Title: Lost and Found

Chapter: Four

Notes: There are several quotes from ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ S2, in this chapter.

~~~~~~~~~~

The wheels were turning in Jo’s pretty little head. Dean could practically feel her watchful readiness as the day slid into afternoon and approached evening. He had no doubt that she was going to try something. The only questions were what and when. Her request for a pit-stop was wholly calculated. The timing was too perfect for it to be anything except calculated. Still, what if she really did have to pee?

As soon as she got out of the car and slammed the door, he glanced at Sam. “Ten bucks says she makes a run for it.”

Sam snorted. “I don’t bet on sure things, Dean. Is there any doubt she won’t try running?”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. He had to get some sleep tonight and quit staying awake just to make sure this was reality and Jo really was alive, because now he had a headache that wouldn’t quit. No painkiller he’d taken thus far was putting a dent in it and having to run after Jo was going to make it worse. “Rock, paper, scissors to go after her?”

“Don’t bother. I’ll go. I could use the exercise after sitting for hours.”

They got out. Jo was heading across the field towards what looked like a stream. “Damn it, Jo,” he yelled. “Do you have to go right for the water?” Water meant mud which meant mud in the Impala when they all got back to it. He watched Sam start after her, quickly gaining ground, and followed at a slightly slower pace, trying to ignore the increased throbbing in his temples.

Jo had to know this gambit wasn’t going to work. Had to. This run of hers felt to him like a larger plan to make them think she’d gotten the urge to run from them out of her system, while planning to make another run for it later when they’d really put down their guard. Maybe. It was what the old Jo would have done. It seemed to him that there was more of the old Jo lurking in her decisions than there’d been when he’d first seen her in that diner. She was quickly growing bolder, less timid, and he’d found her staring at him the past hours, like she couldn’t quite figure him out.

It was funny in a way, because he thought the old Jo had figured out a lot of him prior to her death. She’d understood things about him other people didn’t -- aside from Sam, of course. She also had understood him in ways Lisa never had -- on hunting, life, Sam. He could see that now, after the passage of time away from both women. It made sense that Jo would understand him, seeing as how she came from a similar background and had had similar goals. She, too, had wanted to help people.

God, he wanted the real her back!

He wanted to glance in the rearview mirror and see sassy, flirtatious Jo looking back at him, not this broken, suspicious Jo. He wanted…a thing he couldn’t let surface enough to put a voice to even to himself, and certainly not with Jo still so far away from him.

He was nearly caught up when Sam made a grab for her.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sam volunteered to go after Jo for the sole reason that he knew Dean was exhausted. He’d tried to get Dean to rest, yet Dean stubbornly refused, watching Jo. Even telling Dean he should be well-rested to deal with her and that Sam was there to watch her too didn’t help. Dean’s desperation to have the old Jo was back was obvious and he was willing to neglect sleep to get her back.

How Dean thought neglecting his own health was going to help was a thing Sam didn’t quite understand, but he did get the urgency Dean was feeling, like a clock somewhere was ticking and they only had a set amount of time before she’d be lost forever.

He ran fast, catching up, reaching for her. His first grab snagged her shirt, his second one her arm. Sam tugged her back up as she stumbled, managing to keep from tripping himself. One arm went around her back, holding her against him, trying to keep a grip on her while waiting for Dean to join them. Her head tilted back, gaze locking on to his. Her eyes widened. In seconds, her fighting went from annoyed at not getting away to genuine fear and distress.

“Jo, stop,” he told her, reaching for her hands as she beat at his chest. He grasped her wrists, trying to be gentle and keep her contained at the same time. If either of them bruised her up and she regained her memories of who she was, Jo would easily give them hell over it. She wouldn’t mince words in her displeasure about it.

“Let go! Let me go!” She gasped and Jo sagged in his grip, her eyes rolling back until the whites showed. Her body jerked.

“What the hell did you do to her,” Dean demanded with a thunderous glare.

“Not a damn thing,” he protested.

Her eyes rolled back down, gaze focusing. He let her go as she pulled away, stunned to see that sudden burst of knowledge in her eyes spread across her face.

She knew him.

She knew him now and he had a sense that she really recognized him. This wasn’t a vague thought that she knew him somehow, this was full-on recognition. She understood they had a personal connection.

She collided with Dean, sending the both of them to the ground. Still, she didn’t appear to notice Dean had joined them, or notice when he moved to kneel behind her, his hands stroking her arms and voice entreating her to breathe and calm down. When she spoke, her voice was tremulous.

~~~~~~~~~~

She wasn’t going to escape. Not this time. Jo knew it and had known it from even before she’d started running. When they caught her, she’d emphasize that she’d at least had to try and then force herself to pretend she was beaten down, just the way Dean liked her. He’d stop looking at her so closely if he thought she was bending to his will. At least the Dean she’d known would have. Jo wasn’t so certain about this strange man he’d become.

Her legs began to ache, her lungs hurting. Jo slowed, hearing the sounds of Dean and Sam behind her, though she didn’t dare look to see how close they were. It wouldn’t be long now. She was tiring and they had much longer legs than she did. It would be fairly easy for them to catch her.

A hand caught at her shirt, tugging, sending her off-balance, those same hands turning her. It was Sam behind her, Dean nearly to them. Sam’s hands were tight on her body. Jo tried to twist, glancing up. Something in his expression sent a wave of panic and fear through her so sharp that she felt herself begin to lose consciousness. As the darkness grew at the edges of her vision, Jo saw a series of scenes play out in her mind.

Him. Her.

Sam in that bar she’d worked at and she trying to close up for the night. Surprise and shock zinging through her at seeing him and a wondering running through her mind of where Dean was, because where one was, there the other was also. You couldn’t have one without the other.

Her own voice saying, “Well, you're about the last person I'd expect to see.”

The conversation and scene playing in fast forward until….

Sam holding her wrist as she stood facing him at the bar, the contact creeping her out a little because it didn’t really seem like him. She thought he must be drunk or high maybe. “I could be more to you, Jo.”

“Maybe you should leave.”

“Okay.” Him tossing her wrist to one side, expression menacing, cold. He started to leave, Jo turning her back to him, relieved that he was leaving. He returned, grabbing her, turning her, Jo fighting him, begging him, ‘no, please’. The terrible thought of rape circling in her mind, then having her head slammed onto the bar.

Waking to find herself tied to a post, but not in her apartment. In the bar. Sam stroking her face with a very large knife.

He told her a version of the story of her dad’s death that didn’t make sense he’d know. Sam’s voice mocking and sing-song. “My daddy shot your daddy in the head.” Satisfied. “You’re bait.” Pleading. “Kill me, or I'm going to kill her. Please.” Incredulous. “What the hell's wrong with you, Dean? Are you that scared of being alone that you'd rather let Jo die?”

It hadn’t been about rape or even about her at all really. It was about Dean and getting Dean to kill Sam.

His skin sizzling as Dean splashed liquid on him.

“That’s holy water, you demonic son of a bitch!”

Dean cutting her free.

“He was possessed?” Her own voice once more. The scene changing, her doctoring Dean’s shoulder. “So, how did you know? That he was possessed?”

She jerked away from Sam’s suddenly slack grip, falling hard against something that gave with her weight. Jo scrambled back, body pressing to that warm, yielding something. Vaguely, she was aware that it was Dean behind her, his body comforting right then. “Just knew it couldn’t have been him,” she whispered.

Dean’s voice echoed in her mind, “I’m not getting your blood on my hands.”

She sat there on the ground, her lower lip trembling, trying to make some sense out of what had gone through her head. It was all truth, a thing that had happened. She knew it, oddly enough. It felt…. It felt like a missing piece of herself had just snapped into place, some of that desperate emptiness that had been inside her for years now eclipsed by something so very vivid. She could almost smell the scents of the barroom, feel the ache on her forehead…. Hear Dean’s voice. It was all more real to her than the memories she had of her parents and of that life with Dean.

The facts of that story that Sam had told her didn’t add up. Her dad hadn’t died that way. He hadn’t gone out hunting with anyone. But if the part about Sam was true and she knew it was….

Sam remained where he was, not moving towards her.

“Who are you, Sam? How do I know you? I thought it was Dean in Duluth, but it wasn’t, was it? It was you. You were the one…. My head on the bar, tying me up. Why did I….” She frowned, not verbalizing the rest of that thought. Why had she thought Dean had done that and why did she know that she and Sam still weren’t enemies despite that? He’d done those things, but she didn’t blame him for it.

Possessed, her mind whispered back to her, as though it made perfect sense. He’d been possessed and that wasn’t his fault. The demon was directing his body then.

Jo swallowed hard. Demons? Right.

But the evidence was there in her mind. Demons exist. He’d been possessed by one and that was why she didn’t blame him. Demons lied, yet they’d tell truth if it would mess with a person. Jo knew all of that.

I’m losing my mind, she thought.

“I’m Dean’s brother, Jo.” He crouched down so she wasn’t craning her neck to look up at him.

She shook her head. “Dean doesn’t have a brother.” Her words rang false to her own ears, feeling wrong coming from her lips. Her mind told her Dean was an only child, like Jo herself, that this was a con they were pulling, but that pesky gut feeling reared up, joining in with the memory she knew was true. Dean did have a brother and that brother was Sam.

Jo had the urge to giggle hysterically and looked around the field, half expecting to see the White Rabbit.

“He does. Me.” He gestured at himself. “Sam Winchester.”

“Duluth --”

“Was out of my control. I did call you later and apologize. Managed to get that message to you before you changed numbers again. We did head back there, Jo, but by then you were long gone.”

She leaned back a little, then sat up very straight, realizing she was not only against Dean, but that he was embracing her and that contact wasn’t giving her the heebie-jeebies like it should. Wrenching away, she moved to where she could see both of them. She licked her lips. “I had to try running,” she blurted out, but the words hardly had the desperation she’d initially wanted to put to them. They were merely words, flat, like a line given by a bad actor. “I had to.”

Her attention strayed to Dean. He stared right back. Watchful. Waiting. Continuing to look for something in her that he as yet hadn’t seen. Mixed with all of that was disappointment and Jo felt an oddly sympathetic burst of disappointment in return. She frowned, more confused than ever by what had just happened.

She’d patched him up that night Sam had been possessed and she’d done it like she’d known what she was doing.

Repressed, Jo decided. She’d simply repressed the memory because who in their right mind would have believed her that demons were real? It didn’t explain completely forgetting Sam, however, but she was willing to lump it all together. She’d repressed the memory and Sam as well because of it.

“Course you did.” Sam stood back up. “We never expected otherwise.”

Dean got up and held out a hand to help her up. Once, he would have hauled her to her feet with an unceremonious tug. Jo shook her head and got up without assistance from either of them. He shrugged. “You okay, Jo?”

“I guess.” If being okay meant she’d had a weird seizure thing that made a repressed memory show up, then yes, she was okay.

“You done running,” Sam asked, hands in his jacket pockets.

With a glance at Dean, then back to Sam, Jo nodded. “Yes.”

The ‘for now’ was unspoken and all three of them knew it. Dean and Sam’s gazes reflected that speculation. She’d have to be careful when choosing the next time to run because they were going to be looking for it.

“Then we should get back on the road for a couple hours before stopping for the night.”

The walk back to the car was slow, Jo between Dean and Sam, with Sam in the lead. They didn’t rush her, letting her determine the pace. She began to limp a little, her left ankle tender. It wouldn’t surprise her if she’d bruised it in her sprint across the uneven ground. She’d have to be more careful next time. It wasn’t only that ache she noticed now either. With each step, she felt a low, dull pain began to pulse in her temples. Tension headache, Jo thought. Great. She rubbed her fingers at her temples and forehead.

Dean opened the trunk, then her bag. Right on top was a stack of her pretty lacy panties that Sam had packed for her. He hesitated, then moved them aside and reached lower in the bag. “Any preference of shirt? That one’s got mud on the back.” Pulling one out, he held one up. “How about this one?”

Slowly, Jo took it, not really caring what she put on. “It’s fine.”

They turned their backs to her, shielding her from view, the raised trunk lid also a shield. She could hear traffic whooshing by on the interstate. Jo took off her white work shirt, replacing it with a form-fitting purple Henley. She cleared her throat. “Done.”

The shirt went in the laundry bag. “Need anything else?”

She crossed her arms. “No. I’m not changing jeans out in the open.” There didn’t appear to be much mud on them anyway. Dean, she saw, had gotten far muddier than she had. “Like I said: you’re not seeing my ass, naked or even nearly so.”

He took a rag from the trunk and wiped at the muddy spots on his jeans, making more of a mess than anything. Dean abandoned the effort and closed both her bag and the trunk. “Then let’s make like a baby and head out.”

In minutes, they were back on the road and it wasn’t long before Dean was looking at her in the rearview mirror enough that she knew questions were coming.

“So Jo….”

She stared at the back of his head. “What, Dean?”

“Tell me about your folks.”

Did he have amnesia maybe? Could that explain some of his behavior? “You know about them already. You met them, remember? Met them, hated them.”

Sam turned in the seat, looking at her. “Well then, tell me.”

Rolling her eyes, she sighed. “Fine. Mary and Robert Dunn.”

“Not Ellen and Bill?”

She scrunched up her nose. “Who? No. Mary and Robert. They didn’t like Dean and cut me off when I moved out. No big loss there, they weren’t exactly exemplary parents.”

“You didn’t love them?”

“Sure I did.” She didn’t elaborate on the relationship she’d had with them. Why should she? Dean already knew all of it anyway.

“Mary and Robert, huh?” Dean tapped his fingers on the steering wheel exchanged another long, weighted glance with Sam. Jo was getting tired of seeing those. “Bobby for short?”

“So you do remember.”

Sam cleared his throat. “What happened to them? Where are they now?”

Jo raised her chin a notch. “They’re dead. Car accident. Brakes failed on their new car. I never thought it was an accident, though.”

“Yeah? Why?”

She transferred her stare back to Dean’s head. “Because Dean smiled when the police told me the news. It was a very…satisfied smile.”

“You think I’d do that,” Dean asked in a hoarse tone. “That I’d mess with someone’s brakes?”

“Smile and know-how, Dean.” Jo quirked a brow at him in the mirror. “You tell me.”

He looked troubled by that, the conversation effectively terminated.

Jo’s head kept telling her that Sam and Dean were bad news and not to be trusted, that she should do everything to get away quickly. Her gut, however, continued to tell a different story. It told her that she could trust them implicitly and that they really were trying to save her somehow.

She had no doubt that they were dangerous. Sam and Dean Winchester (she’d accepted that they were brothers and that she’d suppressed that fact) were very dangerous men. But aside from her initial reaction and her mind’s constant screaming on it, she didn’t think they were going to hurt her. They’d both had ample opportunity now to hurt her any way they wished. Even after her run, they hadn’t hurt her. Dean continued to surprise her by not doing what she thought he would. In fact, Jo thought she was probably safer with them than back in her apartment.

“Where are we going,” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

“South Dakota,” Sam answered. “Maybe.”

“Taking the scenic route to Sioux Falls, aren’t we? We should be further north for a straight shot there. This road’s too far south. Where are we really going?”

Dean slammed on the brakes, the car fishtailing as they screeched to a stop. “Why would you even think we’re going to Sioux Falls? Why there? There’s a whole state of towns and you pick that one?”

He and Sam both turned to look over the seat at her, their eyes wide.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You must have said it.”

“No,” Sam shook his head, “we didn’t. We haven’t said where we’re going at all.”

Dean looked at him. “You think she’s remembering?”

“Could be. I’ve noticed some things aside from what happened in the field that might indicate that.”

“Okay.” She shifted on the seat a little. “You two do know I can hear you, right?”

Sam shifted position. “We could be heading for Nebraska.”

She felt restless right then, itching to throw open the door and run again. “What’s there?” The combined weight of their expectant stares was uncomfortable and she crossed her arms over her breasts. “What? Like I should know?”

“You know,” Dean told her. “You just don’t…know yet.”

“Oh, that makes perfect sense,” she mumbled.

Dean turned first, setting the car back into motion. Sam, however, continued to watch her.

“Take a picture already,” she snapped.

He looked away and Jo turned her attention to the scenery. She knew she was right. If they were going to South Dakota, they weren’t going right there. They were making a stop elsewhere first. But where? And why did she, like they, suspect that she should know the answer to that?