Disclaimer: I wish they were mine, but I only own my characters. On with the story.
"What is it?" Jack asked cutting straight to the chase.
"How do you know we know anymore than you do?" John asked her.
"Because nobody would be so protective of information they don't have." Jack said adamantly. She crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly.
"All I know is something killed my parents when I was a baby, something killed your wife and I'm pretty sure it killed the woman from me and Sam's dream too. I could feel the fire on her."
"We don't know what its called." John said clearing his throat.
"You're a real crack detective, anyone ever tell you that?" Jack asked raising an eyebrow. She was sickeningly disappointed.
"We know some things." Dean said defensively.
"Just not its name?" Jack asked.
"It wasn't wearing a nametag when it came after us." Dean retorted.
"We know its a very powerful very old demon." John cut through their bickering with a single look. He chose to ignore Dean sticking his tongue out at the girl.
"How does it die?" Jack asked. Silence settled over the kitchen.
"We only know of one weapon that can kill it. A gun we found awhile back." John finally answered.
"Where is it?" Jack asked.
"Its safe." John answered.
"You can't go after this thing on your own if that's what your thinking." Sam said to her. "It nearly killed us when we tried."
"I'm not gonna mount a crusade, I just want to know what this thing is so when it comes for me again I know what I'm up against and how to get away from it." She said.
"How do know its going to come after you?" Dean asked sitting up straighter in his chair. John leaned forward listening intently.
"Chris told me in his letter. He had visions that it was." Jack answered.
"What exactly did he see? What will it do next? Let me see this letter." John demanded. Jack studied him with guarded eyes..
"This is where I stop talking." She told them. Sam could see the walls slamming down around her again, cutting them off from what was happening in her head.
"What the hell do you mean? This could be important, if he saw something that could help us kill it once and for all, make it right again." John hissed at her.
"That's not my fight. I have no interest in revenge, got that out of my system already. I'm more concerned with staying one step ahead of the game." Jack said using all her energy to sound as cold as she could.
"Its everyone who's involved in this shit's fight!" John replied angrily. He slammed his hand down on the table startling Jack. Her hand unconsciously tightened in the handle of her knife.
"You don't have to show it to us." Dean said suddenly, seeing the subtle action.
"What?" John and Jack asked in unison.
"The letter you don't have to show us. If its too personal." Dean started again slowly.
It was stupid, it was irrational and it was completely right. Logic told Jack she was being ridiculous, but hers were the only eyes that had ever looked at those two precious letters form her beloved uncle and surrogate father. They were all she had left of him, them and a few pictures from years past. The only indulgence she allowed for herself. No one was allowed to read them but her.
"I want to go." Jack said ignoring how close to home his guess hit. Her stomach was starting to burn with hunger like it always did after using her gift and she was dead tired.
"It isn't safe out there. They're probably waiting for you to leave." Sam argued.
"I'll be fine, its nothing I haven't gone up against before." Jack said tugging on the ends of her hair. A nervous tell from when she was a kid.
"Stay here, just for the night. That way at least Sam and me won't have to stand guard outside your hotel room all night." Dean suggested.
"I don't recall asking for a bodyguard, let alone two." Jack said glaring at him with little heat.
"To damn bad cause you got 'em." He said smirking cockily.
Her stomach growled loudly then, to her utter embarrassment, making Dean smile wider. It wanted her to stay eat and get some sleep. Unfortunately she usually ended up siding with her stomach. John was still fuming in the corner, Sam was giving her that damn puppy dog look and Dean was smiling triumphantly, like he knew her hunger had final say in this argument. She was uncomfortable with people she only knew for a grand total of twenty four hours knew more about her than almost any living person.
"I spend the better part of twenty years avoiding the supernatural and now I end up having a sleepover with a bunch hunters and a damn psychic." Jack said in defeat.
"That's irony for you." Dean said.
"Irony yeah, reality's bitchy cousin." Jack said shaking her head. Her life was one giant ball of fucked irony.
"Can I get some food? I'm starving." She asked.
"You ever get hungry after your visions?" She turned to Sam. He seemed surprised by the question.
"No, but-" He stopped talking and looked like he was thinking something over.
"But what?" Jack asked.
"I moved a bureau once with my mind and I was famished afterwards." He told her surprised, like he'd never connected the two events before.
"That's how it is with me. Using it takes so much energy I have to replenish fast and a lot." She said hinting towards Missouri, who got what she was trying to say.
"Its midnight I'm not cooking. You want something make it yourself and you'd better clean up after yourself." She told the younger girl.
"Ma'am yes Ma'am." Jack said saluting Missouri and jumping to her feet. She swayed for a second but managed to catch her balance on the table. She laid her machete on the table and both her glock and her .38.
"Damn girl. You don't travel light do you." Dean said whistling as she placed the weapons on the table.
"Got a gun kink." Jack joked in a better mood as she walked to the fridge.
"Do you get the headaches?" Sam asked eagerly. He wanted to know what someone else like him went through, other than Missouri.
"Yeah but only if its a lot of fire." Jack said pulling out bread, cold cuts and some cold chicken that was in the fridge from last night's dinner.
"Chris emptied his stomach every time he had a vision." She added. Sam nodded in understanding.
"I have a theory about the headaches." Jack said facing him as she spread mayo on the bread.
"Which would be?" John asked mildly interested despite his foul mood.
"The amount of concentration it takes to use a gift can do a number on your brain. I think it makes the blood vessels constrict so not enough oxygen gets to the brain, resulting in a migraine." Jack said.
"I have no clue what you just said." Dean said.
"No air in brain means bad pain." Jack told him.
"If I'm right about that there's a chance we could stroke out and die while using these gifts someday." Jack said flippantly.
"Its just a theory though, right?" Sam asked his eyes widening.
"Yeah, what the hell do I know about medical stuff?" Jack said shrugging going back to her sandwich. When she was done she brought a plate of cold chicken and her thick, could feed a small elephant sandwich back to the table. Dean raised an eyebrow at her. Missouri just stared for a second then retreated to put some extra blankets in her last remaining guest room, thinking how lucky she was that she had a big house and a full fridge.
"I probably should've warned you guys that 'help yourself' isn't a good thing to tell me when it comes to food. I once got banned from an all you can eat food chain." Jack said taking a huge bite out of her sandwich.
"You know you still haven't told us how you knew about our house." Sam said sounding hopeful.
"You can't expect to hear all my secrets in one day can you?" Jack asked smiling mysteriously. She took another bite.
"I have a feeling you have more than a few." Dean stated stealing a piece of chicken from her plate. She glared at him as he popped it in his mouth.
"I have more than my fair share, but don't you guys too?" She asked.
After she was done cleaning up her mess and she'd gathered her mini arsenal Jack was taken upstairs and shown where she would sleep that night. The room was pretty, not to girly as she would expect a single woman to decorate. It was comfy, with a rocking chair in the corner an a bed with a chest of drawers. It reminded her of the vague memories she had of Mama Fonty's house, not so much the look but the feel.
"Just for a night, then you can leave town tomorrow night." She told herself. She was adamant about the last part. She ignored the bad feeling it gave her to leave. Whether she liked it or not she liked these people, understood them and what was more miraculous they understood her.
"All the more reason to go." She told herself as she stripped out of sweaty clothes and tossed them aside. She reminded herself to shower in the morning and placed the six shooter under her pillow, leaned the knife against the bed knife point down for easy access and placed the other gun on the little bedside table. She opened up the little back pack and pulled out the precious envelopes that were in there. She always slept with them under her pillow, next to her gun.
On a whim she opened the flap on the first one and pulled out the letter.
"Ma Petite Enflamme,
"If your reading this I'm already dead…."
That was as far as she got before putting it back. She'd read the letters so many times she knew every word by heart. It was her and Chris's macabre tradition. Every time they split up with the plan to meet up in a couple of days, every time he took a job that meant he had to go off by himself, they would exchange "If I die" letters. Then when they met up again they would burn them without reading them. If you read them prematurely you put fifty bucks in the jar. Only a grand total of a hundred dollars ever went into that damn jar, both times put in by Chris because he was a curious bastard. Jack smiled at the memory, then frowned. She only ever opened one of his "If I die" letters, an hour after she left an anonymous 911 call for them to go to the deserted stretch of highway he'd died on. The corners of the envelope and letter still had smudges of blood on them. She read the letter before doing anything else that night.
Jack pressed the envelope to her lips, put them under her pillow and turned off the bedside lamp.
Dean was at the window in Sam and his room. He was looking out for movements he wouldn't see. His fists were clenched at his sides.
"Dean? What's wrong?" Sam said coming back from the shower seeing his brother there.
"Nothing Sammy." Dean said to Sam's reflection in the glass. He wouldn't let himself turn around.
"C'mon Dean I know that's a lie." Sam said putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean flinched away and turned rapidly to sit down on his bed turned away from his brother. Not fast enough. Sam saw the broken look on his face and the tears welled up their that didn't dare fall.
"Dean." Sam said kneeling down in front of Dean.
"Its been a long day Sam." Dean said forcefully willing him away from him.
"I know but its going to be alright, right?" Sam asked swallowing. It scared him seeing Dean look like this. He wasn't the type to fall apart, ever.
"Yeah, yeah it will be." Dean said trying to sound reassuring but it just came off as distracted. He didn't have the energy to ease Sammy's fears and keep himself together tonight.
"Sometimes its just a little harder." Dean said when Sam wouldn't give up. He looked at the window again trying to build up his wall of self protection again. The day, talking about his mother, hearing some of Jack's story. It wore on him and he hated that.
"Lets get some rest, it'll be better tomorrow." Sam said giving Dean's shoulder a shake. He wasn't used to being the shoulder to cry on for Dean, mostly because Dean didn't cry, it was against all laws of nature as he knew them. He was the emo brooder. Dean was the one who let nothing get to him.
"Yeah." Dean mumbled. He stood up and walked back to the window, pulling the curtains closed.
"Night Sam." He said turning off his lamp and laying down. Sam stood there for a moment watching his brother feign sleep.
"Night Dean." He finally said going to his own bed to lay down. Sleep didn't come for either of them but they didn't speak again that night.
"Do you trust her?" John asked Missouri in the living room.
"Yes I do." Missouri said without a second thought.
"We don't know a lot about her." John said.
"She's in pain. I know that." Missouri said in a sure voice.
"You can't read her mind." John pointed out.
"Not clearly, no. She's got some powerful walls built around her, might even be a little telepathic." Missouri mused.
"Will she run?" John asked.
"I think so. I hope not. But I think she doesn't know any other way." Missouri said sadly.
TBC…………
AN: 'Sigh' I wanted this chapter to be longer but I'm having one of Those Days. And I didn't want to put too much of my people induced bad mood in the story and end up messing it up.
Hope you enjoy it. Please review I need the mood boost.:)