Dean woke up alone, cold and aching from sleeping on the thin carpet of the hotel room. He stood up and stretched, walking around his bed to pick up a shirt and pull on some jeans. Eyeing the bed itself, he noticed it's vacancy and looked around, doing a quick scan of the room. Only Sam's sleeping form, no Jo. Fear gripped around his heart and he ran into the bathroom. Empty as it was, he ran to the front door, swinging it open with a loud bang as it bounced off the wall. He let out a sigh of relief as he saw Jo's small figure perched on her bike. As he walked over, he couldn't help but smile at her beauty, all thoughts of scolding her for not leaving a note draining from his mind. He was mesmerized as the sun caught on her golden locks that cascaded over her face as she sipped gently at her coffee. She suddenly looked up, smiling at the man coming towards her.
"Hey." She spoke with a low voice, flicking her hair out of her face with two fingers.
"Hey." He replied, walking over to the Impala and leaning up against it. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he squinted in the morning sun. Jo turned away from the Winchester. "I woke up in your bed this morning." She started. He could only nod in agreement, it was the truth after all. "You put me there. In the night you moved me." He nodded again, and Jo couldn't help but get a little frustrated at his silence. She turned to face him, hoping he would finally catch on if she spelt it out for him. "After I specifically said that I'd take the floor. I didn't pay my keep, so I got the worse end of the deal. That's fair."
Dean looked her in the eye. "You needed it more than me."
Jo, surprisingly, was the first to drop her gaze. "I felt safer with you." She said, so quietly Dean thought maybe it was his imagination. After a long moment of almost awkward silence, Jo stood up, her coffee in one hand. "Well, I'm gonna head back and get ready to head to...well, wherever you guys wanted to head next. I'm assuming we have a base somewhere." She shrugged her shoulders and switched the hot coffee from one hand to the other, eager to warm her cold, numb skin. She began to walk off, when Dean called after her. "Wait, that's it?" Dean's voice showed genuine question, not the half-assed sarcasm that seemed to occupy his every word. Jo froze, turning around slowly. She knew what was coming. Unfortunately she wouldn't be able to forget last nights antics as quickly as she wanted to. "Yeah, yeah it is." She replied in a flat voice that signalled that she really didn't want to talk about it. But so what if she didn't? He did.
"So, we're not going to talk about last night? At all?" Dean's voice was edged with anger, seeing the tables turn and Jo being offered the upper hand. "No, we're not. It was nothing." The woman brushed it off her shoulder, not meeting Dean's eyes. The Harvelle's voice was harsh in the Winchester's ears. "Sure didn't feel like nothing." He snipped, his pride getting in the way of his better judgement. Jo paused, wondering whether now was the time to just ignore him, pretend she didn't hear his last remark and just leave it. But her own pride and her coffee-drugged state of mind got caught up in each other, and she looked up at him, her eyes now ablaze with anger. "Okay, you're right. It wasn't nothing. What it was was comfort. Nothing else." She could see the spark behind Dean's green eyes die slightly, and his features turned crestfallen. Instead of softening her mood, as was probably the desired effect, it only served to fuel her anger-filled flame into a raging inferno. "No." She spat. "You don't get to pull the sympathy card here. I'm the amnesiac, I'm the newbie. You can't put me to blame here, that's not fair." She spun on her heel and began to walk quickly back to the motel room. But Dean wasn't finished, he tailed her whilst yelling.
"Well, what else am I supposed to do? What we had last night was not nothing! And now you tell me to forget it? Who else am I to blame?" Dean's face was now caught in a scowl. The blonde had reached the door and had her hand poised around the handle. "Jo don't you dare open that door, I'm not finished with you." At his commanding, dominating tone, Jo whirled around. "Don't tell me what to do! I'm my own person! Or an echo of one, at least." Jo's eyes dropped to the floor as she realised that in her yelling, the truth had come out. That was it. She hadn't meant to, but suddenly she'd shone a light for Dean on what her problem was. "That's it isn't it? You don't think you're Jo, not really." He'd hit the nerve. Jo continued to fixate on the wood, but spoke loudly all the same.
"You're in love with Jo. Don't deny it, I can see it your eyes. And I'm JO, sure. But the thing is, up until six hours ago I didn't even know that. I'm grieving a mother who I can't even remember the middle name of. I can't feel any of the grief, any of the pain that I should because I just can't remember. I should be in so much pain that I don't want to live anymore. That if a car came at me I wouldn't jump out of the way. Jo would be suicidal right now. You'd have to lock all your little toys up at night and hide the key just so she wouldn't put an end to her misery whilst you weren't looking. Mom deserved that, I know she did. Her death deserved to be recognised in that pain. But I don't feel any of it!" She was screaming now, her eyes snapping up from the ground. "I would jump out of the way of that car! If you gave me a gun you could be certain I'd waste a ghost before I wasted myself! Because I don't feel it! I can't! Because of this stupid disease!" She stomped at the ground, twisting her face away, refusing to let him see her cry again, but he could see the water staining the floorboards. "She loved you too! And I don't! I'm not her! Is that so hard to understand?"
Jo's anger began to dissipate, and she took deep breathes. She gathered the strength and composure to look at Dean, and she nearly broke to see that his eyes had also filled with tears. "Until I get my memory back, you're going to have to treat me like a whole other person. It's just" She breathed in and out shakily, laughing slightly at how chick flick the next bit wass going to sound, but unable to find another way to phrase it. "It's just gonna be easier for both of us. No more…"last nights"." Jo looked away again, sniffled, and wiped her eyes, getting ready to face Sam, preparing her excuse, knowing full well just how thin the walls of the motel were; how much he'd probably heard. She turned around, her hand falling back to the brass doorknob. Her senses became hyperconscious as she felt Dean's gaze, no, stare on the back of her neck. Suddenly the brass felt cooler; the air crisper on her red, numb cheeks. She could her the trucks rolling along the highway half a mile behind her, roaring like she was inches from becoming roadkill. The light blue of the door she kept her eyes trained upon appeared technicoloured as she faltered. But, most of all, she could feel Dean's warm breath on her neck.
She turned around to face him, her face a mask of impatience and bore. Dean's green eyes drilled into her brown as he spoke. "You and I never dated. Not once." Jo held her breath, but didn't gasp or dare to speak. It was a surprise sure, I mean she had assumed… But why was he telling her this? "I hit on you once, you turned me down. The first time we met you held a rifle to my back and then punched me in the face. We kissed once, and you were dying." Jo remembered her voice and tried to sound casual, "Your point?" Jo tried not to register her subconscious guessing the distance between them as they stood nose to nose. "My point is that you never told me you loved me, and vice versa. Yet you felt this." He gestured between them. "And you took a guess. You thought about what you felt, and you assumed that we must have been together. You feel it too. You're very much Jo, memories or not."
They paused for a moment. And Dean thought maybe his speech had worked, maybe he and Jo had a chance. But then the moment was gone and reality came back into play. Jo looked away from his eyes again, and Dean looked for words to make her stay, but found himself maxed out of chick flick moments. Jo turned carefully in the small space between Dean and the door, and slid it open.
Smartly, Sam was playing dead on his bed across the room, and Jo knew that Sam was also smart enough to not bring this up when he 'awoke'.