This wasn't quite the perfect life he'd imagined, even when he'd been imagining his future here originally. He could have done without a significant amount of the turmoil, the disappearances, the most recent necessity of curing his brother from being a demon. But he had accepted that his life was never going to be perfect, and he'd found enough happiness here that he figured this was probably as good as it was going to get. Certainly it wasn't going to turn out this well in his home world. Curiously, he looked over at Hannah. "What do you think of this universe? Or of being down on earth with humanity, in general?" -- "I am glad. If what Castiel believes is true, you deserve to be happy." She may have held reservations about the Winchesters, particularly in regards to their relationship with Castiel. But she didn't feel that it was her place to judge who should be close to whom, particularly in a universe so far removed from their own. And what's more, she wasn't likely to wish unhappiness upon anyone. If what Castiel and Veronica had said of Sam was accurate, then she truly believed that his happiness was of utmost importance. However that might be achieved here. "I think you must know what I think of this universe, already." She met his gaze. "I find humanity to be confusing, and overwhelming, and wonderful, all at once. But the silence --" She reached out to touch the storefront, feeling nothing but the cold stone under her fingers. "The silence from my brothers and sisters is what saddens me the most. There are others like me here, but even that is not quite the same." She dropped her hand back into her pocket, looking at him. "I know that Heaven is in turmoil where we are from, and yet even that seems preferable to -- this. This lack of sense." -- “Cas is a little biased,” Sam said with a small smile. “Because he’s my friend. But thank you.” Although he’d gotten used to the concept of deserving happiness-- mostly because of the insistence of Veronica and his other friends here-- it was strange to hear it from her. Mostly because Sam was accustomed to angels looking at him as if he was even less worthwhile than the scum on the bottom of their vessels’ shoes, used to them acting as though his life was only worth anything as long as it served their purposes. He’d never met or seen a single one other than Cas that seemed to care about what would be best for him, or make him happy. But he had never spent very much time with Hannah, in her timeline. In his timeline he’d never met her at all. After watching her on television, he’d gained quite a bit of respect for her, but he’d still never expected her to take any sort of personal interest in him. Things were different here, and he supposed that without her other brothers and sisters, he and Dean might be the closest thing she had to family, besides Cas. “I think this world has its own kind of sense,” he said, thoughtfully. “It just takes some getting used to. They don’t seem to have a heaven or hell here, and even their gods-- or what we would have called gods, in our universe, Thor and Loki-- seem to be considered aliens from another planet, in a way, rather than an afterlife dimension.” That had taken a while to wrap his mind around. “If anything here has commanding power over the universe, it’s the tesseract. And that just seems to be in the mood to cause as much chaos as possible.” He paused, and looked at her. “It can be nice here, but I can understand how it’d feel empty and senseless without your family. Dean and Cas haven’t been here the whole time… it’s always harder to deal with this place when they’re not around.” -- Hannah couldn't imagine a universe in which heaven and hell didn't exist. And yet, here she seemed to be stuck inside of one. She suspected that Sam was trying to reassure her by telling her that this world had its own kind of sense. That, in a way, the Tesseract ruled over this world how demons seemed to lord power over their own (and perhaps, even angels, though she was hesitant to consider whether or not angels contributed to cosmic chaos). But all of her life, she had known what ruled over the universe. She had known the power of Creation and fulfillment of its mission was her responsibility. To be placed on an Earth in which that didn't seem to be true was baffling. But she did agree with one thing that Sam had said. She smiled, allowing herself to take-in everything around her. If nothing else, this universe was as beautiful as her own. And it deserved her full attention. "I agree," she said, "that Castiel is biased. I don't fully understand it." She looked at Sam. "Why would he choose you and your brother over everything?" She'd puzzled over this question a long time. It seemed unnatural for an angel to be as attached to a pair of humans as Castiel was to the Winchesters. And what was more, she seemed to sense that own growing attachment in herself. Not to the Winchesters, but to Castiel. And that made even less sense to her than a universe in which heaven was no more. "But I want to understand," she added, sincerely. "I don't know how, or if that is even a part of my mission now… But I suppose it is as Castiel always says. It is my choice." -- “Because we’re his family,” Sam said. “Family doesn’t end with blood… or in this case, species.” He gave a slightly sad smile, thinking of Bobby. “He chose our side in the apocalypse, to save humanity. After that it just… stuck, I guess.” He was reminded, by her questions, that she was new to dealing with humanity and human emotion. Cas had been in her place once, and he’d had them to help, sort of, though Sam wasn’t sure they’d always done the best job of that. In the middle of all their battles there hadn’t been much room for emotions. Not enough time to sit and talk things through. Hannah had time, though, so Sam would do his best to help her with it. “Can you think of any reason why you’d do that yourself-- choosing someone, whether it’s Cas or God or any of the other angels, over everyone and everything else?” He looked over at her. “The best way to understand is to try to put yourself into his position and imagine why you would do it. That’s called empathy.” -- "I don't know." She wanted to understand. But every step she took forward seemed like two steps backwards. "Isn't it selfish to sacrifice yourself to violate your destiny? Even if the Heavenly plan has been rewritten countless times, Angels are meant to look out for all of humanity. When Angels take decisions into their own hands…" She sighed. "The Apocalypse. The wars in Heaven. Metatron. When we fail to consider everyone and try to abuse powers for our ends, it goes awry." There was also the problem of Castiel. She knew that the angel was dying with his stolen grace, that he most likely would die. And what did that mean for her? He was her closest friend in this universe and a leading guide in the old one. He was important to the mission and to her. And he was family. All Angels were family, but she could admit to having favorites. "And Castiel. Has his empathy truly made him better? I want to believe in this --" She made a vague gesture. "-- free will of which you both seem to speak adoringly. I do. And I wish to understand, you, and Castiel, and family, and friendship...." She paused. "All of these human emotions. Is this what it means to be trapped in a vessel? To feel what she feels and be unable to truly understand?" "I've watched over the Creation my entire life, and yet it's as though you speak a foreign language." -- “Sure, it’s selfish,” Sam said. “But is it right that we have a destiny at all? To have our lives dictated for us, our choices made by someone else?” He paused. “The problem with the apocalypse wasn’t that the archangels made their own decisions. It was that they made decisions for everyone else, too. And they destroyed other lives, of both humans and angels, in the process.” After a moment, he gave her a wry and almost amused look. “If it makes you feel any better, these are complicated concepts for humans, too, and we grapple with them all the time. We don’t always make the right decisions, either, but--” he hesitated-- “Empathy is really, really important. Emotions are how we connect to one another. Whether they make us better, well… that’s a complicated question, because they can, but they can also make us worse.” He hesitated again, reminded of the fact that there was still a human soul inside her, trapped, with no control over her decisions. He knew that Hannah would eventually give up her vessel for the woman’s own sake, and given his own experiences, he had no shortage of appreciation for an angel who would do that for their vessel. But he also, selfishly, wanted to be able to get to know this particular angel and for her to be here with them, and he didn’t know what would happen to her if she left her vessel now. “I don’t think,” he said finally, carefully, “That all of the emotions you feel are hers. Some of them probably are. But angels have a capacity for emotion, too.” At least, that was what he believed. He had seen angels act out of anger, betrayal, and pain-- and less frequently but even more importantly, loyalty, compassion, and even love. It might be more difficult for them, it might be sensed and felt differently, but it was there. If humans could inspire those feelings in them, they had to have some capacity for them to begin with. -- She considered his words for a moment. "I appreciate your willingness to help me. I know this must be difficult for you after everything that my kind have done to your family… We are not always very adept at accomplishing our own mission, it seems." She smiled a little bit sadly. "I think when we're constrained on a human level, our emotions became equally constrained. Confused, even." She'd never intended to spend this much time in her own vessel. What did it mean to be permanently trapped as a human? The question had never occurred to her. It had never needed to be a part of her reality. And that was part of the problem with being here: everything was outside her conception of reality. "I only wish to better understand this world and to help it, if I'm able." -- “You never did anything to me,” Sam said. “What you do matters much more than what you are.” He’d said that over and over again. To himself, mostly, sometimes to others as well. Now it seemed that Hannah needed to hear it. “I can try to explain this world to you, but there’s a fair amount I don’t understand, either. But if I see any way that you might be able to help, I’ll definitely let you know.” He hesitated, then reached out and touched her shoulder. It was a human gesture of affection, and he was aware of the fact that she might not understand it, but he hoped it helped anyway. “We’ll start with Cas. I promise you, we’re going to find a way to help him.” Lowering his hand, he gave her a small smile and tried once more to be reassuring. “You’re going to be alright here, Hannah.” |