The Knife

Major spoilers for Abandon all Hope

A/N: I haven't written anything over 100 words in a long time so I wanted to put something together and after looking through a list of my old story ideas, this just kind of happened. I hope you enjoy it.

The bar was dusty but the beer was cold and that was enough. Build it and they will come as the old saying goes. Every hunter worth his salt had stopped in at one point or another. Jo had watched them come and go from the time she was tall enough to climb onto those well-worn barstools and onto her Daddy's lap. He would let her sit with him and listen to tales of things that go bump in the night. The hunters knew not to get too graphic in their tales of grandeur until 9:30, Jo's bedtime when her daddy would faithfully walk her up to her room, tuck her in, and kiss her goodnight before returning to the hustle and bustle of the bar. Jo never heard fairy tales. She never dreamed of white nights coming to save her. She dreamed of hunting…

When William Harvelle was home with his family, he would regale his bouncing, squealing, blonde little girl with stories of his adventures, and when he was away, little Joanna's imagination would take its turn keeping her amused. Her daddy was a superhero. What more could a little girl want?

…

Ellen was against it from the start but her William had a way of getting her to sign off on the most hair-brained schemes. She supposed there was some value in Jo learning to shoot but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it. Will had come home from a long hunt; he'd been away from home for three weeks. When the sound of his rusty old car coming up the drive that afternoon had brought both Harvelle women rushing out to the yard to greet him. He kissed his wife and scooped up his little girl and swung her around before the trio trekked back inside for some lunch. Jo had looked up at her dad from the bar stool beside him and batted her eyelashes and in that moment, that man would have given her a pony if she'd asked. It was no secret that Jo had her father wrapped around her little finger…and that was exactly why father and daughter were now lining cans up fifty yards out and Jo was holding a .22. And wouldn't you know it, she was a natural. She was barely big enough to hold the rifle, but with a bit (a lot) of practice, she was hitting her targets every time.

…

When little Joanna Harvelle turned 9 a few months later, the last thing she expected was to wake up and see her daddy downstairs waiting for her. He had called home the night before and said he wasn't going to make it back in time.

"I can't leave this one unfinished. I thought I could kill it in time but I can't screw around with something like this. Please tell my little girl that I'll be home as soon as possible and I'll make it up to her." He'd said over the phone.

Ellen had told Jo that Will probably wasn't going to be home in time and to go back upstairs and get ready for bed but Jo camped out on the top of the stairs, out of eye shot of her watchful mother but close enough to still pick up parts of one side of the conversation at least.

"I thought you said this one seemed simple…A shtriga? Oh my, no, I understand. You need to be there. It's important… Jo will understand; you can't leave those kids alone and unprotected. Call John if you need to. I think he's tangled with one in the past; maybe he'll have some pointers. Ok, I love you, William. Stay safe."

Jo didn't know at the time what a shtriga was but she knew that Daddy was hunting and it was important. He was saving people. Her birthday could wait and with that thought, she trudged back up the stairs and crawled into bed before her mom could catch her eavesdropping.

Then as the sun was just peaking over the horizon, Jo was out of bed and making her way downstairs for her birthday breakfast. She'd been plagued by insomnia for almost her entire life and normally, she would be forced to kill time by herself and have to wait until a much more reasonable hour for breakfast as Jo learned early on that her mother did not appreciate being pulled out of bed at 4:30 in the morning, but for Jo's birthday, Ellen would always wake up extra early and have a breakfast feast ready and on the table even before Jo's screwed up circadian rhythm kicked her out of bed.

The sleep from the now 9-year-old Harvelle's eyes hadn't yet cleared as she descended the stairs on autopilot, only opening them when she smelled the signature sent of bacon and her mother's famous strawberry French toast. She rubbed her eyes and opened them fully for the first time that morning to take in the unexpected sight of her father waiting at the bottom with open arms. All thoughts of sleep and food were forgotten as she rushed to her dad. He hugged her tight before presenting his gift, his knife. It was small and had his initials engraved in the side of the worn but well cared for hilt. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Jo, you can be anything you want to be. Always remember that."

Years later, Jo would always remember her 9th birthday as her favorite.

By the end of that year, Jo was nearly an expert marksman, knew her way around throwing knives, and her Dad had been forced to stop calling her a rookie with a bow and arrow that day in November when she outshot him in the make shift range they'd made over the summer. She was also decent at Texas hold 'em (though her bluffing needed a little work) and a master at the arcade game in the corner of the bar.

None of that meant anything to the youngest Harvelle when the next spring came around and her daddy stopped coming home.

His death rocked the Roadhouse more than anyone could have anticipated, but the worst was Joanna Beth. For nearly 3 weeks, she hid herself away in her bedroom wrapped in one of Will's shirts flipping his knife around and around in her small hands. The shirt swallowed her but it smelled like her Daddy and that was more than enough. The knife that before the tragedy was never more than an arms reach away, now never left her hand. That blade was the last tangible thing Jo had of her father. It was a reminder every day of what he stood for.

Ellen was concerned about her daughter playing with knives in that state of mind but quickly realized that thanks to William, the girl had practically been raised with a weapon in hand and was still alive and if Will's engraved knife made her little spit-fire's grief a little easier to deal with, then she wasn't going to interfere.

Ellen never imagined that nearly fifteen years after her beloved husband's death, that knife would still be resting in Joanna Beth Harvelle's right hand. Sitting on the floor of that hardware store, Jo ran her fingers appreciatively over the intricate carving of her father's initials once again.

Jo took a stuttering breath and tried to keep her eyes open just a little bit longer. She'd heard somewhere once that in the end, you start thinking about the beginning. While Sam gave her arm a comforting squeeze, she should have been far more concerned with the task of keeping her intestines in place but all she could think about was the day her dad had handed her that knife and whispered in her ear that she could be anything she wanted to be. She'd done that, she'd become a hunter, and people were alive because of her and what she'd done with her life and that was enough for her. She ran her thumb across the blade and didn't even notice the pain as she pricked the pad of the digit just as she'd done a thousand times since it was given to her.

She turned to watch Dean as he draped the wiring around the explosives. The man who would soon shoot the Devil crouched down beside her.

"Ok, this is it. I'll see ya on the other side…probably sooner than later." His self-deprecating humor seemed to cut a little closer to home tonight as he pressed the detonator into free hand.

"Make it later." Jo said with a small little smile and passed him her shotgun.

The green-eyed hunter had always looked out for her ever since they met…and now she had to ask him one last favor. Bleeding out on the floor of a dirty hardware store with a bomb set in front of her, she looked at him with newfound determination in her eyes and held out the knife.

"Take it." She said in a raspy voice. His eyes widened and she could've sworn she saw the glimmer of unshed tears in his striking green eyes.

"Jo, I can't."

"It belongs with a hunter, Dean. Besides, it's not like I can be buried with it. Take it." She reasoned solemnly, but he still looked apprehensive. After the incident in Philadelphia regarding the "little pig sticker," he'd always treated the item with a certain reverence. "Dean…please."

He closed his eyes and not for the first time, he thought about how much the world was losing when it lost this woman. He pressed his lips firmly against her forehead, fighting back the flood of emotion for the woman who had become his friend. He cradled the blade in his hand and leaned down and kissed her lips. This was by no means his first kiss, but this…this was different. This was goodbye.

A/N: Thank you all for reading and an extra special thank you to those who take the time to review. They never fail to put a smile on my face. God bless