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They dragged each other back to the Impala parked around the block and drove back to the room. Once there they went through the motions of patching themselves up in silence, the relief at being together again putting a temporary lid on the issues that were waiting to spring on them. They were all so quiet during those first few hours that no one saw anything abnormal in Dean's lack of speech.
The morning after they got him back Sam said they should get going, he was more than happy to never see that city again as long as he lived. But Dean just shook his head and retreated into the dingy bathroom for another marathon shower. He'd been taking a lot of those since the demon left his body.
Jack paid for the room next to theirs and hid away for two days trying to cobble her walls back together.
You can handle it, she told herself rocking back and forth. Then one of the images would sneak up on her again and she'd start from square one. Her hands shook as she rubbed her fingers over the bracelets around her wrists. She got up and paced the room. She didn't deal well with being overwhelmed, she lashed out at anyone and anything in her path. That was why she walled herself off from the boys while she worked to block out the things the demon had dredged up. Then she had moment of terror that snapped her out of the ritual of repression. The demon was still partially in Dean when it played out her worst memories. Dean might have seen. Jack sat down on the edge of her bed, bit her lip so hard it cracked open healing cut there and started to bleed anew.
Then she was filled with shame. Dean was hurting, she knew, because Sam would knock on her door at night and just sit and watch the crappy t.v. till he was sure Dean was sleeping before he went back. They didn't talk much, he seemed to know that she was still too messed up to do anything besides sit next to him and pretend to watch infomercials.
'He's your friend and your here feeling sorry for yourself.' Jack thought scornfully at herself as she sat on the bed. She pushed herself up intent on doing something besides wallow in self pity. A quick shower and Jack left the room for the first time in two days. The midmorning sun hurt her eyes, she spotted Sam leaning against his door watching something. She followed his gaze to the Dean in the parking lot of the motel splashing buckets of soapy water on the Impala.
"Hey." Jack said with an apologetic smile.
"Hi." Sam replied giving her a small nod.
"What's he doing?" Jack asked.
"Demon drove his car. He wants it to be clean again." Sam said.
:He told you that?" Jack asked hopeful that maybe that meant Dean was feeling better.
"No, he's still not saying anything." Sam said regretfully. Jack felt a pang in her chest. It was her fault Dean was like this, if she'd just held on.
"You feeling better?" Sam asked Jack, pulling her out of her thoughts.
"I'll live. Any idea what went on while he was different?" Jack asked nodding at Dean, now wiping down the windshield with an old t-shirt. His face was set in a determined scowl, like cleaning that car was all that mattered. Maybe in that moment it was.
"No, he barely looks at me. And he's been at this for over an hour." Sam said banging the back of his fist against the door he was leaning against. Dean was a living like a ghost the past few days. He was just sort of there. He didn't say anything, barely acknowledged Sam. He just drifted though t he days. Sam supposed he should be relieved that Dean at least left the room to wash the car. But the movements were so repetitive and manic that he wasn't so sure.
"Have you talked to your dad at all?" Jack asked.
"No. I can't deal with this and my dad at the same time." Sam said shaking his head. John left a message the night before but Sam had yet to call him back.
Sam didn't know what to do except give Dean the space he needed to work through this. He asked Dean what happened again an again only to be met with silence and the occasional stare that was trying to convey something to him but Sam didn't know what. Now all he could do was sit back and wait. Things like showers and washing his car was Dean's way of getting control back, Sam knew.
Three days later, Dean still hadn't said a single word. One day Sam woke up late in the afternoon and Dean was gone. He jumped out of bed and look in the bathroom and outside for any sign of Dean but both him and his car were gone. Sam went back in the room and nearly fell down with relief when he saw that Dean's duffel and weapon bag was still there. Dean wouldn't take off without those. Sam ran his hand through his hair then went through the motions of getting cleaned up and dressed. He hated this room, it was dirty, bugs scampered around the place and he just really wanted to leave Arizona behind period. Dean wouldn't leave and Sam didn't know why.
Dean looked at the address he'd dug up on the laptop then up at the building across the street from him. It was a working class place, neat and better than the neighborhood they were staying at. Certainly better than the place where the young mother was working late nights at that bar. The front door to the apartment building opened and a man in his late twenties walked carrying a baby carrier in one hand, with a sleeping infant strapped inside. Dean's throat closed. Her baby, he recognized him from the pictures. Dean followed the man carrying the carrier at a safe distance. They were heading towards a nearby playground.
Dean didn't know what the hell he hoped to gain from this excursion, except that every time he closed his eyes he saw that dead woman, Emma he found out her name was Emma Slone, she lived with her and her baby Timothy. Dean had raked over the tiny obit on his computer while Sam was next door trying to lose himself for awhile in Jack's room. The man opened the small fence that surrounded the playground, went inside and hugged a woman who looked eerily like Emma, her sister Dean remembered from what he'd read, and the man must have been her sister's husband.
Dean took a seat on a bench and opened his newspaper pretending to read while the two people talked. The two looked like they'd been through hell. The woman's clothes were disheveled, there were thick circles under her eyes and every time she smiled at her husband she looked like she was going to break down. She took the baby from the carrier and held him tight in her arms. A little blonde girl was tugging at the hem of her black sweater trying to get her attention. Dean watched the small family, newly broken by him. He felt the hot tears well up in his eyes.
He couldn't go on like this, he knew. Sam was worried sick about him, looking guilty every time Dean got up to take another random shower, every time Dean washed his car till his knuckles opened up again and started to bleed. Sam would quietly wrap them in gauze, ask him what happened and give a resigned sigh when Dean wouldn't answer. Jack kept opening her mouth and closing it like she couldn't think what to say, shifting from foot to foot like she wanted to run. He kept seeing fractured images that he knew were hers. He wasn't sure what to do with that information. He saw some things clearly in the mishmash though. He saw that she thought Dean being possessed was her fault. He wanted to tell her not feel that way but he couldn't find the words. He also saw how far she was willing to go to get him back with that stunt she and Sam pulled. He got angry every time he thought about. The anger was good it distracted him from feeling like a killer.
A baby crying pulled Dean from his thoughts. He looked up and saw Emma's sister bouncing baby Timothy in her arms as she walked back in forth shushing him. The man was pushing the blonde girl on the swings looking worriedly at his wife.
"Its okay Sammy, stop crying. Please don't cry." Dean said rubbing little circles on Sammy's legs the way he liked, to calm him down. Daddy was pouring over some book down stairs, so Dean was trying hard to get his one year old brother to go back to sleep.
"Daddy says he's going to make the bad things go away Sammy, so you don't have to cry anymore." Dean said. When that didn't work Dean climbed into Sam's crib and wrapped his arms around his brother. He began humming a lullaby his mommy always sang to him when she was alive. Sam eventually quieted and yawned big, seconds later he was sleeping soundly. Dean looked down at him, kissed Sam's forehead and closed his eyes.
Dean rubbed his eyes, sniffing hard to make it look like he had a cold and not like he was on the brink of sobbing right outside the park. The memory reminded him that this wasn't him, this wasn't who he was. Dean Winchester did not sit back and let himself fall apart. He had too much to do, too much he was responsible for. He folded up his newspaper and left on the park bench while in the background Timothy was finally calm again.
Sam came out of his room to see Jack sitting on the floor between the rooms with a brown paper bag that held a small bottle of cheap whiskey. She looked at him and held up the bottle. Sam sighed took the bottle downed some of the liquor and sat down next to her with his legs stretched out in front of him. His ribs were still hurting bad from the hits he took so sitting was not a fun thing to try. He drank some more to ease the ache there. Not much of the bottle was empty, she must have just gotten back from the store. Sam usually didn't drink hard stuff but Dean was fuck knows where and he really needed something to calm his nerves.
"You seen Dean?" Sam asked after a third mouthful. He handed the bottle back to Jack.
"No. I got up and he was gone." Jack said staring at the space where his car once was.
They sat in comfortable silence taking turns drinking sips of the drink neither wanting to get too buzzed.
"Jack?" Sam said after awhile.
"Hmm?" Jack rolled her head wound to see Sam looking at her curiously.
"What's the real story with the Devil's Trap on your back?" Sam asked. He'd been wondering about it for the longest but every time he asked she'd make a joke about it. "And don't give me the bit about the dark shaman threatening to pull out your spine and beat you with it. I read that book too."
Jack snorted and took another drink.
"He really did something along those lines but that wasn't why I got the tattoo." Jack acquiesced.
"Was it because of what you saw when you were five?" Sam asked her softly.
"After what I saw when I was a kid I was paranoid about getting possessed myself. "That started all kinds of trouble by the way," She started. "But I got the Trap tattooed on me for different reasons, when I was just turning seventeen."
"Remember when I s aid my ability made me a target because its so rare?" Jack asked. Sam nodded.
"Well there are rituals out there that someone, someone very powerful can do to take your ability. Like I said though, they'd have to be very powerful and its so much trouble that most of the baddies will just kill you or try to control you first.
"There was a dark shaman in butt-fuck Appalachia and he tried one such ritual. Didn't work. He ended up killing himself on accident." Jack snorted mumbling 'Idiot' under her breath. "But it came close. After that I did research, lot and lost of research. I found the demonic keep out sign and tested it out first. Nothing gets past The Devil's Trap and nothing leaves it. I did it to make sure no one could magically take my gift."
Sam was digesting this information when a shadow fell over him and her. Dean was glowering down at them.
"What if it didn't work?" He demanded, his voice thick from lack of use. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey and chugged it grimacing as the fiery drink made its way down his throat. He paced in front of them glaring at the two.
"What if it got past the tattoo, those aren't infallible you know. What if I'd killed you both?" Dean demanded harshly.
"Dean we do this all the time. We take chances, how is this different?" Jack said tiredly. Dean turned that fierce piercing gaze on her and his expression said it all. Because it was you two in harms way. And I couldn't protect you.
"We had to try." Sam said defensively. He knew Dean would get to this line of thought eventually. The relief that Dean had actually spoken didn't even have time to get through the alcohol induced cloud before the indignation hit.
"Why?" Dean asked. Sam jumped to his feet and grabbed Dean by the collar. Jack had a second to move out of the way before Sam slammed Dean against the wall she'd just been leaning against.
"Why! Did you just ask why Dean?" Sam yelled furiously.
"Sam, let go." Jack said trying to pry his hands from Dean's jacket before they came to blows.
"Let go Sam." Dean said. He wasn't looking Sam in the eye. It was a stupid question to ask, he deserved the murderous(he winced at the word) looks his was getting from the two of them. He knew why. If it was him he would've done anything to get one of the other two back. They took chances, they went in guns blazing and half cocked sometimes. Its what they did. Planning, luck, and balls out daring.
"You're my brother, Dean. Don't ever ask why I'd risk my life for you again." Sam said before letting go and stepping back.
Dean bent to pick up the bottle of liquor he'd dropped on the floor. A third of the bottle was gone now. He took another sip and handed it to Jack. He slid down on the floor avoiding the puddle of whiskey there. Jack took a place on one side and Sam on the other.
"Emma Slone." Dean said after a few minutes.
"What?" Sam asked.
"The name of the woman I killed." Dean answered looking straight ahead. He wouldn't look at their shocked faces at his confession.
"It wasn't you though." Sam rushed to assure his brother. "You had no control, you were barely able to keep it from killing me." Sam winced at his own choice of examples.
"Dean, I'm sorry." Jack said in a small voice. Dean looked at her, looking shocked and stricken. "But it wasn't your fault. Don't blame yourself."
"Its not yours either." Dean said seriously.
"It was demon. And only the demon." Sam said forcefully. The sat watching the sun go down, taking turns with the bottle till it was empty.
"Dad called." Sam said breaking the silence. Dean nodded.
"When are we leaving?" Jack asked.
"Tomorrow." Dean said. They didn't have another job yet but he was done with imprisoning himself in this city, watching the dead woman's world go on without her. He'd never lift that guilt but he had a job to do. He stood up, took the bottle Sam had been tapping on the walkway and threw it hard across the parking lot where it landed and shattered.
"Hey." Dean said turning to them suddenly. Sam looked at him questioningly.
"I thought you said something about m&m's before." Dean said. Jack snorted and Sam let go a fleeting smile.
He smirked at Sam and Jack and went back to his place between the two.
TBC……