Contact, Ch. 4

xxxx

Jo tossed some long-sleeved t-shirts into her bag before moving to the dresser to start sorting through clothes for Luke. The shirts landed on top of the cat that was investigating her opened luggage suspiciously. He meowed disapprovingly at her.

"Sorry, Pip," she said with a smile, attention now on the cat. The orange tabby's head poked out from under the fabric and narrowed his eyes at her. She leaned over to smooth a hand over his ears, and he stretched up into the caress. His brother stepped carefully into the bag and began to make biscuits in her jeans, purring deeply. Jo scooped both cats out the duffle and dropped them on the floor next to D-dog who was watching both the cats and the packing unhappily. The old dog had adjusted to the feline additions to the family with the equanimity the Sweeds had anticipated from him, but he certainly didn't approve of the greater freedom they enjoyed on the furniture and beds. Though given how much time the dog spent on Tommy's bed, Jo wasn't sure he had much cause for complaint.

"Oh, don't give me that look," Jo said when D-dog turned mournful eyes on her. Ignoring the facts that both cats had just jumped back onto the bed, she bent down to give him a consoling pat. He knew what it meant when the suitcases came out. "You know you love it when Marge comes to feed you." He generally gained a couple of pounds when they were out of town. This would be the first time they'd left the cats for longer than a couple of nights.

Jo turned back to Luke's drawers, opening one to see what was clean. First one cat and then the other made the jump from the bed to the dresser drawer. With a sigh of exasperation, she picked them both up and dropped them back on the floor. Pippen crouched down, intent to jump back into the drawer clear from the way his rear end shimmied from side to side. Jo used her foot to shift him away and break his focus. He wandered off like that had always been his plan

"Mom!" Tommy's shout had Jo moving to the door of the bedroom. D-dog followed her, then trotted off to Tommy. The cats trailed after the dog for a couple of steps before chasing each other through his legs and into the boys' room.

"What?"

"How long will we be there?" Tommy, tall and ridiculously skinny in the wake of his latest growth spurt, stood in the hallway, jeans just a hair too short, holding a stack of shirts. Merry had made the jump from the floor to Tommy's shoulder and was balanced there precariously. The boy lifted a hand to run over the cat's back.

Jo had pulled Tommy out of school at noon due to a "family emergency" and was hoping they could get on the road in the next hour or so. Luke was getting things in order at the sheriff's office and should be home within the half-hour.

"You'll have to be back for school on Wednesday for your English test, so…" she counted mentally, "five days? You'll be home Tuesday night." At this point she wasn't sure whether she'd still be needed in Austin, but Luke would have to be back himself so he could bring Tommy home.

"What English test?" Tommy sounded affronted. "I just turned in that report on…"

"The one you're making up because you forgot about the test on Pride and Prejudice. The one Mrs. Grayson is graciously allowing you to take again," she reminded him more sharply than she'd intended.

"Oh," he said. "Right."

"Yeah. 'Oh,'" she muttered to herself as she moved back into her room. "And don't forget to pack that book," she called as she approached the dresser again.

"Do we still have that movie you used to make us watch all the time?" Tommy shouted from his room. "Maybe I could just watch it in the car on the way," he suggested. "That way I wouldn't have to…."

"Pack the book!" Jo yelled, trying to keep her temper.

"But…"

"Pack the book." Luke's voice echoed down the hall.

"But I thought that movie was supposed to…."

Luke entered their room, and Jo grabbed two fistfuls of hair, pulling them away from her head while she opened her mouth in a silent scream.

"Tommy!" Luke barked. "What did both of us just say?"

"Fine!"

The sound of large feet stomping around the boys' room drifted down the hall. And Jo thought she heard the flutter of book pages rustling as she imagined her well-used copy of Pride and Prejudice being hurled into Tommy's backpack. She gritted her teeth against another outburst of frustration with her youngest as the cats skittered back into their room, disapproving of the commotion Tommy was making. They dashed over the bed before zooming to the top of the dresser, skidding across it, knocking over a couple of framed photos, tumbling over the side, landing on top of each other and then scampering under the bed.

"Maybe I can watch the movie?" Jo asked plaintively. "I'll sit in the back with headphones on and you can deal with him for the drive?"

"Not gonna happen," Luke said, righting the frames. "I'm not suffering alone." He nudged her gently out of his way, pulling clothes out of his drawers and lobbing them at his own bag.

Tommy had always been such a sweet, agreeable child and that was certainly still true – sometimes – of his teenaged self. But he was also, both Jo and Luke had realized recently, used to being protected and hand-held through his very sheltered (kidnapping by a demon-possessed neighbor several years before aside) life. It came, Jo thought, from being the baby and being so much younger than his older brothers. She'd done significantly more for Tommy than she ever had for Michael or Jake, who had had to step up and help when she'd found herself a single mother of three boys after their parents had died. When Luke had joined the family that burden had lifted some from the older boys, but by that time Jo's expectations for them were pretty set. And with two parents and two older brothers running interference for him, Tommy had been, well, spoiled. It hurt Jo in her practical, no-nonsense heart to admit this, but there it was.

With this being Tommy's senior year and college looming on the horizon, Jo and Luke were making a concerted effort to let Tommy be responsible for his own schedule and school work. It was not going well.

"I don't understand why you won't just remind me," Tommy had complained after failing his English test earlier in the week because he'd found himself writing essays about a book he hadn't read. How that was possible given the fact that all his friends were in the same class and prepared, Jo couldn't comprehend. She knew he talked to people – good Lord, did she know he talked to people – but somehow, incomprehensively, school work hadn't come up in the hundreds of texts he exchanged with his classmates each day.

"Because," Luke had said with strained patience, again, "you have to learn how to keep track of these things on your own, kiddo. Mom and I aren't going to be around to ride you about studying when you go away to school next year."

"If I live with Jake, he will," Tommy had said with a sly smile at Jo.

"If you can get into UT with your grades slipping because you're forgetting tests," Jo had responded sharply.

Tommy had pouted. "What do I do?"

"You need to go talk to Mrs. Grayson and see what she says," Jo had suggested without much hope. Cecilia Grayson was one of the toughest teachers at the high school – both of the older boys had had her and hated/loved her. "If she won't let you make it up, you're just going to have to accept the consequences."

Jo had had to restrain herself from making the call to see if Cecilia would relent just this once. Tommy needed to be the one to deal with the ramifications of his carelessness. It just sucked that Jo was going to have to suffer along with him.

The next afternoon, when Tommy had careened into the diner, he'd crowed, "Mrs. Grayson said I could make up the test next week!"

Because of course she had. For all the boy's flakiness, Tommy could charm the socks off anyone he came into contact with. Though, if it had ever come down to it, Jo had to admit, the other two boys could probably have managed the same feat themselves. But Michael would never have forgotten the test in the first place, and Jake would have stubbornly refused to ask for leniency if he had. Truthfully it was Tommy's combination of carelessness and charm that was beginning to concern Jo.

But she'd just rolled her eyes at his gloating.

And Tommy had promptly forgotten. Which was why she was – again – hounding him about his school work.

When he finally slunk into their room with his backpack slung over his shoulder, he leaned against the doorjamb and said, "I'm ready."

Jo forced herself to smile as she turned to him; she was always too willing to hold on to grudges when she had an argument with one of the boys.

"Good." She cocked her head to one side. "Maybe we should take the movie with us," she allowed. "We could force Dean and Sam to watch it. After you've read the book."

Tommy made a face at the condition attached, but then he grinned. "Like we did with Anne of Green Gables."

Jo waggled her eyebrows at him.

"I'll go get it!" he said excitedly and turned to lope off.

"Put your backpack in the car," Luke called after him. "And grab that HEB bag!"

"OK!"

Thundering down the stairs.

"How sick is Dean?" Luke asked with a slight grin. "The poor kid had almost died the time we forced Anne of Green Gables on him."

Jo sighed. "Well, Jake says it's mono, so. Dean sounded horrible on the phone, but of course, wouldn't actually answer me when I asked about how he was doing."

She'd literally dropped her phone when she'd heard, "It's Dean." She'd scrambled desperately for the phone, accidentally kicking it across the floor before she'd been able to get her hands on it and put it to her ear.

"Dean?" she'd known she'd sounded breathless. And she had been.

"Hi. Yeah." He'd sounded a little short of breath himself. "How are you doing? It's been a while, I know. I'm sorry about that."

"That's OK, that's OK," she'd hurried to reassure him. "How are you? Are you OK? We've missed you!" The words had tumbled out of her mouth in a rush like she was afraid she might not get a chance to say them to him again.

There was a moment of silence where Jo was terrified she'd said too much and scared him off. "Dea-"

"So. Guess who we ran into yesterday?"

Jo had blinked at the non sequitor. Evidently Dean wasn't going to respond to her questions. "Um. I don't know?" she'd offered.

"Michael. And Jake."

"Are you in Austin?" Jo asked, delighted.

"Yeah. We're on a job."

"Oh!" So they were going to have this conversation like it hadn't been years since they'd last heard from the Winchesters. OK, she'd thought. I can do that. "Where did you see them?"

"Funny thing." He'd cleared his throat, and Jo had realized, finally recovering from the shock at hearing his voice, that he'd sounded terrible. "Uh. It was at the hospital. When did Michael become a doctor?"

And yeah. She hadn't been willing to ignore that one. "At the hospital?" Why hadn't she heard this from Michael? "Are you OK?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Liar. "Sam had a, uh, an accident."

"An accident? What kind of accident?" Surely Michael would have called if it had been bad.

"A house kind of fell on him."

"A house?" Jo hadn't been able to keep the horror out of her voice. "Dean, what is going on? Do you need us? We can be there in a few hours."

There'd had been an odd strangled sound – a choked, disbelieving laugh – on the other end of the phone, and Jo had felt her throat close up in response.

There'd been a long stretch of silence.

"Why would you do that?" Dean's voice had been vague, hoarse and quiet, exhaustion seeping through. "We haven't…." He'd trailed off, hadn't finished the thought.

Jo had forced herself to take a few deep breaths and think about what to say. She'd known that for the question to even have been asked, for it to have slipped past Dean's defenses, Dean would have had to be at the utter end of himself – beyond that point actually.

Finally, she'd said, "Dean, would you come to us if you knew we needed you? No matter how long it had been?" She'd asked the questions as gently as she could, and she'd accepted the shaken breath he'd taken as his answer. "We feel the same way about you and Sam. Where else would we be?"

He hadn't responded directly – of course – but had seemed willing to accept that they would be on their way. The rest of the conversation had been short and had ended with Jo saying she'd see him soon.

She hadn't tried to get any more information out of him. She'd known she wouldn't be successful.

And she had other sources.

Jo had turned on the computer, opening her Gmail. There had been a little green dot next to Jake's name, meaning he was available for chat. Though he shouldn't have been. He should be in class. And paying attention. But for once Jo hadn't been going to comment on the delusion her children had that they could "multi-task."

"Why didn't you tell me about Dean and Sam?" she had typed in the little box in the lower right-hand corner of the browser window.

Jake hadn't responded immediately, then, "tell you what about them"

"I just talked to Dean, you wretched child."

"cant class"

"That isn't going to save you this time, buddy. How bad is it?"

"it's not good."

Jo had waited for more, but it hadn't come.

"What does that mean?"

Nothing.

"Jake."

Nothing.

"Jake."

"Jake."

"Jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake…"

Jake is typing…

"You better be, young man," Jo had muttered to herself.

"omgosh settle down woman i'm in class and got called on. a house fell on sam and he's got a skull fracture as well as a compound fracture of his thigh. *emoticon of a little yellow head puking* plus dean's got mono."

It had taken Jo a minute to catch her breath.

"How bad is the skull fracture? Do we know yet?"

"no. michael says we won't really know until sam wakes up."

"How is Dean doing?"

"wait"

Jo had, tapping her foot impatiently.

"sorry. dean is falling asleep whenever he sits down and trying to pretend that he's fine so the usual."

"We're coming."

"i figured. dean's in the guest room. i'll bunk with mikey and you can have my room. tommy?"

"Yes."

"couch"

"I'm going to get packed. Love you. See you soon."

"text when you're on the road drive safe"

That had been just a few hours ago, and it was hard for Jo to really grasp that by this evening she would be seeing the Winchesters again. However Dean was doing, whatever shape Sam might be in, she'd be able to see for herself shortly. She sniffed and swiped a finger under one eye. Stupid tears.

"Here," said Luke. He handed her Merry, who was purring throatily, and pushed her gently out of the room. "Indulge in some cat therapy while I finish getting us packed."

"Okay," Jo sniffled, rubbing her face in the cat's fur, and wandered downstairs.

She put the cat down when she got to the kitchen, feeling much better in the wake of carrying an armful of happy cat around the house for a little while. She'd stuck her head into the room that had always been the Winchesters' to see what needed to be done to make it habitable again in case Dean and Sam needed a longer landing place than Michael and Jake could provide. It wasn't too bad in there; the room had served its secondary purpose well over the years by housing numerous friends the older boys had brought home with them from school or, during the time Jake had worked, the office. Jo had always felt a little bittersweet dusting the furniture and washing sheets for friends that were not the Winchesters, but she'd also always been glad to have the space when they needed it.

Jo sat at the kitchen table after grabbing a notepad and a pencil from one of the drawers and got to work on some lists. Tommy joined her a couple of minutes later, adding items to the grocery list and groaning at the list she was making of things that needed to be done before Dean and Sam got to the house. If they did.

"Why can't we just stack the boxes in a corner?" he asked when he saw one of the tasks was moving all the boxes out of the room in to the shed. "Sam and Dean aren't going to mind if we've got some stuff stored in there."

Jo didn't bother to answer him, adding, "Have Tommy organize all the boxes by contents before he moves them to the shed" then "Have Tommy paint the room" to the list.

Tommy just snorted. "Fine," he agreed with a laugh, reaching for her hand to try to make her scratch out the last items. Jo smiled as she erased. "I knew you'd see in my way," she said smugly.

Luke dropped bags on the floor next to the table, glancing at the lists Jo was working on. "You know the boys are going to have a lot of that stuff already on hand," he said.

"I know. I just wanted to get it down while I was thinking of what I was going to need. I'll adjust when we get there." Jo made one last note to herself before dropping both the pad and the pencil into her purse. "Are we ready?" she asked.

"Let's go," said Luke.

xxxx

"So." Jake dropped his backpack with a solid thunk on the floor next to one of the chairs that had been dragged into Sam's room. Dean startled upright. "I guess you decided we could tell Jo and Luke about Sam," Jake said in a disgruntled voice. "I got bawled out via g-chat during class this morning for not letting Mom know."

Dean sat up more straightly and ran a heavy hand over his face. "Yeah. Sorry, man. I just figured I should probably be the one to call." He gave Jake a rueful smile. "Didn't think about the consequences for you and Michael on that, I guess."

"Well," Jake said grudgingly. "You're sick and you haven't been around in a while to remember what she can be like," he went on. "So…." Jake wandered over to Sam's bed to check on him.

Dean felt an internal wince at Jake's casual mention of their not being around. He hadn't really addressed that with Jake, though he and Michael had touched on it briefly initially.

"Hey, Jake," Dean started. Jake turned, face nothing more than curious. "About our not being around. I…"

Jake's face shuttered immediately, and he turned back to Sam. "Don't worry about it," he said dismissively.

All Dean wanted to do was follow Jake's instruction and not worry about it. But he knew from bitter experience that too often dealing with an issue by ignoring it was a recipe for disaster. As much as he hated to admit it.

"Yeah, the thing is, I think I do need worry about it. I have worried about it. Sam has, too."

Jake's head came around slowly, listening.

"Things were… bad—really bad—for a long time after we last saw you." Dean cleared his throat, trying to decide how much to say. "We, uh, both of us, Sam and me, we went places in the dark we never…." Dean's eyes went to Sam in the bed, settled there. "We couldn't…we couldn't bring that to you. We couldn't drag you guys down into the… the evil we were wrapped up in. And then when things finally did get better, it had been so long, so much had happened to us and we weren't the same… We just…. We couldn't…." Dean closed his eyes, huffing out a weak laugh. Well, that had been…disjointed. He sighed, opening his eyes to take in the kid he was trying to apologize to. "I'm sorry. We.…"

But Jake was shaking his head, expression regretful in the early afternoon light. "Don't, Dean. Really."

Jake hesitated, and Dean wasn't sure what was coming next.

Jake took a slow step forward, one hand resting lightly on the foot of Sam's bed. "You don't need to apologize. In fact, I'm sorry," he said, with a rueful smile. "I, uh, may have taken it a little personally when we didn't hear from y'all. But." He shook his head again. "I know it took a lot to keep you away." His brow wrinkled slightly as he paused. "And I guess I'm sorry y'all had to go through all that on your own."

Dean opened his mouth to say… something…

Sam made an unhappy sound and his uncasted leg shifted restlessly.

Dean jumped – to the extent he could – from the chair and staggered to the bed. "Sam?"

Sam's eyes were fluttering, his forehead crinkling in confusion or pain as his head moved uneasily on the pillow.

"Ungh," mumbled Sam.

Dean's eyes went to Jake's, and Jake moved toward the door, calling for help.

"Hey, man." Dean put a hand lightly on Sam's chest, not trying to hold him down, but wanting to reassure. "You're in the hospital, Sam, okay? You're going to be alright."

One of the nurses hurried into the room. She skirted Dean and the bed, approaching Sam on the opposite side. "Hey, honey," she said to Sam and his face turned toward her. "That's good." She looked at Dean in surprise. "He's responding to the different voices around him. That's really good."

Dean swallowed heavily, nodding in relief. "Okay."

Sam's head turned back toward Dean.

"Now he may not wake completely right now," she cautioned, "but he's definitely close." The nurse checked a couple of the monitors and adjusted something on the IV drip. "I'll let Dr. Arnold know he's coming around." She gave Jake a smile. "I assume you'll let your brother know."

There was a sharp movement from the bed and everyone's attention refocused on Sam. Whose eyes flickered and opened.

"We've got a determined one," said the nurse.

"You have no idea," said Dean with a grin. "Hey, Sammy."

Sam blinked heavily at his brother and his eyes stuttered to Jake when he moved up beside Dean.

"Hey, Sammy," Jake said.

Sam's expression didn't register any recognition of the other man. He stared groggily for a long second before looking back at Dean. And stared some more.

"Sam?" It was making Dean uneasy, this lack of talking or even attempting to talk by his usually hyper-verbal brother. They'd both had head injuries in the past, but that had never stopped Sam from trying to communicate with him before. He looked at the nurse, who had taken Sam's wrist in her hand and was, evidently, checking his pulse.

She smiled at him in what Dean was sure was meant to be a reassuring way. "He may not be completely aware, yet, Dean. He suffered a massive trauma to his brain. You need to give him some time, OK?" She straightened the bed clothes slightly. "I'm going to go call Dr. Arnold. You might just talk to him for a while, sugar," she added as she left the room.

Jake's face was concerned, but he gave Dean a quick smile. "I'm going to go let Michael know. I'll leave you alone. So you can have whatever heart-to-heart chat with Sam that you've been meaning to have." He pulled the chair Dean had been sitting in closer to the bed, then clapped a hand on Dean's shoulder as Dean sat down. "This is good, Dean," Jake said softly and then left the brothers alone.

In the bed, Sam continued to watch Dean, eyelids at half-mast, face oddly blank, but still intent on his brother.

Dean drew in a shaky breath, then gave an equally unsteady smile to his brother. "So. Let's talk about you wandering into abandoned buildings without back up…."

xxxx