The Righteous Woman

The Righteous Woman is intended as a collaborative writing project for the fandom. We want to start from the beginning and rewrite seasons 1-5, running each season as a reflection of the show’s own organization with a team of writers. These teams will be made up of five to six fanfiction writers who will come together, discuss characterization and key plot points, and then divvy up episodes and rewrite the series so that the only major change is that Dean was always Deanna. Episodes post to our LiveJournal every Monday!

[therighteouswoman]

Quick Scheduling Note

We are still working on some of our upcoming episodes! We want them to be the very best for all you lovely readers.

As such, there won't be a new episode this week, but we'll be back next Monday with "Nightmare"!

Dear readers, apologies for the unexpected hiatus!  

As the majority of our writers seem to be in grad school at the moment (Jenna included), real life priorities have taken hold, and we're running a bit behind on the next batch of episodes.  The Righteous Woman will be back to updating as soon as we get over this patch of juggling course work with extracurricular writing! 

[therighteouswoman]

Wow. This project is just wow. It blows my mind and intrigues me a lot. I'm going to go read it asap. And probably a dumb question, but who is the actress that you guys use as deanna?

Thank you, Anon! We hope you enjoy the episodes so far!

The actress is Amber Heard from Drive Angry! 

[therighteouswoman]

1.13 - Route 666 (ramblingsofaromantic): Part 1, Part 2. [PDF]

[therighteouswoman]

1.12 - Faith (wandering-antevasin): 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. [PDF]

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1.11 - Scarecrow (myjusticecake): 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. [PDF]

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1.10 - Asylum (myjusticecake): 

Part 1, Part 2. [PDF]

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1.09 - Home (wandering-antevasin): 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. [PDF]

[therighteouswoman]

Sam wanting to leave the life was never a surprise to Deanna. He’d taken up the training, sure, but he never wanted to shoulder that burden; he never wanted to be his father’s good little soldier. Sam liked school and safety. Sam liked the security found in permanence. Keeping a knife under the pillow out of habit was not something that pointed toward a safe, secure, normal life. It wasn’t a surprise, then, when Sam wanted to go to college.

Deanna saw it coming, she really did, and maybe she’d tried to crush those possibilities every time they surfaced in her mind. As it turned out, denial wasn’t the best preparation, because his announcement about Stanford still stung like hell.

They’d argued about it, screamed themselves hoarse at each other, and stalked off to fume silently (and separately) by way of recovering. Sam had waited to bring it up until John was out on a solo hunt, and Deanna had been insulted. If he thought he would have an easier time convincing her than John, he had another thing coming. He said he wanted a normal life, a good life, and even if part of Deanna knew what he meant, she was still furious.

“We do the best we can, Sammy!” she’d hollered, kept her expression one of fury to mask the hurt and resisted the urge to throw her arms up in exaggerated exasperation. They’d had this conversation before.

“Don’t I get a say in my own life, Deanna?” Sam had bellowed back, his own face much easier to read; he’d always felt everything so deeply. “Shouldn’t I get to choose what I do with it?”

“You should choose family, dammit! You should choose not to abandon us!”

A hard, disbelieving laugh punched out of Sam’s throat. “Choose family? You mean the family that taught me so much about killing that I don’t even know how to live anymore? No, Dee, I don’t think so.”

“It’s kept you alive, hasn’t it?” Deanna’s voice rose, but there was a fraction of a second where she felt her mask slip, the slightest crumpling of her face, something dangerously close to resignation threatening to overtake her. She’d steeled herself against it, set her mouth in a hard line and her eyes in a harsh glare.

“Only because Dad drags us into his supernatural shit all the time! Do you think I’d need to know how to behead a vampire if he didn’t put me in that situation in the first place?” The resentment dripped from the words, thick and venomous, but his stare had turned flat; he was shutting her out. “I can’t play soldier anymore, Dee. I’m not you.”

She had seen that he was flagging, that he was tired of fighting. His shoulders drooped slightly as he stepped back and away from her, removing himself physically to make it easier emotionally. His arms folded against his chest, but the posture looked less like it was meant to keep her out and more to hold himself together. Protect Sammy echoed in her mind, a knee-jerk reflex whenever Sam was distressed, but Deanna had never been the cause of that look. She realized dimly that protecting Sammy this time would mean backing off, because it was her doing the harm. The revelation froze the remaining words in her throat, and then she had fled the room.

John’s response wasn’t explosive. In the wake of Deanna’s tantrum, it had seemed rather anticlimactic; he didn’t even raise his voice. It was only a few hours after John’s return that Sam made his announcement for a second time, with John sifting through his journal and sipping his whiskey. Sam’s bag was already packed. Deanna looked on from the back of the room, watching the line of her little brother’s shoulders becoming tighter with agitation the longer John went without reacting before Sam’s composure broke completely.

“Say something!” he barked, the challenge hanging in the air between the two men. It was another minute before John even turned to face his son.

“If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back,” John replied, his voice all frosty detachment, before turning back to his journal. Sam grabbed his bag, had almost made it to the door before Deanna jumped in.

“You can’t be serious!” she protested, but she wasn’t sure who she was disagreeing with. Sam was still angry with her and John had completely ignored her outburst. “That can’t be it. You wouldn’t just turn out your own son like that!”

“If he wants out, he’s out, but it’s for life. He doesn’t get to come back,” John returned, tone just as chilly as it had been with Sam. For his part, Sam looked livid. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder and took another step toward the door, but he spared his sister a glance. She stared back at him, trying to convey in a look what they both knew she was dying to say out loud: don’t leave us. Don’t leave me.

“Sammy,” she started, searching for the words, but they wouldn’t come. As she made to begin again, John’s voice cut across her own sharply.

“Enough, Deanna.”

“But--”

“Deanna.”

She knew that if she didn’t pick her next words carefully, that would really be it; Sam would be out the door and gone for good. There were so many jumbled, half-formed thoughts guttering around in her skull that instinct kicked in. “Yes, sir.”

It was the wrong choice. She saw the hardening in Sam’s eyes just before he turned his back on her and walked out the door, slamming it pointedly behind him. Silence filled the room, heavy and oppressive, until the muted clink of glass on wood drew her attention to her father. He’d decided to forego the cup and drink straight from the bottle, still skimming through that damn journal. She had hazy memories of a similar scene from long ago, after the fire and her mother’s death; there’d been no journal then, but the bottle had been something of a constant companion of John’s for a long while.

Deanna had always tried hard to earn her father’s approval. She didn’t know for sure whether she’d like classic rock and cars if she hadn’t picked up the interests from her father first. Half an hour after Sam’s departure, she wound up in a bar down the street, nursing a glass of whiskey; an old friend of her father’s, a new friend of hers. It was really no surprise.

[therighteouswoman]

1.07 - Hookman (chainedtoacomet): 

Part 1, Part 2. [PDF] 

Sorry for the delay in posting this episode! Jenna was away for the long bank holiday weekend! Also, as a scheduling note, we have decided to forgo "Bugs," as it's a bit of a non-episode (that even Chuck was ashamed of), and skip straight ahead to "Home," which goes live on Friday. Happy reading!

[therighteouswoman]

Deanna sat on the hood of a busted-out Chevy and twisted her fingers together. From here, the fight was just an indistinguishable rise and fall of angry voices, Uncle Bobby and her dad getting into it as hard as they ever had. It was a rare visit that didn’t involve the two of them yelling at each other, but this time it was her fault. She was not sorry.

She knew what the world was, had known it since the house burned down and Mom died and Dad put Sammy into her arms and sent her running out into the night. There were bad things, there were monsters. Dad wrote in his journal late at night, pen in one hand, whiskey in the other, and fell asleep at the table of whatever shitty motel they were staying in that week. When she put a blanket across his slumped shoulders, she read the words “shtriga” and “werewolf,” and “ghoul” beneath his outflung arm.

She knew about the silver knives and hex bags stowed in the false bottom of the car’s trunk that Bobby helped Dad install, about the guns and the salt, and the stitches Dad gives himself in the bathroom. She knew too much to pretend not to.

“She’s a little girl!” Dad yelled, loud enough to carry out of the shed and into the yard. Bobby shouted back, something she couldn’t hear. The door to the shed flew open, and she scrambled to her feet, shoving her hair back behind her ears, then tucking her shirt in.

Her Dad came striding out, face grim, and she braced herself for the lecture, for the heavy swat across the back of her head. Instead, he thrust an arm at her and she took the .22 reflexively.

“Show me,” he said.

It was harder with him watching, without Bobby there to adjust her shoulders, to remind her to breathe out, to squeeze instead of pull, but once she took her first shot and the can spun off the post like a skipping stone, it got easy again. Pop pop pop, ten in a row, and she’d have felt pleased if she weren’t so scared. This was a test, and she didn’t know if she was supposed to pass or fail.

“Huh,” said Dad, and she risked a glance upward. There was a slow, unwilling smile pulling at his mouth and then he looked down at her, speculative. “That’s some nice shooting, Dee.”



The inside of her chest was hot and buoyant. “Bobby showed me the shotgun, too,” she said.

“Alright,” he said, and took a deep breath. The lines on his face look deeper, but the way his eyes creased at her was real and warm.

“Show me what you got.” 

[therighteouswoman]

1.06 - Skin (texaas and gabehorn): 

Part 1, Part 2. [PDF]

[therighteouswoman]

The Bloody Mary pdf link is for The Phantom Traveller.

Oops! Thanks for pointing that out! 

[therighteouswoman]

1.05 - Bloody Mary (cdyandra and chainedtoacomet): 

Part 1, Part 2. [PDF]

[therighteouswoman]

The first time John had to leave his kids alone for a few nights Deanna was nine, John said he just had to go to the next town over to get rid of this ghoul and it was too dangerous to take her and Sam. He said it would just be for the night and he trusted Deanna to be able to take care of Sam for the night. When he was packing up to go he noticed Deanna nervously watching Sam play with his toy fire truck. He took his leather jacket off of the chair he’d tossed it on and knelt in front of his daughter.

“Hey, Deanna, look at me,” he said. When she turned her head to look he made a show of unfolding the jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

“Dad?” she asked as she brought up her hands to clutch at the familiar leather.

“You know I wouldn’t be leaving you if I didn’t think you could handle it, right?” he asked as he squeezed her shoulders.

She nodded, “Yes, sir.” “That’s my girl, you take good care of Sammy, okay?” he said and stood up.

“Okay, Dad.”

John was gone for two nights in the end, and Deanna sat up all night with her father’s jacket around her shoulders and her sawed off in her lap as she watched her baby brother sleep. When he got back he never asked for the jacket back and while it didn’t fit her at all, Deanna kept it and wore it like armor whenever John was gone.

[therighteouswoman]

1.04 - Phantom Traveler (gabehorn and chainedtoacomet): 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. [PDF]

[therighteouswoman]

1.03 - Dead in the Water (alandickman): 

Part 1, Part 2. [PDF]

[therighteouswoman]

Mary Winchester’s favorite jacket was made of brown suede.

She bought it in Arizona after a successful hunt. She had killed a chupacabra. During the hunt, the chupacabra had managed to take a swipe at her, shredding one of the sleeves of her old jacket. A new purchase had been in order. 

Mary wore the jacket for years. She was wearing it when she first met John Winchester, the man who would become her husband and the father to her two children. She often wore it on their dates. He said it brought out the color of her eyes. 

It often struck her as odd that she would enjoy wearing this jacket so much in her new life. It was her reward to herself for killing the chupacabra; for being a good hunter. She earned that jacket. But the jacket’s history made it symbolic of her past. The very same past she spent so much time trying to forget. 

Mary Winchester was wearing this jacket the morning of the day she died. She had taken Deanna and baby Sam to the park. Mary held Sam close and he played with the buttons of her jacket as she watched Deanna run around with a few other children, playing a seemingly endless game of hide-and-seek. 

On the way home, Mary had stopped at the grocery store. They were almost out of milk, and Deanna wanted Mary to bake an apple pie. Deanna insisted they also buy bananas, as well; Deanna thought Sam would like bananas very much. Mary thought it was precious.

The afternoon sun had risen, making the interior of the Impala—that stupid, loud car that Mary still shook her head at, sometimes—swelter, despite it being a chilly November day. Mary had removed the jacket and left it lying carelessly on the backseat when she placed Sam in his carseat after their stop at the grocery store. When they arrived home, Sam was crying; he was in need of a nap. With one arm full of the baby, and the other carrying a paper bag full of foodstuffs, Mary led her children into their home, the jacket forgotten. 

Late that night, after the fire brigade had finally managed to subdue the flames that consumed his home, John Winchester found himself and his children homeless, with only the Impala left. He ignored the sympathetic offers from the neighbors; he didn’t want his children spending the night anywhere near the burnt remains of their former life. Or anywhere near where that thing had stood.

Deanna was the one who found the jacket. She had been placed beside Sam on the backseat during John’s long drive away from Lawrence. He didn’t know where he was driving to, just that he couldn’t stop.

It was 3 a.m. and the roads were deserted. John looked up into the rearview mirror to check on Deanna and Sam.

Sam was fast asleep. Deanna, however, was awake and staring off out the window, her wide eyes glassy with tears. She had not spoken a word since John had sent her running out into the front yard with her baby brother in her arms. Pulled close around her tiny frame like a blanket was a brown suede that John would recognize anywhere. It was his wife’s jacket. 

John pulled the Impala over to the side of the dark, empty road, put the car in gear, turned off its engine, and allowed himself to weep. 

Deanna clung to the jacket for days. John never tried to take it away from her. 

When Deanna was sixteen, she pulled on the jacket and wore it as her own for the first time. It would be a few more years before it fit her as perfectly as it had her mother, but she wore it nevertheless. The jacket became an intrinsic part of her.

Deanna liked to pretend she could still smell her mother in the soft suede. 

John hated to see her wear the jacket, but he never said this to his daughter. The brown brought out the color of her eyes, too.