Title: Nothing and Everything

Chapter 9

~~~~~~~~~~

The building was at the back of the property, behind a tangle of bushes and brambles. Ellen and Gwen approached with caution, sweeping their lights across the structure. The gloomy day had become more so when they’d pulled into the long driveway, clouds hanging low, the undersides dark with rain. The building was the size of a two-car garage and looked to have an upper level.

Ellen and Gwen made their way around it, moving slowly and from opposite sides. They’d exchange notes back at the front of the building. Ellen’s boots crunched on sticks and leaves. Brambles caught at the fabric of her clothes.

It felt good to be back out doing something, even if it was just checking out a property the Campbell family had on a list. She was rethinking her decision to retire from the field. Retirement just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and she couldn’t say no one had warned her either. Bobby had tried to tell her, as had Rufus, who’d come fully out of retirement now and was busy making trouble all over the country. Computer work bored her to tears and she was playing up her former troubles with the temperamental desktop at Bobby’s just to have Sam or Gwen come out and help her. It was pure manipulation on her part and they all knew it. The two didn’t mind.

Bobby had been making noises recently about how it had been nice to have a woman’s touch when they’d gone with Rufus after one of the cursed objects and he wouldn’t mind having that touch more often. Sometimes she wondered if he was flirting with her when he said things like that. Ellen wasn’t entirely certain she’d recognize Bobby flirting with her if he did. They’d fallen into a comfortable routine together. She’d go to his house, spending more of her time there than at her own, cook meals and stay late working or talking. She liked their routine. It felt…nice. Comfortable was the right word.

She returned her attention to the matter at hand. There was one entrance and three windows, two on the lower level and one on the upper. Up close, the paint was worn and peeling in places. Around the building were symbols, painted in a light paint very close to the white of the building. A few of the symbols she wasn’t familiar with, but one she noticed gave her a jolt of shock. She shook her head a little and wondered what else she hadn’t known about her husband.

Oh, Bill, what were you doing running with the Campbells? And how come you never mentioned them?

Or had he? The name would have meant nothing to her back then, just another name among many he’d tossed out. It suddenly occurred to her that she might not have known Bill Harvelle as well as she’d thought she had, though she did remember him once telling her that he still had some secrets from his past and would tell them later. A few he’d said he had to work himself up to the telling.

Later had never come. All that had come was an empty grave, his body salted and burned in California without her or Jo ever seeing the sort of mess the hellspawn had carved him into. Probably a mercy to them, but at the time, it hadn’t felt like one. It had felt like John was hiding something from them.

She swallowed hard and shoved those reminiscences back down. It was still painful after all these years to let them surface.

Ellen took pictures while Gwen took video, carefully documenting. That had been Sam’s suggestion and one Dean had agreed would be useful later. The more documentation the better. Change had hit the Winchester-Harvelle-Campbell family like a tide, sweeping them all along whether they wanted to go or not. It was unavoidable if they wanted to continue hunting, and they did. They were implementing new strategies, getting used to them in controlled (fairly anyway) environments before taking them to the field.

They checked for traps, slowly opened the door and stepped inside, shining lights all around. The room was lined with shelves, with free standing units in rows in the center. All were packed with boxes that were neatly labeled in Campbell code. It didn’t even take Ellen a minute anymore to figure out what each said. To one side of the door was a clipboard and Ellen took it down from the hook it was on, glancing through the pages. It was all junk stored here, mementos going back for many long years, the sort of things people stored when they couldn’t bear to get rid of objects.

She let out a disappointed sigh. This wasn’t the sort of storage unit they’d be interested in.

“Boring junk,” Gwen announced, rifling through one of the nearest boxes. “I don’t get it. Why the symbols outside if there’s nothing here worth protecting?”

“An attempt to keep privacy? To keep mementos from falling into enemy hands?”

Gwen dragged one box over and flipped the lid off it completely. She held up ratty t-shirts and what looked like a tutu. “Yeah, the enemy can do so much with dirty, old clothes.” She began to spread them out, her hands faltering. There were things she’d missed in that initial appraisal. One shirt was ripped in a claw pattern, a dark rust colored stain along the edges of the rips. Another had a greenish stiff stain down the front. The tutu, for it was that, had rust colored stains on half of it.

“Take the rest out,” Ellen told her and crouched down beside her, finding the box number on the list. The list told her it was ‘Ellis, Margaret, Rose.’ At the bottom of the box was a doll, the same sort that Jo had once painted a symbol on and thrown into the trash, allowing Ellen to fully place the time period. The tutu was for a girl about the age Jo had been. The doll looked like it had been hastily cleaned, but there were still traces of flaking reddish something (blood, it had to be blood) on the body.

“These aren’t just boxes of junk,” Gwen said, sitting back on her heels.

“No, they aren’t,” Ellen agreed. “They’re cleanups.” Items taken in an attempt to cleanup involvement in a scene. Maybe the bodies had been taken, salted, and burned like John had done with Bill. But why keep the clothes? Why not burn them too?

To remember past mistakes, her mind drawled. They kept them so that they wouldn’t forget the mistakes that had cost them everything.

“Campbell?”

“Maybe.” Which got her thinking. Looking at the items that had been in the box and having an idea why they had been kept…were there maybe items from Aaron’s death in there somewhere? She scanned the list, found two boxes she thought could be possibilities. “Check a few more of these,” she told Gwen as she got up and moved to the back of the building, following the numbers.

She found the first box and opened it. Inside were papers and she looked at them. She recognized the handwriting. Even after years had passed, she recognized it.

Bill Harvelle.

Ellen’s heart beat a bit faster in her chest and she took a closer look at the list on the clipboard, then the papers in the box. “Oh God,” she put a hand over her mouth.

Gwen came over and crouched down beside her. “Ellen?”

“Get these in the car. Please. These two.” She indicated the two boxes with a hand that had begun to shake.

“Why? What’s in them?”

“This isn’t a Campbell property, Gwen.” She shook her head and gave a shrug. “It’s Harvelle.”

He’d given them the key, it was there in his papers. He’d sent the key to them to take care of the place because he was settling down. He hadn’t wanted his new, young wife to know everything yet, though he planned to tell all eventually. He’d trusted them to keep this secret and they had, to all their graves until now.

Ellen blinked back tears and she almost suggested they pull over and burn the boxes in the nearest field. But she didn’t. Her curiosity was now high. Why had Bill wanted to keep the property a secret? What was in it? Or was it just the fact of what the things there were?

Upon returning, Ellen went home to think. She stayed awake most of the night, her thoughts turning in furious circles. Bill had known the Campbell family. How well had he known them? Were they one of the secrets he’d kept, or had the name just not stuck in her head? He had occasionally mentioned other hunters and seemed to have known a lot that had come through the Roadhouse. Just how connected had he been and why hadn’t she considered it before?

Gwen pulled up the pictures on the laptop for her and angled it so Sam, Dean, and Jo could see them. “Here.”

“Looks like what I found.” Dean glanced at Ellen. “Same symbols.”

Her stomach churned. Both properties were in Nebraska, a close drive to the home she and Bill had shared. “You know the symbols?”

Dean frowned, studying the screen. He had Jack in his arms, feeding him a bottle. “Some. Not all.” The boy was noisy, smacking his lips around the nipple of the bottle and making contented murmurs.

Sam squinted. “They’re obscure. Not Enochian, but…obscure, like middle ages stuff. Dean and I’ve come across a few here and there over the years.” He pointed. “This one I recognize from one of the books we took from the Campbell compound. Supposed to repel ‘creatures of mischief’.”

Jo snorted. “A blanket symbol. They’re all creatures of mischief.”

“Why are you asking Ellen?” Dean set the bottle down and sat back in his chair, adjusting Jack so he could burp him. He had it down pat now, holding a cloth so that if the boy spit up the cloth would catch it.

“You’re sure it was in one of the Campbell books, Sam?” Gwen crossed her arms. “You’re positive?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Want me to get the book out?” He waved a hand at one set of bookshelves. “It’s right over there in that case.”

“No,” Ellen told him, “we just wanted to make sure you’re certain where you found it.”

“Why, mom?”

“Because Bill Harvelle knew them.” She clicked on one picture to bring it up. “This is his signature, the symbol there. He tended to mark things, told me once it made it easy to know if he’d already been there once. Said that as much as he’d traveled around, places blurred together.” Ellen shrugged. “He knew them. He gave them the key to the property. It’s not a Campbell property, it’s a Harvelle property. I think some of that in there is your heritage, Jo.”

The news stunned Dean, Sam, and Jo. They all looked at each other and she could see the wondering in their eyes. None of them knew much about Bill Harvelle and it appeared to Ellen that she hadn’t know much.

“Did Neal and Patricia ever come in the Roadhouse,” Sam asked in a careful tone.

“Might’ve,” Ellen answered. “There were times I wasn’t working and Bill was. Could’ve come in then. Hell, they could’ve been some of the mourners came through after he died and I wouldn’t have known it. Didn’t pay too much attention right then to faces. They could have paid their respects and been just two more faces in the crowd.”

“Small world,” Dean remarked. “Never would have guessed he knew them.”

“I never did guess. Never occurred to me though it should have. He was from a hunting family. Stands to reason the families ran into each other over the decades. Both old in the profession. There was probably a professional courtesy in there somewhere. And it is too small,” she agreed. “It really is. Hunters knowing other hunters’ business. Word traveling. Chain reaction in the hunting community. But in some ways it’s too big. Still a lot of unconnected hunters out there, like you boys were when we met, thinking there are only a handful running around, having no idea there’s a network. Maybe there’s someone out there still alive who knows the story of Bill and them.”

The topic floundered and Ellen understood why. It was painful for her to consider right now and they knew that. They weren’t going to press it. She stayed the day with them, enjoying spending time with all of them. They discussed the scarcity of jobs of late and as they did, her attention gradually rested on Jo and Dean. Ellen let loose a small internal sigh as she saw what was happening between them.

Her daughter, normally astute to Dean’s moods, was ignoring the warning signs that he wasn’t going to deal well with Jo’s return to the field. She’d put blinders on in her sprint towards that goal, so focused on it that she completely missed the turmoil in Dean.

Oh Jo honey, she thought. Give him a big break when he screws up, because you’re both gonna make it a doozy.

Ellen thought about interfering and sitting them both down and decided it wasn’t her place to do that. It was between Dean and Jo and they had to make those mistakes to learn and grow from them. She hoped they’d recover from what Ellen thought was coming.

When she began to yawn, she took her leave of them, returning to her own house and deciding she’d make sense of whatever Bill’s connection to the Campbell clan had been in the next few days.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo let herself into Ellen’s house and called out, “Mom?”

“In the kitchen,” she called back. Ellen had a stack of picture albums on the table and one open before her, slowly flipping pages.

Jo shifted Jack a little and leaned over to look at the pictures. “What’s going on?”

She sighed. “I got to thinking about your father and his life before we got married.”

A consequence of the property she and Gwen had gone to. Ellen had been pensive and moody for days now about it. Jo had been reluctant to bring up the subject with her.

“You know, I’ve had these albums for years and only looked at them a handful of times, mostly back before you came along.” She turned a page. “I never asked many questions and he was never too inclined to elaborate unless I pushed him, but he could have known them Jo. Really known them well. I mean, he got around before we met, the handsome drifter, mysterious stranger. He was old when he was still very young. Sometimes Dean reminds me of him. Anyway,” she turned another page, “I decided that since I had the Campbell pages out, I might as well drag out the Harvelle ones and see if I could find connections anywhere. Picture proof of knowing. Has to be some. As picture happy as Gwen says Neal was? And as picture happy as Bill was?”

“Could be nothing.”

“Joanna Beth, it’s something. They wouldn’t have had that key and address if it was nothing. He knew them, they knew him, and I’m betting it was more than a casual acquaintance. You don’t give a key to a place like that out to people you don’t trust to keep it safe. He knew them and trusted at least one of them. It might even have been Neal. His age is right.”

“Okay.” Jo nodded. Her mother was upset, focused on finding proof now that she had a connection in one way. “What can I do to help?” Jack turned his head, pressing against her breast and she glanced down as he began to fuss.

“First, you feed the boy, then start pulling pictures of people out of these, tacking them on the right side of the wall over there.” She gestured with a hand. “I’m hoping to find common faces.”

“I just fed him before I left,” she protested. The past few days he’d been wanting to eat every couple hours and he was growing through clothes as fast as she could wash them.

“Welcome to the wonderful world of breastfeeding.”

Was that a smirk she just saw? It was, wasn’t it? “He never stops eating. He’s always hungry.”

“He’s a growing boy and Dean’s son. You’d expected otherwise?”

She sat in a chair and when Jack had latched on, she sighed. “I didn’t expect to have him attached to my boobs twenty-four-seven.”

“It’s a fact of motherhood.”

“It’s something of a damper on public activities. I’m really rethinking the whole bottle feeding formula thing.”

“You could go half and half. Breast at day, bottle at night.” She set a couple pictures to one side. “When’s your appointment?”

“Four days.” She couldn’t wait, either. Four days until she was pronounced fit to return to work. Freedom. She’d missed being out on jobs; missed the process of an actual hunt. Jo was so ready to be out there in the field that she could taste it.

Hours later, while Ellen laid down with a cool cloth over her eyes in an attempt to quell a raging migraine, Jo found the connection her mother was desperate to find. It was a picture of three men, all three muddy and disheveled, standing behind a table holding beer bottles and grinning. On the table was a box with symbols on it that she couldn‘t quite make out. They had the look of a job well done and they were glad for it. Bill Harvelle on one end, Neal Campbell on the other and the man in the middle? Though Jo had only seen the picture of Aaron Carys a couple times, she recognized him only because the grin on the man’s face was Gwen’s.

Bill, Neal, and Aaron. Obviously friends.

She sat back, contemplating the picture. It brought a new layer to their reality and definitely made Jo’s father seem more complex to her. A man of mystery. He’d been friends with Gwen’s birth father and the one who’d raised her. Aaron had died first, then Bill, and finally Neal many years later. Had Aaron been the common glue between them that had held them all together? It was a curiosity to her.

The picture seemed to calm Ellen. “I knew there was a connection somewhere.”

“So he knew him. What difference does it make?”

“It makes a big difference, Jo. All those properties? Might not all be Campbell. Might be Carys too, or whatever his real name was. Might be all three and the Campbell family were just the caretakers for the other two on them. It adds a sense of real history, something tangible that we can find. We are finding it, in slow degrees. If it’s Carys too, we could open up a box and there’s everything Gwen ever wanted to know.”

“Mom --”

“Generations grow apart, Jo. God, you know that. Look at me and John. Your dad’s death stopped him coming round. Who knows what might’ve happened if your dad had lived and John never stopped coming by the Roadhouse? Maybe you would have ended up playing with Sam as a kid. Maybe we could’ve had them as family a lot sooner. One thing can change a generation.” She tapped the picture with a finger. “There was something there, you can see it in the way they’re standing.”

She just didn’t see how it made a difference in today’s world. The past was the past. It was done with. What did it matter who had originally had the properties? They’d all ended up with one family in the end. “But it’s all past events.”

“Don’t you want to know more about your dad? Aren’t you curious where this could lead?”

“Of course I am, but mom, anything that happened was a long time ago and hasn’t had any effect on us today. It makes no difference if he knew them except in maybe giving Gwen some sort of real closure on her dad and I don’t see how it can because all you have is a hypothetical what if situation. We don’t know there are Carys properties. How would we even identify them? The only ones we can identify with any certainty were dad’s.”

“Am I being silly wanting to follow this backwards, Jo?”

“No. I don’t think so. But it’s not our focus. Dad knew both of them. We’ve established that. The picture indicates it.” She shrugged. “He knew a lot of people. You’ve said that before. It was like he knew everyone who came through the door of the Roadhouse. I could say the same about you. It’s how it always felt to me growing up. Dad knew them. Great. Let’s file it away and go forward. Maybe we’ll find something that’ll indicate there are Carys properties, but at present all we know is there are Campbell ones and two Harvelle ones on the list. We can’t go on assumption. It’s dangerous to do that. You know that. You taught me that.”

Slowly Ellen nodded. “Help me put the pictures away?”

She kept the picture out of the three men to give to Gwen and tucked it away in the diaper bag to take home.

Four days later, Jo left her appointment with a giddy sensation running rampant inside her. It was time. She returned home and dropped her bag on the table, announcing with a grin, “I can go back to work. Doc says.”

There was silence. Sam looked at Gwen, Gwen looked at Ellen, and they all looked at Dean, who finished with one clipping before looking up at Jo.

“Hell you can,” he replied. “You’re still breastfeeding.”

“It’s what the pump’s for.” He knew that. He’d watched her use it enough. “Besides, I’m ready to put him on formula.”

“You planning on discussing that with me?”

She spread her arms, shrugged, and put her hands on her hips. “You got a problem with it?”

Sam sucked in a noisy breath and started closing folders. “Well, I’ll be, uh…”

Ellen shoved back her chair and stood. “Errands. I have errands.”

Gwen glanced at her watch. “Look at the time! Think I’ll --”

“Where do you three think you’re going,” Dean barked.

Ellen put her hands flat on the table and leaned down so she was eye to eye with him. “This should be a private discussion between you,” she snapped back.

His gaze flicked to her for a second, then returned to Jo. “Fine. We’ll take it upstairs.” Standing, he took Jo’s arm in a grip that was almost tight enough to pinch, drawing her with him to the stairs and urging her to go up ahead of him.

She jerked her arm free. “What bug crawled up your butt and died?”

He slammed the door to the stairway behind them. At the top of the stairs he asked, “Formula?”

“What’s your problem with putting him on formula? You were saying just two days ago that you wanted to help out more with feeding him. Now you can.” She didn’t think it was really about the formula though. Not this extreme reaction.

“A little discussion would be nice before you make a big decision like that.”

She quirked a brow. “Okay. I don’t have a problem with it, you don’t have a problem with it. There. Discussed and decided. He goes on formula.” She shook her head. “I’m going back to work. Having him on formula will help.”

“Hell you are.”

“Hell I’m not.” She crossed her arms. “You have two choices here, Dean. You can either help me pick out a hunt or get out of my way, because I’m going back into the field whether you like it or not.”

He also crossed his arms. “Not.”

This was the issue right here. Her return to the field. Jo softened her tone a fraction, trying to diffuse this before it got too heated. “It’s my job too, sweetheart.”

“How are we going to take care of Jack on the road, hmm?”

“Don’t need to. We have enough people for two teams and about seven options for going out, excluding all combinations that would have you and me out together.” Raising her hands as fists, she raised a finger to count each option off. “Me and Gwen, me and Sam, you and Gwen, you and Sam, or Sam and Gwen. Or…me, Gwen, and Sam, or you, Gwen, and Sam. Mom will take Jack for short weekend trips if you and I do need to be out together or the four of us do. It’s workable.”

His jaw tightened, arms uncrossing. He seemed to realize just how much she’d been thinking this over, a spark of fear in his eyes that he tried to mask, yet she could still see there. “You’ve been thinking about it.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but thinking for months now.”

“What if you die out there, Jo?”

“What if you do? I’m not going to not do the job out of fear. I’ve told you that before.”

He turned his head, looked at the cork tile wall, swallowed hard, and returned his attention to her. “Spend six months here. Put together cases --”

The word ’safe’ was implied. She shook her head. “No. I’ve been sidelined long enough. I need to be out there helping people.”

“What about helping our son grow up? Isn’t that important?” Desperation creeping into his voice.

“Don’t guilt trip me. I could turn that right around onto you.” Stretching out a hand, she touched his chest, slowly resting her entire palm against him. “I know this isn’t what you want for your family, but honey…Dean…this is your family. I can’t be any other way and you knew that. You knew it and you married me anyway. You knew it and you stayed when I got pregnant, so don’t act like you had no idea this day was coming. You knew.”

“I did,” he acknowledged, “but I didn’t expect it so soon. I thought there’d be more time….”

“It’s time now. I know it is.”

He jerked back, turning away. “No. It’s not time. Just a little longer, Jo.”

“No.”

“We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.”

“I’m going.”

“You’re not.”

He seemed to think the subject was closed, a frustrating thing to Jo and though she tried to find a way to bring it up again without prodding his temper beyond restraint and completely ticking him off, she couldn’t think of a way to do it. She went to take a shower, standing beneath the spray ruminating upon it. She was going to have to tell him she was going after the Flapper dress and he wasn’t going to like it.

She got out and dried off, then wrapped the towel around herself and headed for their room. Dean was by the window just inside the door, shirtless, his pajama pants riding low on his hips. She closed the door and turned. He was right there close, having moved silently.

He grabbed her wrists and swung her against the wall, one hand loosing one wrist and tugging first the towel away, then the clip she’d used to keep her hair up and from getting wet. He dropped both, pressing her to the wall, his mouth coming down hard on hers, the ensuing kisses and caresses tinged with a hint of that desperation she’d heard in his voice earlier.

Jo wrapped her arms around Dean’s bare shoulders, hands sliding on skin that was hot to touch, feeling the muscles at play beneath the skin as he lifted her and carried her to their bed.

Dean didn’t say anything, he simply acted with an insistence that made her heartbeat quicken and sent a rushing of desire through her veins. The sheets on the bed were soft beneath her back, his weight a welcome press over her.

It had been so long….

To Jo, it felt like their first night together all over again and a return to that newness. He explored her body as though he’d never done so before and Jo, in turn, did the same. She found the spots that made him shudder, gasp, and groan, teasing those spots and enjoying the fact that she could still wring such responses from him after their months together.

Hours passed and when they finally laid still and spent, exhausted and sweating, Dean pressed a kiss to her temple, his voice sleepy. “I love you, Jo. Don’t you ever doubt that. I’d be a different man without you.”

She snuggled closer and fell asleep with his arms around her.

The secure sensation Jo had on waking in the morning twined with the joy of realizing that Jack had slept through the night for the first time. It had to be some sort of an omen. He never slept through the night. She got out of bed, careful not to wake Dean, and looked in on their son before taking a shower and getting dressed.

She went downstairs and was pouring herself a mug of coffee when Sam and Gwen came in the house. From the look of them, they’d been out running together -- a good workout for Gwen to keep up with him and not much of one for Sam since he had to slow his pace so she could keep up. “Good run,” she asked and took a sip of the coffee. The baby monitor registered Jack beginning to stir.

“Terrific,” Sam replied, getting a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water.

“Tough,” Gwen corrected, blotting her face with a towel. “Not sure running together was a good idea or not. I’m winded and ready to drop and he never is.”

Sam finished his water and chuckled. “You love it. You know you do.” He set the glass in the sink and jerked a thumb towards the doorway. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Gwen leaned against the counter. “I take it you and Dean made up?”

“Did we ever.” Jo began fixing a bottle. “How would you feel about going out on a pick up with me?”

“Say when and I’m totally there.”

“Today.”

Gwen paused before answering. “And Dean’s okay with that?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He’s not okay, but he will be once we get back in one piece.”

“Oh. So what’s the item?”

She let a little grin slip free. “Flapper dress. I got an email from Mary-Louise Sheffield’s representative a couple days ago.”

“Jo! You didn’t tell me!”

“Didn’t want to get too excited until after my appointment. Anyway, the dress has been included in the auction scheduled for four days from now. Sent me a listing of the items being auctioned. I thought we could go, lift it before the auction, and head back.”

“Security?”

“Minimal on the clothing items. No one appears to share Mary-Louise’s paranoia, which is our gain. I get the feeling her husband thinks she’s a silly airhead. Should be fairly easy to grab.”

“Sounds good. I’ll start packing after I shower.”

“Awesome. We’ll need to hit the store before we go. I want to pick up formula, diapers, and a few trip provisions. Give Dean as little as possible to use as an excuse to try to keep me from going.” She had a feeling he was going to grasp at anything he could.

“Not a problem. I’ll go shower and start packing then.”

Jo timed her announcement for the middle of breakfast. Sam and Gwen had already eaten earlier, but they were drinking coffee while Jo and Dean ate. There wasn’t any easy way to say it so she just did. “Gwen and I are heading out later today to pick up the Flapper dress. It’s an approximate two day drive there and two days back, plus a day to locate and nab, maybe two depending on the building and staffing present. Figure a week total.”

The look on Dean’s face was one of betrayal: shock, anger, and fear all blended together. He seemed to pale as he stared at her, then slammed down his silverware and shoved back his chair. He left his breakfast unfinished.

“Dean?”

Across the table, Gwen and Sam exchanged worried glances.

The door slammed and Jo closed her eyes. She’d hoped he’d had time to accept this, but apparently he really was going to drag his heels.

“I could go after him,” Sam offered.

She opened her eyes. “No, that’s okay Sam, thanks. Let him cool off. He knew this was coming. I told him yesterday. He just needs to….” She shrugged.

He nodded. “Work through it.”

“Yeah.”

He wasn’t working through it though, staying outside in the yard, by the Impala, and in the garage, refusing to go with Sam to Bobby’s house. Gwen took Sam out to Bobby’s and returned to pack. Jo watched Dean through the windows, trying to gauge his mood. Was he calming down any? He didn’t appear to be.

Jo laid Jack down for his mid-morning nap and chewed on a thumbnail a moment in indecision. If she backed down now, he’d do this again and again, getting his way every time and that wasn’t how this needed to be. She had to be out there doing the job. It was as much in her as it was in him. Turning from the window, she went to finish her own packing.

~~~~~~~~~~

Morning came quickly, dragging with it an anxiety Dean just couldn’t shake. He rolled onto his back in bed, covers bunched at his waist, listening to Jo singing softly to Jack on the monitor. Dread slid along his body and made itself at home. How soon until she said she was going on a job? It wouldn’t be long now. Had she found one? He hoped not. He hoped the prospects would remain slim for her searching.

Jo’s announcement over breakfast took away his appetite completely and he stormed outside, refusing to go back in the house as long as she was actively packing. He wasn’t going to pretend he condoned this action by helping. He puttered around the yard, doing a piss-poor job of yard work and mangling the back bushes, then puttered around in the garage, doing an equally bad job in there, and finally opened up the Impala.

There was nothing to do beneath the hood, yet Dean pretended to work anyway, keeping an eye on Jo and Gwen as they strapped Jack in the backseat of Gwen’s car and prepared to make a run in to the grocery store. They were chatty, laughing and talking, and to him, it felt like a huge kick in the gut.

Jo was really going to go out on a job. She knew his fears. He’d asked her not to go, to take more time, and she was still going.

She looked over at him and he quickly returned his attention to the engine. He heard her footsteps on the gravel as she approached.

“Dean?” Her voice was gentle and low. Careful, he decided. Her tone was careful, like she thought he might fly off the handle right now.

Nausea curled in his belly. “What?” He didn’t straighten or turn around.

“We’ll be back in a couple hours, then go over our route with you, pack the car and go.”

“Fine.”

“We’re swinging by mom’s house. Anything you want us to take over?”

“No.”

“Anything you want us to pick up at the store while we’re there? Some beer?”

“No.”

“Dean.”

“What?”

She made a frustrated noise. “Will you quit pretending to be working on her and look at me?”

She knew he was pretending. He should have realized that. Dean sighed and turned his head. “What, Jo?”

Her arms were crossed, a defensive posture. “Could you maybe not be a dick about this?”

“What do you want me to say? You’re for going, I’m against. We’ve covered this. You know where I stand on it and I’m not going to pretend I’m okay with you going out on a job when I’m not okay with it.”

“I’m going.”

“And you’ve made that abundantly clear. So go already.” He said the words with a far harsher tone than he’d intended.

There was a flicker of hurt in her eyes and she blinked several times in rapid succession.

Clearing the tears, he thought. She’s starting to cry.

“We’ll be back in a bit.” Her voice quivered a fraction and Jo turned and got in the car.

They were gone in minutes and Dean closed the hood and went inside. Thoughts swirled in his mind in unceasing frantic circles, had been since he’d woken and Jo had made her announcement, coalescing into one terrified thought: what if this supposedly simple easy job ended with her dying?

That thought continued in his mind like a drill trying to punch even deeper inside him.

…dying, dying, dying…

He couldn’t let that happen, had to protect her from it ever happening. He couldn’t lose her, not now, not when everything was finally right. If he lost her now, it’d be a disaster. He couldn’t lose her. He needed her. Dean knew it as surely as he knew he needed air to breathe.

Air he wasn’t getting.

Breathe. Why can’t I breathe?

He gasped, trying to drag in air through a throat that felt like it was closing in. His heartbeat quickened, racing, and he began to experience a mild lightheaded sensation.

Can’t breathe, he thought, hands grasping the couch back, gripping it. He struggled to pull in air, images looking alternately too sharp and yet fuzzy and indistinct at the edges.

I’m panicking, he realized with a jolt of recognition, and I can’t stop it.

His shirt suddenly felt soaked with sweat, sticking to him, the house too warm, almost tropical in temperature.

Dean moved, vaguely aware that he was doing so and that each action he took made the panic ease to bearable levels. He had to move, to take action of some sort. It was the only way. Going into Sam and Gwen’s room, he searched Gwen’s bag for the file, finding it in the side pocket. He took it. He packed Sam’s bag, then his own and put them in the Impala. Next was the cooler and a few snacks they had in the cupboards. Finally, he called Sam, concocting a story he thought sounded plausible, urging him to be ready when Dean got to Bobby’s.

Every time he slowed down, reason attempting to take over, the panic increased again.

I’m screwing up, he told himself, fully understanding that what he was about to do was going to piss Jo off so completely that he might be irrevocably damaging their relationship.

But he did it anyway, his fear of losing her overriding all of it. If he did this, she wouldn’t have to. She’d be safe for another week.

Dean crossed a line he knew he shouldn’t. He did it for Jo and hoped that some day, she’d be able to understand why and maybe, possibly, forgive him.