Jo Harvelle (knivesandreo) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-10-11 16:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | dean winchester, jo harvelle |
Who: Jo Harvelle, Dean Winchester
When: Various, ending after Elaine brings everyone back
Where: Various, ending at Dean's
Rating: Highish? Warning of angst turned sap? Long? All of the above?
Status: Log with ongoing threadage, because we had to do something with all the sad sucking our wills to live.
"Jo...."
She blinked a few times, words below her eyes coming into focus though the when why and how she was there was still completely beyond her. She could feel the texture of the page between her fingers, could feel the warmth of the sun beating down on her back and she could place the smell of home. Oil and grease lingering a little over the scent of new grass, the smell of dust and a coming storm. Home. She could feel the breeze skip across her skin, goosebumps dotting along the surface. The sound of her Mom's laugh echoed from the Roadhouse with the booming chuckle of another, carrying over the tang of metal on metal next to her. She looked up from the page to the source of the sound. A man half hidden beneath the hood of a truck near where she sat on an upturned crate. Her throat went dry, fingers gripping the pages so tight she managed to rip a piece of one of the corners. She knew this. She knew this day, she suddenly realized.
"Jo it's not going to read itself girl, don't leave your old man hanging," came a muffled long lost voice.
She was ten. She was ten and her Dad was going to die next week. But not yet. This was the month of To Kill a Mockingbird a tenth birthday present that she held tightly in her hands. New at the moment, void of the wear she would put on it over the next decade and and a half. The pages were crisp and the binding firm and uncracked. She was still staring at it when a calloused hand touched her bare shoulder and she realized she was in the yellow sundress she wore that day, shoulders getting burned lightly in the unseasonably warm early spring day. "Sweetheart, are you alright?" He asked her, a concern that wasn't there before creeping into his voice.
Jo nodded and grinned. "Fine, Daddy," she replied. "Just thinking," she assured him before he set back to fixing the engine of his truck. She set her eyes back to the page again letting the words come into focus. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do....."
She closed her eyes and when they snapped open it had all changed again. The sound of Hot Blooded by Foreigner filled the air from the jukebox, the off key singing of Ash bringing a smile to her lips. It had been a slow afternoon and the pair settled into a pool game while Ellen worked books in the back room. Jo leaned over her cue, sinking her shot easily.
She looked to Ash as the sound of him singing along faded. "What?" She asked standing up as he stared at her.
"Nothing." He smirked. Ash watched her take her next shot. "You're just in a world of trouble girl," he commented.
"What the hell are you going on about now?" She muttered as she sunk another ball.
"That Winchester boy," he clarified. "I ain't blind, I haven't seen you look at someone like that since..." he let the sentence hang between them. It didn't need finishing. She knew the end of it and he knew the end of it.
Jo blinked, almost scratching her shot but recovered to sink the eight ball after calling the shot. "Maybe," she said with a triumphant grin. "But you still owe me fifty bucks," she held out a hand to Ash.
He grinned back at her. "Sorry, can't. I'm broke on account of being dead and all," he said.
Her features twisted in confusion. "Don't be an idiot Ash and just pay up," she tried to retort back but it fell flat. And then the pain. Searing pain shot through her chest, blood pouring from a newly formed hole high on her ribcage. "Oh fuck," she managed to get out before the world spun and went black again.
Her back felt damp, grass she realized as she could feel it tickle against her arms, her neck. She wanted to go back, wanted to see her Dad again, to see Ash. She scrunched her eyes closed against the blinding brightness that pulled at her to wake up. Her face relaxed as something cast a shadow over her, that was better. She just wanted to go back.
"Jo..." the voice this time was unfamiliar, but comforting somehow. Like something she should know but couldn't quite place her finger on.
She groaned somewhat, keeping her eyes closed against whoever it was that wanted her to wake up.
"Jo..." the voice tried again. "It's not time yet, you need to get up."
Her eyes blinked open, taking a moment to focus on the girl who leaned over her, a scrawny little thing in a bright yellow sundress and blonde hair in pigtails. She couldn't be more than six but the tone of her voice, something in her eyes made her seem older. Like an adult stuck in the body of a child. Jo sat slowly, looking the girl over more closely. She was almost a dead ringer for Jo herself at that age, but there were small differences, the colour of the girl's eyes, subtle variations in their features. A flash of light caught Jo's eye bringing her focus to a small silver charm on a chain around the girl's neck. A protection symbol meant to keep one safe. She reached a hand out to touch the charm. "I used to have one just like it, when I was young..." she started. If she could just wrap her head around everything it could all make sense. "It... it got lost in the fire," she remembered. She dropped her hand and looked around the empty field they were in. "Where are we?" She asked her gaze returning to the little girl.
"In between," was all she offered. "It's not time yet though, you're not supposed to be here," she said and tugged on Jo's arm to get her to stand. "We have to go."
Jo stood and looked out over the mass of land that stretched out on all sides, it seemed to do something to her, lull something in her to sleep. She had been somewhere before but for the life of her she couldn't remember, why couldn't she remember. But they had to go. "Go where," she said with a bit of a smirk.
She felt a hand slip into hers and as the girl started walking so did she. She wasn't sure how long they walked in that silence, but they didn't seem to get anywhere. Just more and more of the field, the sun never moving from its place high in the sky as parts of her drifted away. She could still remember her Mom, her Dad, faces of men she knew as Hunters, her "Uncles", somewhere there was a stirring of a place that was warm, somewhere with sunshine and palm trees and she could vaguely feel the ghost of a touch running down her sides, across her face and dancing down her back. "You got a name?" She finally asked the girl, breaking the silence and breaking her worry of the memories that seemed to fall away moment by moment.
"Scout," she offered.
Jo raised a brow. "That your real name?"
"Nope," the little girl replied in that same voice that sounded years older than she looked. She stopped and looked up at Jo. "But my real name would give the end away," she explained and then grinned. "Scout's good enough for now."
She had been so intently focused on Scout in front of her that Jo hadn't realized the world around them had changed. When she glanced up again they were no longer in a field but on the top of a building, others surrounding them. The air was colder here, wind swirling around them between the buildings.
"They can't find your body," the girl started as she walked towards the edge of the roof. "So they can't just put you back," she turned to look at Jo. "You'll have to jump I'm afraid."
She followed Scout, sneaking a glance over the edge of the roof. They couldn't find her body? Why the hell couldn't they find her body. She was in it, it was peering with a rather disturbed look over the edge of a very tall building that some freaky kid who acted like an adult and looked like her wanted her to jump off of. "You're kidding, right," she drawled. This was so not happening.
"No." Was the reply. "You're dead, Jo," she said casually as though they were discussing the weather. "But you're being sent back. You're all going back." Scout kept her gaze on the older blonde in front of her, hands crossed in front of her and a raised brow. "You still have work to do," she said after a pause.
The pieces started to click together at that. Blurry images that weaved in her head forming paths that made a big picture. The alley... a girl, a girl she should know... the man... the look of rage... "The gun," she said quietly. Her hand reached to press against her ribs where she could now remember the bullet slicing through. Her eyes moved back to the rail on the edge of the roof. "So, let me get this straight, in order to go back to being alive I have to throw myself off a building?" Really, it seemed sort of wrong somehow. She laughed dryly at the irony of it all. Usually one jumped off a tall building to kill themselves, not the other way around.
"Yes. There were other ways but like I said..." Scout started to reply waving a hand absentmindedly.
"No body." Jo finished. Of course. Her body was probably ash somewhere, dust. Salted and burned.
"Sometimes they really hate Hunters, we make it difficult," Scout said with a smirk and then stopped suddenly, as though remembering herself. "You make it difficult," she corrected smoothing her hands down the front of the too big yellow sundress.
The mistake wasn't lost on Jo but the whole situation was almost more than she could handle and she chose not to follow the pattern of thought it brought up, instead she stared down at the street below the roof. Heights usually didn't bother her, but that was when she stood on solid ground and didn't have to take a swan dive off said height. Her mind raced and she pulled one question out that begged to be answered the most. "How long have I been..." she let the question trail off, the word dead just not wanting to come out of her mouth.
"Long enough," was the only reply given. Scout moved to where Jo stood peering over the edge and tugged on her arm lightly again. The younger girl then reached around her neck and unclasped the chain. "You'll need this, one day," she said setting the chain into Jo's hand and closing her fist around it though Scout's small hand barely covered half of Jo's. She pressed her lips together, as though debating how much she could say. "Not everything that is gone is lost," Scout said with a pointed look, one that looked so much like her own mother it made Jo's breath catch in her throat. "You'll need to remember that," she added.
She let go of Jo's hand and moved to the side of the roof. "It's time for you to go," she said.
Jo uncurled her fist looking down at the returned treasure from her childhood. Something that she had thought she would never see again, lost to a fire that had taken so much from her. She clasped it behind her neck, the shortness of the chain having the charm rest just above the hollow of her throat, but at least this way she knew it wouldn't get dropped on her fall. That done she climbed up the ledge of the roof and looked down at the ground far below. She felt dizzy from the distance of it, swaying in the wind. Jump. She could do that.
"Wait!" Came a sudden call and Jo turned to look at Scout who was quickly climbing up to talk to Jo better. She rattled off an address quickly. "You'll be confused for a bit, until you get there, just make sure you get there. No where else. Just there and it will all make sense," she said with a sense of urgency. Jo repeated the address back to Scout to make sure she had it. The younger girl grinned and the familiarity of it tugged at something buried in Jo. She knew that grin.... how did she know that grin.... "And don't forget to hold your breath," Scout said before pushing a hand to Jo's back.
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Water. Water was everywhere, tossing her body like a limp rag doll through the waves. Her lungs burned from holding air in, her arms clawed desperately at the surface. She was sure she was dying, she had to be dying..... No. She had... already...
The confusion only heightened her urgency to get clear of the waves and she surfaced shortly after, gasping deep breaths of the air. Her lungs and throat felt raw and burned from the salt water she had swallowed, but she pushed herself towards where her feet could find purchase against the sand below the water. Now it was a matter of merely walking out of the surf towards the nearly deserted beach. She was somewhat aware of a few people looking at her but she didn't care. There was an address circling in her mind and she was overwhelmed with the need to get there. Jo hailed a cab as she came up to the road. He took a good look at her, half drowned looking, hair dripping onto his seat. "Where to miss," he asked gruffly.
Jo rattled off the address, twice to make sure she had it right. She sunk into the seat after that and watched the city pass them by. Just there and it will all make sense...
She realized only when they pulled up in front of the address that she didn't have any money. Or that she couldn't remember how she had even gotten to the beach, hadn't she been somewhere else, some street.. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. She had been in an alley, there had been a girl, a man...
"Don't worry about it girl," the cab driver said suddenly, stopping Jo's thoughts. "You look like you've had a bad day, it's on me."
She smiled gratefully at the driver and got out of the cab. She found the right door and stared at the number on it. She was supposed to be here, she knew that. It repeated through her mind, she was supposed to be here. Jo lifted her hand and knocked.
Not everything that is gone is lost...
The shotglass Jo got him at the Metallica concert was still on his nightstand, only now it was sitting next to a half empty bottle of alcohol. He hadn't actually used the thing to drink any of the liquor, it was too important to him--especially now--for that, but Dean had been careful, even in a drunken stupor, not to move it.
How much time had passed since Jo's actual death he wasn't sure, it was all something of a drunken or miserable haze...and sometimes a combination of the two. All that he knew now was that he wasn't drunk thanks to a short nap, and that though his head was pounding he wasn't suffering from too strong of a hangover. Half of the time he wasn't sure whether he was awake and thinking back on Jo and what had happened to her or dreaming and having a nightmare. Most of the time he just laid on his bed, on the side she would be laying on were she here, and looked at her knife.
It was something that was so thoroughly connected to her that it hurt. It felt wrong for him to have it, because even though Sam and Kira assured him that she would want him to have it, he couldn't imagine it belonging to anyone other than Jo. There were other things too, Jo's things that Dean had gotten from her room. He had insisted on being the one to clean up her place, to box up her things. They might not have officially been anything, but he couldn't stand the thought of some manager breaking in to the room when her rent came due and selling all of her things to the highest bidder, and so they sat neatly in boxes in the backseat of the Impala.
A few things, like her journal, which sat unopened next to his father's journal, and her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, had made it the drawer of Den's nightstand. The picture of her and her father, and those silly fake ID's, were scattered next to him on the bed. He felt closer to her like that, at least, as close as he could be when he had been the one to salt and burn her and see her ashes scattered to the wind. It wasn't that Dean dared to hope she'd be back again, just that he hoped one day he'd be able to take Jo's belongings back to Ellen and tell her what had happened.
"Jo..." He sighed, his eyes squeezing shut.
The knock on the door startled him, but not as much as it should have. He assumed it as Heather, because Sam would never have knocked and Kira was probably too frightened to come back so soon. No one else knew he lived here, as far as he knew. He tucked the knife in his backpocket and went to answer it.
"Listen, Heather, I appreciate that you---" He swung open the door and froze when he saw Jo's familiar face on the other side. For one instant his defenses were down and a look of immense relief, joy and happiness washed over Dean's face. Then, realizing that there had been no body for Jo to come back to, that she had DIED, Dean's jaw clenched and he reached in his pocket for the knife.
"Who the hell do you think you are, you demon son of a bitch? A shapeshifter? A trickster? I'm sending you straight back to hell, you know that don't you?"
As she waited she realized she was losing the memory of a blonde little girl in a yellow sundress with a grin she should know, falling to some back part of her mind and Jo clung desperately to it. She needed that because it told her this, told her where she had to be, it was the only thing she knew at the minute and she was losing it. More than that somehow she knew it was part of something bigger and she didn't want to lose that, she wanted to know what the bigger was. So lost in replaying the conversation with the girl, what the hell did she say her name was now again...., she missed the voice from the other side of the door, really only snapping back to reality when the door was swung open in front of her.
Jo's eyes darted up to the man who answered and then suddenly there was everything. It all fell back into place randomly and the only thing she could be sure was that it started with him. And the grin she had been so sure she had known finally had a place and a matching face but it fell from her as soon as everything had come rushing back. There was no girl in a yellow sundress anymore, just a madman in an alley and a friend she had tried to save. And him. Her last thought and her first. She had died. She had died but it was okay because she was here again. And nothing else mattered.
She tried to stay calm as the knife, her knife she noticed and she realized it must have been picked up from the alley and fallen into the only hands she would have wanted it in, was drawn. Jo shook her head at the options thrown to her. She wouldn't expect any less. She had died. "Dean... it's me..." she started, her eyes begging for him to believe her. Everything in her wanted to do nothing more than to close the small distance between them, fall back into the place she knew she belonged, where she was supposed to be. But she managed to keep herself still, he had to know it was her first. "Please..."
Please.
Oh god, how that word tore through him. He wanted to believe so much that it was Jo. He needed to believe it, but the memory of the pain he had gone through when he heard the words "Jo is dead" of seeing her burn were still too fresh to really believe that she could be standing there in front of him looking unharmed.
"I should tear you apart for daring to be in her body." But Dean was tired, and he knew he couldn't kill Jo with her own knife, even if it wasn't really Jo. He couldn't take the sight of her laying on the ground in a pool of her own blood again. "but for starters, we'll see how you like this, you son of a bitch."
There was a small glass of holy water Dean had started leaving on a table near the door soon after he returned from hell. He flung the water at her, expecting to hear the bubbling hiss of the demon's skin reacting to the liquid.
She recoiled slightly from the water that was thrown at her, even though she had mostly been expecting it, but the hiss and steam that Dean was expecting was nowhere to be found. Jo ran a hand over her face wiping off the most of the water, though really it seemed pointless since she had made her triumphant return to earth half drowning in the ocean. "I'm not a demon," she spoke in a voice that was half the same similiar pleading from before and half damn pissed off at getting a glass of what she assumed was holy water flung at her.
She cautiously took a step forward, "Dean, it's me I swear." She paused for a moment and then started saying anything she could think of that could prove it, "I punched you the first time I met you, you're afraid of my mom, you and Sam stole my hunt in Philly but it was okay because it was HH Holmes and I was in way over my head, you were an asshole and didn't call me for a year and a half Dean, a year and a fucking half and yes I'm still pissed at that," she paused, "if you were Batman and Sam was Robin then I'd be Catwoman, you kissed me for the first time that night with the other Sam, and you died and came back too damnit so why can't I?" She stopped at that, glancing down for a moment and reaching a hand up to brush back her hair before finding his eyes again. "And I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you so just please Dean, please believe me," she said quietly though with more desperation that anything that had come before it. She could feel her body shake slightly where she stood, half from being cold and wet and half terrified that he wouldn't believe her, that he wouldn't realize it was really her.
It was funny how she could make Dean's emotions spin like some sort of child's top. He had heard every one of Jo's words, but the sheer shock at seeing her again had prevented most of them from actually sinking in. Suddenly it didn't matter if she was some sort of shapeshifter or anything else, because he felt trust overpowering reasoning, and Dean had learned in his years as a hunter to trust his gut instinct. Maybe he'd find out he was wrong and she'd kill him, but somehow Dean thought that he'd be alright. Still processing everything, Dean stepped out of the doorway to let her inside.
She certainly knew all the details, he thought with a wry smirk as he went to the bottle and drank a generous mouthful straight from the bottle. Whoever she was, she knew her stuff. She knew details about them that no one else could know, and had Jo's voice and the words she'd use down too. He took another drink, considering everything.
If you were Batman and Sam was Robin then I'd be Catwoman. Dean's throat clenched as he rememebered all the times he had teased Jo about wanting to get her in a Catwoman outfit. ...were an asshole and didn't call me for a year and a half Dean, a year and a fucking half and yes I'm still pissed at that.....And I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you so just please Dean. Who else could call him an asshole and then say she loved him in the next breath?
Finally fully accepting that this had to be Jo, Dean dropped the bottle of alcohol on to the floor and walked toward her as though he was in a daze. "Jo?" He asked, for the first time seeing the way she was soaked head to toe and how frightened she looked. He stopped a few feet short of her, a true hopeful look in his eyes for the first time since her death.
She took only a few steps into the room when Dean let her, not wanting to do anything to push him back to the part where he looked ready to kill her. Jo watched him move to the table and take a drink, something that was oddly seen as a good sign; it kept his hands busy and she knew it meant he was thinking it all over. If it weren't for the small shake of her body she would be motionless standing there, barely breathing and waiting. If he didn't believe her then she really wasn't sure what the point was, to be alive but not to be able to be with him, or worse to be hunted by him like some damned monster. No, it wasn't going to be like that, she just had to hold to that thought.
The sound of the bottle hitting the ground cleared her mind and she watched as he moved towards her. When he spoke her name that was all she needed and she quickly closed the last few feet he had left between them, wrapping her arms around his back and pressing herself into the framiliar warmth of him. Unsure if she could form any response that would be understandable at the moment she simply nodded. Jo for the life of her had no idea how long it had been (days, weeks, or even months, she didn't dare think it had been longer than that) since that night in the alley and right then it felt nothing less than entirely too long.
Dean held tightly to her, unsure of whether she was shaking from being wet or he was shaking from the shock of seeing her alive again. It didn't matter, he thought, because they were both going to stay right here and likely not leave the room for a long, long time.
"I saw you dead," he whispered, though the words were less of an accusation than a gentle prod for an explanation. "I... I took care of you, Jo. I salted and b--" Dean didn't finish the word, instead he held her more tightly. It didn't matter how she was back as long as she was back, and Dean couldn't imagine that anyone else could feel as perfect at his side as she did.
Feeling that she was shivering, Dean shrugged out of his new jacket and put it over her shoulders. The old one that he had used since his arrival here had burned with her. "What happened?" He asked his hands lingering over her neck as he pulled the jacket more tightly around her. "How did you get back?"
The more she tried to think about the answer to his question the more it seemed to slip away from her. The only concrete things she could remember was the end and then finding herself in the ocean. The rest were just flashes that went as quickly as they came. "I don't know, I can't remember," she said after a moment.
She knew she should care, that something could be at work here that wasn't right. What's dead is supposed to stay dead and all. But right then she really didn't care about the fact she couldn't remember what had brought her back. All that mattered was that she was there.
She fingered the edge of the jacket and glanced up at him. "You got a new jacket?"
Though Dean knew he should care as well, he was perfectly alright with her answer. After all, he didn't remember much about his own stay in hell save for the nightmarish flashes he had some nights of what it had been, so why should she remember where she had gone? All that mattered was that she was back and relatively well. If anyone came looking for Jo later as part of some forgotten deal to get her out of hell...well then they would deal with that when it came.
Dean's jaw clenched at her question. He wasn't sure if it was the sort of thing you were supposed to tell someone back from the dead or not, but finally he decided on the truth. "Yeah. I sent the other one with you."
Eager to change the subject, Dean pulled her closer. "If you ever do that again, Jo, I swear I'm going to find a way to find Ellen to kick your ass." He laughed softly, enjoying how it felt to just relax for the first time since she died. "Remember that fight Sammy and I walked in on? Good times..."
Ellen might scare the holy hell out of Dean Winchester, but she wasn't here right now, not to shout at Jo for the incredibly foolish move of going out with only one other girl in the middle of the freaking APOCALYPSE, and not to make sure she was alright now that she was newly alive. Thankfully, despite the toll the days since Jo's death had taken on him, Dean felt up for the job. He pressed a kiss to her hair and smiled because he could still smell the salt water on her. It was good to have her back.
It was the comment about his jacket going with her that seemed to finally hit home for her just what had happened. She had died. Gone, done, finished. She had died and he had to see her like that, to burn her. The sense of regret and anger at herself for having done that him was sudden and so overwhelming she pretty much missed his quick change of topic, catching not much more than the last words.
She buried her face into his chest when he pulled her close, trying to smile a little at the comment but falling somewhat short. "That wasn't a fight, that was a disagreement," she started, "you don't want to see us actually fight, trust me."
"Then I'm going to quit getting into disagreements with you." Dean said with a smirk. Right now it didn't seem possible to ever argue with her again no matter what was going on, but he knew that wouldn't always be the case. One of the things he found most attractive about her was that Jo could shout at him, that she could disagree heatedly with him. No, likely within the week they'd argue about something and he'd pretend to be pissed off, but when it was all over he'd sit there and smile because Jo was back, wholeheartedly back.
"Are you ok, Jo? I mean really ok?" It was the most foolish question that you could ask a person back from the dead, but Dean had to know if she was injured, becasue he didn't want to lose her again. He was really just stalling. There was something else that needed to be said, something Dean had been kicking his ass for not saying since she died.
She chose to just grin a little at his comment instead of pointing out the obvious flaw in his plan, Jo figured she should at least give him a day or two of thinking that was actually possible. Though the outside figure of two was most likely stretching it in all reality.
She looked up at him at the question and nodded slightly. "Yeah, it's just... odd." With odd being the understatement of the year. It wasn't like she was hurt or felt pain, it was just surreal, knowing that she had died and yet somehow was here. She figured out of anyone he would know what she meant.
"That doesn't really go away." Dean could certainly understand that. There was nothing more unnatural than returning from the dead, and in all likelyhood Jo would probably feel strange about it for a while...after all, Dean still did. The only thing he hoped for was that wherever she had gone was better than hell, because Dean didn't like the thought of Jo having the sorts of dreams that he did sometimes.
He knew that he needed to tell people that Jo was back. Sam deserved to know, Cox would be relieved to hear his business partner was back, Heather...so many people here would be glad. He owed it to them to let them all know, because had Jo come to anyone else's door Dean would want to know, but he didn't want to let go of her. Part of him was afraid that if he did she'd vanish and he'd find out that this was just a good dream born out of too much whiskey.
Lowering his lips to her kiss her cheek and then moved them whisper in her ear. "I love you, Jo. I'm so happy you're back." He might not be ready to look her in the eyes and say it normally, or to put a label on what they were doing, but Dean was determined that even if this was just a dream, at least he'd tell her once before it was over.
She could feel her heart skip a beat at his words, a smile crossing her lips as they really sunk in. He loved her. While she had suspected for a while now what he felt about her was more than just someone to sleep with the actual hearing it made her feel almost giddy in a way. "So I take it you missed me then?" She asked with a bit of a grin before leaning up to press her lips to his.
She pulled back a moment later, that bare minimum required to be able to speak. "I love you too, Dean," she said quietly before leaning in to kiss him again.
"Hell yes I missed you," Dean groaned, not sure whether the words would be coherant or too muffled in between kisses, but at the moment he didn't care. He had been too distracted at seeing Jo back from the dead to take in her words the first time, and in a way he was even now, but hearing them again made him feel so intensely happy that he didn't know what to do. Jo was here, she was really here, and she loved him.
"You're not going to disappear on me, are you?" Dean pulled back, the excitement making him realize that this was too much like some sort of good dream that was about to morph into a nightmare...the sort that had plagued Sammy after Jess's death. "Tell me this is real, Jo. Tell me you're really here."
Her hand moved to rest against the side of face, her thumb gently tracing the line of his jaw. "I'm not going anywhere," she said. Jo dropped her hand and took one of his in both of hers, pressing it to her chest against her heart which she knew was probably going a mile a minute. "See, real," she said with a small smile.
She felt real. Warm, solid, moving...so different from the last time he had seen her. Dean embraced the warmth, using his free hand to pull her closer still. "Good." He said gruffly. "Because I'm not letting you go again. I swear to you, Jo Harvelle, if you ever try something like that again I..." Unable to come up with a threat for her that sounded frightening enough without making him relive that horrible night, Dean kissed her again.
There was something she decidedly liked about his comment about not letting her go again, it was something she realized she could very much live with. Jo grinned a little managing to get some form of coherent words out between his kiss. "You know, your threats are pretty empty when you're making out with me," she pointed out with a teasing tone to her voice.
"Oh you should be scared..." Dean's treats were even less effective when followed by laughter, but he couldn't help the soft chuckle from coming out. "Should I stop making out with you so you can be scared enough to not get killed again?" His hand moved a little, so that he could feel the smooth expanse of her skin that had been ravaged by the bullet the last time he saw it. Though the last thing he wanted was to stop kissing her, Dean had to make her realize that dying again was not, and would never be, an option.
Her breath caught in her throat as his hand ran over the spot where she had been shot. Her mind raced through that night's events, finding all the things she could have done differently that would have had her alive at the end, not dead from being shot of all things and putting the people she loved through hell. She knew the three things that could have been changed, the three things that could have kept her alive. She could have met Kira at the Roadhouse instead of the few blocks away but at the time Jo hadn't wanted to have Kira fly off the handle at Cox, or worse at Jack who had been sleeping in one of the half finished rooms upstairs. She should have told Dean where she was going. And she should have shot the man before he had a chance to shoot her, but he was like Kira, someone infected with something that made them act beyond their control.
Jo glanced down for a minute, all the other possible scenerios racing through her mind. She shook her head, it was pretty pointless to think of all the could have's and what if's, it had already happened. The only thing she could do now was try to fix the damage that had been done. She looked up at Dean and gave him a bit of a smile. "Trust me, I'm not planning on getting killed again anytime soon.
"You'd better not." Dean said, his voice a bit too rough and ragged for the teasing tone he had tried for. It was still too soon for him to joke about Jo dying, because the sight of her laying there so broken was still very clear in his mind.
Unable to think of anything else to say, except to repeat the one thought that kept running through his mind, that she had to stay, that she had to be alright, Dean held more tightly to her, moving her further into the room to sit on the edge of his bed. It wasn't smart, because they never had been good at being cautious and the last thing they needed was for Sammy to walk in on them and attack because he thought Jo was a demon or something, but Dean didn't care. There would be plenty of time for finding Sam and filling him in later, when Dean himself could believe the miracle that had happened.
She chose to sit in his lap, a knee on either side of him against the bed instead of beside him, her hands resting low against his sides. The idea that Sam might come back from wherever he happened to be was probably the furthest thing on her mind at the moment. Instead there was the same overwhelming sense that she missed him, that it had been too long since she had been here last though she had only vague memory of the time between. She shifted herself forward and pressed her lips to his.
Dean relaxed noticeably when Jo moved on top of him instead of beside as he had thought she would. There was something to be said for close proximity to reassure him that she was going nowhere. Jo might not have memory of the time she had been gone, but Dean could well remember every moment of it...at least he could remember the ones that he had not been massively drunk for. He put a hand on each of her legs, the gesture both possessive and protective. Jo was really here.
"God, Jo...." He kissed, his eyes shutting half way so that he could still see her from beneath his eyelashes. Part of him didn't know if he'd ever close his eyes fully again. "I missed this..." I missed you...