It had been a fairly uneventful day, with Sam filling everyone in on the current demon situation and checking out new leads on its whereabouts, Jaye and Ellen spending some time at the small strip mall in town, and Dean actually enlisting in the fight against evil (at least until September, when Jaye had to be back at school).
The sun was just starting to set in the small Texas town as Sam left to get something to eat and Dean sat on the bed, making sure his brother's weapons were all in proper working order.
"Come on in, boy," he muttered under his breath, unable to stand the silence that filled the room after his brother had left, "sit on down and tell me 'bout yourself. So you like my daughter, do you now? Yeah, we think she's something else. She's her daddy's girl, her momma's world. She deserves respect, that's what she'll get, now ain't it, son? Y'all run along and have some fun. I'll see you when you get back, prob'ly be up all night, just cleaning this gun." He smirked. Oh, yeah, he was definitely using that on Jaye's first boyfriend (not that she would ever be allowed to date, mind you).
The door creaked open and Jaydin stuck her head in. "Daddy?"
He looked up and smiled. "Yeah?"
"Nice guns."
"Your uncle's."
"Figured. Um, listen, mom wants to talk to you about something. Alone."
"Oh. Ok." Dean stood up and stretched, groaning as his joints popped audibly. "Stay in here and don't touch anything."
"Don't worry, dad. We had a nice long talk about gun safety in school when I was five. I think it sank in."
He grinned at her and headed out of the room, mentally preparing himself for what was probably going to be a major emotional beating.
"Jaye said you wanted to see me?" Dean asked, poking his head into the room his daughter shared with her mother.
Ellen, who was busy pacing the floor, stopped trying to carve circles into the thick carpet and nodded. "Come on in."
"And sit on down?"
She shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat."
He gulped and slid into a chair. "So, anything in particular you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Yeah. I've been thinking, and it just seems like… Jaye and I have really been getting along. You know that. She likes spending time with me. And she's always wanted a mom, right?"
"Since she was about four, yeah. Why?"
"I just thought that she might like to come and spend the summer with me at the Roadhouse. Maybe get to know her mother a little better. I think she deserves to have the chance."
"You want her?" he asked quietly.
Ellen nodded. "I thought I should run it by you first, but, yeah. I think she'd enjoy coming out for the summer. Is that ok?"
"You really want her?"
"I think it would be good for her to get to know her mother."
He ducked his head, looking down at his shoes, which had lost most of the mud they'd gathered the night before, trying to come up with a logical response, something that could convey the rules of the unwritten, unspoken agreement they'd made nearly fourteen years before.
o0o0o0o0o
Jaydin couldn't hide her smile as she sat with her back against the wall, listening to her parents talking in the next room. She'd never realized before how much she loved crappy construction and paper-thin plaster. Her father's positive response was a sure thing. After all, he'd always put her first.
o0o0o0o0o
Dean sighed and looked up at Ellen. "Now you want her?" he barked, a little louder than he'd intended. Volume didn't matter, though, it seemed to elicit the desired effect.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," he snapped.
"Lower your voice."
"No."
"What if Jaye-"
"Maybe she deserves to know the truth. I'm done lying for you. You didn't want her thirteen years ago, but now that she went out of her way to find her you're just gonna welcome her in with open arms? What are you gonna do when you get back to Nebraska, huh? She can't call you mom around Jo. You can't treat her any different than you'd treat a regular customer. She'll get nothing out of it."
"Don't get mad at me. I'm not the one who lied to her for thirteen years."
"That's right, you're the one who avoided her like the plague. My bad."
Ellen rolled her eyes. "Don't blame me for your own mistakes."
"Well what was I supposed to do? Tell her that her mother never really wanted her, actually wanted to kill her? Was I supposed to tell her that I'm the only reason she's alive right now? That mommy doesn't live with us because she was a mistake and daddy accidentally thought that he could actually get involved with someone without having to run for once in his life? That mommy's old enough to be her grandmother? That Mother's Day at school sucks because someone out there didn't want her, hated her enough to never even want her to live?"
"Dean-"
"I wasn't going to tell my daughter that someone who was supposed to love her didn't. It's not exactly fun living with that kind of knowledge."
She sighed. "Look, I know things haven't exactly been great between us, but that doesn't mean that you should try to keep her from getting something she wants."
He looked up at her with hurt, shining eyes, and she forced herself to look away. She wasn't getting sucked in, not again. "What about what I want?"
"That's pretty selfish, don't you think?"
"You can ask her about it," he muttered, pushing himself out of the chair, "I'm going for a walk."
o0o0o0o0o
Jaye heard the door to the room she'd been sharing with her mother open and close, but she didn't move. She just sat curled up against the wall, trying to process everything she'd just heard.
The things her parents had told her were lies. Only the main storyline, the stuff that didn't really matter in the long run, stayed the same.
She sighed, finally moving from her spot by the wall to the clean bed and flopping down on her stomach. She had someone who was willing to bend the laws of nature and wrestle with demons to save her life, and she'd actually run away from him, had thought about staying away.
Things were going to change, hopefully for the best. She was going to make sure of that.
I'd just like to point out that while Dean was cleaning Sam's guns, he was muttering the refrain to the song 'Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy)' by Rodney Atkins. I think it totally describes Dean and his parenting style, so check out the song if you get a chance!