Title: Lost and Found

Chapter: Five

~~~~~~~~~

They slept in the car that night, an awkward arrangement that left Dean in a surly mood. It was awkward when it was only him and Sam, but to add another person? He hadn’t slept well, waking up frequently to check and make sure Jo was still there. She slept soundly, a thing he was faintly jealous about. How could she sleep in the state she was in? And how could she look so good doing it? Even tired there was something appealing about her.

Sam was awake every time he woke. He still didn’t sleep a lot, but at least he was sleeping now. It wasn’t quite as creepy to know he did sleep, even if it was only an annoyingly short number of hours that he needed. Dean himself seemed to need more and more sleep these days. Bobby told him it was an age thing and to enjoy it now because it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was going to get. Always cheerful, that Bobby. And Dean did remember how it had felt to be old. Occasionally he had nightmares about it though he’d never admit it out loud.

Dean sipped at a cup of coffee, pondering what Jo had told them. If she thought Bobby was her dad and was dead, she was in for the shock of her life when they finally reached Sioux Falls. Maybe that shock would be what it took to break down that wall between her real memories and the false ones. There had to be something somewhere that’d do the trick. He and Sam simply needed to find whatever it was and hopefully it’d be soon. He found he was longing for a moment between himself and Jo like the one he’d seen in that field between Jo and Sam. The recognition. The blockage tumbling down. He wanted that so bad he could almost taste it in the back of his mouth. Dean wanted a reunion with her that by definition would be far more than any prior reunion.

He let his attention slide slowly across the landscape to the picnic table. They’d had fast food again despite Jo’s protests. Truth be told, he was tired of it himself. Maybe tomorrow they could chance a restaurant.

Jo and Sam were at the table, breakfast spread out before them. If Sam’s expressions were any indication, he wanted Dean to join them, but Dean didn’t feel like it. Nor did he feel like participating in whatever conversation they were having right now. What he felt like doing was standing back and observing Jo from a far. He wanted to pick through the things he was seeing and compare them to what he remembered of her. Some of the old Jo was beginning to really shine through, which was encouraging to an extent. It wasn’t enough. He was impatient for more. He wanted the full fire in her eyes, the snark in her voice, and the attitude she could give at the drop of a hat. Not only that, he wanted the more mature Jo he’d known briefly, the one who’d turned him down at Bobby’s fridge in a way that hadn’t hurt or stung, who’d said plain that she was dying and made them face it.

Those things were all a part of her, still there inside, ready to burst free.

Sam got up and came over to him. “What are you doing? Get over there and talk to her. Draw her out, Dean. Make her really have to think about those memories she thinks are real.”

“Looked like you were doing fine with her.”

“But I’m not the one who….” With a sad shake of his head, Sam gestured at her. “Go. Converse.”

Dean scowled at him. “I’m in no mood --”

Sam held up one finger, pointing it at him. “Don’t make me make you.”

With a roll of his eyes, he walked to the table and sat across from Jo. Sam remained by the Impala, hands in his pockets, head tilted back, face turned up to the sun. Dean set his cup down. “Enjoy your breakfast?”

Jo grimaced down at her half-eaten sandwich. “Not really. I’d prefer something with a little more nutrition to it, like a nice sit-down at a restaurant.”

“Maybe later.”

She slid the wrapper and sandwich aside and crossed her arms on the tabletop, her gaze guarded and wary when she looked at him. “You need to let me go, Dean. I won’t press charges. I promise. I never have before, have I? All those times --”

“All those times? What times would those be?”

“Philadelphia for one. You locked me in a mausoleum for hours.”

“I did? A mausoleum? You’re so far from right on that….”

“My point is that I could have pressed charges and I didn’t. I didn’t report it. I didn’t think to report it. Even when you cut me in Carthage, I just….” He saw her hands move, going to her side, a flicker of confusion and what looked like a spasm of pain on her face. “I never told anyone.” Her attention lowered to the tabletop. “You could let me go. Right here. You and Sam get in the car, drive off, and I’ll--”

“You’ll what? Hitch all the way back to Rhode Island? Get raped and murdered by some psycho? No, Jo, I can’t let you go. You’re staying right here with me until you’re back to being the Jo I remember.”

“I’m not that naïve girl anymore,” she protested.

“You damn well got that right, but it’s the woman I want back, not the girl.” He took a long drink of his coffee. “I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me all about what you remember of us and I’ll do the same.”

She snorted. “Like you don’t know our history.”

“More like you don’t remember it.” He watched her think about it, eyes narrowed, and finally consent with a slow nod. This ought to be informative.

~~~~~~~~~~

They’d pulled off the interstate and found a park to eat breakfast at. It didn’t appear to be a popular place. Their car was the only one parked in the small lot.

Jo hated living on fast food. Granted it had only been a couple days, but she still thought she could actually feel her arteries clogging with that crap. Her mom had always insisted they eat decent meals and Jo supposed that had rubbed off on her after all the time they‘d spent together….

Where had that thought come from? Mary Dunn had never insisted on proper meals. It had been all she could do to heat up frozen pizza at night when she’d gotten home from work. Her mother had been beaten down by life long before she’d given birth to Jo.

She gave her head a tiny shake and unwrapped the breakfast sandwich Dean had set in front of her before he’d retreated back to the Impala. Jo picked at her breakfast, half listening to Sam talk about some situation he and Dean had gone through where their memories had been altered. He told the story well, she simply wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. Demons were one thing. Angels actually altering peoples minds was another. Was he going to talk about space aliens next? It wasn’t that she doubted angels existed, but that they’d had personal contact with Sam and Dean.

Sam and Dean. Really? Why would angels bother with them?

“We both thought we were different people, not even related. I kept having these weird dreams, you see, and it turned out they were actually my memories trying to break free.”

The bite she’d just taken was like ashes in her mouth and she choked it down. “Weird dreams?” She took a sip of coffee and swallowed. “Like how weird?”

“Weird. I was battling supernatural creatures…and winning.”

Similar to her dreams and she’d never had one like that before the man in the suit that had shown up at the diner. “Did you know everyone in your dreams?”

“Not at first, no. Why? Are you having strange dreams, Jo?” He leaned over the table a little, peering at her closely with that same searching gaze Dean had. “You are, aren’t you? How detailed are they? I bet they’re more detailed than your dreams usually are.”

She ignored the questions and speculation. He was right though. The dreams were detailed, colorful.

“You’re a hunter like me, like Dean. It’s what you are in reality. That demon you remembered? One of the things we hunt and there’s a big world of creatures out there. You’re not a waitress, Jo. That’s not your life’s work. You’re much more than that and always have been. You’re a hunter with a capital ‘H’ and you got to be a damn good one by the end.”

“The end?” He’d said those two words with a tone of finality. “The end of what?”

He ignored her question like she’d ignored his. “If you’re having dreams like that, it’s got to be them trying to push through and override what Zachariah did to you. You’ve had a strong will since we’ve known you.”

“Who’s Zachariah?”

“The angel. The same one who changed our memories and did a whole bunch of other douche-y things. He was pretty big on doing those things one, because he could, and two, to get us to say yes to what he wanted. He pulled every nasty trick he could think of, so him doing this to you doesn’t really surprise me. It shouldn’t surprise Dean either.”

So now the angel that had messed with them had messed with her. Right. “Sure. Okay.” He said it all with complete seriousness, too. “Do you hear voices, Sam? Do you talk to them and they talk back? Because what you’re saying sounds more than a little cuckoo. Angels running around --”

His expression shifted to good natured exasperation. “Your dreams are your reality,” he insisted.

“My dreams are dreams, Sam. That’s all.”

He glanced away, over to where Dean was standing behind her. She knew Dean was there, staring at her. He’d been doing that since they’d stopped to eat. Jo wondered what he was thinking as he leaned against the Impala.

Sam left and a minute later, it was Dean joining her, trying to chat her up.

She made the mistake of mentioning Carthage, but instead of remembering him hurting her, she had another flash of confusing images, thankfully not as forceful as what she’d had in the field. This flash was quick, another piece of truth.

Pain in her side, blood everywhere, and the horrible feeling of her strength draining away. Dean carrying her, upset. Hellhounds barking.

Hellhounds? Jo touched her side, pushing on in their conversation and deciding to accept his deal. It might be interesting to see how he viewed their relationship. Enlightening even. Maybe she’d begin to get a handle on him, because she was still floundering, uncertain how to behave around him. All of the usual things didn’t make him blow-up and smack her around like before. “Ask me what you want.”

“If we’ve got such a past together, tell me about our first kiss.” He drained his coffee cup.

She studied the scenery behind him, letting the memory of that kiss wash over her. The warm, tender press of his lips to hers, an almost bittersweet caress that had hinted of so many emotions on his behalf. Regret had tinged the kiss, yet beneath it had been an understanding between them that there could have been more.

More? Yes, more. If they’d had time, there could have been so much more between them.

Jo licked her lips. It was what he and Sam would call a true memory, one that was a piece of her and she just knew it. “I was upset and…it happened.”

“Why were you upset?”

“I don’t remember now.” She couldn’t recall the reason, yet remembered that whatever it had been had devastated her. When he’d kissed her, she’d been feeling as though her entire world was ending. Jo felt a resultant sadness from that true memory slide through her in a rush, tears prickling her eyes.

“Where were we?”

“I don’t remember.” She blinked the tears away.

“Come on, Jo. This is stuff women remember.” Dean gestured with his cup.

“Okay, why don’t you tell me where we were and why I was upset?”

“Not yet. How about our first time together? You know. Our first time? Knocking boots? What did it take for me to get in your pants?” He paused, then added with raised brows, “Some pizza, a six pack, and side one of Zeppelin IV?”

She glared at him, vaguely remembering having said those words in the past. “No. Dean, geez. As if I had no self-respect or something to hop in the sack with a guy I’d just met.”

“You do remember, don’t you? Or at least one time? I’m not exactly a celibate kind of guy, so tell me, Jo, when did we hop in the sack, because I’ve gotta say, it’s not something I remember.”

“Dick,” she snapped, feeling heat rise on her cheeks. Honestly, she didn’t have a specific memory that she could say with absolute certainty was of him. The images were vague. The man could be anyone.

“You don’t remember, do you? That’s because it never happened and no amount of Zachariah putting that kind of image in your head rings true to you. We do have a history, Jo. It’s just not the one you’ve been led to believe. When I did make a pass at you, you turned me down flat -- and you were right to do that.”

Now he was talking about Zachariah, the memory changing angel. Had he and Sam worked this out ahead of time? The only other option, that they were telling the truth, made her stomach clench. Jo didn’t think she could face that option. It was too…too…crazy. It made her head hurt. Literally so. Seriously considering any of what they said or trying to reconcile her ‘true’ memories with her life memories made her temples throb. “Why don’t you enlighten me as to how you see us?”

“Friends. Colleagues. I never hurt you. Got angry, but never hurt you.”

“Specifics?”

“No, not yet.”

He kept saying that. “Why not now?”

“Because when you remember, I want you to know for sure it’s your memories.”

“You’re welching on a deal?”

“I told you what I remember of us, Jo. We were friends and we were colleagues, but never more than that.” He sounded sad by that and she saw a glimmer of deep regret in his eyes before he looked away.

Once more, her emotions mirrored his, a pang of sadness and regret welling inside her. Why? Where did it come from?

“This is taking too long. Let’s get back on the road. I’d like to make the state line by lunch.”

They were closing in fast on wherever it was he and Sam were taking her. With each mile closer, Jo felt her discomfort, along with her headache, getting worse. She didn’t want to go any further in that direction, an irrational thing she couldn’t figure out. She had to escape them and soon, before she ceased to be able to think straight from the pain in her head.

~~~~~~~~~~

His mood far better than it had been, Castiel eluded a couple of Raphael’s patrols and snuck in to human heaven, following that small trace of Ellen Harvelle. There wasn’t much to follow, merely a hint of her presence, which he might not have even noticed if he hadn’t once paid close attention to her.

She’d tried to befriend him, teach him a few human things, like how long it took to get drunk. Ellen, unlike Dean and Sam, had seemed to immediately grasp the scope of all he’d done for them. She’d shown him a quiet sort of respect even while trying to get him drunk. Her attempts at friendship had been more of an attempt to give him knowledge he might need in the future than Dean’s lessons in humanity.

It boiled down to respect really.

Ellen had respected him and Castiel, in turn, had retained a respect for her, especially after that decision she’d made to stay with Jo in the end. A noble act. He’d studied her, seen who she was beneath it all because she’d invited him to. Ellen had told him it was okay to try to understand her because if he fell fully, he’d need to have an idea of how to relate to a woman.

Sometimes, he wondered how far she would have taken that tutelage if she hadn’t died.

Sometimes, he thought he would have let her take it however far she’d wanted and in whatever direction. Her leading him by the hand into a full human existence could have been…enjoyable -- on some level.

It was only right that he look for her when he did have some time. He wasn’t resentful of doing that, not really. It was only that he felt like he already had so many things he was trying to do that he couldn’t do the job he’d like. He wanted to focus on it completely and stay at it until she was found, yet he couldn’t. He could only spend a moment here and there at tracking.

Castiel followed that trail until he hit a dead-end and stood there, pondering what action he should take next. Perhaps he should take a long look at Raphael’s general, the one who’d initially led him to Jo: Uzziel.

~~~~~~~~~~

They hadn’t returned to the interstate, moving on to state highways, a meandering route that felt in her mind to be more direct than the one they’d been on. Both of them drove these roads like they were very familiar with them, not consulting a map. Jo rubbed her fingers across her forehead. She had to slow down their progress, if only to get some relief from her headache, but how to do that?

“I need a shower,” Jo announced, giving her shirt an exaggerated sniff. She liked to shower daily, so this not showering thing was nasty, in her opinion. “Rest stop baths don’t count. I feel gross.”

“We’ll get a room tonight.” Dean stretched in the passenger seat, yawning wide.

“One room?”

“Yeah.”

She gawked at Dean. Did he realize what that would look like? “And have people think I’m some slut getting it on with two guys? No.”

“It look like you’ve got a choice?”

“It’s unreasonable to ask me to share a room with you two. I need privacy.”

“You’ve been sharing a car.”

“That’s different. I’m not getting undressed and showering in the car.”

“You got money to pay for one?”

“No.”

“Then forget it.”

“Jerk.”

He turned to stare at her over the seat back. “What part of keeping an eye on you aren’t you understanding? One room. Two rooms means we,” he gestured between him and Sam, “can’t watch you.”

“Pervert,” she spat, crossing her arms.

“Not like I’m planning on watching you shower and change, Jo.”

“Not like you’d admit it, is it, Dean? Peeper.”

A snort of laughter left Sam and when Dean shot him an irritated glare, he half-heartedly pretended to have a coughing fit.

“I don’t want to wait until tonight. Don’t you two feel nasty right now? Wouldn’t a shower be pretty sweet?”

Sam turned his head for a few seconds. “She has a point, Dean. We do all need to shower sometime soon.”

“Tonight. We’ll get a room tonight and shower then. It’s only,” he shot a glance at his watch, “like seven hours away.”

It turned out that Sam was on her side of the whole shower matter. He didn’t bother arguing with Dean either, he simply pulled over when he found a place that looked cheap, overriding Dean’s protestations that they had to make the state line, announcing that it’d still be there after they all showered and changed clothes. The motel he’d chosen was, to put it in a complimentary way, so skeevy a strung out junkie would hesitate staying there for ten minutes to get a fix.

Jo stood just inside the door to their room, her lip curling. “You are so not serious, Sam.”

He set her bag and his down on one bed. “What do you mean?”

She took a cautious step onto the carpet. “This place obviously rents by the hour.”

“Considering we only need it for a couple hours, what’s the problem?”

Dean closed the door and turned the lock. “You wanted a shower, princess.” He pointed at the bathroom. “There’s the shower.”

“My shoes are sticking to the carpet and I’m pretty sure I just saw a family of roaches scurry for cover.”

“Keep the lights on and they’ll leave you alone.”

She stepped to the bathroom and peered inside, the window catching her eye. There was an actual window. Most of these places didn’t have windows in the bathroom, let alone one big enough to crawl out of, but this one did. Okay, it was a little high on the wall and she was going to have to balance precariously on the toilet tank and sink to get up to it…. It was doable however.

Quickly covering her delight at the window, she opened her bag, drew out a few things and said, “I’m first,” before going in and slamming the door. Jo locked the door, turned the shower on, and began her climb. The window didn’t screech when she opened it. In fact, it looked to her like she wasn’t the first person to go out it. It took a feat of acrobatics to get turned onto her stomach so she could lower herself rather than jumping face first.

Slowly, Jo eased out.

Hands caught her hips, helping her down to the ground. Jo whirled, smacking at those hands. “Get off me! Peeping Tom!”

Dean was there in front of her, his hands remaining on her hips, fingers squeezing gently “You’re still very much dressed, Jo. In fact, you look like you’re planning on going somewhere.” Amusement was etched on his features.

Placing her hands on his chest, she shoved him. To her great disgust, she didn’t manage to budge him an inch.

“You think you’re the first person to ever think about crawling out the bathroom window to escape? I even did it myself awhile back.”

Jo gave him her best haughty expression. “I was testing you.”

“I see. You want a boost back up or would you rather walk all the way around the building?”

“I’ll walk.”

“It was a nice try, though I was expecting a bit more creativity from you.”

Jo stalked back into the room and bathroom, showering and changing clothes, her mind awhirl with ideas.

He wanted creativity? She’d give him creativity.