Hiya! So I think this is a one-shot immediately following Abandon All Hope. I think the three strongest characters in the show other than Sam and Dean are Bobby, Jo and Ellen. You would think with there being only two main characters every week they would treat their supporting characters better; but aparently not. Aw well. Ok, so this fic doesn't exactly go in chronological order, but its pretty easy to understand and if I get reviews I might make a second chapter where this continues. Who knows maybe if I get a LOT of reviews I'll make a really really fluffy second chapter. I hope you enjoy! (Criticism reviews are welcome too). :)
Bobby Singer had a bottle of tequila open while he played solitaire on his kitchen table. He took a swig despondently, and then threw the bottle to the floor where it exploded into a million brilliantly flashing pieces.
Ellen was dead. Jo was dead. The boys were alive, they'd come back, burned the picture, mourned and left again. Much worse off than they had been at their arrival a few days before.
Ellen had been one of Bobby's closest and best friends, like John Winchester. She was a strong woman, nice to talk to and so smart. When there were only a few people you could talk to about your job, it was nice to know one of them would backhand you if you did something stupid; because she cared. She cared about everyone who went through her roadhouse. Bobby pulled a hand over his face - the roadhouse. That in of itself had been a tragedy, all those great hunters, lost. How Jo and Ellen had managed to escape, he still didn't understand.
Jo. She was just a girl, younger than Sammy, and Sam still seemed too young in Bobby's mind, though truthfully he'd aged as of late. Jo had her whole life before her, her whole life to live. She had always been beautiful. Bobby remembered her growing up, she'd always been a spitfire little hell raiser trying to play with guns and hunt things with the boys. A tear slipped out of Bobby's eyes. He hadn't acknowledged it as much, but Jo had turned into his adoptive daughter almost as much as the boys were his adoptive sons. He wanted to see her grow up some more, have some more happy memories, not tainted by the devil or the end of the world.
He'd once said in passing to John, jokingly, that one day he'd laugh when he saw Dean and Jo finally get together. Dean was awful torn up when he came back. It made Bobby wonder if something had happened; if maybe the same thought had gone through Dean's head too. His imagination ran away with him for a second and he saw Dean standing at the end of a church aisle in a suit, Sammy by his side, Jo in a white dress blushing and holding her mother's hand, taking the place of her father as they walked down the aisle.
Stop it. They're dead. He wanted to deny it. Why can't the boys be happy for once? Why can't something actually work out right? Why were they, himself included, the ones who always had their futures taken away, burned to ashes like the photograph of the other night?
Jo and Ellen are dead.
Bobby wanted that tequila bottle back now. He gazed at the floor, knowing it would be a bitch to clean up the glass shards and spilled liquid from his wheelchair. He sighed.
The doorbell rang.
Sam and Dean (a few minutes later)
"Bobby? What's up?" Sam answered his cell, checking the caller ID.
"You and your brother need to get your asses back here as soon as possible, got it?"
"Why? What's wrong?" Sam's voice was instantly alert on the other side of the line.
"Nothing's wrong, just do it moron."
There was a moment as Sam relayed the message to Dean.
"Alright, give us about two hours. You gonna tell us why we're speeding back there when we just left?" Sam pressed.
"Nope, just get your asses back here." He said. The nonchalance in his voice was evident, assuring Sam there was no danger, just urgent news. It was almost like Bobby was joking; but he couldn't be that happy yet. All of them were a mess since Jo and Ellen…
Sam glanced at his big brother gripping the steering wheel. His tapes weren't on; that never happened. Sam usually complained about his brother's music, but the silence was too cold and becoming unbearable. Dean had this droop to his shoulder and an almost unrecognizable glint in his eyes. He was in pain, only Sam would be able to tell, when Dean wanted to hide something it stayed hidden – but he was in pain. Sam mentally sighed. Eventually they would have to talk about this. Sam had seen him kiss her.
"Fine, see you in a few." Sam answered Bobby snapping shut his cell phone.
Two hours later both Winchester boys stood outside of Bobby Singer's front door.
"He didn't say what this was about?" Dean asked shortly.
"Nope."
They knocked. They heard voices inside, Bobby was talking to someone. Someone was here. Then they heard footsteps – footsteps? But Bobby can't walk. Then the door swung open wide.
Bobby's house (back in the present)
The door bell rang.
He wheeled his way to the front door, fragments of his broken glass bottle crackled musically under the weight of the mobile chair. It had to be Sam and Dean back again, but why hadn't they called?
"Who is it?" he bellowed haarshly, stopping a few feet from the door and reflexively thumbing the silver dagger he kept apprehensively under the padding of his wheelchair. There was a moment as the door clicked as someone opened it either with a pick or a key.
"Hiya Bobby!" A bright voice rang through the screen, opening the door inward. It was a high voice, an unexpected voice, no it couldn't be…
Ellen walked inside Bobby's house.
"Well, long time no see huh?" She continued happily, holding the screen door open, Jo walked in next, scraping some mud off of her shoes on his doormat.
Bobby gaped at the two of them, literally not believing his eyes.
"You're dead!!" He finally shouted at the two of them, wheeling backward, searching for a stronger weapon.
"Well… we were, but now we're not."
"No, no, no. This has got to stop. First Sam dies, then Dean, and now you two?! How many people are going to come back from the fucking dead and walk nonchalantly through my front fucking door like they're here for Sunday brunch?!" he wouldn't normally have responded so violently to the reappearance of them both, but then these were not normal conditions. This was one of those desperate moments where Bobby knows he shouldn't believe anything until he knows he can as is the hunter's attitude, but he was so desperately sick of the emotional rollercoaster every time he thought someone was dead and it turns out they're not.
Jo looked up in panic.
"What do you mean Sam and Dean died?"
Bobby rolled his eyes, "Not recently you idgit. Sam died and Dean brought him back from the dead, then Dean died and Cas brought him back from hell. Now you stay the fuck away from me until you tell me who you are and exactly what's going on here!"
He brandished his silver blade threateningly. Ellen rolled her eyes.
"Bobby, stop it. It's us. Ellen and Jo Harvelle, mother and daughter, you used to come by my roadhouse with John Winchester. You always hated my coffee, and according to Dean you have a Michael Bolton CD stashed away under a floorboard where you think no one's ever going to see it."
Bobby just looked at her warily, not giving in. Now it was Jo's turn to roll her eyes.
"Bobby it's us – look." She pulled out her own silver dagger and swiped it cleanly across her palm, blood oozed out. Then she went to the drawer by his kitchen sink and took out the vial of holy water she knew was there, she took a sip and threw some at her mom, to show the lack of reaction.
"See. It's us."
"Holy --," Bobby just relaxed and gapped at them speechlessly. These were people he'd mourned for. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Finally he found his voice, "I'm happy, but how many times is this gonna keep happening. You know what? I don't even wanna know what happened, I just need a drink." He dropped the silver knife into his lap and wheeled away from the two women who smirked at his retreating back.
"Hey Bobby?"
"What?"
"Wanna do us a favor and call up Sam and Dean, I think they'd be real glad to see us; unlike a certain cynical paraplegic we know."
Bobby grumbled, as Jo laughed at her mother's teasing, but he couldn't keep the smile off his face or the tear out of his eye as he picked up the phone. He threw the phone down after the brief conversation then grabbed a flask, this one filled with whiskey off his bedside table. When he wheeled his way back to Ellen and Jo, the latter of which had found his broom and was picking up the tequila remnants, his face was completely devoid of lasting tears.
"Well?" He said condescendingly from the doorway.
"Well what?" Jo countered folding her arms and speaking for both of them.
"Well, seeing as you scared the hell out of me, are you gonna come over here and give me a hug or not?" He asked indignantly folding his arms as well.
Jo and Ellen both laughed at the disgruntled look on his face which morphed into a smirk and chuckle of his own. Then they crossed the room and embraced their friend.
"Bobby you're such a troll." Jo laughed, her mother did too.
"Yea yea." Bobby muttered in a bemused voice. Yet all that was going through his head as he took a swig of whiskey was the thought over and over again, "They're actually alive. They got to live!" with this blown up sense of elation filling him from head to toe, along with a warmth had nothing to do with the alcohol.
