Summary: Life on the road was getting easier. The hunts, however, were not.
Being on the road without a set destination was different than following cryptic coordinates. First of all it left a whole lot more time for thinking. Thinking, Jess realized, was bad. Mainly because all she could really think about was either grief stained memories of Sam, or the terror she felt at falling deeper into this dangerous life of hunting the things in the night.
The nightmares didn't stop; the nightmares of Sam burning up on the ceiling above her. Of course now they were joined by graphic images of piles of human bones and immortal cannibals bearing down on her.
There was a mutual agreement between her and Dean that their respective nightmares were to go unmentioned until they brought it up on their own. Of course neither of them brought them up so they both spent restless nights tossing and turning on terrible motel beds.
Motel beds, Jess reflected, were almost universally terrible. Stiff as plywood, covered with dubiously stained comforters, and made up with overly bleached scratchy sheets. It completely baffled her how Dean could get any sleep on them whatsoever, much less wake up not feeling like his skin was crawling with the prospect of bed bugs.
"You almost never get bedbugs," Dean told her casually as if he wasn't talking about one of the most disgusting things in the universe. "Just try and stay away from the pay-by-the-hour and you should be fine."
"You said try," Jess pointed out kinda panicking at the prospect. "Try implies the actual possibility of staying in one."
"Well, sure." Dean shrugged nonchalantly. "If you're low on money. Plus they're usually the ones with the Magic Fingers."
"Magic fingers?" she asked dubiously.
"Yeah," he grinned at her. "You know, the vibrating beds. So worth it."
She couldn't tell if he was messing with her or not.
The nightmares and the occasionally clean motels were two things that made adjusting to her new life difficult, but getting used to sharing so much time and space with Dean, who was still a relative stranger despite shared grief and near death experiences, was an adjustment all on its own.
He had a cassette tape box of 80's hair bands and refused to let her choose the radio station. The same eight albums and he sang along to all of them. There was no effort to harmonize and it was so bad she couldn't tell if he was actually doing it on purpose or if he was really just that bad.
"Seriously," Jess finally snapped after the third round of the same Led Zepplin album. "If we don't listen to something else I'm gonna scream."
"Hey." He slapped her hands away from the radio dials. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."
Jess stared at him blankly. "Then we're going to switch next stop."
"Nope." Dean flashed her a shit eatin' grin. "Nobody drives Baby but me."
Two days later, Jess was pretty sure she was going to either toss all his cassette tapes (cassette tapes, really?) out the window or she was going to toss him out the window.
When they got a motel that night she took the bus then walked three blocks to the closest BestBuy. Dipping into her savings account, she dropped forty bucks on an mp3 player and fifty bucks on buying as much music as she could fit on it.
The next morning when she didn't have to listen to Metallica blaring from the speakers for two hours straight she decided it was one of the best investments she'd ever made.
Jess had roommates before. It was unavoidable when you were a broke college student forced to live off ramen and cold pizza, so most of Dean's other little quirks were easy to overlook. Leaving the toilet seat up; annoying, but she'd gotten used to that living with Sam. Toothpaste squeezed from the middle and smeared all inside the cap; kinda a gross, but whatever. Burger wrappers and beer bottles piled up on all flat surfaces; aggravating, but with prodding he cleaned it up.
She could handle all that. Even the dirty clothes spread around the room were just a minor annoyance. But what really got her goat was that every time he got first shower there was absolutely no hot water left. None. Not even a trickle.
It enraged her.
"Swear to God, Dean. If you use up all the hot water, I'll make you regret it."
"Don't worry, sweetheart." He smirked dismissively as he sauntered into the bathroom. "You'll have plenty of hot water."
Forty-five minutes of an excessively long shower later, Jess was washing her hair in ice cold water.
Over the next three days, Dean didn't like the loose lid on the salt shaker, or all his whites coming out of the washing machine pink, but it was the itching powder in every single pair of his boxers that finally got to him.
"You didn't." He stared at her incredulously as he squirmed around in the driver's seat.
Jess was unrepentant. "I warned you."
Dean tugged at the crotch of his jeans and whined. "But all my boxers?"
"Every single one of them," she nodded. "Even the pair with the hole in the butt."
"That's just cruel, woman."
"Promise to give me first shower and I'll promise to stop tormenting you."
He huffed and gave up trying to be modest and just shoved his hand down his pants to scratch himself. "Fine, you get first shower and all the hot water you want."
Grinning triumphantly, Jess crossed her arms casually and lounged back in the passenger seat. "Thank you."
Dean scowled and squirmed the entire way to the next rest stop. He disappeared into the bathroom with a pair of clean jeans and didn't emerge until he'd scrubbed as much of the itching powder off his junk as he could with wet paper towels. Needless to say he went commando until he could buy a brand new package of underwear.
It wasn't just an adjustment for Jess. Dean had never had to share space with a woman for longer than a night. He didn't realize that women could actually be as inconsiderate and disgusting as men in their own way.
The clumps of long blond hair in the shower drain were nasty. The boxes of tampons periodically materializing were awkward. The avalanche of cosmetics and mystery beauty products taking over the bathroom was annoying. Using every single towel except for a lone threadbare washcloth was frustrating. The only potential highlight of sharing space with a woman was the panties and bras hanging up around the room to air dry.
And he couldn't even enjoy that since every time he spotted a frilly pair of boy-shorts or a lacy bra he felt shame for perving on Sam's girlfriend.
Bumpy adjustment to each other aside, teaching Jess about the supernatural was one of the few things neither of them could complain about.
Jess discovered that the more she learned about the life the closer she actually felt to Sam. Dean found that focusing on preparing Jess, teaching her everything she needed to know to survive helped dull the constant burn of grief.
It was something to focus on and both of them sorely needed something to focus on so they didn't spend all their time lost in their own heads.
Dean taught Jess how they found hunts.
"Obituaries," Dean said tapping the newspaper between them with his pen. "Best place to start."
"Right." Jess nodded and scanned the page for anything that was odd according to Dean's parameters. "Strange deaths; accidents, murders, suicides, and animal attacks."
"You got it."
Jess pointed to an obit about a woman dying of heart failure at the age of thirty-nine. "That one."
Reading through the blurb, Dean shook his head and scratched it out. "No, she had cancer."
She peered back the obit and actually read the whole thing, and huffed at her mistake. "Don't skim, right."
Dean left her to it, going up to the counter to place their order.
Most of the obits were deaths of old age or reasonable accidents like car crashes. One or two of the obits looked weird enough to point out so she circled them and flipped the page. She x-ed out half of the next page before she landed on one that just red flagged for her.
"What'cha got?" Dean mumbled through a mouthful of fries collapsing into the chair next to her.
"Here, check it out." She slid the paper over. "A teenage girl drowned in the lake outside her house. It says here she was on her high school swim team. They searched the lake but couldn't find her body."
Chewing on a massive bite of burger, Dean read through the article and nodded approvingly.
"Good catch." He swallowed still chewing and elbowed her basket of burger toward her. "Eat so we can hit the road."
Jess felt a little rush of pride and bit into her burger with a slight smile on her lips.
The hunt in Lake Manitoc, Jess thought, was almost worse than the wendigo.
She didn't know why, but for some reason she hadn't contemplated that children weren't exempt from the horrors of the supernatural. She didn't think she'd ever forget the look on Lucas's terrified face as he hyperventilated in panic while his mom nearly drowned in the bathtub. She knew she wouldn't forget the sight of Peter Sweeny's dead black eyes and grey waterlogged little body as he dragged Sheriff Devins below the surface.
Perhaps the only positive thing about the entire hunt was that Lucas would be able to grow up. Andrea wouldn't lose her child and they both could have a relatively normal life. As normal as one could be when you watch your father murdered by the angry spirit of a boy he'd accidentally killed as a child.
The days spent in Lake Manitoc were harrowing for more than just the hunt. Jess listened to Dean tell a traumatized little boy about watching his own mother die. Mary Winchester had burned up on the ceiling just like Sam and Jess couldn't keep the image of a tiny frightened four year old watching his mother burn while his home was consumed by fire.
The loss of the man she loved, of her Sam, was devastating and destroyed her life as she knew it, but Dean had his life destroyed twice. She was barely holding on by clawing fingernails as it was, she was terrified and she couldn't fathom how Dean could be so brave even as a frightened child.
She had a new respect for his dedication to saving people. He opened himself up raw to an unfamiliar child in the hope that it would save lives.
When Dean went out for food that evening, Jess wasn't ashamed to admit that she'd cried for the little boy that had watched his mother die.
Still, it was all worth it, the heartache and fear and despair. It was all worth it for the sound of Lucas's voice in goodbye as they got in the Impala and drove away.
Saving people and hunting things, Jess thought as she munched on one of the PB&Js Andrea and Lucas made them. She could get used to it.
It was the middle of the night and there was no way Jess was going to be able to go back to sleep. It was the nightmares again; Sam and the wendigo and Peter Sweeny. It was all horrible and it all made it impossible to go back to sleep.
Glancing over she knew Dean had his own nightmares too, but the longer they were on the road the less they seemed to affect him. She didn't know if it was the routine of returning to the only life he'd known, an actual lessening of the night terrors, or an unbelievable ability to compartmentalize. Either way he had started sleeping through the night most days. He was no stranger to the horrible and deadly so maybe it really didn't faze him anymore.
She definitely knew he still had nightmares about Sam, though, because he woke up shouting his name just like she did.
The shopping channel was universal in every motel they'd ever stayed in, so she was numbing away the images from her dreams while watching fake grinning women try to pawn knock-off jewelry onto insomniac impulse buyers.
Jess figured she'd probably been watching it too long because that amethyst bracelet was really starting to look appealing.
"Oh God, it's worse than George Foremen infomercials."
Almost jumping out of her skin, Jess glanced over at Dean as he groaned and rolled over onto his back rubbing his eyes.
"Sorry. Did I wake you up?" She reached for the changer ready to turn it off.
"Nah." Dean pushed himself up until he was leaning back against the headboard. "I was due for a little insomnia anyway."
They were quiet for a while watching the women on the tv start pushing a lovely necklace with a beautiful aquamarine pedant for just three payments of nineteen ninety-five.
Dean snorted. "Do people actually buy this crap?"
"My mom went through a phase." Jess smiled amused with the memory. "Dad almost canceled the cable after the second Chia Pet."
Dean gave an exaggerated shiver. "Those things give me the creeps."
"You dig up dead bodies and light them on fire, but a clay head that grows grass gives you the creeps?" She asked incredulously.
"Well, yeah." He shrugged. "That shit's just not natural."
Jess laughed, feeling lighter.
They fell into companionable silence watching Dooney & Bourke bags sell for just four easy payments of thirty-nine ninety-nine. She didn't realize she'd fallen back asleep until the sound of Dean's cell went off at five in the morning.
"Oh, yeah. Up in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the poltergeist thing. It's not back is it?"
Dean had the phone to his ear listening intently then arranging a meeting with whoever was on the other end. Jess tried to wake up and blearily hoped it wasn't a real poltergeist because that movie still scared the ever living crap out of her.
She'd never been inside an airplane hangar before. It was kinda cool to see commercial airplanes just sitting around while people welded and tinkered with them. The noise was uncomfortably loud, but she had little problem hearing Jerry Panowski mention the poltergeist.
"It was really a poltergeist?" Jess asked, curious despite the fearful horror movie thrill she still got thinking about it.
"Poltergeist? I love that movie."
"Nobody's talking to you. Get back to work," Jerry shouted over his shoulder at a man in dirty coveralls then turned back to them whispering. "Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart. If it wasn't for Dean and his dad we probably wouldn't be alive."
"Yeah, it was a bitch to get rid of," Dean added casually.
Jerry let out a chuckle with a hysterical edge to it. Apparently he hadn't fully gotten over it yet. Perfectly understandable, Jess thought.
"How's your dad doing, anyhow?" Jerry asked changing the subject unsubtly.
Dean kept his face perfectly neutral and unassuming when he answered. "He's wrapped up in a job."
Jerry nodded not catching the deflection and continued on unawares.
"And how's your brother? Your dad talked a lot about him, seemed real proud."
Jess felt her shoulders tighten as the air around the three of them got heavier. She bit her lip to keep her mouth shut. She would follow Dean's lead.
Dean's face went blank for a second before he schooled it into a somewhat normal expression. "He –uh… He passed away."
Jerry's face fell and turned solemn. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." He was sincere so Jess forgave him for bringing it up in the first place.
They didn't stand in awkward silence for very long. Dean brushed away the atmosphere as if his dead baby brother hadn't just come up in conversation with an almost complete stranger.
"So, what have you got to show us?"
Jerry was all business once again. "Come on, we'll go to my office."
It was quieter there and they didn't have to raise their voices to talk. Jess seated herself in the chair next to Dean curious about what would cause Jerry to call up a monster hunter.
"One of our planes went down, United Britannia flight 2485," Jerry told them pulling out a computer disc in a plastic case. "I got ahold of the cockpit voice recorder and it sounded like it was up your alley."
He popped the disc in his computer. "Here, listen to this."
It was one of the eeriest things she'd ever heard. The static in the background didn't sound natural and the loud whooshing scream at the end sent a shiver up her spine.
"They're saying it was mechanical failure. Only seven people survived. One of them was the pilot, Chuck Lambert. He's a friend. He's pretty broken up about it. Thinks it's his fault."
"But you don't." From Dean's confident expression Jess could tell this was a case. She had no idea what could bring down an entire plane, but she trusted Dean's instincts and his expertise. He thought it was a case, so she believed it was a case.
Jerry shook his head agreeing with Dean. "No, I don't."
"Alright." Dean straightened up in his seat and snapped his fingers in anticipation. "What can you give us on it?"
"I can get you the passenger manifests, the flight plan, and make a copy of the recording for you," Jerry said already typing at his computer and pulling out a blank disc from his desk drawer.
"Can we get a list of the survivors?" Jess cut in for the first time. She was the rookie in this job and was still feeling her way through what could be relevant and what couldn't, but Dean hadn't disregarded any of her contributions yet, so she figured it was safe to ask.
"Sure." Jerry nodded and the printer behind him started spitting out paper.
Dean gave Jess a flicker of an approving grin before turning back to Jerry.
"Awesome. Can you get us in to see the wreckage?"
"Sorry, guys." Jerry frowned handing over the information they'd asked for. "The NTSB has it on lock down. I don't have that kind of clearance, there's no way I can get you in."
Jess was about to deflate in disappointment then Dean just shrugged unconcerned and stood as he pocketed the papers and disc.
"No problem."
An hour and a half later, Jess was staring down at her printer warm ID for the freaking Homeland Security.
"We're going to get caught," she muttered. "Do you think they let you shampoo your hair in Gitmo?"
Dean scoffed and pulled away from the curb. "It'll be fine. People haven't seen it a thousand times. No one's gonna look for fakes."
She was highly skeptical of that. "I'm pretty sure this is a felony, Dean."
"Sure, well." He shrugged. "It won't be the last felony you commit in this job. Illegal kinda comes with the territory."
Jess whined even as she slipped the ID in the leather folder Dean handed her. "My mother won't ever forgive me if I get sent to prison."
"You won't get sent to prison," he assured her. "And even if you do it won't be that bad. I hear orange is the new black."
Jess groaned. "I look terrible in orange."
At least now she knew why Dean had made her buy that really awful off the rack pants suit. There was no way anyone would believe a Homeland Security agent would wear a t-shirt with a grinning Elmo on it.
Beyond all reason, they actually made it past the security officers and into the warehouse. Of course that might have had something to with the fact that both officers were too preoccupied with surreptitiously eyeing Jess's cleavage to comment on their suspiciously young age.
"You think if I showed a little cleavage that would work for me, too?"
Jess scowled, punching Dean in the arm.
"Ow!" He pouted then pulled out what looked like a cannibalized Walkman.
"What is that?" Jess snatched it from his hands and turned it over curiously.
Dean snatched it back with a huff and flipped a switched. The little row of lights on top blinked on.
"It's an EMF reader," he explained and started slowly waving it over bits and pieces of burnt twisted wreckage.
"You made that?" It looked homemade. Wires were exposed and it hummed loudly.
"Yep," Dean replied absently, watching the lights on the meter.
"That's so cool." She couldn't imagine trying to take apart a Walkman and turning into an electromagnetic field meter. That took some skill.
He paused and looked at her like he was surprised. "It isn't that hard. I could teach you if you want," he offered shrugging self-consciously.
Jess grinned. "Totally."
He grinned back and continued to scanning for EMF.
Looking around at the remains of flight 2485 was eerie and disturbing. A hundred people died on that plane and here were its remains laid out in all their twisted charred glory. She didn't stray too far from Dean.
They walked along what used to be the plane's wing until they got to the fuselage. She didn't think it could get any creepier until the EMF reader started squealing and the lights all lit up red.
"That's not good, right?"
"Nope." Dean hovered the meter over the twisted handle of what used to be the emergency exit door for a second. Then he turned it off and slipped it back in his pocket.
Peering closer, Dean pulled out his knife and scraped something grainy and yellow off the handle.
"What's that?"
"No clue." He lifted a half empty bag of skittles out of his pocket, tossed the rest into his mouth then scraped off more of the yellow stuff into the bag. "But we're going to find out."
Jess opened her mouth to ask something else, but didn't get a chance. The sound of pounding footsteps outside had Dean shoving her toward the exit next to the bay doors.
"Run."
She was doing okay, even if she was severely regretting wearing professional looking kitten heels (never again) until they ran right into a ten foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.
"Fuck!" Jess skidded to a halt heart pounding as she got ready to start panicking.
"Jess!"
Snapping around to look at Dean, she saw him toss his suitcoat up to lay messily over the barbed wire then crouch with his hands cupped together.
"Give you a boost." He jerked his head hurriedly toward the fence. "Come on. Hurry!"
"I'm gonna break my frickin' neck!" She protested shrilly.
"Jessica, now!" He snapped.
She yelped at the sharp command and put her foot in his hands. Her other foot was barely off the ground before he was shoving her upward. She scrambled clumsily over the top of the fence and dropped ungracefully to the ground. Pain lanced up her legs with the impact. Dean landed not a second behind her snatching his jacket off the top of the fence on the way down.
He didn't give her time to adjust just grabbed her arm and yanked her into running again.
Jess's breathing didn't start to slow down until they were already driving well away from the warehouse. Her feet hurt and she was pretty sure she already had a couple of blisters.
"Holy shit, we just ran from the cops."
"Actually I think they were Homeland Security," he corrected with a sharp grin.
"Shit," Jess breathed. "We really could have gone to Gitmo."
Dean just threw his head back and laughed.
Tommy Collins had it right down in that mine. Dean was fucking crazy.
They were back in their motel room and back in their jeans and t-shirts. Jess was barefoot curled up in a chair pulled up to the kitchenette table.
Dean just got off the phone with Jerry and sat in the chair next to her. "So, Jerry can't take a look at the powder until later today."
"What do we do while we wait?"
Jess had the cockpit recording cued up on the laptop and had been playing around with it while Dean was on the phone. She was getting nowhere. Nothing popped out if she sped it up, slowed it down, played it backwards. At least nothing that was any creepier than it was before.
"Go through the info," Dean answered nodding toward the laptop. "Got anything?"
"No," Jess replied, disgruntled. "I've tried all I can think of, but all I get is creepy static and panicking pilots."
"Here." He leaned over and pulled the laptop closer clicking around and changing settings on the program. "Let's take out the static, maybe there's some EVP."
"EVP?"
"Electronic Voice Phenomenon," Dean explained. "Sometimes electronics can pick up things we can't hear. Cell phones, voice recorders, radios, stuff like that."
"You think the static is actually whatever this is talking." Jess scooted closer trying to see what settings he changed in case she needed to do this in the future.
"Yeah." He clicked play and sat back.
It seemed that the recording could in fact get creepier.
"No survivors." The voice was raspy and high pitched and definitely unnatural.
"Okay, so that's disturbing." Jess shivered and leaned away from the laptop.
"Disturbing and also wrong. There were seven survivors." Dean frowned then grabbed the list of survivors and read through the names.
"It looks like we're gonna have to talk to some of those survivors."
"Which ones?" Jess asked, curiously. Seven people was kind of a lot to interview in one day.
Dean handed her the list and tapped one name.
"Max Jaffe," she read. "Why are we talking to him?"
"'Cause he checked himself into a mental hospital," Dean said standing up and grabbing his jacket getting ready to go. "It's a good bet that if any one saw anything it was him."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense." Jess hurriedly stood up and started yanking on some socks and her running shoes. No more kitten heels for her.
Max Jaffe walked with a cane and really didn't seem like the kind of guy that needed to be in a mental hospital. Then again, Jess didn't seem like the kind of girl that would pose as a Homeland Security agent.
"I already talked to Homeland Security," Max said with a slight frown as he lowered himself into a picnic table chair.
"Some new information came up and we just have a few more questions we need to ask." Dean gave him an unassuming smile meant to reassure.
Max eyed them and Jess could tell he was dubious when his eyes slide over Dean's leather jacket and her Elmo t-shirt.
"Please, it would really help with our investigation if you would talk with us again," Jess cut in before he could work up from just dubious to downright suspicious.
Jess leaned toward him, placed a gentle hand over his and gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know this must be hard for you, but it really will help."
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dean staring at her with raised eyebrows. She ignored him. He'd already mentioned that her cleavage helped them get into the NTSB. A little "feminine wiles" should have no problem getting a skittish trauma survivor to open up.
Plus he was a twenty-something man that probably hadn't seen a woman in a while that wasn't a patient, nurse, or his mother.
Max's eyes flicked from her sympathetic gaze to the v-neck of her snug t-shirt. He swallowed then looked back up again.
"Yeah, okay. What do you want to ask?"
Bingo. Jess suppressed a grin and glanced at Dean with a nod.
He'd wiped his expression clear of displeasure by the time they'd both looked toward him.
"Before you crashed, was there anything weird about the plane?"
"Weird." Max frowned. "Weird how?"
Dean shrugged. "Strange lights, weird sounds. Voices maybe."
"Uh, no. Nothing like that."
Leaning forward, Dean looked at Max intently. "Mr. Jaffe, you checked yourself in here. Can I ask why?"
Scoffing, Max said, "I just survived a plane crash. I was a little stressed."
"Sure," Dean waved that off. Max scowled. "And that's what terrified you? That's what you're afraid of?"
Max shifted nervously. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"I think you did see something up there," Dean persisted. "And we need to know what."
"I was delusional." Max's eyes darted around not meeting either of their gazes. "I was just seeing things."
Dean scoffed and leaned back throwing a mocking look toward Jess. "He was just seeing things."
"Dean." Jess scowled at him then placed her hand over Max's again. "It's okay, Mr. Jaffe. It's alright, you can tell us."
He was quiet for a moment biting his lip before he finally spoke. "I saw- there was this man," he said haltingly. "He had these black eyes. And I saw- I thought I saw him open the emergency exit."
Jess sucked in a breath before she could stop herself and darted a look toward Dean.
"But that's impossible, right? I looked it up. There's like two tons of pressure on that door." He sounded like he was still trying to convince himself.
Dean met Jess's eyes gravely then turned back to Max.
"Did he flicker? Disappear and reappear? Something like that?"
Max snorted at him incredulously. "What, are you nuts? He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me."
"Okay, so the passenger sitting in front of Max Jaffe was George Phelps." Jess read from the passenger seating chart. They pulled up to George Phelps home about to talk to his widow.
"There is no way he opened the emergency door midflight," Dean said as they walked up the front steps. "Even yoked up on PCP or something he wouldn't have the strength to do that."
"He's not human then," Jess surmised. "What kind of creature would have the strength to force two tons of pressurized door open?"
Dean cocked his head. "Got me, but this doesn't really look like a creatures lair, does it?"
Looking up at the two story house with a welcome mat and flowerbeds, she had to agree. She didn't think many monsters cared about having a manicured lawn.
Mrs. Phelps was sad and obviously still really broken up about her husband's death.
"He didn't even like flying." She sniffled into a tissue. "He was terrified."
Dean looked a little uncomfortable with the crying woman, but Jess didn't think he let it show enough for her to notice. "You said your husband was a dentist."
"Yes," she nodded. "He was flying home from a convention in Denver."
"How long were you married?" Jess asked. She was doggedly trying not to think about how similar she was to being a widow. She couldn't start down that road or she would probably start crying too. That probably wasn't very conducive to getting information out of Mrs. Phelps.
"Thirteen years," she said with a longing look at the photo in her hands.
One look at Dean's face and Jess knew that the chances of George Phelps being the main cause of the plane crash were pretty slim.
"Mrs. Phelps," Dean brought her attention back to the conversation. "Did you ever notice anything strange or out of the ordinary about your husband?"
She frowned bewildered. "He had acid reflux. If that's what you mean."
Pretty sure it wasn't. They wrapped the interview up quickly after that.
"So, George Phelps isn't a monster," Jess guessed.
"A middle-aged dentist with an ulcer doesn't exactly scream evil personified," Dean agreed as they turned toward the hangar to meet up with Jerry.
"What's going on then?" she asked. "If he isn't a monster or a ghost or whatever, how did he open the door and why would his eyes turn black?"
"All very good questions."
When they settled into Jerry's office and he had their sample of yellow dust under a microscope things started to go downhill.
"This stuff is covered in sulfur," Jerry murmured curiously as he lifted his face away from the microscope.
Dean tensed next to Jess and she tensed in response. That's not a good sign.
"Are you sure?" he demanded.
"Yeah," Jerry nodded. "Here take a look."
Dean got up and peered through the eyepiece. When he looked back up his expression was grim.
There was a loud clatter outside and Jerry rushed out the door to deal whatever the problem was.
Jess stood up and moved to stand next to Dean.
"What are you thinking?"
"There aren't a lot of things that leave sulfur behind," he said. "The only one that comes to mind is demonic possession."
Her belly quivered in an unsettling way and she felt cold across the back of her neck. "Demonic possession like The Exorcist demonic passion?"
"Close enough," Dean muttered and pulled out the information Jerry gave them on the flight. "It says the plane went down exactly forty minutes in."
"And that's bad. Why is that bad?" Jess bit her lip.
"Biblical numerology," he explained gravely. "Noah's ark, it rained for forty days. The number means death."
Dean was tense and Jess was having a really hard time trying to ignore it. It wouldn't help either of them if she let his grave attitude freak her out. And she was so very close to freaking out.
Intellectually it made sense that if she stuck with Dean hunting monsters eventually they'd run across something like demons. Intellectually wasn't reality and visions of bloodied crucifixes and pea soup vomit were running on a loop in her head.
You would think that having spent a lifetime hunting demons wouldn't be so very out of the norm, but the way Dean was pacing and frowning told a different story. He was fingering his phone in agitation like he was just itching to make a phone call.
"So, demons," Jess drawled trying to distract herself with actually working the case. She'd discovered in the weeks on the road that by concentrating on the actual research and mystery of the hunts she was able to compartmentalize enough to not completely freeze up.
"What do we know about demons?"
"Tell you the truth, not much." Dean stopped pacing and finally came and sat at the table with her. "This isn't our usual gig. Demonic possession really isn't that common."
He grabbed his dad's journal and started flipping through it. "I really wish Dad was here. He'd know what to do more than I do."
Jess bit her lip and kept her peace. They'd gotten nowhere trying to find John and she'd started to have rather uncharitable thoughts about the man. She knew Dean had called him multiple times since they'd left Stanford, and she knew that he hadn't picked up yet.
"What do we know about demons?" she asked again. "'Cause I got nothing but a lot of traumatizing memories of puking on my high school boyfriend the first time I saw The Exorcist."
Dean looked amused at that and finally some of the nervous tension drained out of him. He was back to business and Jess couldn't have been more relieved.
"Every culture and every religion has its own lore about demons. And each one has attributed different acts of violence to demons."
"Is it a normal thing for demons to take down planes though?" Jess kinda hoped not or else she wasn't ever flying again.
"I don't know." Dean huffed annoyed. "I've never had to actually hunt one before. I'm kinda in the dark here."
Yeah, not comforting that the hunting expert didn't know how to hunt the thing they were hunting. Still, Jess was getting pretty good at research and since they actually knew what they were hunting they had a place to start.
"So, research?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "Research."
To say there was an overabundance of crap about demons on the internet was an understatement. And almost all of it was actually crap. It'd taken her twenty minutes just to get past the sci-fi fantasy fan sites. Then there was a lot of religious stuff about hell and damnation. On topic but not helpful.
It was in the obscure sites where she needed to use the translation program that she finally got down to the stuff that was even halfway relevant.
"Dean."
He glanced up from nearly staring a hole into a page of his dad's journal.
"It says here that in certain cultures certain disasters are often attributed to demons. Earthquakes, volcanos, plagues, stuff like that, even some supposed manmade catastrophes."
Dean looked skeptical. "Yeah, but plane crashes?"
Jess shrugged. "You said the sulfur meant demonic possession and there's precedence for it." She gestured to the page open on the laptop and Dean leaned over to skim an article on a Japanese fishing vessel where the remaining crew swore it was sunk by a demon.
"And a demon possessing a passenger would account for the black eyes and superhuman strength," Jess pressed.
"Great," he drawled sarcastically and rubbed a hand down his face. "So we have a demon that's evolved with the times and figured out how to ramp up the casualties. That's just perfect."
"At least we know what we're dealing with."
"Yeah, you're right," Dean acknowledged. "Now we just have to-"
The sound of Dean's phone ringing where it sat on the table interrupting whatever he was going to say.
Jess snagged John's journal from under Dean's hands while he was distracted and started flipping through it. It had been implied, when Dean was bemoaning the absence of his father that John had actually dealt with a case of demonic possession before. Chances were if he had there would definitely be an entry about it.
After all, if a hunter didn't record their hunts, they would soon become a dead hunter and as far as she knew John Winchester wasn't in fact a dead hunter just yet.
Maybe it was coincidence or serendipity, but when Jess finally turned to the section of the journal marked by the rosary beads dangling out of it she found an entry on an electrician from Omaha that had been possessed. And next to the case notes was a messily copied Latin exorcism.
"Aha!" She slapped the page triumphantly and turned to grin at Dean.
The look on his face quickly wiped her excitement away.
"That was Jerry," he said, slipping his phone in his pocket and grabbing his jacket off the foot of his bed. "The pilot, Chuck Lambert, just died in a plane crash outside of Nazareth."
Jess snapped the laptop closed and stumbled to grab her own jacket shoving Sam's gun back in its holster under her arm.
"Should we be worried it's outside of a town called Nazareth?" she asked taking the sport bottle of holy water Dean tossed her and shoving it in her inside jacket pocket.
"Nah," Dean answered with a crooked smirk. "Pretty sure the irony is just a bonus."
"Great," Jess snorted. "A demon with a sense of humor."
"Hey, it takes all kinds."
They jumped in the Impala and sped the whole way there.
They took a sample of yellow dust back to Jerry -this time in a real plastic baggy- and got some unsurprising but still bad news.
"Lemme guess," Dean drawled. "Sulfur."
"Yep." Jerry looked up from the microscope. "I take it that's bad."
"Yeah. No offense but if this demon was just after Chuck that would be good news but…"
Jess felt a chill run up her spine again. Maybe she'd eventually shake that fear response, but she highly doubted it. "The cockpit recorder said 'no survivors'."
"It's going after the survivors." Dean nodded.
Jerry looked pale. He swallowed thickly. "What are you going to do?"
"Well, for one thing," Dean started, looking at Jess, determined. "We're gonna have to make sure none of the other survivors get on a plane anytime soon."
"How are we going to do that?"
Turns out pretending to be a rep from United Britannia Airlines was actually disturbingly easy.
"It's that perky voice," Dean commented with a grin. "People just like a good phone voice."
"Whatever." Jess rolled her eyes and started to dial the next number while Dean drove.
The line was picked up and a woman answered the phone.
"Hi, is this Amanda Walker?" Jess put on her best customer service voice. "I'm Trish with United Britannia Airlines and we'd like to- what?"
Straightening her seat on, Jess saw Dean glance over on alert.
"Could you please tell me what flight your sister is on? We'd love to talk with her before she takes off."
Jess snapped her fingers for a pen. One was handed over and she quickly jotted down the flight number and departure time. There was no way they were going to get there in time.
"Amanda's flying out of Indianapolis at 8 p.m.."
"Crap." Dean turned back to the road and Jess was jerked back in her seat as the car accelerated.
"We're not going to be able to get there in time, Dean." She grabbed the door handle to steady herself.
"We will if I'm driving." He shifted gears and the car growled.
"It's five hours! What are you going to do? Floor it the whole way?"
He grinned cheekily at her taking his eyes off the road for a second. "Just start calling her cell. Try to keep her off the plane."
"Watch the road!" Snatching up the phone from the seat next to her she started dialing. Five rings and it rolled to voice mail.
Jess left a marginally professional message and hit redial. Two more voice messages later, she gave up and tossed the phone down again.
"She's not answering. How long do you think it'll take us to get there?"
Dean flicked his eyes to the dashboard clock then the speedometer. "Two and a half hours give or take."
Jess stared at him wide eyed. "How fast are you even going?"
"You don't want to know."
She really wanted to smack that cheeky grin of his face. She also didn't want to die in a horrible fiery car crash so she just white knuckled the door handle and hoped they made it there in one piece.
It's been several years since she'd been in an airport and security protocols definitely hadn't lessened since then. Unfortunately that meant leaving Sam's gun in the trunk. She didn't realize she'd gotten so used to the feeling of protection it gave her until she felt naked without it.
"Damn it!" Dean grumbled as they ran through the parking lot. "I feel naked."
Jess knew exactly how he felt.
"There's forty minutes until the plane should start boarding so she should still be in the terminal." Jess slid to a stop under the electronic flight schedule board.
Glancing around, Dean spotted the inner airport phone line. "There." They jogged to the phone and before she could stop him Dean snatched it up and was already getting switched over to flight 424's terminal.
"Dean!" she hissed trying to grab the phone from him. "Let me talk to her!"
He batted her hands away. "Stop it! I know what I'm doing."
Lunging she got a grip on the phone. "You can't just-"
Dean elbowed her in the chest none too gently knocking some of the air out of her. "Hello, is this Amanda Walker?"
Scowling and regaining her breath, Jess punched him in the arm hard enough to rock him back a step.
"This is Doctor Hetfield at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. We have a Karen Walker here."
Jess didn't even try to resist smacking her forehead. This was going to end badly.
Regardless of the fact that the phone conversation did in fact end unfavorably, Jess couldn't help being tiny bit impressed that Dean had switched cover stories mid conversation with barely a pause. Con-artistry aside they still had to keep Amanda from getting on the plane. Or at least the plane from getting off the runway.
"Maybe we could stage a security incident?" Dean suggested.
"And get arrested for terrorism?" Jess protested shrilly. "No."
"Well, what are we going to do?"
Biting her lip, Jess looked around for inspiration. Her eyes caught on the ticket purchase counter.
"Go get some luggage," she ordered Dean and started to jog toward the ticket counter. "I'll get the tickets and meet you in-"
"Whoa. Wait-what?" Dean snatched her arm and tugged her back.
"What? Dean, come on. We don't have a lot of time."
"Yeah, but-" his gaze darted around shiftily. "I-I can't get on a plane."
"Why not?" she demanded then she got a good look at his face. "Wait, you're not on the no fly list are you?"
"What? No!" He let go of her arm and rubbed his shaky palms on his thighs. "I'm just not… getting on a plane."
It took a second, but finally Jess put the clues together. She figured it wasn't really her fault it took her so long since she'd never actually seen Dean nervous or scared before.
"You're afraid of flying, aren't you?"
"Why do you think I drive everywhere?" he snapped.
"Dean, that plane is going to crash," she hissed, trying to keep her voice low. It would not be good if someone called security on them. Talking about a possible plane crash then the plane actually crashing was like a one-way ticket to Gitmo. She was too pretty to go to Gitmo.
"Exactly!" He threw his hands up exasperated, but Jess didn't miss the fine tremble in them.
Stepping close she wrapped a hand around his arm trying to be comforting. "Dean, I can't do this by myself. A lot of people are going to die if we don't get on that plane."
He was chewing on his lip, eyes darting between hers reluctantly.
"Please, Dean. They need you on that plane. I need you on that plane, because there is no way I'm going to be able to do an exorcism by myself and I am not letting more people die."
He deflated with a heavy sigh. "Fuck. Why did you have to go and become an actual hunter on me?"
She grinned, feeling a little proud. "I had a good teacher."
"Yeah, yeah." He shook her hand off his arm and turned toward the doors. "Just get the damn tickets. I'll scrounge up some non-terroristy stuff out of the trunk."
Handing over her check card was painful when Jess realized that she wasn't going to have any money left in it pretty soon. Apparently the life of a hunter was an expensive one. She had a fleeting thought to how Dean was paying for all their food and motel rooms, but pushed it away in favor of finally freaking out about the rest of the hunt.
She didn't think finding a demon and performing a full on exorcism on a plane full of people was going to be easy. The chance of death was only surpassed by the chance of being arrested. Yeah, this was going to be a cake walk.
Getting through security went pretty smoothly despite Dean sweating nervously and generally acting all kinds of sketchy. Luckily the guy trying to wand Dean was placated with a flirty grin and an explanation of, "Nervous flyer."
True enough. She was really starting to get the hang of this lying with the truth thing.
Their seats were in the middle of the plane and Jess didn't know if that was strategically good or bad. She didn't really get a chance to ask Dean because the moment they took off he had her hand in a vice grip while humming heavy metal under his breath.
"Dean," she squeezed his hand back and gave him a comforting smile when he looked at her. "Dean, it's gonna be okay. Pretty much the only thing that's gonna bring this plane down is the demon. And we knew how to take care of that."
He took a couple deep breaths before he loosened his grip on her hand. "Yeah, okay. I'm good."
She discreetly flexed her fingers to get the circulation back. "You sure?"
"Yeah." He nodded and pulled out John's journal. "Show me the exorcism you found."
"This is it." She pointed to the Latin verses written out in John's blocky handwriting. "It's two parts. First part makes the demon manifest outside the host, the second sends it back to Hell."
"Okay. That doesn't sound too hard."
"Um…" Jess fidgeted under Dean's look. "Making the demon manifest makes it more powerful."
He cursed under his breath and snapped the journal closed. "Perfect."
Jess spotted a stewardess coming down the aisle and waved her down. Leaning across Dean, Jess gave the stewardess an unassuming smile.
"Excuse me, are you Amanda?"
She shook her head and smiled blandly. "No, I'm not."
"Oh, so sorry. My mistake."
They waited until the stewardess was distracted with another passenger. Turning around Dean spotted the second Stewardess stacking cups in the back.
"Okay, that must be Amanda. I'll go talk to her and-"
"Yeah, no." Jess yanked on his arm making him drop back down in his seat. "Last time you tried talking to Amanda she agreed to talk to her shitty ex and still got on the possessed plane. I'm talking to her."
Dean grumbled but let her scoot past him. She was almost in the aisle when he snagged her jacket sleeve. "Wait, here take this. It'll burn her if she's a demon."
Jess shoved the bottle of holy water away. "Are you nuts?" she hissed. "What am I supposed to do if she starts hissing and burning? No, she'll flinch at the name of God. It's subtler."
Dean opened his mouth and Jess cut him off, "In Latin, I know."
Pursing his lips unhappily he kept ahold of her jacket for a moment as he looked up at her seriously. "Be careful."
She gave him a smile and an affectionate roll of her eyes. "I'll try."
As she walked down the aisle toward Amanda the plane gave a turbulent shake and she could have sworn she heard Dean whimper.
Amanda was shorter than Jess by a few inches and was pretty and cheery. A little too cheery for someone who had survived a plane crash if you asked Jess.
"Can I help you?"
Jess gave her a smile and shook her head. "Just had a long day. I'm a little restless."
"Ah, I understand completely." Amanda stacked a few more cups and started fiddling with the cocktail napkins. "I'm a little restless myself."
"Really? I thought you'd be pretty used to being in the air."
"Not anymore." Amanda's expression flickered and she turned her gaze down to her hands.
"What happened?" Jess pressed, knowing full well what happened but still needing Amanda to keep talking.
"I was in a-," she cut off and swallowed. "It's just hard to talk about."
"I'm sorry," Jess murmured sympathetically. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"Oh, no. You didn't," Amanda assured her with a smile.
"So you're happy being a stewardess?" It was getting a little harder to move the conversation along, but Jess thought she was doing pretty good.
"Yeah." Amanda grinned and Jess could tell she meant it. "I don't want to let being scared keep me from doing what I love."
Shit, she was being genuine. Jess was pretty sure she wasn't possessed, but it was always better to check.
"Christo, you're well adjusted." Okay so it wasn't the subtlest, but it did the job.
Amanda chuckled at that even though Jess could tell she was a little confused by the odd pronunciation. "Well, I try." She shrugged.
Not a flinch or a black eye to be seen. Jess lingered long enough to ask for a Sprite to keep from raising suspicion. When she made it back to Dean she flopped down in her seat and took a long gulp of her soda.
"No demon?"
Jess shook her head and offered him her soda. "Nope. She's probably one of the most mentally healthy trauma victims in history."
Dean took a sip and made a face at the sugary taste handing it back to her. "It's somewhere on this plane, we just have to find it."
"What's the plan?"
Dean reached into his jacket and passed over his Walkman EMF meter. "Walk this aisle and scan as you go. I'll hit the other one and mutter Christo under my breath like a crazy person."
Unwinding the earbuds, Jess stuck them in her ears and grinned at him. "You mean you're not a crazy person?"
"Shad up," he grouched at her and stood up into the aisle.
Walking up and down the plane waving a busted up Walkman at people was not a good way to stay inconspicuous. Her face was getting tired from all the "nothing to see here, I'm completely harmless" smiling she was having to do.
She was also pretty sure the goth chick with the piercings was checking out her ass.
She was nearing the end of her aisle and unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, none of the passengers made the EMF screech. That didn't keep her from being on high alert the entire time. She and Dean were almost one hundred percent certain there was a demon on the plane and it was going to drive said plane into the ground in just under fifteen minutes. Jess hoped a time constraint wasn't the norm on hunts 'cause this shit just made an already stressful situation that much worse.
A heavy hand came down on her shoulder and she yelped. Several of the passengers turned around and glared. Her heart was trying not to jump out of her throat as she glared at Dean behind her.
"Jesus, Dean! Don't do that!"
"Sorry." He held his hands up apologetically then nodded at the EMF. "Anything?"
She was about to respond when the bathroom door in front of them opened and the EMF lit up squealing.
The man was dressed like a pilot and was smiling friendly at the stewardess as he past. All of Jess's instincts were telling her there was something very wrong with that man.
Dean was warm and solid pressed up against her shoulder and she could feel the way his body stilled, his muscles tensed in readiness. She could feel his voice rumble in his chest when he muttered, "Christo," under his breath.
The pilot froze in the act of opening the cockpit door, rolled his shoulders, and glanced behind him. He looked right at them. His eyes were completely and totally black.
The door closed locking after him.
With a shuddering breath, Jess muttered, "Fuck."
Dean took her by the arm and turned them both to the back of the plan. "Yeah, that's definitely going to put a crimp in our plans."
"Oh, you mean the plans that suddenly involve getting an airplane pilot out from behind the steel reinforced cockpit doors so we can hold him down and exorcize him in a plane full of people while flying three thousand feet in the air?" she whispered a little hysterically. "That's a big-ass crimp, Dean."
"I said it was a crimp, didn't I?" He shoved his way past a businessman trying to get into the overhead bin pulling Jess quickly behind him. "Come on. We gotta find Amanda."
"She's isn't going to believe us."
Dean threw her a look over his shoulder. "You'd be surprised."
Amanda was just where Jess had left her. She'd done a round with the refreshments cart and was once again reloading it with cups and mini bottles of alcohol. Jess really wanted to chug one of the little vodka bottles, but she didn't think it would be a good idea considering the circumstances.
Looking up as they pulled the curtain shut behind them Amanda smiled uncertainly.
"Hey, did you need something?"
Dean shoved at Jess's shoulder.
Stepping up, Jess had a split second to come up with something that would get her to help them.
"The copilot's possessed and we need you to get him back here so we can exorcize him and keep the plane from crashing."
The stunned silence was uncomfortable. Dean face-palmed and pushed her out of the way.
"Look, Amanda we don't have time for the truth is out there speech, but you know that something isn't right here. We know you were on flight 2485."
"What?" Amanda's eyes widened and she looked between them like they were crazy. Jess didn't hold it against her, it was a reasonable assumption.
"We spoke to the other passengers and something brought that plane down and it wasn't mechanical failure. And Chuck Lambert, the pilot, he died in a plane crash." Dean looked her in the eyes the entire time he was talking and if Jess had been on the other end of that intensity she would have had a hard trying to deny what he was saying.
"I'm sorry," Amanda stuttered trying to back away from him. "I can't help you. I have to get back to-"
They were losing her. Dean was scaring her. Grabbing his arm Jess yanked him back.
"Dean, that's not helping."
"We have less than twelve minutes, Jess. What do you want me to do?" he demanded frowning. "I can't sugar coat it for her."
"You can't glare at her into listening either." She turned to Amanda and tried to seem less intimidating. She wasn't sure she succeeded, but at least Amanda didn't look she wanted to start screaming for help.
"We're sorry to have to do this, but Amanda we need your help," Jess said evenly, attempting to calm the situation down. "You know something wasn't right with 2485. You know that it wasn't mechanical failure and you're the only one that can help us keep this plane from going down too."
Amanda was chewing on her lip nervously, her mind almost visibly racing as she tried to reconcile what they were saying. Finally she sucked in a breath. "There was a man." She swallowed the memory obviously disturbing her. "His eyes were, I could have sworn, they were black."
"That's it." Dean drew her attention. "That's exactly it."
"What do you want me to do about it?" she demanded shoving past her fear.
"You need to get the copilot back here." Jess placed a comforting hand on her arm. "Anything you can do, say whatever you have to, we just need to get him back here."
"But I could lose my-"
Jess cut her off. "If you don't we'll all die."
That seemed to finally shock her enough not to protest anymore.
They watched her knock on the cockpit door then Dean was shoving John's journal and a bottle of holy water in Jess's hands before pulling a roll of duct tape out of his jacket pocket. How he got that past security she didn't know.
"You got the exorcism?"
Jess met his gaze and nodded. "Yeah. Practiced on the drive."
"Good." He turned back and there was a moment of tense stillness then Dean was punching the pilot into the floor.
Amanda almost screamed, but Jess grabbed her and yanked her away from the tussle just in time for her to avoid a foot to the knee.
"What's he doing?" She yelped as Jess shoved Amanda behind her.
"We have to exorcize him."
Dean had the pilot's mouth taped shut and was straddling him pinning his arms to his chest. "Jess!"
Darting forward, Jess squirted the holy water on the pilot and suddenly the whole exorcizing the possessed thing got a whole lot more real.
"Oh my God!" Amanda gasped as the steam rose from the possessed pilot's skin.
"Holy crap!" Jess gasped. "That really burns them!"
Dean lost his grip and got punched in the mouth. "Yeah! It really works. Now start the damn exorcism, Jess!"
Oh right. They were actually in the middle of a life or death situation. How could she have forgotten?
Turning, Jess grabbed Amanda's shoulder. "Stand out there and don't let anyone in."
"But-but-"
"Please, Amanda!"
Amanda glanced back at the steaming flailing copilot and nodded jerkily. "Okay, okay."
Jess didn't wait for her to shut the curtain before she started chanting.
"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino-"
Dean was having trouble holding him down and Jess remembered distantly over the flow of the chanting that possessed George Phelps had enough strength to open an emergency door.
The demon suddenly broke free. It shoved Dean off its chest tossing him into Jess. Dean was nearly a good two hundred pounds of pure muscle and Jess hit the ground hard under his bulk. It was a small miracle she didn't lose her grip on the journal.
Dean rolled off her and tackled the pilot again. "Keep reading!"
Jess gasped out the next words of exorcism while trying to get the breath back into her. Getting to her knees Jess had her eyes glued on the page as she scrambled for the discarded water bottle and squirted the demon over Dean's shoulder.
Shrieking, it bucked and ripped off the duct tape with a freed hand. It kicked out catching Jess in the stomach and grabbed Dean by the neck yanking him closer.
"I know what happened to your brother!"
Dean froze wide eyed.
"He must have died screaming! Even now he's burning!"
Jess didn't know what possessed her, pun not intended, but she dropped the book, surged past Dean, and punched the evil bastard in its black eyed grinning face.
"Shut the hell up you evil motherfucker!"
She punched him again splitting her knuckles on his unnaturally hard cheek and was rearing back for another when Dean grabbed her wrist and jerked her back.
"Read it, Jessica!"
Snatching the journal back up, Jess chanted the last line of the first verse and suddenly black smoke was pouring out of the pilot's mouth and shoving itself though the air vent.
There was a pause then the plane dipped and Jess went flying. She hit the refreshment cart crashing to the floor on top of it. Dean caught her with a boot heel in the tumble as he slid past her. The burst of pain made her yelp but the sound was lost in the screaming terror of the rest of the passengers as the plane took a sharp nose dive.
The plane jerked and Jess almost tumbled out into the cabin but Dean's hand snapped out and grabbed a fistful of her clothing. She was clotheslined by the collar of her Calvin and Hobbs t-shirt and bungeed back into Dean's chest by her bra. He wrapped his arm around her waist and held on tight.
"Finish it!" he shouted in her ear as the plane bucked and shuddered threatening to toss them around. The only thing keeping them in place was Dean's death grip on the emergency door handle and his death grip on her.
"Jessica!" he bellowed over the sound of screaming civilians again. "Finish it!"
It was then she realized that, miracle of miracles, she'd kept ahold of the journal. When she'd been thrown with the plane's first shudder she'd wrapped her arms around it pressing it to her chest so hard she was going to have binder ring bruises.
It was hard to release her hold on the journal enough to read. The flashes of lightning through the plane windows and the flickering of cabin lights didn't help her any, but somehow she was able to start reading again. She could barely hear her own voice, her heart was pounding so hard that it was hard to breathe, and the tightness of Dean's arm around her was verging on painful.
Still she wanted that smug plane crashing bastard fucking gone.
"Benedictus deus! Gloria patri!" she finished, screaming loud enough she felt her throat scrape.
The plane was struck by lightning. Electricity arched through it until finally the plane leveled out and everything was calm.
They sat stiff, still holding onto each other until the sounds of hysterical laughing and crying reached them from the passenger cabin. Jess collapsed back against Dean and went limp.
Dean pried his fingers off the emergency door and eased his hold around Jess leaning back against the bulkhead. Jess tried to lift herself off of Dean or shift away from sprawling against him, but her entire body chose that moment to feel the beating she'd just gotten. She groaned.
"Jess, you good?" he asked, words raspy.
"I'm never flying again."
Dean chuckled and patted her belly consolingly. "I hear you, sweetheart. I hear you."
The last two hours of the flight were torture. Every single passenger was traumatized and punchy from the near miss. The copilot had regained consciousness and was a little freaked out that he couldn't remember a damn thing that happened after he got to the airport before boarding the plane.
Amanda and the other stewardess were like saints or something because they managed to keep pretty much everyone from completely melting down.
At some point Dean and Jess finally got off the floor and stumbled their way to their seats strapping themselves in. If Amanda noticed they'd pilfered a handful of mini liquor bottles each she didn't say anything, but the plastic cups of ice that appeared on their folding trays suggested she didn't mind.
Jess had downed her first mini vodka bottle in two gulps but decided to savor her second. She put her head back and closed her eyes. Dean was on his third whisky finally having decided to make use of the little cup of ice. It clinked as he lifted it to his lips and took a long gulp.
"So, that wasn't so bad."
She peeked an eye open and glared at him. "It was horrible."
"Yeah, okay," Dean conceded. "So it was pants shittingly awful, but, hey, the plane didn't crash and we didn't die. Win, win."
"Jesus, you're crazy," she muttered and went back to closing her eyes.
Dean was quiet for a moment before he spoke in a softer voice. "You did good."
Jess opened both her eyes and looked at him.
"You did good, Jess." He gave her a small proud smile. "Not every hunter would have kept their cool like you did and I'm pretty sure a rookie would have literally shit their pants, so yeah. You did good."
Her cheeks warmed and she glanced down at her plastic cup of vodka. "I was really fucking scared."
"But you didn't freeze," he said. "And that's half the job. Being scared, but doing it anyway."
"You're telling me you get scared on hunts?" she asked with a skeptical quirk of her lips.
"Hell yeah!" He grinned. "I mean, planes, man. I'm pretty sure I would be curled up in a ball of tears on this one if it wasn't for you."
"Whatever." Jess huffed and rolled her eyes.
He placed a warm hand over hers on the arm rest and met her eyes sincerely. "I'm serious, Jess. I don't think I could have done this one without you."
It warmed her heart because she knew that he was telling the absolute truth. For an accomplished liar, his eyes were the windows to his soul.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't have to." She smiled warmly at him.
They fell into companionable silence until Jess noticed that Dean was scowling darkly at his fourth whisky.
"Dean?"
He flicked his eyes toward her and tried to brush it off with a half smirk. "Nothing. Just don't like flying still."
That wasn't it and they both knew that. She flexed her hand around her vodka and felt the sting of her busted knuckles. She bit her lip hesitantly.
"What the demon said," she started. "You don't think it's true?"
"No."
Jerking her eyes up to look at him, Jess was taken aback by the fierceness in his expression.
"Demons lie, Jess," he told her. "They can read minds. They pick out the things that hurt the most and use them against us."
Knowing that didn't really make her feel any better, but the conviction in Dean's words helped her push away the doubt.
She sniffed angrily. "Hope the fucker burns in Hell."
He chuckled. "Sweetheart, that bitch is gonna be burning for a long, long time."
She shared a vicious grin with him. "Good."
The feds were already at the terminal when the plane taxied down the runway. Jess didn't need to ask to know that avoiding being question by the FBI was a very good idea. Luckily, Amanda was so grateful to them, she promised not to say anything even hinting at their involvement. They were able to dodge questioning and sneak out of the terminal relatively easily.
Getting a rental car to drive back to Indianapolis was less easy. Especially when Dean point blank refused to set foot in a Prius. Of course ninety percent of the cars in the lot were Priuses. Finally the attendant, in a fit of self-preservation, tossed them the keys to possibly the last Crown Victoria ever made.
Dean grumbled about a cop car being almost as bad as a Prius. Jess shut him down before he could get too worked up.
"It's either the cop car or the douche car, pick one."
He scowled at her and stomped angrily toward the maroon Crown Vic.
"I thought so." Jess picked up her pink and purple duffle calmly following behind him.
It was surprisingly roomy on the inside and Jess didn't realize quite how exhausted she was until she awoke when Dean gently shook her shoulder.
"We're here. Wake up."
She looked around at the motel parking lot blearily. "Indianapolis already?"
He snorted and tugged her from the front seat both their bags slung over his shoulder. "No. We're stopping for the night."
"Oh, okay." She followed sedately as he opened the motel and dumped their stuff on the bed closest to the door.
She headed straight for the other bed and face planted. She was only a few blinks away from falling asleep again when Dean started to poke and prod her.
"Not yet. I gotta check you out first."
Jess groaned, but let him badger her into an upright position.
He ignored her inarticulate complaining and gently walked his fingers up and down her ribs and pressed lightly over her abdomen.
"Nothings broken. Nothing but surface bruising far as I can see." He ducked to look her in the eyes again. "You hurt anywhere else."
Knowing Dean wouldn't let her lay back down and get some freaking sleep until he was damn sure she wasn't going to expire between then and morning, Jess tried to take stock of any other bodily complaints she had.
"My knuckles hurt, but that's it."
Dean lifted her hand up to examine said knuckles. He had a smirk on his lips and his eyes glinted proudly.
"That was a pretty good punch there," he said rubbing a thumb soothingly over the scabbed reddened skin. "If he hadn't been a demon, I'm pretty sure you would have knocked him out."
Jess huffed and shook her head. "Well it hurt like hell." She wrinkled her nose. "No pun intended."
He chuckled and dug around in his bag pulling out the small innocuous first aid kit he'd gotten through security. Swabbing the skin with alcohol, Dean slathered on some Neosporin, and wrapped her hand in gauze to protect the damaged skin while she slept.
"All, done." He patted her knee. "Go back to sleep."
Grumbling, Jess toed off her running shoes and pulled her bra off through her shirt sleeve no longer caring if Dean caught an eyeful of her lingerie. They've been in the same living space long enough that it was unavoidable. She's already seen more bits of him than she'd seen of any man she wasn't sleeping with.
Curling up under the covers, Jess barely registered Dean muttering annoyed under his breath as he picked her bra off the floor and shoved it hurriedly into her bag. She let the sounds of him moving around getting the motel ready for them to sleep sooth her and she was almost ready to go under when Dean stopped by her bed.
He was silent for a moment then Jess felt his warm callused hand stroke her hair from her face. "Go to sleep, Jess."
Her eyes finally closed all the way and she fell asleep.
TBC...