Summary:

ONE-SHOT AU Season 5: Circa 5x22 "Swan Song". Sam is gone. Will Dean survive and find the happiness that he promised his brother?

Author's Note:

Hey there lovely readers!

Another one-shot that I have written. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for taking the time to read.

Reviews are always appreciated :)

Thank you all so much!

Murphy x

The Leaving

Before The Battle

Spotting Eleonore standing further away on the other side of the bar, Jo made a quick and grateful escape from the boring conversation with Cameron DuPont, a painful one of their contemporaries that had managed to piss Jo off more times than she could count. She felt his eyes on her as she walked away, dodging women in beautifully, embarrassingly skimpy dresses, to Eleonore's side. Her fellow bartender seemed entirely unimpressed about the occupants level of drunkenness that evening.

"Is everything alright?" Jo asked.

Eleonore nodded and then pulled her from where she was leaning against the jukebox into the hallway leading out to the back alley. Eyes were cast upon them quickly, and then seeing nothing significant or unbelievable, the patrons of the bar quickly returned to their conversations.

"There's a guy outside waiting for you. Says his name is Dean or something," Eleonore said.

Jo's brow furrowed.

"Why doesn't he come-"

"I told him that, but he wouldn't come inside," Eleonore said, her eyes filling with concern. "Is he dangerous? Do you need me to call the cops or something?"

Jo rolled her eyes, "If anything, you'll have to call the cops for him. I might just kill him."

Eleonore's mouth opened and closed again quickly when she could think of nothing suitable to say. She hadn't known Jo long, but knew that she trusted her implicitly. Jo had driven into the small town in South Dakota with a broken heart, having recently lost her mother in a building fire in Carthage, she'd explained. She asked Eleonore for a job and the other woman had quickly informed her boss, hiring Jo on the sight of her. Clyde was a sexist dick, but Eleonore was more than grateful to have another woman - particularly one who seemed as able to handle herself as Jo Harvelle - on her side to ward off the old man. Confused as to what exactly she had found herself in the middle of, Eleonore nodded as she followed Jo down the hallway and out into the alley. She watched as Jo came face to face with the man. He was handsome, and at the sight of Jo, several odd emotions past over his face that Eleonore couldn't quite comprehend.

Jo found Dean, standing in the middle of the dark, wet alleyway, looking her over with an appreciative smile. Eleonore nudged Jo towards him and then quickly disappeared, slamming the back door of the bar too loudly to let Jo know that she was no longer privy to their conversation. Dread overwhelmed Jo and she kicked at the wet ground. Jo smiled shyly at him.

Dean's heart swelled at the sight of her. He had been so sure that they were going to lose her in that hardware store. Since Ellen's death, and Jo's abandonment of the brother's at the hospital as soon as she had been discharged, Dean had her from her sporadically in the months since. He and Sam had managed to track her down to the small town in South Dakota where they were both amused to find that she had returned to managing a bar that was regularly visited by hunters.

"You look absolutely...fantastic," Dean said to her, thrilled that her skin was no longer stained with blood.

Jo looked down at her feet and then back up at him, remembering that he had kissed her in the desperate moments before they had managed to escape that warehouse and her mother had paid the ultimate price for her daughter's life. She wondered momentarily what Dean would think if he saw the puckered scars that offended her otherwise perfect skin on her abdomen.

"Why didn't you come inside?" Jo asked. "You freaked Eleonore out a bit."

"That the bartender?"

Jo shrugged, surprised at how uncomfortable she felt seeing him again, "Yeah, she's the best."

Dean bit his lip. He held out his hand to her and Jo took it, relishing the feeling of the warmth that rushed through her body. He pulled her closer to him and hugged her much tighter than he usually did. Even then, he was not normally the hugging type. Jo could sense that there was much more he wanted to say. She decided he was debating how best he should say it.

"Lucifer? It's time, isn't it?" Jo said.

Dean sighed, and stopped walking, "I wanted to tell you something."

"If it's about Sam and-"

"It's not about Sam," Dean replied. "Although, I want to ring his neck."

Jo tried not to smile, "Why would that be, I wonder?"

Dean allowed himself to matcher her expression, though it was quickly replaced, "You know why."

Jo's heart picked up slightly.

"Dean-"

"Just let me say it, Jo," Dean insisted "Otherwise I never will...and you'll make me stay."

Affronted, Jo let go of his hand and stepped back.

"You're leaving," Jo realised. "You're going to let him do it."

Dean clasped his hands together in front of him.

"I'm leaving," Dean said. "And I wanted you to know that there won't be a day that goes by that I won't...regret what I'm about to do. Jo, I-"

"But, Dean, the plan, everything! You and Sam don't give up! What happened to finding another way?!," Jo argued.

"There is more for you to do," Dean replied. "You have a future, Jo. Sam and I...the messed up thing is that this has all been planned since before we were born."

"So, you're just going to give up?" Jo blanched, feeling anger inflating inside her. "Now you're just going to leave all of this, all of us behind. And I don't just mean me, but Bobby-"

"Bobby knows why I we have to do this. I've said goodbye to everyone. I...didn't know how to say it to you," Dean admitted.

"Apparently you do!" Jo shrieked. "You're doing it right now! And you're telling me that you're going to let your brother become Lucifer's vessel and you're probably going to die trying to save him!"

Dean stepped quickly towards her. Before Jo had enough time to step back, he had taken hold of both of her wrists with his hands and was holding her in front of him. She hoped that he could feel the anger, the tension in her body and that he would let go. But he didn't. If anything, he held her wrists tighter. He leant his forehead against her temple. Jo's resolve partially dissolved but the rest of her body was screaming to hit him, make him see that he was a fool. But, she wasn't about to beg him to stay either because she knew that he never would.

"I knew it would be hardest to say goodbye to you," Dean mumbled.

She closed her eyes and rested her head against his cheek. She felt his hands move slowly up her arms and then around her waist. Her arms in turn wrapped around his neck and Jo clung to him, trying to remember what this moment of security felt like.

"What are you going to do?" Jo whispered.

"We have to finish this, Jo," Dean said. "For Mom, for my Dad, for Ellen..."

Jo understood. She didn't want to, but she would do exactly the same thing for her loved ones. The unfortunate part was that all of Jo's closest friends and family were dead. She was about to watch two more of them walk into a battle of Heaven and Hell of which there was little guarantee they would survive.

Releasing him, she stepped back and nodded at her feet because she couldn't quite look him in the eye. She hated him for leaving, hated that he was separating them. He was giving up on her, on the life they could have had. She convinced herself that without him they would still be able to finish their mission, that the world could be rid of all the darkness that hid in the shadows of everyday life.

"Just be careful," Jo said.

Dean was surprised that she didn't protest more, and was embarrassed by how much he had wanted her to. He kissed the side of her head, smelling her hair, then pulled back to look at her face. Her eyes were iridescent and her face seemed softer, younger, so dark for the rest of her delicate features. He glanced down at her lips, noticing how pink they were, and then looked back up at her eyes. Her cheeks flushed.

"I'll come-" he began.

"I don't want to hear it Dean," Jo said. "Don't give me false hope."

Dean' gut twisted at the disappointment he could see in her eyes. Without truly thinking, he leant down and pressed his lips to the side of her mouth, letting them linger there for longer than he should have, his eyes closed. Jo wasn't able to move.

After The Battle

With Jo and Eleonore supporting his weight, Dean hobbled along the streets of Deadwood. The tourist crowd eyed him with curiosity and fear. It was hard to look at Jo. All he could see in her eyes was betrayal. His brother gone, he had returned to the tourist town where he knew he would find Jo. However, before facing her, he had decided to drink his weight in Jack Daniels and had hobbled into the bar to find she and Eleonore busily serving the holidaying couples exploring the idyllic Black Hills.

"It's only a few more streets. Do you think you can make it that far?" asked Eleonore.

Dean could tell that even should he need to stop, there was no way that she was going to let him. He had a great deal of forgiveness to earn. From all of them, even Eleonore who didn't know any of what his life had been like prior to his sudden reappearance at the bar she and Jo worked at some weeks earlier. She had seen the hurt that his sudden appearance and quick departure had caused Jo, but had kept her feelings regarding this mysterious man to herself. It didn't mean that she had to be so accommodating to that same man when he again came unannounced into her bar and messed - even if unintentionally - with the emotions of her friend.

"Fine," replied Dean.

Jo hadn't said a word since they left the bar. She seemed to be digging her nails into his arms much more than necessary. He knew that it was the very least of what he deserved. He was waiting for her to explode.

The house they reached was large, but was in ruins with boards covering up the majority of the windows. Inside, Dean stepped over broken glass and debris. All of the fixtures and beautiful furnishings had been covered in a thick layer of dust that none of them had been willing to clean, or had time to. It would only be covered again as Jo worked her way through slowly restoring the old house.

Dean felt like he was walking the gallows to his own execution as Eleonore and Jo guided him through empty rooms. Their eyes continued to sweep his face, unforgiving.

X - X - X - X - X

Jo stood silently as Dean came into her room. There was nothing she could do but stare at him and hope absolutely that he was real. Suddenly, the immense emotion, his display of sweetness, of affection, that only registered to her as terrible cruelty at the time, came rushing back to her and she was overwhelmingly angry. How dare he return to her. How dare he crush her heart and then try to rebuild it. How dare he play with her like that. Dean' green eyes focused on Jo standing in the middle of the room. She could feel every part of her body thrumming when his eyes fell over her. Her mind urged her to shout for Eleonore, for someone who could come and dispel the confrontation that was clearly simmering between them. But she had waited years - literally - to say the things that she had wanted to say. Now he was standing in front of her, ready to accept it.

"I should probably sit down," Dean said. "Otherwise, I think you might hit me."

He took the stool standing beside the door. Jo crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, hoping to be as threatening as she could possibly be.

"I'll still hit you if you're sitting down," Jo muttered.

Instead of approaching him, Jo sat on the bed behind her. She clasped her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking.

"What do you think it did to me?" she asked. "When you left like that? After everything we'd done, what we achieved? What you said to me? What do you think I felt like when you decided that you were finished? That you had had enough?"

"I was trying to protect you-"

"I know that. But you were the one that decided not to tell me about the angels' plan. That was your decision, Dean. Did you consider for a moment what may have happened had you just told me the truth? For a moment, did you consider it?"

Dean sighed, "I considered it, and every option I came up with ended in you dying. I was never going to let that happen."

"You betrayed me," Jo growled. "And not just me, but Bobby, Cas, my Mom! All of them, all of us, we believed in you! We loved you!"

Dean closed his eyes and looked at the ground. Jo paused, aware that if she was allowed to keep going, she probably wouldn't be able to stop.

"I didn't see any other option," Dean said. "I've made peace with the rest of them. But I don't know how to apologise to you."

Jo furiously pushed herself off the bed and strode towards Dean, looking down at his eyes eyes, slightly tilted up so he could just see her through his eyelashes.

"Apologise to me, Dean," she begged. "Apologise to me."

Dean nodded, pulling her onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her back. Jo encircled his neck with her arms, feeling his face against her neck and his tears on her shoulder.

Dean whispered, "I don't expect you ever to forgive me. I can't forgive myself."

Jo raised her hand to the back of his head. Turning her head, she kissed his temple.

X - X - X - X - X

Jo was asleep on the bed beside him, her body mostly hidden underneath the sheets. Dean lay above the sheets beside her. He had closed his eyes and tried to will himself into unconsciousness, but it had never come. Jo, meanwhile, slept soundly like an infant, occasionally quietly snoring. He listened to her breathe, relieved that she was there. Jo gave a gentle sigh in her sleep and Dean turned over to look at her. Her sheets were bunched up around her shoulders making her head appear to sink into the covers. His chest was against her back. He leaned down and kissed the small moon of exposed skin where her neck and shoulder met. The softness and warmth of her skin surprised him and he pulled away quickly. She didn't wake, but gave another small contented sigh. Slowly, he wrapped his arm around her and pressed his face into her hair, smelling cinnamon and the scent that was uniquely hers, sweeter than one would think. She didn't shift or move away, even snuggling without conscious further into his arms. Hearing the steady beat of her heart in the warmth of her body, Dean finally closed his eyes and slept.

X - X - X - X - X

Dean was lying on the floor when Jo woke up. She was certain that at some point in the afternoon he had climbed into bed with her and held her. She hadn't wanted him to move, and even in her drowsy state, had noticed when he left. The fire adjacent to the bed was warming the room and her face gently. Jo rolled over onto her back and saw that heavy rain was falling down beside the window. She sighed, pushing up onto her elbows to see Dean smiling at her from the floor.

The pallet he had created for himself couldn't have been particularly comfortable, but Jo joined him on the floor.

"Think I'm going to have a new scar here," Dean said, grinning at her, touching the small cut above his brow.

"You deserve it," Jo replied, trying not to match his grin.

X - X - X - X - X

Now, they sat with the doors to the room wide open, watching out over the balcony and through the poles of the balustrade to the street below. The rain, still heavy, fell evenly and turned the ground to mud. The sky was dark and grey, but Jo was smiling anyway. Dean was sitting beside her, looking more content than she had ever seen him. The breeze was blowing over his bare skin, his legs outstretched in front of him in sweatpants that had belonged to Eleonore's older brother. His chest and back were covered in thousands of tiny scars. It was hard for Jo not to look at them, and to count them, but when Dean caught her, she always looked away.

"What do you think will happen now?" Jo asked.

Dean couldn't answer her - or wouldn't tell her what she already knew. Sam was trapped in the cage. It was only a matter of time before he became the demon he had always feared. Dean felt torn, to grieve for the brother he had lost, but was determined to keep the promise that he had made to him - he would find the happiness that he had always imagined, he would not succumb to their previous self-destructive endeavours to save each other.

Dean replied. "I thought I would have been dead ten times over by now."

Jo nodded, herself surprised that he wasn't dead. Jo's mind drifted to her parents, hoping that they had found each other in the next life. She admired them more than anyone she had ever met. They had always look out for each other and they had trusted each other unconditionally.

She had trusted Dean that way. It struck her then: that had been what she was so angry about.

She had trusted him not to leave her alone.

"I missed you," Jo said.

He was completely focused on her now.

"I want you to make me a promise," Jo said. "That no matter what happens, whether it risks one of our lives or not, that we will always, always be honest with each other. And that you won't ever leave me alone, again. I don't have anyone left."

Dean took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles, then pressed them against his forehead. Surprised by the gesture - and trying to control the way her heart fluttered when his lips touched her skin - Jo could only breathe.

Dean said. "Never again."

X - X - X - X - X

"What do you remember, about your Mom?" Jo asked, lying on her side, the fire at her feet, beer in her hand.

Dean sighed, lying flat on his stomach, his arms underneath his head, he rolled his head to looked at her and smiled, "From when I was younger?"

Jo nodded.

"Not very much. It was a long time ago-"

"Not that long," Jo retorted.

"Would you please let me tell the story, woman?" Dean asked, smiling at her.

Jo nodded, pointing a single finger at him, "Proceed."

"She was clever. They married, had a family of their own...for a long time they were happy, as happy as I s'pose any of us can be."

He had fallen back into his thoughts. She could tell from the look on his face that he was collapsing into the darkest place himself.

"Maybe you could come with me, when I get going again?" he suggested.

Jo smiled shyly down at her drink, and then looked up to see Dean smiling back at her. She felt her heart flutter and slid across the floor a little closer to him. Dean' expression changed and she watched his eyes, the pupils dilating as she came closer. Jo breathed the scent of beer that was on his lips and then relaxed, lying down again on her side, her face beside his. The proximity of his mouth to hers made her heart skip.

Dean moved his hand from underneath his head and too rolled onto his side. He stretched his arm across the space between them and ran it from the top of her head down her cheek to the soft skin at the meeting of her neck and collarbone, before returning it again to her cheek. Jo felt every part of the skin she touched come alive with tiny bumps. She watched the expression on his face change to one of extreme seriousness.

"Jo," he began, saying her name like a breath of air.

Jo's heart jumped in her chest and she bobbed her head slightly. Dean moved slowly towards her, his eyes closing just as his lips closed over her top one. He kissed her gently, and for the second she was sure it only lasted, she felt her whole body come alive. She reached up to hold his hand as he pulled away, his beautiful brown eyes meeting hers as he rested her forehead against hers. Jo let her eyes flicker open and she smiled at him. Dean returned it, before softly pressing his lips against hers again.

"Forgiven?" he smirked, pulling away.

Jo smiled, "Forgiven."