I'm always apologizing for late chapters, and, true to form, here we are again, whoops. I'm not totally happy with the end of this section, but I couldn't wrap it up any other way and didn't want to make you guys wait any longer. There is another holiday/family chapter up next before we get back to business plot-wise and get some things moving. On the plus side, AP tests are done, and I'm trying to get a head start on the next chapter so these long breaks won't happen. Massive massive thank yous to VegasGranny, bagelcat1, TXKimsonFan, Guest, Dearhart, and Celtic Knot for sticking with this though all of the sporadic updates, you guys are huge motivators in this whole process :P
Still don't own Supernatural in the 3 weeks that have passed. *but that finale...I am so looking forward to what Jensen is going to do with this next season*
Donna did eventually let Dean go, and he followed Sam and Cas inside while Donna shut the door. By the time they were in the main room, Jody was out of the kitchen, hands slightly damp, but a smile on her face.
"Like the hair," Dean commented, which only made her smile grow. It was short and silver, compared to the long brown hair she's had months/years ago. He didn't know how long she'd had it like this, but it suited her.
"Ever the charmer," she replied, making her way over to hug Dean first, maybe a bit tighter than she normally would, not that Dean would know. From what Sam and Cas had filled him in on, they were all close. She had threatened to use a mom voice on Sam, a story which he retold fondly, and that told Dean almost all he needed to know.
He chuckled lightly back when she pulled away and hugged Sam and Cas in succession, leaving them standing in the room.
"Alex is working the night at the hospital, she'll be back for tomorrow," Jody explained. "Claire's in her room, probably with the music on, I'll go bug her in a sec-" she started, but trailed off when the girl in question walked into the room.
"I heard voices," she mentioned, but when her eyes fell onto the three men, she too trailed off.
She was almost…ten years older than when Dean had seen her. It would definitely take some getting used to. She was a full-fledged teenager now, that held herself highly, with the same blonde hair that her younger self had possessed, just more wavy. She came up to Dean almost carefully, then hugged him too, and made the rounds to Sam and a somewhat awkward one to Cas, but at least they were trying.
In a way, it was easier for Dean to keep looking at Donna, who he didn't know and therefor had no one else to compare her to. But it would just take some getting used to, that was all, he just had to keep reminding himself.
"So," Jody started again, breaking the happy silence that had fallen over the room, everyone pleased to again be under the same roof, this time in favorable circumstances, "the main stuff is for tomorrow, but we've got plenty of chicken and other things leftover from last night if that's good with everyone?"
They all nodded in unison. "Sounds perfect," Sam answered for them all. Jody seemed to accept that, and moved back into the kitchen. Claire turned around to talk to Cas, and Donna to Sam, so Dean found himself wandering into the kitchen behind Jody.
"Care to give me a hand?" Jody asked, seeing that he had followed and apparently being happy about that fact.
"Anything food related that I can be of service with, sure," Dean replied and shot her a smile. She passed him a few bowls and plates of things to put into pans, which they then put into the oven. He told her a few things about cooking he had picked up on during his time working as head chef of a million different motel kitchenettes (and apparently implemented in the bunker's kitchen to a much better degree, as Sam had happily told him), and if she had heard them before, she didn't remark on it.
Every so often, her eyes would linger just a second longer on him while passing a tray off, and she'd smile to herself. The light conversation between the two of them was easy to keep up, avoiding touchy subjects, and it didn't take long for Dean to see why she had become so close with them.
She was fiercely protective of the girls, even if they didn't always appreciate it, and he could tell just by the few stories she told of them about how school was going, or about some idiot male nurse who had tried to tell Alex how to do her job. Without her even remarking on it, he knew that protectiveness probably also extended to he and Sam, given how much they had all been through together.
He got his solid answer when, conversations still going in the other room and after the last pan was put into the oven to reheat the leftovers, Jody leaned back against the counter and looked at him.
"I know this must all be…a whole nine yards of crazy and weird," she started as Dean leaned up against the opposite end, "and you've probably heard this a few times already, but it's good to have you back, Dean, really good." There was a slight smile on her lips, not quite surpassing the emotion on her face, the worry that his whole family had probably felt when the plane had gone down.
"It's good to get back to things again," Dean nodded back, not knowing what else to say. "And thanks, you know, for checking up on Sam and everything," he added, remembering how Sam had talked about calling up Jody for cases. While Sam hadn't explicitly stated it, their conversations had probably gone beyond just case work a few times, and he was grateful that someone outside the bunker had been looking out for Sam too.
"You guys have your job, I have mine, no need for a thank you. But you're welcome," she said, her face softening and losing a bit of the worried emotion that had crossed it a moment ago. "Just don't go pulling a stunt like that again in the near future," she pointed at him, half serious, half mocking, which made Dean chuckle.
"Believe me," he spread his hands in front of him, "I think I'm off planes unless the world will literally end if I don't get on one."
"You've got the car to get you stateside, no frequent flier miles needed."
"Exactly!"
"Then I think we're probably covered," Jody smirked at him. "Take it easy, make some burgers, plenty of vamps for the rest of us to decapitate when you get back to it."
Dean nodded at that, but didn't comment further. Jody eventually said that everything kitchen-wise was covered until it was ready to be served, and they moved back out into the main area where everyone else was.
"And I swear, it was the biggest deer I've ever laid eyes on! You go into the woods looking for a werewolf, not tryin' to find some behemoth with giant antlers starin' ya down," Donna put her hands up on her head to imitate the antlers, which made everyone laugh.
They had eaten and were still at the table, mostly empty plates in front of them, telling old war stories of sorts. Of course, Donna's exaggeration and tone of voice when telling many of the stories was a bit comical and had everyone smiling.
"I mean, I can hunt things of the spooky and normal variety, but it was a big buck! Scared me half to death and then trotted off on his merry way," she said and shook her head, smiling to herself.
"At least yours was a big animal that you got scared of," Sam brought up, raising his beer bottle to his mouth. He turned his head and met Dean's eyes and immediately the older brother knew where Sam was going with it.
"No, no," he said, and held up a finger, "that was the ghost sickness, remember? I've got a perfectly reasonable excuse and you know it."
But it was too late to keep everyone from asking.
"Dean Winchester afraid of an animal of some sort? Do tell," Claire pressed and leaned her elbows up against the table.
"Sammy, don't you-"
"So we were in this abandoned wood chipping plant, right? Looking for a spirit," Sam cut his brother off. Even Cas was intently listening. "And there was this noise from inside one of the lockers. So I went over, opened it on three, and this cat was inside. Literally just a cat. And Dean here, screamed to high hell. What was it you said?" he turned back to Dean.
"You know perfectly well what I said, Sam," he muttered, but it was all in good fun.
"Come on, man," Sam nudged him.
"That was scary," Dean finally finished and shook his head. "But I'm not doing the voice!"
By that point, everyone at the table was laughing at the image of Dean screaming because of a cat, and Dean found himself laughing along with them. Sure, it had been freaky at the time, but it was a comical moment to look back on without the circumstances surrounding it. And there was the fact that it was a story Dean actually remembered, and could participate in the retelling of, something that he didn't get to do nearly enough.
"Granted, he did have a supernatural sickness that made him afraid of everything, but still. If you're ever wondering why we don't have any cats in the bunker," Sam spread his hands over the table, "that's why." Dean shook his head at that, which made them laugh even more.
Sam then told a story, which Dean was sorry to not remember, about killing clowns and getting completely covered in glitter. Donna remarked that it wasn't the worst thing to come out of a hunt, and Sam agreed.
"I got covered in glitter and Dean got a rainbow slinky, so win win," he said with a smile.
Dean paused at that, a rainbow slinky…"Is that where it came from?" Dean asked, and the table around him went silent.
"You've seen it?" Sam turned to him, apparently surprised.
Dean nodded back. "Yeah, it's in the trunk in my room. I was super confused when I found it," he explained it.
"I just didn't know you kept it is all," Sam added, apparently trying to think through a few things, which Dean wasn't familiar with. The smile hadn't faded, but he was definitely thinking.
"Well, apparently I did, because there's a rainbow slinky in with the guns," Dean shrugged.
"Is it useful in getting rid of ghosts?" Claire asked in mock seriousness, amused by the fact that Dean did indeed have a rainbow slinky.
"It still has yet to be field tested, but I will be sure to let you know when I do. You'll get a full mission report," Dean replied in the same serious tone
"Oh, and pictures too, if you could," Donna chimed in and winked.
A minute later, the women got up to get the plates and Cas helped carry over some of the pans. The brothers cleaned up as much as they could help, but six people was too many in the small kitchen, and they found themselves back in the main room, beer bottles in their hands.
Sam was still quiet though. It wasn't a bad quiet, like something was wrong, Dean could still recognize that from a mile away, but it was a contemplative quiet, one that had become more common in the past month.
"What's on your mind, Sam?" Dean asked eventually when he was sure that the others were in the kitchen and would remain there for a few more minutes.
Sam just shrugged it off. "No big deal, nothing to worry about."
"It's the slinky thing, right? About how I kept it. Why's that got your head spinning?" he pressed gently, half out of curiosity and half out of a need to know.
Sam took another drink from his bottle and looked back at Dean. Finally, with a sigh, he opened his mouth. "Because…I don't know how you kept that thing. It was right after Bobby," he shook his head, "and some stuff happened, and you left for about a year," Sam shot Dean a glance that begged him to not ask further, this wasn't the place, "and I had the Impala, and never noticed the toy anywhere. So maybe you stuck it in your duffel and then put it in the bunker later?"
Then it was Dean's turn to shrug. "I wish I knew, man," he said quietly. They'd talk about it later, when they got back home, unless he remembered something first. "But seriously? A rainbow slinky? Why did you get that for me of all things? No toy bow and arrows or anything?" Dean switched the topic back to the lighter side of the story and, to his relief, Sam smiled.
"You were eyeing that thing the second we walked past the counter," Sam said with a breathy laugh. "It was the first time we'd laughed in a while, so the glitter and the slinky were worth it."
"I'll say. I don't have a crate of barbie dolls stashed anywhere, do I?" he asked and smirked at his brother.
Sam shook his head. "Other than the one you stowed in the garage that you think I don't know about," Sam cut himself off to laugh when Dean looked at him in surprise with a 'seriously?' look written all over his face. "No, Dean, the brightly colored toy stash stops with the slinky."
"Okay, good, the less toy surprises, the better," Dean nodded.
"Sounds like you boys are havin' fun in here. Retelling old slinky war stories?" Donna asked, having just come out of the kitchen with a smile on her face and Jody and Cas on her heels.
"Sam was just telling me about his barbie doll stash," Dean relayed, obviously amused, and acted to be hurt when Sam elbowed him in the shoulder.
They left a little while after that, the drive having caught up with them and the fact that they could get some actual sleep before the next day. They ended up staying the night at a nearby decent motel. After the drive and the rest of the day, it didn't take long for either brother to fall asleep, their guardian angel watching over them from his spot at the kitchenette table.