Sorry it's so short but I really want to put emphasis on everything that is happening. I don't want to shove a lot of stuff in one chapter.
The water in the shower was scalding hot but Jo couldn't make herself care. To her it felt like the steam from the water was breaking up her thoughts like it breaks up a bad cough. To her, the water was helping her pull herself together. After everything that had happened within the last four hours, she needed to pull herself together.
What she really wanted to do was fall apart.
She wanted to fall apart for herself and for Dean. And especially for Sam who had given his life to save the whole world. It was a selfless act, no doubt about that. But Sam had left Dean behind, or a semblance of Dean. Dean wasn't really Dean anymore. Dean was a broken, shattered shell of the person he had once been.
In her mind, she thought this was worse than what Dean had been like when he'd first gotten back from hell. She couldn't be sure, of course, because Dean and Sam had both kept her out of the situation and anything she did hear about were lies.
After cleaning his hands, giving him a few more shots of whiskey, and basically throwing the strongest pain meds they had down his throat, Dean had fallen into a restless sleep in the extra bedroom. She had staid with him for a good half hour, watching him twist and turn in his sleep. She knew the nightmares were hitting him pretty hard but with all the effort it had taken to get him to fall asleep in the first place, she really didn't want to wake him again.
It had taken another fifteen minutes to convince herself that taking a shower would be ok. She decided to use the bathroom a couple doors down from the room Dean was staying in instead of the bathroom she usually shared with her mother by her room. That way if anything really did happen, she would be close to Dean for whatever he needed.
Now that she was clean and burnt to the bone, she knew what needed to be done. First things first: get some sleep and in the morning she would make Dean breakfast. They would go from there, she decided. She would do whatever Dean felt like doing. If that meant letting Dean sleep most of the day away, she would do it.
She remembered how hard it had been to take care of her mother after her father had passed. Jo had been young but not too young to step up and help her mother through the grieving process. Of course that meant that Jo hadn't gotten a real grieving process of her own, but family came first to her. Family would always come first.
When she opened the shower door the steam spilled out into the bathroom, filling the tiny room and sticking to the walls. She reached out with a dripping hand to grab the towel hanging next to the shower and wrapped it around her body.
It wasn't until after she had stepped out onto the plush rug outside the shower that she realized she wasn't alone in the bathroom.
"Jesus, Dean!" She exclaimed without even thinking. The hand holding her towel securely around her body tightened and her empty hand came up to brush the wet hair out of her eyes. "You scared me," she finished quietly.
He was leaning against the sink, his feet crossed at the ankles and his arms resting outstretched behind him against the porcelain. His head was down. She couldn't see the expression on his face or the look in his eyes. She simply knew that this wasn't a sexual visit. Dean had made his way into the bathroom for something else, for some other reason.
She didn't speak. She thought it best to wait. He would tell her when he wanted to and not a moment sooner.
She leaned backwards and shivered at the feel of the cold wall touching her back.
"I woke up," he finally started, "and I thought it had all been just one big nightmare…" he trailed off and cleared his throat a few seconds later. "And then I looked around and everything came flooding back to me at once. It wasn't a dream. Sammy's dead." He paused again. The more he spoke, the more she could hear the pain in his voice.
She wanted to reach out to him but stopped herself. She would let him come to her. The last thing he needed was to be smothered with comfort and touches. It wouldn't help him. It wouldn't ease the pain of losing a brother.
"I looked for you but you weren't there." He still didn't look up and she felt her heart catch. That one sentence put everything in perspective for her. He was really depending on her to help him, to get him through this.
"I thought you'd sleep for a little while longer," she said softly, as if not to disturb the air around them. "I wanted to take a quick shower while you were asleep."
"Will you come back?" He asked after a moment's pause. "To the bed I mean. I don't want to sleep alone."
She let the corner of her mouth turn up a little, even though she knew he couldn't see it. His face was still turned down, his eyes still staring intently at his feet.
"Why don't you follow me down the hallway to my room. There's a double bed so they'll be room for both of us."
She watched him intently for response and barely picked up on a nod of his head. She nodded her own and reached for the doorknob, pulling the door open with a soft whoosh. She shivered when her damp body was met with the frigid air and her feet fell on hardwood floor of the hallway. Her room was just down the hallway and around the corner. She headed that way only to pause a few seconds later to make sure Dean was following her.