Trapped

1

Jo stumbled up to the door with her whole body screaming at her to stop moving. She couldn't thought. She didn't know just how she'd gotten here, or even why. But, hearing the music and the people inside she knew she had almost made it. She'd almost made it home. She's actually made it out of the little cramped cell where she had been, how long ago?

The memory of the dank cell made her skin crawl, the darkness and the moisture in the air. She'd felt like she was back in the cell, waiting for Sam and Dean to come rescue her. At times she'd mistaken it for the same cell, the same time and place, but then she heard the redhead talking about her and she knew it wasn't a nightmare of the past. This was a brand new present.

The warm lights flooding out into the deserted parking lot, they made her feel all warm inside. She was just about home.

She put her tired hand to the outside of the door, and since it was this late at night and the door was unlocked, the door pushed open with her body weight and Jo fell, head first, in through the door.

The next thing she remembered was how the bar went silent, a hushed murmur going through the crowd of men and women, and then she heard how chairs scraped against the wooden floor and the feeling of feet shuffling around her. She tried to look up, but the faces were blurry.

"JO!"

Ellen's voice seemed far away and Jo pushed the corner of her mouth up a little, before the world went blank.

She blinked the darkness away and willed herself back into existence. She looked up into the ceiling of her old room.

"Honey?" Ellen's voice, still, seemed far away. Jo blinked and the ceiling came into focus. She tried to think of the last time she'd been lying like this, when her mother had hovered.

It must have been when she'd run off with Dean and Sam in search of that ghost...

The memories of the rotten-smelling cell came back to her and a wave of nausea hit her like a ton of bricks. Her mouth felt like someone had poured a glass of salt water into it and she gasped, right before she bent over the side of her bed and threw up in the bucket Ellen had been smart enough to put there.

She felt a hand gather the hair around her shoulders and another hand stroke her back as there came soft noises in a sweet voice. "It's okay, you're okay, honey, you're okay."

Jo washed her mouth out with some water, drank a glass of it and then leaned back in her bed as she started crying.

oo

Ellen watched her with hawk-eyes for the next day, not sure what it was that made Jo break down and cry every ten minutes, or why her daughter refused to speak. It frustrated her to no end that Jo wouldn't talk to her. And that she refused to eat properly. She ate some soup, maybe picked at a sandwich, but she pushed away anything that resembled real food.

One night, when Ellen snuck in to make sure Jo was still breathing, she heard her mumble something under her breath, right before a scream was ripped from her chest and Ellen took a step back. Jo's eyes flew open, her upper body sitting straight up in bed and she looked bewildered as her sweaty hair hung down over her shoulder, clinging to her face.

"Mom?" Jo breathed and Ellen nodded.

"Right here, honey," she said, and took the step forward again, sitting down on the chair she'd been living at lately.

"Eric. We – you... Find him." Her voice was breathy and like it was scratched up. Her voice broke time and time again, even in the few words she pressed out.

"Jo, honey, who's Eric?" Ellen asked, a sinking feeling in her gut as she looked over her bruised daughter.

"North-"

"Eric Northman?" Ellen asked, and felt her jaw clench.

"Yehh," was the broken answer.

"Did he do this to you?" Ellen asked, her voice suddenly cold and distant.

"No, tried..." She was out of breath all too soon and she sighed heavily before she leaned against the headboard of her bed. "Came to help."

Ellen's jaw dropped. "You were in Shreveport on a hunt and the local vampire sheriff decided to help you? Jo, he's dangerous! He could just as well have turned on you and gotten you killed!"

But Jo shook her head. It was the most Ellen had gotten in days, and therefore she took it as a good sign. Jo seemed more than a little adamant that Eric was no danger to her. Every time Ellen brought it up, Jo shook her head and hissed words about him being kind, helpful and that he helped her.

oo

Jo could speak properly about a week after she'd gotten home. She realized then that she'd nothing with her. Her phone was gone – which meant both Eric's and Pam's numbers were too. She had no idea of where her car was, and that was kind of depressing since it had been a gift from Bobby Singer a while back.

But the thought that scared Jo most of all?

Finding out that Eric Northman was dead – the final death – and that there was no chance of getting him back. In the back of her head she replayed the moment when she'd found out Dean had died. Thankfully, when the idea hit her, she was alone in the shower and she relaxed enough to really just cry.

It would be another day or so before Jo got the idea of calling Pookie – no, wait, Sookie? – or at least finding out who the girl was and where she might be found.

It turned out there was about five Sookies living in Shreveport, and three more in the surroundings. Jo tried to remember snippets of conversation, and remembered Sookie's boyfriend Bill. Bill was a vampire. Bill had a house. Bill was rich. Wasn't all vampires though? she thought and turned all the fact over in her head.

Then she made a call. She called one Sookie Stackhouse.

oo