Title: Lost and Found

Chapter: 43

~~~~~~~~~~

There was never going to be a world were Jo could have a civil conversation with Lisa Braeden. It was a fact and one Jo accepted as she left the porch and crossed to the Impala.

“That was some punch, Jo. What on earth did she say to you,” Sam asked when Jo joined him. His face was a mess of bruises and swollen places and she wondered if he’d accept some angelic healing right now if Castiel happened to show up. She suspected he might not refuse an offer. Then again, he might. Sam was fairly adamant about not relying on Castiel’s powers.

“She said a bunch of nonsense, but it wasn’t only the words that pissed me off, it was the pokes with her sharp nail.” Jo leaned against the car, rubbing that spot on her chest with the hand that wasn’t starting to ache. “What do you think he’s saying to her,” she asked, twisting her wrist a little. She needed to have Dean stop to get some ice or something once they were on the road. Somehow, she didn’t think Lisa would let her have a plastic baggie of ice before they left.

The conversation between Dean and Lisa began as wary and quickly escalated into heated. Their voices weren’t quite loud enough to hear what they were saying, only loud enough to tell that both were angry, Dean growing more so as the conversation went on. In fact, it looked like Dean was furious. Tension fairly radiated off him in waves.

“Something she’s not liking,” Sam replied, scuffing one foot along the ground before crossing his ankles.

He was right. Lisa’s expressions were shifting quickly, like she was having trouble recovering from one topic before another verbal ball came right at her. She seemed very much like a woman scrambling to keep her footing in the conversation and failing miserably at it.

Good, Jo thought with a bit of smugness. Let that mask slip. Let it all hang out where Dean can see it. “There’s a lot of that going around. She didn’t like what I told her.”

“There are things that need to be said between them and I’m betting those things aren’t pretty on either side. What did you tell her?” Gwen poked her head out the window between them, resting her chin on her crossed arms. Her eyes were bright with the anticipation of a good story.

“Just that Dean was mine now and she wasn’t going to get him back or pull us apart.”

“You really think she listened?” Gwen uttered a half-laugh. “That woman is in her own little world. She just cut the two of you out while the rest of us were living in reality. That’s not the sign of a person who’ll listen to the wife. If she considers you not there in the first place, whatever you say will be dismissed.”

“No.” Jo shook her head. “She got the point.” She’d definitely understood what Jo had told her.

“Rather forcefully, too.” One of Sam’s hands moved, fingers sliding across Gwen’s cheek. Jo saw Gwen turn her face to that touch. A tender look passed between the two. It was good to see them affectionate. She liked that both her friends were happy together. They deserved happiness.

“I probably shouldn’t have decked her. Looking back, it wasn’t a good idea…but damn it sure felt good. Not so good now,” Jo raised her hand a little, “but good when I did it.”

“You could always blame the pregnancy hormones on that,” Gwen suggested. “You are a little moody these days, prone to emotional outbursts.”

“I could,” Jo agreed, tucking her hair behind her ears. “But I think I’ll just accept that it was a spur of the moment decision and something I’ve been really wanting to do. I admit it. I’ve wanted to hit her since Sam and I saw her that day.”

“I’m still surprised you didn’t,” he informed her. “I honestly thought it was a strong possibility.”

“You know…. On the outside, she’s the embodiment of all that’s normal. Look around. Nice house, normal job, kid, very average life. Lisa is normal. When Dean picked her for his vision of the apple pie American life, he made a good choice. He did. On the outside. Again, the house, the job, the kid, the life. Ho-hum, ordinary, every day. Barbecues and golf. Nine to five job in construction, trucks, and cooking breakfast together on the weekends.”

“You and Dean cook breakfast together,” Sam pointed out and he was right. Jo did cook breakfast with Dean some mornings at the base, though it was more like she manned the toaster while he cooked eggs, or she got out butter and syrup while he made the pancakes or waffles. She could cook if he really wanted, but most mornings, she had a bowl of cereal and some sliced strawberries or a banana. Dean usually chose doughnuts or something like that.

“So do Sam and I.” Also true, though Gwen and Sam were more like a well-oiled machine than Jo and Dean were, following recipes and precisely measuring ingredients. Jo and Dean were far more cavalier in their cooking efforts. A little of this, a little of that, a pinch of this or that. Whatever smelled good. Whenever Gwen got out of her comfort zone of things she could cook, she seemed afraid she’d mess it up if she didn’t follow the directions exactly.

“But it’s different. It’s not an average, every day situation. He made a good choice with her for normal.”

“To a point. But you can have normal without going to this extreme. He went extreme, from hunting to this.” Sam’s expression shifted, a brief glimpse of sorrow surfacing before it was gone once more. “I lived normal for awhile. I tried to have that life, too.”

Gwen squeezed his hand with hers, then slid down to lie on the seat again. “I pity her. Lisa. Normal isn’t everything.”

“You’re right,” Sam agreed. “It isn’t everything, though it is nice to have a taste of now and then. Our life isn’t for everyone.”

Gwen drew her knees up. “And normal isn’t for everyone either. This life here? I’d be howling in days. Maybe even hours. What the hell would I do in a normal life? A boring, average normal life? I cook basic things, I don’t read fashion magazines, I’m not happy homemaker material --”

“But you know who you are, Gwen.” Jo shifted her weight. “That’s never changed. In the time I’ve known you, you’ve never doubted who you are at the core -- even while searching for your birth parents. You’re a hunter. That’s you. You’ve accepted that as who you are, essential to you as a person. If you come to doubt everything you are, how do you find out the truth of yourself if you don’t look at the things you didn’t have before and compare them to what you did have?”

“You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” Sam asked.

“Yeah.” Jo nodded. “Exactly.”

“Mmm.” Gwen shifted position. “Well, Lisa Braeden can keep her normal life in a small town. Give me our base and a few bad things to kill and I’m happy.”

“Here, here,” Jo replied. She was very happy in their life at present. Loving husband, baby on the way, friends she counted as family.

Sam laughed. “You two aren’t that easy to please.”

Jo smiled, looking up at him. “Are you implying we’re difficult?”

“Difficult? Uh….” He slid a hand into his jeans pockets and made a slow shrug. “More like as complicated as women can get and Dean and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Jo reached for his free hand, grasping it in hers for a moment, then releasing it. “You’re sweet, Sam.”

“Thanks.”

“You do realize that she’s not the kind of person who can accept our world in hers, right?” Gwen sat up again. “She can’t blend the two, can’t combine them into one world and keep her sanity. You can see it in her eyes if you look hard enough for it. She’s floating down denial in a dinghy as we speak. She’ll drown in it if she doesn’t get help.”

“No, I don’t think she’ll drown,” Sam said, looking at Gwen. “I think she lives in various states of denial. And she’s manipulative,” Sam reminded them. “We all know it. Even Dean knows it. She did a number on him. Put the two together and she can manipulate her own mind into believing her world is what she wants it to be.”

“True. All true. Maybe she is the wicked bitch of the North Midwest. But….” Jo crossed her arms, turning to face Sam, leaning her hip against the car door. “I’ll bet she had a romantic, idealized expectation of what their life should have been like and did everything she could to make it happen and keep it. She probably liked the idea of Dean. A lot of women would.”

“You did.”

Jo acknowledged Sam’s comment with a nod. “I did. For years. Dean Winchester.” She clasped her hands together, pressed them to her chest, and struck a dramatic pose. “Be still my beating heart. He’s so dreamy!” She relaxed against the Impala again. Her smile this time was sad. “I grew up though and while the idea was nice, it was an only idea, then a nightmare until you guys found me and it became an idea again. An idea is nice, but sometimes the reality of a person isn’t what you expect. The pedestal comes crashing down and you realize the halo on your angel is rather tarnished and the armor your white knight has on is rusty and in some cases is held in place with duct tape and bailing wire.”

Gwen laughed at that. “Truer words were never spoken.”

“I expected the man I found beneath what my idea of Dean was. I knew him well enough to begin with to have a decent idea of him. I don’t think she did. She couldn’t begin to understand the man he was because his life was so alien from hers from the beginning. Think about it. Who was Dean to her?”

“A hero once, saving her son.” Sam turned towards the car.

“A bad boy needing shelter, the man she’d once had a fling with who wanted to settle down and get out of his old life. Can you imagine the things that might have been going on in her head? Maybe she thought she could fix him, make him all better with the power of her love.”

“Gag.” Gwen made a puking noise. “That’s romance novel stuff.”

“It is, but people really do think that way. Try to change people, make them into what they think the person should be…. Romantic idealizations.” Jo glanced down at Gwen and up at Sam. “I had them once.”

Sam blinked, understanding slipping over his features. He knew what had happened those months after she’d left the Roadhouse; those various events that had begun to wear down those notions she’d had into something more realistic. She knew he knew because she’d shared it with him and Dean both. He shook his head. “Jo, you’ve never been like Lisa. You’ve always known the stakes.”

“No, Sam, I didn’t. I should have and I didn’t. I was naïve and when Meg used the word ‘schoolgirl’ she was right in that. I was very naïve. When I left home, I didn’t understand completely and that was a rather painful lesson I learned. I got hit hard several times before I had all of the wind knocked out of my cocky little sails.” She shrugged. “I’m tired of talking about Lisa. Let’s change the subject.”

It wasn’t long before the heated conversation Dean and Lisa were having was over and Dean walked across the lawn to them. He looked like the weight of the world was finally off of his shoulders, cheery almost, and Jo was glad to see it.

She looked back once they were all in the car. Ben still waved from the upper window, but Lisa? Lisa was gone from the front step. Jo waved back at Ben, then smoothed her shirt over her stomach and leaned her head back.

“So, slugger,” Dean began, pulling onto the road. “You hit Lisa? Need to stop and get some ice for that hand?”

“You saw that?”

“Not the actual punch, just the mark on her face and heard your tone.”

“My tone? What tone? I don’t have a tone.”

Gwen and Sam both snorted.

“The one that says you’re ticked off and trying to reign yourself in after a first strike. Wanna tell me what she said?”

“Dean, it’s not important.”

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “It was important enough to make you deck her. Spill.”

“She was making herself feel better, telling the truth as she saw it.” Jo sighed. “She said I was second best, that you settled for me because you couldn’t have her. That…and a ton of other things. I know it’s not true. I goaded her, she goaded me, and I warned her not to put hands on me again --”

“Wait, she hit you?” The car lurched as he slammed on the brakes. He put the Impala in reverse and turned to see behind him to back up. “We’re going back.”

“No, Dean --”

“She poked Jo in the chest several times with a finger,” Sam supplied. “She didn’t hit her.”

“Jo showed more restraint than I would have,” Gwen said. “I would’ve broken that finger and maybe another for good measure.”

“She didn’t hit you?” He watched her closely.

“No, she didn’t hit me.”

“She better not have.” Turning, he put the car back into drive.

Once they were actually on the road, Jo gave her mom a call, letting her know the outcome and that they were all alive and well. Ellen promised to pass the word on to Bobby and Jo concluded the chat. She stretched out like she’d said she planned to and the movement of the car lulled her into sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sam was perusing the case of sodas and water in the gas station, trying to decide if he wanted a small or large bottle of water, when Dean came up, a huge plastic cup in his hands. Sam eyed it. “Slushie?”

“I’m getting in touch with my inner child.”

“With a bucket ‘o slushie. Okay.” He was going to have a sugar crash in a couple hours with the amount of sugar in that cup. Sam glanced at his watch. It’d be late enough then that they could stop for the night.

“All they had were the ‘drown-in-it’ cups. It’s not bad. Wanna sip?” He held it out, jiggling it. “It’s cherry.”

“No.” A large water it was. He opened the fridge and grabbed one. “I’ll pass.”

“Your loss. Hey, you ever think you know someone only to find out that you never really knew them at all?”

Sam eyed him a moment. “You want that list alphabetically or chronologically? I could do both, though alphabetically might take longer.”

“You wanna not be a smartass? It’s a serious question.”

He let the glass door slam shut. “Then it’s a serious answer. Yes, Dean. A lot of people. I thought I’ve known a lot of people who weren’t what I’d originally thought they were. It happens to everyone.”

Dean sucked in a swallow of the half frozen cola drink. “I thought I knew her, Sam. A year with her and I find out now that she was jealous of you the whole time. It was all about jealousy. How did I not see it? How did I not see any of it? I’m supposed to be observant. Notice things others don’t and I think everyone noticed that part but me. I Mr. Magoo’d it for a year.” He shook the cup, swirling the contents around. “More than a year. All the way to today. I had no idea she was like that. You’d think I would’ve had some sort of notion.”

It seemed like he could still count on Lisa to make Dean feel bad about himself in some way. The new way was apparently going to be his observational skills. It wasn’t like he’d had no idea about her, either. He’d known she’d manipulated him and known something hadn’t been right between them. He’d talked about that to Sam and Jo both. This was just a knee-jerk reaction to the events of the day that Sam hoped would pass fairly quickly without snowballing into something bigger.

Sam started towards the counter to pay. Dean walked beside him, snatching a bag of cheese popcorn from the rack as they passed. “Look, you were in a state of deep grief, shock, and emotional pain. I’m not surprised you didn’t see it. And then after, you thought you’d left her in the past. There wasn’t a reason then to really look at her again.”

“I should’ve seen it. Should have seen something. One year with that woman and I never knew her at all.”

“Don’t feel bad, Dean. I get the feeling she doesn’t let many people see the full her and I don’t think she knew you either.”

“Maybe not.”

“Think about it this way. It could have been worse. She could’ve been a serial killer offing guys right under your nose. How stupid would you feel if there’d been bodies in the basements and internal organs jarred up in the pantry and you’d never noticed any of it?” He glanced at Dean. “She was a quiet woman, kept to herself. Liked kids.”

He was rewarded with the start of an amused smile. “True. Where’s Gwen?” He leaned against the edge of the counter and looked around the building.

“Mentioning female serial killers brings Gwen to mind?” Sam set down the water and a bottle of that iced tea Gwen liked.

“She is kind of quiet, keeps to herself, likes kids….” He raised a finger and cleared his throat. “She mates, she kills.”

Sam laughed and gestured towards the doors. “She’s outside. She said she had a couple calls to make.”

Dean tossed the popcorn on the counter. “You mind grabbing that for me?”

“No.” The clerk gave the total and Sam gave him money, then handed the bottle of tea to Dean. “Not if you don’t mind taking that out to Gwen for me. I’ll go next door and get some sandwiches to go.”

“See if they’ll put extra tomato in a container.”

“Why?”

“The baby is craving tomato now.”

Sam glanced at Dean’s stomach. “I presume you mean Jo is craving it. Unless you’re having sympathy cravings?”

“Of course it’s for Jo. Geez.” Frowning, he took the tea and went out the door.

He headed for the sandwich place next door, Jo falling into step beside him as he passed the restroom doors. She was looking considerably better than she had right after leaving Lisa’s house. “Doing okay,” he asked as they got in line.

She pushed her hair from her face with two fingers. “My ankles are swelling. How about you?”

“My face is swelling,” he said, copying her nonchalant, matter-of-fact tone and looking down at her.

Jo looked up and they started laughing.

It felt good to laugh, so Sam didn’t try to hold it back. Perhaps they both sounded a tad demented, but who cared? It had been a long time since he’d had a laugh like this.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gwen took a short walk from the station. They were going to be a few minutes, so no time like the present. Jo was in the restroom, Sam was picking out drinks, and Dean was grabbing his own snacks and filling up the gas tank. Gwen had time to make a call.

She took out the index card Ben had written his dad’s name and number on for her, gave the immediate area a long glance, and prepared herself mentally before dialing.

“Hello?” The voice was deep and shared a faint resemblance to Dean’s voice. She could hear a little girl talking in the background and he said, “Christine, daddy’s on the phone. Hush, okay?”

“Hi, is this…Bryan?” Gwen attempted to impart a sense of urgency to her voice.

“It is.”

“Bryan, hi, I’m a friend of Lisa’s. She didn’t want me to call, but…. She needs you. Ben needs you. Can you please come? There’s been an incident and I’m really worried about Lisa. She’s acting like it didn’t happen. I think it’s shock. I don’t know what to do and she and Ben have mentioned you….”

“What kind of incident?” Concern and alarm filled his voice.

“A bad one.”

“I’ll need to call a sitter, but I can be there in a couple hours. Don’t leave them alone…what was your name?”

“Gwen. It’s Gwen.”

“Okay, Gwen. Thanks for calling me. Stay right there with Lisa.”

“I will,” she lied and hung up.

“When did Supergirl develop the ability to read minds,” came Dean’s voice from behind her.

Turning, she found him holding out a bottle of iced tea to her. She took it. “Thank you. Beat you to the punch, did I?”

He smiled. “I’d had the vague idea of calling the guy, but it’s probably better you did. I suspect he reacted better to a woman calling than he would a guy.”

“I thought so. He’s going over there. Said it’ll be a couple hours.”

Dean nodded, taking a sip of his drink before answering. “Good.”

She slipped her phone into her pocket. While he’d said the bridge was in ashes, it was human to go back over old ground. “Don’t look back, Dean okay? Don’t analyze any of it or look for reasons. It happened, it all happened, and it’s done. Move on. Fresh day from here on out.”

“I plan to.”

“Just checking.”

“Uh-huh.” He sipped his drink. “You talked about it yet to Jo or Sam?”

“You wanting to listen?” She shook the bottle of tea, then opened it.

He turned to face the gas station. “I can do the therapist stuff if you want.”

He didn’t want to, was uncomfortable even bringing it up, but he was bringing it up. He’d listen if she wanted to tell him how she felt. A burst of affection slipped through her and Gwen smothered a smile. How had she gotten so lucky as to be a part of their family? “I’ve talked to Sam already and I’ll probably talk to Jo, and maybe Ellen when we get back. It’s a sweet offer, Dean, but I think I’m covered.”

He nodded and pointed at the car. “Looks like Sam and Jo are waiting.”

“Then let’s go.”

Sam and Jo were struggling with giggles and couldn’t seem to look at each other without starting into fresh peals. Gwen exchanged a glance with Dean, shrugged, and got in the car. Neither could explain what had set them off, either. Gwen grinned, shook her head, and settled back.

~~~~~~~~~~

Halfway home, they stopped to rest a few hours. It wasn’t that Dean couldn’t have driven longer because he had several times. It was more that they all needed to sit around a table and talk about some of it. He could see the need in Jo and Gwen and even Sam and decided that he probably needed a little of that himself. The postmortem, Gwen called it.

“What have we learned, kids?” Dean tapped his beer bottle on the table.

“Old girlfriends and new wives don’t mix,” Jo suggested with an amused gleam in her eyes. Already she was able to laugh about it, bouncing back from the emotional outpouring that had happened at Lisa’s house.

“Besides that.”

“Even monsters can be gullible?” Jo tried again. The suggestion was a nod to the shape shifter and witches Mia had betrayed for her own ends.

“Besides that.”

“We fell for a stupid trap,” Sam said, touching one purplish bruise on his cheek.

“How could we have known that Officer Hulk was watching you watch Lisa’s,” Dean countered.

Gwen opened her own beer. “How about when a trusted ally says not to pursue something, it’s generally a good idea to take that advice?”

Dean nodded. “Besides that.”

Jo laughed. “What lesson are you looking for, honey?”

“Gwen’s birth mother was one of the nastiest witches we’ve come across?” Sam guessed and Dean raised his bottle for a toast to that.

“And we’ve met a few.”

They toasted then. Three with beer and Jo with water.

“Powerful, manipulative, and able to con even hunters into trusting her.” Gwen shook her head. “How old do you think she was? I mean really? Was she old when she had me or was she really young then and let herself age normally?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Dean told her. He’d never cared enough about it to research witches and how long they could still have kids. “Doubt we’ll ever be on good terms with any witches to ask how that works for them. We know some have kids, pass their knowledge on to their family.”

“Speaking of family….” Gwen reached behind her to Sam’s computer bag and pulled out Neal Campbell’s diary. “I’ve been reading the past couple hours.”

“And?”

“They really believed Mia’s story. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Aaron Carys was a friend, a family friend and it sounds like they went way back, like maybe Aaron’s family was tied to the Campbells. Not by blood, but by friendship. When we get back, I’ll explain about the code. Then any one of us can translate the journals.” She set the book on the table. “We’re all family here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jo said.

Dean stared at the journal. “Your dad, Neal…. He had a lot of journals, you said?”

“He did. Wrote a lot. In the barn, Mia said Neal was the records keeper for the family. That can mean that he kept the archives, which he did. It can also mean that he kept records, as in wrote them. Some of his journals may have been a larger project, looking at things the rest of the family had been doing. I don’t know. We’ll have to keep going through the boxes, sift out the useful information, glean what we can. Anything could be in those boxes, Dean. Anything at all.”

“We’ve got a file on cursed objects that was in there that’s going to take a year or longer to go through and track the pieces down,” Jo said. “There may be more of them. I expect there will be and more -- things we can only dream about until they’re uncovered. If the Campbell family is as old as Samuel claimed….” She leaned forward. “Sweetheart, we could be standing right in the doorway of a room full of things none of us have ever seen before or knew even existed. The Campbell family secrets. The family archives. The knowledge there if they’re an old family. Mom keeps saying they loved their secrets and there are some doozies lurking in there. Could be some pretty big discoveries.”

Excitement sparked inside him and he held out his bottle. “Who’s up for diggin for the family skeletons?”

Sam tapped his bottle to Dean’s. “Hopefully we’ll find more than skeletons.”

Jo tapped her water glass to their bottles. “Count me in”

Gwen smiled and leaned forward, tapping her bottle to the bottles and glass. “I don’t mind digging.”

With a last toast, they finished their respective drinks, got ready for bed, and laid down for a few hours of sleep. Visions of archives danced in his head.

~~~~~~~~~~

The house was quiet. Ben was upstairs in his room and Lisa felt at loose ends. The business card Sam had left before was gone from the counter in the kitchen and she knew one of them had taken it, removing that trace of them from her life. She set the slip of paper Dean had given her on the counter in it’s place. Maybe later she’d think about it.

Exhaustion wrapped about her and for a long time, she sat at the kitchen table and stared into space, holding an ice pack to her jaw. The spot Jo had hit was tender. When she was able to rouse herself from that, she went upstairs.

Lisa moved her clothes to the back spare bedroom, trying to keep busy, her steps faltering every time she went into the master bedroom and her eyes turned to the dent in the wall. The events that had happened felt like a dream until she saw that dent and recalled flying through the air and hitting the wall hard. It had happened. No matter how much she wanted it not to have happened, it had. She couldn’t forget it. Her mind wasn’t letting her.

She knew there were going to be nightmares and they were going to be bad. Already she could barely stomach going in the master bedroom, but she wasn’t sure she could take Gwen’s advice. She didn’t think she could talk to anyone about it and if she did, she certainly couldn’t tell the whole truth. Who would believe her?

Interspersed with memories of the abduction and barn were memories of the conversations with Jo and Dean, replaying over and over in her head.

She never should have taunted Jo. She shouldn’t have given in to the impulse to cause her the slightest bit of trouble. She’d let her jealousy get the best of her with disastrous results. She’d been the person she’d tried very hard to keep Dean from seeing, the petty, jealous one that she hated acknowledging she could be. He’d seen all of her.

Lisa sat on the guest bed, staring at the open closet.

Dean had ceased to be hers in every way. The past was the past and he was gone, really gone this time and not because she’d told him to go. He’d set her aside, decided the life he’d claimed he wanted wasn’t what he wanted; moved from apple to cherry pie. He’d changed and she….

She hadn’t. She’d stagnated in that dream of him. All of this time she’d hoped and dreamed that he’d come back and declare her to be everything to him….

It had been a stupid want.

That dream was over, smashed to bits that were little more than dust. Jo had made it clear during their talk that she’d fight hard for Dean and Lisa didn’t really want that life anyway. She’d established that long ago. Jo was right though. She hadn’t been able to cut it and looking at that truth about herself hurt. It was hard to admit that she wasn’t the right one and that she didn’t have the ability to adapt. It wasn’t only that she hadn’t wanted the life itself, it was that she’d known deep down that she wasn’t capable of adapting to fit into Dean’s world any more than he’d been able to adapt to hers. It was hard to admit that she wasn’t the best for Dean. Someone like Jo was. Someone he obviously trusted enough to tell about Sam and about his childhood. Someone he felt more than an obligation for. A woman who could run in that life with him instead of waiting around for him.

Jo would never tell Dean to come home when he could because she’d be out there with him. She was the equal partner Lisa hadn’t been and couldn’t be. And Jo had no problem with Sam’s place in Dean’s life. She approved of it and encouraged it.

Lisa stopped trying to make sense of that.

Her chin quivered, tears welling in her eyes. If it hadn’t been plain enough for her from Jo, Dean himself had said it and destroyed the assumption she’d had of her place in his past. She’d told Jo that she, Lisa, was first and Jo was second best, but it turned out that it wasn’t the case at all. Apple pie was a dream he’d had and nothing more. She wasn’t a special memory at all.

He’d chosen Jo and Sam. He’d chosen the very life he’d tried to leave and she’d managed to alienate him. The words had flown from her mouth, every effort to backtrack tripping up, and maybe if she hadn’t been off-balance from that talk with Jo she might have been able to salvage something. Jo had thrown her a curve that Lisa hadn’t been able to recover from before Dean had stepped onto the porch.

The carefully cultivated image Dean had had of her was ripped and torn. She’d never wanted him to see the whole of her and in her efforts to keep that from happening, it had happened. She’d made it happen, while jealousy and anger had been a rolling boil inside her.

Lisa began to cry in earnest and as she sat there, Ben came to the door.

“Mom? You okay?” He’d changed clothes, no longer wearing a flannel shirt over his t-shirt and the t-shirt he was wearing had no band name or saying on it.

“No. I regret….” What could she say? What would he understand? How much was her own son aware of in regards to her behavior? A sliver of shame pierced her and she patted the bed beside her, inviting him to sit. When he had, she said, “I haven’t been my best the past couple days. I’ve said things I haven’t meant, behaved in a less than stellar example for you. I haven’t been the mom I should be.”

“You’ve been through a lot.”

“It’s not an excuse, is it?” She wiped her face with her hands.

The doorbell rang, over and over, and for a moment, Lisa was thrown back in time to all of the times Dean had rung the bell. It couldn’t be him though. It’d never be him again. That thought made her feel tired, guilty, and a little relieved even.

It was over. Dean Winchester was gone from her life.

Whoever it was was impatient, pounding on the door with a fist in addition to the doorbell. Lisa got up and started to the door. Ben went down the stairs with her, standing close as she opened the door.

“Dad?”

Standing there was Bryan, Ben’s dad. He was still in his uniform from work and she couldn’t figure out why he was there. Had she forgotten he was coming by? Couldn’t be. Ben would have been on the camping trip if he’d actually gone instead of driving to find Dean and Bryan had gotten stuck working. Neither were supposed to be there. “Bryan? What are you doing here?”

He looked worried, gaze turning from her to Ben and back again. A hand raised, slid through his thick dark hair, ruffling it, making one side stick up. “Your friend Gwen called. Lisa, what happened? What’s going on?” He stepped close, hands reaching out, turning her cheek to look at first her forehead, then jaw. His touch was gentle, fingers warm. “Are you okay? Tell me.”

“Gwen?” Lisa pulled back, staring up at him, mind turning in furious circles. How had Gwen gotten Bryan’s number?

“Yeah. Sounded pretty worried about you, too. She said there’d been an incident and you needed me here. She said you’re in shock over it, Lisa, claiming it didn’t happen --”

“Nothing happened. I’m fine,” she said, voice flat, her mind more focused on her wonderings than on the tone of her answer. Why would Gwen do that? Why would she call Bryan? Why….? To what end?

“You’re not fine. I can tell.” His eyes narrowed, gaze sliding down her and back up, lingering on the bandage on her arm. “Look, I got a sitter, so I can stay awhile, all night if need be. Why don’t I come in and you can tell me what happened? I’m medically trained. Let me decide if you’re fine.”

He’d gotten a sitter because a woman had called and told him Lisa needed him there. He was worried, honestly worried, she could see it in his eyes. He’d driven two hours because of a phone call that could have meant nothing. He’d changed his plans at the drop of a hat, a hat that was all about Lisa needing him. Lisa blinked, looking at Bryan in a new light. From legal nuisance to…something different. How gallant of him to come running! How very hero of him! He’d been talking for weeks about wanting a personal connection. She’d thought it was just with Ben, but maybe….

She took a deep slow breath.

Maybe it was her he wanted to get to know. They’d had a good thing for those few nights back then. They could have it again.

“Mom was kidnapped,” Ben blurted out. “That’s what happened.”

“Ben.” She shook her head to protest...but only a little. Perhaps she could talk about it with Bryan. Not the whole demon and witch thing, of course. He’d think her crazy.

“This woman tried to kill her. She was gonna stab her. It happened. She barely got away.”

Bryan glanced behind him at the street as though he’d just thought of something. His voice lowered a fraction, head cocking. “Lisa, were you caught in the massacre at the police station? Or by the people involved? It’s all over the news. Most of the officers were killed yesterday and late last night. They have no leads, nothing to go on.”

“Mom, tell him,” Ben urged. She stared at him a long moment. He wanted her to rely on Bryan, to bring him closer into their lives, when earlier he hadn’t cared at all. What had changed for Ben?

“I didn’t know about the police station,” she said slowly. “I haven’t had the tv on all day. Ben’s telling the truth.” She stepped back, opening the door and letting Bryan into the house, noting just how tall he was and how fit. He was willing to be here for her when he thought she really needed him. “The woman took me out in the middle of nowhere, tied me up. She claimed she was going to raise a demon with my death. I just….”

“How did you get away?”

Jo shot the demon and Dean had untied her. Ben had helped her down the lane through the mud. Her son…their son…had supported her all the way to the car. Gwen had doctored her up, given her advice, and her dreams had been shattered. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “There were people and then I was home. It’s all a big blur.”

“Ben?”

“Some people brought her home. Dropped her off.”

“Where’s Gwen? She still here? Can I talk to her?” He peered around Lisa.

She shared a long glance with Ben, a silent agreement passing between them to deny any knowledge of Gwen. “Bryan, I don’t know anyone named Gwen.”

“Then how did she know….” He shook his head. “Now I’m confused. If you don’t know a woman named Gwen, then who was she? One of the people who rescued you, maybe? Doesn’t explain how she knew my number.”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t stop the tears that fell then and Ben closed the door as Bryan wrapped his arms around her. He held her, cradled her, a hand sliding across her back in comforting passes. She smelled a pleasant aftershave, felt the strength in Bryan’s arms, and decided that maybe it was okay that Dean was gone. Maybe she’d never known him at all. Maybe….

Maybe Bryan was the man for her after all.

“I can barely stand being in this house now,” she choked out.

He drew back, nodding, hands chafing her arms in slow motions. “Okay, okay. Ben, go up and pack a bag for yourself and your mom. You’re gonna come stay with me. My house isn’t big, but we’ll manage.”

“It’s too much, Bryan. I can’t impose on you like that.”

“Hey, Ben’s my boy and you’re his mom. It’s not an imposition.”

Lisa let a small, grateful smile slip free.

He was such a good man.

It was all she was really looking for.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo woke to the sound of Dean’s phone ringing. She stretched and yawned, listening to Dean’s end of the conversation.

“Ellen…. Yeah, we’re on our way home. Stopped for the night…. Jo’s fine. I told you that earlier. She told you that, too…. What? What do you mean Cas has gone missing?…. No, we haven’t seen him in weeks….”

“Castiel is missing,” Jo asked, sitting up in bed. “When did that happen?”

Gwen sipped at a cup. “Never a dull moment in our lives, is there?”

Sam chuckled and handed Jo a cup. “Got that right.”

The cup was decaf. She sipped once and set it aside to cool. “Missing,” she asked again once Dean had hung up.

“Apparently, heaven can no longer find it’s newest leader. Ellen said Abigael showed up, inquired if he’d been there, said he was missing, and left again.” He and Sam stared at each other. “You don’t think Cas would take a vacation do you, like a Gabriel vacation or a God vacation?”

Slowly, Sam shrugged. “I thought things were going okay up there. They were turning heaven around, improving it.”

“Last I heard they were.” He cleared his throat. “Paging Castiel. Angel Cas. We need to see you.” He looked at the ceiling. “Are you hearing me? Come in, Cas. Big Cas, Cas with a ‘C’. Copy?”

Jo looked at Gwen and tried her best to keep a straight face when Gwen looked at Dean like he’d lost his mind.

“Seriously,” Gwen asked, the tiniest curl of an amused grin on her lips. “That’s how you call for an angel? What, are you on a CB?"

“Shush. I have done this before.” Dean waved a hand at her and raised his voice a fraction. “Castiel. Where, oh where --”

“Are you tonight?” Gwen finished for him with a lilt to her voice that was almost a melody. “Why did you leave me here all alone?”

Jo recognized the tune and joined in until the song from Hee-Haw was finished. By the time they were done, Sam was laughing and Dean’s lips were twitching.

Dean crossed his arms. “I’m surrounded by comedians. Are you three finished?”

“What did I do,” Sam demanded with a jokingly outraged tone.

“You laughed.”

“Okay, okay.” Getting up, Jo went to him and put her arms around him. “I’m sorry. we’re done. We are. You gotta admit it does sound a little silly doing the CB thing.”

“You have to go with what works and it works.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Come on, Cas, get your feathery ass down here.”

They waited, all levity slipping away as the minutes passed with no sign of Castiel.

“Try his phone,” Jo suggested, but Sam was already on it.

“His voicemail is full.”

Dean loosed himself from her and turned away.

“Dean, I’m sure he’s okay.” Jo touched his back.

Sam glanced at the door. “Try Abby. She saw Ellen, probably Bobby. I bet she’s on her way here.”

Abigael didn’t answer either. None of the angels answered and it was a solemn, contemplative group that got home a few hours later.