I watched Sam pick up his jacket from the motel dresser through slitted eyes. We were at the Willow Tree motel. We'd left Bobby's earlier that morning after Sam had talked to me about schoolbooks and lesson plans. Dean had been eager to get on the road and Sam didn't argue.
He looked at sleeping Dean and then he looked at me. I didn't react. As far as he knew, I was asleep, but I knew where he was going. He was going to meet with Ruby, and he didn't want Dean to know about it.
He left the room and I heard the sound of a car pull up outside and knew that at least he wasn't taking the Impala. If Dean did wake up, maybe he'd be less mad. I scoffed. Yeah, right. If Dean knew that Sam was working with a demon, using his psychic thing as Dean called it, it wouldn't matter whether Sam took the Impala or not.
The car pulled away. I saw the headlights pass in front of the window, but Dean was still sleeping. I wondered for the fifty-millionth time if I should have told him the night before about everything. Probably. I probably should have spilled my guts, because now when he found out, he'd think I'd been lying to him.
I knew how Dean felt about lying. Fuck Sam anyway for forcing me to keep this secret.
I glanced at Dean lying on his bed and there was a guy sitting there, with his back to Dean. I squeaked, sitting up and scooting back in my bed. Dean opened his eyes at the noise I made and then the guy said "Hello, Dean. What were you dreaming about?"
I opened my furnace. Dean jumped and rolled over, relaxing when he saw the guy. Dean looked at me. "Jessie, lock it down," he said.
"Dean," I objected, my eyes wide.
"Lock it down. This is Castiel. The angel." He stressed the word angel when I didn't react right away. I locked the furnace.
Dean turned his attention away from, asking what the angel wanted, and the angel replied that Dean had to stop it. Then he touched Dean on the head. I screamed when Dean fell back on the bed. The angel waited.
"What the hell did you do?" I yelled at the angel. Disregarding any sense of self-preservation, I got out of the bed and ran over to Dean. I pressed my head against his chest to listen for his heartbeat, to make sure he was still alive. I couldn't hear his heart, but he was still breathing, his chest rising and falling just like he was asleep.
"He is asleep," the angel said formally, staring off into space. "There is nothing to fear. He will awaken shortly."
"He better," I said, opening my furnace again and standing next to Dean's sleeping form, fully intending to take the angel and the entire building with me if I lost Dean again.
The angel didn't respond, didn't even look at me. He just moved to the end of the bed and waited. I watched him.
About a minute later, Dean opened his eyes with a gasp. "Jessie, lock it down," he growled at me. I flushed and closed my furnace back up a second time. Dean turned to the angel and told him that he hadn't been able to stop any of it. He said something about a woman still making a deal and still dying in the nursery. I figured out that he was talking about his mom, having gotten the story, in fits and starts, out of Sam over the summer.
The angel told him that Dean couldn't have stopped it because destiny cannot be changed. He said that now Dean knew everything that the angels did, and then he looked meaningfully at Sam's bed. Castiel said that they knew what Azazel did to Sam but not what Azazel's end game was. Dean asked where Sam was and the angel gave him an address.
It took me a second to remember who Azazel was, and finally I remembered that that was the name of the yellow-eyed demon who killed Dean and Sam's mother, who they'd chased down long before I joined them.
While Dean put on his coat, the angel told him that Sam was headed down a dangerous road and that Dean needed to stop it, or they would. Dean stared at the angel, realization washing over his face.
"Dean," I said, intending to go with him.
"Stay here, Jessie." Dean said, grabbing his keys from the table. "Go back to bed."
"But," I started to object. They both looked at me, the angel for the first time.
"The girl is not without sin," the angel said. I blanched and sat down heavily on Sam's bed.
"Who is?" Dean muttered. He looked at me. "Go back to bed, Jessie." He raised his eyebrows at me meaningfully.
"Yes, Dean," I said. I got back up and gave the angel a wide berth to get back into the rollaway bed. Dean came over to me and dropped a kiss on my forehead.
"Go to sleep. I'll be back later. Ok?" he asked. I nodded. "Good girl," he said and left.
The angel was gone.
Sam came back a few hours later, slipping into the room, but Dean wasn't with him. He took a shower and changed his clothes. When he came out of the bathroom, I was awake and sitting on my bed.
"Jessie, go back to sleep," Sam said, his expression pained. He was clearly upset.
"What happened?" I asked.
He ran a hand through his hair and sat down on his bed. "Dean found out about Ruby and about me banishing demons with my abilities," he said. "He's pissed."
"Oh," I said.
"He wouldn't even let me explain," Sam said. "He just left without a word."
My eyes got large. "That's not good." Dean was a yeller. If he didn't yell, it was time to worry.
"I know," Sam said. I was sure he did. He'd had much more experience with Dean in all of his different moods than I had. "It's four in the morning, Jessie. Go back to sleep."
But I didn't. Instead I got up and padded over to him on my socked feet, hugging him to me for once. He hugged me back. "Go to sleep," he said again, letting me go, but he looked a little calmer.
I went back to my bed. "What are you going to do?"
Sam looked around the room and shrugged. "I dunno. I'll figure something out."
He ended up reading a book at the table by the window. Around six in the morning, I gave up my charade of trying to sleep and went over to him again. He pulled me into his lap and held me while he read. We both heard the Impala pull up and Dean get out. When he walked in the door, Sam set me on my feet and got to his own. I took a step back towards the door.
Dean didn't say anything to Sam, he just started packing up his stuff. "Jessie, get your stuff packed up," he snapped at me. I froze in indecision, not wanting to be anywhere near either of them right now.
Sam asked him what he was doing and Dean told him that Sam didn't need him, Sam could go fight demons with Ruby. Sam tried to calm him down, but Dean hauled off and punched him, and then punched him again. Shocked, I scooted backwards into the corner by the door and stayed there.
Dean started asking Sam if he knew how far from human that Sam was going. Sam said that he was just exorcising demons, and Dean said that it was with his mind. Sam said that he could send demons back to hell, but that was it. Dean didn't believe him and kept asking him what else he could do. When Sam said that was all, Dean said that he had no reason to believe it. Sam said that he should have said something, but that he was pulling demons out of innocent people. Dean told him to use the knife, and Sam said that the knife kills the victim. When Sam did it, most people survive. He said he'd saved more people in the last five months than the two of them saved in a year.
Dean asked him if that's what Ruby wanted him to think, if that was how Ruby tricked him into using his powers. He said that it was a slippery slope and it was going to get darker and darker. Sam said he wouldn't let it go too far.
Dean lost his temper and knocked over a bunch of things on the dresser, breaking a lamp. He said that it had already gone too far. He said that if he didn't know Sam, he'd want to hunt him.
My knees went weak and I slid to the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest. Sam said that Dean was gone and he had to keep fighting without him. He said that what he's doing works. Dean asked why Sam lied if that was the case and why an angel told him to stop Sam. He told Sam that Castiel told him that if Dean didn't stop Sam, Castiel would. He said that meant that God didn't want Sam doing it. Both of them were near tears.
Sam's phone rang then, and he answered it, holding the bridge of his nose and trying to get ahold of himself. The guy on the other end of the phone apparently had news about a case because Sam left the conversation with Dean and started taking notes. When Sam hung up, Dean looked up at the sky and then kinda shook himself.
He saw me sitting in the corner, walked over to me and held a hand down to me. "Come on, sweetheart. It's ok," he said.
I looked up at him shakily and took his hand. He pulled me to my feet. There were still tears in his eyes. I'd never seen either of them this upset before. I'd never seen Dean this mad about anything. "Dean?" I said.
"Go on, get dressed, get your stuff packed. Looks like we have a case," he said. Then he shut himself in the bathroom.
I looked after him. There was no way I was ever telling him anything about what I'd been doing with the goddess. No way.
