A.N.: While trying to write the latest chapter of 'Devil Within' this idea came and conquered my every waking moment until I wrote it down. I couldn't stop thinking that Dean might have had a different relationship with Jo in the 6x17 AU. So this is my take on that. Sorry it's a bit long, but I needed to tell their story. If you don't like Jo then turn back now. Thanks for anyone and everyone who takes the time to read and review. A special shout out to the two best betas that a girl could ask for smalld1171 and Sharlot. You guys are the greatest! :D
Disclaimer: Nothing but this idea is mine.
His fingers rest on the handle for a moment longer than necessary, relishing the feel of the familiar metal beneath his palm. The other universe might have had a lot going for it, but the absence of his baby was a tradeoff that he wasn't willing to make.
He can hear his brother's heavy footfalls stop short of the passenger door.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
He pulls his head up to look at his brother's compassionate face. Even tempered by hard years of hunting, the puppy dog eyes of doom still shine through.
"Just missed my baby, that's all." He grunts, easing his door open.
Sam casts one last melancholy glance back to the old dilapidated house of Bobby Singer before joining his brother in the Impala.
It's several days later, as Sam downs the rest of his limp salad, that he turns his head sideways and fixes Dean with a stare that the eldest Winchester has a hard time ignoring.
"Dude, I'm eating." He gripes.
"Tell me about Jo." He states.
The simplicity of the statement unnerves Dean, calling him back to a time when he had implored the same thing from Sam.
His brother had sat in a heap on the bathroom floor, his sobs splintered only by the violent heaving brought on by the potent combination of too much alcohol and not enough food.
He stared up at Dean through red rimmed eyes and proclaimed "I can't remember what she smelt like" In a voice much too tiny to be coming from the Sasquatch creature curled up at his feet.
His voice had hitched when he had said. "Who will remember her Dean? If I don't, who will keep Jess alive?"
His voice had been pleading, and while Dean had no answers for him in that moment, the next day, once Sam had sobered up, he had turned down the radio and beseeched his baby brother to "Tell me about Jess."
He hadn't run out of things to say until they hit the Florida border three states over. Dean can remember the relief he felt as the ghost of Jess left Sam's eyes, the burden lessened by the fact that they were both carrying it now.
He jolts back into the present with a tiny shove from Sam.
"Hey Dean, you okay?"
Dean shakes the vestiges of the past off and slides his gaze to his brother. "Um…yeah. I'm fine."
"So, tell me about her."
"What about her?" he starts with a shrug. "You know her as well as I do."
"Dude," Sam begins, his breath pushing out through his teeth in an exasperated sigh. "You know what I mean."
Dean's fingers turn white on the steering wheel. "I thought we said we weren't going to talk about this."
"Yeah to Bobby. But you and I both remember that life Dean."
"So what? We remember. One more thing to add to the bad luck list we seem to stack up."
"I'm willing to listen Dean."
"Well I ain't talking." His tone is final and he can see his younger brother biting back a retort.
Just let it go Sam, please just let it go.
"Fine," Sam says finally. "But when you do want to talk, I'll listen."
Dean doesn't respond, his fingers finding the dial on the radio and twisting the knob as far as it, and the car will allow.
His feet almost give out on him as he stumbles back to the hotel, thinking that 'one beer' had sounded so good until the other eight decided they didn't like being left out.
Was the beer before or after the tequila shots? Where did the whiskey fit in?
Shit…his brain is on strike from all the abuse.
He places his hand on the wall of the hotel, using the bricks in the structure as hand holds so he doesn't collapse into a drunken heap on the ground.
Sammy is going to be so pissed.
He reaches the door of their room, startled that it is already open. He can see his brother sitting in a silent vigil at the end of his bed.
Better than a watch dog…
"Hey there Sammy," he calls out with an exaggerated wave.
"Hey Dean."
"What are you doing sitting here in the dark? Creeper much Sam?"
Sam lets out a humorless chuckle, waving Dean's cell phone at him. "Tried to call you. Lot of good that did."
"Oh so that's where it went. I thought maybe I lost it." He slaps the side of his head in a 'duh' motion regretting it immediately when it has the same effect as being thrust on a tilt-o-whirl.
His brother's voice is soft when he inquires. "Why did you call Jo?"
A semi-truck of emotions slams into him, his heart lighting up with anger, regret, longing, and sorrow before it decides to stick with its default setting, anger.
"What the fuck are you doing looking in my phone?"
Sam has the sense to look ashamed as his gaze floats down to the ground. "I was just…"
"What? Snooping? Checking up on me? Keeping tabs on your poor alcoholic brother?" he roars.
Sam flinches and tries to catch one of his flailing arms so he can lead him into the room.
"That's not it Dean. I was worried that…"
"Worried huh? Well that's not a new one for you Samantha. Always so worried. Maybe you should mind your own goddamn business." He spits, inebriation fueling his words more than actual emotion.
"Dean, this is the third night in a row you have gone out and gotten trashed."
"So? What's it to you? I'm not hurting anyone."
"No Dean, you are. You're hurting. And you won't talk to me. Please man, just…please."
"What the hell do you want to know Sam?" Dean demands, taking a step towards him. "Huh?"
"Why did you call her?"
Dean falters his steps slow and unsure. "Who cares?"
"I do."
His brother's tone is earnest and Dean can see the bed just beyond him. It would feel so good to sit down and rest...
"Doesn't matter." He groans unaware of Sam's grip on him until he is sitting on the dandelion yellow comforter. "She wasn't there."
Sam nods. "I know."
"She isn't anywhere."
Sam nods again. "I know Dean."
"It's not fair Sam. It's just…" he swallows the lump in his throat that is part grief, part illness and meets his brothers' eyes. "Not fucking fair."
He feels his boots being peeled off his feet and his body tilted to the side before there is a whisper of fabric pulled up around him and he succumbs to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.
He wakes up to the fresh smell of coffee and the faint aroma of cinnamon rolls just seconds before his stomach reminds him that it too is annoyed by last night's treatment.
He stumbles out of the bed and barely makes it to the porcelain bowl before his brain seconds the notion that he is an idiot.
He moans as a fissure of pain blasts through his head, making him feel like there is a crevasse the size of the Grand Canyon splitting his skull open.
He gratefully accepts the help to get to his feet and dry swallows the duo of pills that Sam hands him along with a glass of water.
"You look like shit." His brother states as Dean throws him what he hopes is a 'fuck you' glare.
He's pretty sure it comes off as a 'you stupid poopyhead' stare without the power to put any heat behind it.
He's positive when Sam lets out a soft guffaw. "How you feeling?"
Dean growls low in his throat. "Really Sam?"
"Sorry. Couldn't help it."
"Try." He grits out, riding out the last wave of nausea.
Sam gives him another twenty minutes to calm the riot his brother's body is throwing and Dean starts to feel like a human being before he tries to speak again.
"Tell me about Jo."
His head shoots up at her name, the pang in his chest still an alien sensation when it comes to her.
Sure he cared about her before, felt guilty as shit when she died for him and Sam, but they were never…
"I'll just listen Dean. I swear. I won't say anything if you don't ever want to talk about this again, but man…you have to talk about it."
It should have no effect on Dean, as many times as that plea has been uttered to him he should be completely immune to the devastating result of his walls coming down.
But he's not.
Add in the fact that the bartender from last night had shared the same brown eyes as the late hunter and his armor is more than a little cracked.
He coughs once to clear his throat and then looks at Sam.
"Her favorite color is pink. Can you believe that? Pink! Something I gave her hell about for years…"
He'd met her in the summer. Not really taking any notice of her as she sat out on the front porch, pigtails swaying back and forth in the breeze.
He'd been preoccupied with the fact that Sam had swiped his favorite jacket, scanning the outside of bar for the tale tell mop of hair that indicated his brother was near.
He really needed to get it cut, although it amused Dean to no end that he was often mistaken for a girl, his gentle voice and soft features giving credence to the lie.
He approached the girl swiftly, waiting for Sam to give away his presence.
"Hey, I'm looking for my brother. He's about this tall, shaggy brown hair, wearing a leather jacket that doesn't belong to him."
The girl turned her cinnamon brown eyes on him for a moment, uttering "Haven't seen him" before returning to blankly staring out into the trees.
"Um…okay." Dean stated, scratching the back of his head. He thought maybe it was just because he was thirteen and wouldn't get it until he was older, but girls didn't make a lick of sense to him. Didn't help him that he had never had a mother to walk him through the mysterious world of females.
"Well if you see him can you…"
"Can you go away? Please." She cut him off mid-sentence, turning toward him, her eyes burning with a powerful emotion that he could not name.
"Yeah, sorry. I was just," he stumbled over his words as his feet scurried off of the porch.
His eyes spotted the tufts of brunette hair peeking over the top of one of the barrels as he reached over and thumped the figure on the head.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Sam cried out in pain and glared at his older brother. "Nothing."
"Bullshit. Now give me my jacket back." He stated, wiggling his younger sibling out of the clothing.
Sam frowned up at him. "I was just borrowing it. I was gonna give it back."
"Borrowing without asking? That's called stealing and it's liable to get your ass kicked."
"Why do you get all the cool stuff?" he pouted.
"Oh Sammy," he started, throwing an arm casually around his sibling's shoulders. "I'm sure if you ask real nice Dad will get you a new dress."
Sam grumbled something insulting under his breath and shoved his older brother away from him. "You're such an ass Dean."
Dean ruffled the top of his head, his eyes scanning the area for the girl on the porch.
But all that greeted him were the swaying trees, the girl, whoever she had been was gone.
He wouldn't find out until years later that that day was the day that marked her father's death and she had snuck out of the bar to find some much needed solitude.
The next time he saw her he had recognized her right off. Her face and body having changed over the years from the form of a little girl into the stature of a blossoming woman, but her eyes the same fierce chestnut color that had caught him off guard so long ago.
"Hey, it's you." He supplied, his legs swinging off of the bar stool as he strolled over to the table she sat at.
Her fingers were picking at the divots of the table as she looked up at him with an uninterested face.
"Hey, it's me. Um…Dean. You were at that bar a couple of years ago; I was looking for my brother."
She tilted her face towards him. "Uh huh."
"You had pigtails…" his voice broke off as she went back to staring at the table.
He wasn't used to this happening; usually the girls were fawning all over him.
"Are you okay?" he asked after a moment of tense silence.
"What do you want?" she asked as Dean thought maybe age had nothing to do with not understanding women.
"Your name for starters." He shot back, annoyed by her dismissal. "And then how about what crawled up your ass and died."
She balked under the weight of his words, her hands withdrawing from the table and settling in her lap.
"I'm Jo." She whispered finally. "Jo Harvelle."
"Well Jo, I'm Dean. Winchester."
"I know." She stated.
"What do you mean you know?"
"Your dad and my mom are old friends. Ellen Harvelle."
"Ellen?" Dean asked, thinking about the woman they had known over the years who had helped them from time to time. "She never said she had a daughter."
Jo laughed bitterly. "Yeah well, I'm not allowed in the family business."
"What do you mean?" He inquired, sliding into the opposite side of the booth.
"You ever feel like you're not in control of your own life? Like it doesn't matter what you want for yourself because somebody else has already decided what you are going to do?"
Dean's hand automatically went to the gun inside of his jacket, his emotions yo-yoing at the gravity of her statement.
"Yeah," he said finally, the confession feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "I do."
She smiled at him and Dean felt his own mouth tug up in response.
"It sucks." She grumbled.
Dean was blindsided by the camaraderie he felt with the blonde across from him as he huffed out. "Damn right it does."
He missed hunting with Sam he realized, casting a concerned glance over his shoulder.
He'd taken for granted the fact that while he was plagued with worry and fear for his brother's well-being every time they hunted together, he knew at the core of him that Sam was more than capable, and he didn't have to worry all that much.
With Jo it was a completely different story, and he seriously regretted ever telling her that he would take her hunting because…bad idea.
She swung the shotgun in an arc, and Dean winced at the thought that if fate tempted them and she had to pull the trigger she would be doing nothing other than wasting ammo.
Stupid little brother broken legs...
"Uh Jo?"
"What?" She questioned, placing her back up against his.
"The creature we are after is not ten feet tall."
She blushed under the meager lighting of the fluorescent bulbs and mumbled an embarrassed. "Oh."
The gun tilted down towards the ground. "Also not hunting a leprechaun so…"
"God Dean, I'm doing the best I can. Do you have any helpful suggestions?" she hissed, pulling the gun up so it was level with her chest.
"As a matter of fact," he started, pivoting on his heels towards her. "DUCK!" he bellowed, seeing the creature narrow its eyes in the dark.
She looked baffled for about half a second before her whole body dropped to the ground.
She had quick reflexes; Dean had to give her that.
He pushed the barrel of his gun into the jugular of the beast as it plowed into him, the sheer force of the monster knocking his breath from his lungs.
"Jesus." He moaned, using the length of the shotgun to keep the whatever the fuck it was from chomping into his neck.
He could smell the pungent odor of it as saliva dropped down onto his shoulder.
Jo yelled something to him that carried as inane babble as the saliva drilled through his clothing and straight onto flesh.
Acid drool…shit.
He landed a knee into its side, barely budging the considerable sized monstrosity.
He saw Jo out of the corner of his eye lowering the gun into the side of the creatures head and heard the click as the monster turned its jaws towards the woman hunter.
"No!" he yelled, willing Jo to safety as the buckshot ripped through the creature skull.
For a moment all time suspended as Jo looked down at him, blood spattering her T-shirt and hair.
She looked scared and worried, but most of all she looked proud.
Dean's breath heaved out of him as the beast fell to the side, missing the side of its face and a pulse.
"Are you okay?" Jo stated, leaning down to shove the monster the rest of the way off of him.
"I think so. I," he paused and tried to push up on his elbows. His shoulder immediately screamed in protest as he bit down on a pained scream.
"Don't move. That thing got you pretty bad on your side and your shoulder…" she broke off, her eyes widening. "It looks really bad Dean."
"My side?" he repeated, dazed and confused that he didn't feel anything in that region of his body.
He spied the ribbons of flesh in the dead creature's claws, feeling the warm gush of blood as he pressed instinctively on the wound.
"Here." Jo stripped her over shirt and maneuvered him to where she could tie it tightly around the wound.
"Thanks." He replied as she helped him to his feet. "It's not that bad."
"Not that bad?" She questioned, taking his weight on her shoulder. "In comparison to what?"
Dean shrugged. "Um…death?"
Jo chortled the sound watery. "Don't even joke about that." She scolded. "Not in this line of work. You want to tempt fate?"
Dean managed to wiggle his phone out of his pocket as he peered down at the carcass.
"What the hell is that thing anyway?"
He flipped open his phone to take a picture of the body. "No idea. We'll get this back to geek boy in the hospital and he can do his research thing and find out."
"Shouldn't we bury it?" she started.
"I was actually gonna call Bobby and ask if he could do it."
"I can do it. If you just wait here,"
"Jo,"
She turned to meet his gaze. "What?"
"You saved my ass."
She smiled widely at him. "Thanks."
"Although if you had gotten there sooner I wouldn't be bleeding all over the damn place."
Her eyes narrow and Dean can tell that she really, really, wants to let him fall backwards on his butt.
"It's okay Dean," she replied, her arm still wrapped securely across his back. "I promise I won't tell Sam that a girl saved your bacon."
He laughed, even though it hurt like hell.
He spun her around into the jam of the door, his fingers closing around the trigger on her gun as he blasted a round of rock salt into the spirit behind them.
The spirit screamed and seemingly dissipated into the god awful floral wallpaper of the motel room, its haunting howl echoing in the small space.
The body beneath his shuddered and asked quietly. "Is it gone?"
He looked down at her. "Yeah, for now. We must have missed something."
"We'll have to go back to the sisters in the morning see what she kept of hers, what she left behind,"
"Yeah." Dean agreed, releasing his grip on the weapon and backing away from Jo.
Her fingers trembled as she ran them through her unkempt locks.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." She answered. "Just never been that close when a shotgun was fired, the reverberation is," she paused and crossed her arms over her stomach. "Freaky."
"Feels like your body's humming and your teeth are on edge?"
She nodded.
"It will go away." He grimaced. "Sorry."
"You did what you had to do. Don't apologize." She assured him.
Dean took a step closer to her, reaching out for her hand so he could guide her to the sofa.
His fingers closed over her fist, and suddenly her body was not the only one that was humming.
Her eyes met his, the pupils dilating under the cheap motel lamp light.
He tried to think of all the reasons that this is a terrible idea, that this will never end well.
Sam's voice teasing him 'She's totally in love with you man, can't you tell?' Ellen's voice warning him 'I'm trusting you to keep my little girl safe Dean. I don't want her hunting, but if her dumb ass insists on being out there I'm glad it's with you. Don't take that compliment as a statement that I won't beat you within an inch of your life if anything happens to her.' His Dad's voice 'we've brought enough pain into their family Dean.'
All those voices disappear when Jo's pinky twitched in his grasp, the contact electric, her voice inquiring. "Is everything okay?"
His gaze traveled from their conjoined hands to her face, confused and open and so damn attractive that he doesn't know how this hasn't happened sooner.
I mean hell they have been hunting together on and off for five years, her serving as a stand in whenever Sam was laid up, or sick or just plain didn't want to hunt. She was a buffer between the two Winchesters for longer than he could remember, constantly playing peace keeper in spite of all the grief they gave her, more like her mother than she was willing to admit and he would ever tell her.
He's twenty six and she's twenty three and it's not like he hasn't thought about this before, fear and guilt always watered down his urgings before he ever had a chance to even think to act on them.
He's not a saint and she's not the little girl he met out on that porch so long ago.
"What's wrong?" she rumbled, her voice dropping a couple of octaves until it sounded like caramel being poured over cold ice cream.
The affect it has on him is startling as he pulled her in towards his chest, consequences and worries chased away with the sigh of her breath against his collarbone.
He shifted his head so that he is looking right at her, drowning in her eyes and mouth and voice and…
"Dean." She whispered and the sound of it made him stupid with want or need, he could never quite tell when it came to her.
His lips descended on hers, not at all surprised that they fit perfectly as she molded her body into his.
If drowning is this delectable, he may never come back up for air.
He has no regrets, no second thoughts about tangling his body and his heart into the sheets of the Daisy Chain motel with Joanna Harvelle. No reason to think it wasn't the right thing to do until he wakes up in the morning to her smiling at him, her eyes so bright with love that he has to turn away.
Because it can't work, won't work. He can't love her, hasn't been capable of the emotion for so many years that he knows he'll get it wrong. He'll break her and send the jagged ruined version of her out into the rest her life, marked for eternity in unhappiness and mistakes.
His life was marred in blood and death and he just knew that if he stayed with her she will end up one more body to add to the pile he has been carrying his whole damn life.
He jumped out of bed so fast he's surprised that he doesn't take Jo with him, his body arching up and away from the covers and not into her like before.
His hands searching for denim and flannel and not occupied with soft, sweat-sheened flesh.
She looked wounded for just a moment, her eyes asking what her mouth does not. 'Why?'
He slid on his boots and grabbed his keys stating roughly. "We better get over to the sisters' house. That spirit isn't going to gank itself."
He heard her get up from the bed, another flutter of movement as material was formed back to her body. "Well then," she began her voice hard and shut down. "What are we waiting for?"
Her face was turned away from him as he got in the car and when they burned the childhood toy of the spirit, Dean could tell that the stuffed animal was not the only thing being committed to the ashes.
Their relationship fractured after that, their time together less and less frequent until he didn't see her at all. She played nice in front of Sam and Bobby and Ellen, but she never looked him in the eyes ever again, never laughed, never cried, never said anything that gave Dean any sort of idea as to how wounded she was.
But he knew her. Knew what she was saying when she didn't say anything and he wondered idly who it was that heard her laugh now, who it was that wiped away her tears, who it was that teased the female hunter that, despite how bad-ass she tried to appear, her favorite color was girlie-pink and that she cried at the end of 'The Green Mile'.
He knew it wasn't fair, he had caused this, he had wanted this, but he still can't help but wonder. He thinks he will probably always wonder. Wonder about what their life could have been like if his destiny had not been handed to him at the tender age of four.
"At least she was alive." He finishes, his voice thick with smothered emotion. "I may have been a dick to her and she may have hated me, but dammit she was alive."
Sam leans away from Dean to give him his privacy as he sucks in a shaky breath.
"She didn't deserve that Sam." He begins hazel eyes lit up with conviction. "They didn't deserve that."
"I know Dean." Sam agrees, his hand soft on his brothers' shoulder. "I know."
"What the hell are we doing Sam? Saving people? Why do all of these people who don't mean a damn thing to us get to live a life? What makes them so great huh?" He pounds his fist into a pillow. "Why do they get a happy ending?"
Sam moves in closer to his brother. "I don't know Dean. I don't have all the answers, but I know that Jo and Ellen," he pauses as if it pains him to say their names. "They would have made the choice all over again. I know that."
"What choice? The choice to die? The choice to be blown to kingdom come?" He rages flying to his feet.
Sam's voice is gentle as he guides his hung over brother back to sit down. "No. The choice to save us."
"How do you know that?" Dean demands.
"Because they loved you. Hell, no idea why, but they loved us. All of us." He scratches the back of his head. "Because that is what family does for each other."
Dean swallows, the lump becoming annoyingly persistent as he turns his face from his younger brother.
And for the first time since his brother first jumped in that God forsaken hole, he can't trap the sorrow swelling in his chest a moment longer, can't bury the fact that he has lost Ellen and Jo all over again, that Bobby will never know just how much he was loved and cherished. He weeps, emotions ripping a Jo and Ellen sized hole in his heart, his hand clamped tightly over Sam's.
"I got you Dean." Sam states, his fingers closing over his older brother's, giving him something to hold onto to ride out the storm. "I'm here."