I'm sorry the updates aren't coming sooner. But like I've said before, it's really disheartening and annoying that 28 people are alerted to updates for this story, but I average 2 reviews every chapter. So if the updates come less and less, it's for this reason.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sam waited patiently and absolutely as quietly as possible so as not to disturb Dean, though he was quite unsure of whether or not he could even wake Dean after what had happened. His hands clenched the steering wheel so tightly that he was perfectly prepared for when his knuckles broke through the skin. Hell, part of him was even looking forward to it. Anything was better than Dean waking up and becoming vengeance, becoming wraith. And Sam would take the brunt of it even though it wasn't his fault Janelle refused to get back in the car, and Sam wouldn't allow Dean to yell at Janelle anymore.
"Come on, Janelle," Sam whispered.
"Sam!" Dean suddenly screamed, his foot jamming into the front seat.
Sam's eyes snapped shut, but he spun around, thrusting himself over the seat and clenching Dean's shoulders. "Dean!" he yelled. "Take a deep breath."
"Sam!" Dean shrieked, his eyes wandering around aimlessly, as he was handicapped by temporary blindness - a parting gift from Elathan.
"Dean!" Sam shouted, jerking Dean's shoulders. "Breathe!"
Dean sucked in a breath, but it was strangled, as if he wasn't getting enough air; Sam remembered all too well going through it, too, when he'd awoken from his deep sleep almost two hours before.
"Breathe, Dean," Sam demanded, with another jolt of his brother's broad shoulders.
Moments later, Dean's breathing became regulated as he held onto Sam's biceps. And then he pushed Sam away, kicked open the backdoor, leaned over and threw up onto the street.
Sam turned around in the front seat, trying to block out Dean's heaving and gagging. He'd thrown up as well, but he guessed now probably wasn't the best time to tell Dean.
"Sam," Dean croaked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and realizing, as he stared unsteadily down at whatever he'd recently eaten, that the street was not rushing beneath the car like it should have been, and Sam obviously had not been driving when he'd counseled him through his lack of oxygen. "Why the hell aren't we moving?"
Sam cracked his neck, returning his death-like grip to the steering wheel. "Janelle won't get in the car. She won't even come near it," he reluctantly confessed.
"What?" Dean yelled, snapping his head in Sam's direction. He jumped out of the backseat, minding the partially digested puddle, and, though dizzy, jogged to the front of the Chevy.
Janelle was pacing back and forth frantically, her hands shaking radically in front of her chest. It was more than evident that she was nearly hyperventilating with tears streaming down her cheeks.
A breakdown; just what Dean needed.
"I'm sorry, Dean," she suddenly blurted out. "This is my fault, and I'm sorry." She whimpered, and Dean sighed heavily.
Dean instinctively reached out, wrapping his arm around her neck and tugging her much smaller body against his chest. She shook in his grasp and tried to wiggle away, but he held fast until she relented and fell into the embrace.
"It's alright," Dean whispered. "As long as you're okay." He felt Janelle nod against his chest and he nodded as well. "Good, now, can you get back in the car, or are we gonna have to walk all the way to New Mexico?"
Janelle glanced up at him, apprehension and fear written all over her face, but she somehow managed to shake her head. "Not yet," she whispered. "Bad things happen in that car."
"All right," Dean replied in the same whisper. "A few minutes, okay? Then we have to go." He watched for a moment, as Janelle gulped and returned her attention to promptly freaking out, and then he walked around the car to where Sam was standing out of the way.
Dean was about to come out of his pants in rage. He wanted more than anything to bitch and moan and complain about everything he and his brother shared, but he just didn't. Bitching, moaning and complaining were all classified as weaknesses and Dean Winchester didn't do weakness.
"I wanna kill it, Sam," he forced out through clenched teeth.
Sam inhaled deeply, nodding his head. "I know," he said. "Me, too. But we both know the only thing we can do is exorcise it."
"No, there's gotta be a way to kill it," Dean ranted, pacing to and fro in front of Sam and nearly in the middle of the road.
"We can't worry about that now, Dean," Sam reasoned, leaning back on the Chevy. "We just have to prepare ourselves better for next time."
"We can't let there be a next time, Sam!" Dean shouted, halting his pacing, standing before Sam with a hand on his hip.
"Dean, you're not treating this like any other case," Sam stated, tilting his head as he inspected his brother curiously. He wasn't sure exactly how to cope with Dean's sensitivity and softness toward Janelle as opposed to Let's handle this shit so we can get the hell out of this town.
"Don't you fuckin' do that," Dean warned, pointing a finger.
"Well, Dean, it's true," Sam admitted, pushing away from the car. "If Janelle were a guy or some chick you didn't make out with, would you have taken them cross country to be exorcised?"
Dean's eyes grew round and darkened with rage just before he gripped Sam's shirts and shoved him back against the car. Both brothers were eerily reminded of the bridge incident with Constance Welch.
"Don't do that," Dean whispered, raising his eyebrows. When he was aware of Sam's surrender - hands dropping, eyes falling - he slowly released his shirts and backed away.
"Dean!" Sam shouted, gripping his brother's shoulders and spinning them, throwing Dean against the car. Some late model sports car whizzed by, nearly flattening Dean on the pavement.
Dean languidly turned to look at his little brother, who'd just saved his life, and he didn't think about thanking him or apologizing for being such a hardass of late; he only thought of some evil force trying to stop him from getting Janelle to New Mexico. Something Hell-sent was responsible for that car almost hitting him.
"I'm losin' it, Sam," Dean confessed incredulously, "And I don't even know why."
Sam wished he could understand how Dean was feeling so that he could comfort his brother, but he had no idea what Dean was going through.
"Well, you have to keep it together, Dean," he said forcefully. "For Janelle."
As if on cue, Janelle tip-toed over to them, pushed Sam and then Dean out of her way and then reached into the car to turn the key. The Impala roared to life, and the brothers shared a look.
"I wanna go home," she whispered, turning to them, looking at one and then the other. "So I don't really care who's losing it and who's keeping it together. I just need you to get me to … this guy, whoever he is, and get this … thing out of me." Her watery eyes met Dean's. "Because I don't want to die."
Dean rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "Get in the car," he ordered. Janelle hurriedly climbed into the backseat without a word. He expected her to give him some sort of look or maybe a nod, but she simply did not. Dean turned his attention to Sam. "Get in the car," he reiterated. As Sam walked around the front of the Impala, Dean commented, "One big happy fucking family."
Dean checked his mirrors very quickly before pulling onto the road with squealing tires. There was silence, which was exactly how he liked it under normal circumstances, but now, during such silence, all he could do was think. Think about Janelle and her possession and the dreams he'd been having about her. Think about how the only reason he hadn't stubbornly attempted another exorcism was because Sam would never allow him to; come Hell or high water, Sam always put his brother's well-being ahead of anyone else's. Think about how he hadn't thought about looking for their father since meeting Janelle. Think about what was going to happen when he met Malcolm Rose, who was probably planning on actually shooting him this time.
Blindly, he reached into the box full of cassettes, not caring whether it was his box or Janelle's, pulled one out, and shoved it into the player. When the sound of a harmonica filtered through the speakers, Dean rolled his eyes. Damn it, Sam hadn't mentioned a goddamn Faster Pussycat tape in her collection.
"It's a little passed suppertime," the lyrics began. "I'm still out on the porch step sittin' on my behind, waitin' for you. Wonderin' if everything's all right. Mama said, 'Come in, boy, don't waste your time.' I said, 'I got time. Well, he'll be here soon.' Five-years-old and talkin' to myself. Where were you? Where'd you go? Daddy, can't you tell?"
Dean swallowed the lump in his throat and squirmed in his seat unnoticed. Sure, he had a father, but only in the physical sense. John Winchester was never actually all the way there for him or Sam when they were younger. Instead of growing up, young Dean Winchester had been thrown up.
"You shouldn't worry, Janelle," Sam said soothingly, and Dean saw that the two were looking at each other.
Janelle was silent in her response. She was scared, Dean knew, terrified even, but there was nothing he could do for her. She knew what was happening to her, knew about the evil entity inside of her. He did find happiness, though, and relief, in the realization that Janelle could have been stuck at home with not but Catholic priests to call for help. Instead, she was with him, and Sam, and that was as safe as she was going to get.
"Wasn't I worth the time?" the song continued, and Dean was jolted by memories of thinking the same thing when he'd discovered his father had left him without so much as a goodbye. "A boy needs a daddy like a dance to a mime, and all the time … I looked up to you. I paced my room a million times. All I ever got was one big line, the same old lie. How could you? Well, I was eighteen and still talkin' to myself. Where were you? Where'd you go? Daddy, can't you tell?"
Goddamn, Dean needed a cigarette, and he hadn't smoked since he was … eighteen.
"I'm not tryin' to fake it and I ain't the one to blame. No, there's no one home in my house of pain. I didn't write these pages and my script's been rearranged. No, there's no one home in my house of pain."
"How much farther?" Janelle quietly asked, wrapping Dean's jacket around herself.
"Depends," Dean said.
"On what?" she looked tiredly up at him.
"On whether or not we get pulled over," Sam immediately interjected, knowing that Dean would probably make some mention about how everything depended on the demon inside of her. That was true, but Janelle didn't need to hear it.
More horribly uncomfortable silence.
"Hope you guys don't mind the music," Janelle said, chuckling awkwardly.
"No, I like Faster Pussycat," Dean was quick to announce, as if the information was a ticket straight to Heaven. "Sam, on the other hand, misses his Backstreet Boys CD."
Janelle giggled and glanced up at Sam, who shrugged and nodded, deciding to just go along with the joke.
"It's true," he sighed.
Hours later, closing in on the Arkansas/Oklahoma border, Dean pulled over at a Shell station at Janelle's bathroom request. As Dean headed inside for drinks and snacks and scratch-off lottery tickets, Sam followed Janelle to the bathroom, which was on the side of the building. He opened the door for her with the key attached to the wooden rectangle and took Dean's jacket from her.
"If you need anything, I'm right outside," he told her.
Janelle nodded and closed the door. After relieving herself, she proceeded to wash her hands. She gazed at her reflection in the cracked mirror for a moment and then returned her attention to her hands.
"In nomine Patris," a voice - her voice - broke the silence. She jumped away from the sink and slammed into the wall behind her. "Et Filii," she continued, but it wasn't her speaking; it was her reflection. "Et Spiritus sancti."
"Who are you?" Janelle whispered, her entire body shaking with fright.
"You will suffer," her reflection disclosed, "monumentally, as you do now. You have been overcome by evil, but you still do not believe in the good inside of you. Your senses are blinded."
Janelle's stricken expression abruptly turned cold. "Is that why this is happening to me? Because I don't believe in good? Give me one good goddamn reason why I should."
"Should you choose to accept your fate; the fate of the others will be altered."
"What the hell does that mean?" Janelle nearly yelled, grabbing hold of the sink.
Outside, Sam leaned against the wall next to the door. Upon hearing muffled voices, he pushed away from the wall and stood before the door. "Janelle?" he called. "Are you all right?"
"Cursing at me will do you no good," her reflection calmly continued. "It will not change the result, either."
"Accept my fate," Janelle whispered, examining this statement thoroughly. "I'm gonna die," she breathed, looking up at the mirror.
"Yes," her reflection replied.
"Why?" Janelle cried, tears slipping down her cheeks.
"You carry something inside of you. Something pure. Something undiscovered."
"I don't understand," Janelle growled.
"If recent events are any indication, the gift within you will not be discovered in time. It will be a universal lesson. Your lives will save others."
"Lives?" The tears suddenly stopped and she returned to anger. "They'll die, too?"
"They knew the consequences of the mission they accepted."
"You want me to accept dying, I will, but I will not let them die."
"The decision is not yours to make." Her reflection was adamant. "You will die during the exorcism; they will die in the battle."
"Janelle?" Sam called again.
Janelle glanced in the direction of the door and then turned back to the mirror to find her own reflection; not one possessed by … something else. After drying her tears and making herself as presentable as possible, she opened the door to a very concerned Sam, who looked as though he was ready to break down the door.
"Are you all right?" he asked, gripping her shoulders.
"I'm fine," she lied, smiling crookedly.
"Come on, kids!" Dean shouted as he headed across the parking lot with a bag full of junk food and caffeine beverages and lottery scratch-offs that were more than likely a waste of money, but he couldn't help but hold onto the hope that one day he'd win the big bucks. "I wanna get the hell out of this state!"
"I'm glad he announced that around the locals," Janelle muttered, taking Dean's jacket when Sam offered it.
Sam chuckled, stuffing his hands in his pockets as they strolled toward the Impala. "Well, Dean's never gotten along with locals anywhere." He opened the back door for her, and she climbed in.
"Do you ever win on those?" Janelle wondered, watching Dean scratch away one of four tickets.
Dean glanced at her. "Sometimes," he shortly replied.
"He means never," Sam corrected.
Dean gave his brother a look as he scratched away the silver areas on the tickets. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. Dean looked over the winning ticket and upon reading that he'd won $250, he passed the ticket to Sam, causing his little brother's eyebrows to shoot up into his hairline.
"You won," Janelle whispered.
"Yes, darlin', I did," Dean smirked at her over his shoulder before stealing the ticket back from Sam and taking it inside to cash it. "The only thing better than spending someone else's money is winning your own!" he exclaimed, holding up the cash.
"That won't last long," Sam commented quietly from the passenger seat, referring to Dean's drinking and gambling and incredible appetite.
"That's why we got credit cards, Sammy," Dean said, starting the car.
"With other people's names on them," Janelle argued.
"So?" Dean said, flipping through the tapes.
"I'd like to do this as legal as possible." Both Sam and Dean looked at her. "If that's all right with you."
Dean shoved a tape into the player and chucked up the volume a great deal. The sounds of coins jingling and a cash register drawer slamming came through the speakers, and Dean felt himself smile. If he'd just won a nice wad of cash, by God, he was going to listen to a song about money.
"Is this Pink Floyd?" Sam questioned.
"Yeah, why?" Dean asked.
Sam's lips curled and he nodded slowly. "Nothin'. Just expected it to be something heavier."
"Money!" Dean suddenly, obnoxiously shouted, pounding his hands on the steering wheel. Maybe it was a way to let loose, maybe it was a way to vent anger and frustration. Whatever Dean's reason was, it didn't matter, because Janelle was grinning, even giggling, and both Sam and Dean were mighty thankful for it.
What the brothers didn't know was that Janelle's sudden brightness was simply a façade. All that was on her mind was the bathroom incident. She wanted to think that she wasn't afraid of dying, but of course she was. However, she felt more fear for Sam and Dean's lives. They were only trying to help her; there was no reason for them to die for it. But she would see to it that this outcome was not made reality. Neither Winchester was going to die protecting someone like her; someone who lacked faith and the belief in good people.