Getting sacked from her barmaid job was easier than expected. She simply didn't turn up the next day.

She'd left a message on her friend Rebecca's machine. 'Hey, Bec, it's JB. You can stop covering for me; I'm leaving town. No, you can't change my mind. No, it's not about anything here. Yes, I suppose it's got stuff to do with my Mom. Anyway, might catch you up later. Keep it real, girl.'

There was no remorse when she texted Rupert either. Ur dumped. That was, in effect, probably the most heartless thing she had ever done, excluding the time she hit that bird with her slingshot when she was ten.

Of all the people Sam could have gone to for help, he chose to come after her. Jo felt a sort of pride about that. She was good, but she certainly wasn't the best. Though she could flirt her way out of almost any place.

Though another part asked why? When the Winchesters Squared were still in operation, the pair of them point-blank refused to let her sit in on any of their seat-of-the-pants adventures, being just a little girl. What had changed?

Apart from the obvious. Death and seven years can change a lot, of course. Trust a Winchester to come blowing back her way just as she'd almost forgotten.

Talking to Deacon was harder. "You shouldn't do it." He said softly. His voice always seemed to get smooth and silky whenever he was becoming particularly angry. "Sam Winchester isn't safe."

"I knew him. I mean - I know him."

"Then you know what he's capable of. Or you don't know what he's capable of. If he weren't a hunter, he'd be dead by now. Like all the other children."

"Meaning what? That you would have hunted him too?" Jo replied coolly. "Is that really what happened to all the psychics? Your lot killed them?"

"My lot is also your lot." Deacon snarled. "They were a danger to everyone around them."

"So are we!" Jo threw up her hands. "Every time we leave our homes there is a danger that they'll be something lurking in the streets ready to attack us and any other poor bastard that gets in the way. Anyway, how would you know anything about Sam except what you hear on the grapevine?"

"He killed my uncle. Steve Wandell. I was still a kid then. He killed Steve in cold blood. They were both there, Sam and that Dean. My dad read me the riot act and went off to track them down. I never saw him again either." His reply was frosty.

Jo's mouth suddenly went dry. "Oh."

"Oh." He agreed. "You know, it used to be the black dog that was a bad omen if you saw it. Now, it's that damn car. Trust me, each time that thing rolls through a town, people die."

"Impala." Jo muttered. "It's the Impala, not 'thing' or 'car'." She had no idea why she was suddenly feeling so defensive about the Impala. Maybe it was because it had always been treated like a family member. Maybe because it had never failed when they needed it. Maybe because the last thing Dean said that she could remember was 'Look after my baby.'

"'Thing', 'car', 'vehicle', 'bus', whatever. You get in that thing with him there's a very good chance that it'll be the last time."

"Every day we get out of bed it could be the last time." She said softly. "I'm sorry, Deacon. I'll see you around, 'kay?"

But Deacon was already walking away.

It was dark where he crouched, and cold. Whoever said Hell was all fire and brimstone deserved a good kick up the arse. Your punishment will be that your Hell shall be that of your own creation. It will be how you believe you deserve to suffer.

That was why it was so harsh, so cruel, and why he begged them to let him go mad. They tortured him, mind and soul. This is for my brother. This is for my father. This is for my sister. This is for my mother. You killed them, ripped them apart and watched them burn.

At times he though he saw glimpses of other people, other creatures as their hells rubbed up against his own, but they were gone before he could reach a claw-like hand out to them. He was so alone. Always alone. Forever. This is for all those who perished under your hand. You will remember how you slaughtered them. You will suffer like they all did. Suffer alone, like you always did.

Then one day he heard a voice. It took him a moment to realise that it was he that was being addressed.

"Hello." He could still not see anything, even after all this time existing in the darkness. But after a while he spotted two pinpoints of green fire glowing in the shadows. As they blinked on and off, he surmised that they were the eyes of whoever was watching him.

"Can you speak?"

Who was it? What was it? The twin fires moved as the person approached. Panic rose in him and he propelled himself backwards, his back against the wall. He feared it. He feared what it would do to him. The creatures that came to him each had a score to settle. Each of them had a history, and came to take what they were due. Taking, but not taking enough to extinguish him.

There was a chuckle from Green Eye. "Once upon a time I would have given a lot to see you cringing at my feet as you are." A pretty little sigh. "But now I find it is just sad. You have broken too easily to be of any amusement, wallowing in your self-pity and self-hate. I watched you for a long time, you and your little crusade. You were going to bring us all crumbling down. Now you cower in the shadows, no more than a shell of what you once were. Tell me, can you speak?"

He opened his mouth. Green Eye waited expectantly. "M-my m-mother told me that… if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all." He was scared, but the one scrap of dignity he had left he brandished before himself like a shield. They would never see how much they hurt him. He wouldn't allow them to see how much they hurt him. This if for my father.

Green Eye regarded him curiously for a moment before throwing back it's head and laughing. "So. The person we all know and love is still in that hollowed-out bag of bones somewhere. How good to know. How very good." There was a certain satisfaction in the voice, almost relief. It sent chills down his spine to hear it. This demon wanted him relatively intact for something. Already he didn't like the sound of it.

"What… do you want?" His voice was still rusty from all the time it spent unused. His hands searched the ground for something, anything he could use as a weapon. His long-buried instincts were whispering to him that this person, creature, fugly could not be trusted. This is for my brother.

Green Eye narrowed its eyes. "I have a job for you."

"I won't be your puppet." He spat, his voice sounding weaker than he would have liked. He was strong. He had to be strong. He was a Winchester, and they would never break him.

"That is where you are wrong. You have no choice." There was a smug edge to its voice and he shrank back as far as he could. This time there was no escape. They really had him this time.

"No."

"You will. Work for Mother and you will be rewarded for it. Work against Mother and your pitiful existence will be made absolutely excruciating. I promise you." A clawed talon arched out of the darkness and stopped just before him, palm up. "Are you willing to make a deal for their lives? Will you become the overseer of Mother's legions and obey her every word?"

"What do you want?"

"The Crossroads whelp offered you to us in exchange for her own continued existence. You surrendered your soul. Now you must surrender your humanity. Will you sacrifice that much? Do you dare to skirt that close to becoming the creature you most despise? Do you dare to join us, Dean?"

"Dare." And they shook on it.

After all this time the ash is still thick on the ground. She thought the wind and the rain would have carried the worst of it away by now.

Sam got out of the Impala, dark glasses shielding his eyes. "I have to make a call." He muttered. "Don't wander far."

Jo walked around the Impala. The wind blew his voice back to her. 'Is Carmen Lorenzo there?' She began to walk away as Sam glanced after her; she had no desire to hear what Sam was discussing with the wicked bitch of the west.

The scorched patch of ground where the Roadhouse had once stood stretched before Jo like a wound. She hadn't found out about the destruction of her childhood home until all those people had died seven years ago.

The ash was still thick on the ground.

She thought of Ash, the little hillbilly that had blown in from Boston. She thought of her mother. Of Gordon Walker, Dean Winchester, and many others she could have named that she had lost in one way or another.

Jo looked up from the ash toward the sad, bare skeleton of the only place she every truly felt like she'd belonged. She would have given anything to go back in time right then and run through the front door into her father's arms.

All gone now.

Someone had placed a bunch of flowers by the foot of the doorway. It saddened Jo that to someone this was a place of pilgrimage, a monument that deserved respect. She could just about imagine Dad yelling at them to get the hell off his stoop.

She knelt down to touch the wilted, crumbling petals. Why did you bring me here, Sam?

The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up. Someone was watching her, and doing a very good job of keeping quiet. She reached for her boot. Jo could feel it getting closer, and as soon as she knew it was right behind her, she spun on her heel, knife flung out wide.

The blade cut deeply into the chest of the creature. Red blood spurted. Jo gasped, almost dropping her knife.

It looked human. A male. His skin was filthy and he smelled strongly of sulphur. The creature snarled. Jo snarled back. "Christo."

It flinched. As she watched, it shook its head, dispelling the word like so much water. "Sam." As it straightened, it dove at her again. Jo slit open its forearm.

It wasn't even slowing down. It came again and again, driving her against the one remaining wall of the Roadhouse. "Sam!" She yelled, plunging the blade again and again.

There was a thunk as the knife lodged against bone. The handle was yanked from her hand as the demon paused in its attack and peered at its hand curiously. Jo's knife stuck up from between the second and third knuckle.

"SAM!"

BLAM! And he was finally there, shotgun in hand. The demon hissed; his shoulder was oozing dark blood and beginning to smoke. She spotted the white salt crystals on its skin.

Sam reloaded. "Come and get it, you son of a bitch."

The creature decided it was finished with Jo and rounded on Sam. Seemingly aware that Sam was waiting for it to charge him, it stood and stared up at him before pulling the knife slowly from his hand. He wiped his hand across his bare chest, leaving a sticky stain.

"Take your best shot." He croaked. "I dare you."

The voice was rusted and harsh, yet still horribly and awfully familiar.

"Dean." Jo whispered.

"Go on and kill me, little brother. I died once because of you, what's a second time going to matter?"

His voice was so cold, so… inhuman.

Jo slowly got to her feet, felling unusually at ease.

"Stay down." Sam ordered.

"But it's Dean."

"No it's not." Sam snapped. "Dean's dead!"

DEAN'S DEAD. The words echoed in her head and whatever spell was holding her shattered around her. Demon-Dean's eyes widened in surprise as Jo launched herself at his back and snatched the knife from his grasp. Latching onto his shoulders, blade tight to the demon's throat, she hauled him into Sam's firing line.

"NOW!" Jo screamed.

Sam fired.

Jo felt fragments of the shot thump into Demon-Dean's back through his chest. She released him and hit the ground as the demon began to hunch over. Face contorted, his eyes began to blacken.

Throwing his head back to the sky, he let out a scream of pure anguish.

And then he was gone.

Literally in a puff of smoke.