Chapter Text
Edith, one year and four moths old, sucks in a shaky breathe around her distressed sobs; burying her face in her nanny’s neck.
The tears have dried sticky on her face, and the floppy ear of her Bappity Rabbit stuffed in her mouth is the only thing keeping her calm. Mrs. Keyes paces the length of the living room, from fireplace to threshold, bouncing Edith on her hip. It’s only 8:30, and the existential crises is already shattering her world.
“Oh Edie, what happened dear?” Mrs. Keyes stops in her pacing but not her bouncing, looking down at the distraught toddler. “I made waffles for breakfast! Blueberry, you’re favorite!”
Edith sniffles and looks over her nanny’s shoulder and towards the kitchen. Well…waffles do sound good right about now.
Sensing the break in Edith’s breakdown, Mrs. Keyes turns and starts towards the kitchen with purpose. It proves to be her downfall however, as Edith catches sight of the polaroid photo discarded on the coffee table. She bursts into tears once again.
Trapped within the glossy confines of his photo, John-fucking-Winchester stares out at her. Taunting.
It is, all in all, a terrible start to an otherwise beautiful Sunday.
~*~
Later that same day, bed time now, Edith sits up in her room and unearths the old Polaroid photo from beneath her pillow. She handles it with the air of someone handling an atomic bomb. Breathless and shaky.
The picture is innocuous enough, a scruffy man smiling over the rim of a crystal low ball. The background is blurry, but is unmistakably the living room of this very house. Pinned to the back of the photo, with a pink paper clip in the shape of a baby’s foot, is a folded printout of an ultrasound picture. Edith traces the lines of the mans face over and over again, sadly they don’t morph into anyone else.
It’s still John Winchester.
The only reason Edith even recognizes the man, recognizes what will surely be her doom, is because of Abby. The sister of her previous life, who was a die hard, hardcore, fan of the fandom that is now apparently her life?
Staring at the picture for so long makes the unraveling threads of her psyche pull painfully, so Edith shoves it away under her pillow again. She takes a deep breath, and forces herself to think rationally. Sure the reincarnation thing was odd, but with the very large percentage of people in the world that held reincarnation as an integral part of their belief system could she really call it impossible? Also, maybe the baby daddy just bares a startling resemblance to Jeffery Dean Morgan? Or maybe he’s the actor himself? Or maybe, just maybe, there’s a large surplus of scruffy, middle aged, leather wearing, Caucasian men to be found on America’s Eastern Seaboard?
Edith dares to peek at the picture again, squinting one shut like it actually will explode. You can’t even see the guys full face, partially obscured by the rim of his glass as it is. Edith feels something ease within her, as she tucks the photo away properly, shuts off the light and settles into bed. She’ll keep a wary eye out, her crushing anxiety won’t let her do anything less, but she doubts that something so insane as John Winchester could really be the baby daddy.
Reincarnation is one thing, but reincarnated into a fictional world? Yeah, this is NOT one of Abby’s wishful fan fictions.
~*~
Edith waves goodbye to her mother, Agatha Finch, as the video call ends. It’s late now, nearing midnight, but Edith had forced herself to stay up until her mothers new time zone dictated it as morning. Her New Mother has fully embraced her single mother, with a full time, well paying career, Boss Bitch energy. Agatha frequently travels for work, sometimes nationally, sometimes internationally, but she’s away from home for months on end. Hence Edith being entrusted to their live in nanny Mrs. Keyes.
It’s not like her new mother isn’t trying! She sends gifts practically every week, she calls everyday, and Edith’s third birthday last month had live entertainment, and an actual circus preforming in their back garden. The first two birthdays Agatha had showed up, but something very pressing in Dubai had come up meaning she’d had to change her flight last minute. So yes, Agatha is a presence in her daughters life, she just also refuses to let her life end just because she kept the baby from a night of unprotected passion.
If Edith had been a normal three year old, she’d probably have like so many mommy issues. And daddy issues. And abandonment issues. Just a lot of issues. But! Edith is actually at least a high schooler trapped in a tiny body with an entirely separate set of happy-ish family memories. It’s saved her a lot of awkward adjustments.
Edith blinks, pausing a moment and doing some math in her head. It’s been three years now, so Edith would technically be eighteen, probably getting ready to graduate high school by now.
She’d been fifteen when…
When…
Huh. She can’t remember.
~*~
It’s days like these when Edith misses Abby with an ache so deep it feels physical.
It’s her fifth birthday, February 7th which is coincidentally the same birthday as last life, and Edith’s mother has actually deigned to make an appearance. Not that Agatha seems all that interested in spending quality birthday time with her only daughter. Agatha has gone all out with this birthday as she has with every other; this year there’s a petting zoo, clowns, a bounce house and catering with actual chefs supervising the buffet tables.
But she doesn’t know any of these children, or these caterers and entertainers. Her Before birthdays were smaller affairs, she and Abby and their parents and sometimes their grandparents if they felt well enough. They weren’t so big and sparkly, but they were warm, and Abby was with her and everything was joyful.
Edith is seated with a gaggle of other children surrounding a kind looking woman with an anaconda draped around her shoulders. His name is Bok Choy, he’s two years old and his favorite food is live rats. Predictable diet four out of ten, plus six points for originality on the name though.
Edith has never met any of these children before, they’re not from her school, and they’re definitely not any of the neighbor kids. She supposes they must be the children from her mothers “work friends.” She sneaks a glance over her shoulder to the long picnic table where her mother and a group of men are seated, presumably talking business. They don’t really look like business men though, sure they’re wearing suits and stuff but she doesn’t think business moguls are supposed to have piercings, or gaudy rings on every finger, or neck tattoos. She takes a second longer to eye the neck piece on the bald man sitting to the left of Agatha, he’s got a large scar through his eyebrow and a mean looking smile.
Agatha does something in finance, right?
Skirted legs block her sight of the table, and Edith blinks as she looks up into the smiling visage of Mrs. Keyes. The middle aged woman doesn’t look as she usually does, she looks almost sad? Maybe her cat isn’t feeling well again? Mr. Tibbles technically lives in the house with them but he hides from everyone but Mrs. Keyes like they’re axe murders.
Mrs. Keyes stoops to her level, wild black curls framing kind, dark eyes.
“Edie, dear are you hungry?” She speaks softly so as to not disturb the snake woman’s show. “You know, I think they’re bringing the cake out now; and the birthday girl always gets the first piece.” She smiles like it’s a secret, and Edith can’t help but laugh. She does love cake.
“Ok!” And she takes her nanny’s hand and trots off to get a slice of strawberry cake with extra cream cheese frosting. Suspicions forgotten.
~*~
Mrs. Keyes has been taking care of Edith since exactly one month and three days since she was born. She’d been hired when the wet nurse was caught stealing her mothers jewelry, and “borrowing” her clothes. She’s the live in nanny, with a shy cat, a crippling addiction to romance novels, and she makes the best food like seriously Edith feels a bit of shame admitting it but Mrs. Keyes cooks better then her first mother. When she reads Edith her bedtime story Mrs. Keyes soft accent paints her words soothing. They’re reading through ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’.
All this being said, Mrs. Keyes does a lot for Edith, more then Agatha ever has anyway. This means that now that Edith is eight and has a much better mastery of her fine motor skills she is ready to begin her “happy birthday Mrs. Keyes/thank you for raising me for my whole life” plan. She’d recruited Mrs Chen and her tween daughter Lilly, their bi weekly house cleaners, to distract Mrs. Keyes while Edith temporarily took over the kitchen. She didn’t have the time or the skill for anything too involved, but she was certain she could handle a chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and orange preserve filling. The preserves were store bought, thank God, and chocolate-orange is Mrs. Keyes favorite flavor combination.
The door bell rings, and Mrs Keyes goes to let in the dynamic mother-daughter cleaning duo. Mrs. Chen sends Edith a wink as she sneaks past the three at the door to get into the kitchen and Edith smothers a laugh behind her hand. Mrs. Chen leads Mrs. Keyes away while Lily follows Edith into the kitchen, pulling out the groceries hidden in her cleaning bag.
“Let’s get started!” Lily sounds as excited as Edith feels.
And ok, maybe they set off the smoke detector one or two times, but trimming off the singed edges of the cake fixes that just fine. Also, baking a sheet cake proves to be detrimental to the original plan of putting orange preserves in the middle, so Edith and Lily improvise and saw the sheet cake in half. It’s a little uneven. The frosting comes out great though! And if you put enough of that on you can’t even tell it’s a little bit lopsided!
Mrs. Keyes is so happy she cries.
~*~
Edith is nine now and she likes to think she’s long over any existential tantrums. She’s a very well adjusted reincarnate, thank you very much.
The fair grounds are crowded, hot, and loud. Tinny music plays over loud speakers, and the smell of sweat and fried food is a dizzyingly American perfume. Mrs. Keyes is somewhere behind her blushing under the flirtations from the creepy circus owner, apparently when both people are middle aged and single anyone in similar circumstances is your type.
Edith keeps a wary eye on them from over her double scoop, mint chip, chocolate dipped, waffle cone.
They’re in Wisconsin for the week, seeing as it’s both summertime and her mother is in one of her “family means everything” moods. Though at least the fair grounds are lacking in maybe gangsters with neck tattoos?
Edith and Mrs. Keyes packed up for a week of “fun” in Wisconsin while Edith’s mother was busy with…whatever it is she did for work. Something in finance supposedly, but she’s never asked. Whatever it is though she’s growing up in a ritzy three story townhouse, a private school education, a live in nanny and a kitchen packed with organic fruit snacks. Edith really hopes it’s not gang related, she’d hate to wake up to an FBI raid one morning.
It was nice to see Agatha though, it had been almost a year since last she’d seen her new mother in person, but Edith would have much preferred to not have been dragged to the ass end of Wisconsin.
Edith, with one eye on Mrs. Keyes’ “paramour” one on her ice cream and steadfastly ignoring the creepy ass clowns, is taken completely by surprise when a very, very large someone knocks into her. Subsequently knocking her poor ice cream straight to the ground, and splattering chocolate all down the front of her powder blue dress. Clothes are replaceable though, ice cream is a spiritual experience.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry.”
Edith looks up…and up, and up, and up a little more at her ice cream violator.
Huh, hello brother dear.
A very apologetic Sam Winchester stares down at her in horror, behind him Dean Winchester is laughing in the way only a sibling witnessing their fellow siblings downfall can. They’re both dressed in staff uniforms, and unlike their on screen counterparts are looking quite sweaty in the Wisconsin heat, staff jackets, and multi layered wardrobe.
Edith thinks she might be going into shock, her fingertips are going numb. Edith looks back down to her soiled ice cream, it’s already a melted puddle on the ground, a hoard of ants swarming it. The bright green puddle of dye and sugar oozes through the dirt, swallowing a crumpled up paper towel discarded on the ground.
Priorities, priorities. No mental breakdowns just yet.
They’re her older brothers, she’s the baby and the only girl, the math is simple.
“…my ice cream…” Edith looks and sounds appropriately devastated at the sugary puddle at their feet, it’s not that hard she’s simply being true to her soul.
“Oh! Uhh…” Sam looks back at Dean wild eyed, the blond struggles through his mirth to shrug at his brother.
Sam looks around in desperation, finally catching sight of the cart the chocolate dipped cone originated from.
“Here! Let me get you a new one.”
They’re out of cones, sadly, so Edith ends up with two scoops of cookie dough ice cream drenched in chocolate sauce. It’s a fair trade so she decides to let Sam off the hook. Behind them Mrs. Keyes seems to be remembering she’s being paid to mind a small child in a crowded area, she’s not quite to the level of yelling but if Edith doesn’t make a reappearance the woman will probably start getting hysterical.
Edith aims her brightest smile up at her unknowing big brother, missing front teeth on full display.
“Thank you, mister!” And she’s off, back to Mrs. Keyes before fate or destiny or whatever other bullshit might be watching decides to mettle, and a parental DNA test comes fluttering down from the skies.
~*~
The rest of the week in Wisconsin proves to be nightmarish. Edith has a hard time falling asleep, and when she does her dreams are plagued with horrific nightmares. Edith can’t even remember what they’re about, just darkness and impressions of blood and screams. Supernatural is a fun show, a fact that Abby had all but forced down her throat, but the realities of it were horrid and shocking. Body horror, possession, torture, death, more torture, even more death but in the most horrific sorts of ways possible!
Not to mention, Edith couldn’t even rely on remembering plot lines as she’d barely watched that show. Anything she knew was from Abby ranting about this or that, and the few episodes her sister could convince her to sit through. She really liked the scooby-do episode, but that wouldn’t help with the biblical apocalypse.
She was so fucked, she was so fucked! It was only a matter of time until some supernatural douchbag discovered her, and decided to use her in some fucked up scheme to kill Sam and Dean that would backfire spectacularly! It would inevitably end up with more trauma and plot development for the boys, and death and agony for her!
Yeah, Edith was kind of falling apart.
After Edith’s third time waking up from horrific nightmares Mrs. Keyes had bundled her up in a a fuzzy robe and taken her out of the hotel and down the street to an ice cream parlor. It was both open at an ungodly hour, and also completely empty save the teenager manning the counter. She wondered how they were still in business?
Mrs. Keyes gets rocky road, and Edith gets salted caramel brownie. They sit together in the linoleum booth, the silence of the Wisconsin night stretching beyond the parlor window.
Time fades away into technicolor as they share illicit, witching hour ice cream. Despite the cold of the confectionaries, warmth blossoms in the soft little space behind her heart. It’s that same warm and fuzzy she used to feel with her sister. It’s the warmth of family.
There are no more nightmares.
~*~
Ok so maybe she spoke too soon on the nightmare thing. It’s been almost a solid year since Edith had her chance encounter with her wayward brothers, and so far no sign of the supernatural. Edith won first place in her schools science fair, and started a girls only book club at her school. It was all looking up for her.
Until now.
The plastic seat beneath her creaks ominously, the strange smell of felt carpet and cleaning solution permeates the room. Someone coughs, muffled, from across the waiting room. Mrs. Keyes is sitting beside her, flipping through the steamy romance of Andy and Lauren the B rated romance novel.
A hygienist steps out of the back room, clipboard in hand and salt and pepper hair tied into a frazzled braid.
“Edith Finch!” Edith slides off the waiting room chair and follows the hygienist down the hall as one would approach their own execution. In the small room at the end of the hall, the weird bed chair sits, reclined and surrounded by trays of ominous tools.
The dentists office. The bane of both of her existences. Edith is in today for fucking braces of all things! Her first life she had perfect teeth, Agatha has perfect teeth, that means it’s John-fucking-Winchester’s fault her teeth all grew in crooked as shit! That bastard, screwing all his kids over, even the ones he doesn’t even know about.
The hygienist leaves eventually, and Edith is left to sit and stew as she waits for the dentist. This blows.
The dentist comes some ten minutes later, he’s a new one so she’s never met the guy before. Her last dentist got arrested for attempted murder, after he tried to kill his wife after discovering her in their bed with his brother. He’s younger then she thought he’d be, made younger by his build of lanky and tall. Like an animated stick bug. Though she might be getting biased, he might be a perfectly nice guy! Just you know, a nice guy with terrible taste in careers.
“Hello!” He greets her with a smile and a little bit of a singsong. Definitely a pro in pediatrics. “I’m Doctor Garth Fitzgerald the IV,” He shakes her hand like a business man, and she can’t help but laugh. “And you must be Ms. Edith Finch.” He sits and refers to his chart. “And you’re here for your first set of braces.”
He starts to sort through his tool trays, and a different hygienist appears toting another tray of things. She’s a pretty blonde woman, long hair swept up into a sparkly pink clip.
“Did you already pick out your colors?” Doctor Garth snaps on a pair of gloves
“Yes!”
“Oooh, purple. Very nice choice.”
Ok yeah, Doctor Garth Fitzgerald the IV is way better then Richard the would be brother killer.
Of course, this is when everything goes to shit.
~*~
Garth is a lucky graduate who scored a cushy gig in Greenvale Family Dentistry, North Carolina fresh off out of graduation. He only got the position so fast because the last doctor here decided to go postal over his cheating wife and tried to murder his brother. Either way, he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The first few weeks here had been good, already fully staffed and trained, with a loyal clientele in a good neighborhood.
Then the children started to go missing.
It’s tragic of course, but what did it have to do with a newly graduated dentist? Except, when Garth tuned into the daily news every morning while he got ready for work he couldn’t help but connect a few things. Like how Billy Holden, Sara Newman, Tatiana Davies, and Brock Towson were all between the ages of eight and twelve. How they were all from different backgrounds, families, ethnicities, and neighborhoods. How they weren’t connected. Except for one thing.
They all went to Greenvale Family Dentistry. The disappearances had started a month or two before Garth got here, but had started in the same week Blaire Goslow the newest hygienist had moved from Missouri to North Carolina and started at Greenvale. None of the kids were taken from the office, but all their disappearances coincided with Blaire’s days off. Garth had felt like one of those crazed conspiracy theorists when he bought a city map and started drawing in red marker, he triangulated (?) the disappearances and found that the center of it all is, you guessed it, Greenvale Family Dentistry.
What the fuck Blaire?
Stalking her home and spying through her apartment window made him feel like a dirty old man, and really shouldn’t he hand over all the evidence he’s already gathered? Except Garth has an unhealthy addiction to crime tv and that almost always ends up with a wrongful arrest and the whistleblower dead in a holding cell so maybe he shouldn’t? Garth only stalked Blaire twice, and had been planning to stalk her this Sunday on her day off. It’s Friday right now, and he’s supposed to be getting little Ms. Edith Finch’s her first set of grape purple braces.
Blaire is the hygienist that comes in to assist him with this procedure. Blaire is not supposed to be assisting in this, he was expecting Bridget. Blaire hasn’t been trained on how to assist on these things, Bridget has been. Garth finds the words of objection and confusion tangling up in his throat, would telling her to fuck off and give the missing children back be too obvious?
Garth scoops up one of the needle nosed plaque scrapers tucking it into his sleeve, inwardly cursing that he didn’t think to bring an actual weapon. His daddy raised him better then that! Garth continues to lay out his tools in an orderly manner, keeping an eye on Blaire from the corner of his eye. He’s set tons of braces now, and little Edith already seems to be behaving better then 75% of his clientele. That’s not even counting the children!
Blaire doesn’t seem to notice his suspicious staring, but in the end it’s not the staring, or even the night stalking that give him away. It’s thinking Blaire was just normal, human, psycho.