"Mom, I just think we oughta—"

Jo hopes this time she'll win the debate with her mother, the same argument they've been having ever since surviving the explosion which left both of them in the hospital. They've been staying at dingy hotel rooms, flying just under the radar and the young blond is getting sick of it.

"Jo, honey, we've been through this." Ellen looks up from cleaning the rifle. It's as if she can read her daughter's thoughts before she even finishes her sentence. Then again, most mothers could, Jo thinks it's one of the drawbacks of having that close family connection. "We are not getting involved with those boys again. They're reckless. They go into battle swinging blindly—"

"I just think we oughta at least tell them we're alive." Jo pouts, but she wouldn't call it pouting—pouting is something children do, something she's trying to prove she's too old for these days. She wants to be treated as a woman, an adult—and she wants to call her own shots for once. "What if you thought they died and they didn't let you know that they were okay?"

"Jo! That's enough." Ellen shakes her head. "I gave you my answer many times over by now. We don't talk to those boys, we don't see them, we don't let them know we're okay. It's safer killing monsters well out of the range of the Winchesters."

Jo crosses her arms and rolled her eyes, exasperated. There was no winning here.

She slams the door to the dirty little motel room behind her when she goes storming off. Once she hears the door shut and she's well out of sight of her mother, she flips her the finger and lets off a little steam.

She crosses the street and sits at the small bench of the bus station. Jo thinks about leaving for about a minute—long enough to know they she could never just disappear on her mother. But then, she hated just off and disappearing on anyone these days. There were so few of them left, the past few years had taken so many of her friends from her.

She was lucky to be alive. They both were— Jo didn't know how it happened, how they survived. There was the explosion and then there was darkness, and she thought she might have made a wrong turn when going to heaven. But just when she'd fretted enough about ending up in the VERY wrong place, she felt arms around her, cradling her and carrying her to an ambulance, or at least she guessed it was an ambulance by the bright blinding flashing lights.

And then there was the hospital. Waking up in it.

She was sure some time had passed in between, but Jo couldn't remember anything in between.

And then her mother was there, in the hospital bed right next to her own.

"Jo, honey, are you okay?"

Her mother's first words to her after surviving, and then came the happiness of being alive and knowing that her mother was alive and that they were safe. Safe. For the moment at least— because she was sure the apocalypse was still going strong.

"I'm okay, mom. I am." She remembers whispering, her voice cracking and energy still drained from her. "I'm a Harvelle. I'm stronger than some damn hellhounds—and those bombs."

Oh god, she remembers thinking in the hospital, I can still hear them ringing in my ears— how are we still alive?

"That's my girl," her mother had replied, so proud of her daughter then—but Jo could also remember the tears in her mother's voice, the worry. Jo had grown up just like her father, she was the thing her mother most feared she would become—a hunter who would put herself in harm time and again to save the innocent from whatever hell unleashed. "We'll get out of here soon. Find someplace quiet to hide away in until it's all over."

Her mother was talking about the apocalypse, about hiding until it passed—but Jo knew better, it wasn't going to just pass over them like some afternoon sunshower. And so began the first debate with her mother, the one where they argued for weeks about whether they should get involved in the hunt or not, whether they should help stop the apocalypse from destroying the rest of the world.

Jo had finally won that round of stubbornness, after finally asking her mother, "What would Dad have done?"

"He would have died stupidly." Her mother had replied then, which caused her daughter to bite back tears. "Oh, Jo, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"He wouldn't have stopped fighting till the end, mom. He would have kept going. He would have helped. We have to help, don't you see, I'm my father's daughter." She refused to back down from that fight, even though the tears were welling up in her eyes, even though she wasn't sure if she could save anyone from anything. "I'm a fighter— a hunter."

Jo remembers Ellen sighing, remembers her relenting. "That you are, Jo. That you are."

They'd picked up some supplies then, worked out some more plans—but her mom's one rule in all of this was that they weren't to get involved with the Winchesters ever again. Her mom still blamed them for her father's death—and it didn't help that they nearly got fried and eaten because of them either.

They were family though. And family stuck together.

She sighs and looks over at the payphone, and finally decides that she's an adult after all, she doesn't have to always listen to her mother. Just this once she's going to make her own choices, even if that meant rebelling and most likely getting in trouble for it later.

She picks up the phone, sticks in a quarter and dials the number she knows by heart by now. Granted, she only knows it by heart because she had a crush on Dean a few years ago, but she's still trying to put that silliness behind her. She sucks in a deep breath as that same familiar voice answers.

"Hey, this is Ian Gillan. And I hope you got good news for me."

Jo rolls her eyes. Dean always used fake names when he didn't recognize the number calling him. "Dean. I know it's you."

There's a momentary pause where she can literally hear his confusion, his disbelief. "If this is a joke, I swear to god I will end you."

"Oh, please," Jo laughs. "I'm not that easy to end.. but we already figured that one out, didn't we?"

She stops again, gathering her courage before continuing more seriously.

"It's really me, Dean. Jo. Me and my mom are okay. She doesn't want me to talk to you, but hey, what else is new?"

She thinks he can hear him starting to tear up, but she'd never mention that out loud. It would ruin his whole macho man persona. She can hear him calling to Sam in the room, and they're cheering and yelling for Bobby, and she thinks that maybe being an adult is about making the right calls, literally and figuratively, even when other people tell you not to.. and even when those other people will probably try to ground you for the next week.

"This is definitely the good news we needed. We've been through the ringer while you were gone."

She can hear Dean's smile through the phone, and feels it tug at her heart—and maybe, just maybe, she's not over that crush just yet. All she knows is it is so good to hear his voice again. They were still a part of her life, and she wasn't walking away without a damn good fight.

But, boy, her mom was going to be pissed.

/End