Story Summary: After her husband, Sam, is brutally murdered, Jessica struggles with just getting out of bed in the morning. When a mysterious stranger knocks on her door, he makes her question everything she knew about her husband, but he also gives her hope that maybe Sam didn't leave her all alone in the world after all.
Dean woke up for the second time to the smell of food. If it was possible he felt more beat up than he did waking up on the floor. Where before he was mostly feeling the pain from his belly wound, now he could feel the road rash down his face, the gash on his hair line, and the numerous overtaxed muscles throughout his body.
He hadn't noticed it the first time he was conscious, but, on closer inspection of the lack of dirt and grime on his body, he realized Jessica had pretty much given him a sponge bath on her living room floor. He was grateful, but distinctly comfortable with the idea that his brother's wife had scrubbed him clean while he was unconscious and mostly naked.
Levering himself up slowly, he looked around and took in the guest room for the time while he wasn't in an exhausted haze. It was simple and strangely homey. There was a collection of photographs of famous landmarks that had obviously been taken by Jessica and Sam themselves. The dresser, bedside table, and bed were a matching set. The carpet under his feet was clean and soft.
The few decorative knick-knacks scattered around the room were obviously more souvenirs from their travels.
The knowledge that Sam had done all the things he'd dreamed about, became a lawyer, married the girl, got the white picket fence, and traveled somewhere outside the United States, was bittersweet. Dean couldn't be prouder of his little brother and he couldn't be more hurt for being abandoned and forgotten.
Pushing himself to standing, Dean moved over to the dresser and opened the drawers curiously. He was surprised to find all his clothes, washed and folded, neatly lined up inside. There was an odd feeling in his chest that landed somewhere between mildly violated and confusingly warm.
Jessica had gone rummaging around in his car. Dean figured that was probably where most of the feelings of violation came from. Nobody messed with Baby, but he couldn't find in himself to get angry about it. She was obviously trying to help, to do a good thing for him. He couldn't get mad at her even if he wanted to.
She, of anybody, should be exempt from his admittedly bad temper. She'd done so much for him, for Sammy. He was in her debt in almost every way conceivable. He'd let her invasion of Baby slide. Just this once, though.
He couldn't get out of Sam's clothes fast enough and he pawed through the drawers until he found the only pair of sweats he owned. They had holes in the knees and the cuffs were frayed, but they weren't his dead brother's and that was all that mattered. He didn't bother with shoes.
Padding out of the guest room silently, Dean found his way into the kitchen doorway. Jessica didn't know he was there so he just observed her.
She was barefoot, too, dressed in loose jeans probably reserved for lounging at home and a t-shirt with a hole in the armpit and a stretched out collar. Her long wavy blond hair was tangled up in a bun at the back of her head and she was humming absently to the crappy pop music playing on the kitchen radio.
Whatever she was cooking smelled good and Dean's stomach clenched with hunger. He'd obviously slept through dinner and the next lunch and as she'd said that morning he hadn't been getting in regular meals for a while now.
Dean continued to watch her unnoticed as she swayed to the music and stirred a wooden spoon in a saucepan. She was beautiful and his heart ached for Sam. He'd fallen in love with a good woman. He'd deserved a lifetime of being loved by her.
Jessica turned to grab some kind of spice from the rack on the counter and she caught a glimpse of him in the corner of her eye.
Dean felt a flicker of amusement when she jumped about a foot in the air.
"Jeezus!" She pressed a hand to her heart and gasped. "You scared me."
Dean stepped further into the kitchen and shrugged. "Sorry."
He didn't sound very sorry, but Jessica let it slide since he was still recovering.
Looking him up and down Jessica observed, "You found your clothes."
His face contorted, annoyed. "Yeah, about that. No one touches my car."
She just snorted at him, unimpressed. Dean tried not to scowl.
"I had to move your car into the driveway and get your clothes somehow." She turned back to the stove speaking over her shoulder. "You were passed out and in no shape to be driving anyway."
Dean was still not happy, but he couldn't argue. She was right.
"What are you making?" he changed the subject not trying to be subtle.
"You need the carbs so I'm making pasta." She sprinkled some random spice into the pan. "With meat sauce, of course."
His stomach gave an audible growl this time and Jessica hid a smile. "Sit down, it'll be ready in a minute."
He ignored her suggestion and shuffled toward the cabinets closest to him. "Where do you keep your plates?"
"Don't worry about it. I'll get it." She tried to intercept him. He turned a glare on her.
Paused mid step, Jessica took in his stubborn jaw and determined eyes. She sighed and went back to the stove.
"Cabinet right in front of you. Silverware in the second drawer from the left." There was no convincing him to sit down and she figured it would be less hassle and stress on both of them to just let him set the table. That at least wasn't strenuous enough to agitate his injuries.
They sat down to a massive amount of pasta and a giant green salad. Dean would have complained about that, but one look at Jessica's stern face and he kept quiet, shoveling two helpings of salad on his plate. He wondered if that look had worked on Sammy. Judging by the unsurprised satisfaction on her face he figured she'd had Sammy pretty whipped.
He shoved a large forkful of pasta in his mouth and almost groaned. Not that being whipped by Jessica would be a hardship if she used her powers for force feeding. She was a damn good cook.
Swallowing his big mouthful, he cleared his throat. "It's good."
She smirked at him. "Thanks."
They were quiet for a few minutes after that, just eating their dinner. Dean watched Jessica and could tell she had something on her mind. She had a little wrinkle between her eyes and was staring blankly at her plate. He decided to wait her out, once she figured out exactly what she wanted to ask, she would.
He didn't have to wait long.
Jessica took a casual sip of her water. "How are your wounds? Anything I need to take a look at?"
That wasn't what she had spinning around in her mind, but Dean let her stall. "My whole body feels like I got run over by a truck, but no more than usual, so I figure I'm good."
"And your belly wound?" She fiddled with her fork still trying for casual, but her fidgeting gave her away.
"Stitches held up," he said. "I probably won't have much of a scar. You did good."
She smiled absently. "Good. That's good."
They fell into silence again. Dean had cleaned his plate so he just sat back and watched her work up the courage for whatever it was that was on her mind.
She finally gave up and set her fork down. "That arsenal in your trunk. Is that a normal hunter thing, or just a… you thing?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "You got into my trunk?"
"Well, your duffle wasn't in the backseat," she replied, defensive. "I had to find it somehow."
He raised his hands in surrender, his lips twitching. "Easy. Just asking."
Jessica huffed, pursing her lips in annoyance. "Is the arsenal normal or not?"
His lips twitched a little bit, he tried to stomp down on his amusement. He didn't think she'd appreciate it.
"All hunters have something of an arsenal they travel around with. You can't just go around trying to pick up unregistered weapons in every town you have to hunt in."
"What about the -um- stakes and things?"
"Lots of things you gotta kill by staking them," he said. "Normally I wouldn't have so many, but I just got done with a pagan god hunt before I… before I read about Sam."
Jessica swallowed thickly and tried to press on. She was curious and needed a distraction. Supernatural arsenals provided a hell of a distraction.
"Are pagan gods a normal kind of hunt?" she asked.
"Nah, not usually." Dean reached across the table and helped himself to the last bit of pasta. "You don't usually find pagan gods in the US. If you do they're usually brought over with immigrants from their homelands."
Jessica mulled that one over and realized that it actually made a strange sorta sense. "Huh."
Dean smirked at her, enjoying her curiosity. "You got anything else on your mind?"
She frowned trying to think of anything other than what was actually on the tip of her tongue. Eventually she just gave up. "Throwing stars?" she burst out incredulously. "Really? What do you even kill with those?"
He threw his head back and laughed. Jessica startled at the sound and stared at him. He had a rusty, disused laugh, deep and gravely. It sounded like it was almost painful scraping up out of his throat.
Dean didn't realize he hadn't laughed in… years. He didn't know he could even laugh anymore. It had actually seemed like all happiness and mirth had been sucked out of the world when Sam died, but here he was sitting across from his brother's widow truly laughing for the first time in years.
Sucking in a breath to calm himself, Dean's eyes wrinkled as he grinned.
"Tell you the truth, sweetheart, I just think they're freaking cool."
Jessica was still a little stunned from the rolling sound of Dean's laughter that her own surprised her. She hadn't laughed since Sam had tickled her side and kissed her goodbye the morning of the day he died. It felt horrible and it felt freeing.
It was like a good pain. A healing hurt that told her there was still happiness in the world.
Here she was sitting across the table from her dead husband's brother laughing for the first time since her life as she knew it had ended. God, it hurt in the best way possible.
Their eyes met when Jessica's giggles started to taper off. The long-lost mirth reflected in both their eyes set them off again.
They sat in the kitchen with the remains of dinner between them laughing until they cried.
The next two days were filled with stubbornness infecting the whole house. Stubborn Dean refusing to sit down and rest like he should. Stubborn Jessica running roughshod over Dean's protests and putting her fingers in everything.
Like his wardrobe. There was so much wrong with it that Jessica could barely stand it. Before Dean could even blink she'd thrown out two thirds of his clothes and disappeared out the door so he couldn't even yell at her for it.
Jessica was used to shopping for helpless men, so it was barely any exertion to steal Dean's sizes and march through a department store like she was on a mission.
First things first, there hadn't been a single pair of Dean's underwear that didn't have a hole in it so she was starting from scratch there. She bought him enough boxer briefs for two weeks in a brand guarantied not to shred on the first run through a washing machine. It was practical and because she didn't want them to be boring she made sure they were in varied colors and masculine patterns.
He was down to one pair of jeans, so Jessica went there next and got him five pairs. She didn't bother with designer. She was pretty sure they were going to be covered in blood and dirt and other things soon enough so she just made sure they were dark wash and plenty durable.
She lingered awhile over the shirts and after some debate decided, "Screw it." She went for broke and got him winter clothes on top of fleshing out his t-shirts and plaids. Long sleeves, a couple sweaters, and at least one heavy jacket.
His shoes, she noticed, seemed to be only thing he hadn't neglected. His boots were well taken care of and high quality with a bit more life left in them. And of course his dress shoes had barely any wear and tear on them. She didn't have to worry there, but while she was thinking about it she swung by the formal section on her way to luggage.
She picked out a couple nicer dress shirts and lingered for a few minutes picking out few ties that didn't look like they were made of polyester from the '09s.
With basket laden with clothes Jessica finally wound up in the luggage section. It took her thirty minutes and one frustrated salesman, but she finally decided on large black duffle bag guarantied sturdy enough to be dragged around the world and beyond a couple times without tearing or ripping apart at the seams. It had enough pockets that Jessica figured Dean would have to work at it to be disorganized again.
In the end Jessica dropped cash in the upper three digits and spent five minutes in the parking lot cutting off all the tags. Dean wouldn't be able to complain about the price or try and return them. It was a done deal after that.
As she was pulling into her driveway at home Jessica thought about the fact that she just bought her brother-in-law, who she didn't even know existed before that week, an entire new wardrobe.
She was crazy, she realized. She was actually legitimately crazy. Because she wanted Dean Winchester to stay alive, stay healthy, stay in her life and not leave her alone with her suffocating grief. She didn't know of any other way of doing that than to take care of him in every way she could.
Such as buying him a new wardrobe and force feeding him prime cut grade-A beef steak and maybe possibly slipping him a completely legal over-the-counter sleep aid so he'd actually get the rest he needs.
Yep, she was absolutely crazy.
And Dean told her so when he saw the number of bags she was hauling in the house.
But Jessica looked at the healthier color of his skin, the lightening shadows under his eyes, and the easier way he was moving from lack of pain and exhaustion. And she just couldn't bring herself to care.
While Jessica was out buying him completely unneeded clothes and feeding him up like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, Dean was making his way around the house adding as many protections as he could with his limited range of movement and supplies.
Salt was all well and good for the short term, lining windows and doors in a motel for example. But if you wanted the protection to last, which he very much did, Dean spare no expense so to speak. He carved intricate powerful protections symbols on either side of every outside door and on both ends of every window sill. After a moment of debate Dean decided better safe than sorry and fixed up some of the purifying hex bags he'd learned from a psychic named Missouri several years before.
He didn't think Jessica would be too happy if he started punching holes in her drywall, so while she was off on another trip to the grocery store (with the goal of getting more food to continue fattening him up) he found the access into the attic in the garage ceiling. Climbing up the rickety ladder into the dim, sweating hot attic to plant the hex bags in the four corners of the compass was maybe a little beyond his physical capabilities at that point.
By the time he made it back down to the ground floor, closed up the attic access, and collapsed sweaty and dehydrated on the couch. Dean couldn't even get up to get some water, just promptly passed out and didn't wake up for three hours.
When he did open his eyes later that afternoon it was to a very unhappy Jessica standing over him with a scowl on her face.
"I don't know what the hell you did to exhaust yourself like this, but you better not do it again." She pointed a threatening finger at his chest and loomed over him. "'Cause if you do, I will not hesitate to chain you to the bed and keep you there until either you're completely healed or I'm satisfied you can behave yourself. Understood?"
Dean swallowed a slightly nervous lump in his throat and hoped his cheeks weren't as red as they felt.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, sincerely chastised and thoroughly ignoring the inadvertent suggestiveness of her threat.
Jessica eyed him for a moment before she straightened up and nodded. "Good. Dinner will be ready in ten."
She spun on her heel and stomped back into the kitchen, her steps still sounding angry.
Staring after her, Dean let out a breath and dropped his head back on the couch. Damn, Sammy, he thought, your girl can be freaking scary.
Ill-advised trip into the attic aside, Dean was able to place as many protections around the house and on Jessica's car as he could with his limited supplies and physical ability at the moment.
Demon activity, though it had risen in the last couple of decades, seemed to plateau since Yellow-Eyes had been put down. But the Winchester luck was notorious and bad, so Dean took advantage of Jessica going to work one day to dig out the black light spray paint from the trunk. He painted devil's traps on the ceiling in front of every door and window in the house. He even made his way to the end of the path leading up to Jessica's front door and painted one on the sidewalk.
After that he stashed a canister of salt, a bottle of holy water, and a length of iron rebar in the most heavily used rooms in the house. There was more he could do. There was always more he could do, but anything more required a moderate amount of demolition and excavation. And for that he would need Bobby.
"Okay, now what do you do if the lights start flickering and you feel cold spots?" Dean was seated across the kitchen table from Jessica, eating a dinner of stir-fry and grilling her on hunting safety measures.
"Um," Jessica popped a piece of fried broccoli in her mouth and made a show of thinking. "Call an electrician and air-condition guy?"
"Jessica," Dean grumbled unimpressed.
Rolling her eyes, Jessica conceded. "Grab the salt or iron and maybe the holy water if I can smell sulfur. Right?"
Satisfied, Dean nodded. "Right. And if someone can't cross the thresholds? If they're stuck in one of the devil's traps?"
"Definitely grab the holy water and call you," Jessica answered confidently. This would the third time Dean's quizzed her about supernatural safety. She was fairly sure he was just being overly paranoid, but considering her husband was killed by a werewolf a little over a month ago and Dean had been doing this since he was four, she would take it seriously. Or at least with minimal eye rolling.
"If I don't answer, I'm gonna give you a couple phone numbers to call. Other hunters that I trust," Dean told her shoveling the last morsels of dinner off his plate and into his mouth.
"That you trust?" she repeated as she stood from the table and grabbed up his plate.
"Yeah," he stood as well and began helping her clear the table. "Our dad never let us interact with very many other hunters and I can understand why," Dean said with a wry tone of voice. "The life of a hunter isn't one that many people take up willingly. It isn't often you can find a hunter that's as well adjusted as I am."
Jessica paused in scarping the leftovers into Tupperware and shot him a look. "In other words, you're saying most hunters are crazy."
Dean snorted and took the now empty bowl from her to start rinsing it in the sink. "There's two types of crazy hunters," he explained, squirting blue dish soap in the sink and picking up a scrub brush. "There's the mostly harmless ones that have maybe seen one too many things in their career and it's messed them up a little. And then there's the ones that enjoy the job a little too much."
There was a dark shadow over Dean's face and Jessica studied his expression curiously as she took the freshly scrubbed skillet from his hand to load into the dishwasher. "What do you mean, 'enjoy the job too much'?"
Dean spent a long moment intensely scrubbing at a streak of cooked on grease on another pan before he spoke. "Some hunters don't do the job to help people, to save them from the supernatural monsters in the night. They do the job because they like the killing."
A shiver ran up Jessica's spine and she straightened from the dishwasher, turning to fully face him. Dean shut off the faucet and stared blankly into the murky dishwater sitting in the sink.
When he didn't say anything, Jessica prompted him softly, "Dean?"
He took a deep breath and reached into sink to pull the drain plug before he turned to face her as well. "I met a hunter a few years back. Bodies were dropping in town, decapitated. With the cattle deaths, I thought it was some kind of demon or satanic cult," Dean started to tell the story and Jessica was acutely aware of how dark it was outside, how quiet the house was, the slight chill from the cooled air coming through the vents.
"I dug around a little more and discovered the bodies weren't human. They were vampires and someone wasn't cleaning up after their kills."
She almost didn't want to ask, but Jessica was so curious. "What do you mean by that?"
Lifting his gaze to meet hers from where he'd been glaring at the floor, Dean's brow smoothed out and he explained, "When you've killed a monster, it's best to salt and burn the body. You never know what might happen with the supernatural and you should always cover your bases. Not to mention it gets rid of evidence if the scene's found by local law enforcement or something. This guy, he wasn't doing any kind of cover up. He was just dropping monster bodies and walking away."
Dean halted his story and seemed to need a minute to get his thoughts in order, so they quickly finished loading the dishwasher, turning it on, and retreated into the living room.
Jessica took her favorite spot in the loveseat and Dean spread out across the couch. He picked up the story again.
"Other things weren't adding up either," he told Jessica, and she listened raptly sipping at her coffee. "There wasn't any evidence of vampire kills in the town and there was no obvious explanation for the cattle deaths."
Dean took a heavy gulp of his coffee and continued. "Long story short, I ended up in a sit down with the nest mistress." Jessica was really tempted to ask how that came about, but since Dean had deliberately skipped over the details she figured he had reason. "Come to find, they're vegetarian vampires or some bullshit. Only drink from animals. They were trying to set themselves up on a self-sustaining pig farm," he explained still sounding incredulous and mildly offended even after several years. Jessica quickly took a sip of her coffee to hide her smirk.
"So, what did you do?" she asked, composing her face into a neutral curiosity.
A dark expression stole across Dean's features. "I tried to talk to the other hunter, but he already knew. He knew they were harmless and he didn't care. He'd been chasing them across the country for the last six months and refused to let them go. So," he hesitated, before he finished, "when he tried to set another trap for them I stopped him. The vegan vampires left town and I never caught them on my radar again."
Jessica didn't ask what he meant by "I stopped him". She had a feeling there was a lot more to the story and she had a feeling that Dean wasn't going to elaborate. Whatever else had happened between him and the other hunter it hadn't ended well, she could tell that much.
"This guy sounds like an asshole," she comments.
Dean snorted into his coffee and flashed her an amused smirk. "Yeah, he was an asshole. But the point I was trying to make was that he cared more about killing the monsters than protecting the innocent. Unfortunately, I've met a fair few hunters like that. It's easy to see the world in black and white when you're hunting, but even the supernatural has shades of gray, has exceptions to the rules."
This was a different side she hadn't seen of Dean yet, Jessica realized, the philosopher behind the hunter. It hadn't really occurred to her that there were ethics issues involved in hunting. That not all supernatural things had to be bad. It was fascinating. She wanted to know more.
"What other exceptions are there?" she asked, genuinely interested.
And it seemed Dean genuinely didn't mind explaining, because for the next couple of hours Jessica learned about the gray areas of the supernatural world. That rugarus could live off of raw beef. Werewolves didn't have to eat human hearts. Witches made just as effective hunters as ordinaries did. Ghosts can foretell of dangers instead of causing them. And sometimes humans were the real villains of the story. Whether intentionally or not.
"So, these college kids just created a fully functioning murderous urban legend by spray painting some symbols on a wall?" she summed up incredulously.
"Ugh," Dean grimaced at the memory. "Those two idiots from the Hell Hound's Lair website certainly didn't help. Every time they changed the legend on their webpage the tulpa would develop a new MO."
"How did you stop it?" Jessica asked eagerly.
"Burnt the whole place down," Dean answered simply, like arson was the answer to all of life's troubles. Considering how often fire was the only way to stop whatever he was hunting that week, Jessica figured that was actually a pretty valid method of problem solving.
Then there were the tragic endings to the sad stories. Like the blind preacher whose wife used black magic and reapers as murder weapons. Or the little girl that was poisoned by her step-mother and could only communicate through deadly fairytales. Or the brother and sister locked away in the basement by their abusive (grand)father.
Jessica's stomach was starting to roll and she wiped a tear from her cheek as it escaped her horrified blue eyes.
"How do you do it, Dean?" she rasped around the lump in her throat. "How do you deal with all this evil all the time?"
A heavy warm hand landed on her knee and gave it a comforting squeeze. Glancing up from her lap she saw Dean had scooted closer and was staring at her with kind green eyes.
"Yeah, a lot of what I do is horrible, but sometimes it's not so bad," he said, sounding as reassuring as possible. "Remind me to tell you about the giant alcoholic teddy bear or the shapeshifter Count Dracula sometime."
Jessica gave a weak chuckle and nodded, rubbing under her eyes to whisk away the last traces of tears. "But not tonight," she said. "It's almost midnight and you still need your rest," casting him a stern look, which he returned with an eye roll.
Giving her knee a last squeeze, Dean let her go and levered himself off the couch offering Jessica a hand up as well. "Whatever you say, Mom," he muttered sarcasticly.
Jessica sniffed unimpressed and pushed him in front of her down the hall toward their bedrooms. "I wouldn't have to keep nagging you if you just did what I told you to do in the first place."
Pausing at the door to the guest room, Dean turned a very unconvincing innocent expression on her. "But what would be the fun in that?"
Jessica leveled him with an unimpressed look and said pointedly, "Goodnight, Dean."
Chuckling, Dean turned to his room and waved flippantly over his shoulder at her, calling, "'Night, Jessica," as he shut the door.
Shaking her head in reluctant amusement, Jessica turned to her own room and got ready for bed. Hopefully she would be nightmare free tonight, but somehow she doubted it.
It was nice, Jessica decided, having another human being in the house. It kept the loneliness at bay, the grief was quietly ebbing away the longer her attention was taken up by nursing Dean back to health and learning about the world of the supernatural made her feel closer to Sam. The world seemed almost new to her, so moving on didn't seem akin to a death sentence anymore.
Dean had been sleeping in her guest room and cleaning out her fridge of a week and unfortunately, no matter how many stalling tactics Jessica employed, she was only able to get him to stay for a week and a half longer. She was lucky she got that long she knew, but it seemed to her that she wasn't the only one that was lonely. Dean had spent the last decade or so all alone on the road facing the evils of world by himself. Maybe he liked having someone else there to share the burden with.
And Jessica was eager to hear about anything and everything Dean was willing to tell her. The good, the bad, and the ugly, she listened to it all with an open mind, kind expression, and no judgment.
But eventually Dean couldn't justify staying off the road any longer and since Jessica had taken his stitches out, she couldn't think of valid reason to keep him there.
"Alright, this looks good," Jessica murmured as she examined the wound on Dean's belly. It was still red, not yet fully healed, but the new skin looked healthy and knitted together cleanly. "Do you feel any pain or tenderness when I do this?" she asked as she pressed practiced fingers around the wound and into the muscle under it.
Dean held his breath as he felt Jessica's cool fingers gently stroke over the skin of his belly. It had been a long time since a woman had touched him like this, but the fact that it was brother's widow was enough to shove any straying thoughts back in the deep dark corner where they came from.
"Maybe a little tender, but no pain," Dean answered when Jessica glanced up at him expectantly when he didn't respond immediately.
She hummed and dropped her fingers from his skin. Then she took a little penlight and flashed it in his eyes one after the other, checking his pupils. When she was satisfied with that she put the buds of a stethoscope in her ears and pressed the icy cold bell to his chest.
Hissing, Dean jerked back from the shock, but stilled when Jessica pinned him with a scolding look. Frowning petulantly, Dean straightened in his seat again, grumbling, "It's cold," under his breath.
Rolling her eyes, Jessica brought the bell to her lips and breathed a couple puffs of warm air on the metal. She pressed it Dean's chest again with a raised eyebrow, "Better?"
Tearing his gaze away from her lightly smirking lips, Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Let's just get this done."
Jessica listened to his heart, listened to him breath deep from his chest and his back. She tested his reflexes, his flexibility, his blood pressure, and went so far as to pull out a small meter and test his blood sugar level. Hell, she even made him get on her bathroom scale.
"What does it matter how much I weigh?" Dean huffed as they waited for the digital numbers to stop cycling.
"It matters," Jessica replied sternly as she marked down the ending number in Dean's makeshift chart with a not quite satisfied expression, "because when you collapsed on my front porch you were almost dangerously underweight."
"What? No I wasn't!" Dean protested.
"Yes," Jessica shot back, "you were. You were also suffering from extreme exhaustion, dehydration, and malnutrition. That's mostly why you passed out the way you did. You hadn't really lost enough blood to put you down like that under normal circumstances."
A dark scowl etched over Dean's green eyes, but he couldn't really refute that. He knew he hadn't really been taking great care of himself, but he hadn't realized just how bad it must have been. He hadn't really much cared at the time, though. Even before Sammy had been killed, Dean had been battling the loneliness and the stress of being a solo hunter on the road by himself. He hadn't been stopping in at Bobby's or the Roadhouse nearly as often as he should, hadn't been getting the sleep and rest he knew –but didn't like to admit- was vital for keeping a hunter alive.
Hopping off the scale and tugging his t-shirt back over his head, Dean was quiet while Jessica muttered to herself and finished jotting down all of his results in the chart she'd made him to track his healing progress.
When she gave a grudging huff and flipped the folder shut, Dean dared to ask, "So, what's the verdict, Doc. Am I gonna live?"
Jessica gave him an unimpressed scowl then her expression smoothed out and she sighed. "You'll live. You're not as heavy as I'd like and your blood pressure is a little high, but your wounds are healing nicely and the last two weeks of rest have done you some good." She paused and seemed to be studying his face, his eyes very intently.
"You're gonna be fine, Dean," she summed up with a softer, though almost sad expression. "As long as you get at least seven hours of sleep most nights and eat three balanced meals a day, you should be in better shape than when you came here."
Dean studied her in return, the tense set of her mouth, the tight look around her eyes, the stiff way she was standing. "If everything's fine, then what's wrong, Jessica?"
A gust of breath escaped her and she swiped a hand over her head fiddling with her ponytail with nervous fingers. "Nothing, I just-… I don't-…" She inhaled sharply and crossed her arms over her chest with a frown. "I'm just not looking forward to the house being empty again, when you go."
Dean felt his stomach sink and he frowned. It wasn't that he hadn't thought about the fact that when he got back on the road he was leaving his brother's girl alone by herself, it was just that until that moment he hadn't really taken into account what that would actually mean. Jessica wouldn't have anyone once he was gone. And it wasn't as though she was safe just because Dean had warded her house as best as he could. He more than anyone knew that anything could and would happen once you were touched by the supernatural.
It took a split second of him running nightmare scenarios in his head of all the bad horrible things that could happen to her without him or Sam there for Dean to come to a decision.
"You make it sound like you're never gonna see me again," Dean drawled trying to sound nonchalant.
Jessica's expression loosened in surprise, a flash of hope quickly buried under caution. "What do you mean?"
"How are you gonna be sure I'm getting those three meals a day unless you're the one feeding me?" He smirked at her. "'Cause believe me, now that I know what a good cook you are, diner burgers just aren't going to cut it like they used to for very long."
She met his smirk with a faux exasperated huff and a badly concealed smile. "Well, if that's the only way I can ensure you don't starve yourself, I expect to see you at least every couple of months. And you better be prepared for me to check you over," she instructed with a sternly pointed finger. "If I'm not satisfied then you better have a damn good explanation ready."
"Wouldn't expect anything less," Dean drawled with a softer grin as he followed Jessica's lightened footsteps from the bathroom back to the kitchen.
"Damn straight," Jessica tossed back over her shoulder on her way to the fridge. "Now what do you want for dinner? I'm thinking pork chops."
Dean set about helping Jessica prepare their dinner with a quietness inside of him he hadn't felt in a very long time. When he'd first come into town to bid his brother farewell and avenge his death, Dean hadn't had any intention of staying longer than it took to kill the think that killed Sam. Now, he was familiar with the contents of all the kitchen cabinets, he knew just how long the hot water lasted in the guest shower, and the exact rattling sound the back door made when the rain made the wood swell and stick when opening. Now, he knew the soothing sound of Jessica's distracted melodic humming as she moved around the kitchen making dinner, or sat folding laundry, or tidied up the house, or got herself dressed and ready for the day behind her closed bedroom door.
He felt a powerful surge of protectiveness crash through him at the thought of Jessica Moore Winchester being left alone and lonely in her big house without Dean there.
"Hey, Dean, you wanna stop standing there and peel me some garlic for the salad dressing?"
Pulled out of his thoughts, he hadn't realized he'd been staring at her back just listening to her hum while she reasoned the pork chops and dropped them in the skillet to cook.
"Sure," he mumbled walking over the pantry to pull out a head of garlic and a paper towel to catch the papery skins. "How many do you want?"
"Three or four should be fine," Jessica responded distracted as she started in on putting the aforementioned salad together.
The kitchen fell into a quiet den of cooking clatter and Dean sat at the kitchen table working at his task letting the sound of Jessica's renewed humming sooth something ragged and weathered inside himself. If he hadn't already resolved to protect and watch over her, the ease and comfort he felt in that moment would have decided it for him.
TBC…