fannishliss

title: “boiling water in an eggshell”
feat. Lisa Braeden, Annette Doolittle and Katie from 3.2, The Kids Aren’t Alright

1500 words

PG, Gen, no warnings.

A story about two of the Women of Supernatural

Summary: Annette has her daughter back, but what is she supposed to do next?

~*o*~

Annette had all the clothes out of her closet and spread all over her bed when she heard the insistent chime of the doorbell.

Frowning, she looked out the window. It was Lisa.

Torn, she considered not answering, when Lisa rang the doorbell again. And again.

Irritation welled up inside her, but she dropped the clothes she’d been sorting and went downstairs.

She took a deep breath, but it didn’t do any good. She opened the door. There stood Lisa, awkwardly, with a couple of tote bags in her hands.

“Hi,” she said, smiling her pretty, pretty smile.

“Hi,” Annette parroted back. She realized she was being cold, but she didn’t invite Lisa in.

“Uh. Can I come in?” Lisa asked.

“I’m kind of busy right now,” Annette said.

Lisa flushed, her smile faded. “I just thought I’d come over... I haven’t been able to catch you by phone.”

“I’ve been pretty busy,” Annette said shortly.

“I’ve been seeing you with a lot of boxes,” Lisa said quickly.

“Yeah. Getting rid of stuff.”

“You... thinking of moving?” Lisa guessed.

In the foyer behind Annette, the wall was stacked with cardboard boxes full of stuff she was donating to Goodwill. A smaller stack was stuff she had sold on ebay, labelled and ready to mail.

“Not right away, but yeah,” Annette said.

“Annette, I’m so sorry,” Lisa blurted out.

Annette was silent. She reminded herself that the changeling had taken Ben too, took a dozen other kids, killed not only Tom but three other husbands. But Lisa had always led a charmed life, with her yoga and exercise studio thriving in the nearby shopping plaza, and her big house paid for by money from parents who flew Lisa and Ben off two or three times a year to beautiful places around the world.

No murdered ex-husband. No bills mounting up or life insurance policy delays. No daughter traumatized by being locked in a cage and fed on by a monster for three days while she tried to drown...

Annette was shocked by the sob that suddenly wracked her, by the tears that sprang burning into her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” Lisa repeated, her own brown eyes welling with tears.

Annette tried to think of what she wanted to say, but all she could do was wipe furiously at her tears and try to choke back her sobs.

Lisa dropped her bags and stepped forward but Annette wrapped her arms around herself and turned away.

Lisa came around anyway.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Lisa said a third time, and this time Annette’s angry glare didn’t shut her up. “I’m so sorry I that I didn’t get it about Katie. I jumped to conclusions, I didn’t help the way you needed. But I’m here now. I know what happened. You can talk to me.”

Annette gulped down her tears. “I tried to kill her! Okay? I tried to drown my own baby!” Annette screamed.

“It wasn’t really Katie!” Lisa tried to console.

“I didn’t know that! I didn’t know that! I tried to kill her anyway!” Annette was as much of a monster as the changeling. What kind of a mother would drown her own child? Even if she thought it was ... something awful?

Lisa looked straight at Annette and Annette looked back. She was surprised that her self-condemnation wasn’t mirrored in Lisa’s steady gaze.

“Annette, I need you to listen to me. You did the right thing.”

That was the last thing Annette had ever expected to hear. “What?” she sobbed, trying to catch her breath.

“I know what you saw. That thing wasn’t your daughter. You saw its reflection, right? You felt the place where it was draining you. You had to fight back somehow!”

Annette felt the hot tears still streaming down her face. “But I thought, I thought I was going crazy! I was so scared.”

“I know, I know. You did the best you could. I’m so sorry you had to go through it alone. I should’ve been there. We’re supposed to be friends.”

As Lisa hung her head, Annette’s anger flared up again. Friends? What did that even mean, in a place like this, with its enormous empty houses, its pleasantries and shallow conversations, and the monster knew the password at the gate?

Lisa’s jaw firmed. “You’re right to be angry. But I’m here now. If you want to talk, talk. Or put me to work on something. I can always dust or scrub or something.”

Annette made a scoffing face for a second, but looked at Lisa’s hands. They were strong, working hands, the nails short and bare. Annette saw beyond the spoiled little rich girl she’d always pegged Lisa for.

“I’m just saying, I’m not gonna let what happened shut us up. I’m stronger than that. So are you. Ben is okay, and Katie’s gonna need help, but she’ll be okay too. We can make sure of that – but you don’t have to do it alone.”

Lisa waited a second as Annette sniffed and looked away.

“I’ll go if you want,” she said softly, and turned toward the door.

“No,” Annette said. “Don’t go.”

“Okay,” Lisa said.

Annette felt a flicker of hope, like she didn’t have to carry the world all on her own. Just another person knowing, another pair of hands, made her breathe a little easier.

After drinking some tea with the cookies Lisa had brought, they dug in together and cleaned out another closet, culling out the junk from the treasures, separating tarnished from true.

Later that afternoon, Annette and Lisa were taking a break in the kitchen, having some espresso from a ridiculous machine Tom had bought her for her birthday one year, when Katie got home from school, quiet as a mouse.

“Hi, sweetie,” Annette said, scooping her daughter up in a hug. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” Katie, said.

Lisa waved a little. “Hi,” she said. Annette remembered that Ben had art club after school on Mondays.

“Have a cookie,” Lisa said, pushing the plate toward Katie. They were homemade chocolate chip oat cookies, off the Quaker box. Katie loved them. She darted her eyes toward Annette, who nodded.

“Thanks,” Katie murmured, and nibbled.

Lisa sipped at her espresso, a little line between her brows, when Katie said, “I played with Ben at lunch today.”

“That’s good. Did you have fun?” Lisa asked.

Katie glanced at Annette again, but said, “Ben said we should learn to defend ourselves. He wants to sign up for Tae Kwan Do, and so do I.”

Annette and Lisa exchanged looks, and Lisa said, “Before I sign Ben up for anything, we’ll have to see if he’s ready for that sort of thing.”

“Ben is a hero. He helped us all get out,” Katie said, and just like that Annette was crying again, silently, wiping her eyes with her napkin. She went to stand at the sink.

“Uh, did everyone play at recess today?” Lisa asked.

“No,” Katie said, “all the grades go out at different times, and besides, Lydia and Jack didn’t come in today. No one knows if they’re okay. Do you think they’re okay, Mommie?”

Annette turned around and tried to smile. “I think we’d all feel better if we knew how everyone is doing, wouldn’t we? Maybe I could call Sherry and Tracey and see how they’re doing.”

“That’s a good idea,” Lisa said.

Katie nodded. “We felt better at lunch when we were together. I like Ben. He rocks.”

Lisa’s eyes widened as her son’s vocabulary came out of Annette’s daughter’s mouth. Annette wondered just what Lisa had told Ben about the mysterious Dean, who’d shown up in the nick of time and had driven away again in his loud muscle car before anyone had a chance to thank him. At Ben’s party, rumors had flown fast and thick, and Susan had sworn that at the bash for her thirtieth, Lisa, after her third margarita (Ben had spent a week in Orlando with his grandparents) had spilled the whole story of the weekend with Dean – and that he really was Ben’s dad, though she denied it all later.

Whatever. Dean and his quiet, enormous brother had killed the monster and saved the kids, and if Ben took after him, so much the better. Annette liked the thought of Katie learning to stand up for herself – she knew it would have improved her marriage to Tom if she’d been able to ask more clearly for what she wanted.

She cleared her throat. “Don’t you have a mixed martial arts instructor, Lisa?”

Lisa blinked. “Yes, I do – but she usually only teaches aerobic kick-boxing early in the morning.”

“Maybe you should think about a class for parents and kids – self-defense and whatnot,” Annette suggested.

Lisa nodded. “That’s a good idea. I’ll talk to Judy about it tomorrow morning.”

Annette smiled a little and Lisa smiled back.

Katie said, very seriously, “I’m gonna kick some butt.”

The mothers burst out laughing, and Katie joined in, and the afternoon was a little bit brighter.