Appendix H

Section D

Alex Age 18

The Pick Up

Sam yawned as he leaned against the trunk of the Impala.

"Don't you start, because then I'll st—," Dean's protest was interrupted by a sympathetic yawn of his own.

"Maybe we'll stop for coffee before we get out of town," Sam suggested.

"Not a bad idea," agreed Dean. "None for Jenna, though. Could you imagine?"

"Dear God," said Sam. "And in an enclosed vehicle, too."

"Eesh."

About that time, there was movement at the door of the dorm building and Alex and Jenna appeared, rolling their suitcases. The brothers waved to the two young women, who waved back. Jenna was the most emphatic of the four and did a little happy dance upon seeing them.

"Here we go," said Sam under his breath.

"Brace yourself, little brother," replied Dean as they both popped off the vehicle and wandered toward Alex and Jenna.

"You weren't waiting long, were you?" Jenna called concernedly as they closed the distance.

"Don't know, don't care," Dean called back. "Too tired to look at the clock."

"Oh, gosh!" replied Jenna with a mix of surprise and sympathy.

Alex just chuckled.

"Hey, Dad," she said warmly, coming in for a hug.

"Hey, baby girl," Dean replied.

Sam got the next hug, "Hey, Alex."

"Hey, Uncle Sam."

"Are you ready for a break?" Sam asked her.

"Oh my God, yeeeesss," Alex groaned at the sky, taking dragging steps toward the Impala to exaggerate her exhaustion.

"First semester's a lot," said Sam, smiling.

"I am so tired," said Alex.

"Well, you can sleep in the car if you want," Sam said as he popped the trunk.

"We were going to stop for coffee on the way, too," Dean added.

"Oh, I love coffee!" said Jenna. "It makes me really tired, though."

"Really?" Sam asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I have this weird opposite reaction to caffeine," Jenna replied, giving a hiccup of a laugh.

"Huh." Sam gave an approving frown and nod.

"Here, Jenna," Dean said, reaching for her suitcase.

"Oh my gosh, thank you!" said Jenna. "And really, thank you both for letting me stay with you! It's so… I don't even know what to say. Oh my gosh, Jenna, don't cry!" She scolded herself and waved at her eyes.

"Hey, it's no problem," said Dean, loading the suitcase and closing the trunk. "It's kind of our fault you're in this mess anyway, so the least we can do is give you a safe place to sleep."

"Is that everything you need?" Sam asked both girls.

"That's everything!" said Jenna brightly.

"Yeah," agreed Alex. "Although! I was wondering if we could run by Jenna's parents' place and grab some of her stuff."

"No, Alex!" said Jenna. "We don't have to do that! You're already letting me stay with you for weeks and weeks, I'm not going to make you drive all the way to my parents' just for some stupid stuff."

"It's a bunch of important things," said Alex, addressing her father and uncle, although the former seemed a little distracted. "Her birth certificate, medical records, some of the jewelry she inherited from her grandmother. It's all in the basement in a box right now."

"It's fine, Alex, it's so far out of the way," said Jenna. "Our basement doesn't usually flood in the winter anyway."

"They put your birth certificate and medical records in a basement that floods frequently?" Sam asked.

"They were in my bedroom, so they went with all my bedroom stuff when they moved it out." Jenna waved it off. "I'm sure they'll be fine until I go home again. It's too far! I'm not going to make you go all that way for some papers."

"Well, how far is it?" asked Sam, brushing aside his surprise at her parents having repurposed her room within months of her leaving so he could focus on the main issue.

"Chicago," said Jenna.

"Chicago… Illinois?" he pressed.

"Yeah," replied Jenna, her face scrunching in acknowledgement of the hassle it would be to make the trip.

Sam shook his head. "That's practically on the way. We can add a stop. You know, before the document acknowledging you were born and proving your identity is disintegrated."

Jenna stood dumbfounded by the nonchalance with which Sam had just added probably four hours onto their trip. Not to mention the importance he placed on things her parents saw as clutter.

"See? Road trippers," Alex said sidelong to her roommate.

"Right, Dean? We can make a detour," said Sam, turning to his brother. But Dean didn't respond. "Dean?"

Dean was standing with his back turned to the group, tensed like a dog that had spotted a squirrel. He had honed in on a young man walking along a sidewalk about fifty yards away. He looked familiar, but Dean was sure it couldn't be who he thought it was. He shouldn't be here. But the more he stared, the more he confirmed his suspicions.

Sam followed Dean's gaze, then cocked his head as he put a name to the distant face. "Is that…?"

"HEY!" Dean shouted and began stalking toward the figure at an aggressive clip. "HEY, GARY!"

The boy looked around to see who had shouted his name.

"What the Hell are you still doing here?!" Dean yelled at him. "You threaten my daughter with a knife and they don't throw your ass out of school?!"

Gary's sightline flicked from Dean to Alex and his eyes went wide as he realized who was confronting him. He said it so quietly that it couldn't be heard over the distance, but everyone clearly saw his mouth form the words, "Oh, shit," and he began to hobble-run away, abandoning his original trajectory in favor of a route taking him as directly opposite from Dean as he could possibly go. Dean began to jog after him.

"You come near her again, and you'll be dealin' with me, and I don't have to hold back! They can't kick me out!" he shouted.

"Dean!" Sam called in an attempt to stop his brother. Then he rolled his eyes and took off after him, leaving Alex and Jenna to stand snickering.

"Oh my God, they are so cute," Jenna commented through her giggles. "In, like, a scary way."

Alex sighed humorously. "It's kind of a violent goofiness."

Jenna cackled.

Sam caught up to Dean and snagged his arm and shoulder to slow and finally stop him.

"Hey hey, how about we don't murder Alex's classmate on campus?" Sam suggested.

"He shouldn't be a classmate at all," Dean growled. Then he bellowed after the rapidly retreating Gary; "I'm watching you!"

"Dude, they can still kick Alex out if one of us kills him. Now come on," said Sam, tugging Dean around and leading him back to the Impala.

"How the Hell is he still a student here?" Dean asked Alex when they were within earshot.

"He has to be present for the hearing with the school dean before they can do anything," said Alex. "He only just got out of the hospital."

"What, really?" Dean said, surprised.

"Yeah, I don't know exactly what happened, but I think there was something about infections cropping up from the surgeries."

"Surgeries? Plural?" asked Sam.

"Well yeah, the nose and then they had to remove the testicle, too," Alex elaborated.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Sam.

Dean cringed. "Okay, I feel better about not catching him."

"Hey, Dean, we need to swing by Chicago," said Sam, switching subjects.

"Why?" Dean asked, looking confused over the top of the Impala. "Got a hankering for some deep dish?"

"No, that's where Jenna's parents live," Sam explained. "She needs a few things."

"Things she can't get at any of the twenty-five Targets we'll pass on the way home?" Dean questioned.

"Can you get your birth certificate and medical records at Target?" Sam asked, leaning against the roof of the vehicle.

Dean looked even more perplexed. "She's going to need those over break?"

"Her parents shoved them in a box and stuck them in their prone-to-flooding basement," said Sam with a bitter smile.

Dean stared at his brother, the confusion in his expression now turned to shock. Then he blinked slowly and shook his head.

"Okay, we're going to Chicago," he said emphatically as he pulled open his door and climbed in. "Jeeeesus…."

Jenna and Alex took to the back seat. On her way in, she tried to make the Winchester brothers' reactions compute. It was just a bunch of papers; was it really that big of a deal? They hardly even knew her—this was maybe the fourth time they had ever met in person—and her birth certificate mattered to them. It seemed a little bit of an overreaction, but she shrugged it off as she dropped into the vehicle.

Alex sighed and collapsed against the back of the bench. It was good to be in the Impala again. As much time as she had spent in her dorm room and the bunker, she guessed that she had logged more hours in this rear seat than anywhere else. It didn't matter that there was fourteen hours of open road between her and the bunker; she was already home.

She let her head loll to the side to look at Jenna. She frowned with concern as she took in the sight of her roommate. Jenna was shaking where she sat, her eyes wide as she looked around the interior of the vehicle. She hadn't even leaned back, sitting up straight as an arrow.

"Are you okay?" asked Alex.

"I can't believe I'm inside a '67 Impala," Jenna replied, so awestruck it took all the power out of her voice. "The leather isn't even cracked."

"Yeah, I've had to reupholster a few times," said Dean, searching for the nearest drive-thru with coffee.

"Especially with all the blood," Sam commented.

"Yeah," agreed Dean.

"The blood?" asked Jenna nervously.

"Mostly ours," said Sam, gesturing to indicate himself and his brother.

"It wipes off pretty easy, but some of it gets in the seams and soaks into the padding," said Dean. "Starts to smell after a while."

"Oh," Jenna said feebly, beginning to wonder what reality she was falling into.

"All right, let's get movin'," said Dean, setting down his phone and turning the key in the ignition.

The engine rumbled to life and Jenna gave a tiny squeak at the sound, covering her mouth with the fingertips of both hands. Alex grinned at her friend.

"Kind of vibrates in your bones, doesn't it?" she teased.

Jenna nodded mutely.

Her speechlessness did not last long.

"Oh, it's a 327!" she suddenly exclaimed.

"Yeah," Dean said with a grin, then immediately snapped out of his distraction and twisted in his seat to look at Jenna. "Wait, what?"

"You know," Jenna continued with a knowing nod, "the small-block option makes a lot more sense if you're road tripping all the time. Soooo much better gas mileage than a 427 and still gets a ton of power. Plus who needs more than 275 horses if you're not racing stock cars?" She laughed.

By now, both Sam and Dean were staring at her over their shoulders, incredulity proliferating across their faces.

"Alex told you that," said Dean.

"Told me what?" replied Jenna with a tone of undeniably genuine innocence.

Dean's eyebrows shot up and he addressed his daughter; "Oh, you weren't kidding."

Alex met his gaze and shook her head slowly with a delighted grin.

"Well all right then," said Dean, turning back around.

They backed out of the spot and headed off campus. Dean gunned it a little bit headed down the road. The two young women in the back laughed, Jenna from surprise and joy, Alex from amusement. Sam rolled his eyes.

"Showoff," he murmured.

Dean chuckled.