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metonomiaTitle: so I have been allotted
Author: metonomia
Recipient: gladdecease
Pairing/Characters: Amelia Novak, Claire Novak, Jimmy Novak
Rating: PG13
Warnings/Spoilers: Rating for brief language. Spoilers for 4.20 The Rapture
Summary: She was only ever a vessel, not a saint.
Notes: For Novakfest, for gladdecease. I worked off of Prompt 4 - Amelia!Castiel AU. Write whatever you want in this AU, I don't care. How Jimmy and Claire deal with her absence, the alt!version of The Rapture, Dean snarking about angels in soccer moms, how Amelia feels trapped in her own head, whatever. Mostly I did the alternate version of The Rapture, though I hope it is different enough to be its own. The title is from Job 7:3, which says “so I have been allotted months of futility.” Tons of thanks to l_a_r_m and zempasuchil for the betas!
Amelia Novak rides the bus towards Pontiac, Illinois, feeling as though she doesn't fit her own skin anymore. It is loose, hanging a little over a body that has been overfilled and extended beyond its making for months. And inside it is Amelia, stretching cautiously to retake her own limbs, uncurling her mind from the corner it has fought to occupy against the tide of Castiel's grace. Those boys said that the hosts of heaven and hell will be looking for her, will want her use or her death or both, but Amelia is concerned with only one angel, and now she is rid of him and she will not say yes again, and she will not let Claire say yes, and she can have her family back. She can have herself back.
+
When Claire opens the door, Amelia barely recognizes her daughter. Claire is taller, a little more baby fat gone from her face, her hair a few inches longer. It’s darker, too, by just a shade, and Amelia can already see her own blond fading away, to be replaced by Jimmy’s darker brown.
“Mom?” Claire whispers, and Amelia realizes she has been staring too long, too much like Castiel. She reaches forward and Claire catches her hug, shifting them both into the house, looking out at the street before closing the door.
“Hi, sweetie,” Amelia manages, and then Jimmy is there, thrusting Claire away and leading Amelia into the living room.
“You’re back,” he says, stroking her cheek, catching her hands in his.
“I’m back.”
“What happened?” he asks, searching her face worriedly. “Where is the angel?”
“I- I don’t know.” She sits on the couch, allowing herself to slump against the cushions in a way she never would have, before.
“Does he not need you anymore? Did something happen? Amelia, did you…?”
“God, Jimmy, no. I don’t think I even could. I don’t know where he is, okay? He’s just...gone, so I came home.” They sit uncomfortably, Jimmy still half-holding her hands. He is concerned, but she cannot tell if it is about her or about what she is not doing, what she is giving up. Castiel is gone, and in her mind that is the only blessing, but Jimmy has never been able to see past his envy that she was the one chosen when he is the one for whom faith has always been more vital.
+
He told her to say yes.
“Fuck, Jimmy.” They both looked around for Claire and lowered their voices.
“I know,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
“He spoke to you, this...Castiel? He wants you to serve; Amelia, this is a gift!”
“No, shut up.” He watched her try to breathe, and couldn’t understand her panic. Fear, yes. He was scared too, felt the ache of the unknown all through him - but an angel! This was a good fear, and he could taste satisfaction sweetening the terror in his mouth, affirmation and faith making him giddy. With difficulty he pulled his attention back to Amelia.
“You don’t understand, Jimmy. He spoke to Claire. I told him no, and he went to my baby.”
“Did he hurt her?” Jimmy asked, the instinct for protection warring with wonder. But Amelia shook her head hesitantly.
“No,” she admitted, “but he was in her head, he told me he must take her or me.” She was whispering still, but her voice was sharp with exhaustion and anger, and Jimmy was struck with sudden bitter envy, and an uncomfortable disdain for her fear. He fought it down - those were the sort of thoughts that must have made him unworthy, relegated him to the role of convincing his wife to accept her destiny.
“Amelia,” he said, reaching out to grasp her shoulder gently, “why are you fighting this? You have been chosen for God’s work; you’re lucky! If it were me -” He broke off as she stood up abruptly.
“So, what? You think I should do it?”
“I think you must.”
They stood in silence, Jimmy watching Amelia watching the stairs up to Claire’s bedroom.
“Amelia,” he said finally, no idea what else he could say, and trailed off.
“I have to do it,” Amelia said, and he nodded. “I have to say yes.”
“Yes,” he said.
+
“I made you some sandwiches, Mom, and there’s tea if you want.” Amelia blinks, and realizes that at some point Jimmy has left, and Claire has slipped back downstairs.
“Oh, Claire, you didn’t need to do that. But thank you, sweetie, I’m starving,” she admits, and the way Claire’s expression brightens and falls at the same time, she has no idea if she said the right thing. She follows her daughter into her kitchen, is seated at her own chair, served on her plates, the old chipped china that was a wedding gift from Jimmy’s parents.
“Dad!” Claire yells, and shouting indoors was never allowed in their house before, but this has the ring of habit to it, and soon Jimmy enters the kitchen.
“We’re eating,” Claire says. Jimmy moves to his place at the table and offers Amelia a smile as he reaches out his hands. Claire ignores it and sits, and Amelia cannot read these new cues; it’s too much all at once. She takes Jimmy’s hand.
“Heavenly Father, we give thanks for this opportunity to have Amelia with us, to rejoice in the work that you have done through her. Watch over our family, continue to bless us; Lord, do not turn thine eyes from us, but let us all serve as we are called. Amen.”
Amelia drops his hand and sits, and Claire passes her a sandwich. She feels Jimmy’s gaze on them, still so sure in his faith, but so uncertain about her.
“I’ll...make up the bed,” he finally says.
“Mom,” Claire begins after long moments of silent eating, “Dad said you were doing God’s work, because God loves you specially. He said Castiel chose you because you were made to help him, and that it’s our duty to do what God asks us, like you did. But now you’re not. Does God not like you anymore?”
Since Castiel came, Amelia has not really thought of God. Castiel was too close, too full, too divine for her to contemplate any more, and it was never God asking her to do anything- it was that angel voice in her head and on the radio, and in her daughter’s excited whispers about her new friend. But to Jimmy it is about God, and of course that’s what he’s been telling Claire.
“Do you still like me, Claire?”
“Of course! I’ve missed you, Mama, even if you were helping Cas. It was lonely without you.” She gets up and walks around the table to hug Amelia, and God, it’s the first time Amelia’s been hugged in nearly a year, and Claire’s grip is even stronger than Castiel’s.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Claire says.
“Well then,” Amelia manages through the tears she cannot hide, “God must still like me, at least a little bit, since I have you to come back to.”
+
In the first weeks after Amelia walked out the door (“I am not your mother," she said in Castiel's voice, and Claire looked back at her father to see pride and something like jealousy on his face, and Claire has not prayed since), Claire comforted herself by relishing her new freedom. She fed herself burgers and ice cream and stayed up late watching the news for some sign of a missing woman who had not been reported missing. She assumed Jimmy was doing the same until she noticed how thin her father had become, shrunken and beatific with it, his eyes burning as he told her of those who serve God and the glory that awaits them, the importance of her mother’s work. That night she pulled out Mom’s Rolodex of recipes and began working through them, burning chicken and chewing her way through rubbery vegetables. The next weekend she cleaned the house and made Dad go shopping, and they slowly put themselves back together. Daddy still prayed every night, Claire ignoring his pleas to be more worthy, to be holy like his wife, to be allowed to give himself up too; but then they talked about what Mom might be doing for God, and Claire remembered Castiel’s promises, that they could save the world, that they could fix anything bad in it, and she thought that Daddy must be right to be proud of Mom.
It was harder when she was outside the house, away from Jimmy’s overwhelming faith in God and in Amelia.
"Dude, where's your mom?" Abby asked the fifth time Jimmy dropped Claire off at soccer practice.
"My grandma's sick," Claire lied, the lie Daddy told her to say, to protect Mom. "Mom's gone to take care of her." And on and on, the lies piling up - but always the same lie, the same story, how worried they all are, how much she and Daddy miss Mom and wish she could come home.
“He misses my mom,” she said when people asked about her father, always eyeing her closely, careful not to ask too many pointed questions. “He loves her so much, and he’s worried about her, having to take care of so much.”
If she said it enough times, she thought, she might believe it herself.
+
Amelia watches Claire move around the kitchen, never straying far, dashing upstairs to retrieve homework and bringing it back to the table, filling a glass with water and then going back to bring a second one to her mother. She sits, content in the lack Castiel’s constant motion, simply watching her daughter concentrate on math problems.
Claire still bites her lip when she writes, and she still uses the same pencils Amelia always bought for her, perfect Ticonderoga #2s, never mechanical. But now she reaches up to twist a piece of hair around her fingers, furrows her brow in a way that looks too habitual. She doesn’t ask for help. There are little silver hoops in her ears and bunches of rubber bracelets on her wrists. Twice she takes out a slim, Bedazzled cell phone and sends a text message. There is so much missing, Amelia knows, so much that she hasn’t seen and will likely never understand about her daughter. She went with Castiel to take him away from Claire. Castiel took her away from Claire. He took Claire away from her, and he managed to take some part of Jimmy, too, and Jimmy can call it all a blessing, but if blessedness requires so much loss, Amelia will have none of it. She was only ever a vessel, not a saint.
Claire looks up and smiles at Amelia, brushing the tears from her mother’s cheeks, and in her eyes Amelia sees everything she has failed to protect her daughter from, and the only thing that could ever make her say yes again.
Author: metonomia
Recipient: gladdecease
Pairing/Characters: Amelia Novak, Claire Novak, Jimmy Novak
Rating: PG13
Warnings/Spoilers: Rating for brief language. Spoilers for 4.20 The Rapture
Summary: She was only ever a vessel, not a saint.
Notes: For Novakfest, for gladdecease. I worked off of Prompt 4 - Amelia!Castiel AU. Write whatever you want in this AU, I don't care. How Jimmy and Claire deal with her absence, the alt!version of The Rapture, Dean snarking about angels in soccer moms, how Amelia feels trapped in her own head, whatever. Mostly I did the alternate version of The Rapture, though I hope it is different enough to be its own. The title is from Job 7:3, which says “so I have been allotted months of futility.” Tons of thanks to l_a_r_m and zempasuchil for the betas!
Amelia Novak rides the bus towards Pontiac, Illinois, feeling as though she doesn't fit her own skin anymore. It is loose, hanging a little over a body that has been overfilled and extended beyond its making for months. And inside it is Amelia, stretching cautiously to retake her own limbs, uncurling her mind from the corner it has fought to occupy against the tide of Castiel's grace. Those boys said that the hosts of heaven and hell will be looking for her, will want her use or her death or both, but Amelia is concerned with only one angel, and now she is rid of him and she will not say yes again, and she will not let Claire say yes, and she can have her family back. She can have herself back.
+
When Claire opens the door, Amelia barely recognizes her daughter. Claire is taller, a little more baby fat gone from her face, her hair a few inches longer. It’s darker, too, by just a shade, and Amelia can already see her own blond fading away, to be replaced by Jimmy’s darker brown.
“Mom?” Claire whispers, and Amelia realizes she has been staring too long, too much like Castiel. She reaches forward and Claire catches her hug, shifting them both into the house, looking out at the street before closing the door.
“Hi, sweetie,” Amelia manages, and then Jimmy is there, thrusting Claire away and leading Amelia into the living room.
“You’re back,” he says, stroking her cheek, catching her hands in his.
“I’m back.”
“What happened?” he asks, searching her face worriedly. “Where is the angel?”
“I- I don’t know.” She sits on the couch, allowing herself to slump against the cushions in a way she never would have, before.
“Does he not need you anymore? Did something happen? Amelia, did you…?”
“God, Jimmy, no. I don’t think I even could. I don’t know where he is, okay? He’s just...gone, so I came home.” They sit uncomfortably, Jimmy still half-holding her hands. He is concerned, but she cannot tell if it is about her or about what she is not doing, what she is giving up. Castiel is gone, and in her mind that is the only blessing, but Jimmy has never been able to see past his envy that she was the one chosen when he is the one for whom faith has always been more vital.
+
He told her to say yes.
“Fuck, Jimmy.” They both looked around for Claire and lowered their voices.
“I know,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
“He spoke to you, this...Castiel? He wants you to serve; Amelia, this is a gift!”
“No, shut up.” He watched her try to breathe, and couldn’t understand her panic. Fear, yes. He was scared too, felt the ache of the unknown all through him - but an angel! This was a good fear, and he could taste satisfaction sweetening the terror in his mouth, affirmation and faith making him giddy. With difficulty he pulled his attention back to Amelia.
“You don’t understand, Jimmy. He spoke to Claire. I told him no, and he went to my baby.”
“Did he hurt her?” Jimmy asked, the instinct for protection warring with wonder. But Amelia shook her head hesitantly.
“No,” she admitted, “but he was in her head, he told me he must take her or me.” She was whispering still, but her voice was sharp with exhaustion and anger, and Jimmy was struck with sudden bitter envy, and an uncomfortable disdain for her fear. He fought it down - those were the sort of thoughts that must have made him unworthy, relegated him to the role of convincing his wife to accept her destiny.
“Amelia,” he said, reaching out to grasp her shoulder gently, “why are you fighting this? You have been chosen for God’s work; you’re lucky! If it were me -” He broke off as she stood up abruptly.
“So, what? You think I should do it?”
“I think you must.”
They stood in silence, Jimmy watching Amelia watching the stairs up to Claire’s bedroom.
“Amelia,” he said finally, no idea what else he could say, and trailed off.
“I have to do it,” Amelia said, and he nodded. “I have to say yes.”
“Yes,” he said.
+
“I made you some sandwiches, Mom, and there’s tea if you want.” Amelia blinks, and realizes that at some point Jimmy has left, and Claire has slipped back downstairs.
“Oh, Claire, you didn’t need to do that. But thank you, sweetie, I’m starving,” she admits, and the way Claire’s expression brightens and falls at the same time, she has no idea if she said the right thing. She follows her daughter into her kitchen, is seated at her own chair, served on her plates, the old chipped china that was a wedding gift from Jimmy’s parents.
“Dad!” Claire yells, and shouting indoors was never allowed in their house before, but this has the ring of habit to it, and soon Jimmy enters the kitchen.
“We’re eating,” Claire says. Jimmy moves to his place at the table and offers Amelia a smile as he reaches out his hands. Claire ignores it and sits, and Amelia cannot read these new cues; it’s too much all at once. She takes Jimmy’s hand.
“Heavenly Father, we give thanks for this opportunity to have Amelia with us, to rejoice in the work that you have done through her. Watch over our family, continue to bless us; Lord, do not turn thine eyes from us, but let us all serve as we are called. Amen.”
Amelia drops his hand and sits, and Claire passes her a sandwich. She feels Jimmy’s gaze on them, still so sure in his faith, but so uncertain about her.
“I’ll...make up the bed,” he finally says.
“Mom,” Claire begins after long moments of silent eating, “Dad said you were doing God’s work, because God loves you specially. He said Castiel chose you because you were made to help him, and that it’s our duty to do what God asks us, like you did. But now you’re not. Does God not like you anymore?”
Since Castiel came, Amelia has not really thought of God. Castiel was too close, too full, too divine for her to contemplate any more, and it was never God asking her to do anything- it was that angel voice in her head and on the radio, and in her daughter’s excited whispers about her new friend. But to Jimmy it is about God, and of course that’s what he’s been telling Claire.
“Do you still like me, Claire?”
“Of course! I’ve missed you, Mama, even if you were helping Cas. It was lonely without you.” She gets up and walks around the table to hug Amelia, and God, it’s the first time Amelia’s been hugged in nearly a year, and Claire’s grip is even stronger than Castiel’s.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Claire says.
“Well then,” Amelia manages through the tears she cannot hide, “God must still like me, at least a little bit, since I have you to come back to.”
+
In the first weeks after Amelia walked out the door (“I am not your mother," she said in Castiel's voice, and Claire looked back at her father to see pride and something like jealousy on his face, and Claire has not prayed since), Claire comforted herself by relishing her new freedom. She fed herself burgers and ice cream and stayed up late watching the news for some sign of a missing woman who had not been reported missing. She assumed Jimmy was doing the same until she noticed how thin her father had become, shrunken and beatific with it, his eyes burning as he told her of those who serve God and the glory that awaits them, the importance of her mother’s work. That night she pulled out Mom’s Rolodex of recipes and began working through them, burning chicken and chewing her way through rubbery vegetables. The next weekend she cleaned the house and made Dad go shopping, and they slowly put themselves back together. Daddy still prayed every night, Claire ignoring his pleas to be more worthy, to be holy like his wife, to be allowed to give himself up too; but then they talked about what Mom might be doing for God, and Claire remembered Castiel’s promises, that they could save the world, that they could fix anything bad in it, and she thought that Daddy must be right to be proud of Mom.
It was harder when she was outside the house, away from Jimmy’s overwhelming faith in God and in Amelia.
"Dude, where's your mom?" Abby asked the fifth time Jimmy dropped Claire off at soccer practice.
"My grandma's sick," Claire lied, the lie Daddy told her to say, to protect Mom. "Mom's gone to take care of her." And on and on, the lies piling up - but always the same lie, the same story, how worried they all are, how much she and Daddy miss Mom and wish she could come home.
“He misses my mom,” she said when people asked about her father, always eyeing her closely, careful not to ask too many pointed questions. “He loves her so much, and he’s worried about her, having to take care of so much.”
If she said it enough times, she thought, she might believe it herself.
+
Amelia watches Claire move around the kitchen, never straying far, dashing upstairs to retrieve homework and bringing it back to the table, filling a glass with water and then going back to bring a second one to her mother. She sits, content in the lack Castiel’s constant motion, simply watching her daughter concentrate on math problems.
Claire still bites her lip when she writes, and she still uses the same pencils Amelia always bought for her, perfect Ticonderoga #2s, never mechanical. But now she reaches up to twist a piece of hair around her fingers, furrows her brow in a way that looks too habitual. She doesn’t ask for help. There are little silver hoops in her ears and bunches of rubber bracelets on her wrists. Twice she takes out a slim, Bedazzled cell phone and sends a text message. There is so much missing, Amelia knows, so much that she hasn’t seen and will likely never understand about her daughter. She went with Castiel to take him away from Claire. Castiel took her away from Claire. He took Claire away from her, and he managed to take some part of Jimmy, too, and Jimmy can call it all a blessing, but if blessedness requires so much loss, Amelia will have none of it. She was only ever a vessel, not a saint.
Claire looks up and smiles at Amelia, brushing the tears from her mother’s cheeks, and in her eyes Amelia sees everything she has failed to protect her daughter from, and the only thing that could ever make her say yes again.
