Disclaimer: Neither Jordan nor I own Supernatural.
A/N: Jordan: SO! I've been at camp! -glares at jerks at camp- But now I'm back! And we're going to be writing a lot more! YAY!! I'm using a lot of exclamation points…
Lyn: I'll say you are. XD
Jordan: They're awesome, okay? Like HBO!!
Lyn: For all of you out there who are thinking of the TV station… it's not. She's talking about Honey Bunches of Oats… because she is really obsessed.
Jordan: The crunchy clusters penetrate my soul with their honey-sweet goodness… heehee…
Lyn: ANYWAY! Hope you enjoy! Remember to review! And hope you don't get the exclamation point fever like I apparently just did! XD
Jordan: I'll share some of my HBO with you! 8D
Chapter Seven – Revisiting
Jordan drifted in and out of consciousness, the sights and sounds about as familiar as the average foreign language. Her mind screamed to her, Find Lyn! Make sure she's okay! However, her body had other ideas, apparently, and the pain immobilized her.
She was vaguely aware of yelling. Lyn yelling. Jordan would know that Southern drawl anywhere, it was unmistakable; especially when Lyn was upset, because that was when her emotions were too out of control for her to even attempt to keep her accent under control. Jordan smiled slightly, the gesture bringing a whole new level of throbbing pain that she hadn't known was even possible.
"The freaking crap you're not gonna let me in!" Lyn thundered, glaring murderously at the doctor and two nurses who stood between her and the door to Jordan's room in ICU.
"But, miss," one of the nurses, a thin woman even shorter than Wendy, said, looking frightened, "only the immediate family are allowed into the rooms –"
"Do I look like I care!? I might as well be her sister, we grew up together since before she could walk! She doesn't have any blood kin left, immediate or otherwise, and she's not staying in there by herself! So you either let me through or you're gonna be freaking glad you're already in a dadgum hospital!"
Wendy looked at Jo, who was staring, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, at Lyn.
"Maybe we should – uh –" Wendy sputtered.
"Yeah…" Jo murmured, walking toward Lyn, followed by Wendy.
"I'm sorry, miss, but – uh – if you don't – er – calm down – uh, we're gonna have to – uh – call… security…?" the other nurse stuttered, stepping forward.
Jo rested her hand on Lyn's arm. "Come on… We'll get in there, but you'll do no good to Jordan after getting taken away by security."
Wendy nodded at Jo and looked to the shaking nurses.
By this time, all the people at the front desk and in the waiting room were staring and whispering amongst their friends and families.
"You crazy?" Lyn growled, glaring at Jo. "You have any idea how absurdly easy it is to get past security in places like these? And it's not like they give a freaking crap, if something happens, and I really don't want to have to add anyone else to my blacklist today."
Jo sighed and stepped back, looking from Wendy to the terrified nurses. "Well… this is awkward…"
Jordan groaned inwardly as things became much clearer – light, sound…
Lyn's yelling rang through her ears like cymbals.
"My head… is going to explode… Ungh…" Jordan opened her eyes and flinched as the blinding sunlight hit her pupils. God, this sucks ass…
She looked down at her bed and, thanking God, pressed the 'call nurse' button several times.
The nurses' heads whipped toward Jordan's room, and then they shot a look at Lyn before running off toward it. Wendy and Jo looked after them, confused.
"Lyn – wha –"
But they didn't finish the sentence, because Lyn had already ran after them, into Jordan's room. The brunette almost laughed when she saw that her friend was awake. "Well," she said, though she was unable to hide the relief in her voice, "looks like I was right when I told you that you'd be lingering a bit longer in the land of the living, eh?"
"You didn't think I was gonna give up on you, did you?" Jordan asked, then chuckled and smirked. Wendy and Jo ran in a few seconds later, and then sighed in relief. Meanwhile, the nurses were busy around Jordan's bed, checking machines and giving the girl some pain medication.
"Psh, you're the one who was writing out your will and acting like you were already dead," Lyn said, grinning. "At least now I don't have to track down anybody and kill them. Deliver death threats, possibly, just for good measure; but meh…"
Jordan winced slightly as needles pierced her skin, then grinned. "I'm very surprised, Lyn… I figured you would have already killed those jerk-offs already… Oh well…"
Wendy and Jo grinned and chuckled at Jordan's comment, but stayed back near the door.
"Oh, I still can, if you want!" Lyn offered a little too eagerly. "I'd be more than happy to. Probably would've earlier, except that I wasn't about to stick around that long since you were already in shock…"
"See… I would say yes, but last time we tangled with them… well… this happened… We should probably stay as far away from them as possible from now on," Jordan replied.
The two nurses looked at them strangely, probably because of the topic of their conversation. "I'm fine, really," Jordan said with a false, sickly-sweet smile plastered on her face. "You two can leave."
The nurses hesitantly did as they were asked, after a few glances back at the foursome.
"You call that 'tangling' with them?" Lyn asked with a skeptically raised eyebrow once the nurses were safely out of earshot. "Seriously! You were tied to a chair and I didn't even get to shoot anybody. That's a freaking hostage crisis, that's what that is."
"Fine, then! Hostage crisis, tangling… Whatever the crap you wanna call it. I'd rather avoid them…" Jordan glared at Lyn, annoyed.
"You can't go in! She's asked that only family and close friends see her!"
Lyn suddenly tensed and glared unseeingly at the wall. Through gritted teeth, she growled at Wendy and Jo, "Tell me one of you has a boyfriend or something who you called and who is now trying to get in. Or even that you called my cousins and they somehow got here in record time. Because I'm not liking the idea of that being the only other people who know Jordan's in the hospital."
Jordan's brow wrinkled, and she pushed herself up into as close to a sitting position as she could manage, straining to look out the door. Wendy turned around and looked cautiously out the door. Her eyes went wide and darted back to Lyn.
"I take that silence as a no," Lyn said grimly, mentally cursing whatever bad luck had conspired against them today. "It's them, isn't it."
It wasn't really a question, and she didn't wait for an answer, either. She turned and stalked through the door, muttering as she went, "If you hear them calling for security, it probably means our friends don't understand the meaning of the phrase 'go away' and I had to explain it to them…"
Dean walked quickly through the hallway, ignoring the protests of nurses following him. God, I hope they don't kill me, he thought to himself.
Lyn's gaze turned to ice as she walked through the doorway and saw him coming down the hall. Naturally, it would be the blade-happy psychopath with the death wish. When had the Elumo name ever brought good luck, anyway?
"You have some nerve," she hissed venomously, stalking forward to meet him, "but you are more than a little lacking in the intelligence department. What in the name of all that is good and holy do you think you're doing here!?"
Dean looked up and instantly felt terrified, though of course he would never admit that. "I came to… uh… apologize."
"Apolo – apologize!?"
It was impossible to tell if Lyn was just infuriated beyond logical reasoning or simply shocked speechless by this statement, but either way it was a few seconds before she switched her gaze to the trio of nurses who had been shadowing Dean and attempting to herd him back toward wherever he had come from and said, "Okay, how about you all go. Over there. Somewhere. Which isn't here."
She flashed a falsely sweet smile and suddenly seized the sleeve of Dean's coat, using it to drag him forcefully a few feet away from where the nurses were still standing looking stunned, and demanded in a low and scathing whisper, "You freaking try to kill my best friend, very nearly succeed, and then show up here wanting to apologize!?"
Dean's eyes went wide and he sputtered out something that sounded like a yes.
Lyn released his sleeve with an angry sort of cross between a sigh and a growl and switched to massaging her knuckles in what was quite obviously an effort not to hit him. "You have done quite enough for one day," she snapped. "If you want to make amends, you may do so by leaving now and never coming anywhere near Jordan again."
Dean looked down at his shoes and then back up at Lyn. "Is she okay?"
"She's alive," Lyn answered, her voice losing a bit of its edge – for the moment, at least. "More than I can say for the last person I saw with a wound like that. But she's by no means okay, and she's pretty dadgum scared, whether she'll admit it or not. Not that you give a crap, or you wouldn't have stabbed her in the first place, so you may as well drop the concerned facade already."
"I'm sorry. But if you were in my position, what would you have done? If there was a potentially dangerous demon, what would you have honestly done? I mean… I was always trained to believe that if there's something that could be potentially evil, you kill it. She reacted to the holy water and 'cristo.'" Dean paused to sigh. "I really am sorry. I called a trusted friend and told him about the situation. I didn't use any names. He said he's never heard of anything like it. He wants to meet her… I told him that most likely wouldn't happen, but… uh… yeah."
You're so pathetic, Dean… He mentally grumbled at himself.
Lyn was visibly in better control of her anger now, but by no means calm. However, her voice was level as she said coolly, "I've been a hunter all my life. Three generations of my family were hunters before me. You think I didn't ask myself those questions? But you're looking at her like an assassin, not a hunter, Winchester. She's my family, blood or not. I grew up with her, took care of her, taught her how to fight and read and drive – and she's the same Jordan now that she was then. You've been looking for a monster in that girl in there, and even when you couldn't find one, you tried to kill her, anyway!"
"I made a mistake – one I won't make again. I can't convince you otherwise, I'm sure. But you'd best be careful, sweetheart; word spreads fast."
Dean pressed a piece of paper into Lyn's hand and turned on his heel, walking away quickly.
Lyn frowned down at the paper and the number written on it. After a moment, she shook her head and gave up on trying to figure out why he had given her his phone number and just shoved it in her pocket before starting back toward Jordan's room. Ordinarily, she probably would have tossed it, but she was very conscious of the nurses still watching her, and there weren't any garbage cans close by.
"He's gone," she announced with a sigh as she walked back into the room in ICU.
"Wow, and without security being called!" Wendy said with a raised right eyebrow and a mocking smile to hide her actual relief that her friend hadn't done something drastic. "Well, I'll be. You're getting downright docile in your old age of twenty-four, Lyn!"
"Hey, I think y'all should be proud," Lyn said half seriously. "This is the first time I've seen that dude and there haven't been any loaded firearms involved in our conversation! I guess fourth time's the charm, huh? Or fifth, if you count that time we knocked them out separate from the time I almost shot them from pure reflex for showing up outside our room at six in the morning…"
Jordan rolled her eyes. "Nice job, Lyn… We all think it's great that you didn't kill him. Now… I think it's time we get out of this place… It's kinda depressing, don't you agree?" she said with a smirk.
Lyn shifted her weight uncomfortably to one foot and bit her lip. "Weeelllll… Ordinarily, I'd say 'Let's blow this popsicle stand!' and get going… But ordinarily you haven't just been stabbed and lost almost half your body fluid. I think we'd better wait and see what the doctors say first. I don't think our friends will show up again… and if they do, oh well. There's still time for security to get called in."
Jordan huffed and glared at Lyn. "I don't suppose there's any way of convincing you I'm fine… is there?" she asked, giving Lyn her trademark 'puppy dog eyes,' to which Wendy and Jo smirked.
Now it was Lyn's turn to roll her eyes. "Oh, please – you know that hasn't worked since you were four years old, and even then it was only good for petty stuff like making me give you a cookie. And you also know as well as I do that I abhor hospitals, but seriously, Jordan. I spring you now and something happens, what the crap do you think I'm gonna do? You know, after I go all wacko and spaz out and there's nobody there to kick me in the teeth and set me straight this time?"
Jordan pouted and, huffing, crossed her arms and stared out the window longingly. Jo tried to reassure her, saying, "It shouldn't be much longer, now. Hang in there."
Lyn, however, just proceeded to cross her own arms and lean back against the wall. She was still thinking about what that Winchester guy had said earlier – about how word would get around. Did that mean they had told someone about Jordan? Lyn and Jordan had definitely done a pretty good job of keeping it secret since they had found out; even Lyn's family didn't know, with the exception of her most level-headed cousin, Joey, who she had finally entrusted with the secret after one near-death experience when she had wanted to make sure that, if something did happen to her, Jordan wouldn't be on her own. But Jordan didn't even know that he had told him, and there wasn't anybody else know knew about it outside of this room… except for maybe whoever had sent the brothers after her in the first place? Suddenly she was suspicious of this 'friend' Winchester had been talking about, and she wondered if it was the same one, and if he would make the connection…