"This Wakadoo Stuff"
Mystic25
Rating: T for language and imagery.
In the Interim to "Don't You Forget About Me." It was night when they all walked back into Jody's home. What happened in that night.
Author's Note: I realized after I wrote this that Jody's home was one story and not two, but I am writing some scenes as AU, so for the sake of this story, she has another floor to her house.
xxxxXxxx
"At the end of the day, the goals are simple:
safety and security."
~Jodi Rell
xxxxXxxxxx
"You need a hand with that?"
"I got it," Jody's voice came from behind the mass of blankets in her arms. The tower of cloth swayed a moment later eliciting a 'hey' from Jodie as the bundle of quilts was pulled away from her grip, revealing Claire's face.
"You're supposed to be taking it easy remember?" Claire said. "No 'turn down' service."
"The same goes for you," Jody leant up on one aluminum crutch. She had been given two in the ER, and had been instructed to use two; but found that she could maneuver easier around her home with just one. She stared at Clare's face; her eyes were stained of black eyeliner that smudged into a bruise colored an eggplant purple on her right cheek. The garish slight of drying blood on her neck peeked out around the white sterility of a bandage, telling Jody that Claire hadn't taken a shower yet. She nodded to Claire's bandaged neck. "What happened to the ice you were getting for that?"
"It's nothing, just a bruise and some blood." Claire held the blankets tighter to her body, brushing off Jody's remark. "It's not like I needed crutches like you do."
"Quit changing the subject," Jody was a mixture of anger and concern. "Get an ice pack."
"I will if you sit down-" Claire eyed Jody's one crutch under her arm. "You put the guys in the spare room upstairs, you planning on frog hopping up there?"
"I'll manage," Jody had grown accustomed to the banter of teenage girls, by reading a lot of self-help books and drinking. Lots of drinking.
"Or I could just run these up there," Claire said like it was the most obvious solution.
"Nice try, but they gave me enough drugs in the ER that I can manage flying up the stairs."
"Hey I'm just trying to help-"
"I know you are," Jody said. "But, you're exhausted. Even if you don't want to admit it. And right now, I want you parked with a pack of frozen peas against your neck and another on your cheek understand?"
Claire stared at the blankets she was holding. One of them was a quilt, slightly worn, with various squares that looked like they had been cut out of a child's shirts. "Yeah sure-"
"Tell Alex the same goes for her or I'm handcuffing you both to the couch!" Jody ordered.
"Yes ma'am," Claire gave her an innocent looking smile that almost looked totally authentic.
Jody smiled at Claire's attempt to do what she asked, especially considering what they had just come home from. "That's my girl." She took the quits back from the teen, piling them up under her chin and readjusting her crutch so that she could somewhat walk and somewhat see. She moved towards the stairs with this gait that were just through a wooden framed opened doorway.
Claire rounded the wine colored overstuffed couch heading over the hardwood maple floors into the kitchen. Once in there she pulled open the door to the fridge with a force that rattled things inside. She stuck her head in the blast of cold air, looting around until she came up with a white bag of frozen okra. She made a face at Jody's choice of vegetables before turning around to the butcher-block countertop, banging the block of slimy frozen vegetables on the counter to try and break it into smaller pieces.
A noise came from behind her, on the opposite side of the door that led into the garage, a rattling sound of metal. Claire tensed for a moment, hand going for the blood stained sword before she realized that she had left it on the backseat in the Winchester's Impala. She slid the kitchen drawer open next to her, pulling out a serrated steak knife. The noise continued, but didn't travel closer to the door, like someone was moving around in the garage, or outside of it.
She heard a soft curse in a voice that she recognized, making her release a sigh ending on a swear, abandoning the okra and the knife on the counter. She grabbed her hoodie from where she had tossed it on the back of one of the dining room chairs and walked out through that door.
xxxxxXxxxx
Walking up a narrow set of wooden steps with two massive quilts, a crutch, and a leg that barely escaped traction was more complicated that Jody would let on. Had someone been standing at the top of landing watching her hobbled attempt to make it to the second floor of her house, she might have more of a game face on. However, since no one was watching, she allowed herself a mumbled round of strong curses, the kind that got her sent to the principal's office on many occasions after biology, and that scared more than one criminal she arrested long after biology had been passed.
Her last curse ended on a breath of relief as the rubber tip of her crutch hit the stained maple floor after the last step. The second level of her house wasn't a full story, it was barely viewable from the street, half hidden by an Ash tree that had stood on the property for almost 15 years. It had been a loft until she and her husband had gutted it over several consecutive weekends and converted it into a guest suite complete with on suite bathroom and private entrance to the yard. The walls were made of Bur oak that stood out a honey blonde against the maple floor below. Against the right wall stood a wooden buffet table that had been a present from her mother-in-law; it rose midway to her chest and was coated in a pale whitewash. Several framed images of her husband and their son Owen sat there, along with a faded crayon drawing Owen had made for her one day in kindergarten. It often was harder for her to think about Owen because – even though it was unhuman the way he had come back from his grave – she hadn't questioned having her son back. He had been six, too young to die from an ear infection that turned into a raging staph infection that had swallowed his life away in a week. So she had welcomed him, like resurrection was something that came like the change of seasons. It wasn't until she saw him, over his father – covered in his father's blood, that she realized that it wasn't her son. That he would never come back, and in wanting him back she had lost him all over again, as well as her husband.
Next to these pictures stood a newer one of her and Alex, taken in a photo booth month after she had taken Alex in. She had a weekend off and had taken the girl to the local fair. It had been quirky and way too folksy, but the cotton candy and the ride on the collapsible Ferris wheel had given Alex a rare smile across her face. It had taken Jody a long time to break Alex out of her attitude, of her fear of being used as bait – but gradually she came back to life like something had died in the winter, and it had brought Jody back to life as well. And the addition of a boyfriend and a favorite teacher in Alex's life this year had been one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to the teen.
Jody's thoughts pulled away like splintered wood when she thought of how it had all been a lie. Alex had been played, been hunted down and forced to relive torture, and she didn't know how long it would take for her to come back from something like this. But she also knew that Alex was tough, that she would somehow survive.
But tonight, Jody wasn't thinking about that, she wanted one damn night for all of them to just lie down and get some sort of rest before the next thing was thrown at them.
A noise pulled her out of her head. The second story was built like a squat half hexagon with walls that slanted outwards. The bathroom was on the right, the guest bedroom on the left, and directly ahead was a window that overlooked the backyard. The door to the guest bedroom was partway open.
A noise came from behind her - a hurried set of footsteps on the stairwell. Jody swiveled around on one crutch as best she could without falling on her ass.
"Alex-" Jody watched the girl step up beside her in the hallway in bare feet and clean pajamas, hair newly washed, but face a mess of bruises and congealing blood from a cut under her eye. "I thought I told you go sit down!"
"You did," Alex said. "Claire passed on your verbal threat."
"Then why aren't you listening to it?" Jody insisted.
Alex held up the blue checkered dish rag Jody used in the kitchen, it was bundled around something lumpy.
Jody eyed the makeshift bundle "What is that?"
"It's ice," Alex held up the bundle higher, a drip of cold water leaking out of the Ziploc bag of ice the rag was wrapped in. "For my face."
"You got ice and brought it up here to put it on your face?"
"It's-" Alex paused, seeing Jody's eyeing her in a 'don't lie to me' way. "It's not for me-"
"Then who's it for?" Jody's voice was slipping into the tone she used during interrogations, thought it wasn't as harsh. "Alex?-"
A loud creaking thud came from the partly opened bedroom door like someone had dropped a bookcase, of they were trying to lift off of themselves.
Jody's head jerked towards the sounds coming from behind the door. She had offered the bedroom to the guys for the night, despite their insistence that they would be fine to head out. She came very close to ear pulling and Indian burns on both of them before they finally caved in and agreed.
"Dean?-"
"Dean's outside," Alex cut Jody off. "I saw him working on his car in the driveway."
Jody turned back to Alex "Is Sam with him?"
Alex shook her head.
An uneasy feeling danced its way down Jody's back. "Sam? -" Jody eyed the dripping blue rag in Alex's hand. "That's who you needed the ice for?"
"He said he got hit a little harder on the back of the head than he thought-" Alex said.
Jody whirled on her, hearing the news that Sam was complaining about being hurt for the first time. "When he and Dean were waiting for me in the ER he said he was fine-"
"He said didn't want to make a big deal about it. I mean; you said before they're both used to getting banged up after a hunt-" Alex trailed off when she realized that it was the wrong thing to say after Jody's face shifted again into a look that she had seen too much right before she broke down a door to get someone out of a bad situation.
Jody turned back to the partially opened doorway. "Sam?" She shoved the bundle of quilts at Alex, calling out a little louder "Sam?" when there was no answer. She limped her way across the short distance to the room in wider strides than were meant for her crutch and broken leg to handle.
"Jody, wait! -" Alex followed after her, afraid that her crutch might break from the amount of force she was using on it.
Jody made it to the guestroom door, screwing knocking as she pushed it open with the flat of her hand.
xxxxXxxx
["My answer, is no."
"Fine," Lucifer spoke in a half disappointed voice, like he'd been rejected one too many times from a school dance by the same girl. "Plan B" He sighed, then drew back his fist.
The force of a steam train plowed into Sam's face, snapping the cartilage in his nose like paper mâché. He had no time to recover before another blow came, and then another one. He was slammed to ancient iron and steel with a heavy crack of his skull, blood pouring out of him.]
"Sam?"
Sam's fingertips were bloody, leaving a red dot trail on the armoire as he pulled up on it to regain his footing, hearing Jody's voice from beyond the door.
["You made me do this," Lucifer stood over Sam with a straddling stance. "I was going for easy peasy rice and cheesy mental torture, but you had to go shooting your mouth off," Lucifer bent down over Sam, who had no room to even recoil from him properly. "so now I'm angry-" The devil grabbed a fistful of Sam's shirt in his hand, staring down at him with a sad sort of resigned smile. "You never liked me when I'm angry Sam." he drew back again and aimed a low trajectory punch that broke through Sam's eye socket.]
"Sam?" Jody's voice was louder, closer.
Sam shook his head, feeling pain pulsate in his head that threatened to take his knees out from under him. He gulped down one more breath like a too hot drink, pushing all his weight against the armoire making it slide with a screech against the wooden floor. He stood back into an upright position as the door creaked opened with a force that slammed it against the wall.
Jody emerged in her leg brace, leaning heavily on one crutch, moving in a fast stride to reach him.
The world swam for a moment in a blurry focus, and there was a minute where Jody mouthed something that he didn't hear, but he was able to read her lips:
"What happened?!-"
"Nothing," Sam held up his hand to Jody, his hearing and vision finally equalizing enough so that he could do this without gripping onto the furniture "Sorry, I was putting away my stuff-" he gestured to his bag on the bed, then set his hand against the armoire. "This wasn't as sturdy as I thought."
Jody glanced at the armoire seeing the red fingerprints across it. In another blink she glanced at Sam's fingertips, seeing blood hanging off of them like finger paint, calling bullshit to his lie. "That's solid maple Sam-"
["That's solid iron, "Lucifer knocked on the floor of his makeshift cage, his free hand bowing Sam's head backwards against the bars of the cell. "Crowley's bitch at least found good subcontractors. Feels just like old times, huh Sammy?"]
Something touched his arm, and a phantom reflex took over making him jerk backwards. His head swam, and the world became a pinpoint.
"Sam!" Jody's voice replaced Lucifer's, his grip became her grip.
"It's okay-" He felt more than half of his weight falling on Jody. He pulled up. "I'm okay-" He tried to back away, but she was still gripping his arm in her free hand.
"My ass you are- Alex!" Jody yelled over her shoulder to Alex. "Give me a hand!"
Alex came around moving her smaller frame under Sam's arm for support before he could protest.
"Get him over to the bed-" Jody braced herself against Sam's other side, standing soldier tall even with the crutch under her arm.
Alex moved with Jody and pulled Sam towards one of the two fold out beds in the room. Sam outweighed the teenager easily by about half her own body weight, and he tried to lift himself up before he crushed her. But the momentum Alex was using was strong enough that he was only able to pull away from her and Jody about three steps away from the bed.
He stepped out of both of their grasps and dropped his weight onto the bed that held against his sitting position with a loud protest of squawking springs.
Jody stood over Sam, holding her hand out to Alex "Give me the ice."
Alex looked guilty at Sam like she had ruined his plan of being inconspicuous, dropping the dishtowel wrapped ice bag into Jody's open hand.
Jody closed her hand around the cold bundle, looking at Sam. "Where is it?"
"Jody I'm fine, really," Sam saw the way she held herself on her crutch, upright, but with enough of a tremble for him to know it had to be hurting her to be standing at all. "You should be sitting down-"
"Show me where, Sam." Jody said. "I'm not asking again."
Sam looked up at her, unable to find another method of escape under her unrelenting gaze. Instead of answering with words, he gestured vaguely to the back of his head.
Jody limped around to the other side of the bed, propping herself up on her crutch under one armpit. She shifted her fingers around in his hair until she felt a stickiness, seeing blood that had seeped an inch into the surrounding strands of his hair. She pressed the bag of ice against this point.
The cold and the pressure of the ice pack against his head made Sam wince before he could stop himself.
"That's what happens when you get reamed with a two-by-four by a teenager hopped up on being a vampire," Jody's told him.
"Thanks," Sam lifted his hand to the back of his head holding the ice in place.
"What about your ribs?" Jody lowered her hand from the ice pack. "You took a major hit," she glanced at his stomach. "Anything broken?"
"Doesn't feel like it," Sam absent mindedly running his hand across his mid-section.
"Shirt off, let me see."
Both Sam and Alex started at Jody's remark.
"Jody-really, it's fine- I don't think I got more than a couple of bruises."
Jody narrowed her eyes at him in a warning. "Don't make me do it for you."
Sam opened and closed his mouth like a landed fish, letting out a breath. He lowered the icepack from his head and set it on the mattress. He unbuttoned the white dress shirt he wore, stripping it off to his gray undershirt. He pulled the shirt up from his abdomen revealing a puddle of black and blue that covered the skin under his ribs down like a leaking ink stain.
Jody cursed in a whisper under her breath. "That's why you call fine?" She set her hand against his chest, and his wince was audible, muscles retracting involuntarily, betraying some of his stoicism.
Alex stared at the bruises that were spread across Sam's chest and stomach. "That's what you call a couple of bruises?" her words stumbled over Jody's.
Sam looked down at the bruises under his shirt. "Trust me I've had worse."
"So have I," Alex returned. "Doesn't mean that right now doesn't hurt like a bitch."
Sam laughed, but then regretted it when it caused a burn to ripple up his bruises.
Jody wasn't deaf to the noise. "That needs a hell of a lot more ice than what you have."
"I'll get it," Alex volunteered, wanting to do something to help since it was basically her fault that Sam had been hurt in the first place.
"Great," Jody said appreciatively. "Then after, you'll park it on the sofa and stay there."
"I want to help," Alex insisted.
"I know you do," Jody said. "But you've been through a huge ordeal tonight, you need to rest."
"I'm too wired to rest, Jody-"
"Well you're trying anyway."
Alex backed up and looked at Jody in a challenge. "Only if you take some pain pills and go to sleep."
"This isn't a negotiation!"
"You're right it's not," Alex crossed her arms over her chest. "But it's what you have to do if you want me to sit down."
Jody stared hard at Alex and finally sighed. "Fine. But your ass better be on that sofa when I get back downstairs."
Alex stared Jody down right back, silently agreeing. "I'll be back in a minute." She headed to the door and disappeared down the stairs.
Once Alex had vanished down the stairs a growling sigh escaped Jody's voice. "Teenagers. It's been so long since I was one, I'd forgotten how much of a pain in the ass they can be."
Sam gave a low laugh. "She's a good kid."
"Don't I know it," Jody's voice shifted from exasperation to affection at the thought of Alex. She looked down at the melting ice pack sitting on the bed and picked it up. "You know this works better if you actually use it." She picked up the icepack and pressed against Sam's bare skin.
Sam set his hand over the bundle to hold it in place. "Yes ma'am."
Jody backed up and sat down on an old leather covered steamer trunk that was next to the bed. It held a lot of old family relics including a set of skeleton keys from her great-grandfather's first house, and her wedding dress wrapped up in butcher paper. A breath blew out of her once she was off her feet.
Her gesture didn't go unnoticed by Sam. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'll live" Jody responded. "Couple of weeks I'll be back to my fighting stance." She laughed dryly. "I've been plowed into this leg so much that I can pretty much run in these things." She patted the crutch under her arm, then set her eyes over to him. "Teenager's out of the room Sam." She leant forward. "Time for an honesty check, how are you really?"
"I'll live too," Sam returned, "This isn't my first set of bruised ribs and concussion, I think I'm close to reaching some sort of Grand Master Status."
"That's not what I mean," Jody paused for a long moment, then leant forward more like she was afraid that she would be overheard. "Dean, told me about-" She let out the smallest breaths. "-about what happened to you."
The night air outside tickled the gauzy white curtains hanging on the window behind the bed, blowing in the smell of grass, dirt and the last dredges of winter air.
"I'm okay-"
"Not saying you need to be Sam," Jody responded. "It's not a requirement, not after surviving something like that-"
"Really, I'm good," Sam said. "I mean, I wasn't, right after – but I laid low for a while, and I talked to Dean, and things leveled out-"
"So what was that a minute ago?"
"Residual," Sam laughed dryly, admitting something he hadn't yet said out loud. "Sometimes things are harder to beat back. But I manage it-"
"Sam-"
"It's done Jody; I mean it's not like – it wasn't like it was before-"
"What about Dean?" Jody asked. "Does he know about this?"
"He knows enough."
Her eyes grew wide. "You can't keep something like this from him-"
"Dean has enough to deal with," Sam lowered his eyes to his hands, studying the blood drying on his fingertips. "Whatever else is swung my way, I owe it to him to handle it."
"Being trapped with the devil isn't a thing you handle on your own Sam!" Jody's voice was a shock of low disbelief. "Not when you have a brother like Dean, when you have me! " She reached over the gap between them and gripped his wrist. "I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like - but I'm here if you ever need to talk, understand?"
"You mind if I take a rain check on that?" Something painful flitted across Sam's eyes. "I think I'm tapped out tonight." He gave one last dry laugh but in the light of the room, his eyes shone.
Something hard tugged and burned at Jody's chest. She reached her hand up off his wrist and set her hand in his, closing her fingers up into his larger hand.
The door to the bedroom creaked open. Alex stood in the doorway, with a quart sized bag zip lock bag of ice in her hand. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," Sam cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger like his head hurt. He looked back up reaching out to take the bag of ice when Alex handed it to him. "Thanks."
Jody released Sam's wrist and stood back up slowly, leaning for a moment on her crutch. She took two limping steps until she was standing next to him on the bed, placing a hand on his hair and kissed him against the side of his head.
Sam blinked in the moment, in having the solidity of someone like Jody.
"Come on," Jody turned to Alex, "You. Downstairs. Now."
Sam watched Jody limp back to the door. "Hey you need any help going back down?"
"I got it," Jody turned back around eyeing him, and then the bed. "You already fell on me once Winchester, so park it."
A quiet smile pulled across Sam's face. "I'm parked."
He watched as Jody disappeared out the doorway and back down the stairs.