REUNITED AND IT FEELS AWKWARD

SCENE TWENTY-TWO

Days have passed since the encounter at the mine. Having just finished the final painting on the women's room Dean is exhausted, but wants to keep working so he checks in with Ellen. "Hey the bathroom is brighter then the sun in the tangerine color you chose and I think I am going to be sick from it." Dean takes the beer Ellen is holding out to him. "You picked that color so no one will ever stay too long didn't you?" Dean's face has smears of tangerine and his white painter's suit has tangerine on top of other colors he has been splashing on the Roadhouse.

With a smile Ellen puts a roast beef sandwich in front of Dean, which automatically makes him sit at the bar and be quiet. "I like tangerine and if it keeps the woman from hanging in the bathroom to chat all night then it is well worth it." She walks around the counter and puts a carrying hand on Dean's shoulder. A serious soft tone crosses her lips, "Hey, kid I don't know what you went through or what you saw in Telluride, but I can see it is eating you up inside. You just have to let it go and when she shows up on the radar I will make sure you are the first to know." She sits in the bar stool next to Dean. "Now I appreciate all the work you have been doing here. The place is coming together, but you and Sam need to get out there and do what you do best. Kick butt on the bad guy."

Dean stops eating on his sandwich and swallows. After a drink of beer he looks to Ellen. "After Telluride I don't think I can kick butt anymore." Dean's heart was no longer in the hunt. He wanted to keep painting and nailing boards. "I can do more here then I can do out there and Sam he took off yesterday morning trying to find his own space. So I see no reason to go on." Dean goes back to eating his sandwich.

His words cut deep and Ellen's temper begins to boil. Her voice becomes hard and stern. "What the hell are you talking about? Do you think you're the only one who has lost the target?" Ellen stops when she sees her burst of anger does not faze him. "That thick skull of yours is going to put you or your brother in an early grave." Ellen gets up and walks behind the bar. From beneath the counter she pulls out the whiskey and pours herself a shot that quickly disappears. Giving the flavor a moment to coat her taste buds Ellen grabs a bar rag and starts wiping the counter down.

Dean's cell phone rings. "Hello… Sam, where are you." After a few minutes he gets the opportunity to say, "What?" While listening Dean gets up, walks around the counter and puts his plate to the sink and empty beer bottle in the trash. "I can be there by tonight." Dean closes his cell phone and realizes Ellen has been waiting to hear what Sam called about. "Sam's at the Grand Canyon." He stops for a moment to ponder. "I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, what better time then when a ghost is haunting the trail." Dean takes off his painter suit and lays it over a bar stool.

Before letting him go Ellen calls Dean over to one of the tables and ask him to sit. "I don't like sharing my hunting but I want you to know." Ellen adjusts herself in the chair. "Remember when I was suppose to be blown to bits and how an Angel came and took me from there?" She didn't need Dean to answer her question as she continued. "Well, let me tell you the rest." After a moment she begins to tell her story.

"I was so terrified. I almost didn't push the button. Jo was unconscious, barely alive and the hell hounds had broken through the door. For one brief moment I wanted to get up and run, to live with my sorrows, but I looked at Jo and knew my job was to make sure you and Sam and the others did not wind up like her." Ellen stopped when she saw Bobby come through the door then continued. "A hell hounds hot breathe hit my face drying my skin and then the next moment a cool breeze reached across me and in that split second I pushed the button, waiting to meet my maker." Ellen shook her head. "I guess I did because an Angel pulled me from that fiery hell and placed me in the wastelands." Ellen rose from her chair. "I spent forty days there and I wasn't alone. Jo was there with me and together we realized there is more to life then raindrops on roses and whiskers on soft little kittens."

With Dean following, Ellen joined Bobby at the bar. "Dean our life's are filled with what we toil and what we reap. Your world is a hunter's world and every time you send a Demon back to hell or give rest to a tortured ghost, you save more souls then what are lost. And you may not get to see the raindrops on the rose or hold that little kitten, but your job gives that to others." Ellen can see Bobby has something to say. "Bobby, what's up?"

Taking that as his cue to butt in Bobby directs his conversation to Dean. "Your Demon girl has been spotted outside Portland Oregon heading towards Arizona." Bobby puts his own thoughts in, "Sounds like she is making a loopty loop and heading back towards Telluride."

Changing the subject Bobby looks to Ellen. "The bus will be here tomorrow with Jo. Guess there was six, not two ghosts haunting the Jan Addams Manor. Apparently someone decided to kill off a few gangsters and buried their remains on the grounds by…." Bobby stopped when Dean interrupted him.

"What?" Dean's voice was anxious. "You said Jo is alive!" His face is filled with amazement. "But how, her guts were," he stops, not wanting to have Ellen relive that day again.

"Really Dean, you need to ask how." Bobby gives him a fatherly look. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth too long he might reconsider and bite." Bobby grabs some old leather bound books he had stored under the counter. "I need to do some research and son you need to catch up with Sam." That is all Bobby needed to say. Within the hour Dean was showered changed and heading down the road in the Impala.

: END SCENE TWENTY-TWO

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