"Ash! Where's Jo?" Ellen yells from inside the Roadhouse.

Ash's eyes widen, having just watched the Impala disappear. He hadn't thought of Ellen, or what he would say.

"Ash?" Ellen yells again.

"Yeah?" he shouts back, turning to go inside and face the wrath of Ellen Harvelle.

"Where is she?"

"Who?"

"Ash," she growls.

"She went out there, but - uh - she stopped for a second to talk to Dean. She walked away, and there was a change in the air and Dean followed."

"And?"

"And they came back," he said nervously.

"Ash," it was a warning.

"She went hunting with them," he said quickly and darted off. He locked the door to his room before Ellen could kill him for letting her go. He couldn't have made her stay, not even if he'd wanted to.

"Shit," Jo mutters, picking up her phone. Dean glances at her in question as he drives. "Hey, Mom," she winced. She looks up at Dean just as he looks down at her in fear.

"Don't 'hey, Mom' me! What the hell are you thinking?!"

"I was invited?" Jo tried, putting the phone on speaker.

"I better damn well be on speaker!"

"You are."

"Dean Winchester you turn that damn car around and bring her back, now!"

"Ellen, she is an adult. She can make her-"

"I am not-" Ellen's voice cut off when Dean ended the call.

"Dean! Do you have a death wish?!" Jo asked incredulously.

"No, but I figured that she would try and guilt you into coming home by bringing up your dad."

"How'd you know?"

"'Cause it's what I would've done," he said nonchalantly.

A silence filled the car for a second, but was broken by Sam's concerned voice from the backseat. "Dean, did you just argue with and hang up on Ellen Harvelle?"

"Yeah, I did. I thought you were asleep?"

"I woke up to the sound of you doing something incredibly stupid and sweet. I'm going back to sleep." Sam said, stifling a yawn.

Dean just grumbled and kept driving. Sam slept for a few more hours, and then they stopped at a motel. When Dean got one room with two beds, both Sam and Jo's eyebrows shot up.

"Dean, I could get a separate room," Jo suggested, when the door was shut.

"Your mom already wants to kill me, do you really think I'd let you out of my sight?"

"Yeah, that's why," Sam said under his breath.

"I'll sleep on the couch," Dean offered and no one objected to the idea.

Unbeknownst to the boys, Jo was nervous about sharing the room, but not for the expected reasons. "Right," she said, "I'm gonna go take a shower." She grabbed her duffel that had been stowed in her truck, and headed into the tiny bathroom.

After Jo had finished her shower, she had gone to bed, and the brothers were close behind.

Dean, always the light sleeper, is awakened by the sound of Jo whimpering in her sleep. He gets up and walks over to her bed. She looks so small and innocent when she sleeps. She's curled into herself and tears stain her face.

A nightmare.

Dean shakes her gently, trying to wake her. "Jo," he whispers. When she doesn't respond, he shakes her harder.

Suddenly, the whimpering stops. She immediately sits up, and wipes at her face self consciously.

"I'm sorry," Jo quickly apologizes.

"For?" he whispers back.

"Waking you."

Dean sits down next to her when he hears the self-loathing and deprecation in her voice. "Jo," he says softly, "you can wake me up whenever, okay?"

"I'm not a kid, Dean. I should've grown out of this years back."

He almost flinches at the level of anger and frustration in her voice. "Jo, nightmares aren't just for little kids. I still have them."

"Not nightmares in general. Just this one, and the crying in my sleep. I've had it periodically since my dad died, and it's stupid."

"Do you want to talk about it?" That was a shock even to Dean. He wasn't emotional, that was Sam.

"No." He didn't move. "You're gonna make me, right?"

"Let's go outside."

The two sat in the back of the Impala in a comfortable silence. Jo glanced out the window at the falling rain, and Dean looked over at her.

"I started having the dream just after my dad died. It was really frequent at first, but now it's just every now and then. I'm being chased by hellhounds, but then I fall into a pit. It's dark and goes down and down and down. Then I open my eyes and it's this thing. Its skin is almost transparent and you can see its bones. It has a long face and dark pits where its eyes should be. Its mouth opens wide and is another black pit, but with long fangs. It has three long claws on each hand and foot. It's probably eight feet tall." Dean shuddered at the description. "Blood drips from its mouth and it begins to cut open my skin with its claws. It tortures me for hours before it kills me. That's when I wake up."

"Wow."

"Remember how I said I was a little twisted too? Yeah. There's proof."

The silence between them now was heavy. Neither could think of what to say, so they didn't, and that was the best thing they could have done.

After a few minutes, Dean leaned over and kissed her gently. She leaned over onto his shoulder, and after a while, she drifted off to sleep curled up in the back of Dean's car being cradled by the elder Winchester himself. Soon he fell asleep as well.

AN: Wow, that was sweet. I'd love to hear what you guys think. Review?

Until the next time,

Seraphina Jones