Summary:It was probably the only thing keeping her sane; the crash course Dean was giving her in all things dark and scary. The only thing that made her feel safe now; Dean's constant reassuring presence at her side.
Jess's dreams were filled with fire. It licked at her like it was taunting her and scorched her skin wickedly. She couldn't breathe and she couldn't move. The air was thick like wax soaking her, suffocating her slowly. She was pressed so hard to the ceiling it felt like her bones were being crushed. It was torture and most terrifying was the slice across her belly. It split her almost in half, gutting her. The wound bled unnaturally slowly one drop at a time and she was sure the only reason her intestines weren't hanging down to the floor was the waxy thick air pinning her to the ceiling.
These horrific dreams of remembered pain and fear weren't the worst thing that her unconscious mind tormented her with. It was the abrupt shift in perspective, the sudden gasp of smoke filling her lungs, and the image of Sam pinned above her like a butterfly beneath glass. He was nearly gutted, like her, and he was bleeding and burning. His expression, though, was serene. And his eyes, they showed no fear, just love and sadness and, under that, triumph.
Over and over, her nightmares repeated like a bloodied broken record allowing her no rest. The shock of waking up was a balm on her tortured mind. A breathing tube down her throat, tubes coming out of her from too many places, and a muted gauzy pain throbbing through her body were the perfect distraction.
When Jess eyes opened to the blurry sight of a bland hospital room, her mother asleep on the pullout chair next to her bed, tears of grief and relief began to trickle down her cheeks.
The doctors said she would scar. Third degree burns across her shoulders, the back of her thighs and calves; they were tender and raw and painful under the weight of her body. She'll never be able to wear a bikini again, she'll never be able to have an even tan, and her skin would forever be puckered and warped like melted plastic. Concentrating on the superficial things helped keep her sane those first few days of consciousness.
The jagged gash across her belly had been more worrying. There had been talk of muscle damage and the dubious future of her being able to have children. The scar would never go away and Jess could give no explanation for how her belly got split open in the middle of a house fire. There wasn't much pressing for answers though since everyone seemed more worried about the permanent reminders of the worst night of her life having an adverse effect on her mind.
Jess wasn't sure how to feel about that since her mind was filled with other things. Things that seemed vastly more important than the large, ugly scars now littering her body. She definitely wasn't going to voice them out loud, though. No matter how much her worried mother urged her to talk or her dad used cajoling pet names from her childhood. Jess kept her mouth shut.
Friends came and went; a couple professors, her guidance counselor, the cops. All with carefully worded probing questions. The cops were the worst.
There was an investigation. House fires weren't uncommon, but the fact that their apartment seemed to be the only one in the complex affected was apparently enough cause to investigate. The cops questioned her, asking the same ones over and over again. She had no answers for them. She said, I don't remember, I don't know, I don't remember.
Jess had never lied so much in her life. But what could she tell them? What could she tell anyone? That a man with yellow eyes appeared in her apartment and pinned her to the ceiling? That her boyfriend looked up at her with glowing golden eyes as her blood dripped down on him and suddenly he had taken her place? That his brother had been sneaking into her hospital room in the dead of night to chant in tongues over her bed and perform rituals in the four corners of her room? That he spent the entire night unblinkingly watching the door with a gun in his hand and a rosary wrapped around his wrist?
No, Jess didn't tell the cops anything. She didn't tell her friends, her teachers, or her parents. Thankfully, for her continued freedom from psychiatric observation, traumatic amnesia was actually a thing and everyone seemed all too eager to accept that as an excuse.
Visiting hours were over and Jess was staring up at the ceiling, the image of Sam pinned and bleeding superimposed over the institutional ceiling tiles. Her mind was spinning, fighting with what she once knew about her world and what she'd seen. The handle on the heavy hospital door jiggled and light from the hallway spilled into the room as Jess's late night visitor slipped in unseen.
Suddenly, she just couldn't do it anymore.
"I'm not going to pretend to be asleep this time."
Dean paused mid-step and the air between them became heavy and thick. Jess kept staring up at the ceiling, Sam's eyes boring down on her from her imagination.
"I haven't told anyone about you," she said breaking the silence and telling the truth for the first time since her life as she knew it had ended. "The cops have been asking questions. They think it was arson and I didn't tell anyone about you. No one knows Sam was with you."
The only response she got was the sound of his breathing, like he was struggling to suck in air around a knot in his throat.
"Tell me I'm not crazy." Jess's breath hitched and she struggled to keep it steady. Pushing herself painfully up onto her elbows she looked at Dean for the first time.
He looked almost as bad as she did. So pale with grief that even in the dim light of her room his freckles stood out against his skin. His eyes were ringed in exhausted shadows so deep he looked gaunt. All he did was breathe for a long moment and Jess started to wonder if he was even going to acknowledge that she'd spoken.
With a shuddering breath he finally turned his gaze to look at her. Her chest ached at the pain reflected in his green eyes.
"You're not crazy," he said voice rough with disuse. Jess almost collapsed with relief and despair both. There was no comfort in the truth for her.
"Tell me," she demanded.
Dean straightened, squaring his shoulders, his expression grave and his eyes ages older than his body. "There's no going back from this," he told her. "Once you know the truth there is no forgetting. That's it. Your life will never be the same."
Jess felt a surge of anger and it was good to feel something other than grief.
"Fuck you, Dean. My life stopped being the same when I got stuck to a ceiling. So don't pull that bullshit on me," she growled at him, her fierce glare daring him to try that again. There was no turning back for her. She didn't think she'd live very long if she even tried.
Dean's eyes widened, taken aback by her vehemence, but he quickly schooled his expression. Jess could have sworn in the split second between shifts there'd been a flicker of approval.
"Twenty-two years ago, on Sam's sixth month birthday, something came into our house and pinned our mom to the ceiling of Sam's nursery." So he began the story of how their family was destroyed in a single night.
Jess didn't even try to stop the ragged sobs as she listened. Tears were tracking down her cheeks for the first time since she woke up to her life destroyed in a single night.
After she learned the truth of Sam's life before Stanford, Jess felt like one weight had been lifted from her shoulders only for another one to replace it. The reality of the supernatural was terrifying and the fact that it didn't end with ghosts and Hollywood monsters kept her up at night.
Her parents commented on the bags under her eyes, but she was able to placate their concerns with a few tears and a murmured mumble of Sam's name. She felt guilty for it, but when she'd said so to Dean he brushed it aside with a vague comment about getting out of an arrest with a sob story about their dead mother.
With the knowledge of the things that go bump in the night spinning through her mind only one thing was keeping her from going completely crazy with fear pinned down in her hospital bed as she was. The fact that every night Dean would sneak into her room and give her a crash course in all things freaky.
"Okay so what's with the rebar?" Jess asked as Dean laid bars across the windowsill and above the doorjamb.
"It's iron," Dean explained. "Ghosts and spirits, anything incorporeal, can't cross it." He finished sliding a bar into place and pulled a plastic grocery sack out of the backpack he'd brought with him. It sounded like it was filled with some kind of shells. "Usually you'd use salt, but I figure it would be kinda hard to clean up before the nurses do their rounds in the morning."
"That makes sense," Jess agreed absently as she followed Dean with her eyes while he placed a cluster of weird looking shells strategically around the room. "And the sea shells?"
"Cat's eye shells," Dean answered. "Five shells in a compass rose on the four points of the compass is like a supernatural deterrent. Like mosquito spray, makes 'em avoid you."
"Okay," she drawled dubiously, but she figured that if Dean, the expert on all things scary, said they worked she'd take his word for it. It's not like she knew anything about any of this beyond bad Hollywood B movies.
She watched quietly while Dean went back into his backpack and pulled out a battered, ancient looking leather bound book and a water bottle with a rosary in the bottom. He popped the water bottle's sport top and squirted water around the room while reading from the book muttering in what sounded like Latin. He made a circuit round the room three times before stopping at the foot of her bed. Flipping to a different passage in his little book, he squirted her with water and repeated whatever he was reading out three times.
Jess felt silly sitting there getting sprinkled with what she felt safe to assume was holy water. She hadn't been blessed, she assumed she was being blessed, like that since she'd had first communion when she was nine. It didn't help the oddness of the situation that Dean looked absolutely nothing like a priest with his biker boots, faded jeans, and leather jacket.
Dean finally appeared to have finished, snapping the book shut and closing the sport bottle. He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow at her mildly incredulous look.
"What?"
"You speak Latin? Are you ordained or something?" She was willing to believe it if he said he was. After finding out that chupacabras were actually a thing she was open to the idea that Sam's biker looking brother was a priest.
Dean snorted as he dumped his Christian paraphernalia back into the backpack and started to root around in it again. "Hell no. I don't believe there's a God. I just use whatever works and Christian rituals are the best when you're up against demons."
The mention of demons made a thrill of fear run through her, but Jess shoved it down to focus on the subject at hand.
"Where did you learn all this stuff, then?"
"Dad used to leave us with a friend, a pastor, when he went on solo hunts. He taught us Latin and all the prayers and blessings." Dean shrugged faux casual, but he paused staring unseeing into his backpack. "Sam was always better at that stuff than me."
They fell into a tense silence and Jess tried to distract herself from her resurgence of grief with observing Dean. He shook off his painful thoughts and finally found what he'd been searching for.
Pulling out a dream catcher, Jess watched him step up to the stand for the bags of saline for her IV and hung it up next to them. It looked like an actual authentic dream catcher made out of sinew, leather, glass beads, and feathers. The kind you imagine a wizened greying Native American making by hand. Jess had no doubt that it was actually the real deal. Judging by the sheer amount of supernatural protection Dean was spreading around the room, she didn't think he'd do anything half-assed.
Dean hesitated for a second then reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a leather pouch with a weird symbol on the side. It looked like it could have been drawn on in blood. She suspected it actually was blood, Dean's blood she guessed since his left hand was wrapped in gauze.
Jess eyed the blood stained leather bag warily. "What exactly is that?"
Rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly, "It's a hex bag," he said. "This one's used to promote healing, fight infection, and help with pain."
She softened and looked up into Dean's unsure expression. "You made that for me?"
"Yeah," he murmured. "I promised to take care of you." His eyes turned dark and determined. "I keep my promises."
Jess's heart gave a squeeze and she swallowed around a lump in her throat. She met Dean's heavy gaze giving him a ghost of smile and a nod. Reaching out with a surprisingly steady hand she took the hex bag from him. When her skin touched the soft leather she felt a surprising wave of warmth wash over her. She turned it over curiously, examining it.
"So, what do I do with it?"
Dean huffed and gestured in her direction. "Put it somewhere close to you, hidden so you don't freak out the civilians."
Looking around, Jess finally settled on shoving it in her pillowcase. It would stay out of sight and she'll be able to grab it without being seen when the nurses came to change her bedding. Dean nodded approvingly then turned and went to collapse into the recliner in the corner of the room that stretched out into a makeshift bed.
"Are you staying all night?" She was kinda hoping he was. Despite all the protections she'd just watched him put up she felt safer with him there. She didn't think she'd ever really feel safe again, but at least with Dean just five feet away she knew he wouldn't let anything get to her.
Between watching her boyfriend burn up on the ceiling and learning about his family's bloody supernatural history Dean had become her beacon of safety.
Pulling off his jacket he pushed the chair into reclining and wiggled around in the generically ugly upholstery getting comfortable. He crossed his arms underneath his body warm leather jacket draped over him and crossed his ankles where they dangled off the foot rest. Leaning his head back he peeked an eye open and gave her a reassuring half smile.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm not going anywhere."
Jess let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Tension drained out of her and she laid down in her hospital bed. Maybe with Dean sprawled out five feet from her she'd finally be able to get some sleep.
The last thing she registered before she slipped into sleep was the lump of her healing hex bag beneath her head.
Over the next week, every night after visiting hours were over and the nurses did their last rounds, Dean snuck into Jess's room and went through the ritual of setting up protections.
On the second night Dean caved to Jess's demands for a more in-depth explanation of all things supernatural. At first he was reluctant to expose her to more of the world of the impossible, but he couldn't argue with the logic of fore warned is fore armed. He started by showing her his hunting journal.
"It's a record of every evil you ever come across. If you don't write down what you hunt and how to kill it you're gonna make a rooky mistake and get yourself killed."
Jess stared down at the journal spread open in her lap completely grossed out by the vivid description of just how thorough you had to be when bashing a ghoul's head in. Apparently the devil's in the details, so to speak.
"Is the picture of cattle mutilation really necessary though?" Jess swallowed thickly and turned the page quickly only to land on a detailed rendering of a vetala's bite marks.
"You gotta know if you're dealing with a satanic cult or just your run of the mill demon," Dean said reaching over to flip through the journal searching for something.
"Right," Jess muttered. "Of course, 'just a run of the mill demon'. 'Cause there are more than one kind."
"Well, yeah," Dean drawled, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I ran into a cult last year. They were trying to raise some kind of hell beast, I don't know. Here look at the symbols burned into the hide."
Jess groaned. "Now that's seriously gross."
"Smell was worse," Dean told her like it was completely normal to be discussing the stench of dead animal. "Ritual needed to be done on the Summer Solstice and it'd been laying out there for a couple of days."
Jess gagged.
Their nights weren't all spent on graphic hunting documentations and detailed gruesome depictions. Dean gave her an overview of the different weapons needed for killing various kinds of monsters. She hadn't realized knives even came in anything other than stainless steel.
"Silver and iron." He held up two Bowie knives as long as her forearm. "They're the most common weapons for killing the average monsters you'll come across."
Jess held a smaller iron knife between her fingers carefully. Dean had given it to her and told her to keep it on her at all times. "You can't just shoot them? It seems kinda crazy dangerous to get close enough to stab one."
"Hunting is always crazy dangerous," he returned gravely before his expression cleared. "But you're right. You want to avoid getting up close and personal as much as possible. Usually we can kill 'em with silver bullets or consecrated iron rounds."
"Where do you even buy something like that?" She asked curiously.
"You don't. We have to make our own," Dean replied casually like it was normal for people to melt down precious metals to forge into bullets on a regular basis.
Looking back down at the iron knife in her hands, Jess figure that for Dean it was normal.
With the lessons in monster killing weapons, Dean also gave her a rundown of the most common things you hunt in the United States and how to kill them.
"So you actually dig up dead bodies, dump a bunch of salt on them, and light them on fire." She was a little disturbed that that was one of tamest methods of monster hunting. 'Cause, you know, dead bodies. Ew.
"Yeah." Dean shrugged. "It's not so bad. You get used to the smell after the first few times you do it."
Regardless of the lore and weapons and killing lessons, the things Dean was determined to drill into her were all the ways to protect against the supernatural. He made her recite the protection spells until he was satisfied with her pronunciation. He wrote them all down on cheat sheets for her with the phonetic spelling so she couldn't forget them. Because of course magic protection spells could never be in English.
"They have to be in the language of their origin," Dean explained when she'd asked frustrated with stumbling through some Aramaic. "Translations never get it perfect so the magic doesn't work right. You don't want to mess with stuff like this. It might blow up in your face."
She wasn't sure if he was exaggerating or not and she didn't really want to ask.
By the time Dean was satisfied with her crash course in all things supernatural it was finally time for her to get discharged.
She couldn't stop the worry from her voice when she asked him if he was going to be there for her hospital release.
"I don't think it's a good idea me running into your family." His shoulders hunched as he started packing up his magic protection stuff.
She'd been freaked out the first time he'd shoved it all back in his backpack once morning came, but he'd told her that most of the evil things tended to move around at night and it should be safe enough during the day. Plus, the blessings he'd chanted around her room should deter anything sniffing around while he wasn't there. It didn't make her feel much better, but she decided to trust him and didn't protest when he left every morning.
"They're going to see you at the funeral anyway," Jess argued as he shoved the rebar into the bag. She pushed past the familiar ache the thought brought with it. "It would probably be better if they meet you now when we're not surrounded by dozens of other people."
He turned to look at her with a dubious expression on his face. "What will you tell them about me? That I'm Sam's estranged unemployed drifter brother he hasn't talked to in four years?"
Jess bit her lip and fidgeted under his tense gaze. "They don't know much about Sam beyond that he's my boyfriend," she admitted, trying to come up with an answer that would make Dean stay. "I doubt they'll really pay much attention to you when they'll be worried about me."
It was quiet while Dean thought that through, weighing the risks. Jess held her breath. Finally he nodded.
"Fine. I'll stay and meet them, but let me do the talking." He threw himself back into the guest chair and sprawled out with his elbows on the arm rests and his knees spread, the picture of an unconcerned twenty-something. "I gotta lie for a living. I think I can come up with a convincing enough story for your folks."
Jess sighed in relief and settled in to wait for the inevitable chaos of the rest of her day.
True to his word, Dean fibbed his way through the introductions with Jess's parents. Her mother was ready to accept him as the grieving brother that he was, but her father was more wary.
"What did you say you do?" Mr. Moore eyed the scruffy man in front of him. He looked rough with a shade of dangerous around the edges and his hands were callused with crooked fingers from breaks healing poorly.
Jess watched as Dean flashed her father a disarming smile and miraculously made himself look harmless despite his height and muscular build.
"I'm in pest control," he said and Jess almost gave away the game with snort of surprise.
"And that's a job that requires a lot of travel?"
"Well, there are different kinds of critters everywhere." Dean shrugged nonchalantly. "Gotta go where the work is."
He'd convincingly explained away his absence in Sam's life with a migratory career. Jess thought she would never stop being surprised by Sam's long lost brother. He almost had her believing it too. It was masterful, how he told the truth while lying through his teeth.
Getting discharged from a hospital took an hour of signing form after form all in triplicate because apparently getting out of the hospital was supposed to be more of a pain in the ass than getting into one. It was annoying and exhausting and it was insult to injury. Jess had just lost her boyfriend, had almost been gutted, and suffered third degree burns. Now she had to acquire carpel tunnel on top of it.
Of course Dean used the opportunity to soften her father towards him.
"Damn lawyers," Mr. Moore grumbled. "All these ridiculous lawsuits make everybody's life harder."
"I hear you," Dean added with a serious nod. "You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork it takes to relocate a crocodile."
Jess highly doubted Dean had ever relocated anything in his job, but she didn't say that. She'd promised to follow Dean's lead when it came to his made up background and he seemed to be doing a pretty good job of selling it without her unhelpfully contradicting him.
The paperwork induced fog didn't lift until the doctor showed up to give a final evaluation and directions for her wound care.
"Alright, Miss Moore, you seem to be recovering quite well." The doctor seemed surprised when he examined the worst of the burns across her back. "Truthfully, I've never seen anyone recover from injuries this severe as quickly as you are," he admitted bemused.
Jess sent a fleeting glance toward Dean and he winked at her. She pressed her hand over the hex bag in the pocket of her loose sweatpants and sent him a quick smile back.
"I guess I'm just a fast healer." She shrugged gingerly.
"Hm, must be," the doctor murmured absently as he finished taking out the stitches from the wound on her belly. He taped a fresh bandage over the bright pink scar tissue. "Well, everything looks good. You have the directions for caring for your wounds and you are free to go."
Everyone gave an awkward chuckle when she sighed in relief and muttered, "Fucking finally."
Getting wheeled out of the hospital was annoying and by that point she was beyond frustrated and exhausted by the whole ordeal. When she got out of the chair and stepped through the electric doors all she wanted to do was go home and curl up in her bed.
Her throat suddenly tightened and her breath hitched. "Oh God, I can never home." A tear slipped down her cheek unbidden when she couldn't wipe it away fast enough.
She distantly registered Dean's twitch and the strangely unreadable look on face before her mother wrapped her up in her arms.
"It's alright, honey," Mrs. Moore murmured in her devastated daughter's ear. "You're coming home with us. Everything will be okay."
It really won't. Sam was dead, burned up on the ceiling, and something powerful and homicidal was after her. Nothing was ever going to be okay again. Suddenly she wasn't just upset about all her memories and things turned to ash along with Sam. She was terrified the monster that had done this to them would find her in her childhood bedroom and finish what it started.
Clutching at her mother, Jess looked over her shoulder and blinked through her tears finding Dean with her eyes.
"I'm scared," she whispered and reached out a hand toward him desperately. "Don't leave, please."
Without hesitation Dean grabbed her hand in his broad callused one and squeezed tight. "I'm not going anywhere," he told her just like he had that first night she begged him to stay. "I promise."
Her fear slowly eased until just her grief was left. Wrapped up in her mom's arms with her dad's hand on her shoulder and Dean's hand holding hers, she finally released some of that grief filling her up inside.
The four of them stood there for what felt like a long time. Jess, surrounded by the only three people in the world she still trusted, soaked up the comfort like a sponge.
Her dad was wary when Jess insisted that Dean stayed with them at their house, but he couldn't refuse his grieving daughter.
"He's staying at a motel," she told her parents in the car on the way home. Dean following them to the suburbs in his big black beast of a car. "He's Sam's brother, I can't let him stay in a motel."
Mr. Moore didn't protest, but if anything the road dirt covered muscle car made him even more distrustful. He decided not to mention it when his wife gave him a pointed look.
Jess didn't bother trying to stay up once they'd unpacked what little of her stuff could be salvaged from her burned out apartment. She muttered a vague excuse and locked herself up in her room collapsing on her bed and hiding under the covers until she passed out from physical and emotional exhaustion. It didn't even register to her that she'd abandoned Dean to her parents she just slipped into a restless sleep.
She didn't wake up again until it was dark outside and her bedroom door was pushed open quietly. Her heart started to race and she tried to hold perfectly still praying that it wasn't the monster coming back to try to burn her up again.
"It's just me, Jess."
Sighing in relief she carefully turned over to watch Dean sneak into her bedroom with his ever present backpack in hand.
"You almost gave me a heart attack," she hissed glaring at him in the light of the moon coming through her window.
"Sorry," he whispered as he dropped his backpack on her desk and started pulling stuff out of it.
She watched him line up a round canister of some kind, the grocery sack of cats eye shells, and his bottle of holy water.
"Do you think that's necessary here?" She asked struggling to sit up.
He was by her side in a flash gently helping her ease into a sitting position piling up her pillows behind her. "Just because we're out of the hospital doesn't mean a monster can't attack us here just as easily."
A shiver ran down her spine at the thought that she wasn't even safe in her childhood home. "I hate this. I hate being scared all the time."
Dean straightened up and looked at her with serious eyes. "It sucks, but I'm going to protect you, Jess. I won't leave until I'm sure you'll be safe."
The thought that Dean would eventually have to leave and go back to his life of saving people and hunting things didn't do anything to help her fear, but she didn't bring it up again.
She just watched as Dean went about his nightly ritual of fortifying her room against the things that go bump in the night. Instead of the rebar on the windowsill and doorjamb he opened the round canister and poured out a line of what she assumed was salt. That was one of the main lessons he drilled into her; salt was one of the most important things to have in your arsenal. Never go anywhere without salt.
He placed the cat's eye shells around the room in their little patterns and he sprinkled holy water while chanting prayers in Latin. As his deep gravelly voice washed over her, it comforted her and it chased away the worst of her fear. Over the last week she'd discovered that just by watching Dean complete his task she was as able to relax for the first time the entire day.
Dean tossed his prayer book, holy water sport bottle, and the canister of salt back in his bag and sat down on the floor.
"What are you doing?" Jess asked as he started to unlace his boots and take off his jacket.
He looked up at her while he lined up his boots under her desk. "I'm bedding down for the night," he drawled like it should be obvious.
"On the floor?"
"I don't see another bed in here, do you?" He teased gesturing around the room.
"Don't be a smartass," Jess muttered with a roll of her eyes. She reached stiffly behind her and pulled out her extra pillow then dragged her fleece blanket from on top of her comforter. "Here," she tossed them down at him. "You might as well be comfortable if you're going to be sleeping on my rug."
Dean hesitated for a second looking down at them in his lap before he looked back up at her. "Thanks," he murmured as he made himself as comfortable as he could stretched out on her floor.
Jess awkwardly scooted to lay down in a position that wouldn't put too much strain on her tender wounds and pulled her comforter up to her chin. She stared at Dean in the dark until he turned his head and met her gaze curiously.
She gave him a fleeting smile and whispered her own, "Thanks."
He nodded, a ghost of a reassuring smile on his mouth. "Sure thing, darlin'."
"Goodnight," she murmured into the dark.
"'Night," he murmured back turning his head away and closing his eyes.
Jess watched him in the light of the moon until her eyes drooped closed and she fell asleep again.
The funeral was just as terrible as she thought it would be. Watching the empty coffin being lowered down into the ground was like having her heart ripped out again. It was agony and it made her so very angry through her tears and gasping sobs.
Sam's friends, classmates, and a couple of his professors were all in attendance mourning and crying like they had any right to grieve as much as she was. Logically in the back of her mind she knew she wasn't really mad at them. She was mad at the thing had killed him. At the monster that had creeped into her house and pinned her to the ceiling for Sam to find.
The guilt of her uncharitable thoughts only made the pain worse. The derision she felt for her classmates' tears was nothing compared to the surprising amount of anger she held for Sam as well.
Because he loved her, because he protected her, he had traded places with her. She didn't know how he did it, but he had and she was so very angry at him. He couldn't bear to see her die and so he made her watch him die instead. He left her all alone.
The only person around that even had an inkling of the kind of grief she felt was Dean Winchester. Sam's long lost brother that had been with him for his last days. He'd rushed into a burning building to save his brother and could only save her instead. He had to see his brother bleeding, burning up on the ceiling just liked he'd seen his mom the night his life was destroyed and Jess knew she would never stop feeling guilty for that.
Guilty that he had lost his little brother and got her instead like some kind of pitiful conciliation prize. The fact that he was good and honorable and had somehow promised his burning brother that he would protect his girlfriend no matter what was worse. It just made the whole situation that much more fucked up.
Despite her conflicted feelings she couldn't stop herself from being pathetically grateful that Dean was standing next to her grieving just as hard as she was.
She knew it was weird that she was clinging like a child to an inappropriately dressed stranger. That her friends were puzzled and her parents were bewildered that she was clutching Dean painfully tight and hiding her face against his leather clad shoulder. Her tears made the leather slick and uncomfortable, but Dean didn't protest, didn't try to budge her, he just kept an arm wrapped around her shoulders gripping her arm so tight she knew she would have a hand shaped bruise beneath her sleeve.
Later, when she wasn't trying not to die from a broken heart, she would think about the kinds of rumors their actions had most likely spawned. She couldn't care less. She just soaked up all the comfort she could as Dean turned to press his face into her hair trying to hide too from the hollow sight of filling an empty grave with grave dirt.
In her grief she didn't see her parents watching them with uncomfortable, curious expressions on their faces.
Maybe worse than the breathless crying at the funeral, was numbly going through the motions at the wake.
Her parents were footing the bill for the entire affair with a little help of twelve hundred dollars in crumpled beer stained bills from Dean. She could only guess how he'd made that money and the suspicious look her father had given him as he was handed the stack of money spoke volumes.
Jess knew that Dean thought the entire thing was a pointless waste. When she'd noticed his silent disapproval, he'd explained that a hunter's funeral was a shroud wrapped body covered in salt on a funeral pyre.
She figured it was logical, salting and burning your dead, since more tortured spirits were to be avoided at all costs.
There was no body to bury or burn. Neither of them would gain closer from the mainstream ritual of a funeral. In a way it was comforting that neither of them would be alone in their dissatisfaction.
The wake was slow to pass. The food tasted like ash in her mouth and every time someone spewed sympathetic drivel at her she had to bite down on the impulse to snap at them. All she wanted was to be left alone, but she had to be polite. How hypocritical was that? That she had to cater to everyone else when she felt like she was cracking open from the inside.
Pretty much the only thing stopping her from stabbing her oh so sincere philosophy professor in the eye with a mini plastic appetizer sword was Dean's steadying hand in hers.
"It's such a shame that Sam should be taken from us too soon," Professor Burt said with an overly sympathetic frown. "Sam was one of my best students, a true academic."
"Thank you, Professor." Jess was so done with this crap, but she still had to play her part. "That means a lot."
"Of course." He gave her an exaggerated agreeing nod and thankfully moved off to the platter of mini quiches.
"Do you think Professor Bowtie over there would be too scandalized to learn that Sam knew how to throw knives since he was twelve?"
Jess snorted and gave Dean a tremulous smirk. "Sam used to come home from that class complaining about what a massive tool he was."
He huffed in amusement. "That sounds like Sammy."
"Yeah." Jess smiled at him. "I always loved his scathing commentary."
A melancholy silence fell over them as memories of Sam floated through their minds. It didn't last long before more mourners came up to express their expectant sympathies. Jess responded with as much sincerity and grace as she could, but she could feel the stress of the act starting to build.
Finally there was a lull in between " I'm so sorry"s and condolences. Dean squeezed her hand to get her attention.
"What do you say we blow this popsicle stand?"
"God yes," she gusted out, standing and pulling on his hand until he stood too.
They didn't even bother sneaking they just walked out the front door and strode determinately to the Impala. They slid inside without a look back. Dean revved the engine, pulled away with his foot on the gas, and sped as far away from that house and its cloying mourners as fast as possible.
Jess almost expected it to look different. The burned out shell of her and Sam's apartment. Staring at it standing next to Dean on the sidewalk, she thought it just looked like a burned out shell.
"We spent two months looking for the perfect apartment." Dean didn't look over at as she spoke, but that was okay. She knew he was listening. "We were practically poor, it was almost out of our budget, but we rented it anyway."
She drew in a shuddering breath. "I thought it was so sweet how excited Sam was to find a home with me. I guess I know why now. 'Cause he never really had a home growing up."
If she hadn't been practically pressed against Dean's side she wouldn't have felt the stiffening in his body.
"Yeah," he rasped looking away from the apartment and down at the ground. "Sam hated the way we lived. Always wanted a real house with a white picket fence and everything."
The tightness in his voice made Jess cringe. She'd forgotten for a moment that Sam had left his family because he wanted something more, something better. It was plain to see that his leaving had hurt Dean.
"I'm glad," he confessed looking over at Jess as he rubbed a rough hand over his face wiping away any trace of a tear. "I'm glad that he got to have that, a home, with you."
Jess's heart ached, thankful for Dean's acceptance. She reached over and took his hand in hers giving it a comforting squeeze. "Me too." She gave him a small smile. "I'm glad I could give him that."
They spent a long moment standing hand in hand basking in the small respite from grief. Knowing that Sam had been happy was the only pleasant thought either of them had since he died.
Shaking his head, Dean pushed away from the Impala and released Jess's hand with a final squeeze.
"Alright, enough of this chick-flick moment." He threw her a grin to soften his words. "Let's get this over with."
The inside of the trunk of Dean's car was, to tell the truth, kind of frightening. Jess stared wide eyed at the dangling amulets, bags of rock salt, gallon jugs of holy water, boxes of ammunition, a plethora of various kinds of firearms, and a beat up spice rack.
She peered at the handwritten labels. "Grave dirt, mandrake, angelica root," she squinted a little closer, "van van oil. You've got quite the kitchen in here."
Dean snorted as he snatched up a large bag of salt and a jug of holy water. "I wouldn't want to use any of that it chicken soup, if you know what I mean."
"What, will it blow up in your face?"
"Nope," he knocked the sawed-off shot gun holding up the lid to the side and closed the hidden locker. "But it'll give you one hell of a tummy ache."
Jess huffed and rolled her eyes. She took the jug of holy water he handed her. "So, what are we doing now?"
"Now, we're going to bless your old apartment." Dean walked off across the road leaving Jess to follow behind.
"Why are we doing that?" She demanded, scowling at his back as he stalked up the front walk. "The thing already got us here. It already killed Sam. What's blessing a crumbling ruin going to do?"
He paused just on the threshold where the front door used to be. Looking back at her, his expression was dark.
"Evil like that, it marks a place." His gravelly voice seemed to hush all ambient noise around them. "This place will act like a beacon to other supernatural nasties. If we don't want that to happen we gotta cleanse the area."
He glanced away for a moment before continuing in a softer, rougher voice. "And Sam died here. I gotta do this for him too."
Jess didn't know what to say so she stayed silent. They stepped just over the threshold then Dean crouched down and set his bag of salt on the ground. "Drop the water here, I gotta bless that first."
Placing the jug next to the salt, Jess tucked the skirt of her dress behind her knees and crouched down balancing on her black kitten heels. Dean uncapped the jug, untied the bag and started to pour the salt into the water. He chanted under his breath steadily until the bag was empty and the water was cloudy with salt, then he capped the jug and stood up.
Gracefully unfolding from her crouch, Jess settled at Dean's side and waited for him to tell her the next step. He shook the jug hard a few times until the salt was pretty well dissolved then pulled out his leather bound prayer book.
Flipping through the book to the right page he held it out to her until she hurriedly took it. She looked at him in confusion. "Why are you-"
"You loved Sam," he cut her off. "You loved him too. We'll say the blessings together."
Tightening her grip on the book, she nodded stiffly. "Okay, okay. Where do I start?"
"Star at the beginning." He told her uncapping the holy water. "Don't worry. I'll keep up with you."
Jess began at the top and stumbled haltingly over the Latin words trying to remember everything Dean ever told her about pronunciation. She was going to mess it up. She wasn't saying it right, the blessing wasn't going to work-
"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino…"
Dean's voice joined hers and suddenly her felt calm. Her hand's stopped shaking and her voice was steady. Dean was there, he wouldn't let her mess it up. He had confidence that she would be able to do right by Sam and help put him to rest.
They chanted the blessing in unison slowly walking around what remained of the building, Dean pouring the salted holy water along the charred ground.
Three times they circled until the holy water was gone and Jess's voice was getting hoarse.
Coming to a stop back where they started on the threshold, Dean gently took the book when she offered it and met her gaze with quiet gratefulness.
"Thank you." He gave her a small smile.
Smiling softly in return, Jess took his hand in both of hers held on tightly. "Always."
They silently stood in the threshold of the place where Sam died thinking about him and taking comfort in each other's presence. They didn't leave until the sun had already set.
The next day, Dean took Jess out into a field in the middle of nowhere, lined up empty beer and whiskey bottles, handed her a handgun and told her to aim.
She'd never held a gun in her life. Needless to say Dean had his work cut out for him. But he was a perfectionist and he didn't let them go back home until the sun had set and he was satisfied that Jess could at least hit most of her targets.
Her arms ached from holding the gun up in the proper position and she was sure her hand was going to bruise from the kickback. Dean was unimpressed by her complaints.
"Walk it off," he told her completely unsympathetic.
When they finally got back to the house, Jess's parents were waiting with dinner. As Jess and Dean walked through the door she saw the looks on their faces and it suddenly became glaringly apparent how this all must look.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Dean hadn't slept a single night in the guest bedroom, or that Jess clung to him while she avoided everyone else. She'd disappeared from her boyfriend's wake with his brother and didn't return until nightfall. Now they'd been out all day long only to come back looking windblown and exhausted, flushed from the sun.
Things had already been stiff between Dean and her parents, her mom not knowing what to do with the polite but distant young man and her father not trusting the rough dangerous looking stranger as far as he could throw him. Her boyfriend was dead and she was spending all her time with his attractive bad-boy brother. The implications were not complimentary.
Later that night, after a tense dinner, everyone started to turn in for the night. Her mother had gone up to bed first and her father was lounging in his chair watching a late night talk show. Dean was in his room waiting for the other occupants of the house to retire before he could sneak into her room so they would sleep protected together.
Jess had just pulled her overlarge worn-out nightshirt on over her panties and was about to brush her hair out for bed when her bedroom door opened.
She turned to look at Dean. "I thought you were going to wait until my dad went to bed. You don't want him to-," she cut herself off abruptly when she saw her mother in the doorway instead.
Her mom was standing just inside the threshold, her graying hair loose over her shoulders, and her long nightgown covered by a matching robe. The look on her face as she regarded her daughter made Jess's throat tighten.
"Mom?"
"Honey," her mom sighed and passed under the iron rebar sitting above the doorjamb without pause. "What are you doing?"
Jess swallowed thickly and turned all the way around to face her. "What do you mean?"
"What are you doing with that boy?" She asked her daughter, her expression disappointed.
"I don't know what you mean." It was weak and Jess couldn't stop herself from shifting uncomfortably under her mom's penetrating stare.
"You just buried Sam, Jess. And suddenly there is a stranger attached to your side." She was bewildered. "You disappear all day with him and he sneaks into your room at night. Jess," her breath hitched as she continued doggedly. "Were you cheating on Sam with his brother?"
"No!" Jess gasped. "No, Mom. I'm not- we're not." She took a shaky breath. "Dean and I, we're not sleeping together. I swear."
"Then, if you're not sleeping together, what is going on?" It didn't make any sense. Her daughter was struck by such unimaginable tragedy and she suddenly became a stranger. Her Jess wouldn't shut her family out like this. She wouldn't be spending her nights with a man she hardly knew when her boyfriend's memory should still be fresh in her mind.
Jess hesitated searching for some way to make this better. Something to tell her mom so that she didn't think her daughter was the kind of person that sleeps with her dead boyfriend's brother not a month after he died.
"Mom, it's- Dean and me, it's complicated."
"How is it complicated? Because no matter how I look at it, this is a bad situation," she demanded, disapproval and frustration clouding her face.
Jess breathed heavily for a moment and tried to think of a way any version of this story wouldn't make the situation worse, wouldn't make her and Dean sound like crazy people.
"Dean saved me, Mom."
That made her mom pause. "I don't understand." She frowned in confusion.
"I lied," Jess admitted reluctantly. "I lied about Dean coming into town after the fire." She met her mother's uncomprehending gaze, but she was determined to continue.
"He came to visit Sam that Friday and the two of them went on a weekend trip together. He dropped Sam off back at our apartment just before the fire started." She inhaled deeply determined to finish. "He saw the smoke and turned around. By the time he got there it was too late and he could only save me."
Her mother gasped and pressed a hand to her chest staring at her devastated daughter in sorrowful surprise. "He pulled you out of the fire."
"Yeah," Jess rasped and nodded. "Dean grabbed me and carried me out."
"But why?" Her mother burst out in confusion. "Why lie to the police, to us?"
"Dean- he," Jess grimaced and silently apologized to Dean for this. "He's had some trouble with law. If the cops knew he was here they probably would have arrested him."
"Oh lord." Rubbing a hand down her cheek, Mrs. Moore's thoughts raced through her mind, none of them good.
"He's a good guy, Mom," Jess tried to assure her before she got it into her head to call the cops. "It's just some petty crime stuff, it's not like he's a murderer or anything." She laughed awkwardly trying really hard not to let her thoughts about killing monsters show on her face.
That didn't seem to assuage much of her mother's worry, but she had calmed down even though she was still looking at Jess with a serious expression.
"Why is he sleeping in your room, Jess?" She pressed urgently. "Is he coercing you somehow? Forcing you to-"
"God no, Mom! Stop!" Jess burst out in frustration. "He's not forcing me to do anything. He sleeps on the floor. I just feel safer when he's here."
She stopped, surprised. "What? You feel safer?"
"Yeah, Mom," Jess sighed. "He dragged me out of the fire. He stayed with me every night in the hospital." She shrugged and gave her mom a sad smile. "He protected me and I feel safe when he's with me. And Dean was there, he's the only one who understands."
"Oh honey." Her mother's entire demeanor softened and she stepped to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I know this has been hard and we've been trying to help you."
"I know, Mom." Jess hugged her mom back, tension draining from her. "I know you've tried, it's just been hard."
"You're both grieving. I should have realized that of course you would want to lean on each other."
"It's okay." Jess pulled away and gave her mother a trembling smile. "I shouldn't have lied to you about Dean."
"I understand why you did." Her mother stroked her cheek and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'll explain about you and Dean spending so much time together to your father, but maybe we shouldn't tell him about the rest. You know how he is."
Jess gave a watery chuckle. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea." She hugged her mother again kissing her cheek. "Thanks, mom."
"Of course, sweetie." She smiled at her daughter and leaned up to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Have sweet dreams."
"You too, Mom."
She turned to go and found Dean standing awkwardly in the doorway with a backpack over his shoulder.
"Mrs. Moore," he greeted politely.
She gave him a slightly hesitant smile and continued to the door. He moved to the side so he wasn't blocking her.
"Good night, Dean," she wished him and squeezed him on the arm as she passed him into the hallway.
"'Night, Mrs. Moore." He nodded back bewildered. She turned away and headed on to bed.
Dean waited until she'd closed her bedroom door behind her before he entered Jess's room and closed the door.
They looked at each other for a long moment. Jess fiddled with the bottom of her nightshirt. She nervously asked, "So, how much did you hear?"
Dean gave her a reassuring grin. "Enough. You ready to try the protection blessings by yourself tonight?"
And that was that. They didn't talk anymore about her conversation with her mother. Jess thought she handled it as best she could and apparently Dean agreed with her.
Jess smiled at him and nodded determinately. "Yeah, I'm ready."
His grin widening, Dean dropped his backpack on her desk. "Alright, let's do this."
Dean stayed for another three days. Each day he took Jess out to the field and either made her do target practice or practice the bare bones of self-defense. Thankfully Jess had taken a semester of self-defense classes for the college physical education credit so she wasn't starting completely from scratch.
She was a fast learner and Dean was impressed with her progress in both categories. On the third day, Dean forewent the usual practice handgun and pulled out a silver gun with a pearl handle. He held it in his hands, just looking at it for a long moment before finally offering it to her.
Jess took it gently and studied it. It was clean, gleaming, and obviously well cared for. It was deceptively heavy and Jess could tell that it would pack a punch. The metal barrel shined and the pearl grips reflected the light in colorful waves. It was beautiful.
"It's a stainless steel Taurus PT-92 9mm pistol." He watched intently as she turned it carefully in her hands and ran her fingers over the metal. "It was Sam's gun."
Her head jerked up in surprise. "You're giving it to me?"
"Yeah." He nodded and gave her a wry smile. "Sam would hate that I'm even giving you a gun, but it should be yours."
She just stared at him even as her fingers closed around it and gripped it hard.
"He left it behind when he left for Stanford," Dean told her. "Our dad gave it to Sam on his sixteenth birthday. And now I'm giving it to you. If anyone should have it, it should be you."
Her heart beat fast in her chest. "But Dean-"
"Nope." He cut off any protest. "It's yours now. It should be yours."
Looking down at the beautiful gun in her hands she could imagine gentle soft-spoken Sam, her Sam, wrapping his hand around the grip like she had learned, holding it up like Dean had taught her, aiming and firing at monsters to protect people. He'd used this gun to protect strangers and to protect his family. And now it was hers.
She roughly brushed away a tear that slipped down her cheek and gave Dean a soft smile. "Thank you."
He gripped her shoulder tightly sharing the emotions of the moment. Breaking the quiet he grabbed a box of ammo and his own .45 from the trunk then closed everything up.
"Okay. Let's get it shot in." He started off toward their usual spot knowing she'd follow. "Never take a gun on a hunt you haven't shot before. It's a sure fire way to get yourself dead."
With the weight of Sam's gun in her hands, Jess felt light. It was like Sam was protecting her even now and that was a comforting thought.
The next morning Jess awoke to the smell of breakfast. Looking over the side of her bed, Dean was gone. His jacket, boots, and backpack were gone. His blanket was folded on her desk with his pillow sitting on top of it. The only things he'd left were the cat's eye shells and the rebar on her doorjamb and windowsill.
Jess's stomach sank. Tossing her covers back she spared enough time to pull on some pajama pants then she raced to the guestroom and burst in the door.
Dean was already dressed and bent over his open duffle bag on his bed folding his clothes and tossing them in.
"You're leaving."
At the sound of her voice he stopped haphazardly rolling up his socks, but he didn't turn around. "Yeah, it's time to get back on the road," he replied gruffly and tossed his socks in the duffle before he finally turned to face her.
"Dad's still out there somewhere and I need to get back to trying to find him."
"Bullshit." Jess scowled.
He ignored her. "He left coordinates for us. I need to go there. He might be waiting to meet up."
"Why do you even still want to find him? You've called him a hundred times. His son is dead and he can't even pick up the phone!" She snapped, her fear morphing into anger.
"Stop! Don't you say that," Dean warned her darkly.
"You can't leave!" Jess's breathing quickened. "You promised to stay. You promised. You said you would protect me. Don't leave! You can't! Please, Dean!"
"Jess!" He grabbed her and pulled her against his chest, held her almost too tight to breathe. "Jess, stop. It's okay. It's going to be okay. Breathe, darlin'. You'll be alright."
"No, no." She gasped and clenched her shaking hands in his shirt. "Dean, you can't leave."
"I have to." He sighed rubbing a heavy hand soothingly up and down her back. "I have to find my dad. He's the last family I have."
"Then take me with you."
He huffed humorlessly. "I can't risk you getting hurt. Sam would never forgive me." He pulled back just enough to look into her face. "I'd never forgive myself."
"But how can I be safe if you're gone?" She demanded. "What's to keep the thing from coming back and burning me up on the ceiling just like Sam?"
Dean's face hardened and he put some distance between them. Jess had to struggle to unclench her fingers from his shirt. "It would have tried again by now if it was going to. I've taught you how to protect yourself and it will be safer for you to stay here with your family than to hunt monsters and chase after my dad with me."
"I don't want to stay safe here, Dean." She frowned. "I can't just go back to my old life. I can't just act like everything can be normal again."
He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his hair in frustration. "Jess, you can't come with me. I won't be able to protect you all the time. Eventually, it'll get one or both of us killed."
"Then don't just protect me," she insisted. "Teach me how to hunt so I can protect myself."
"No," he growled before she could even finish the sentence. "Absolutely not."
"Damnit, Dean! You can't just make me stay."
"Yes, I can!" He snapped. "I made a promise, Jess, to Sam. That I would protect you and keep you safe and the only way for me to do that is to leave you here."
Jess jerked and gasped, "What?"
Dean blew out a harsh breath. "I promised Sam that I would keep you safe. That I would do everything I could to protect you and the only way I can be sure that you'll be okay is if you stay here." He looked into her eyes and begged, "Please, Jess. Stay here. Stay with your family."
Jess's heart ached and she looked away from his intense gaze. Family, she knew, meant everything to Dean. He may not have said in as many words, but every sparse word he said about Sam, every time his fingers skimmed that amulet hanging from his neck, every time he spoke about his dad, it was there. For a man that lied every day of his life, his eyes reflected every single emotion he had.
He'd made a promise to Sam and a promise to her that he would protect her and keep her safe. She wouldn't be safe on the road with him. She would be in danger every second.
Dean was noble and honorable and he kept his promises. She couldn't ask him to break one now.
"Okay," she relented, her voice soft and small. "I'll stay."
He deflated with her agreement, tension draining out of him. "Thank you, Jess. Thank you."
Dean stayed long enough for breakfast and to say goodbye and thank you to her parents, for footing the bill for the funeral, and for letting him stay under their roof.
Jess followed him out to the Impala the silence heavy between them.
Closing the trunk on his duffle and backpack, Dean walked back to her standing on the sidewalk.
"Now you have the prayer book, and the salt, iron, holy water, cat's eyes shells, and the-"
"Knife," she finished for him. "Yes, Dean. You made sure I have everything."
"You have all my cell numbers as well as Pastor Jim's and Bobby's," Dean continued doggedly.
"They're right here." She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and brandished in front of him. "You watched me add them to my contacts."
"Memorize them too," he instructed. "You never know, always be prepared."
"Okay, I will." Jess nodded fully intending to do as he told her.
They fell into another silence before Jess thought, fuck it, and lunged at him. Dean froze in surprise as Jess wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself tight against him. It didn't take him longer than a breath then he was gripping her just as hard. Jess sighed at the feeling of comfort that came over her and buried her face in his neck.
Dean pressed his face into her hair and inhaled shakily around the lump in his throat. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
They slowly pulled apart and Jess swiped roughly at her cheeks when a couple of tears escaped. "Yeah, you too, Dean."
They stared intensely at each other sharing everything, their pain and grief and reluctance to part, all without saying a word.
Dean broke their gaze and turned away. Sliding into the driver's seat he revved the engine and peeled away too fast for a neighborhood street. Jess stood on the sidewalk and watched him leave until she couldn't see his taillights anymore.
Jess ignored the concerned looks her parents kept sending her as she picked at dinner. Their inquiries were met with one word answers.
She helped her mother clear the dishes away wishing she could just go up to her room, curl up in her bed, and stare blankly at the wall. But she had to keep up appearances. Her parents were worried enough. She didn't want to add to it.
Scrubbing casserole out of a pan, Jess's mind wandered to Dean and Sam and the world she'd discovered. She didn't look up when the doorbell rang.
"Would you get that, Jess? I'll take care of the scrubbing."
Nodding to her mother, Jess dried her hands and walked to the door on automatic. It wasn't until she pulled it open that the fog lifted from her mind.
"Dean?"
He was standing on the welcome mat wearing his leather jacket and an anxious expression. "I made it three hours away before I had to turn around."
Shifting on his feet, Dean rubbed a shaking hand at the back of his neck. "I need- I want you to come with me. You were right. I can't leave you here." He met her eyes steadily and asked, "Do you want to come with me?"
She didn't even have to think, Jess's heart pounded in her chest and she gasped, "Yes."
TBC…