A/N: This is something I got in my head and it just wouldn't leave so I wrote it down.
Disclaimer: I never have and never will own Supernatural
Is it in my head?
There was a frantic knock at the door at an ungodly hour of the morning.
What the hell? Dean thought as the sound woke him up. "Sam, you awake?" He asked, sleepily.
"Wha'?" Sam said as he woke suddenly. "Stop knocking, Dean."
"It's not me," Dean told him as he started to sit up in bed. "It's the door. Go answer it."
"Why me?"
"'Cos I'm the oldest," was Dean's explanation.
"Fine, I can't be bothered to argue," Sam said as he climbed out of bed and towards the motel door. Upon opening it he came face to face with a shocking sight. Jess, his dead girlfriend, was stood right in front of him.
"Who is it?" Dean asked as he walked up behind his brother. He immediately stopped in his tracks when he saw who it was.
"Oh my God, Dean," she said as she ran into the room and threw her arms around him. Dean looked at Sam with an extremely confused look on his face.
"Uh, what's goin' on?" It was all he could manage to say.
"I don't know," she replied; refusing to let go of him. "I woke up and I didn't know where I was, so I walked around for a while and then I saw the car."
"I'm really confused," Dean admitted.
"You're confused?" Sam replied. This was the first time Jess really noticed him so she turned to face him. In one swift movement she lifted her arm and brought it towards Sam's face. His head snapped backwards as her fist connected with his jaw. He lifted his head with a shocked look plastered on his face.
"What's going on?" Jess asked.
"That's what we'd like to know," Dean answered her. "Why did you just right hook my brother? And why did you hug me before?"
"What's…? Why…?" She couldn't seem to put an entire sentence together. "I think I need to sit down."
"Okay," Dean gently took her arm and guided her to the bed. He and Sam sat down on the bed opposite her.
Dean looked at his brother. He had a look on his face that was a cross between bewilderment, shock and sadness. Dean felt extremely sorry for his brother, after all he was seeing his dead girlfriend sat in front of him and for some reason, was extremely pissed at him. He had barely spoken since he had opened the door so it was up to Dean to ask the questions.
"Okay, let's start with why you decided to punch my brother."
"It was two years ago," she started, "Hallowe'en 2005. I was getting ready for a Hallowe'en party and when I came out of the bedroom, Sam had disappeared and he just left a note saying he was leaving for my own good so I didn't get hurt. Then, you turned up," she nodded to Dean. "You were looking for Sam because your father had gone missing and you wanted his help to find him."
"Why did Sam disappear?" Dean interrupted.
"I found out later it was because he had been having dreams about me dying and so he left to try and stop it from happening," she explained. "But you turned up and I asked you if I could come with you to find Sam. So we went to Jericho, the last place your dad was but he wasn't there. You weren't gonna let me come with you after that but the demon attacked. After that, you must have thought that it was safer if I stayed with you."
"Did you find Sam?"
"We spent months travelling around the country looking for him and your dad and then we eventually did find him. Or he found us."
"What happened?"
"He tried to kill us," she said. Sam; who was staring intently at the floor, looked up at her.
"What?"
"You tried to kill us. When John was possessed with he demon. You were there and on the demon's side and you tried to kill us. We barely got out of there alive," she paused for a moment, taking a breath before asking. "Now tell me what happened here."
Dean took it upon himself to explain since Sam didn't seem able to. "Sam didn't disappear on Hallowe'en here. When I turned up he came with me to Jericho to find dad but he wasn't there. When I brought him back he came home to find you on the ceiling, just like our mom. We spent the last couple of years trying to find the demon and kill the son of a bitch. What I really want to know," he changed the subject, "is how you ended up here in the first place. Can you tell us what happened immediately before you woke up here?"
"We were on a hunt," Jess started, "and I remember we finished the job so we went back to the motel. I fell asleep and I woke up here," she sounded confused.
"Did anything happen on the hunt? What were you hunting?"
"It was just a random spirit, nothing huge. But; there was something."
"What?" Dean asked as Sam was still sat there silently.
"There was something, in the forest next to the cemetery so I went to take a look. Someone ran into me but didn't stop. I didn't really see who or what it was so I didn't really take much notice."
Sam spoke for the first time since the conversation had begun, "I guess I could try to find out what happened. I'll call Bobby," Dean smiled and nodded encouragingly at his brother as he reached for his phone, dialled Bobby's number and stepped outside the motel room. Dean was left sat opposite his brother's dead girlfriend.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Me? I'm fine," she said slightly sarcastically. "I mean, it's not everyday you find yourself in an alternate world where you died."
"We'll get you back," she gave him a small smile and stared at the floor. "Jess?" He enquired.
"Yeah?"
"What happened after Sam tried to kill you?"
"We kept looking for him. Only it wasn't to find him anymore, it was to stop him. He was the demon's favourite, you know? And they joined forces; went around killing the other children. We caught up with him once, just in time to see him snap the neck of one of them."
"Which one?"
"Andy Gallagher."
"Andy?" Dean cried in shock.
"You met him?"
"Yeah; he died here too, but Sam didn't kill him."
"Even after you saw that, though, you still didn't want to kill him. You always thought you could save him, right until the end."
"What happened?" Dean asked, swallowing hard. He knew what she was going to say and he didn't really want Jess to confirm it but he still asked anyway.
"Sam died. That guy, Jake killed him." It had happened just as it had here. "So we burned his body and went after Jake." Dean rubbed his face with his hand, stood up and started to pace the room. "I'm guessing it didn't happen like that here."
"Not quite," Dean sad quietly. "Sam died but I went to a Crossroads Demon and made a deal."
"What deal?"
"His life for my soul. I got a year."
"That sucks."
"Yeah," he laughed mirthlessly.
"But do you know something?"
"What?"
"After everything that happened, I still couldn't hate him. Neither could you. No matter what he did or how many people he killed, we still loved him."
Dean didn't know what to say so he settled with, "I'm gonna check on Sam. Will you be okay here?"
"You always ask me that. I do know how to take care of myself."
"As you proved with your right hook. Where did you learn that?"
"I learnt it from you."
"Figures. I'll be right back," he told her as he stepped out of the motel room to find Sam. It wasn't too hard; he was leant against the bonnet of the Impala staring blankly into the distance. He looked so forlorn it almost broke Dean's heart. "Hey," he greeted his brother.
"Hey," he quietly replied.
"You call Bobby?"
"Yeah, he seems to think it was a curse that sent her here. He also said it shouldn't be permanent and she'll wake up on her own."
"You're not okay," it wasn't a question.
"Nope," Sam affirmed.
"You want to talk about it?"
"What's to talk about? To her, I'm an evil bastard who left her and tried to kill her. She hates me."
"No she doesn't," Dean tried to comfort him.
"Yeah, then why did she punch me in the chin?"
"Sam; she loves you, she always loved you no matter what you did. She's just angry at what happened, but she doesn't hate you. Just like I could never hate you."
"Really?"
"Really," Dean assured him. "Why don't you go and talk to her, tell her what Bobby said."
"Okay," he said as he stood up and made his way back into the room. "Hey," he greeted Jess.
"Hey," she replied, giving a small sigh.
"I talked to Bobby. He said it's just a sleeping curse and you should wake up on your own."
"So, I fall asleep and I wake up in a world where I'm dead?"
"Not really, your body is still in your world."
"So, it's like astral projection?"
"Yeah, something like that," Sam smiled.
"I missed you, you know that? Every single day, I just wanted you back. But the longer you were gone, the more I realised that was never going to happen. Somewhere along the road I realised that you were going to have to die because I was never really going to have you back."
"I missed you too. I thought about you every single day after you died. I used to think it was my fault because I never told anyone about the dreams. I don't think I'm ever going to get over you."
"If you think about it, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't," she joked slightly.
"How so?"
"Because you didn't do anything about the dreams so I died, but when you did do something about it, you ended up evil and murdering people. I suppose me dying is better than you killing people. At least you still have Dean."
"Yeah, not for long."
"You'll find a way to get him out of that deal, you're too good not to," she reassured him.
"Glad to know you have faith in me."
"I always will. So," she changed the subject. "How do I get home?"
"Bobby just said it wouldn't last any more that a few hours. If you fell asleep now then you'd probably wake up back in your own world," he explained.
"Okay, then I'll go to sleep."
"You can have Dean's bed, he won't mind."
"Yeah, I bet he won't," she laughed.
"You're right. But take it anyway."
"Okay," she said as she went to lie down on Dean's bed.
"Jess, can I ask you one more thing?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"You and your Dean, are you together?"
"I'm not going to answer that. You'll only obsess about it," she stood up once more and gave him a small kiss on the cheek before lying down and falling asleep.
Dean decided not to go back into the room for the rest of the night. It wasn't that far away from being dawn so he just walked around until the sun came up before going back to check on Sam. When he arrived back; he found his brother sitting alone, with his head in his hands.
"Jess gone?" He asked.
"Yeah, I guess the curse wore off."
"You okay?"
"You don't have to ask me that all the time," he snapped. He sighed gently afterwards, not really meaning to sound so harsh. "I'm fine."
"For once I actually believe you. What happened?"
"We talked."
"That all?"
"Yeah," Sam paused. "It felt good to get some closure after all this time."
Jess started to wake when she felt the warm sun on her face. Slowly opening her eyes, she found herself in the motel room she had fallen asleep in. Dean was sat in a chair next her bed looking exhausted.
"Hey," she said quietly.
Dean's head snapped up when he heard a voice. "Hey," he replied more than a little shocked. "You're awake? I was so worried about you."
"I'm awake," she sat up in bed, he joined her and they hugged. "But I had the strangest dream.