Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.

The Apocalypse Made Me Do It

There's nothing like angel-whiplash. Your entire body feels heavy, then weightless, then gets thrown back onto the hard ground with the force of a grand piano falling from a seven-story building. Whenever Cas tries to teleport me somewhere, I typically resent it due to its side effects. Today, I'm grateful.

One second we were standing mere feet away from Lucifer and Death, and the next second Cass plopped us in the impala.

I hit the gas, adrenaline pumping, and instinctively pull Sammy and me from the fire once again. The wheels spin—they fling mud in every direction. Probably would've covered a dozen reapers from head to toe in mud, if they were visible. I turn the wheel so sharp and press the accelerator with such a force that it jars Sammy and Cass against the doors. The tires screech against the asphalt and we leave Carthage, Missouri in our rearview mirror. I never turn around to see the disaster Lucifer unleashed from the pit. I never meet the horseman, Death, although Sammy and I have been his bitch more times than either of us can count.

The impala roars as we race down the vacant streets Carthage. It warns civilians not to come near, yet entices and taunts the monsters we hunt like a dog chasing a bone tied to a fishing wire. Every monster has a distinctive growl about them, and though the impala isn't a monster in the literal sense, it howls just like any other creature would.

Before long, it's just the three of us driving along an abandoned highway with cow pastures spread out for miles along both sides. Stars, which normally blanket the sky at this hour, turn their backs on the earth tonight. I guess they know about the horsemen, Lucifer, and the apocalypse. I guess they know of our failure tonight...I guess they know about Jo and Ellen, about how I got them both killed.

Sammy's curled up in the seat next to me, staring out the window as we drive along the road. Cass is in his usual spot in the back seat, staring absentmindedly into space. In the driver's seat, I lean back into the familiar leather that's been my home for far too long, place one hand on the wheel, and focus on staying awake. We're surrounded by darkness, save for the occasional street light every ten miles or so. It seems like we're traveling through thick, dense smoke, and unable to see anything in front or behind us. And for a moment, I'm sucked back into downtown Carthage, surrounded by tall brick buildings with Hellhounds on my ass.

When we first drove into Carthage, it should have been a red flag that there was no one home. Sammy and me—we've been hunting long enough to know better. People just don't up and disappear, especially in the midst of the damn apocalypse! If Satan were in town fixing to perform a ritual, an absence of people should have scared the crap out of us straight away.

But we're bullheaded and we had a shot at taking the Devil out. The drive to defy destiny, to thwart the angels' plans, got the better of us. We started this mess—I broke the first seal and Sammy broke the last—it's up to us to clean it up. But we've got to do it our way—our own reckless way.

Jo and Ellen came along for the ride since Bobby is currently sidelined. They're two of our few allies, so when they volunteered to hunt the Devil with us, we immediately agreed. Hell, Sammy was even the one to tell them our plan! It was an all-hands-on-deck situation, and we needed all the men—uh, women—we could get.

But when Cass disappeared and no people were sighted downtown, we knew we were screwed six ways from Sunday. And when Meg met us at the crossroads, we knew we'd walked into trap that not even the colt could save us from.

I felt the breath of those snarly sons of bitches before I heard them. Eight or so hounds in position and ready to drag each of us to Hell. I knew we didn't stand a chance.

We ran.

And I wish that I could go back and listen to Meg. I wish—boy, don't I wish—that Zachariah or Cass would snap their fingers and give me a second go. Because when I decided to foolishly make a run for it, I signed Jo's death certificate. I tried to hold those smelly hounds back. Even slowed down so they would take me as bait, but Jo went after them, so they attacked and tore into her.

I remember the blood. It flowed like an uncorked keg and tainted the air with death. I only got a glance of the wound a few times before Ellen covered it with an ACE bandage. I've seen a lot of injuries on road. Patched up my dad when I was just seventeen after a werewolf decided to turn him into a midnight snack. His skin all mangled and hanging by threads looked like something out of an 80's horror flick. Just looking at it hurt like a son of a bitch. Couldn't imagine what it felt like. I don't think Dad remembers much about it though, he drank his way through the pain and passed out.

Jo could've used a drink or ten after that mutt mauled her. I've never been much into science or medicine, not like Sammy, but even I know that intestines are supposed to be inside the body, not dangling in the open.

After helping Sammy salt the doors and windows, I went and sat across form Jo. Her hair, knotted and matted with blood, framed her face. She breathed like an asthmatic who'd smoked five packs a day her whole life. Every now and then, she would cough and blood would spill out onto her chin and lips, adding to the severity of the situation. To her left, Ellen fretted and fawned over her baby girl, obviously in denial that she was currently on the floor dying.

"Everything's gonna be alright, baby girl," Ellen would say. "You just stay with me. That's my good girl."

And every time Ellen babbled on in denial, I would see Jo roll her eyes and send a weak smile my way. We both knew what was coming.

Death.

The scene made me cringe, and I walked away and left Sammy to help Ellen patch up Jo. I walked away and dug through the shelves of the hardware store. I stumbled across the bags of rock salt and stepped over our hazardously placed guns until I found a ham radio. I fumbled with the controls for a while trying to find a signal. Meanwhile, Sammy left Jo's side and wandered over to me. His puppy dog eyes, full of sympathy and fear, said it all: Jo was dying. Thirty minutes into town and we'd already lost the angel up our sleeve and lost one of our only friends.

Jo's condition made Sammy hesitant to continue with our mission. We'd already lost one hunter, how many more did we want to lose? Did I really want to lose Sammy again? Did I really want to leave him without a brother? But this was our only chance to take down the Devil, and I wouldn't give up. Especially not with Jo dying because of it. I wouldn't let her sacrifice go in vain.

I turned to him, shoulders square and back straight just like the disciplined soldier my father taught me to be, and I brushed off Jo's condition—her imminent death—with the "higher purpose" speech that the angels had been giving me since they pulled me from the pit.

So I pushed down the guilt seated in front of me, I choked down the tears threatening to overflow, and I finished setting up the radio and found Bobby's signal. Using the trucker lingo Bobby had taught me when I was just out of diapers, I called him, told him it wasn't good, and bit back my fears in order to think like a good little soldier. We bought front row seats to the apocalypse, after all, and bloody causalities were the only form of payment it would accept. What did I think was going to happen?

Bobby rattled off something from the Book of Revelation. Big Daddy Reaper was coming to town, which would explain all the reapers Cass had seen and the absence of the town's folk.

Fant-friggin'-tastic!

The Angel of Death rolling into town, on stand-by, ready to pick us all off one by one, was the last thing we needed. Did we honestly stand a chance? Dealing with Satan was one thing, but Death? We should've just run at him with an apple in our mouth and a bib around our necks and called it a day!

But I didn't call it a day. I stayed focused and pressed on with our mission, adjusting the game plan every second it stepped in the wrong direction.

We had to do something! We were sitting ducks, cornered in an abandoned hardware store, and waiting for the world to fall apart around us. Cass was MIA, hellhounds prowled outside the door, and Lucifer was off resurrecting some damn horseman! And with all the people missing around this town, I was positive the reapers were having a field day collecting souls for the big boss. We had to do something. We couldn't've just stayed crammed into this damn hardware store and watch as Jo fought to keep her lungs inside her body, instead of coughed up on the floor.

…And for some reason, watching Jo suffer was a whole lot worse than any pain I'd ever experienced. It was worse than any torture Alistair had administered in Hell, worse than being Michael's meat suit, worse than Dad selling his soul or Sammy drinking demon blood. It was worse than Mom or Jessica burning alive on the ceiling, and worse than the entire freakin' apocalypse!

Bobby's voice cut-in and out over the radio again and snapped me out of my thoughts. He told us the ritual was going down at midnight at William Jasper's Farm, which turned out to be the long forgotten site of the Battle of Hell Hole during the Civil War.

This was it. This was the moment we'd been waiting for, the break we'd been waiting for. We had the colt, we had a time, and we had a location. This was our shot to prove those angels wrong and to write our own destiny.

Yet Jo laid crumpled along the floor. We couldn't leave her there while we went off to war. We couldn't take her with us. She needed a hospital. But it was a foolish thought to think we could've succeeded on this mission. It was even more foolish to think that Jo could've made it to a hospital—not that she wanted to go anyway.

From the floor, Jo looked up at Sammy and me and shook her head. "Can we, uh, be realistic about this, please?"

She caught the attention of everyone in the room. Through ragged breathing, she continued "I can't move my legs. I can't be moved. My guts are being held in by an ace bandage. We gotta-we gotta get our priorities straight here."

"Number one, I'm not going anywhere."

I released the breath I didn't know I had been holding. She wasn't going anywhere. What did she mean she wasn't going anywhere? Of course she was coming with us! She needed a hospital!

I opened my mouth to speak, but Ellen beat me to the punch. "Joanna Beth, you stop talking like that!"

Thank God, or whoever, for Ellen.

"Mom, I can't fight. I can't walk. But I can do something," Jo pressed with determination. "We got propane, wiring, rock salt, iron nails, everything we need."

Sam looked at me, then back at her. "Everything we need?"

Jo nodded, "To build a bomb, Sam."

My heart broke. Not only was Jo determined not to leave the hardware store, but she wanted to sacrifice herself for everyone else. "No. Jo, no." It came out much weaker than I'd anticipated, but I had suddenly lost all ability to think and speak.

"You got another plan?" Jo challenged. Boy, did she look and act like her mother when she got angry. "You got any other plan?"

I didn't have a response. Truth was, I was banking on those hellhounds to come busting through those doors or air vents any second and tears us all to shreds. There wasn't hope, not without sacrifice. But I'll be damned before I let Jo sacrifice herself for me again!

"Those are hellhounds out there, Dean. They've got all our scents," she seemed protective of me, like it was her job to save me. "Those bitches will never stop coming after you."

I glanced at Sam, then at the floor, then at Ellen, then back at Jo. There was no way in hell any of them were considering this.

"We let the dogs in, you guys hit the roof, make a break for the building next over. I can wait here with my finger on the button, rip those mutts a new one…Or at least get you a few minutes' head start, anyway."

Escape…without Jo? I couldn't—I wouldn't leave her here alone. No one should die alone.

"No, I-I won't let you," Ellen cried for beside her, shaking her head and refusing to accept her daughter's sacrifice.

Eyes fixated with determination, Jo replied, "This is why we're here, right? If I can get us a shot on the devil…"

Selfless…it was all about the mission. Jo wanted to die for the mission, wanted to die for all of us. I didn't put up much of a fight anymore. And once Ellen told us to start making the bombs, I put my total effort and concentration into putting together bombs that would send those bitches straight back to Hell.

If Jo were going to sacrifice herself, I wouldn't let her sacrifice go wasted.

Sam shifts beside me in his seat. He runs his finger through his moppy hair and sighs deeply with his eyes pinched shut. Even in the night, I can tell he's been crying. With his shoulders slack and his face buried in the crevice between the seat and the door, it's obvious he's grieving over Ellen and Jo.

"They knew, Sammy," I remind him, "Ellen and Jo both knew they could die tonight, we all knew." Comforting people isn't something I'm good at. I don't do tears...that's all Sammy. He's good with the touchy-feely bull crap. I don't do socially awkward moments…and I can't tell which is more awkward: Sammy crying, or me trying to comfort him.

Castiel snaps from his trance in the backseat. "I am quite certain that Ellen and Jo could not have foreseen their demise, Dean. They were not omniscient."

I roll my eyes. "Thanks for that, Cass," I grunt.

Sammy shakes his head and sits up straight. He scrubs his eyes with the backs of his hands and breathes out a shuddery breath. "I'm good…I'm good," he squeaks, his voice raising an octave. "Where are we?"

"A few miles outside of Kansas City," I respond and allow a few minutes of silence to filter into the car.

Sam digs in his pocket and pulls out his cellphone. A second later, he's on the phone with Bobby letting him know we're alright, but that we lost Ellen and Jo.

I try my best to tune Sammy out. Don't need no broken record repeating the same thing over and over again. But then I hear Bobby's voice break through the piercing silence, and I hear him remind Sammy that we knew what was coming. I hear him tell Sammy that it wasn't our fault that Jo and Ellen died. I hear him reassure Sammy that the apocalypse wasn't our fault.

Suddenly, hearing someone else say it really pissed me off.

It's the apocalypse that's caused all of this to happen! It's the apocalypse that caused me to come up with this damn plan! It's the apocalypse that killed Jo and Ellen! It's the apocalypse that killed all those people back in Carthage! And it's the apocalypse that makes me so freakin' nervous and irritated that I can't sleep at night!

You know, I never thought we actually might lose someone. I've lost a lot being a hunter: Mom, Dad, Sammy, myself, Pastor Jim, and a few other friends. But I don't get up in the morning imagining who's gonna bite the dust today. It's when I go to bed at night do I begin to think of the tab hunting's cost me.

Two nights ago, we partied—Jo, Ellen, Bobby, Cass, Sammy and me—like the world was coming to an end. We should've been prepared for the inevitable. We said "Hasta la vista!" to the world, but hey!—when it comes down to it, facing death is nothing like the romanticized crap in the movies. Endings aren't always wrapped up in a bow, and the people don't always make it out alive. Reality sucks and death is more often messy, unfinished, and empty.

I press the accelerator harder in order to work out my anger. We plow through Kansas City and before long we cross state lines into Iowa. We're only a few miles across the state when I start to smell smoke. Though we'd just passed through one of the greatest barbeque states in the country, I don't smell coal or spiced wood chips in Iowa. Instead, it the smoke is black as ash tinged with whiffs of gasoline and burning long pig.

And I push the petal to the metal again.

Realizing our sudden change in speed, Sammy breaks his conversation with Cass and asks, "You in a hurry to get to Bobby's or something?"

"There's smoke," I say, keeping an eye on the faint line I can see from the road. "Means there's a fire somewhere, Sammy."

"Right," Sam agrees hesitantly. He ponders Dean's statement briefly then shakes his head in refusal. Dismissing his brother's comment, Sam continues, "Dude, you look exhausted. Why don't I take the wheel for a little bit?"

He looks expectantly at me, but my grip on the wheel tightens. Determination steers my baby as we climb the streets of I-29. Within a few miles, we're completely engulfed in smoke. I shut the air off in the car and close the vents to keep air inside pure. In another mile, up ahead on the right, I see the source of the smoke: a car on fire.

Immediately, I'm transported back to that burning building in Carthage. The heat of the flames, the stench of the smoke, and the thickness of the air overpowered and paralyzed me. The noise of the explosion, of shattered glass and trampled brick, deafened me. And I knew that Jo and Ellen were gone.

I couldn't save them—I couldn't save Jo.

We skid to a halt on the side of the road. Before I can even assess the situation, I take off running toward the car. Sammy and Cass yell at me to stop from behind, but I push myself forward. Maybe there's someone I can save.

The car's dash is completely engulfed in flames. The windshield and driver's seat windows are shattered. I peer inside the front of the car, scanning the driver and passenger seats for bodies. From what I can make out through the flames, the middle aged man in the front driver's seat has already bit it. Damn it!

I race around to the back where the fire has not yet monopolized the car. Two people lay sprawled out in the backseat, unconscious. Frantically, I try to jiggle door's handle loose from its lock, but it's jammed. I begin beating on the car window, but it's so hot from the flames that it burns my hand. From behind, I feel a hand on my shoulder and Sammy pulls me back while Cass tears the doors from the car. I grab the girl closest to me, pocket the stuffed animal next to her, cradle her in my arms, and carry her off to safety while Sammy saves the other and calls 911. We drag them away just in time for the car to completely explode into flames.

I hold the girl in my arms, who was still unconscious, and sit with her on the ground next to the impala. As the sirens near in the distance, I study her face and surmise from the shape of her curled hair stained with soot that she's not more than fifteen-years-old. Cass checks her pulse and scans her body for injuries. Her arms have some major third degree burns, but nothing is life threatening except for the smoke inhalation. Though Cass reassures me that she's alive, I'm not convinced she's safe; the teenager is barely moving.

Perhaps it was years of being an older sibling to Sammy, but something in that moment came over me, something that told me that I needed to comfort that teenager even though she was unconscious. Absentmindedly, I began to hum the song "Hey Jude" to the unconscious teen in my lap. I swear I felt her relax a little, but I'm sure I bumped my legs by accident.

The little girl Sammy rescued, presumably the teenager's sister, about ten-years-old, squirms in his lap, wrestling with consciousness. When she finally awakens, she bolts from Sammy's arms and limps toward her sister, screaming "Alyssa!" along the way. The little girl, tears streaking the ash residue on her face, flocks to her sister's side and clasps her hands.

"What's your name, Darlin'?" I ask the little girl, unsure of what else to do.

She's reluctant to respond and shies away from me.

I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket and grab the stuffed bunny I'd pulled from the car only moments ago. It, too, had been singed in the car fire, but it looked out of place in the car, so I brought it along when I'd grabbed Alyssa from the car.

"I found this in the car next to you and your sister," I show her the stuffed rabbit and glimpse at the white tag poking out from its butt. Written in purple marker, I see the name "Jamie" etched into the paper. "Is this yours, Jamie?" She nods in acceptance, and I hand the stuffed rabbit to her and watch as she clutches it to her chest. As the sirens become louder and the lights become brighter, I look between Alyssa and Jamie and study the worried look on the younger's face. "I promise you, Jamie, that Alyssa will be perfectly okay. But she's gonna need you to be strong. Can you do that for me?" Again, Jamie nods, but she doesn't say anything.

First responders arrive within a few minutes. Two men dressed in EMT uniforms rolling stretchers take Alyssa from me and place her on the stretcher. Two more EMTs, one a man and the other a woman, walk over to Jamie and escort her to a separate ambulance. I stay with Jamie while Sammy talks the police officers and the fire fighters douse the flames. Once the flames are out, I watch them pry open the melted car doors and bag the charred remains of the girls' father.

An hour later, we're on the road once again.

Two hours later, we're checked into a motel room.

Three hours later, I sneak out of the motel room and down to Lucky's Bar.

The bar looks much too similar to the Roadhouse. Wooden fixtures, red sign out front, bar in the front, arcade games to the side, and pool table in the back. It's almost empty except for the guy passed out at the counter with a shot of whisky still cupped in his hand. The bartender slams a glass down in front of him, waking the drunkard, and he pipes up and downs the shot of whiskey in one swallow. He throws some money down on the counter then staggers out the door.

I sit where the man had sat and motion for the bartender to pour a shot of whiskey for me. She smiles and places a shot in front of me. It's down in one swallow, and I motion for another. And another. And another. And another. With each order, I try to erase the memories of the day's events. But, with each glass, I can still see her face: Jo. I can see her blonde hair, her heart shaped face, and her pretty brown eyes. I can hear her stubbornness and her sass in her voice. I can see her in the little black dress that she'd worn in the ruse to get the colt off of Crowley. I can see her sacrifice the eyes of the teenager I rescued from the car fire whose burns she earned from throwing herself over her little sister, and I can see her determination in the eyes of the blonde headed bartender.

So, I drank another shot and two more until the bartender placed a beer in front of me instead. With a passing glance, she asked, "Bad break up, huh?"

"What?" I can't tell if it's the whiskey talking, a guilty conscience, or the bartender.

She grins and shakes her head in knowing. "You all look the same after a bad break up. You come in here and hammer yourselves with whiskey as if it will solve your relationship issues."

Irritated, I take a sip of my beer and scowl at her. "It wasn't a break up."

"Keep tellin' yourself that, Honey," she responded before walking away. The bartender, Leslie, was lucky that she did.

It wasn't a break up. There was nothing to break up. We'd never dated. We'd never had sex. We'd never even so much as kissed…when she wasn't dying on the floor.

But I couldn't deny that I loved her. I guess I'd know that for a while. For the first time in a long time, I could feel the tremendous overwhelming surge of protectiveness swell up inside of me for someone other than Sammy. I felt a sense of pride and respect for her that I'd never felt for another woman. It's why I'd never slept with her, why I never used corny pickup lines on her, or conned her into something that made her uncomfortable. She was a damn good hunter and a damn fine lady. She'd kick my ass before I could even think of disrespecting her, so our relationship never progressed—not for lack of trying, though.

She didn't deserve me: a high school dropout suffering from alcoholism and daddy issues. She was a gorgeous, sexy young woman, a damn good hunter, and an even better con artist. Jo definitely didn't deserve to be mauled by a hellhound; she didn't deserve death, let alone having her intestines used as doggy dental floss. And I most certainly didn't deserve to be in a relationship with her. After all, everyone around me leaves eventually. Why should I have thought anything would be different with Jo?

Rage overtakes me once again. It's not fair that she had to die for this stupid apocalypse. It's not fair that she had to be the price that I paid. It's not fair that I drug her into this whole damn apocalypse. It's not fair that the apocalypse made me sacrifice her.

But hunting—it's the job: you're covered in blood until you're covered in your own blood. It's the gig: it's bloody, grotesque, and horrifying. But it's the job, and Jo knew it was the job, too.

My enraged grip on the beer bottle forces it to shatter. The shards splinter off in varying directions, most of them into my hand. Blood oozes from the cuts and the alcohol stings the open wounds. Hearing the commotion, the bartender rushes over with a clean towel and wraps it around my hand, the blood seeping through the thin cotton. The bartender insists that she call an ambulance to stitch it up, but I refuse her and throw some bills on the counter without even bothering to check their value, and stumble out the door. As I open the door, I hear the bartender call out, "Go home and sleep on it, Honey. I'm sure you can win her back."

I ignore her.

The next day, Bobby, Sammy, and I huddle over a fireplace and have a small hunter's funeral for both Ellen and Jo. Though the blast destroyed their bodies, we have the picture of them that we'd taken right before our rendezvous to kill the devil. We study the picture one last time with beers in our hands, committing Ellen and Jo (for me, mostly Jo) to our memories. Without warning, Bobby throws the picture into the contained flames, and I watch as Jo's face is once again consumed by flames.

A/N: Every time I watch the episode "Abandon All Hope" I cry when Sam and Dean leave Jo and Ellen to die in that explosion. It kills me that the first person Dean really loves and respects (apart from Cassie in season one) is killed by hellhounds. So, I had to write this little drabble about Dean's feelings that we never see expressed in the show. I hope I did Dean justice. After all, the writers pretty much ignored his relationship with Jo.

If you liked it, please review. If you have constructive criticism, please review. I take feedback in all forms. Thanks for reading, everyone! :)