Title: Blood and Anesthetic

Chapter: 21

~~~~~~~~~~

The odor that assailed Jo’s nostrils was a rank mélange of blood, feces, sulfur, and burned flesh. Her stomach rolled in queasy waves and she gagged from the stench, one hand covering her mouth.

“If you’re gonna puke, go outside,” Dean told her in a gruff voice.

To her left, the body that had hosted the demon hung from chains. If the stench was bad, the sight was far worse. Jo saw bloody stripes on the naked chest and stomach, one section of skin flayed away, and other burned places that were blistered and charred. She hoped to God the host was dead and gone before Dean had started in on the demon. Blood still dripped from the wounds, indicating that Dean had only recently finished his task.

To her right, his back to her, was Dean, slowly, methodically cleaning the instruments he’d used to torture. The smell didn’t seem to bother him.

“Did you get what you wanted from him,” she managed to ask. The smell seemed to permeate the inside of her mouth when she opened it to speak and she swallowed another, more forceful gag.

“I got what I needed.”

“You persuaded him,” she prompted.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, raking his gaze over her. “I did. He talked. Eventually.”

Jo stared at him, stepping closer until she could glimpse his profile. “How long have you been,” she raised her brows, “persuading the demons we’ve caught?”

Dean picked up a long, wicked looking knife, began to clean it with a nonchalant air. “A few months.”

“How many is a few?” He hadn’t shaved, his jaw rough with stubble. Studying him, Jo realized there was a harder edge to his features than the last time she’d really looked at him, and a lack of any emotional warmth. He really did look like the psychopath she’d once heard him called.

He glanced at her again, chuckled. “Why? Are you concerned about the rights of demons? You want to be a demon advocate? They have no rights. No right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. No right to a fair trial or an exemption from justice duly meted out according to their deeds.”

“And what about the hosts, Dean? The hosts are people like you and me.”

His hands slowed in cleaning the knife. “Wrong. They were people. You think the demons are letting their hosts go these days? Not a lot of potential hosts out there anymore. They have to hold on to the ones they have. The people inside are gone no matter what.”

Jo shook her head. “You’re torturing them. Dean, I can’t sanction that. Not torture. It’s wrong and it doesn’t matter whether it’s demons or not. Wrong is wrong. There’s a line that you don’t cross and if you do cross it, then you’re no better than -- ”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if you do sanction it or not. You’re not in charge.”

“I can’t act as your second-in-command if you take this path. I was hesitant to agree when we dealt with Nina, but now --”

“This path is already taken. Deal.”

“Then I quit.”

He turned, the knife he’d been cleaning gleaming in the light as he pointed it at her. “You quit? Yeah, that’s your m.o., isn’t it? When the going gets really tough and it’s time to make the big decisions, little Jo can’t hack it. You can’t go that necessary mile. Like with Nina.”

“This is morally wrong!” This conversation wasn’t going any way near how she’d thought it might go. Cas was turning out to be very right. She wasn’t going to change Dean’s mind.

His laugh was ugly and hard and he took a few steps towards her, still pointing the knife at her, using it to punctuate his words. “Look around you. Do you see any morality left? Do you see what is left? How about Cas, your boyfriend, or whatever you’re calling him? Do you see him? That’s not Castiel out there, Jo. It hasn’t been Castiel in years. He’s just Cas, drowning himself in sex and drugs, taking the feel good path in an attempt to ignore what’s coming. Do you see the people out there, broken and bleeding, dying a little more each day? Or how about a planet mostly gone around us? It’s the law of the jungle now, Jo. Get Lucifer before he gets us. All those big decisions.”

He advanced, the knife waving. Jo retreated towards the door.

“You quit? Fine. I don’t need you much longer anyway. See, it’ll all be over soon.”

“What do you mean by that?” There was a sliver of fear rising inside her the longer he pointed that knife in her direction. He looked as though he could cut her up and not even care. She glanced at the door behind her, wondering if she could flee before he came any closer.

“I found it. It.” His teeth snapped together with a click, like a trap snapping shut. “The Colt. All I have to do is go pick it up when it passes by. And then…it’ll all be over.” He threw the knife back towards the table. The point stuck in the wood. “So go back to Cas. Run back to him, have some absinthe and pop some pills if you think it’s safe, then let him sex you up from morning to night. Anesthetize that pain.” His tone was mocking, cruel, gaze dropping to her stomach. “Hide your pretty little head in the sand until I finish this.”

“Dean.” Her knees felt weak, legs shaking. She felt like she was going to collapse. Jo reached back for the door handle, groping at the panel.

“If you can’t be on board with my decisions, then you’re useless to me.”

“I can’t.”

He stared at her, contempt bleeding into his eyes. “Then get out of my sight and stay out of it. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

The statement hurt more than if he’d actually taken the knife to her flesh. He was dismissing her from his presence. “Dean,” she began, her voice breaking on his name.

“You deaf, Jo? I said get out. Go hide in your cabin, or Cas’s. I really don’t care which, but you’d damn well better keep your mouth shut and stay out of my way. You’ve been useless to me for months and I’m tired of it. You come in here whining and complaining about how I’m running things, when you haven’t been involved?” He no longer looked her in the eyes, staring instead at her stomach, as though she disgusted him too much to bother looking at her face.

“I was sick --” The protestation didn’t even make him pause. He continued like she hadn’t even begun to speak.

“When I’m done with Lucifer and it’s all over, I expect you to go. I want you gone from my camp when it’s done. Do you understand me, Jo? You’ll take yourself and your…. You’ll go.”

Herself and her what? She swallowed hard, fighting back tears, hearing a fury in his voice that she didn’t understand. This wasn’t Dean, couldn’t be Dean. “Yes,” she whispered.

For a second there was silence and then, “Get out.”

Jo pushed from the building and ran until she collapsed to the ground.

It was Maggie who came looking for her much later; Maggie who held her while she cried; Maggie who said that if Dean tossed Jo from camp, that he’d be surprised by who would go with her: Maggie, Jim, Emily, Alexis. Maybe more. Maggie didn’t mention Cas. They both knew he probably wouldn’t leave the camp.

Maggie smoothed Jo’s hair with a gentle hand. “It could be months before the gun passes by anyway and by then, I’m sure Dean will have cooled down. He’s just tense right now. He’s always tense when he’s questioned a demon. Most people won’t go near him for hours after he’s done and you were in there right after.”

“No,” Jo shook her head, wiping at her eyes. “He meant it, Maggie. He really meant it. It’s like he hates me now and I don’t even know what I did. The first couple weeks I was sick, he was fine. He came once to see me, but then he stopped and now….” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t understand. The way he is…I don’t know if I’d want to stay even, despite the danger outside.”

“He’ll soften. By the time you’re actually ready….” She clasped Jo’s hands in hers. “He’ll have a change of heart. He will. Men get weird sometimes.”

“Maybe.”

But if Dean did make her leave, where would she go?

~~~~~~~~~~

Every time Dean tortured a demon, he hated himself. No one could possibly hate him more than he did immediately after he was finished. He imagined if he looked in the mirror then, that every little bit of ugly inside him that had festered and turned gangrenous over the months was displayed upon his face. For hours afterward, he felt like his body and mind seethed with a rage he couldn’t release, that he could only drag it back inside him to fester some more.

Releasing it led to pain, his and others.

There was a reason people didn’t approach him after, a reason Jo discovered when he watched himself, in a detached way, turn that self-hate onto Jo.

She made him so blazing mad the way she was behaving, as though nothing was different. He was actually seeing a red haze to his vision anymore when he saw her traipsing along, acting like she wasn’t pregnant when it was obvious she was. Talk about head in the sand behavior. From what Dean could tell, she hadn’t even told Cas yet.

It was irresponsible. What the hell was wrong with her?

And so when she came in and began to question his actions, he reacted.

He wasn’t really going to put Jo from the camp. Not Jo. Or her baby. That wasn’t the plan. Not that Dean had a plan for Jo. He just wanted to knock some sense into her head before it was too late, make her see that she needed to plan. He wouldn’t make them leave or hurt them unless they were infected. But Jo needed a good scare. She needed to think about what could happen out there.

She needed to get with the program.

Dean didn’t tell anyone she’d quit. Why should he? She’d be back once she’d thought things through and realized he was right. They did what they had to and that was that. He’d give her a week, maybe two, tops, before she came to see him and admitted that he really did have the more practical approach to the world they lived in than she did.

Cool, calm action was best. No emotional crap was best. Torturing demons was fine because they were only demons.

She’d see things his way.

Jo was too emotional right now, too compassionate to the enemy. She needed to toughen up. For awhile, her approach had worked fine. Dean was willing to admit that. Yet since things had worsened, her ways weren’t effective. His were. People and demons knew Dean Winchester meant business.

He got the job done and he’d continue to do so right up until the world was back on track.

Dean was confident that Jo would see it his way. A couple weeks was all she’d need to see it.

~~~~~~~~~~

In a camp as small as theirs, it took great skill to avoid Dean, but Jo managed it. She had to laugh in sad humor upon realizing she was behaving the way Melanie had In the beginning -- running and hiding from Dean. Jo had never thought she’d see the day when Dean frightened her like that.

That loathing on his face haunted her.

She didn’t bother telling Cas what had happened, avoiding the topic when he’d asked about her chat with Dean. All she told him was that he’d been right. He didn’t care to know more. That ability he’d once had to see her emotional hurts was gone. All he saw anymore were his own. He was in his own little world these days, where various pleasures hid his pains away and everything was fine and dandy. He’d go along with just about anything.

She missed the Castiel she’d fallen in love with.

Six days after her clash with Dean, Jo took laundry duty because it’d put her on the other side of camp from where he was supposed to be all day. She didn’t mind taking it over for other people, looking forward to dozing in a chair while the washers and dryers ran. She filled all but two washers and sat down.

Risa came in and began to fill a washer. As she worked, she looked over at Jo. “You know, you’re either the gutsiest, bravest woman I know or the dumbest.”

“That’s a nice conversation opener, Risa.”

“Well, I sure as hell couldn’t do it, especially with the damn Apocalypse outside our fence.”

“Do what?” She froze in her chair.

Risa turned, stared at her a moment, then shrugged. “Okay. We won’t talk about it. Sorry I mentioned it. Most women want to talk about it, but if you don’t, we won’t.”

“No Risa, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But she did, didn’t she? Risa was talking about the frightening thing Jo had just begun to see about herself.

Her eyes narrowed a fraction and when she spoke her words were slow and drawn out. “I mean your pregnancy.”

She swallowed. “I’m not pregnant.” Her tongue stumbled over the word. Chuck had suggested that, too. And Maggie had been talking about babies for weeks, showing Jo the books they had in the camp that dealt with babies and pregnancy, leaving them in Jo’s cabin, asking if she’d read them yet. Maggie was enthusiastic and positive about something that scared Jo worse than anything outside their camp. “I’m not. I can’t be.”

“Right. Like I said, if you don’t want to talk about it --”

“Risa. I’m not pregnant. Why do you think I am? I mean, I haven’t skipped a period and that’s the major sign.” Or hadn’t until this past month. She’d missed it altogether.

Risa laughed, shook her head, and crossed her arms. “Uh…because it’s obvious. You have the other symptoms, Jo.”

“I’m not,” she protested, hearing desperation in her tone.

“Sure. You were just nauseas and tired for two months for no reason.”

Jo drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, hugging them to her chest. She wasn’t pregnant. Couldn’t be. It was the wrong time to be pregnant. In a world like theirs? Not a good idea. “It went away. The nausea and exhaustion, I mean. I’m fine, I’m okay. I’m not….”

Pregnant.

She was pregnant.

Her face felt hot, her chest like someone was squeezing it, her stomach as though it was flipping over inside her.

“I get it, okay? Not a topic you want to discuss.”

A million things she needed to do ran through her mind, from telling Cas, to doing that reading Maggie wanted her to do, and Jo’s mind rebelled, pushing everything but the main fact away.

She really was pregnant.

There’d be time to look at all of those other things later.

~~~~~~~~~~

Risa continued to observe Jo out of the corner of her eye. Was it possible Jo didn’t know she was pregnant? The more Risa mused over it, the more she thought that was the case. Jo had no idea she was pregnant. A bizarre idea. Risa found it hard to believe a woman couldn’t know she was pregnant, but she supposed it was possible. Well, Jo knew now. And if what Risa had heard about Castiel’s origin was true, he probably didn’t realize it either.

Dean, though, had connected the dots, expressing frustration that Jo hadn’t told Castiel or anyone about her condition. He said she was being irresponsible, not taking her situation seriously. It infuriated him and Risa wasn’t really sure why it bothered him so much. Jo wasn’t his girlfriend.

Maybe it was just that they’d have to do some planning within the camp to care for a baby? Risa sorted the last of the items she had and pondered that possibility. Not too many pregnant women running around. She knew there had to be, but personally she’d seen none in three years. Wasn’t that statistically wrong or something? With all the sex people were having, Risa would have thought there’d be one or two occasionally.

Sighing, she let the wondering slip away. It didn’t really matter anyway.

“Why don’t you take off,” she suggested.

Jo was frowning, lost in her thoughts. Thinking about what Risa had told her perhaps? After a moment, she looked up. “And do what?”

She looks so young, Risa thought. Young and vulnerable.

“I don’t know. Spend the afternoon with Castiel. Lay out on a blanket in the sun together or something.”

“I can’t. He’s holding a get-together and won’t be free until later.”

She pursed her lips. “You mean an orgy.” Risa couldn’t help the angry snort that left her. Jo was too good for Castiel. She’d come to that conclusion over weeks of observing them. Jo stood by patiently while Castiel flaunted his other women right in front of her. He’d even done it while Jo was sick. Not to mention how he was high half the time. Now she liked him, she really did, but in Risa’s opinion, he treated Jo like crap. Risa tried to hold back her opinion and couldn’t. Not anymore. “You’re a smart, tough woman Jo, so why the hell do you put up with that shit? I’d smack him six ways to Sunday if he pulled crap like that with me.”

“He was that way when I got here. Not like I can change that.”

“Did you try? Did you put your foot down and tell him ‘them or me’.” At Jo’s negative, Risa turned to face her fully, mouth opening in amazement. “You’re letting him cheat and get away with it. You’re enabling him to do it. Doesn’t that bother you? I’d be severely pissed.”

“You’re not me, are you? You don’t know what I went through or even how Cas and I came to be together at all. You don’t understand. Don’t just assume that you know anything about me or Cas. I’d appreciate it if you’d just keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Keep my opinion to myself? Fine. I will. I’ll keep whatever I think about the two of you together to myself.” She pointed at Jo, then at Jo’s stomach. “You are pregnant, whether you’ll admit it or not. Everyone knows. Everyone except you and Castiel. Take a damn pregnancy test, Jo. I’ll go find you one right now. I’m sure Chuck has one or two over in supplies.”

Jo ignored her, getting up and taking items from the washers and putting them into the dryers.

“Shall I get you one?”

“If I want to take one, I’ll get one myself,” she snapped, slamming one lid shut.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

It was a long tense afternoon while they waited in stilted silence for their respective washers and dryers to finish.

~~~~~~~~~

After leaving Risa and the laundry building, Jo took her clothes and Cas’s to put them away. She couldn’t stop thinking about that one word: pregnant. As she put her own clothes away in her cabin, she kept stopping to put a hand on her belly. If her sickness was early symptoms, as Risa claimed, then she had to be at least three months along, maybe four even.

She looked around, making sure no one was at her open door, and lifted her shirt, peering at her stomach. Jo dropped her shirt and closed the door, then tugged her shirt back up and undid her jeans, trying to tell in the hand mirror she had if she was possibly showing from the side yet. She didn’t think she was, unless the bigger boobs and the little extra the made her jeans tight counted. Which, when she thought about it, they did count.

Jo sighed, fastened her jeans again, and adjusted her shirt. Maybe she’d just wait a few days before telling Cas. Get used to the idea herself before trying to get him used to the idea.

She went to Cas’s cabin, expecting to see women leaving and instead found Cas reading on the couch, sprawled with one leg thrown over the arm. Jo paused at the doorway, studying him, enjoying those few seconds before he noticed her there.

A baby, she thought. I’m going to have his baby.

She wondered if he was going to be happy about it.

“Afternoon, gorgeous,” he said, looking over at her. “Let me help you with that.” Cas tossed his book aside without bothering to mark his place and got up to take the basket from her and give her a kiss. “I was wondering where you were all day.” He went to one trunk, opened it, and turned the basket upside down. The clothes fell out in a jumble, Cas closing the lid. He wasn’t very precise in putting clothes away. Nothing ever stayed folded. It didn’t matter anyway, since he rifled through the trunk for what he wanted.

“I thought you were having people over.”

“I decided to reschedule for tomorrow.” He led her to the couch and tugged her down beside him. “Anyone in laundry besides you today?”

“I saw Risa there.” She snuggled against him.

“Yeah?” He put his arm around her. “She find out Dean’s got a thing with Jane on the side, yet?”

“No. We had this really intense conversation though.”

“Mmm. What’d she have to say?”

Jo opened her mouth to tell him and changed her mind at the last second. She couldn’t lead in to her pregnancy by telling him about Risa arguing that she was indeed pregnant. “Um…she had some very strong words on men cheating.”

“So she does know about Dean and Jane?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t know. How do you know?”

He turned her so she was across his lap, shrugging. “I saw him sneaking in to Jane’s cabin about a week ago.” He slid a hand beneath her shirt, caressing in slow circles.

She stayed for a few hours, but left by eight, determined to do some of that reading Maggie had given her. Maybe one of the chapters in the books would tell her how best to tell Cas the news. Jo read until late and went to bed by herself. She’d stop in to see Cas in the morning and go to breakfast with him.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean was restless. There was a strange feeling in the air that all of his usual activities couldn’t negate. He felt it all day, right into evening and night, waking in the middle of the night in Jane’s cabin. He laid beside her, contemplating what could be wrong and reaching no conclusions.

Placing a kiss on her bare shoulder, he eased from the bed and dressed, stepping from the cabin. The camp was quiet. He strolled past Jo’s cabin. She still had a light on and for a moment, he thought about stopping. What was she doing awake at this time of night? Didn’t she know pregnant women needed their sleep? Or had she gotten enough of that those two months to last her the rest of the months?

He decided instead to walk the perimeter, following the steps of the watch team.

Halfway around, he discovered an intruder.