"They say hope springs eternal," she qualifies with a forced girlish smile while she picked up her shotgun from the side of the wall but silently completes, but patience was a stone around the swimmer’s neck. A flask of blest water landing smack solid in an open palm quickly dismissed his thanks. Wasn’t necessary. "Make sure you clean that. Contrary to song, sunglasses at night are not cool."
As her head canted sideward, those two arms folded across her chest expectantly. Confusion marked her face and stirred hesitation in her answer, "Mom prefers the Roadhouse to the road." But anyone that met Ellen Harvelle would know that. That’s when it hit Dean like a ton of bricks. She didn’t know.
Not unlike the Winchesters, mother and daughter hadn't parted on the best of terms. Contrary to Ellen's hope, after learning the true circumstances of her father's death had had the opposite effect Jo; in spite of the danger-- or perhaps because of it-- had made headstrong daughter all the more adamant to pick up where her father had left off.
Ellen was as wildly protective as a proud mother tiger, except sometimes she held on a little too tightly that she nearly ripped her cub’s head off. That night, months ago, was no exception. With tensions running high, after a particularly verbal altercation, the argument had reached a stalemate with either woman left unblinking, which cemented Jo’s resolve. It was Ellen’s way or the highway. Something had to give.
The decision to rupture and rebelled against the hand that held on was the hand that held back, was made easier by the years of carefully spun half-truths bandaging old hurts suddenly ripped open, and rendering Jo into that little girl in the pigtails standing in the doorway still waiting for her dad to come home from the hunt-- waiting to breath, waiting be a family again. She’d been waiting for far too long. Upset and betrayed, by the first of morning, she’d pack her life into the back of her truck and had gone without so much as a look back...
And while she sent her mother postcards, Jo remained estranged and completely oblivious to the fate of the Roadhouse.
She didn’t know- "Why?" The professionalism faded abit as her face brightened with the same insatable curiousity and naive enthusiasm of the girl they'd first met back at the Roadhouse not so long ago. "What's been going on?"