(Dean POV)
"I'm calling the cops," she called calmly from inside.
"Wait, Jackie Romney? Myle's daughter?"
It was silent for a moment, "how the hell do you know that?"
"Because it's Dean, Dean Winchester." The door opened, she looked shrewdly at us. "You remember. Dean Winchester, and my baby brother Sammy," I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at Sam.
"John's kids," she said simply.
"Yeah, our dad's were in the…"
"…service, division one oh…"
"…nine." I finished.
My mind was sent spinning back over 10 years, we were something like 15, couldn't drive, or stay in one place more than a week.
I think it was Nevada. Our dads were coupling up on an especially difficult job. Sammy was only five or so, some relative, probably a friend of dad's, was watching him during the day, I was hanging around with Dad.
He had told me a little about this guy, more talking to himself than me. "Myles came back from the service and married Candace; but didn't tell her about hunting. Told her he was on business trips," he'd laughed grimly. "When she found out, she left him and his daughter, Jackie. She's about your age." He looked over at me suddenly. "Be nice to her." I knew he meant a lot more than be nice, it was a direct order that she was off limits.
"Yes sir." She didn't have a mom either, least hers just left.
I didn't have to watch Sammy this job, so I got to hang around the town. I had already gotten into a fist fight with some buttheads at the arcade…I'd won.
When Myles pulled up Dad left the hotel room, called me out after him. I'd met Myles before, nice guy, I liked him. Myles was a huge buff guy, not as grim as I'd expected.
"Hey Dean, how you doing?" he asked real friendly.
"Good sir," I shook his hand.
Jacqueline got out of the front seat. "John, Dean, this is my daughter."
She ignored me completely, as she grabbed her own suitcase out of the back and took it into their motel room next to ours. She was tall, quiet, not an amazing looker, but not ugly. Maybe that was just the fact she was off limits talking.
"Sorry John," Myles had said softly. "Her mom sent her another letter." He said like that was a complete explanation. At the time I couldn't understand why that would make her so upset.
"It's fine," my Dad said understandingly.
Later that day, while our dad's were out I'd gone over to the dollar theater, to catch a movie. Then they showed up. Beautiful thing about how we'd lived, only there long enough to cause trouble, gone before it went full circle, and here was the one exception.
It was that guy I'd beat up over at the arcade, crazy kid wanted my quarters, just a bully. Took him down in five minutes, he still had that shiner on his right eye. Now he'd gotten his full gang together, about five of them all together.
"Hey Wimbledon," he walked over, yeah he wasn't too bright.
I tensed up; if I was going down I was going to make him remember my name.
"So, the quarter tax has gone up, all the cash you got on you right now, or else." He had a funny accent too.
I twitched suddenly, he started and the gang tensed up. "Not tough enough to finish that sentence, are ya shinny."
"Tell ya what I'll do better than tell ya, I'll show ya."
I gave him another black eye, and got him on the chin before his cronies caught up. Then it was a painful embarrassing blur. I was so glad my dad wasn't around to see me get taken by these jokers.
Next we were behind the movie theatre, I hurt, and two of his cronies had my arms pinned behind me. He'd just socked me hard in the gut, and I was doubled over, I could hardly breathe, but I wasn't going to give him any satisfaction. If he beat me until I went unconscious, I was going down fighting.
I spit some blood and hit his shoe. "Sorry Godzilla, you're hard to miss." Another one to the gut, then I heard her.
"Five against one, that's fair," she'd said, thoroughly unperturbed. I glanced up and recognized her, I prayed she'd just leave and not tell my dad.
Head bully looked over at her and back at me, grabbing my hair and pulling. "Aw, Wimbledon's got himself a girlfriend."
She laughed, "He wishes." He walked over to her.
"So you're available," wow he was a bright one.
"Brilliant deduction Sherlock; but I don't know…" was she seriously about to make a date with the guy pummeling me? "…your boyfriend over there looks like the jealous type." An incredulous ooh went up from the people watching. Great, Dad was gonna kill me.
What he was about to do I don't know. But he'd barely lifted an arm before she had him pinned in a chicken wing, on the ground.
The group around us looked on at their whimpering leader. No one knew what to do, including me. "Don't you dare try to touch me again, do you understand me?" she was dead serious, and spoke each word slowly as though it would help him to understand, probably did. I recognized the move; she wasn't even holding his arm to hurt him too badly.
"I will break it," even I believed her; "do you understand me?" she asked again.
"Yes, yes," he called out.
"Now tell your pals to let him go," she ordered. Thank God. I was gonna like this chick.
"Do it!" he snapped, and the two pinning my arms let go. I slumped over, rubbing the circulation back into them.
She was still pinning his arm. "Back away slowly," now she was enjoying this. They did what she said.
"Now you are going to leave. And I've had you at my mercy once, don't turn around and think I can't do it again. Understand?"
"Yes, yes!!" he was such a wuss. She gave his arm a particularly painful twist before letting it go.
He had barely backed away before yelling out, "get them!" Damn it.
15 year old thugs came at us from everywhere. I threw a quick punch at someone's head and felt contact with a bone, ouch. One tried to grab me from behind, and at fifteen I actually grabbed his arm and flipped him over me, onto his back wheezing.
The last one was on me; he got a few good punches in, all on the face. I was doubled over a little trying to keep my stomach from getting hit again. Then I tackled him, put everything I had left into throwing this guy over, it worked. Got him on the ground, and punched him in the face until he threw me off and ran.
When I'd gotten mine and turned around, she was getting punched in the gut, by the head hauncho. I was doubled over, I tried to stand, couldn't.
Her eyes were watering badly, she wasn't crying, her eyes were just watering. Before that is she'd stomped on the foot of the guy holding her, and then swung her elbow into his stomach, he had the wind knocked out of him and went over easy. She shook his arms off, and spun around throwing her arm out and whacked him on the head, at which point he just fell over and stopped moving.
I was still grabbing my stomach, trying to stay conscious but I really wished I could have stood up and kicked that guy's ass, se la vi.
She shook off everything, she was relaxed and ready to spring, clearly this wasn't her first fight. She spit some blood off to her side. "Cheap shot, you won't be getting another one of those, unless you got someone else to pin my arms behind me," she stood a little straighter. "Course that's how you do isn't it? Have everyone else hold someone while you sit there and torture them for their lunch money."
That sent him off, he came at her full on, she smiled; she was counting on it. He swung a fist up. She used her arm to make it glance off, then followed him through on it and smacked him on the back of the head.
Now he was pissed, a girl was kicking his butt. I was vaguely aware of one of his buddies getting up and running away. "If you knew who I was…" he started.
"I know exactly who you are! You're a bully!" she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You're the kid who gets his buddies together to go throw snowballs at first graders walking home from school. You're the kid who smokes cigarettes on the playground on Friday nights." He went at her again, she was relaxed, sprung out of his way, and threw a foot out so he tripped to the ground before getting back up again.
"You're the one who makes everyone hate being a kid, makes everyone feel small to make yourself feel big; when you can't even hold your own against a girl with a few self defense lessons under her belt. You're the one who needs 4 of his buddies to take out one guy, who you only have to take out, because he stood up to you and wasn't afraid," she glanced over at me, "am I right?"
He went at her again, the next moment was a flurry of fists, before she got his feet out from under him, and got a few kicks to his stomach.
"And I'm the one who called you out and kicked you're butt."
She glanced over at me and walked over. She put a surprisingly gentle hand on my shoulder. "You okay?" she asked. I grunted. "C'mon," she lifted one of my arms over her shoulders and helped me up. She started to walk us away; but I shook my head and tried to walk on my own, back towards Fat Tony.
I bent down, and grabbed him by the hair none too softly. "Look, you just got your butt kicked by a girl, no offence," over my shoulder, "and a guy who'd taken 6 blows to the gut. I dare you to get an even bigger group and come after me again. But basically, I don't think even you are gonna be stupid enough to not learn the first two times. And uh, shinny, its Winchester," a quick tap of his head to the ground and he was out like a light.
She smiled grimly, like she was impressed. She took my arm over her shoulder again, and let me put a little weight on her. I wasn't even sure where we were going, until we got to the park.
I'd caught our reflection in a store window, while an old lady stared disgracefully at the teenagers limping down the street.
I had a few good bruises, from black to just barely dark; my chin was starting to swell, and I had a split lip. I touched my cheek and winced, she looked like she felt bad.
She'd gotten off better than me; but just barely. Her lip was swelling, she had some pretty good bruises, and she was bleeding out of her mouth, staining her teeth red. She had to constantly keeping spitting out blood.
"What'd you say your name was?" I asked.
"I didn't, it's Jackie Romney. I'm sorry about earlier today," she admitted. "You?"
"Dean Winchester, thanks for back there, that wasn't your fight and you didn't have to get involved." I was going to make it up to her, Winchesters always pay their debts.
"Hey, the fight against bullies belongs to everyone who stands by and lets it happen." At this point I had a feeling she wasn't like other girls our age. "Besides, I should be thanking you, I was afraid I was getting rusty."
I laughed, that was okay. "Hey, if you could have seen the way you were gonna end up, you probably would have preferred letting yourself get rusty."
She laughed, "no way, battle scars, man, battle scars. You gotta earn your stripes." She helped ease me down onto a bench. "Besides, we hunter kids gotta stick together."
"Glad you feel that way," I responded, I put my elbows on my knees. I couldn't even sit up.
"Look at me," she said by the by. I did. She looked me over and sighed wincing, "wow they really got you good."
"Hey you should talk." She smiled sadly and took off her jacket, wetting it from a drinking fountain.
"What that guy did was low, what did you do to him anyway?"
"He was just jealous of my good looks." She laughed again. "I'm really sorry you got beat like that, I shouldn't have let you help."
"Don't think you could have changed my mind. Besides, like my dad says: it's not about winning; it's about fighting like hell so they remember your name. Though I admit I never thought it would be so literal, Wimbledon," she laughed.
I nodded; she and I looked at this the same way. "You gotta stand up for yourself, doesn't even matter if you end up worse off, cause people will remember you for not getting stepped on unless it was literally."
She smiled wickedly, and walked over with the wet jacket, then started wiping the blood and dirt off my face.
"We're screwed aren't we?" I asked.
"Yeah, my dad's gonna kill me," she said consequently.
"We tripped?" I asked. It was code. Every kid who got into a fight with his friends knew what it meant. It meant that no matter what your parents threatened or punished, you said you tripped, and you wouldn't get ratted out.
"Better say I tripped over you, or my dad just might kill you," we laughed, I felt kinda bad she was ruining her jacket.
She pulled back after a moment and sat down next to me. "Anything broken?" she asked.
I wiggled around a little and winced, "nah, I'll live to fight another day."
"Literally I'm guessing," she smiled again, now the blood on her teeth was really weird looking.
"Hey," I took the jacket from her, and she leaned over and let me wipe her face off. The streetlights were going on, time to get home and face the music.
"Think we'll get lucky and maybe our dads won't even notice?" I asked.
"Well mine's not blind, I don't know about yours. But hey this is their fault for teaching us to not get stepped on, right?"
"I don't think they'll see it that way."
My dad wasn't too angry with me getting in a fight. He gave me some bags with ice which I hugged to my stomach with both cold arms. He seemed maybe even a little proud, not that he said anything to that effect. He admonished me for drawing attention to myself, but asked if I'd won. I'd nodded, and he'd smiled. The real hell however came when they both found out the other's kid had gotten in a fight too.
Jackie's dad had practically dragged her into our room and pointed a finger at the couch, where I was sitting. She looked worse now that the injuries had started swelling. Her dad looked pretty stern. I liked the guy; but I'd never seen him like this. My dad didn't look like anything yet, reserving judgment I guessed.
"What happened?" Myles asked.
"We tripped sir," Jackie said insolently, persistently.
"Jackie, don't give me any of this!" he'd snapped, not too loudly.
My dad piped up. "What happened Dean?"
"Like she said," I responded. My dad was looking at me begrudgingly, like he was cornered by some unwritten rule.
"You two do this to each other?" Myles accused.
"No!" we both said at the same time.
"Dean," my dad spoke up, not even angry. "I want you to promise me you didn't start something and get Jackie involved."
I hesitated.
"He didn't sir," Jackie piped up, looking him in the eyes. "He didn't ask me to help him."
"Did you start it Dean?" he'd asked.
"No sir," that much was true, I'd only stood up for myself.
Her dad took a deep breath. "Did you win," he asked impartially. My dad smirked.
"Yes sir," we both responded, a little more enthusiastically.
"You both swear you didn't start this!" he asked starting to relent.
We assented.
"Then I guess we can't punish you for that," he'd admitted after a moment. A car pulled up outside and a knock came at the door.
My dad walked over, smirking at me, to the door. It was Dad's friend dropping off Sammy. He glanced past my dad immediately, looking for me and made a beeline at me. He was still little.
"Hey Sammy," I stood and picked him up.
I was vaguely aware of Jackie and her dad smiling over at me.
"Dean, did you get beat up again?" Sammy asked.
"Nah," I responded, my dad closed the door.
"Then why's your face all purple?" he'd asked, poking at my bruises. I snatched his fingers away before he poked anymore.
"Tell ya when you're older," my fire safe.
"You always say that," he accused.
"Ready Myles?" my dad had asked. He'd nodded, and given Jackie a hug.
"We want you guys to stick together tonight while we go out," he'd told us.
"What do you want tonight?" her dad asked.
"Thompson," she responded excitedly.
"Okay fine," he left the room and returned with the Thompson and a box of shells. My dad handed me an M1 Grand. They gave us hugs and left, reminding us to deadbolt the door.
When they left I put my gun on the kitchen table Jackie put hers against the wall. As a general rule never leave all your arms in the same place, unless you have to. "I grabbed a movie," Jackie offered brandishing it.
That night we watched a movie and fell asleep on the couches. Our dads stayed together another week before splitting us up. I missed her when she left. She was funny, smart, fun to be around, and most importantly she was like me.
I only saw her a few more times sparingly, eventually we lost touch altogether, but I relived that evening, where she'd made a stand with me, many, many times.