[ They've only met once, months ago, when the Winchesters turned up in New York on a case that she happened to be on the fringes of. It was weird as hell, something tugged at the edge of her memory at the mention of monsters but Beverly never did get the full story. Tom shouldered his way into what appeared to be a routine interview and turned Dean and his brother away before she could. (Tom never did like her talking to other men. Never liked how they looked at her; or, worse, how she looked at them, which is how she looked at anyone else. Normal.) They weren't real FBI agents — though in hindsight maybe the badges are what spooked her husband then — but the number on the business card had been real enough.
Call us if you think of anything else. Or if you need help, the subtext seemed to say. (She was always looking for help, those days.) She never called, but she kept the number saved to her phone as a nail salon after. Just in case. But the night she leaves Tom and hides out at Kay's for a few hours, she scrolls to the number and texts it. She doesn't know why. Maybe just to tell someone, anyone, outside her circle that she did it. Make it real.
Hi, this is Beverly Rogan Marsh. It's 2 months late but I just wanted to apologize for my shitty husband and also I left him and I'm going home.
And then she went back to Derry. And when her husband began blowing up her phone with angry calls and Pennywise began blowing up their lives in general, she switched it off and forgot about it for three days while she and the Losers took care of business. And now it's the middle of the night, they're grimy and exhausted and hunkered down at the hospital with Eddie in surgery, and Beverly digs her phone out of her backpack and switches it back on. Dozens of missed calls from Tom. She blocks him, feeling nothing. And a few messages from —
Oh. Dean.
Hey, sorry, she replies, was busy killing a monster which would be a joke to anyone else but she knows, now, that what the Winchesters were doing in New York was very real. As real as what they'd just done. And she doesn't know how to talk about it, it's so fucking insane she feels like one of her nightmares came true and in a lot of ways, they did, but it's all real and maybe this is literally the only guy who could possibly understand and before she realises it, she's sitting on the floor of an empty corridor, sticky with dried blood, her phone pressed to her ear, and it rings only twice before — ]
Oh, [ she says faintly, surprised, like he'd called her instead of the other way around. Then she laughs, breathless and brittle with exhaustion. ] Hi, um... How are you?
→ ring ring
Call us if you think of anything else. Or if you need help, the subtext seemed to say. (She was always looking for help, those days.) She never called, but she kept the number saved to her phone as a nail salon after. Just in case. But the night she leaves Tom and hides out at Kay's for a few hours, she scrolls to the number and texts it. She doesn't know why. Maybe just to tell someone, anyone, outside her circle that she did it. Make it real.
Hi, this is Beverly
RoganMarsh. It's 2 months late but I just wanted to apologize for my shitty husband and also I left him and I'm going home.And then she went back to Derry. And when her husband began blowing up her phone with angry calls and Pennywise began blowing up their lives in general, she switched it off and forgot about it for three days while she and the Losers took care of business. And now it's the middle of the night, they're grimy and exhausted and hunkered down at the hospital with Eddie in surgery, and Beverly digs her phone out of her backpack and switches it back on. Dozens of missed calls from Tom. She blocks him, feeling nothing. And a few messages from —
Oh. Dean.
Hey, sorry, she replies, was busy killing a monster which would be a joke to anyone else but she knows, now, that what the Winchesters were doing in New York was very real. As real as what they'd just done. And she doesn't know how to talk about it, it's so fucking insane she feels like one of her nightmares came true and in a lot of ways, they did, but it's all real and maybe this is literally the only guy who could possibly understand and before she realises it, she's sitting on the floor of an empty corridor, sticky with dried blood, her phone pressed to her ear, and it rings only twice before — ]
Oh, [ she says faintly, surprised, like he'd called her instead of the other way around. Then she laughs, breathless and brittle with exhaustion. ] Hi, um... How are you?