A/N: Oh man, you guys have no idea how hard I have scrambled to have this update ready for you! Thank you for all the reviews and I love you all so very much. I'm supposed to be doing other things right now, so I won't say much, except please review and I hope you enjoy the chapter and I promise to update again soon.
Oh, and I forgot to mention last chapter that I'm really sorry about any confusion you may have had about the Dean-immortality development. Some people were confused and I realize the revelation lacked clarity. Basically, when Gordon stabs him and he doesn't die, Dean realizes that Cas's heavy-handed attempt to heal his shoulder resulted in him being immortal. Not that he can't be killed (much as Gordon the immortal was killed), just that he can't be killed by ordinary stuff and he certainly won't grow old or die of old age or any of those natural causes.
Enjoy the chapter!
"I notice you were walkin' up to the city, same as we were," Ash tells Sam as the three of them walk down towards the Elysian Fields. "Where were you coming from?"
"Well, I've been in the Asphodel Meadows," Sam answers slowly. "I've been looking for… someone…. Someone I can't remember right now."
"Jo?" Dean asks. "We're looking for her too. She should be in Elysium, though, right? I mean, she died in battle."
Sam lowers his face, avoiding Dean's eyes. "She probably is in Elysium. I'm looking for someone else. I'll remember soon."
Dean stops short. He knows who Sam's been looking for. "Sam," he says quietly, "I've got some bad news."
Ash and Sam stop, and Ash looks between the two brothers. "I'm gonna give you two a moment," he says, and he walks a short distance away and starts humming loudly to himself.
Sam's eyebrows are furrowed upward in concern. "What is it, Dean?"
Dean wipes a hand down his face. "You've been looking for Jess, haven't you?"
Sam's eyes widen. "Jess! Yes! I've been searching for her ever since I got here. How could I forget that..." He runs a hand through his hair. "Oh my God, Dean, this is perfect. We can use your spell to find her and bring her back with us!"
"Sam." Dean takes a big breath. "We can't bring Jess back."
Sam stares blankly.
His mouth twists downward.
"Dean, what are you saying?" he demands. "Of course we can. She's no different than any of the other –"
"She's been dead for seven years," Dean cuts in. "Her family, her friends, they all came to her funeral. What are you gonna tell them? That she was faking it? That she was kidnapped? They saw her dead body. And that's not even touching on what she'd go through. Seven years down here that felt like who knows how many, and she'll have no one to talk to about it, no one who even understands what she's been through except for you…" He shakes his head. "Having to lie, for the rest of her life, and probably no one will ever really believe her. She'll feel so isolated and outcast... It's not fair to do that to her."
"What. Are you talking about," Sam growls, his chin jutting forward and tears coming to his eyes. "It's not fair to leave her down here, to leave her when I should've saved her –"
"You couldn't have saved her, Sam!" Dean interrupts. "She died of scarlet fever, there was nothing you could do! You've got to accept that."
"She caught it from one of my patients." Sam blinks quickly and looks away. "She wouldn't have died if she hadn't been married to me. I've always known that. And now I finally have a chance to set it right-"
"So that's what this is about!" Dean rounds on him sharply. "You want to drag her up to the living world to fulfill your own selfish fantasy of redeeming yourself –"
"And what exactly," Sam snarls, "do you think you're doing?"
Dean flounders.
Sam presses his mouth tight. "Give me one good reason why bringing her back is any different from bringing me back, and I'll let her go."
Dean swallows, and looks Sam in the eye. "Because you're not the same man she married."
Sam's face freezes.
"You've changed so much since I came and got you from England, Sam," Dean says, a tinge of guilt leaking into his voice. "I – I know it's my fault, but… You're not the same person anymore. You've been through so much shit, and… You don't even look the same. You were this twiggy little kid, and now you're… you're not the man she knows. And maybe she's not the same either, you know? Maybe she's not the same girl whose memory you're chasing."
Sam looks away, and his eyes redden.
"I'm not bringing back Mom or Dad." Dean rotates his jaw and tries to hold an even keel. "You don't know how difficult that was to decide."
Sam closes his eyes, and a few tears leak out.
Dean sighs, a dull ache in his gut. "Deep down, you can feel it. You know it isn't right."
Sam nods, his eyes still closed.
"I'm sorry." Dean wants so badly to put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm really sorry, Sam."
Sam doesn't say anything. He just lifts his walking stick and starts walking toward Elysium.
Dean follows.
Ash starts and sprints after them. "Hey!" he calls. "We back on the trail? Can't ditch me that easy!"
….
Jo Harvelle is satisfied with her death.
She stays in the city of Elysium, where all the dead heroes reside, on the outskirts near the juncture of Lethe and the howling river Cocytus. She occupies her days with carving small trinkets out of the soft grey wood that grows there and fashioning the branches into furniture. She wasn't very good at it at first, but she's improved greatly. She knows how to soak the wood in hot water to make it bend, and how to dry it in the colorless light of what passes for day.
She is content to drink from the Lethe and eat its sugary flowers, putting her past behind her. She avoids the rain and sleeps indoors whenever she can, in a little abandoned hut. But today, she is not so lucky.
Jo is working outside, sitting by the riverside and struggling with a wicker basket. She almost doesn't hear the unending wailing of the Cocytus anymore, she's grown so accustomed to it. One of the wickers snaps again and snaps sharply across her hand, and it's as she's swearing and tossing the basket away from her in frustration that the first heavy drops land on her skin.
"Shit," Jo breathes, wiping the tingling droplets from her arm. "Shit, no." She scrambles to her feet and runs in the direction of home as memory seeps into her mind.
She can't outrun the rain.
It's spattering, splashing, soaking her now, and as she crumples to her knees and cries out in agony, a great tortured chorus rises up in the city of Elysium as thousands are struck by the force of their flooding emotions.
She remembers everything, all at once.
She remembers being born, tasting ice cream, sleeping in her mother's arms. She remembers pretty dresses and giggling friends whispering about the handsome porter and her father laughing. She remembers stepping into the salt sea air and gazing out to sea. She remembers her wedding, the overwhelming joy and teary excitement, the purple flowers in her hair, the awestruck look on her grooms face, the tender way he undressed her in the dark of the night, the trembling newness of their love. She remembers the pain tearing through her insides and the dark blood wicking up her petticoats. She remembers the tiny lumpen shape with fingers, the smallest fingers, and holding it in her hand. She remembers the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. She remembers the paleness of his face. She remembers the knowing resignation in the doctor's eyes. She remembers the crying, and the ache in her soul, and the rings under her eyes, and the numbness of her body.
She remembers looking at herself in the mirror and cutting her hair, knowing that she could never turn back. She remembers the smoky tavern where she signed her name. She remembers her first night at sea, lying curled in her hammock and nearly shaking with the terror of being discovered. She remembers the hardship, the secrecy, the lying, the bullying, the hours of exhausting menial labor, the callouses, the bruises, the loneliness. She remembers boarding the Impala. She remembers the shocking terror of being discovered and every anxiety-wracked day after that until she believed his promise not to reveal her. She remembers walking into the captain's cabin and the silent brokenness in the lines of his body slumped at the table, a brokenness she recognizes from seeing firsthand in the mirror. She remembers touching his cheek, and him looking up at her, and her not saying anything and that being all she needed to say. She remembers life becoming easier. She remembers the months of his disappearance and the waiting in Brazil, the uncertainty, the fear that he was truly dead. She remembers his triumphant return and the battle to escape, and the strange passenger they left with, and the vow to return to England.
She remembers getting caught. She remembers the menacing looks of some and the hungry gazes of others, but most of all the way that Sam looked at her like a person and talked to her like person and treated her like a person. She remembers the island of the lotuses, Bela's island, and all the sweet easy moments between the madness when she looked up at Sam and saw him smiling back, and the way his arms fit around her perfectly, and the way he laughed. She remembers the rooftop and the soft pleading in his voice and the way his eyelashes felt on her skin and the moment of almost. She remembers setting sail and stepping forward in his defense and Gordon yanking her back, a knife pressed to her throat, and she remembers Sam watching with wide-eyed anger, and she remembers the knife slicing through her and cutting out her voice and breath and life, and tumbling to the ground while Sam screams her name and whispering Sam, Sam, and reaching for him but she can't reach him.
She remembers waking up in a dark black swamp and being lead to this grey city. She remembers Sam arriving and running to him and him looking down at her with hollow eyes, and saying to her, "I've got to look for Jess." She remembers him asking her to come with him and shaking her head no. And she remembers watching him go, and knowing that she would never fit, and knowing this was the end, and knowing this was death, and walking down to the river and wading until she forgets everything.
She remembers all of this in one crippling instant, and she cowers on the ground with her fingers digging into the earth and sobs.
The rain patters down into the wet brown dirt.
"Jo."
She looks up, choking, blinking through the rain.
He's walking towards her, a figure out of the haze, and she knows who it is just from that one word. She stands up uncertainly; she's never hallucinated before.
"Jo." He's soaked through, his gray clothes plastered to his bulky frame, his hair clinging to his neck, water dribbling from his chin. "Please, say something."
She puts her hand to his arm, surprised at its solidity, and shivers. "I hate the rain, Sam," she croaks. "I've tried so hard to forget you."
He pushes one hand under her wet, tangled hair and slides it along the back of her neck. "I tried too," he says. "I was looking for Jess."
Jo swallows and trembles again, less and less sure that this is a dream, and asks, "Did you find her?"
"No." Sam's mouth turns upward in a bitter smile. "And I don't think I ever will."
The rain continues to pour down around them, and Jo squeezes her eyes shut and squeezes her fingers in his sodden sleeves and cries, "I'm so angry at you for leaving!"
"I asked you to come with!" he answers, pleading in his voice. "I wanted you to come with!"
"I know." She throws her arms around him and hugs him tightly. "I know you did."
They stand in the rain, holding each other, awash in memory and unwilling to let each other go.
…..
"You think we should try braving it?" Dean asks, pulling back the coverlet.
"Nah," Ash answers, gazing out the window at the rain. "Sam'll find her. The rain'll just make you miserable. Just try and get some shut-eye."
Dean kind of hates letting Sam out of his sight and if it were up to him he'd have his brother on a leash for the rest of eternity, but he understands it'll probably be a personal moment between him and Jo, so he allows it. For now. He is tired, after all.
So far they'd been sleeping on the ground whenever Dean felt like it; after all, there was no sunrise or sunset, just unending perpetual dusk. But once the squall had started they ducked inside an abandoned gray cabin for shelter, and the little empty house had a few beds. Dean wondered who had built it, or why, since as far as he could tell the dead didn't need to sleep.
Maybe it was simply comforting to maintain the habit.
Ash wanders out of the room to explore the rest of the house, and Dean climbs into bed. Good a time as any to sleep. The pounding rain on the roof creates a rhythm that lulls him to sleep, like so many nights at sea drifting into unconsciousness to the beating of the waves…
The window creaks.
Dean's eyes snap open. He's facing the wall, and a long shadow falls from the other side of the room.
Someone slowly slides the window shut and the shadow shortens, the sound of bare feet gingerly padding on the wood paneled floor.
Dean reaches for his knife, then realizes he doesn't have one tucked under the pillow.
The feet stop. Soft, quiet breathing. Dripping.
Dean whirls around and shouts, "ALRIGHT, WHADDYA WANT, YOU'RE FRICKIN' DEAD, YOU –"
and he stops short.
Standing there, staring wide-eyed, soaked to the bone,
is Castiel.
They stare at each other wordlessly.
Dean can't even blink. It's Castiel, black-haired and blue-eyed and pale-skinned and looking like a drowned rat, sure, but still handsome as hell and totally shocked and he's got stubble on his chin and Dean thinks he likes that but what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?
"How?" Cas finally asks.
"I could ask the same thing," Dean breathes. "I thought you were a Nereid."
"Poseidon turned me human," Cas answers, as though it's obvious. "Completely human."
And it's so mind-bendingly simple that Dean laughs.
"How are you here?" Cas asks, staring at him still. "You're alive!"
"Cas," Dean says, and the word sounds so good in his mouth that he says it again. "Cas, it's a long story."
"I have time," Cas says, with a small smirk. "I'm dead."
And that's it.
Dean doesn't even care.
He steps forward and grabs Cas by the front of his soggy shirt and kisses him so fiercely that he can hear the breath knock out of Cas with a soft unf and doesn't stop kissing him until he's absolutely certain that he's one hundred percent not dreaming.
Then he pulls back and looks at Cas's face, and Cas is just gazing at him with these big round eyes and touching his face.
"What?" Dean asks.
"Are you real?" Cas asks. "Is this real?"
Dean laughs softly and kisses him quickly and says, "You better fucking believe it."
