Chapter 25
My teeth chattered. My joints ached. My face stuck to the cold tile floor and I couldn't quit shaking. Curled up with my knees pulled in to my chest, I pulled the thin blanket back over my bare legs. I must get up. I needed to move. As I tried to push myself to sitting, the world wobbled and the sound of my heartbeat drummed through my head. Fuck. The bath towel fell off of me as I sat up. Steadying myself with both open palms on the bathroom floor, I blinked, waiting for the nausea to pass. I studied the tiny green and white mosaic tiles that surrounded me. At least I had hit the toilet when I had hurled the night before. It had only taken a few hours for me to break my vow to Dean: I had done something stupid. I was hungover as hell.
Dean. Shit.
I remembered stumbling around the bunker and mumbling into the phone. He hadn't answered. Instead, I had blubbered and sobbed on his voicemail. Shit.
Where in the hell was the phone Dean left me?
The library. Pulling a Bobby, I had tried to read and drink all night. At least I had accomplished the last part.
My feet keeping time with the throbbing in my head, I plodded down the hallway. On the floor beside one of the leather arm chairs, I found the cell I had dropped the night before. I read the text screen: 5 missed calls. They were all from Dean within the past two hours.
Shit.
With the cell phone in my hand, I trudged to Dean's room and fell back on the bed, then hit "Send."
It rang once before Dean answered, urgency in his voice. "Jane?"
"Hey." I squeezed my eyes shut to try to force back the pain in my skull.
"Jane? Are you okay? Where are you? I've been calling you for over an hour!"
"I'm fine." I muttered. "I'm here at the bunker. Didn't you turn on the GPS on this phone?"
"Yeah, but then you called and left me this message and you were bawling and are you sure you're okay?" Dean still sounded alarmed.
"Yeah, I'm just...tired."
"You sure? Because you called and left a voicemail for Sam, too. We had crappy service and just got the messages. I was about to head back to Kansas." He continued.
"I'm sure. I'm here, in the bunker, and I swear I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine." Dean paused for moment, then returned with understanding in his voice. "You were drunk."
Shit. "I mean, I had a few-" I felt like a teenager caught with beer on her breath.
Dean sighed. "She was drunk." I heard him say to his brother, his voice distant as he moved his mouth away from the phone. "How drunk were you, Jane?"
I took a deep breath. "Pretty drunk."
"And now you're hungover."
"Yep." I groaned. I missed him, but I wanted to pass back out. My tongue stuck to the top of my mouth.
"That's...That's frigging great." He uttered in disappointment.
I knew I should say something, but I really had no excuse. "Dean, I-" .
"Get some sleep. We're going to crash for a few hours. I'll call you later."
"Yeah. Okay." I relented, the pull of sleep dragging me back into unconsciousness.
"Janie?"
"Yeah?" I answered.
"Be safe."
"I will."
After he hung up, I lay there on the bed in the deafening stillness of the empty compound. I was embarrassed, ashamed. I kept coming undone. I was a strand of thread spinning off the spool. I was a shoelace which kept coming untied, no matter how many times I tied myself in knots. I would do better. I would not drag Dean down with me even if I was drowning; I would rise up.
I needed a purpose, a plan.
But first, I needed to sleep.
Over the next few days, I did better. I stayed mostly sober and assuaged Dean's worry when he called. I tried to keep busy, first cleaning the clean kitchen, then snooping through records in the storage room. I watched Netflix for hours and hours on Dean's laptop. I pushed those I had failed out of my head and replaced them with fictitious lives I wasn't responsible for. I pretended I wasn't a failure and a fraud. Hopefully, I would eventually start to believe it.
Finally, on the fourth day, I could no longer ignore the cold walls closing me in. The gloomy dim corridors made me to feel claustrophobic. The weight of everything I knew and everyone who no longer was pressed down upon my chest. I could barely breathe. I drove into town down the curbless, cracked, asphalt streets and picked up the weekly newspaper. I needed to work, but I didn't want to work a case.
Later that night as I watched another episode, the slam of a door echoed through the winding corridors. Dean. I met him in the hallway and he pushed me up against the wall, preventing me from greeting him by pressing his mouth against mine. Sam rolled his eyes and hurried to his room as I broke away breathless and waved both hello and goodbye. Soon Dean was on top of me, in me, under me. The chaos in my head quieted as I muffled my moans with his pillow.
Sleep retreated as consciousness crept in. A sliver of light from the edge of the doorway fell upon Dean's dresser. Just like he wanted, I had stored all my belongings in the emptied drawer. Though I only owned half a laundry basket of clothes, I knew it meant much more than putting a few things away; moving my folded shirts and jeans into his dresser was an unspoken contract, a commitment. Dean had invited me to make his home mine. He had extended trust and I had given him my trust in return, both acts of love, though neither of us had the courage to say so.
Dean slid his naked body up behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist. "Are you awake?" He whispered in my ear.
"No." I teased as I kissed his hand, easing my fingers through his.
"So, what did you do while I was gone? Other than drinking?" He asked, his warm breath on my neck.
"Nothing, other than binge-watching three seasons of The Walking Dead."
"Three seasons? My God, that's what, like 36 hours?" Dean asked.
"Something like that."
"In four days?" Shocked, he continued. "That's like nine hours a day."
"Actually, I didn't watch any at all the first day and I went into town yesterday, so it was more like three days."
"Twelve hours a day? Seriously?" He asked in disbelief.
"I was bored. You want breakfast?" I got out of bed and picked my panties up off the floor.
"You're going to make me breakfast." He assumed as a grin spread across his face.
"No, I knew you were going to be back, so I made you pie yesterday." I clarified as I pulled on my pair of jeans.
"There's pie in the kitchen?" Dean's eyes widened as he jumped out of bed, grabbed his robe off the hook, and rushed out his bedroom door.
Minutes later, I stood staring in satisfaction against the stainless steel counter. Dean had devoured the first piece of cherry pie and cut into the second with the side of his fork. Maybe I could get a job working as a cook somewhere, flipping greasy burgers and toasting sesame seed buns. I doubted that my mystery credit card would work if I wasn't out saving the world and minimum wage wasn't much to live on, but customers' complaints couldn't disturb my dreams. Few had ever criticized my cooking anyway.
"You're going to make me fat." Dean mumbled as he shoved a piece of pie into his mouth.
"Don't blame me." I took a sip from the steaming cup of coffee in my hand. "You're telling me that you've really never watched The Walking Dead?"
"That zombie show?" He asked between bites. "No, I see enough monsters in real life."
"I guess that's why I like it, because it really could happen, the 'zombie apocalypse.' Maybe I'll learn something." Maybe I'll learn how to stop resurrecting the dead and letting them devour me. Maybe I'll learn how to survive.
Dean scraped the last of the pie off of his plate, pressing bright red filling into crumbs of crust. "Yeah, well, I've already lived the zombie apocalypse, and it wasn't much fun."
"What?"
He paused for a moment. "This angel, Zachariah. He was a real dick. He sent me to some future or, I don't know, maybe it was just a dream. It sure as hell seemed real."
"That's what all my dreams are like." I said under my breath.
"So, you can see why it wouldn't be all that entertaining." Dean took a drink of his coffee. "Except the part about Cas being a hippie guru smoking pot and having orgies. That was kinda funny."
"Wow. Really? Cas? What about you and Sam? Were you smoking pot and having orgies, too?" I teased.
Dean stared at the table, then muttered. "No." He picked the newspaper I bought earlier off the table and opened it up. "You been looking for a job?" He wondered, changing the subject.
"Yeah."
"Did you find anything?" He scanned the paper and turned the page.
"Maybe. They need help at the dollar store in Smith Center." I folded my arms across my chest.
"What are employees getting eaten or something?" He peeked at me over the opened newspaper.
"No. They just need a cashier."
Dean lowered the paper and squinted at me, puzzled. "You mean like a job job.?" He confirmed before raising his voice. "You're a hunter, Jane, not some clerk in a tacky smock." He scolded.
"No, I'm not, Dean. We don't know what the hell I am exactly." I argued.
He pushed himself up from the table and carried his plate to the sink. "Yes, we do. You're a massa or a healer or whatever."
"I'm a goddamned mess is what I am. And I can't do it anymore." I protested.
"What do you mean you 'can't do it'?" He snapped back. "You are the most powerful hunter I've ever seen! You can just speak and kill any damned monster you meet. You save people-"
I cut him off. "No, I don't. I've killed two people in the past few months-"
"Dammit Jane." He rolled his eyes. "We've been through this."
"No, Dean! I've been through this. And I can't. I can't do it anymore. I can't stand by and watch people die that I could have saved. I can't save people who don't need saving. I almost became a goddamned reaper last week. Do you remember that? I'm done."
Dean raised his open palms in surrender. "Okay, fine, you're done. Go stock Cheetos for a living or whatever." He headed toward the doorway.
"Dean..."
He stopped and turned back toward me. "Yeah?"
"I'll go if you want, just let me get a job first, okay?" I shifted my eyes to the floor.
Dean stepped across the room and embraced me, whispering in my ear. "I don't want you to go, even if you aren't a hunter anymore." He kissed me on the forehead. "Okay?"
"Okay." I answered, my eyes closed as a pressed my face against his shoulder.
With Dean and Sam back again, the bunker warmed like a frigid room after a log is thrown in the fireplace. Laughter echoed down the once silent corridors. I fired up the antiquated oven and roasted meat and potatoes, sending an enticing aroma down the hall. My idle hands found purpose again as I mixed batter and kneaded bread. I leaned against the laundry room doorway amused as Dean folded his clothes and bragged about finding the perfect fabric softener. The ghosts retreated back to the shadows and though we were still buried in the earth, I didn't have to pretend to feel alive.
The next day, Dean drove me to Smith Center with rolling eye reluctance. When I learned the cashier position had already been filled, Dean didn't even try to hide his satisfaction, giving me a grin and a shrug. He told me I tried, but I wasn't meant to be a civilian. I argued. Though they weren't currently hiring, I picked up applications at two convenience stores, ALCO, and the Prairie Winds Motel. I wasn't desperate enough yet to try Pizza Hut or the fast food restaurant in town, but I knew I wasn't qualified for much else. I considered asking him to stop at the bars in town, but I was afraid I would drink my paychecks before they were cashed.
On the way back to the bunker, Dean broke my sullen silence, reassuring me that something would turn up. As I stared down at the blank employment forms, I realized I didn't even have ID. Dean promised to take me back to town the next day and help me make fakes. Though I was disappointed, I still appreciated the irony that for me, living a normal life required deception and forgery.
Minutes later, we found Sam sitting in the library studying his laptop screen.
"You find us a case, Sammy?" Dean asked as he grabbed a beer for each of us from the mini fridge.
"Yeah." The younger brother replied, keeping his eyes on the information in front of him.
"What is it? Is it zombies? Jane here is an expert in zombies now." Dean winked at me as he sat in the armchair across from me and opened his beer.
"No, it's uh..." Sam turned around and glanced at me before turning back to the article on the screen. "It's nothing."
"C'mon, Sam. What is it?" Dean insisted.
"It's...uh...there are successful men in their thirties found with their hands and feet cut off and a weird symbol carved in their chests." Sam swiveled in the chair again and focused on his older brother.
Dean nodded, "Oh." Suddenly, his eyes widened at Sam and he repeated himself, this time deeper, heavy with unspoken meaning. "Oh."
Sam stared back at him, but neither one of them said another word. In the pregnant pause that passed between them, the Winchesters shared a secret, the echo of a conversation they once had. I had seen it before, that almost psychic bond between them, but it still hurt watching them exclude me when I tried so hard to let them in.
"What?" I demanded. "What is it?"
"We better hurry. I'll be ready in fifteen." Dean notified his brother as he got up and rushed out of the room.
"Sam, what's going on? Do you know what this thing is?" I demanded.
"It's uh..." He paused to sweep his hair back from his face. "They're Amazons."
I closed my eyes and shook my head. As far as I knew, Amazons were tall busty blondes, at least that 's what I'd learned watching B movies on USA Up All Night. "And what are Amazons?" I asked.
"They're a tribe of women warriors that descended from the Greek gods Ares and Harmonia."
"And?"
"And the last time we hunted them, they got away." He shut his laptop and stood up.
"And?"
"And nothing." Sam shrugged.
"So, what was that between you and Dean? There's something you're not telling me, Sam."
"It was bad." He admitted.
Though I wondered what Sam's definition of 'bad' was, I didn't ask. In the years that I had hunted and all the times I had sat on Bobby's old sofa listening to his old stories, I had never heard of a 'good' hunt. They were all 'bad' in their own way, lives destroyed, corpses scattered. Dean's reaction and Sam's vague empty answers let me know this case was special somehow and not in a good way.
I found Dean in his room stuffing flannel shirts into his duffel bag. I walked to the dresser and began pulling my clothes out of the drawer, dropping them beside his bag on the bed. "Do you have room in there or do I need to find something else to put my stuff in?"
"What? You're not thinking about going?" He asked in confusion.
"You might need my help." I pulled a few pair of socks out along with my panties and set them on the pile of my jeans and shirts.
"No, we don't need your help." He stated. "Besides, you quit. You're 'done.'" Dean declared, throwing my words back at me.
"Think of it as my farewell tour. And Sam told me that last time you hunted the Amazons, that they got away and it was bad, so you might need me after all." I contended.
"What else did Sam say?" Dean demanded.
"Nothing, just a bit about them being descended from Greek gods."
"Fine. We leave in fifteen minutes." He muttered as he zipped his bag and marched out the door.