Title: Lost and Found.

Chapter: Six

~~~~~~~~~~

The past was the past, wasn’t it? It couldn’t be changed?

Jo thought about how the past could be changed, given what Sam and Dean had been telling her.

She remembered her life. A childhood with parents too worried about getting by from day to day than with the child that had been unplanned. Being an outcast at school from the first day she’d attended, a feeling and reality that had lasted even up into her college years. A string of loser boyfriends that ended with Dean, who’d seemed unlike the others at first. He’d flattered her, told her she was beautiful, talented, smart, and all of those other things girls longed to hear from boys. He’d charmed her, but he hadn’t charmed her parents. They’d railed at her that she was being stupid to leave with him and she’d done it anyway. She had loved her parents, in a way. They’d given her life after all.

But what if Sam and Dean were right? What if her dreams were real and all of what she thought she remembered was false, implanted memories by an angel who’d had some unknown ulterior motive by doing that? It scared her that they might be right about that. To somehow acquire the attention of a being that could do that to her because he wanted to? Frightening. Where was her will in all of that? Where was her own hand in the course of her life? How was it right that an angel could do that at his own whim? Angels were supposed to be righteous warriors of God. How did that fit in all of it? Or did it?

She wondered who the people were she’d seen in those dreams. The man with the mullet. The honey haired woman. The various other people present. The hugs Jo dreamed of receiving from that woman were almost…maternal. If only they were true…. It would be nice to have such warm memories of a mother.

Undoing her seatbelt, she laid down on the seat, curling up. The magazines Dean had bought for her at the last gas station slid onto the floor and she stared at the cover of one without really seeing it.

There wasn’t any way Jo could reconcile the ‘true’ memories with her real ones. It simply wasn’t possible. Duluth made no sense in context of her memories, so therefore, logically, it must be out of context, which meant those dreams were the context, since it seemed to fit with them. The whole fighting monsters thing and the demon in Duluth just went together. That led her into circles of thought that wouldn’t quit. Her dreams were reality, her reality a forced fantasy, and she’d somehow garnered the attention of an angel who’d thought nothing of turning her life upside down for his own ends.

The logic led to them being right. The sensation of pieces of herself locking together and slowly becoming whole led her to them being right. If Duluth was true, then the rest of it must be as well.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Dean here and now wasn’t the Dean in her memories. It was painfully obvious the more time she was with him and Sam. He wouldn’t hurt her, had no intention of hurting her, and seemed offended that she’d think he’d hurt her somehow on purpose. He was worried about her, an air of desperation hanging about him. In her memories, he was hardly the man before her now. In her mind, he was painted as the blackest of hearts, using her, claiming to own her.

If she’d had her gun on her in the diner the other day, she would have shot him without hesitation and stood gloating over his dead body. It wouldn’t have mattered that he wasn’t actually the man she’d thought he was. At that point, she would have been enacting justice for all she’d thought he’d done to her, killing an innocent man.

Now? She simply wanted away so that maybe her head would quit hurting and she would no longer feel as though spiders were skittering across her skin. She was antsy, restless.

The Impala slowed and she raised up. They were stopping at a rest stop. So soon, she thought, then remembered Dean downing cup after cup of coffee earlier because he hadn’t slept well and needed it to keep awake. He’d been overdosing on coffee all day. Jo perused the area. It was a standard rest stop. Picnic area, parking lot, building. She opened the door and got out, stretching, noting the cars already there pulling out. A little girl with blond pigtails in the back of one car waved at her. Jo waved back.

Sam crossed his arms on the top of the open door. “Last stop for awhile. Might want to take care of business while we’re here.”

She nodded. Now appeared as good a time as any to enact her next plan. There wasn’t anyone here, but if she waited it could be much longer before she’d have a chance. To the right of the building, she noticed a path leading into a wooded area. Good enough. She needed to distract them and had the perfect idea.

Jo followed Dean into the building, Sam right behind her, and glanced at the vending machines. “Would you get me a coffee? And a snack? Something chocolate.”

Dean peered at the machines. “Doesn’t more liquid defeat the purpose of a pee break?” The wondering didn’t stop him from getting coffee, however.

“Out with the old, in with the new,” Sam replied in a questioning tone.

Jo rolled her eyes and went into the bathroom. She waited about a minute, pasted on her best mortified expression and went out to the vending machines, sidling up to Dean. “I need clean clothes and a couple bucks.”

“What? Why?” He set his cup down and snapped a lid on it.

She glanced around them, keeping her voice hushed as though afraid someone would come in and overhear her. “Girl stuff.”

They both stared at her, puzzled. Sam even did that quizzical head tilt dogs did.

She raised her brows. “Mother Nature?”

They glanced around the building as though looking for a person.

She blinked. Geez, guys could be dumb sometimes. Jo hadn’t expected it to take them more than a second to catch on. She raised her voice. “I got my period, okay? It’s really gross to have blood all over, so I need clean clothes and a couple bucks to plug up so I don’t bleed all over your precious seats!” Crossing her arms, Jo directed a pointed stare at the Impala outside. “Is that clear enough? You want to follow me in the toilet and take a gander yourselves or just trust me on this and get me some damn clean clothes, a couple bucks, some coffee, and a snack that’s preferably chocolate?”

The emotions that crossed their faces would have been fascinating to study at another time. Surprise, discomfort, and disgust -- probably that she was mentioning it rather loudly. It was Sam who actually opened his wallet. “Get her clothes, Dean. I’ll get the coffee and chocolate.” His attention raised to her a brief second before dipping back to his wallet. “Lots of chocolate.”

Jo held out a hand. “Money please. Tampons cost.”

He forked over a few singles while Dean stood there with a weird expression on his face, like he wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not. One brow twitched a fraction.

She turned another pointed stare to the car. “Bleeding here, Dean. Not comfortable. Clothes please.”

“Right. Clothes. You mean….”

“Jeans. Underwear.”

“Underwear. Yeah. Okay.” He nodded, took a deep breath, and left the building.

As soon as Sam’s back was turned, Jo slipped quietly out the back door of the building and took off down that path she’d noticed. It had to lead somewhere, right?

Unfortunately, that somewhere wasn’t anywhere that would aid her in escape. A low moan left her, building until it because a full blown word. “Crapsticks!” Jo stomped one foot in frustration. She would have to run right to the nearest fence that had a locked door and didn’t have any obliging handholds to use to climb it.

Expletives fell from her lips in a rush, Jo kicking the fence as her frustrations welled up and overflowed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean turned from the trunk, holding a fresh pair of jeans for Jo with one of those lacy pairs of panties folded inside them. Touching her underwear, which had rested very intimately against her at one time or another, was doing things to him that hadn’t happened in awhile. He closed the trunk and went back into the building in time to see Sam coming from the women’s rest room.

“Wrong door there, Sammy -- unless there’s something you haven’t told me.”

“She’s gone, Dean! I turned my back for two seconds --”

He sighed, her ploy now blindingly obvious. Well, he had told her to be creative. “Do you feel a ton of sucker stupid right now or is it just me?”

“I’m feeling it.”

“Damn it,” he said, shoving the clothes at Sam. “I’m blaming this on a lack of good sleep.”

He left the building, seeing a quick glimpse of blue retreating to the right. Here’s hoping it’s her, he thought and ran in that direction.

He was rewarded moments later by her very vocal, frustrated cursing, rounding the bend in the path to see her kicking the large wooden fence with one foot. The gate on the fence had a nice, big, shiny padlock and the entire area was one way out: the way he’d come from. Dean slowed to a walk, his lips twitching.

Jo whirled, gave it a last backward kick and started towards him. “Not a word, Dean. Not a single word.”

“Why didn’t you say you wanted some exercise?”

She growled at him.

“So, am I to take this to mean that you’re not really ragging at present?”

She marched past him, hands clenched into fists, her low mutters angry. She appeared to be lamenting fate, who she was assuming hated her at present, her curses rather creative. A couple of them even made him a mite uncomfortable.

“You can still have the coffee and chocolate if you want. My treat,” he called after her, earning an emphatic ‘screw you’ gesture with both hands.

Halfway down the path, they met Sam coming from the other direction. He was still carrying the clothes Dean had gotten from the trunk. “There you are.”

Jo snatched the clothes out of his hands, brushed past him, and continued walking. Upon reaching the building, she skirted it, went to the Impala and got inside, slamming the door. After a minute, she opened the door and yelled, “Well, get the lead out you two! Let’s go if we’re going!”

“What happened,” Sam asked.

“Destiny hates her, fate’s a bitch, and you don’t want to know what she thinks luck can go do to himself.”

“Okay. Roadhouse site first? Or grave or house?”

“Let’s head to the Roadhouse first and good God, I’m hoping seeing that site does the trick because this is getting old fast. Chasing after her….” While it was getting old to run after her, he didn’t mind because if he got the old Jo back, all of it would pay off. He’d have her back. They’d have her back.

“You think she’d get tired of bolting, too. Maybe want to know why her dreams seem more real than her memories.”

“Wait…she’s having dreams?” He stopped Sam with one hand on his arm. “You mean like you did when Zach did the mind scramble on us?”

“Yeah. Just like, I think. She didn’t confirm it or anything, but she didn’t deny it, either. Had that look on her face, like I’d scored a direct hit.” He shrugged.

“So between Duluth and that,” Dean gestured in the air, “that means something’s happening in her head. Something is connecting and this is working.”

“It’d be my guess.”

“Good, good. That’s…damn that’s good news.”

“We’re not in the clear yet, though,” Sam reminded him. “It’s still just pieces. Who knows how long it’ll take for her to get her memories back fragment by fragment? A few days, a few months. How do we know it won’t take years even?”

He didn’t want to contemplate this taking years. In his opinion, the sooner the better. “Cheery thought, Sam.”

“Trying to be realistic about our timeline. You got a plan yet if she doesn’t snap back together soon?”

“It’s only been a couple days. Ask me again in a couple weeks.”

Jo leaned out of the car. “And I want that coffee and chocolate, too! Don’t forget it!” She snapped her fingers several times. “Hurry it up already! Burning daylight here!” The car door slammed, but her lips kept moving. Dean had a pretty good idea what she was saying.

“I’ll keep princess company if you want to get the other stuff,” he told Sam.

Sam stared at him a minute. “No, I think you should get her her coffee and chocolate.”

“Why me?”

“You need to ask? Dean, come on.” He waggled his fingers. “Give me the keys. I’ll start the car.”

He handed over the keys, gave Jo one last look, and returned to the building. Dean stood in front of the vending machine, perusing the selection of candy bars. What would Jo like? After a minute, he chose the plainest of the chocolate bars and pocketed it, then got a cup of coffee and went to the car. Once inside, he turned to look at Jo, handing the cup over the seat to her.

“Where’s the chocolate,” she asked. “You did say I could still have the chocolate as well as the coffee.”

“What’s the magic word?”

Her brows rose. “Give me the chocolate or I’ll kick you in the balls the next chance I get?”

“That’s a sentence, not a word.” Dean drew the bar from his pocket. “And you know, Jo, you keep flirting with me like this and I might think you care.” He winked at her.

“Screw off.”

He held up the chocolate bar, waved it. “Magic word?”

“Dean.” Sam shook his head. “Just give it to her.”

“It won’t hurt her to be polite,” he answered.

Jo sipped her coffee and studied him, eyes narrowed slightly. “You want me to be polite after you kidnapped me? Are you screwed in the head?”

“There’s that possibility. You want the chocolate or not?”

She sighed. “Please.”

He handed it over. “There. That wasn’t bad, was it?”

Jo set the bar on the seat beside her and Dean caught the glimpse of a smile before she turned her head to stare out the window. It was nice to see her smile.

~~~~~~~~~~

There had been a connection between them earlier. Jo had felt it right then when he’d handed her the chocolate bar. A genuine connection.

“Almost there.” Sam shifted in the seat.

“Yeah,” Dean pulled over, “ but we’re stopping for the night. We’re going to have a semi-nice meal, watch some tv, sleep in beds, and have all day tomorrow for sightseeing. Any objections?”

Both heads turned, their eyes on her. Jo gave them a smile so sweet it’d put a diabetic into a coma in under ten seconds. “Looking forward to it,” she said in an overly bright tone that made Sam laugh a little and Dean quirk a brow at her.

They were in Nebraska now. She’d been paying attention to the signs, tension building inside her as she anticipated…something. Jo didn’t know what she was anticipating, only that whatever it was was coming. She wondered where exactly they were going. Neither would say.

Dinner was at a family restaurant across from their motel, a pleasant affair given the circumstances. Jo didn’t try to rouse anyone’s suspicions, grateful for a decent meal. She ate well, even admitting her headache to Sam. The pain pills he gave her didn’t completely take care of the ache in her head, they simply dialed it back down to a dull throbbing that she could deal with.

TV was dismal, nothing on that she was interested in. Dean flipped channels and Sam made calls outside. Jo wondered who he was talking to, but as she didn’t really care, the wondering didn’t last long. She slipped off her shoes and yawned.

Dean flipped off the tv and held up the handcuffs, dangling them from his fingers. “You’re tired, I’m tired. Time for nighty-night.”

Jo shook her head. “Oh come on. You’re not serious.”

“I’m completely serious. We need sleep and I won’t get any unless you’re cuffed either to me or the bed. Which’ll it be, sweetheart?” His mood had greatly improved after an evening of decent food and mindless television.

She chose the bed, climbing beneath the covers and adjusting them. He handcuffed her to the side that had nothing she could reach for. No Gideon Bible, no alarm clock, nothing. She couldn’t even reach the curtains to tug on the cord and open them. There was smooth, blank wall on her side of the bed. Only one wrist was confined -- her right one. He’d asked which side she slept on. She’d accepted that he didn’t already know.

The room went quiet as Dean settled on the other side of the bed. He’d left the light on for Sam, whose voice could be heard faintly through the door. His conversation sounded business-like in tone.

Jo closed her eyes. She kept them closed as Sam came in the room and drifted to sleep before he’d turned out the light.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sam thought Dean wanted a ‘moment’ with Jo too much; that when the ‘moment’ came it’d be a let-down because his anticipation had been high. He sat up and looked over at the other bed. Though Dean had most of the bed to sleep on, he’d gravitated in sleep to the spot right beside Jo, turned facing her with one hand close to her body, like he’d been reaching for her in dreams.

They were making progress with her. He just didn’t think it was any of their doing really. He suspected that, like he had, her mind was rebelling against Zachariah’s programming and it had simply taken the time since her death and resurrection to get to this point. The human body was amazing in how it could heal itself. He had no doubt that that was what was happening, too. Jo’s mind was healing from what Zachariah had done, those connections Castiel had said were shredded slowly knitting together.

It was a good thing, in his opinion, that she had them with her to explain some of those things she’d be dreaming about. Otherwise, she might have thought she was going completely crazy.

He got out of bed and dressed, a little proud that he’d managed to sleep a total of four hours this time. There were human details attached to having a soul that he’d forgotten when without it -- such as the restorative properties of a good nights rest. When not sleeping, he hadn’t gotten those benefits and now that he was, Sam decided he was better for it.

It had been a long road for him. Dean, admittedly, hadn’t done a very good job of selling the benefits of having a soul very well. He’d left out the good things involved. Sam was glad he’d gotten his soul back after it was all said and done, despite the pains that went with it.

To feel again…. Honest emotions, the good and the bad, running through him on a daily basis. Not simply sensory sensations, but also the emotional. It was almost a heady rush at times and occasionally, he’d felt he was experiencing something for the first time when he knew he wasn’t. He’d become himself again, whole once more, and that process had been painful. He still had many things to deal with, of course, but Dean was there, helping him through it. The road to full recovery was going to take awhile.

Sam went into the bathroom.

The same could be said about Jo, he decided. Her road to self was going to take awhile, even if the memories came whooshing back in a single wave. There’d be things she was going to need to deal with, such as the loss of Ellen. She’d have to experience grief for that, maybe anger for what had been done to her. Emotions. He thought she’d feel some of them very keenly for awhile. Like him. Like Cas had when he’d briefly become human.

He wondered if Castiel missed the emotions of being human. Did he long for them? Maybe one of these days he and Cas would have the time to sit down together and compare experiences. He smiled a little at the thought, imagining Castiel thinking such a conversation was pointless yet engaging in it anyway because it was practice at human interaction that he sorely needed.

Like nerdy humans, nerdy angels sometimes weren’t the best at human interaction.

Sam left the bathroom and clicked off the light.

Jo made a noise, moving restlessly beneath the covers, rolling onto her side to face Dean. The position looked awkward because of her handcuffed wrist. She made another noise, this time louder. Dean’s hand raised, fumbled a moment along her side, then found her hip and smoothed along it in what looked to be a comforting pass.

“S’okay,” Dean mumbled.

Both remained sound asleep.

Interesting. Dean rousing enough to note Jo needing comfort in her sleep.

Sam studied them a long moment. It was funny in a way. Dean had craved a normal life so badly, yet upon hearing from Cas that Jo had a normal, albeit not very good, life he’d jumped to go after her and get the hunter back. He was desperate for that. Did he even see the contradiction in it? Jo had normal in her mind as her life, given to her by Zachariah no matter what his intentions had been. She could -- if the dreams didn’t force her into true reality -- live that life until death. Dean though, sought to return her to her natural state, a life he’d claimed could have no sense of normal or even happiness. He was discounting that normal life, rejecting it in Jo’s stead. Granted, the old Jo would want that. She’d want Dean and Sam both to fight to get her back.

And Dean knew it. He knew what Jo would want in the situation and was acting accordingly. He had her figured out somewhat.

There was a connection between Jo and Dean, a spark Sam could see growing as they traveled and one that had been there beneath all of their interactions since they’d first met that day long ago in the Roadhouse; a tiny seed of ‘maybe’ and ‘what if’. It was there and Sam hoped, for Dean and Jo’s sake, that it could continue to grow and heal some of Dean’s issues with women, family, and the hunting life. They’d discussed the possibility of hunter girlfriends, he and Dean. If they got Jo back in one piece, perhaps Dean could find out what that was like. Sam suspected there was a world of difference between a civilian girlfriend and a hunter girlfriend who’d been raised in the life to some extent.

Dean deserved romantic happiness.

Maybe Jo could be the one to make him happy that way.

~~~~~~~~~

Jo’s dreams had been more flashes of tracking down monsters and killing them, though she wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t fueled by her current association with Sam and Dean. They accepted all of those things as normal, if their conversations along the way had been any indication. In fact, their calm acceptance of all of that in turn helped to keep her calm about those things she was dreaming.

It was still early when she opened her eyes. The motel was quiet. While she’d expected Dean to be under the covers with her, he wasn’t, sprawled instead on his stomach on top of them. Jo remained still, watching him. He was a gorgeous man physically. There was something appealing about Dean Winchester that went beyond the physical. She was attracted to him in more than just that fundamental way. Her attraction went deeper, a thing she didn’t quite understand.

Did she still hate him? Jo didn’t think she did anymore. He certainly wasn’t the man of her memories. But who was he in her dreams? She’d yet to see much of him in them, a glimpse here and there.

“You need to use the bathroom or anything? I could unlock the cuffs.”

She raised her head. Sam was on the other bed, wide awake, with papers, books, and magazines strewn about him, his laptop open beside him. He looked like he’d been up for hours “Soon.”

“How’s your head? Pain gone yet?”

“The pain is bearable, but it’s still there.”

“Hungry?”

“A little.”

“I’m gonna head out for coffee soon. Still too early to think about waking Dean up. I can bring something back.”

“Can’t we get a sit-down breakfast? I’m tired of McDonalds.”

“After yesterday? You ran again, Jo.”

“Do you blame me, Sam? Besides, I behaved at dinner. No messages in lipstick on the bathroom mirror or pleas for help to the staff as I walked by them.”

Beside her, Dean stirred, arm snaking across her stomach. He made a satisfied noise low in his throat, hand grasping her side, slipping a bit beneath her t-shirt, thumb caressing. He shifted closer. With a last unintelligible mumble, he sighed, and stilled once more.

Jo shot an irritated glare his way and continued, lowering her voice. “You two kidnapped me, keep telling me my life isn’t my life, that my reality is fantasy and my dreams are reality, and you wonder why I ran when you turned your backs? I’d think you had to be smart to get into Stanford.”

He closed the laptop. “How did you know I went there? I mean, if we never met before the other day, how would you know that?”

Jo turned her face away, looking at the ceiling. There was a large water stain in the shape of Texas. He made a good point. How did she know some of those things that had been popping up in her head? She shouldn’t. And she had met him as early as Duluth, likely before, which meant she had known Dean had a brother and had been acquainted with Sam. It all circled back to what she thought was dreams being truth and her life wasn’t what it seemed. “I’ll admit we did meet before then.”

Getting up, he snagged the keys and came over, crouching beside the bed. “Have you remembered anything else?” He undid the cuffs, but Jo couldn’t get up due to Dean’s arm weighing her down.

“Little things.”

“Like what?” He indicated Dean’s arm. “I can move that if you want to get up.”

“Please.”

He lifted Dean’s arm and Jo slid from the bed and went into the bathroom. When she emerged, he’d moved to the table. She joined him.

“I’m getting the feeling that key things I have as real memories aren’t actually what I think they are. Tell me the truth about Duluth, Sam. What was going on there?”

The truth was wild. A demon had taken him over and tried to get Dean to kill him. The telling took awhile. Sam gave her more detail that fleshed out what she already knew.

She shook her head. “You know, it sounds like a movie plot, right?” He agreed with a slow nod of his head. “What I can’t get straight are the things the…demon…said to me. Things about my dad and about him and your dad.”

Sam crossed his arms on the table top. “I’d like to tell you, Jo, really I would, but I can’t. Not until you remember that part. You can’t think it’s a prompting from something either Dean or I have said. What you see that comes back to you has to be from your own mind. You understand?”

“That’s what Dean told me. He wouldn’t give me details on anything. Philadelphia. Carthage.” She saw him flinch at the last one. “You flinched, Sam. Why did you flinch?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“No, I want to know.”

“You will. Eventually, you’ll remember Carthage, too.”

His voice held such sadness that Jo wasn’t sure she wanted to remember Carthage or what had happened there to cause that sorrow.

Pain lanced through her temples, spread across her forehead, and settled behind her eyes like a really bad migraine. She hissed from it.

She couldn’t move. Sam knelt beside her, holding her hand for a brief moment, replaced soon by Dean, who kissed her and then…. Then that woman she’d been dreaming about was there with her, comforting, maternal. ‘You got me, Jo.’ Numbness took her the rest of the way and finally…the waiting darkness engulfed her.

“Jo?”

She blinked, dislodging tears she hadn’t even realized were there. The pieces of memory clicked into place inside her.

His hand covered hers. “You okay?”

Jo pulled her hand from beneath his and wiped the tears away. “I’m fine, Sam.” She turned her head.

Sam had said the day before that she’d been a damn good hunter by ‘the end’ and she knew that when she’d shared that kiss with Dean it had felt as though her world was ending. Had her world literally ended? Had she died that day in Carthage?

“You’re not fine. I can see it. You just remembered something. What was it?”

She was saved from answering by Dean waking up and asking Sam to get coffee.

The true memory of that darkness stayed with her, an unwanted ghost as they prepared to meet the day.