THEN
When the Roadhouse burns down, she considers rebuilding, but it just seems like replacing one baby with another. Instead, she, Jo and Ash salvage their few remaining belongings, pack up the old Winnebago and head north.
The make it as far as Sioux Falls – mainly because Bobby threatens to hunt her down and shoot her if she dares to leave.
For the next six months, the trio slowly move past the shock of losing their home and livelihood; Ash forces Bobby into the twenty-first century by modernizing the semi-retired hunter's salvage business and manages the twelve different phone lines to provide cover for hunters out in the field while Jo partners with Ellen to do a few jobs close to home.
Being on the road with her daughter brings forth memories of the hunts she had with Bill early in their marriage and she knows Jo enjoys hearing the stories. Still, though she does not say a word to Jo, she misses the Roadhouse and thinks she does a good job of hiding it, until one day Jo takes a small job and partners with Garth, both of them leaving in the early hours of the morning. Ellen had wakes to find a page from the classified advertisement pinned to her bedroom door with a switchblade and one help wanted ad circled in pink highlighter.
"Bar Manager Needed"
A few choice words describe her headstrong daughter as Ellen mutters under her breath while she rummages through her dresser drawers. However, she can't deny the tiny spark of excitement she feels as she grabs the keys to the Lincoln Continental she calls Proud Mary and makes the seven minute drive down the highway to her interview.
With her experience, the owner hires her on the spot and Ellen is back in the world of scuffed wooden floors, stale, smoky rooms and the smell of draft beer.
She is in heaven.
Two years later, the owner, Roy Owens, offers to sell her the bar. She thinks long and hard and a few months later, she signs the papers. The loss of the Roadhouse still hurts and she can't bear to give the bar the same name but she still wants carry a piece of her history with her.
The next day, she takes down the old, hand-painted "Roy's Tavern" sign and replaces it with a brand new blue neon sign and names the bar "Deuce". Most of the locals think it's a poker reference, but as word spreads through the hunter community she knows they realize what the name means and business gets a lot more steady.
Like the Roadhouse, Deuce has living quarters attached. Roy had cleared out his belongings a few months before the sale was final, content to let Ellen manage the bar while he prepares to move to Pembroke Pines in southern Florida, closer to his daughter and grandson. In the interim, while she gets loans approved, she, Ash, Jo and Bobby spend every spare minute repainting walls and updating the rooms above the bar.
Roy had once told her that his great-grandfather had first opened the bar in the mid-thirties and rented out the rooms above the bar to travelers. In total, the upstairs quarters include six bedrooms, two full baths, a common room and a fair sized kitchen.
On craigslist, she finds good deals on appliances and the equipment to strip and polish the hardwood floors they had discovered when they pulled up the carpet. She is no Martha Stewart, but Ellen reckons they do a damn fine job of bringing the living quarters into the twenty first century.
They say bad things come in threes but Ellen reckons that the same adage holds for good things.
In the same week, she opens Deuce, moves into her new home and meets Stiles Stillinski.
Funny, how no one can ever really recognize a good thing until hindsight hits.
Deuce is located a few miles outside of Sioux Falls, coincidentally on the same highway as Singer Salvage, so when the black Imapla rolls by heading east on the highway, Ellen is certain it is the Winchester's.
She's grateful that Jo is on a job with Garth, as her only daughter still carries a (poorly hidden) torch for the oldest Winchester boy. Though he flirts with her many times, she knows her daughter only rejected Dean in an attempt to stand out from the crowd of willing women that fell into his bed like dominoes. Eventually, though, Dean's attentions turn from flirtatious to brotherly teasing, much to Jo's consternation.
No matter how many times Ellen tries to discourage her daughter, she knows it is a losing battle. Joanna-Beth is as stubborn as her mother and as tenacious as her father had been. When the Impala rolls by she feels a mix of emotions- reluctant affection, irritation and a hope that Dean might put his mechanic skills to use on the Lincoln Continental that Bobby had given her. She'd had the gas-guzzling car for just under two years and hated asking on Bobby to do repairs no matter how often he insisted it was no imposition.
She felt no such reluctance for imposing on Dean though.
She hollars to Ash, who sits cross legged on the pool table wearing a headset and fingers flying on his laptop key board, grabs the keys to the car she dubbed "Proud Mary" and heads out the back door.
It is a six minute drive up the highway to Bobby's and, as she turns into the gravel drive of Singer Salvage, the air conditioning in Mary has just kicked in, the air in car slowly changing from blowing muggy and warm to a temperature that could barely be labeled as tepid. She adds it to the mental list of "Things Dean Will Check".
The boy has gotten enough free beer and put more than a few gray hairs on Ellen's head, that she feels no guilt.
Bobby must have had company before the Winchester's pulled in, she recognizes the beaten two-toned Ford pick-up as belonging to Rich Stampley and groans aloud when she parks Mary beside it. Rich used to be a pleasant person to be around, but a few years ago he lost his partner, Shell Granger, and every hunter in a thousand mile radius had been treated to a loud, drunken tirade on how the Winchesters are to blame.
She slams the door, muttering under her breath when two shots ring out and she runs because she only knew two men who were a faster draw then Rich Stampley and neither of them were called Winchester. She races around the side of the house and is shocked to see Sam crumpled on the grass, pale, still and bleeding, with Dean, unmindful of the seeping wound on his thigh scooting across the grass to his brother.
"Sammy? Jesus Sammy…" he whispers, uncaring of the shouting match that is going on between Bobby, who has a mare's leg aimed at Rich, who in turn has his thirty two caliber aimed at Dean's head, hand steadily tracking the wounded man as he scoots across the grass toward his brother.
Her heart thundering with worry and adrenalin as she tries to keep an even tone, she has to speak up to talk over Rich's rant about demon gates, the anti-Christ and a litany of other crimes against the Winchesters.
"Put the gun down Rich," she begins, not liking the gray pallor of Bobby's face. The older man is leaning against the side of the house like it is the only thing holding him up and her heart leaps into her throat when she sees hunter's hand tremble.
She has known Bobby singer since she married Bill at the tender age of seventeen and she had never, not once, seen his gun hand as anything other than steady. Dean, on the ground, pulls off his faded Metallica t-shirt and is using it to try to stop the steady flow of blood coming from Sam.
She takes a step toward Rich and three things happen at once.
A blurred figure sprints out from the cluster of trees at Rich's back while Rich turns away from Bobby and aims his gun toward Ellen. The figure strikes a blunt object at the back of his knee as the thirty-two and mare's leg discharge at the same time.
Though he aimed for her head, the impact of a blunt object to his knee throws off his aim so his shot hits her shoulder instead and she yells a curse at the searing pain and tears fill her eyes.
You will not cry Ellen Harvell she scolds and hisses another string of curse words that would have made her daddy blush.
Rich is down on one knee, trying to reach for the gun without losing his balance still ranting about Sam and Dean when the figure whirls around and brings the blunt weapon down on the struggling hunter's wrist. From the impact, Rich falls backward. The figure, a young man about the same age as her daughter, stands over Rich with one foot planted on the prone hunter's belly.
Rich eyes the gun, while he cradles his injured wrist toward his chest but flinches when the young man adjusts his stance in a pose that mimics that of a baseball player with a bat. With his free hand, the stranger pulls out a phone and uses his thumb to press a few numbers.
He raises the phone to his ear and his next words are clear, concise and with a slight edge that she cannot identify.
"I need a code three Singer Salvage yard of county road sixty nine. We had an incident with a two-forty-five and request an eleven-forty-one. Advise a code three."
Ellen presses a hand to her shoulder and tries to pretend that she doesn't see black spots dancing before her eyes because it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. She looks away from the stranger and focuses on Dean, who is hasn't moved an inch from his brother's side, his voice hoarse, uttering an endless string of words, alternating between pleas and threats if Sam doesn't "hang on dammit, you hear me you little bitch, just hang on."
She is aware, vaguely, of the stranger, calmly answering questions using codes and terminology not normally hear outside of cop shows or police scanner.
Sam regains consciousness just as the police sirens are first heard, his slurring speech easily understood by Dean, who exhales heavily and answers Sam's half-hearted questions with a choked voice. Rich twitches and the stranger tenses, fingers fanning briefly before tightening its grip around the neck of the wooden bat.
By this time, Ellen has moved the twenty or so feet that bring her to Bobby, growing steadily alarmed by both his pallor and hitched breaths.
Dean continues to talk to his brother, tone soothing as a mother with a newborn babe.
Since the salvage yard is located outside of the city limits, it is the county sheriff that arrives just ahead of the ambulance. Beth Chappell opens the door of her car and exits, eyes flitting and assessing the situation even as she pulls the gun from her holster. While she isn't a regular customer at Deuce, the sheriff isn't a stranger either; she greets Ellen and Bobby by name, takes in Sam's condition and then focuses on the stranger.
"I see you got some trouble here, Bobby" she calls and Bobby grunts softly in return. The ambulance pulls up and Beth points to Sam and the two of the three paramedics efficiently drag a gurney to the injured man. The third paramedic exits from the passenger side of the vehicle and Beth points at Bobby.
Old crotchety bastard that he is, Bobby frowns and starts to shake his head.
"I ain't the one needin' medical attention," he begins but Ellen scowls.
"You shut up, you old goat and let this man check you over." Bobby looks at her bleeding shoulder and just his chin out.
"I ain't the one bleeding," he begins, a slight edge to his voice and he looks so pale, she starts to become genuinely afraid.
"Fine," she sees the flair of triumph in his eyes and continues, "you first, then they can take a look."
She uses the same tone she'd used with Bill when he was being a stubborn ass and more than a few times with Jo when that girl decided she tried to push boundaries after her father had died.
Bobby gives another grunt, which in grizzled hunter language was as good as permission.
Beth still holds her gun loosely at her side. The stranger gives her a run down on what happened from the time when the Winchester's arrived right up to when he took the shooter down, his language once again clear, concise and full of terms that no one outside of the criminology field use. The sheriff nods, lays a booted foot near the handle of the discarded gun and kicks it off to the side, all while keeping her body facing Rich and the stranger.
Beth has been sheriff in Sioux Falls long enough to know that sometimes, it was best to look the other way (or, at least sideways) when it came to anything that involved Robert Singer. She knew enough about his life to know that it was all she really cared to know. There are things, she suspects, that result in a better night's sleep if they remained unknown.
Still, there are paramedics around and it was more difficult to ignore due process when there were witnesses about. She holsters her weapon and pulls out the cuffs asks the kid to stand to the side while she cuffs the injured man on the ground just as Bryce, her deputy, arrives on scene.
Luckily, the dark-haired deputy asks few questions, merely hauling the perp into the backseat while the man groans.
Ellen is surprised when the stranger goes willingly in the Sheriff's car. A few hours later, while Dean is at the hospital with Sam, it is Ellen who drives to the station to bring the kid back to Deuce.
Over the years, Ellen has been slapped with more labels than a Walmart, often along the lines of "hard-nosed" and "bitch". Other than Ash or Jo, people rarely get to see her softer, nurturing side.
From the beginning, Stiles is different. Like a lost puzzle piece that she did not know was missing, he just fit.
Now
There is a darkness that Sam sees in Stiles that he finds comforting, rather than disturbing. It is selfish and, on some level, he can compare himself to a school yard bully who has such low self-esteem that he can only feel better if he is making someone else miserable. Dean would argue that it was an unfair comparison but Sam isn't so sure; Dean has always held the younger Winchester with a higher regard than Sam feels is warranted.
Three years from when the first met, Stiles remains something of an enigma to Winchester brothers, though others would laugh at the idea. There is so much about his past that he lays out for the world to see that it would be difficult for most outsiders to pick out the gaps and, if someone happened to ask a question that Stiles did not want to answer, he (or she) would be so adroitly redirected that they hardly ever realized their question remained unanswered.
Though it had been two years since Stiles had stopped riding along on hunts with them, Sam and Dean still make a point to take a detour through Sioux Falls every two to three months. If they go any longer, the daily phone calls start and Stiles can be a persistent mother hen when he puts his mind to it.
A swamp monster just southwest of Lake Charles, Louisiana keeps them out of cell phone coverage a few days longer than anticipated and, when their cell phones are recharged, they make note of the six missed calls.
Like guilty teenagers caught sneaking out, they each fire off a quick text promising a phone call after they catch a good night's sleep. Eight hours later, they are back on the road, Dean at the wheel while Sam holds the cell to his brother's ear and smirks as Stiles reams him out for forgetting to bring along the charged burner phones with them into the swamp, promising retribution for making him worry.
Dean rolls his eyes, but Sam thinks he detects a nervous tick in his older brother's left eyebrow. In the past, Stiles has proven to be quite adept at retaliation, if he wants retribution, he will take it and often in the most surprising of ways.
Dean pouts and stalls for an extra day in Kansas City, his excuse being that the Impala needs a tune up but Sam knows it is just to prove that Stiles does not call the shots. It is Sam that makes the call to Deuce and Ash agrees to relay the message to Stiles. Their phones that night are suspiciously silent. At various points during the evening, both brother's check for missed calls and texts, slightly uneasy when they find none.
It is just shy of ten on a Wednesday evening, when the Impala pulls into the crowded parking lot of Deuce and Dean mutters under his breath as he navigates the haphazard parking practiced by the salon's patrons. While no one would ever dream to accuse them of dragging their feet, their stride is somewhat slower than usual when they approach the entry to the bar.
A few heads nod in recognition when they walk in, but the brother's don't give more than a passing nod, their eyes warily fixed on the individual at the bar. To give them credit, they don't falter in their stride when they approach the bar. Tension, however, drains from them when the young man behind the bar gives them a wide, friendly smile of greeting.
"Sam! Dean! You guys made it." On the narrow side edge of the mahogany bar, there are two empty stools and they slide into the seats with a grateful sigh, while Stiles gestures toward the glass beer cooler behind him. At their nod, he pulls two frosty beer glasses and slides them smoothly down the bartop followed by two bottleneck beers.
They hardly look at the beer as they make small talk, just pour and answer Stiles' questions about the hunt. However, when they take their first gulp of the icy beer they widen their eyes and pick up the beer bottle to look at what they just drank.
It isn't Coors Crafted, that's for damn sure.
Dean squints and reads the label a second time, mouthing the words "strawberry", "light" and "ale" with almost comical disbelief. Just as his brother opens his mouth, Sam looks up and catches the barely restrained smirk on Jo Harvell's face.
"Hey, Stiles," Dean begins, his trademark smirk on his face and Sam tugs ineffectually at the sleeve of the older Winchester's arm in order to get his attention.
"Dean." He hisses but his brother just shakes his arm away.
"Yeah, Dean? What's up, buddy?" Stiles looks at Dean, radiating such innocence that Sam thinks Dean would see right through him, but Dean chuckles. Jo shakes her head in sympathy and Sam tries not to facepalm as his brother continues.
"Uhh…you might want to get your eyes checked, dude." Dean waggles the beer bottle and gives a little laugh. "You gave us light beer by mistake."
Stiles had been polishing glasses and he flips the damp towel over his shoulder while he leans forward to peer at Dean's bottle. Dean shoots Sam a smug look, but his expression quickly changes to quizzical when Sam actually face palms and gives a slight groan.
"Well, would you look at that, I did give you light beer!" Stiles grins and leans forward to slap Dean on the back then pulls back, an expectant look on his face.
Dean leans back, a frown on his face.
"You don't expect me to drink it, do you?" Dean asks and Sam (face still firmly planted in his palm) shakes his head.
"Drink the beer, Dean." he warns his brother, but either his words are too muffled or his brother chooses to ignore him (Sam thinks it is the later, because Dean is a stubborn ass).
Stiles nods.
"Yep." He leans forward again. "Every. Last. Strawberry-Flavored. Drop."
Dean raises the beer to his lips and scrunches up his nose as he takes a teeny-tiny sip. Sam tries not to watch. Dean shakes his head and puts the beer down.
"Nope. Can't do it."
Stiles raises an eyebrow in return then turns and walks away. From behind them, Ellen tutts a few times and tells them that "you really should have drunk the beer boys."
Stiles is out from behind the bar and is approaching the makeshift stage, flipping on a few switches that set colored-lights spinning about the stage. On his way, he grabs a microphone and starts to speak into it.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I want you to…" he brings his hands together and nods encouragement for the crowd to do the same "put your hands together and give it up for the vocal stylin's of the Winchester Brothers."
The crowd begins to clap, cat-call and cheer and both brother's try to gauge the likelihood of making a clean escape when Ellen leaned between the both of them.
"You are getting off easy, boys. I suggest you take your punishment like real men and with all the good grace you can muster. And you had better make it a good show, boys. I don't know what the first song he picked out for you is, but I will tell you that if he makes you perform a second song, it is going to be Meatloaf's 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light' which, to my recollection, is over eight minutes long."
Knowing when they were beat, the brother's rose and walk toward the stage while the crowd lets out a cheer of cat-calls, wolf whistles and general good natured laughter.
Dean plucks the mic from Stiles and Jo, with a sly toothy grin, brings Sam a spare. To the side of the stage, neon pink words appeared on a wide screen and the crowd cheers in recognition. In unison, the Winchesters raise their mics and begin to sing.
"A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile…"
By the end of Miss American Pie, they had the crowd on their feet, stamping, clapping and singing along. When they get back to the bar, two chilled bottles of Coors Crafted were waiting for them.
Dean foolishly thinks all is forgiven.
The next morning, Ellen slaps him on the back of his head then recounts how worried Stiles had been about them when he didn't hear back from them the first time he called them in Louisiana. Jo changes Dean's ring tone to sing the "Oscar Meyer" theme song which announces to all and sundry that he'd "love to be an Oscar Meyer Weiner" and then calls him constantly when is out and about in town. Ash installs GPS on their phones.
But it is Stiles' ultimate revenge that Dean does not discover until he walks into his favorite Sioux Falls diner for lunch. He orders a Bacon Double Cheeseburger with a side of cheesy fries and instead is brought a hearty Spinach salad with a plain veggie burger served with a Strawberry Pale Ale. Sam gets the same treatment, but since he is twelve year old hippie girl on the inside he does not complain.
Over the next four days, during their stay in Sioux Falls, Dean discovers that Stiles' influence stretches across three towns and, no matter the time of day or what he orders, Dean is brought the same meal. Each time, he grumbles under his breath but he eats the meal all the same.
On their last night, a red-haired woman walks into the bar and, for the first time since he started at Deuce, Stiles walks out the back door in the middle of a shift.
He is not seen for two days. The red-head is patient though. From the moment the bar opens, she waltzes through the doors like she belongs, takes a seat in a corner table, angles her chair so she has a view of the bar and sets up a laptop computer.
When Stiles returns, he looks like he hasn't slept more than an hour but looks determined as he approaches the woman. The conversation is brief, pitched too low for any eavesdroppers (of which there were a few about) to overhear more than the occasional word but the more Stiles shakes his head, the faster the woman tries to talk.
In the end, Stiles takes a step back and his voice rings out loud and cold in the near empty salon.
"But I don't want to see them."
Two spots of red appear on the woman's face and Ellen suspects that it is not often that the woman hears the word "No." and, as the woman packs up her few belongings and leaves.
Ash bets Jo twenty dollars that the woman will be back.