This is my first ever multi-chaptered fic so I'm quite excited to be posting it! It will be a Dean/Jo and the majority of it is written, but that could totally change depending on the feedback!I don't get any emails from FF .net so while I'll be able to read your reviews, I won't be able to reply! I will, however, pm anyone who leaves a signed review!

Thanks to my beta, Ashley for all her wonderful comments :)

It's been three weeks and one day since Dean Winchester was taken to Hell. Three weeks and one day since the hellhounds came and three weeks since Jo had heard the truth from Ellen and moved in with her and Bobby at the new Roadhouse. She remembers that day as if it were yesterday.

Jo walks into the Roadhouse, surprised to hear Led Zeppelin playing on the jukebox. She turns, half expecting to see Dean Winchester looking her way, with that sexy half-smirk and those deep green eyes. Instead, she sees her mother at the bar and while her first thought is relief that she's okay, her second thought is that she's never before seen her mother so broken.

Ellen never knew Dean Winchester before John died, and she still doesn't know him as well as she wants to. He would do anything for his brother and she's slowly realized that he would do anything for her daughter. She meant what she said to Sam a year and a half ago: she forgave John Winchester a long time ago. She knows that Dean hides behind the façade of being scared of her, but in reality, Ellen knows that no one else would have done the things for Jo that he did. Anyone else would have let her die.

Ellen hears the footsteps and looks up, seeing Jo. Her depression abates as her eyes light up and she's wrapped Jo in her arms faster than she kicked out the last man who tried to feel her up. All is forgotten as mother and daughter hold onto each other, relieved to know that the other is alive.

Finally, Jo steps out of her mother's embrace long enough to ask questions. She knows something is wrong, yet she starts out with the easiest question. She thinks. "Mom, why's Zeppelin playing on the jukebox? You hate Zeppelin."

Ellen's answer is not what Jo expects. "It's the only way I know how to pay him the respect he deserves." She speaks simply, hoping that her words will help convey to Jo the gravity of what has happened.

Jo thinks she understands what her mother means and that scares her more than anything. "Mom, what are you talking about?"

That's when Ellen tells her. About everything. About Sam dying and Dean killing Yellow-Eyes. Then she tells her about the deal Dean made. When Ellen gets to the part about Dean being taken, Jo falls to her knees, her legs crumpling beneath her. She doesn't make a sound, her silent sobs more heart wrenching than a banshee's howl.

Jo wishes she'd come home a couple days earlier, if only to say goodbye.

The first couple of days she lives in denial. She tends bar waiting for him to walk through the door. She plays Zeppelin and Black Sabbath as her way of calling him home – home to her, anyway. She calls his phone to tell him about a hunt, only to throw the phone at the wall when she realizes he's gone. She sends him e-mails about the crazy things her mom and Bobby do only to get a phone call from Sam asking her if she needs to talk. She ignores the urge to tell him the truth, knowing that he feels guilty enough about not being able to save Dean the way Dean had saved him. She brushes Sam off with some feeble excuse and Sam's so emotionally broken that he buys it. She makes him promise that if he ever needs anything, he'll call her, Bobby or Ellen. She realizes that they're the only sort of makeshift, dysfunctional family he has now and refuses to give up on him. If saving Dean is impossible, then Jo will do the next best thing and save his brother, doing what Dean died for.

Ellen and Bobby try to talk to her, hoping that she'll finally admit what's wrong – hoping she'll finally admit that she feels something. She asks Bobby to tell her about Dean as a child, avoiding talking about her own feelings while learning more about the man she let get away, the man that she thought she might love, realizing that only after he was gone. Ellen refuses to be swayed, but after being told by Jo for the fourth time that she's alright, she gives up after setting a shot of Jack in front of her daughter.

Four days after Jo returns to the Roadhouse, she receives a letter in the mail. The handwriting is familiar and her blood runs cold. The return address is Hell and Jo can't help but smile through her tears at Dean's attempt at gallows humor. Her hands shake as she opens the envelope and a piece of paper falls out, along with an amulet she assumes is for her. His words are simple.

"I wish it had been the right place, the right time. I wish I'd called. Take care of yourself, Jo. – Dean. P.S. Every hunter needs some sort of protection"

She grabs the amulet and fastens the clasp around her neck. Somewhere, deep inside of her, Jo knows she'll never take it off. The amulet is silver with intricate symbols. Jo looks closely at the back and smiles when she sees the letters "R.E.O." embedded in the silver.

After getting the letter from Dean, she likes to pretend that it doesn't matter, that he didn't matter. She tries to move on. She tries to hunt. But she knows it's a lie and after two weeks of insomnia, sleeping only by listening to his voicemail greeting on a loop, she realizes that she can't sit here and do nothing. Dean had admitted that she was a hunter, and that gives her the strength to know that she can't be a hunter unless she hunts something. She has to try and get him back. She knows it's insane, and she never knew him the way she wanted to, but somehow, he slipped into the cracks of her soul. And she'll do anything to be whole again.

Thanks for reading and remember to review! XoXo - Becky :)