Rating: PG-13
Warnings: A bucket load of angst plus Canon divergence, unreliable narrators, open/ambiguous/unhappy endings…
Summary: A retelling of the Pilot, where Jess goes with Sam and Dean to look for John Winchester and ghosts in Jericho. In the process Jess learns more about Sam and herself than she bargains for.
You can never go home.
Jess woke slowly, chasing a weird dream about a man with eyes that glowed pale amber, like a cat. The details slipped away like smoke before she could grasp them. She'd been having strange dreams ever since they'd moved to this new apartment a month or so ago. Sam had been on edge for a while too. Jess sighed, rolled over, and realized two things. The first was that Sam wasn't in the bed beside her, the second that it was still dark outside. A series of muffled thuds from the living room startled her into full wakefulness and she frowned as she climbed out of bed. What on earth was Sam doing? Clearly this wasn't a toilet break brought on by the copious quantities of beer Sam had been downing earlier that evening. She wished she knew what was on Sam's mind lately. He'd been so distracted and sad the last few weeks, but she couldn't get him to open up and tell her what was bothering him.
The odd noises stopped before she reached the doorway, replaced by the sound of Sam talking, and a low voice replying, "…if I'd called, would you have picked up?"
She flipped the light on, and as the warm yellow light filled the room, Sam and the owner of the other voice turned to look at her in perfect synchronization. It was a little spooky, to be honest. The voice belonged to a guy she'd never seen before; tall but not as tall as her Sam, with the features of a male model and the clothing of a trucker.
The last thing Jess was expecting was to have Sam introduce this stranger as his brother, Dean. Sam spoke so rarely about his family, she'd wondered on occasions if the mysterious father and brother even existed. Yet here was Dean Winchester, trying to chat her up in her own living room in front of her boyfriend, and when that didn't work, dismissing her to have a private conversation with Sam. Jess was not overly impressed, but she was even less so when Sam changed his mind about demanding that Dean say whatever he had to in front of her. All it took was a few meaningful looks from Dean and Sam was telling her to go back to bed while he threw on some clothes so they could move the family powwow outside.
Well, fuck that. As soon as the apartment door closed behind Sam, Jess quickly got dressed. Whatever Dean implied, Jess had no desire to be ogled by anyone except Sam. She exited the apartment quietly. She told herself it was as much out of consideration for their neighbours as to be stealthy, though she hung back a bit as she followed the low rumble of the Winchesters' voices as they moved downstairs. Occasionally Sam's voice rose in pitch. It sounded like they were arguing, and as she moved closer she could make out a few words. Dean wanted Sam to go somewhere with him, and (thankfully) Sam was refusing. Satisfaction thrilled though Jess, quickly followed by frustration as they moved the conversation out of earshot. She was torn between waiting patiently and following, but the moment of indecision didn't last long. Curiosity won out, irresistible especially when added to the tug on her heartstrings she always felt when Sam was out of sight. She drifted silently down the stairs to join the brothers out in the dimly lit parking lot.
Dean had opened the trunk of his huge black car, and seemed to be showing Sam a cell phone. She could hear a faint crackling and a tinny voice coming from the speaker, but couldn't make out what the message said. The brothers were talking, but they were keeping their voices so low she couldn't hear a word. She didn't dare get closer; she didn't want Sam to think she was spying on him…even though she was. Dean threw something into the trunk then turned round to sit on the edge, facing the building. Jess ducked back into the stairwell, heart beating fast, but even as she hid in the darkness she heard Sam say "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him."
Jess turned and ran back upstairs before Sam could return to get his things.
0x0x0
"I'm coming with you," Jess said, and she wouldn't be gainsaid. She was already reaching for the cold chrome handle of Dean's vintage car's rear door, even while she spoke her piece through Sam's wound-down window. Back in the apartment, Sam had been adamant that the Winchester brothers needed to look for their missing father on their own, but Jess was determined. She was a mite breathless both from the arguing and from rushing around. She'd thrown her balled up white nightdress into the corner of the bedroom, dressed in something more suitable for a road trip, then run pell-mell downstairs to catch Sam before they could leave. What was he thinking anyway? That cocky, oh-so-pretty brother of his turns up out of the blue in a gas guzzling 1967 Impala, after years of no contact and in the middle of the night too, and expected Sam to drop everything to go on some crazy covert family business?
She was startled out of her inner rant by the cocky brother, surprisingly, taking her side.
"Jess, I don't think this is a good idea," Sam was saying, when Dean interrupted.
"Oh I don't know, Sammy. Besides, I'm not sure you can leave her behind anyway."
"Too right you can't. There's no fucking way you're going anywhere without me," Jess said with all the firmness she could muster, as she settled her ass down onto the butter-smooth leather of the back seat. "Someone's got to make sure you're back for that interview on Monday."
"I don't have an…," Sam started then cut himself off with a mumbled 'yeah ok'. Jess refrained from fist pumping
She glanced ahead and caught Dean's grass-green, blade-sharp gaze in the rear view mirror. His eyes narrowed, and she didn't know him well enough to read his look. Was it amusement, displeasure or anger? She couldn't tell and refused to worry about it. For the last two years and more, this so-called brother had all but abandoned Sam, while Jess had been there to pick up the pieces. As far as she was concerned, both of these suddenly resurrected Winchesters – missing father and present brother - had forfeited their right to Sam's undivided attention.
Besides, she'd always wanted to go on a road trip. For some reason Sam had evaded every attempt she'd made to organize one, especially since they moved to this new apartment. She leaned forward, draping her arms over the seat back and round Sam's neck. She didn't miss the slight shiver he gave at her touch, and smiled at the thought of all the things she could do to make him more than shudder when she next got him alone.
"Come on, Sam," she cajoled, her smile growing wider, "this will be fun." She turned to Dean, taking the opportunity to lean her cheek against Sam's. The warmth of his skin was like armour against the chill of the California night.
"You know," she added for Dean's benefit, "I thought I'd never get him out like this. I've been trying to get him to road trip with me for ages. He always refused. I was beginning to think he must suffer from travel sickness or something."
Dean gave a snort that could have been scorn, or a cut-off laugh, but didn't take his eyes off the blacktop in front of them as they headed out of Stanford's well-lit suburbs into the darkness of the desert night. "Is that so?" Dean said, with a small grin aimed in Sam's direction.
Sam bristled. "Too much course work for road trips," he said, but Jess thought he sounded defensive and unconvincing, whereas when he'd used that excuse with her she'd believed him. She'd always thought he worked too hard and didn't play hard enough. Drinking alone in their apartment did not count as partying.
"Course work, right." Dean said, with a note that sounded bitter even to Jessica's untutored ear. Maybe Sam thought so too, because he said nothing and stared out of the side window in silence for the next twenty minutes or so. Jess thought it was kind of amusing, her giant of a man suddenly behaving like a sulky teenager. Dean slapped a for-real goddamned cassette into the ancient player that was still younger than the car. After a few miles Jess relaxed enough to sing along. At least Dean's taste in music was good, and she was amused by his blush when she told him so.
"I like this girl of yours, Sammy," Dean said, and his smile looked genuine this time. It only grew wider when Sam slouched down in his seat and muttered "It's Sam. Sammy was a chubby twelve year old." Dean reached across and pinched Sam's cheek playfully, and for a moment it was as if Jess wasn't there. Her grip round Sam's neck tightened possessively until he gently tapped the back of her hand. She let go of him as if his touch had burned. Now it was her turn to slump in her seat in an embarrassed silence; but even as she settled back into the Impala's worn leather embrace, she didn't miss the exchange of looks between the brothers, laden with a meaning she couldn't decipher.
0x0x0
Jess must have dozed on and off, because the next thing she knew it was daybreak, and they were stopped at a gas station that looked like something penned by Jack Kerouac. Sam was ribbing Dean about his cassette collection, while Dean was waving bags of chips and bottles of soda around as if they were legitimate breakfast fare. Over the heavy odour of gasoline, Jess could smell the sweet incense-like scent of Jeffrey's pines that told her they must have come a long way into the hills east of San Jose. She stretched and yawned, then tapped Sam's shoulder, interrupting the beginnings of a new discussion about Dean's credit cards.
"Where are we?"
Sam dropped Dean's cassettes back into the box with a clatter, then looked round, smiling to cover his startled reaction. Jumpy, much? Jess thought.
"We're just a few miles from Jericho," Sam said. "That was Dad's last known location."
"I know," Jess felt she could be forgiven for sounding testy. It was only a few hours since Sam and Dean had briefed her on the trip, after all.
Dean started up the Impala and pulled away from the gas station, the air from the wound-down windows ruffling Sam's hair. Jess ached to run her fingers through it, lean into those soft strands and see if he'd been using her shampoo again…but Dean was side-eyeing her in the rearview again, a wary look in those wide eyes that were so much rounder and greener than her Sam's; so Jess restrained herself, and sat back trying not to feel resentful. She let the breeze wash over her as the Impala ate up the ill-maintained blacktop that indicated how rural these hills were. The air felt cool, still holding the November nighttime chill. Thinking back, Jess felt like she hadn't been warm for weeks. She watched over Sam's shoulder as he absently ran his fingers over the woven friendship bracelet she made him for his birthday. The gold of her hair twined with the brown of Sam's had been darkened by his constant touching. Jess found it obscurely comforting.
On the outskirts of town, Dean perked up as they approached a bridge over a steep river gorge. "Hey, dude, check it out," he said, tapping Sam's arm to get his attention, and pointing to what looked like a police road-block. Except the yellow warning tape, that clashed with the blue and red flashing lights of the cop car, was slung across an old iron road-bridge that was clearly disused.
The Impala pulled to a stop. Jess sat in a bewildered silence while the brothers had a silent conversation, carried out with a series of pointed looks from Sam and eyebrow waggling from Dean, over a box of what were clearly fake IDs, which wasn't worrying at all. After this incomprehensible exchange, Sam took the laminated card Dean handed him even though his face was screwed up with disapproval. Clearly an afterthought, Sam told Jess to stay put.
Jess thought about going with them, defiance fueling a deepening anger at being sidelined and kept in the dark, but caution kept her in the car, watchful. The brothers ducked under the tape and talked to the law enforcement as if they belonged there, even though Sam at least looked gawky and out of place. As she watched Dean's bravado carry them both through whatever yarn the brothers were spinning the sheriff, Jess determined that it was high time Sam explained her what was really going on here. Because whatever had happened to the small blue car on that bridge couldn't have anything to do with their missing father. Sam had already mentioned that John Winchester drove a truck.
When they returned to the car, Dean was smugly satisfied, Sam worried but purposeful. Jess opened her mouth to demand some answers, but Dean anticipated her.
"I think it's about time you filled your girl in, Sammy," he thumped Sam's arm in an over-boisterous gesture that jarred Jess, even while she wholeheartedly agreed with Dean's sentiment. "Maybe she can help us."
Sam shook his head at the latter, which annoyed her further, even though when Sam finished she had to admit that hunting monsters wasn't high on her list of skills. Dean pulled away in a noisy wheel-spinning cloud of golden dust. Jess listened with a growing sense of disbelief to Sam's story about a murdering ghostly hitchhiker and a family business that was like no business she'd ever heard of. She wanted to believe Sam, she really did, but the tale he spun was taller than the Chrysler Building. Hunters who didn't chase animals (which was a relief, to be honest) but instead sought after monsters and ghosts?
"No sane person would believe you, you know that, don't you?" she blurted out without meaning to, and flinched internally at the wounded expression on Sam's face.
Conversely, Dean chuckled over Sam's distress, and Jess disliked him a little bit more. She hated that Dean seemed able to wound or amuse Sam in equal measures without thinking about it; even while she was grateful that Dean had recognised her need to know what was going on before Sam did.
They arrived in Jericho and Jess tagged along, feeling more and more like a spare wheel, while the brothers 'investigated'. They talked to relatives and girlfriends and local store workers about a whole series of murdered men going back years, somehow winning over these cautious small-town folk with a combination of Dean's brazen charm and Sam's soft earnestness. It was clearly evident to Jess that the Winchesters were falling back into old established patterns Jess wasn't part of. The brothers were well-worn cogs and wheels in a newly oiled machine. Their shoulders bumped together as they slid into diner booths, they matched their pace stride for stride as they walked down the road, they even finished each other's sentences. There was no room for Jess in between them, and the fear that this realisation generated made her feel vague and transparent.
Dusk came too quickly for Jess, time passing stuttering and disjointed, which fitted all too well with her mood. They were all in the car again. The Impala seemed to double up as Dean's mobile office or something, and Jess was starting to think Sam's big brother had an aversion to sleeping. Since Dean had appeared in their apartment, Jess hadn't seen either brother stop to rest for a moment, yet neither appeared weary. They were running on nothing but adrenaline and the peanut M&Ms Dean kept passing round.
"So, looks like this Constance Welch is our best bet for our murdering hitchhiking ghost," Dean said, starting the engine. "What do you say we take a look at that bridge again without the cops around to mess things up?"
"Sure," Sam agreed. He didn't look round to see if Jess was okay with this extension to a whole day of stupid, which stung a little. Well, it stung a lot, actually, if she was honest. She hunkered down in the back seat and stared out of the windows into the glooming night, tired of constantly wanting Sam to acknowledge her existence.
The bridge was cleared of any evidence of the bloody death, the car towed away and the barricade across the disused road, that had been smashed in, had been roughly reconstructed. Somehow Dean managed to weave the big car through a gap and stopped about two yards onto the bridge. When the three of them climbed out of the Impala, the brothers seemed to forget Jess was there. Sam's focus zoned in on Dean, leaving Jessica to wander, alone and aimless, along the empty bridge.
Away from the brothers, the rush of the water over rocks far below drowned out any sound of conversation. The iron bridge itself seemed to hum beneath her feet, perhaps from the vibration of the river against its piers, but she felt no compulsion to venture near the sides to look over. In fact, the rusted rails actively repelled her. The thought of getting close to them turned her insides liquid, though she'd never previously suffered from vertigo. Preoccupied, Jess thought the Winchesters' voices had probably been raised for a little while before she tuned back in, and by the time she was paying attention again, she was half a hundred paces from the scene unfolding in front of her. She could only catch one word in ten, but both of them were definitely angry about something.
Snagging her attention like the irritating whine of a mosquito, Jess heard her name and something about telling her the truth. What truth? Was there something more than ghost and monsters that Sam was keeping from her?
Dean walked away with that bow-legged swagger that made Jess long to slap him. Sam's shoulders were set and angry as he followed. She wanted to get closer but didn't want to make it obvious – then Sam said something that had Dean drop the nonchalance and round on his brother. Both of Dean's hands tangled in Sam's jacket, slamming him up against a stanchion. For a long moment, all three of them froze, as if the air had been sucked out of the night. Jess blinked and shuddered as Sam's forehead dropped, touching Dean's. They looked as close as lovers. For a second Jess was sure they were going to kiss, and found that she'd moved several paces closer without noticing. But then Dean's hands fell and he turned towards her. She was shocked at the look of pain and loss on his face, which quickly morphed into something more intent.
Jessica saw the movement between them at the same time as Dean, and gaped in shock. A pale woman dressed all in white balanced on the rail, tattered white lace fluttering in a non-existent breeze. Amid her fear, Jess felt a twinge of remorse for doubting Sam, because surely this had to be Constance Welch, the ghost they were looking for. Constance hovered for the briefest of moments, staring at the two brothers as if making sure they were paying attention, before stepping out into the abyss and disappearing into the night.
The next few minutes passed in a whirl of confusion for Jess. Dean and Sam ran to the rail to peer after Constance, but Jess was pretty sure the ghost had vanished, not fallen. The empty Impala started up and proved her right by charging right at them. Jess didn't have time to run, the car was on top of her before she could react, and all she could do was fling herself to one side. Everything went dark, and when she opened her eyes, she was sitting in the back seat of the old car with Sam and Dean in the front, for all the world as if nothing had happened. Except something stank of rotten vegetation and river water, and after a second she realized that something was Dean.
"What happened?"
"Hey, Jess, you back with us then?" Dean grinned at her through a mask of mud, a grin that only dimmed slightly when Sam punched him in the shoulder. Sam's grimace as the gesture smeared smelly mud over his hand restored Dean's good humour.
"Constance must have taken over the car somehow, tried to run us off the bridge. Luckily Dean landed on his head so there was nothing to damage…ow! Get off me!" Sam broke off when Dean flicked his ear without ever taking his eyes off the road.
Neither of them asked if Jess was hurt, and she was too confused to wonder why that was.
0x0x0
They pulled into a seedy-looking motel, which turned out to be the one where their dad had been staying; which wasn't surprising, really, as it was the only motel they'd seen. Dean got their Dad's room number from the bored receptionist, who hadn't even blinked to see (and smell) Dean caked from head to toe in mud.
"Bert and Hector Aframian?" So sue her if she sounded a little incredulous, but not only were the Winchesters working under an alias, they'd picked the weirdest sounding names.
"Hunters mostly have to work under the radar, darlin'," Dean explained, while Sam picked the lock of their father's room, cool as cucumber. Jess let Dean's condescending 'darlin' go, distracted by the ease with which Sam wielded those lock picks. Where was the boy who'd been uncomfortable when Brady offered him pot, and had blushed like a rose when Jess had asked him out? This new, more potentially dangerous Sam entered first, scuffing a path through what looked like a thick line of salt on the carpet.
The salt was just the start of the weirdness. The place was downright creepy. It looked like the lair of a stalker or a serial killer. The walls were covered in scraps of paper; torn printed pages with strange pictures and handwritten notes pinned everywhere Jess looked. Sam seemed intent on examining every piece, even though with the curtains drawn the light filtering through was dim and filled with menace and dust.
Jess watched the dust dancing in the thin shafts of sunlight, wondering how Sam got to be such a nice guy when his brother was a patronising dick. She wondered what John Winchester was like. Whether he'd be more like Sam or more like Dean. The brothers didn't seem all that interested in finding their father now; Sam was reading some of the pinned up papers out loud, crazy stories about demons and monsters, and she was irritated to see how Sam was suddenly animated, excited, almost. His hazel eyes sparked with interest as he concluded that the evidence pointed to Constance being a Woman in White. She wanted to pull him aside, make a joke about Wilkie Collins that she hoped Dean wouldn't understand then demand Sam take her back to Palo Alto; but she hadn't seen him this happy for weeks, so she bit her lip and stayed silent.
No matter how high the sun rose in the sky, Jericho never seemed to warm like Palo Alto. There was a constant chill on her skin, and the scent of burning sage filled her nostrils; even the motel room was heavy with it. She was lucky that she had her anger to warm her from the inside out.
Dean showered and went out, leaving her alone with Sam for the first time for too long, but before she could take advantage, Sam's cell rang and the police were knocking on the door. Sam yanked her with him when he fled and didn't listen to her half-hearted protests when he decided the best thing to do was more research. He didn't seem worried that Dean had apparently been arrested. This new side of Sam, the whole skating on the edge of societal norms, was really freaking her out.
She did as Sam asked though; she stayed quiet by Sam's side, and tried to project sympathy towards the little toad of a man that was Constance's ex-husband, Joseph Welch. It was harder than she expected.
"He's a liar as well as a cheater then," Jess observed when they were back in the Impala, Sam driving, Jess in the back seat behind him, as if Dean's presence was haunting the car even when he wasn't there. She leaned forward, draping her arms over Sam's shoulders, relishing his body heat as the sun disappeared over the horizon. When she was this close to Sam the burnt sage smell lessened, replaced by Sam's warm skin and yes, there it was – the faint sweet apple scent of her own shampoo. Sam shivered in the night air blowing through the open car window, but he didn't close it, just leant his head back a little into her embrace.
"Yeah, definitely unfaithful," Sam replied. "But Constance killing her own kids; that was unforgivable. No wonder it drove her insane when she realised what she'd done." Sam paused to fish out his cell phone, fingers flashing over the buttons. The screen showed 911, and Jess sat back while Sam placed a fake emergency call. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later when the cell rang, and it was Dean, freshly broken out of jail. It was so slick, so casually done and totally at odds with the law student Jess knew.
Jess hated herself for hating the happiness in Sam's voice at hearing his brother's voice. Sam enthusiastically updated Dean on what he'd found out about Constance while Jess wrestled with her inner demons. Jess couldn't care less about the dead woman and her tragic dead babies, until between one word and the next, Constance was there in the back seat alongside Jess, demanding Sam take her home.
Goddamit, that was Jess's line, as yet unspoken.
It was the bridge all over again, but ten times worse. Constance's presence was overwhelming, filling the car with below zero temperatures that froze Jess in place. She could do nothing but watch helplessly while the ghost locked the car down and took control. Even when the Impala rolled to a halt in front of the ramshackle remains of what had to be the Welch's family home, Jess was immobile, all breath and blood stolen from her by the Woman in White's power.
"I can never go home," Constance's voice echoed with regret, but Jess felt nothing but irritation with the ghost's inconsistency. First Constance wanted to go home, then she didn't. What was the matter with the woman? Sam looked round, and from the look on his face Jess thought her clever boy had worked something out, but Constance flicked out like a light, only to reappear in the front seat, right on top of Sam.
"Y-you can't kill me," Sam said, though Jess didn't think he was right, given how slim little dead Constance was pressing Sam's six foot four frame down into the seat. "I'm not unfaithful, I've never been-," he continued, every word gasped out as if it had to physically push back against the chill the ghost was emanating. Jess opened her mouth to agree with Sam, to offer her affirmation, but then Constance leaned forward to whisper in Sam's ear, each word ringing clear as a bell for Jess.
"You will be…"
Sam struggled and cried out in pain but Jess was full of Constance's cold now. Sam would be unfaithful to her. Jess had seen it, how Sam looked at his brother like nothing else mattered in the world. Jess believed Constance's words. Jess watched Constance punch a grey, decaying hand right inside Sam's chest; she imagined how hot Sam's blood would feel, pulsing between cold fingers, how Sam's life-blood might warm her if she was to squeeze his heart right now, like Constance was doing.
Sam groaned and something released inside Jess, freeing her from the madness that gripped her. She was galvanised into action. Sam was hers; his heart belonged to her, not some dead stranger. Rage welled up, filling all her empty spaces, and she burst out of her funk with a yell. Lunging forward, she grasped Constance, feeling the bone and sinew that wasn't there give under her fingers. She pulled so hard that the ghost flew back on top of her, the two of them tumbling into the well behind the seats. At the same moment a gunshot rang out and the side windows shattered, showering glass everywhere. Jess held on tight through the pain of Constance's burning cold while Sam yelled something about taking them home and gunned the engine. She could hear Dean shouting outside the car, but Sam paid no attention, driving the car forward into the house.
Jess thought she might have lost some time again, but a large part of her no longer cared. When she opened her eyes they were inside the house, debris everywhere. Constance had both Sam and Dean pinned between a chest and the car, which miraculously seemed largely undamaged. Unlike her Sam, who had blood on his shirt and a pained expression on his face. Jess felt the anger building again, but before she could act on it, Constance's dead children appeared on the stairs. Jess watched with a shocked fascination as the kids embraced their mother into screaming oblivion. The sheer horror and sorrow of it compressed her rage and shut Jess down.
0x0x0
Back in the Impala the silence between its occupants was deafening. The wind, on the other hand, roared unchecked through the smashed windows as Dean drove. It tugged at Jess's edges until she thought she would unravel. Disintegrating was a real possibility, she understood that now. She thought about checking her reflection in the rearview mirror, but she was afraid of what she might see.
Dean steered one handed, his right arm resting across the back of the seat in an attempt to look casual, but Jess had seen the stricken look on his face when he'd thought Constance was killing Sam, and she could see how Dean's fingers were tap, tap, tapping, like he was barely restraining himself from flinging that arm right round Sam's shoulders. Sam's face was pale, and he kept rubbing his chest, like he could still feel Constance's hand delving deep inside his rib cage.
Jess could still feel her anger, coiled and ready to strike, but now, finally, she understood its source, and the chill of fear overwhelmed the fire in her belly. She had learned so much these two days, and none of it boded well for her.
Dean came to an intersection and took a left, heading north and west towards Palo Alto. The brothers hadn't exchanged more than two words and yet Jess could see what Dean appeared blind to – Sam didn't want to return to his life in Stanford. Moreover, Jess had no doubt that Sam shouldn't be allowed to return there, where only grief, guilt and ghosts awaited him.
"Pull over," Jess demanded, and Dean obeyed instantly, as if he'd been waiting for her instruction. Gravel crunched under the wheels as they stopped just off the blacktop. The engine stilled and started clicking as it cooled. Outside the car the night was still, a pre dawn quiet that should have been full of the scents of California – mint and pine resin and sage. Instead, all Jess could smell was burning, and she finally remembered why. The creak of the two doors opening was loud as grenades. The Winchesters climbed out of the car and Jess followed Sam, as she was bound to do.
"So," she said, aiming each word like a bullet at Sam's broad back. "When were you going to tell me I'm dead?"
Sam turned to face her then, and she felt her non-existent heart lurch when she saw the tears streaming down his cheeks. Dean remained unmoving, a solid shadow between his brother and the steep edge of the hillside. Jess was aware of him, but all her attention was focussed on Sam.
"I…I couldn't, Jess. I wanted you to stay, so bad. We were happy together, for a while, weren't we?"
"But you're a hunter, Sam. You knew it couldn't last. Sooner or later, I'd go mad, and who knows what I'd have done then?" Jess paused, but Sam's only response was to hang his head. She wanted to close the gap between them, to take those big hands in hers and to kiss him senseless. She longed to go on pretending she was alive and had a future – but one of them had to be strong. Someone had to do the right thing.
"Did you realise I was turning into a Woman in White? Is that why you showed me all this?" she gestured, arms wide, embracing nothing.
Sam's head came up then, surprised. "What? No, I…" but Dean interrupted out of the shadows. "Yes, I did." Then appended it with a more hesitant "Kind of."
Jess thought Sam was going to hit Dean then, such a look of betrayal and anger passed over his face, but Dean hurriedly carried on. Ostensibly, Dean was explaining to her, but she could see she wasn't the one Dean's words were aimed at. Dean's eyes were on Sam the whole time. His face was scrunched up as if being so honest physically hurt him. Fucking Winchesters and their secrets.
"Jess, when I saw you in Sam's apartment, it was obvious straight away what you were. When I confronted Sam, he told me you'd been cremated, so it had to be something else keeping you here. You had to be bound to Sam somehow, so I asked Sam to help me search for Dad, knowing you'd have to come with us. I didn't know Dad had been investigating this case, but when I saw all his research, I hoped that learning about all this stuff, you would start to understand. That Sam would remember his training."
Dean turned to his brother then, a pleading expression on that stupidly pretty face. Jess still wanted to smash it in, to pulverise Dean into fragments smaller than the grains of sand under their feet, because then she'd have Sam to herself. Part of her wanted to destroy Sam too; because she might be dead, but she wasn't blind. Sam might have bound her to him with love, but she had learned over the last few days that Sam was bound to Dean by ties far deeper and stronger than any that ran between her and Sam. Part of her dead consciousness had latched onto that, firing the nascent Woman in White inside her. If she stayed, it was inevitable. Sam would die. Dean would die, and Jess would be lost forever.
Sam's mouth opened then shut, words deserting him, and Dean's shoulders slumped. Jess barely noticed. All Jess could see was the pain in Sam's eyes, the way the dawn light caught his unshed tears and made their colours kaleidoscope from green to amber to rain-grey. His hurt was like a tether reeling her in. Between one blink and the next she was standing in front of Sam, her hands reaching out to cup his face. She felt him shiver at her touch, but she was endlessly grateful that he didn't flinch or pull away. She couldn't believe how much love there was in his expression, how it still shone through the grief.
"Sam, I love you so much," she said, hoping her voice wouldn't break along with her ghostly heart, "but you have to let me go."
Never breaking their gaze, Sam nodded. The tears were spilling unheeded down his cheeks. Her hands dropped to his shoulders and then away, and she retreated few paces, not trusting herself not to cling and wail like a child if she stayed close. Sam shook, but it wasn't from the cold. He was crying – deep, bone-shuddering, ugly sobs – and it was all Jess could do not to run to him and hold him tight. She watched, helpless, as Dean stepped into the space where she belonged, not touching Sam, not yet, but providing a warm presence at his side that she couldn't. Part of her raged at the sight, but she stiffened her spine. She was better than that.
"Take care of my boy, Dean," she said, staring Dean in the eye. He nodded slowly, as if he too was weighed down by their ending.
Jess held herself still, waiting.
Sam fumbled at his wrist to pull off the hair bracelet, clumsy with grief and blinded by tears. Jess could feel Sam's fingers as he twisted and the fastening snapped; she guessed that was because the part of her soul that belonged to Sam was in those strands. Silent, with his mouth set in a grim line, Dean handed Sam a lighter. Sam froze, lighter in one hand and their twined hair in the other, the braiding unravelling just like their lives had done just a few short weeks ago when Jess had burned.
"Please, Sam," Jess only had the strength to ask one more time. "I don't want to become like Constance."
The soft whoosh of the bracelet catching fire was the last sound Jessica heard, but the light that enveloped her wasn't flame this time. It didn't burn and there was no pain. This light was softer, purer, and smelled like home.