"Such Interesting Neighbors" (Part 1 of 2)

By December

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: PG

Pairing: Dean / Jo

Warnings: None

Summary: There's something unusual about the new neighbors on Oak Grove Circle.

A sequel to the story "Forgotten"; this will make more sense if you've read the first one.

THEN

"I'm married?" he asks incredulously. Jo's hand, similarly adorned, covers his.

Sam can't see much of anything if the while film covering his eyes and his blank stare is anything to go by.

"She's Mary for your mother, and Ellen for mine," Jo tells him, looking at the infant with just a hint of sadness.

NOW

So the problem with being the neighborhood gossip on Oak Grove Circle (there's only one oak tree, in Ted and Francie Miller's front yard) is that there's nothing all that interesting to actually gossip about on our little seven-house cul-de-sac. I mean, Peter Gustavson's teenagers are juvenile delinquents-in-training, and Ed McReedy has all these wacky survivalist ideas, but we're all used to that by now. The most exciting thing that's happened on the Circle lately is when Lillian Flowers finally gave in to her daughter's constant nagging and agreed to move to New Mexico to live with her. We all threw Lillian such a great farewell party that she almost missed her plane.

Lillian's house – she used some agency in town to rent it out – sat empty for almost three months before the new family moved in around the beginning of July. The first time I saw them, I was weeding my front garden while P.J., my seven-month-old, was taking a nap. First was this blonde woman driving one of those big black macho cars (I don't know cars), with a brown-haired guy in the passenger seat, followed by another brown-haired guy driving one of those small rental trucks. When I walked by along the sidewalk to get the mail (not really going out of my way), I just happened to glance in their truck, and it was only half-full. They probably could've gotten the whole truckload for a hundred bucks at a garage sale. Hardly worth moving, I thought, but some people are just so attached to their stuff.

Once they were moved in – I couldn't offer to help, because P.J. woke up and I swear I don't need a baby monitor to hear him when he does – I went over with a plateful of cookies. The blonde woman answered the door, and she must've strained her back moving furniture, because she kept on holding her hand behind her back the whole time we were talking. We exchanged names, mine being Patti Martinez and hers being Joan Wesson. She seemed a bit nervous, uncomfortable around strangers, so I invited her over to a backyard barbeque that evening to meet the neighborhood so we wouldn't be strangers. She was one of those shy types that's uncomfortable when anyone pays attention to her, so I told her it was no big deal, we were going to have folks over anyhow. And then I had to go home to actually invite everyone over, since I hadn't decided to have a barbeque until after Joan and her family showed up.

Well, fortunately pretty much everyone else on the Circle was free for dinner, and they wanted to meet the people living in Lillian's house too, so we had a pretty good turnout. Only Ted Miller had to work, and Ted always has to work. Joan and her family were the last to arrive, except for the Kitteridges (who are always late.) Just like when we met earlier, Joan had her longish blonde hair back in a ponytail. The shorter of the two men was Joan's husband, Dan Wesson. He had a short, almost military haircut, and was obviously no stranger to exercise. They had a little girl, an energetic toddler named Mary Ellen. (Really, really energetic. I dread P.J. reaching that age.) She was quite possibly one of the cutest kids I've ever seen, aside from my own. The other man was Joan's brother, a blind man named Sean Smith, who was also living with them. He was tall and skinny and wore dark glasses all the time. They'd come here from Detroit to get a new start; something about a fire in their old house.

Dan was looking for work, although he only described his background as "a little bit of everything." He was what I call a reformed flirt – a quick smile for all the ladies, even Kim Miller, and she's only sixteen – but he saved the best smile, the one that really reached his eyes, for when his blonde wife showed up at his side while he was talking to someone in the back yard and tucked herself under his arm. Joan herself still seemed a little nervous, and she'd always pause before answering even the simplest question about herself, as though she was trying to remember the right answer. I really would have to work on her self-esteem.

Mary Ellen was talking, but not really understandable to anyone but her parents; for example, "Ugga Sam" meant "Uncle Sean." Like everything else, she talked at about ninety miles an hour, and I'm sure the ketchup stains will come out of my patio furniture eventually. Sean Smith was a friendly guy in spite of his disability, joking about how fake the name Smith sounded, but he was stuck with it, wasn't he? And then the poor man accidentally stepped on his brother-in-law's foot. Sean, it turns out, is single, so I made a point of making sure he sat next to Tamara Andrews, is also unattached, at the picnic table. Carl Gustavson, who's sixteen, and his brother, Lars, who's two years younger, thought it would be funny to start making "blind" jokes around Sean, but he took it in good stride, even threw a couple back at them. Those two boys just haven't been the same since their mother took off with her secretary.

During the party I missed one important detail that Dan shared with my husband, Rico. Come to discover that Dan was a military brat, always moving around from place to place when he was a kid, and he kept moving around a lot as an adult too. Rico's always been a sucker for any kind of military background, even one that's second-hand, like Dan's, so Rico offered him a job at his bar, the Five O'Clock Shadow, as a bouncer. I was so mad at Rico for not even getting a resume. Rico told me Dan's pretty good, too, friendly until friendly's a disadvantage, and then suddenly he's tough and fearless, like he's seen much worse than a drunk with a broken bottle.

The first few times I stopped by, it seemed like all three of them were pretty tense. They'd jump if the doorbell or phone rang. Joan explained that they were trying to avoid her aunt, who'd never approved of Dan and would spend hours reminding her of it. I never did meet that aunt. By August they started to settle in. Joan, who'd done some waitressing, found work at a nearby diner a couple days a week. They left Mary Ellen with Sean when they were both working. I had to respect him for it; that kid made most toddlers seem lethargic, and he handled her better than most sighted people would have. Dan bonded with Peter Gustavson over classic rock music, and they went to a couple shows together in some smoke-filled little nightclub not far from Rico's bar. Sean turned out to be something of a bookworm and started tutoring Kim Miller in the summer school Latin she was taking, helping her with her pronunciation. I never did manage to get him and Tamara Andrews on a date together, though.

Rico earned his keep by getting me some insight into Dan's mindset. He and Dan had a few drinks after the Five O'Clock Shadow closed one night, and Dan confessed to Rico that he thought he'd hate the suburban life – mowing the lawn, taking the garbage out to the curb every week, saying "honey, I'm home" was completely alien to him. But his brother-in-law was able to be more independent in familiar surroundings, and his little girl just loved to run around in their back yard, and the whole thing just felt safer than the big city, where they'd lived before. "Safe" was very important to Dan; Rico inferred they'd had problems back in Detroit and probably decided it wasn't the best place to raise a child. He still didn't especially like the suburbs, but he'd put up with it for his family's sake.

Shortly before school started, the neighborhood had a whole series of break-ins – not just on the Circle, but some of the other streets around us too. They all happened late at night while the people living in the houses were sound asleep. Ed McReedy started a neighborhood watch program for the Circle and offered to look out for Joan and Sean while Dan was still at work, but Dan politely declined, much to Ed's dismay. I'm not sure why; Ed's a little odd, but he's good with all that survivalist/security/home protection stuff. Maybe they were just hoping that sort of thing wouldn't happen to them; some people are completely unrealistic when it comes to preparing for emergencies. It's the sort of "bad things only happen to other people" mentality that really irks me.

On Labor Day, with school scheduled to start the next day, we had another backyard barbeque. Carl and Lars Gustavson showed up with identical black eyes and an assortment of interesting bruises, and those were just the ones I could see. Neither one of them were willing to talk about it. I head Peter Gustavson telling Dan Wesson that the boys wouldn't tell him what happened; he was worried about bullies, although I've never heard of a bully getting an early start on the school year. Lars, who's only fourteen, was wearing a tee-shirt for something called "Daredevil," so I thought they might have been trying some stupid backyard stunts. It was nice to see that those two boys finally stopped telling "blind" jokes around Sean Smith. And at least the break-ins stopped when school started.

The way Dan and Joan said goodbye every afternoon caught my attention, since usually Dan left for work in the afternoon while P.J. was napping and I was out working in my garden. Most of the couples on the Circle, like me and Rico, kiss each other goodbye with a quick peck on the cheek like we're auditioning for a '50's sitcom. Not these two. They'd kiss mouth to mouth and hold each other close like they were never going to see each other again, and more than once they went back inside their house and Dan didn't come back out again for a good half hour. I thought it was sweet, and made a mental note to try that technique on Rico someday.

A few weeks later, Kim Miller discovered that all three of the adults in their family had plans, and actually convinced Joan to let her baby-sit for her. Francie, Kim's mom, told me that Kim told her that Kim had gotten some of the oddest "if something goes wrong" instructions in the history of babysitting. Cell phone numbers I can understand. Fire extinguishers in every room of the house seemed a little excessive, and the nursery had two. They made sure she knew where all the exits to the house were. They made sure she knew where the fireplace tools were, and it wasn't really cold enough to light a fire. The strangest thing, though, was that Dan and Joan seemed to look to Sean to make the final decision as to whether it was all right to leave Mary Ellen with Kim. He concentrated on it for a few minutes before he said it would be okay, and they stopped worrying after that. Like Sean had flicked on an "Okay" switch. Maybe because Sean knew Kim best after tutoring her in Latin. At least everything went smoothly.

Around the beginning of October, the mother of one of the Kitteridges – I don't remember whose mother, and they both called her "mom" – died in a nursing home a few towns over. It was pretty odd, too, because the doctors said that her health had suddenly taken a turn for the worse; the week before she was doing quite well. We all said the usual things, featuring the words "pity" and "shame" but of course there wasn't anything we could really do. The real tragedy was that this wasn't the first death there; two residents had died before that, and the health department was looking into the situation. Joan seemed unusually upset by the whole thing, although she'd never met the mom.

Well, Dan must've sensed that his wife needed a little extra attention, because he arranged with Rico to have that weekend off for a "romantic getaway." They left Mary Ellen with Sean, and took off for parts unknown in that black car of his. They came back Monday practically clinging to each other. I was a little worried when I saw that Joan had a bloodied lip – I won't stand for any sort of abuse on my watch – but watching Dan carefully kiss his way around the injury reassured me. The next day was unusually warm, making it a perfect day for mowing lawns, and when Dan mowed his I noticed that he had scratches on both his shoulders, so I'm guessing they both like things a little rough.

They never did find out what was caused those deaths at the nursing home, but the Kitteridges' mother was the last one who died, and they eventually got a nice settlement from the nursing home, although I know they'd both rather have mom still around. I even called my mother in Los Angeles after that incident, and I hadn't talked to my mother in months.

SOON

Sometimes I wonder how I'll react in a crisis – I think everyone does. Will you keep your head? Do what needs to be done? Or will you fall apart, being worse than useless? It never occurred to me to wonder if I'd start calling people the wrong names.