I'll be honest. The blonde chick wasn't supposed to be in this story. But then I thougt about it, and turned down the idea, and thought about it some more, and then i said "What the Hell?" and here she is. Please jsut hear her out before tuning out!

Chapter 8

Everybody Waits For You Now

The pressure of the body left Sam's chest before the trigger could be pulled. He gasped and looked around, searching for the woman that had attacked him. He scrambled to a sitting position to see Dean standing up, his chair toppled over at his feet, staring at the wall. Bela was staring at Dean, but her eyes flickered to the same spot that the demon's rested on, as if she wasn't sure which was more interesting. Sam decided to follow his brother's gaze.

The blonde had been pinned to the wall in true demonic fashion, her arms thrown out to either side of her body, legs dangling weakly, head lolling limply against the cracked plaster. Now that she was being held stationary, there was something familiar about her, the desperate look in her eyes, the set of her lips against her teeth as she snarled at them.

"I told you!" the woman yelled, "he's one of them. A traitor. He led that thing down here."

Bela ignored her, keeping her gaze fixed on Dean. "How long?"

Dean kept his eyes narrowed, glaring at the woman on the wall, blood slowly trickling from his nose, down to his parted lips, into his stolen mouth. "How long, what?"

"How long, Dean. Since when have you been able to do that?"

The blonde kept yelling, apparently hoping to attract attention. "Hellspawn. I told you they'd compromise him, and I was right. His kind can't be trusted. His family's an evil breed."

Dean shrugged, ignoring the pinned woman. "About twenty minutes now."

"If it fights like a demon," the blonde shouted, "then it can't be trusted. I told you."

"Yes, Jo," Dean deadpanned, swiping a hand across his face and cringing at the blood on it, "we know. You told us."

Sam felt his eyes widen as recognition dawned on him. Yeah, he could see it now, the shape of the face, the large eyes, the pout. She'd cut her hair, had aged more than he would have expected, but it was her. "Jo?"

Her head whipped around as much as her current position would allow. "Satan."

Sam scooted himself up off the floor, struggling to stand. "Jo Harvelle?" He looked to his brother for confirmation.

"Unfortunately," Dean stated dryly. "Hey, blondie." Her head whipped back around toward the demon, her eyes narrowed to dark slits. "Take a good look at Beelzebub here before you start throwing accusations, ok? Tell me what you see."

That uncomfortably dark gaze was on him again, boring into him, making him squirm. Jo slid down the wall, her eyes softening as Dean lost whatever weak hold he'd had on her.

"I see," she said slowly, as if she couldn't believe her eyes, "I don't believe what I see. He looks-"

"Different?" Dean offered.

Jo nodded. "Like he used to." Those familiar, large eyes turned to Dean as her feet hit the floor and the demon's knees buckled, sending him to the floor. Sam was quick to help him up, looping an arm around his brother and resetting his toppled chair with a grunt. "What did you do?"

Dean swiped another hand across his face, trying to clear it of blood. "I didn't do anything."

The blonde slid into the seat across the table from Dean, still staring with wide eyes, as Sam took his own seat. "Then what happened?"

"Time travel," Bela offered, "an ancient ritual. It went a little wrong."

"I can tell." She looked over at Sam, appraising him, and in her eyes he could see why he hadn't recognized her at first, could tell what that one big difference in her was. She had hardened. A hunter sat beside him now, not a little girl wanting to play with daddy's guns, but an actual hunter. Someone who had seen and done unforgivable, nightmare things. It had changed her.

"So," Dean muttered, breaking up an awkward silence as the flow of blood from his nose finally slowed, "we were, uh, waiting for you. Any reason for the delay?"

"Our site training got a little interrupted," she said slowly, her eyes cast downward.

"How interrupted?" Bela asked.

"We lost Eric, Sarah, Jeremy, Ben, and Raelle. It was an ambush, and we just weren't ready."

"What about the others?"

Jo shrugged. "Luke and Kyle made it. So did Maggie, but she's bad off. I think Justine's in there talking to her, trying to work out a deal. Maggie's soft enough and hurt enough to cave."

Dean nodded, wiping at his nose again and coming up clean. "Yeah, well, we all knew she couldn't cut it out there. Maybe she'll be better off with Justine. I mean, if the chick could last through most of World War Three with barely a mark on her-"

"Besides the big black one on her soul, you mean?"

"Baby, we're all goin' to Hell," Dean quipped, "might as well have some fun along the way."

"Killing kids isn't fun," Jo argued.

"It is if they're not really kids and they tried to kill you first. It was a mercy killing. She freed them."

"Apparently Someone didn't see it that way."

Dean glared at her over the table, his eyes flashing deadly black before Bela cleared her throat, calming the coming riot.

"Let's get down to business now that we're all here, shall we?"

Jo leaned back in her chair, her eyes still trained on Dean, her body still tensed and ready for battle. "Yeah. Will said you told him something big's going down. What and when?"

"Dean scored us some intel on the other side-"

"You told him that?" She was back on the edge of her seat in an instant, her whole form rigid, muscles bunched in anticipation, looking nothing at all like the girl Sam had once known.

"How stupid do you think I am?" Dean asked. "No, I didn't tell your precious bundle of joy about what's going down. I just figured that we all needed to have this nice, civilized chat, and he was the quickest way to get to you."

"She has a son?" Sam blurted, making his presence truly known for the first time since Jo had attacked him.

Three sets of eyes were trained on him. "For the past twenty years, yeah," the blonde said, her voice cold, "but I don't see why you'd care. It's none of your business."

"Cut the kid a break," Dean said, "and think about how you'd feel waking up twenty years from now."

"I wouldn't be stupid enough to spin a spell I knew nothing about in the first place, so it's irrelevant."

Bela cleared her throat again, plunging the room into another strained silence. "Kids, please, don't make me separate you. We need to make a decision. Dean, what did you find out?"

The demon sighed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. He looked over at Sam. "I've been working as kind of a spy," he explained, "watching the settlement in Cold Oak. It's the main one, as far as we can tell. Used as a training ground." He looked back at Bela. "They know we're the ones who blew up their weapons stores. They got Andrea and Lucas."

Bela nodded. "I know."

"And we still haven't been able to find Kat and Haley."

"Don't remind us," Jo moaned.

"So where are they? People don't just disappear."

"They do when they're possessed."

Dean turned his gaze to the blonde. "Why, though? I mean, their side knows about us, they know we're fighting, they just haven't been able to find us yet."

"We're safe here."

"But if they're possessing our people," Sam said, choosing to ignore the look of pure acid that Jo shot his way at the use of the pronoun, "then they should know where we are."

"We're smarter than they think," Bela said. "We've got our own coven, and we got it early on. Every one of our members is protected mentally with the strongest stuff that five generations of witches could come up with. Their bodies may belong to demons now, but their minds are completely sealed off."

"Until now," Dean offered softly. "They've found a way to break the spells and get through. They used Kat and Haley and people that we lost as long as five months ago as guinea pigs. They think they've finally got it. They can get past every defense we put up. They can find us now."

"Why didn't you tell us about this before?"

"They kept it on the DL until they were sure it would work."

"And what is it, exactly?" Jo asked.

Dean shrugged. "On that, I'm clueless."

"Could he have finally developed telepathy?"

"If he did, I haven't heard about it. Although with him, it might be strong enough to break through."

"You know what this means, right?" Bela asked, looking between Dean and Jo.

"War," the blonde stated simply, crossing surprisingly well-muscled arms over her chest.

"Maybe not," Dean said, "maybe we can stop this whole thing before it even starts."

"By doing what? Talking about our feelings?"

"Just talking. I know you don't believe me, but-"

"Damn right I don't believe you. Going in there would be suicide, Dean, and you know it. There's no getting through to something like that."

"If I just had time-"

"There is no time. For all we know, the troops are heading down here as we speak. We need to take action, rally our own troops, and-"

"What, Jo?" Dean demanded, "what are you and your little band of hunters gonna do? I mean, besides go in half-cocked and get yourselves killed. Or worse."

"We're going to fight," she said, leaning forward, glaring daggers across the table, "we're not going to pussy-foot around, hoping to have some intense emotional breakthrough with something that stopped feeling years ago."

"You don't know that," the demon shouted, jumping to his feet, his hands slamming down onto the table.

"I know that he killed my mother," Jo said softly, her voice deadly. And suddenly, Sam knew exactly what they were talking about. It was him. It had always been him. "He killed Bobby." They were deciding his fate, talking about him like he wasn't even there, wasn't sitting between them, wasn't listening in. "He tried to kill Bela."

"He's still in there."

"You know, you say that, but I haven't seen any proof yet."

Dean shook his head. "He's still my brother."

"Yet he was willing to let you rot in Hell."

Sam was up off the chair before he'd even realized that he'd moved. His fists hit the table in a perfect imitation of his brother's, actually shaking the scuffed wood with the force of the blow. "That's not true." They stared at him, eyes wide, as if they'd forgotten that he was even there. "Don't you get it? I'm trying to save him. That's why I'm here. I wouldn't do that."

"Well, you did," Jo said, "noble as your intentions may have been, Sammy, some things just don't work out the way you plan." She turned cold eyes to Bela. "We're attacking tomorrow, right? Before they have a chance to attack us."

The founder of the resistance looked down at the end of the table, at the three people standing there, all begging with their eyes. "Tomorrow," she finally said, "but let's try to give Dean a chance, huh? Maybe we can avoid some bloodshed." With that, she wheeled herself away from the table, toward the door, and out into the main room.

Jo looked at her Dean, her face glowing with pride, a wicked grin darkening what had once been pretty features. "Looks like it's war, then."

Dean matched her grin, his eyes turning dark, making the expression sinister. "Good. I can't wait to jump into the rapidly cooling body of that sweet kid of yours. Tell me, Joey, how long after that until you stop calling me Will?"

"Go to Hell."

"Been and done. Get a new comeback, sweetheart."

Growling low in her throat, Jo turned and stormed off, her heavy footfalls dying away as she slammed the door behind her. Sam swallowed hard, trying not to think about what had just happened, trying to shake the image of black eyes and a sinister smirk, the sound of threats and taunts.

It was Dean, he was sure of it, still as sure as he'd been that morning, but something was different. Everything had changed. Everyone had changed. Sam was fast learning that twenty years in Hell could be just as bad a sentence as twenty years spent searching for a way in. Maybe even worse.