Three bottles of beer on the wall

Summary: Ellen's thoughts during "Abandon All Hope."

AN: This one kind of sucks. Sort of.

Last Night on Earth

"I love you, baby."

That was the last thought that crossed Ellen's mind before she pressed down on that doorbell serving as a trigger for the homemade propane-and-rock-salt bomb.

Had she lived a moment longer, her next thought would have been, "You'd better be there to meet us when we get up there, Bill Harvelle, or so help me God, I will kick your ass."

As it was, however, she didn't get the chance to think it. The gas caught fire and the entire hardware store exploded in a great ball of orange flames. She and Jo, as well as the entire pack of hellhounds, were blasted to heaven and hell, respectively.

The thought before her very last thought was, "Wish I'd taken one more shot of that whiskey while I still had the chance." Irrational, sure, but imminent death will do strange things to your mind.

And in case you were wondering, her life did not flash before her eyes. It was Jo, little baby Joanna's life that she saw.

Finding out she was pregnant, holding the tiny squalling thing in her arms for the first time, teaching her to talk, her first steps, braiding her hair, sending her off to school, their fights that always started over the smallest things, her baby all grown up…

"I love you, baby."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Ellen was a little girl, back when she didn't know about things like demons and monsters and hunting, her parents had tried to raise her to be a good Christian. They took her to church on Sundays, dressed in frilly pink dresses and her hair curled with a bow in it, as pretty as you please.

Those weekly trips to church did much to shape Ellen's character as an adult. In fact, Ellen thinks that it was those dratted dresses that did the trick and put her off religion for life.

Rebellious? Joanna Beth had no idea what her momma was like as a kid, thank goodness. It was the age of protests, hippies, and all that jazz that Ellen came to age in, and boy, was it fun. Parties, orgies, fighting with her parents…she had "rebellious" down to a tee.

Then her ex-boyfriend got possessed by a demon, and this good-looking number with a Lone Ranger approach came and rescued her. Yeah, that's right; he had the galls to rescue her, like she was some kind of damsel in distress. Ellen Pratchett was no damsel, that's for sure, and any distress she was in, she could get out of by herself.

'Course, Bill Harvelle just snorted and told her she was only alive because of him. Damn him, and shove off, right?

Well, he was hot. That's the only reason for Ellen's actions. Only reason, and it was a terrible one. Hear that, Joanna? "He's hot" is a bad reason for sleeping with a guy.

So one thing led to another, and a couple of drinks later, they were in Ellen's two-rooms-and-a-leaky-bathroom apartment, trying to get their clothes off as fast as they could. Bill had some serious scars; Ellen liked that. She really liked it.

Bill left town the next night, and so long, farewell.

Not so much.

Two months later, she was kneeling in front of the toilet, holding her hair back so she wouldn't get vomit on it. Between gags, she cursed Bill Harvelle and resolved to send him a scathing note via that PO box number he left for her just in case. As soon as she stopped throwing up, that is.

Bill came galloping back in his '69 Mustang when she was six months along, apologizing profusely for taking so long; he'd lost track of time and forgotten to check that particular mailbox for a couple of months.

Ellen cussed him out, screamed at him until her voice gave out, and when she was done, Bill proposed, and everything went on happily ever after.

She wished.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They used the money her parents had left their only daughter to buy out the then-owner of the hunters' bar that Bill liked to frequent. Her folks would have turned in their graves had they known what their daughter and her new husband used their money for.

Baby Joanna Beth learned to walk amid heavy boots and worn jean-clad legs, tottering from table to table to be fawned over by even the most hardened of hunters. Much to her momma's horror, she learned to pick pockets at the tender age of four, play poker at six, and shoot a gun at nine years old.

From that time on, Jo (not Joanna Beth, Mom. It's so girly) wanted to be a hunter, like her dad.

Like her dead dad.

That John Winchester. Ellen wished she'd never laid eyes on the man. He'd been with Bill on his last hunt, and it had gone wrong, so wrong. John'd come in, apology and sorrow and fear in his face as he told her that Bill, her Bill, was in the back seat of that big black hearse of his.

She'd thrown a bottle of Jack at him and yelled at him to get out. He'd come back in anyway, carrying a wrapped thing in his arms, as carefully as he could with an injured right leg.

He set Bill down, real gentle, and stood back, shifting his weight off of his leg nervously. "If there's anything I can do…"

"Get out."

"Ellen," he'd tried.

She threw him out alongside a few empty glass bottles that shattered as they hit the ground outside. She wanted Winchester to shatter and break too, just like those bottles. Just like her heart, her life.

Only thing that kept her together after that was Jo. Jo, with her tangled blond hair and that defiant look permanently set in her face. Jo, her baby.

For all that her daughter rebelled and fought against her, Ellen knew that she loved her mother as much as she was loved. And Ellen made sure that Jo knew how much she loved her. She just didn't want her baby to go the same way her father had.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Almost twenty years after Bill was killed, Jo got mauled by a hellhound trying to save Dean Winchester.

She lay there on that table in the abandoned hardware store, bleeding, a pressure bandage holding her guts in, dying. Her baby girl was dying, and there was nothing Ellen could do.

She'd tried. She'd tried sending Jo off to school, tried keeping her at home, tried keeping the Winchesters away from her, tried, but couldn't keep her from hunting. It was in her blood.

So she went with her. Bill had made sure that Ellen really could take care of herself and Jo should any evil come walking in through those barroom doors. Jo had become a good hunter in her time away from home, and Ellen was a fast learner. So together, they hunted whatever they could find. What with the shortage of good hunters in these bad times, they had to work hard, real hard.

They played it safe, though, Ellen not wanting to risk her daughter's life too much, and Jo not wanting to push her mom too much. After all, Ellen was only hunting for her sake.

They did fine, until they got tangled in the Winchesters' business again. The first time the Harvelles got together with a Winchester, Bill died. The second time, Jo almost did. The third, the Roadhouse burned down. Winchesters are not good news for Harvelles.

But Ellen wouldn't be Ellen and Jo wouldn't be Jo if they didn't face up to challenges for people they liked, and the Winchester boys were real likeable boys. Must be the "motherless" vibe or something messing with Ellen's maternal instincts, but she liked them, even though Dean Winchester did insist on trying to get into Jo's pants every damn time he saw her.

Jo was a smart girl, and Dean was scared shitless of Ellen, so nothing came of it, not even with Dean's "last night on earth" speech.

Speaking of last nights, meeting an angel was one thing, but drinking with one? Now that was a whole new experience. For a second, Ellen wished her parents could see this, their daughter and granddaughter sitting at a table with a real-live angel, but the moment passed, as Castiel (the angel) threw back the shots one by one, five in total. Jo met her eyes, and the delighted grin that graced her face was one of the best things Ellen had seen in a long while.

Ellen was glad for every smile Jo experienced in her life, and wished every tear and every wound could be hers to bear. Especially this last one.

Oh, Jo.

The gnawing black hole at the bottom of her stomach told her that Jo was dying, even though she didn't want to believe it. And when her baby said she wanted to stay behind to let everyone else run to safety, her heart broke.

Oh, baby. Didn't she know that there is no Ellen without Jo, just like there is no Dean without Sam?

Dean understood; no parent should outlive their child. Dean'd practically raised his brother; he knew. John Winchester, for all his faults, had understood it. It was wrong for a mother to mourn her child.

Jo's last wish was to be treated like an adult. Well, she'd made her choice, and Ellen had made hers. Nothing in this world or the next could tear her away from her baby. Nothing.

"You can go straight back to hell, you ugly bitch!"