A/N: I'm glad you guys like the story and I'm sorry the chapters are so short. I'm a full-time college student, working mom and this is a hobby for me. Writing shorter chapters allows me to get them out faster. Long stuff usually takes... longer. This is only a little longer than usual, and I'll try to aim for stuff around the 2,500 word mark from here on out.
This chapter is set during 5.02 Good God, Y'all and contains spoilers for anyone who may not have seen the episode.
72: War
"Every time she gets near that door, she gets sick."
Dean considered what Ellen had just told him, frowning slightly. When Jane had gone down earlier, they hadn't known what to make of it but considering the situation they found themselves in, there hadn't been much time to run the 'what the hells', they had had to immediately dive into salvaging the situation as it was. Now that they were back, Dean was taking a moment. "I'll go see her."
Ellen nodded, pointing to the door before heading to assist Sam in arming the civilians.
Dean quickly slipped into the dark room, frowning when he couldn't immediately spot his wife. "Sweetheart?"
"Christ Dean, I feel like shit." Jane whispered from her little corner. She was sitting with her back to the wall, a cold and wet dishcloth over her forehead, and her eyes closed. The headache was tolerable, for now, but experience had quickly taught her that if she went towards that door, she was going to wind up back here. "This has never happened before."
He slid down the wall until he was sitting beside her on the floor, frowning slightly. "Here." Dean lifted his arm, feeling just the tiniest bit of contentment seeping into him when he felt Jane snuggling into his side, letting his arm down to drape around her, hugging her close. "Did you try pinpointing where it was coming from? That uh, mind thing you do?"
"I did and nearly blacked out again. I don't know what it is Dean, but either someone or something is in that room."
"Think it could be one of the people?"
She shrugged. "Since I can't actually go see anyone, or try one of my neat little Jedi mind tricks, I have no idea. Or maybe it's just this town, this place is a giant mess."
He kissed the side of her head. "At least your sense of humor hasn't failed you."
"What's going on?"
Sighing, Dean helped Jane up out of her corner and guided her to a chair at the small table he had set up. "Come on, you got to eat something, baby." He studied her, realizing that her eyes were wide open and she was flinching in pain every three seconds. "Feeling better?"
"Loads, actually." Jane had dozed for a bit and when she woke up, her headache had been in remission. That probably wasn't a good sign. She already felt bad enough as it was, sleeping on the job, but other than show off her impressive fainting skills to the good, few, remaining people of this town; there wasn't much else she had been able to do. "What's going on out there?"
"Panic, looting of weaponry," That was actually him and Sam. "the usual."
"Any signs of Rufus and Jo?"
"No. We stocked up on some supplies but didn't really do any scouting. We have to get these people prepped before we do anything else." He had studied said people, trying to figure out if one of them might be the cause of Jane's issues but so far, they were all normal. Ellen had done all the tests, and he trusted her.
Jane flinched automatically when the door was opened, expecting a wave of pain. Instead, she got Sam, and smiled up at him from her spot, though she did not miss the way Dean tensed against her. "You're looking… annoyed."
"We're arming pregnant women."
She flinched.
Dean watched as Sam dropped down at the table across from Jane, moving to stand behind her, hands on her shoulders. "What's wrong?"
Sam smiled humorlessly, staring at the table top. "Back at that store, those demons."
"What about them?"
"They were possessing teenagers, Dean."
Jane could already see where this was going and paled.
"I had to slice some kid's throat."
She felt Dean's fingers dig into her shoulders for a brief moment and tilted her head back to look up at him. His jaw was tense, which meant he was either annoyed with Sam's "emotional" issue, or struggling with it himself. Given that Dean could go either way, but he was generally more… cold… since coming back from Hell, she was going to venture a guess that he was leaning towards annoyed. Sighing inwardly, she leaned over to place a hand on Sam's, catching his eye when he looked up in shock. "Sam, you did what you had too."
"Yeah, I know Jane, I just… I wish we could save them, you know? Like… how…" He trailed off, practically feeling the heat of Dean's very disapproving stare slowly toasting his face.
"Like how it was when you were slurping demon's blood?" Dean finished for him. "Because we see how well that worked out the last time."
"Enough Dean." Jane pushed away from the table, forcing him to step away from her and turned to glare at him. "Don't be a-"
"I'm going to go find Jo."
Where the hell did Ellen come from? Jane had been a bit absorbed in the brother's; she hadn't even noticed the other woman coming in. "I'll come with you." She volunteered automatically.
"No, I will." Sam was up, pointedly ignoring Dean's gaze. "If you go down again out there, you're dead."
She couldn't argue with that.
"…the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil."
Jane had actually be able to emerge from her seclusion, in fact, she felt perfectly fine. She had scanned the people, finally being properly introduced to them, and felt nothing coming from any of them other than fear. By immediately being rushed away after that fainting spell, and kept away from everyone, she had incurred their suspicion. They were civilians, who had been introduced to the supernatural in the most horrifying manner, and they did not trust anyone, which was probably smart.
She was sitting with the pregnant woman and her husband, really hoping this woman did not go into labor while they were stuck here in this church. Jane could not see a happy ending coming out of this for anyone, there wasn't going to be a happy ending here.
Her attention, like everyone else's, was drawn to the door when there was a frantic knock. She watched as Dean checked through the peephole and then opened it, expecting to see Sam and Ellen, maybe with Jo and Rufus in tow. Her heart sank when only Ellen came walking in.
"Where's Sam?"
Ellen shook her head; sitting down beside a young woman and gratefully accepted the bottle of water she was passed.
"Who the hell are you?" Sam demanded, staring at the man who had come into the room, frowning from his place in the chair he was tied too. Something was very wrong in this town, that much was obvious. Rufus and Jo both possessed black eyes, but they also seemed to think he was a demon. Obviously, he wasn't, their holy water and salt had done absolutely nothing to him, but his pleading had done nothing for him either. "What are you?"
"You caught me. I popped in to watch. I can hustle like that."
Sam recognized the guy, and guy was being used loosely, he had been at the church. "So, the real Roger?"
"Is buried in a ditch."
The following, short but informative conversation, was a great explanation for what was going on around here, as well as why Jane had gone down the way she had. It was also a hard slap in the face as a reminder of what he had unleashed. When he had thought apocalypse, he had been focused on the arrival of Satan, not War.
"Where were you?"
"Who are you?"
Jane eyeballed the man who had just returned, frowning slightly. She felt odd. Like, her head had gone fuzzy, and it was driving her insane because it wasn't actually her head. Her handicap was tickling at her, weakly, like it was struggling and that was just outright weird. "Jane Winchester." She said finally, slowly extending her hand. She usually did not like touching people she didn't know, something that came from working in a bar, knowledge that not everyone was what they presented themselves as, and occasionally contact could trigger a headache.
"Roger." He smiled broadly at her, taking her hand, and winked when she began trembling from head to toe. "Pleasure to meet you."
Jane let go of him and turned away, letting Dean take over while she regained her bearings. She wanted to say this guy was a problem, he had done something to her, like placed a mental inhibitor on her, but the people here knew nothing about her, and it sounded stupid. But there was something off, very off, with this man.
Not only minutes later when she, Ellen and Dean were fleeing out the door, running from the remaining townspeople who apparently thought they were demons, were her suspicions confirmed.
"Jane, it's not demons."
"No shit, it's War." Jane rushed across the room to untie her brother-in-law, trying to ignore the gunshots coming from downstairs and outside. "Dean and Ellen are down there, trying to reason with Jo and Rufus."
"So how'd you know I was up here?"
"Because as soon as we got away from War, all my sensors came back online."
He smiled wryly at the joke, helping to untie himself once she had gotten his arms free and stood up, shaking out his limbs. "Yeah, something like him would knock you for a loop."
"Or two. Dean figured out what was going on, and then War came back. It uh, kind of ended badly for us. Just… how is he doing it?"
"The ring." Sam was already heading for the door, ready to get back in the action.
She frowned, hesitating. "The ring? Makes sense, he turned it and everyone went nuts on us."
"Walk and talk at the same time." Sam took her by the hand and made her run to keep pace. "We have to get the hell out of here, Jane."
"What about the people? They're not demons, Sam."
"We stop War, and everyone should be fine."
She scoffed at how uncertain he sounded.
"How're you holding up?"
Ellen smiled at Jane, inclining her head until it touched the top of Jo's, whom she had an arm wrapped around. "Better now that we're on the same side again."
Jo laughed, looking like she wanted to shrug her mom off but didn't. "This is the beginning, isn't it? Just a taste of everything that's coming."
Jane nodded, really wishing she had something better for them, but the reality was, they were screwed. If War was here, then Pestilence, Famine, and Death weren't far behind and that scared her more then anything they had encountered so far. Jane could remember, when she was much younger, going to church when her mom was on one of her 'I gotta get right with the Lord' kicks. She remembered the sermon, a fiery brimstone spiel, from a preacher who was damn sure that they were all going to burn, no matter what they did or how much they had believed. In retrospect, Jane was pretty sure he had been a demon.
Ellen was staring off into the distance, looking both worried and fatigued before finally bringing her attention back to Jane. She managed a tired smile, letting go of Jo in order to reach out and clasp the younger woman's shoulders in both hands. "We're going to hit the road, and it looks like your boys are about ready to go too." She nodded off towards Sam and Dean, who were sitting at a picnic table, engrossed in their own conversation. "You take care of them, honey, and yourself, got me?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Yes ma'am my ass," Ellen rolled her eyes and briefly hugged Jane. "And don't you forget to call me, I'll kick all three of your asses if you leave me hangin' again."
Jane believed Ellen would too and nodded.
