Jo sat down at the island bench of the kitchen. After the incident in the dining room Dean hadn't been too keen to stick around, and Jo couldn't blame 'em. "That was quite a scare back there, eh?" Dean stood on the other side of the island bench, his gaze fixated on the two tea cups in front of him as he stirred one and poured sugar into the other one. "Eh, I wasn't that scared." He spoke down at the warm liquid. Jo wasn't going to let him get away with that one for a second. "Liar! You were saying your last prayers when I saved your ass. The ass, by the way, that your brother should have been saving. Where is he? I was told you two travelled and hunted together."
"We do. I don't know. He should be here by now-" and at precisely that moment, like it tends to happen when you lead an interesting life, the front door slammed shut. Dean looked up from the tea, startled. Without looking at Jo, avoiding her gaze, he muttered "Speak of the devil." Before raising his voice to a yell and walking out of the kitchen. "Sammy! I've got, well, I've got a surprise for you!" His voice trailed off and Jo was left in the kitchen alone. She leaned over the bench and picked up one of the mugs, the one with a spoon and no sugar. She stirred it gently, as more of a pastime than a chore. She looked into the tea and thought about the past month, considering she had absolutely nothing else to think about.
Her memory was nearly blank, how do you just show up at the age of twenty-something? She didn't even know her own age. All she knew was what the angel told her. Find the Winchesters, they can help you. Until then, trust your instincts. She'd liked the angel, and was sad when he left her. She felt she knew him, his trenchcoat, his formal speech, his blue eyes, from somewhere, but she'd doubted she'd know for sure about any of these feelings until she found the Winchesters. He'd given her a photo, a change of clothes and an address for a weaponry stash. From there she had been on her own.
From down the hall Jo could her muffled voices, one a lot quieter and calmer than the other. After a minute there was silence, and Jo wanted to call out to see if everything was okay. Before she could though, a sliver of a figure peeped through the doorway, like a child trying to eavesdrop. The figure was a good few inches too tall to be Dean. "Sam?" She called hesitantly at the figure, feeling her visual disadvantage like ice cubes running down her back. The figure came into the light and running right at her. His large build swept up her slight one in an instant and she was wrapped in a warm hug, almost suffocating hug that lifted her off her feet. "JO!" Sam yelled over her shoulder as he spun her around.
"Put me down, Winchester." She kicked softly at his shins until he let her go. He set her down in a way that made her feel like the annoying fragile doll she looked like, but certainly wasn't. "Fiery little Harvelle, I guess nothing's changed. I knew you couldn't forget about us, especially not Dean." Jo opened her mouth and took a breath, preparing to burst his bubble and give him the truth. Thankfully Dean had appeared at the door, having retrieved his rifle from the front yard. "Hey!" She shouted possessively at him. "That's mine!" She quickly made the space between them and snatched the weapon from his hand into her own, grabbing the handle with her right hand and holding the barrel with her left like she'd never lived to do anything else.
The second the familiar object brushed her fingertips a wave of memories passed over her. A woman with wavy brown hair in a purple shirt with a black leather jacket and blue jeans. Running away from invisible danger, helping a friend, getting hurt, holding a fuse, saying goodbye, saying I love you, the warmth of a loved one next to her, guarding her, as the world she'd known fell away from her, overtaken by a fuzzy, dizzying blackness. Jo dropped the gun like a hot poker. Tears rose to her eyes, old wounds viciously torn open. Her breath became ragged as she fought to keep it flowing in and out. Hot, salty liquid fell out of her eyes, some sliding slowly down her cheek, to her chin and annoyingly down her neck, others falling right to the ground. "Mommy!" She whimpered, her shaking legs no longer motivated to carry her dead weight as she crumpled to the floor, curling into a ball, so not even Dean could reach her.