Chapter 7.
"OK, so tell me again", Sam asked Dean for the 100th time in disbelief. "What exactly did he say?"
"Dude, I told you, he didn't SAY anything. It was just this clicking noise."
"So like Morse Code"
"Not Morse Code. Just like.. CLICK CLICK CLICKEDY CLICK"
"Click click clickedy click? That's just great, Dean, good clue. Now we know. If it were stomp stomp stompidy stomp, then that'd be a whole other conversation!"
Dean was ignoring Sam, he was buried deep into the Winchester journal, a leather-bound booklet that contained all of Winchester senior's encounters with monsters, details on what they were and how to kill each and every one of them. Jess had perused it as part of her training, and she had been overwhelmed. Vampires, jinns, sea serpents, mermaids – not as pretty as you'd imagine, Dean told her – all the crazies, real and recorded in that little book.
"What are you looking for?", Jess asked. "What does the clicking mean?"
"I don't know, I've heard it before, I'm sure, so I'm looking at documentations of our old hunts, my dad wrote everything down in this, and I wanted to see if anything rings any bells. Or clicks. If anything clicks! Get it?"
"So?", Sam asked impatiently, ignoring Dean's attempt.
"Give me a frigging minute, man"
"I don't understand, we left a perfectly good place, to be on the road and just look in a book?"
Jess could understand Sam's frustration, as well. They had a decent motel, and they traded that for driving 100 miles out, just to stop at a filthy diner with no indication which way they were to go next.
"Oh, that was just because Laurie was starting to suffocate me."
Both Jess and Sam rolled their eyes in what seemed to be a synchronized unison.
"All right, Jess and I, we're gonna go on a reconnaissance drive, do you mind?"
"Yeah, sure go ahead", Dean replied
"We'd need the car, Dean", Sam clarified.
"So take it", he said, tossing the keys over the table to Sam.
Sam and Jess looked at each other in disbelief. Jess didn't know Dean very well, but even she knew he never lets anyone drive Baby unless he is dead with exhaustion or in mortal peril. In the case of the former, he would still rather stop and rest. But to give the keys to Baby and let her drive away without him, that was unheard of for Jess. Sam signaled towards Jess to keep quiet and led her outside the joint. Behind, Dean was lost in Winchester senior's journal, and Jess was wondering if he'd even realized what had happened. Maybe it would be best to come back before he snaps out of it, she thought.
Once at the car, they realized there was literally nothing to recon. They were in the middle of nowhere, somewhere off on 91, Jess was looking around for any sort of tumbleweed.
"Want to just sit in the car for a bit? I need a break from Dean", Sam told her.
"Sure", she said, following him in the back seat.
"I'm sorry about all this mess", he said.
"You need to stop saying that, Sam."
"I can't and I won't. I don't understand and I will never understand how you just followed me blindly into all this shit. I've taken you away from everything you knew, and I am sorry."
"I followed you blindly because I love you. SO much so that I cannot imagine life without you. I followed you blindly because that thing that almost killed me was proof enough that Dean and you are not batshit crazy. But you know, even if you were batshit crazy, I would have still followed you. If for no other reason than to keep an eye on you and get you the help that you need. We said forever, we were about to tie the knot."
"We will tie the knot when this is all over", he reassured her.
"I know. But that's not the point. The point is that in my heart, the proverbial knot has been tied the moment you proposed and I said yes. You know why I came to Stanford?"
"To study writing?", Sam asked.
"Well yes, but did I ever tell you why?", she pressed.
"I recall you saying it would make your grandfather happy"
"It would have", she corrected him. "I said it would have made my grandfather happy. Past tense, because he is dead. He's been dead since I was 1 years old. He was like a second father to me, I loved him so dearly. You know how we moved a lot when I was young, with my dad being in the military. PCSes happened a lot in his case, because he was good. So, he moved up in rank fast, faster than normal at least. My brother and I, we were used to it. We didn't hate it as much as the other kids in the same situation did."
Sam nodded. Of course, he knew all this, Jess had told him most of her past before and Sam had met her family multiple times.
"The reason why we managed so easily was in fact, our grandpa. He was our rock, something steady, always there. He had retired already by the time I was born, and was living on a nice farm Arlee, Montana. So, after my mom gave birth to me, and then a couple of years later, to my brother, she spent our respective first year with him and grandma. Then, as we were older, in kindergarten, school, we spent every summer there with our grandparents. When grandma died, around the time I was 7 or 8, he sold the farm section and the business, and kept a nice small cottage, in Arlee. He would take us there in the summer, but during winter time, he would move in with us, wherever we were located at the time. So, we were always together, him, my brother and I. He learned to cook for us, and to wash clothes, to take care of kids in ways he hadn't taken care of mom and her sister. And he learned all that so that we can have a place of our own to go to every summer, with our own rooms, and our own toys and our own friends."
Jess took a deep breath, normally she didn't like to talk about this part of her life, it made her feel vulnerable. With Sam, however, she didn't mind. She liked opening up to him.
"And my favorite part of my time with him was when we would all sit down and play board games after dinner, and he would tell us stories. He was a war general, in WW2, and he had seen a lot. Some stories were more believable than others, but now, after I've seen what I've seen, I wonder...", she trailed off. She didn't want to go into those details just yet, and Sam respected that. "So, in the end, after he passed, heart attack", she clarified," I swore I'd be a writer and tell the world about him, his life, his legacy."
"That's so beautiful", Sam said.
"I like to think so too. And I like to think that grandad would be proud. But the point of this story was that I grew up around warriors, you know? My dad and grandad, and now my brother too, all in the army, all hunters, all fighters. I started combat training when I was 10 years old, I knew how to shoot a weapon two years later. I don't like it and I don't like guns, but c'est la vie, as they say."
"I didn't know, I knew about your dad and brother, but I never knew..."
"Yeah, to be honest...", Jess laughed a little "you seemed like someone who couldn't take it."
"Whaaat?", Sam said.
"Yeah, goody-two-shoes lawyer fella, you know? A big kind teddy bear, not someone who wanted to know about guns, or who cared much for his fiancée, or girlfriend at the time, and her ability to land head-shots from 500 yards away. But then I had the encounter with yellow-eyes, and you came in, guns blazing and I fell in love with you a little bit more. Was I scared? Yes, absolutely but on the other hand, I've been training for this my whole life. So, you see, I am with you, I am ready for this. Like I've been telling you all along."
"So... Sniper rifles, huh?" Sam said, looking genuinely a little surprised.
"It was just an example, I'm very versatile, you know", Jess said, trying to lighten the mood. Sam laughed, it worked.
"I am sorry I didn't tell you.", she said, a bit more serious.
"Hey, hey, come here", he said, pulling her closer. "I feel like I win at withholding big family secrets anyway!", he said jovially while giving her a big wet kiss on the cheek. She turned to him, grabbed his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. She let her lips graze his, and lingered for a few seconds before she allowed him to give her a proper kiss.
"I love you, baby", she said, as he was running his fingers through her hair. "I love you so much, and I don't care where we are or what we do, so long as we are together."
"I love you", he said, giving her another kiss.
"We better... Dean...", she said, between kisses.
"No, no... Sam", he corrected her.
"I mean, Dean is alone and who knows what he's doing!", she replied, embarrassed.
"I know, I'm just joshin'"
They walked back into the burger joint where Dean was still consumed by the journal.
"Honestly, Dean, let's just go home to Stanford and reconvene from there", Sam said. "This is pointless, we could at least scout for yellow-eyes there"
"Home... OUR OLD HOUSE!", Dean eureka-d.
"What?"
"Sam, do you remember in our old house, in mom and dad's bedroom, the closet would make this click click clickedy click noise after you closed it, or sometimes if a bout of wind would hit just right?"
"Of course I don't remember, Dean. I was an infant."
"Right, I remember see, cause that used to be our room, and mom and dad changed rooms because I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking there is a monster in our closet, and kept waking them up. So, they had enough, and we swapped rooms. That's the click I heard over the phone. We need to go to Kansas."