Title: That Old Illusion of Free Will

Chapter: Eleven

Notes: “Do I offend?” with an armpit sniff is a reference to ‘Pretty in Pink’.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jimmy finished fixing dinner with Sam’s help, not Jo’s. Jo was simply too tired to stand and help.

Jo and Dean sat at opposite sides of the table staring at each other, yet not talking. Dean’s gaze remained fixed on her stomach, as though he couldn’t begin to fathom her pregnancy, which was putting Jimmy on the defensive. Dean was acting like he and Sam deserved explanations for every little thing and from where Jimmy sat, they didn’t need any explanations at all about him and Jo. It wasn’t like Jo had died as Dean’s girlfriend. She hadn’t been anyone’s girlfriend when she’d died. She’d been a single woman and when Jimmy had settled here as a widower, he’d had every right to look to her for companionship and more.

Sam, on the other hand, tried to keep things neutral. He asked questions, then watched everyone carefully as conversation went round and round. Jimmy had the feeling that Sam actually knew more than he let on; that he gleaned more information by watching than by talking.

They finished chopping vegetables for the salad, the task that Meg had interrupted, and made a full package of noodles instead of the half that he’d had planned. Noodles would help stretch the meal. It was a tactic he remembered Amelia had used often in their first couple years. Plain rice and noodles could stretch a food budget. He also brought out the last loaf of cranberry-orange bread Jo had made.

“What’s Ellen like,” he asked Sam in a low voice, slicing the bread. With the meeting of himself and Ellen now certain, he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. Not now. Not dealing with a demon and Sam and Dean’s appearance in their lives. Add in Ellen and he felt slightly panicked.

“Protective. Don’t worry, she’ll like you. As long as she knows you’re good to Jo, you’ll be set with her. Heaven help the man or beast who harms her little girl. Jo means everything to her.” Sam took the salad to the table and returned. “Trust me, Jimmy. It’s obvious you’re good to Jo. When Ellen sees that, she’ll accept you.”

Dinner was subdued, Jimmy and Sam keeping the conversation moving. They discussed music mainly, with the occasional derisive snort from Dean’s direction over Sam’s preferences and taste. Jimmy kept an eye on Jo, knowing he should have insisted she rest awhile before talking to Sam and Dean. She was exhausted, nearly asleep over her plate, not eating with her usual gusto.

Stretching out a hand beneath the table, he set it on her leg, gave a light squeeze. “You look ready to drop. Why don’t you go lie down for awhile? I mean actually lie down this time instead of waiting a few minutes and coming back out. We’ll clean up, wash the pans, and when we’re done I’ll wake you.”

One hand covered his, the other putting her fork down and pressing on her stomach. “I’m gonna have to. I can’t stay awake.” She glanced at their guests. “The life of a pregnant girl, guys. I either nap, or we continue talking tomorrow. I just can’t shop all day, deal with a demon, and stay up half the night without a nap.”

“No, go Jo. You rest. It’s fine.” Dean took the last slice of bread and put it on his plate. “Like Jimmy said, we’ll do the washing up.”

He helped her up, gave her a kiss, and when she was out of sight, he began to clear the table. “How’d you find us?”

Sam began to help him. “It wasn’t hard once we knew to look for you. We didn’t expect Jo, though. I didn’t find anything that mentioned her name. Usually wedding notices and things like that can be found online.”

“There wasn’t any announcement in the paper or anything. Nothing that could be looked up online. He shielded that information somehow. Gabriel kept it pretty under the radar that way, part of his job of protecting her.”

Dean looked up, eyes wide, gulping down the bite he’d just taken with a pained frown. “You just say Gabriel? As in archangel, likes to pretend he’s a trickster Gabriel?”

“I did. He was brought here to watch over Jo and protect her. It was supposed to be his main task until I arrived.”

“Gabriel died, Jimmy.”

“In a noble, selfless way, too,” Sam added. “He took a stand.”

He rearranged the pans in the dishwasher. “No, this was after he died. He was brought back, too.” How many people had been brought back, he wondered. More than just all of them? Were there others across the globe who’d died and returned?

Sam crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “I thought we’d seen the last of him.”

“Guess you can’t keep a smart-ass angel down,” Dean replied, sliding his plate across the table for Jimmy to take. “He the one who put Jo in a time loop?”

Jimmy nodded and closed the dishwasher. “He thought it was funny. Kept her in the loop for, I don’t know,” he shrugged, “a year, year and a half’s worth of days.”

“Yeah, he thinks that’s real funny.” Dean’s tone indicated he didn’t appreciate it nearly as much as Gabriel did.

“For awhile you even think you’re going crazy from it.” Sam looked down at the floor. “He still hanging around?”

“He pops in. I thought Castiel was going to find him earlier, after the demon, but apparently not, since he came back without him.”

When they’d finished cleaning up, Jimmy went to the bedroom to wake Jo. He hated to, since she was sound asleep, but he’d told her he would. Lying beside her with his head propped on one hand, he touched her face with soft sweeps of his fingertips.

“Time to wake up.”

She frowned, groaned.

“Come on, Jo. If you sleep too long now, you’ll be up at three wide awake.”

She shifted a little, turning her head on the pillow, her reply sleepy and interrupted by a yawn. “I’ll wake up anyway.” She stretched. “Mmm…. What time is it?”

“Time to put out a plate of cookies and give Sam and Dean some Christmas cheer.”

Her eyes opened. “Eggnog.”

“I think they might appreciate it.” He helped her up and they returned to the living room together, hand in hand.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo looked better after resting awhile, some of the tightness gone from the set of her mouth, and the shadows beneath her eyes lessened. She asked Dean to help her in the kitchen and he followed, thinking he might make one last ditch effort to convince her of the truth of her situation. It wasn’t about happiness for any of them. It never was. Happiness was fleeting in the life they led. “It’s not going to last, Jo. Some day, when you can’t have kids anymore, they’ll take Jimmy back. The angels won’t let him go.”

“You think we don’t know that? Christ, Dean. How dumb do you think we are? We know all of that.”

“And you’re still doing this?”

She set glasses on a tray, then began to fill them from a container. First eggnog in each, then some milk, whipped cream, and a dash of nutmeg. Reaching up into a cupboard, she drew out two tiny whiskey bottles and set them by two of the glasses. “You and Sam like some extra cheer with your ‘nog, right?”

“Extra cheer would be good right now.” He cleared his throat. “You got a plan for when that happens; when they take him back? Or are you going to wonder, like she did if he’s okay? Will you accept it? Or maybe hunt with kids in tow like my dad did, mad at the world for what you had and lost?”

She put the milk, eggnog, and whipped cream back in the fridge. “Maybe I’ll do what my mom did. Run a business --”

“And raise kids who know about the life and want to help so badly that they run off straight into it, then get themselves killed and resurrected over and over again because they’re important vessels. It’s not going to stop. It’s a cycle that never stops. You can tell yourself it will. You can pretend, deny, and delude yourself otherwise, but that won’t change it. They’ll die, but they won’t stay dead. Them, Jimmy. And it’s a hell all itself when they won’t let you stay dead.” He hadn’t meant to loose those words at her, nor had he meant to release the choking wave of emotion.

She turned, gaze thoughtful as she looked up at him. “How many times have you died, Dean?”

He let his attention turn from her to the tray of glasses. “I don’t know. Hundreds. I’ve lost count.”

Jo raised her hands, cupped his face like Ellen had at Bobby’s. Her touch was cool, gentle, and almost loving. Her thumbs stroked his cheeks before she slid a hand behind his neck, the other going to his shoulder and urging him to lean down. Her arms enfolded him, her cheek pressing to his. Slowly, Dean returned the hug. It was a comforting embrace, friendly yet with a motherly feel that made him want to hold on to her and never let go. Even the press of her belly comforted. Jo didn’t say anything, hands stroking his hair and back in soft sweeps.

He closed his eyes, letting himself sag against her for just a moment. In the other room, he could hear Sam and Jimmy talking and drew back, embarrassed by the emotion. He tried to give her a cocky smile, well aware that it missed that mark by several miles instead of just one. “Hey, no rest for the wicked, right?”

She made one last touch to his cheek before stepping back to the counter. “You’re a good man, Dean.” Jo adjusted the glasses. “I saw that when you walked into the Roadhouse and I saw it in Carthage when you took a moment to comfort a friend and kiss her goodbye when you knew there was no way she was going to survive. You’ve always been a good man.”

“Maybe that’s why they won’t let me go.”

“Maybe they’re afraid of what’ll become of this world without you here.” Her sidelong glance was cautious, measuring, her words giving him something to think about. It probably wasn’t true, but the thought that the angels continued to pin various hopes on him was sadly just like them. It was something they’d do.

He nodded. “Could be. Whatever the reason, I don’t think I’m going upstairs or back downstairs anytime soon.”

She took a large plate from one cupboard and reached for several large tins, opening them. Inside were different kinds of what looked to be homemade cookies. When she’d laid a random number of each kind of cookie on the plate, she closed the tins. “Carry the tray for me?”

Dean reached for it and followed her back into the living room.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gabriel’s sudden appearance as soon as there were cookies didn’t surprise Sam, though Dean looked a bit startled when the archangel materialized stretched out beside him on the couch. “Evening, everyone. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here -- minus two that is. Shall we work on a secret handshake now or later for the ‘formerly dead’ club?” He loosed a satisfied sigh and turned down Jo’s offer of eggnog, making a glass appear in his hand. “I can get my own. You just stay sitting still, pretty mama.”

“Sounds like you’ve already had a bit of cheer,” Jimmy observed, swirling his own glass a little.

“‘Tis the season to be jolly after all. Anyone need a refill?”

No one did.

“Good to see you alive, Gabriel,” Sam said, though he had mixed feelings about him. On one hand, he’d been a dick to them, but on the other, he’d given him what they’d needed to end the Apocalypse.

Gabriel smiled. “Liar. Don’t worry. I’m too busy these days to look in on you two schmucks, though if you say pretty please, I might make an exception.”

“No thank you.” Dean scooted as far from Gabriel as he could manage.

He sniffed in the general direction of his armpits and asked with wide eyes, “Do I offend?”

“Duckie, Jon Cryer,” Sam identified as Dean snapped his fingers and said, “‘Pretty in Pink’.”

Jimmy made an odd choking noise. “Which one of you has the thing for Molly Ringwald?”

Sam exchanged a glance with Dean and declined to answer. Dean however, was not as reticent.

“I’ll admit Molly was kind of cute, but ‘Pretty in Pink’ is all about Annie Potts, Jimmy. Annie Potts.”

Jo’s brows rose. “Okay. In general, Gabriel, yes you do offend.” She smiled and reached for a cookie. “But I doubt you stink. Usually you smell pretty good, like sandalwood and evergreen.”

All eyes turned to her and she shrugged. “I can notice things like that. Don’t have to like someone to think they smell good.”

“Right. Gabriel, I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Dean began.

“And so it begins.” Gabriel made a plate piled with cookies appear in his hands. “What’s your beef with me this time, Dean-o?” He selected a cookie and bit into it.

“What’s going to happen to those two,” he pointed at Jimmy and Jo, “when she can’t have kids anymore? This life they have together going to go ‘poof’?”

“Wait a minute, whoa.” Gabriel held up a hand. “What do you mean when she can’t have kids anymore?”

The way he’d said it, as though it wasn’t a thing to be concerned over, made Sam think fast and furious about what they knew and what they knew Gabriel alone was capable of.

“It’s a rather obvious thing, Gabriel. She’s got, what, fifteen years or so before menopause? Which means no more kids. This isn’t a difficult concept. Every woman in the world goes through it. It’s kind of how they’re made.”

Gabriel nodded. “You’re right. She will go through it, too, just like every woman. But you’re wrong as well.”

He had an idea and maybe it was too far off base, but it seemed plausible.

“You’re going to strain your brain thinking that hard, Sam-boy.”

Leaning forward, he put his glass back down on the tray, ignoring Gabriel a minute to focus on Jo. “Jo, what did they ask you to do? I mean all of it. What was the full gist of the conversation and what you agreed to?”

She licked her lips. “I agreed to have babies that would grow up to become vessels.”

“And?”

“Oooh, someone’s hot tonight!” Gabriel fanned himself with a hand. “You really are the smart one, aren’t you Sam?”

“And what?” Jo shook her head, confusion in her eyes. “I said I’d marry Jimmy and have babies. That’s sort of the deal.”

Sam glanced at the others, then looked back at her. “No, no, see I think there’s more to it than that.” He couldn’t help gesturing at Jimmy, moving his hands as he spoke to illustrate the points he was making. “There’s one regular grade vessel, right? Him. It’s not really possible for you and Jimmy to have enough kids in fifteen years to bring the vessel number up fast enough. Even if you ended up having several kids at a time, it wouldn’t be enough -- especially with Cas still needing Jimmy.” He saw Jimmy sit back, a thoughtful expression on his face, and hurried on. “Gabriel, correct me if I’m wrong on any of this. First off, none of this is natural. Jo was dead, Jimmy twice now, plus he’s an angelic vessel. Those aren’t in the realm of normal, every day for every day people natural things.”

Dean reached for the last of the cookies on the plate. “Spit it out, Sam.”

“Patience, Dean. Think about it. How would you do this, the vessel thing, if you were arranging it?”

“I’d give the angels their own bodies so they weren’t wearing people for one thing.”

Sam sighed. It was an old gripe of Dean’s. “Aside from that. How else would you do it?”

“Why don’t you tell us?”

“Okay.” He nodded. “You’ve got a vessel. His family is dead, they refuse to come back down, and you need a mate for him to continue the line. Say there are five candidates available, but only one knows about hunting, angels, demons and all of it.”

“All the candidates were dead,” Gabriel pointed out. “Even Jo. That playing field was even.”

“Yes, but out of all that would have been available, she was the only one that had certain knowledge, right?”

“Give the boy a gold star! Jo was the only hunter in those compatible with Jimmy. None of the rest had the sort of level of knowledge she had.”

He was beginning to feel excited now, sure he was onto something. “Which means that it was known when Jo died that Amelia would also die and then refuse to return. Jo was brought back immediately to begin preparing her for that day Jimmy would be brought to her. She was cut off from all of us, had to either make friends or be alone and I’ll bet, like most hunters, you chose alone most of the time, right, Jo? Plus there was the time loop that kept anything really permanent from forming.”

She nodded. “I have some friends, but only a couple who semi-understand, and one who I think is psychic or something because he knows all about that stuff.”

“And you were lonely until Castiel dropped Jimmy down here with you, right?”

“Pretty much. I had Gabriel to talk to, but we don’t talk so much as snark at each other.”

Sam warmed to the subject. “You make sure she’s lonely, so that when the vessel arrives, he’s a kindred spirit -- and it helps that she knows him already from the angel inside him. Sort of knows him, anyway. She recognizes him, knows she can talk to him about hunting.” He looked at Jo, studied her. There was an even more mature edge to her than the last time they’d seen her. She’d lost all girlishness and become a woman in full. He still remembered how very young she’d looked during their first meeting at the Roadhouse. “She’s young enough to be open to things, yet old enough to know when to say no, or to hold her tongue. She’s the right temperament to mesh with the vessel, just enough different from Amelia to help him move on and accept a new life. She’s pretty enough to tempt him and maybe he sees her as beautiful. I’m betting he does, because if they’re going to replenish the vessels, there’d have to be one helluva natural physical attraction as well. To be blunt, the sex has to be good and honestly, I don’t think good sex would be enough for either of them.”

Jo looked away, the faintest of blushes on her cheeks and the hint of a smile on her lips. He’d bet their sex life was pretty awesome.

“They’d have to be at optimum physical condition, compatible physically, emotionally, and spiritually, combined as one to perform a task that is rather open-ended.”

Gabriel was watching him very intently. “Open-ended?”

“Yeah. It sounds to me from what Jo just said a few minutes ago, that you didn’t explain what agreeing to do that means to them personally. I mean both of them, not just Jo.”

“I figured I had a good decade before Jo would realize she wasn’t aging like all the other mothers.” His shrug was unconcerned. “As for Jimmy, it’s not like he’s aging anyway because of Castiel.”

“You didn’t tell them,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You should have.”

“I’m not quite following you, Sam. Tell us what?” Jo crossed her arms, exchanging a glance with Jimmy.

Dean drank the last of his eggnog and set the glass down on the tray with a thump. “Dude, the point? I think it’s time to get to it.”

“You really don’t see it? None of you?” Jimmy maybe did, he thought with a quick glance his way. He was staring at the carpet with the sort of concentration Castiel used. “Jo’s not going to age, Dean. No more than Jimmy will. Not yet, anyway. Not until they’ve had a number of children that will themselves have children to add to the vessel numbers needed. I mean, in theory, their descendants a couple hundred years from now could easily baby-sit their own great-great-great uncles and aunts. Or however many greats that is.”

“I don’t want to live forever, nor do I want to do it having kids every couple years.” Jo’s eyes widened. “Gabriel, that’s not what I signed up for.”

“It’s not like that.” Gabriel got up and went to her, kneeling beside her. Sam noticed that his voice was gentler when he spoke to Jo. “You’ll have a few now, then recover while they grow. Once they’re adults, maybe with children of their own, you’ll go through it again, and so on. It won’t be forever. A few generations is all it’ll take for an acceptable number. After that, I don’t see why you and Jimmy can’t be allowed to grow old together and find rest.”

“Like Cas is going to give up his vessel.”

“Once the first generation is grown, if one of them chooses to take Castiel in his stead, Jimmy won’t have to be a vessel any longer. If not that generation, then the next.”

“And if I get hurt and die,” Jo asked. “What then?

“Then --”

“They bring you back,” Dean interjected in a morose, sad tone. “Welcome to that club, too, Jo. Maybe we do need a secret handshake.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Jimmy had thought he’d heard everything from angels by now. He’d heard the promises, heard the half-truths, heard the pleas, but this? While it was a relief of sorts to know he was going to have plenty of time with Jo, it also brought on a feeling of outrage on her behalf. He sat staring at the carpet, only partially listening to explosive argument going on around him that slid from the fairness of this latest revelation to the reality of the demon Meg knowing their location.

By the time Dean’s voice reached him, he was seething.

“You going to let her get killed --”

“That’s it! I’m sick and tired of people, angels, and demons trying to push me around!” Jimmy stood and began to pace. “Mind your own business, Dean. Jo and the baby are my concern, not yours. She’s my wife, not yours.”

“She’s going to be your second dead wife if Meg comes back here. You sure you can protect her?”

The comment and question rubbed him the wrong way and he recalled earlier, when Dean had made a comment about protecting Amelia and Claire. “You think I made the wrong choices back then? You think I didn’t do everything I was able to protect Amelia and Claire?”

“No, I --”

“You think I can’t protect Jo now?”

“Frankly, I --”

“You have no room to criticize me. I’ll do what I have to.” He turned to Gabriel. “You and Castiel…. Don’t get me wrong, Gabriel, I do like both of you, but will you butt the hell out of my life? The choices were made, so why are you still here? Jo and I used our free will and made the decisions. You can go now, unless there’s another thing you didn’t bother to tell us?”

“We’ll discuss it later.”

“We’ll discuss it now.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Okay. Have it your way. Do you really think that your choices and hers were made from free will? All of them? Jo is pregnant because I, mistakenly trying to help the vessel issue, suppressed your free will and manipulated you two into bed together.”

He saw Jo cross her arms and Dean and Sam lean forward on the couch with the air of concentration many men gave Sunday afternoon football. “Wrong.”

“Your marriage was next, I believe. Your beliefs allowed Jo no other option. Who was manipulating then, Jimmy?”

“She didn’t have to say yes.”

“Your kidding yourself if you think that. It’s her duty to have vessels and that means marrying you because you refuse to have sex with a woman without it. Free will? I think not.” He stepped forward. “As for the sex, you were manipulated into the decision, which really was no decision, was it? Pretty young thing, scantily clad beside you doesn’t leave much room for thinking of anything except getting her on her back. Am I right, or am I right?”

“You’re so full of it, Gabriel.”

Jo moved from the chair to the couch, sitting beside Dean. “Normally I’m the one arguing with Gabriel. This is a new experience. Jimmy’s usually pretty even-tempered.”

“I think he’s snapped,” Dean replied.

“Damn right I’ve snapped! How can you of all think that free will is an illusion, Gabriel? You’ve used it yourself. You may have manipulated us and given us the suggestion, but we still had the choice not to have sex that night. We could have said no. It was a free will decision within the circumstances put forth. We chose to have sex.”

“My suggestion was too strong for there to be resistance to it.”

“Hubris much? Watch it, Gabriel, or you’ll start living one of Lucifer’s sins.” Surprise flashed in Gabriel’s eyes and Jimmy continued. “As for marriage? We had the time. We had all the time in the world available to us because of you and Jo made that choice on her own. I didn’t push her into it and neither did you. She decided for herself to make that leap. And as for sex again, we had ample opportunity for free will decisions until we both felt we were ready. When we did have sex, it was a choice that seemed the right one to make at that time.” He sighed. “So get over yourself, oh powerful archangel. There were a number of creative things you could have done when you realized Jo’d gotten pregnant. You just didn’t want to do them.”

“Some of those creative things were a part of messing with time, something I’d promised Castiel I wouldn’t do again with you two.”

Jimmy pointed at him. “You made a free will decision right there to abide by that promise.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to retort and stopped. “I can’t argue with that one,” he admitted a moment later.

“You can’t argue with any of the points, not really. Our journey may be scheduled to go one place, but we can make all sorts of choices along our journey that still take us to that destination point.”

Dean cleared his throat. “Even when manipulated, you still have the choice to cave to it or not -- or even make your own third option no one else considered before. I think Sam and I know a little something about that, Gabriel.”

For a second, the archangel looked mildly ill, but then he swallowed hard and nodded, his voice soft. “I concede the argument.”

“Will wonders never cease,” Jo said.

Jimmy felt drained, the last of his anger slipping from him. He returned to his chair and when Jo came back over to join him, he eased her onto his lap.

~~~~~~~~~~

Castiel listened from above, careful not to speak, though several times he wanted to. It was one thing to speak in Jimmy’s mind using that direct line he had due to Jimmy being his vessel, but another thing entirely to speak and hurt all in the house save Gabriel.

He’d though Jo and Jimmy had both understood the conditions of the agreement. Was it his fault that they hadn’t? After all, angels were used to thinking in terms of centuries. Humans weren’t. Had he neglected to make certain they realized the fullness of what was needed from them?

Or was it truly Gabriel’s screw-up?

“Leave out one little thing and pregnant women sure get testy,” Gabriel drawled, appearing beside him.

Speak of the devil…. He sighed in exasperation.

“Relax, Castiel. I’m the one supposed to do all of the vessel line detail things.” He tapped a finger to his own chest. “I’m the messenger here, remember? And it’s not a screw-up. All four of them needed to be aware of the situation as it really is. Jimmy now knows he won’t have to be a vessel forever and Jo knows their life together won’t be cut short. Dean needed to see an unconventional relationship that’s working and will continue to work long after he’s gone. He’s watching them, studying, learning. He’s going to see what he needs to and that constricted view of ‘normal’ he has is going to be turned upside down by the time he leaves here. As for Sam…. He needed to know they aren’t alone. They’ll have allies and he’s going to find out that those two down there are going to call them family. To Jo, they already are.”

He watched Gabriel, relaxing a fraction.

“As for the subject of free will?” He shrugged. “What can I say? Jimmy’s view fascinates me. Shows he’s given this some thought.”

~~~~~~~~~

Jo would admit to being rather relieved when Gabriel decided it was time to leave. His departure allowed the rest of them to begin relaxing. It also enabled her to focus on Jimmy.

They’d been together long enough that Jo could see the insecurity nestling inside him the longer the evening wore on. It was apparent in the constant little touches and in the way he never let her far from him.

Staking claim.

At another time, Jo might have found it amusing that Jimmy was finding Dean and Sam competition. Right now, though, it was the last thing they needed. So she made her own claim upon him as they lounged together on the couch, resting her hand high on his thigh and giving it a light squeeze. “We’re gonna go to bed. The couch and chair are both comfortable. You’re welcome to stay, but we’re kind of tired. Extra blankets and pillows are in the closet at the end of the hall. If you get hungry, feel free to forage through the cupboards, fridge, and freezer.”

Once in their room, Jo did her best to reassure Jimmy that neither Dean nor Sam were a threat to him. Much later, as they were lying quietly together, with sleep most definitely on the horizon, Jimmy told her he loved her. She’d known it already. How could she not? Every touch, every glance, every considerate action towards her in and out of bed indicated that feeling. He never ‘had sex’ with her now -- what he did was make love to her and with her.

Funny how she’d always dismissed that romance book description of sex, then discovered it actually could describe it.

Gabriel had been right that day when he’d told her that Jimmy would try to be what she needed.

She smiled in the dark, turning her head. “I love you, too.”

Jo closed her eyes and fell asleep in her husband’s arms.

~~~~~~~~~~

He told her he loved her as they lay together drifting to sleep. It felt like the right time to say it, so he did. Up until now he’d avoided looking too closely at his growing feelings for her. Maybe it was their whole situation. Maybe it wasn’t. Did it matter the reason it had come about? He felt for her what he’d felt for Amelia.

Love.

And it didn’t feel disloyal to Amelia to admit that to himself and to Jo. She was his wife now, his future, and it was right and good to love her.

Jo clasped his hand, twined their fingers and snuggled back against him. She turned her head. He could see she was smiling. “I love you, too.”

He held her tighter.

Heaven help him, tomorrow he was meeting Ellen Harvelle.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean paused in spreading a blanket on the couch. That was definitely a groan he’d heard from the direction of Jimmy and Jo’s bedroom. He stood up straight and looked at Sam, who’d just come from the bathroom. He gestured at the hall. “Is that….?”

Sam grinned and nodded. “Sure is. Sounds suspiciously like maybe Jo is getting ‘mouthy’.”

“Lucky bastard,” Dean muttered, then laughed. “You notice that possessive hand he had on her all night?”

“And the one she had on him.” Sam sat in the recliner and pulled a blanket up, then adjusted a pillow behind him and leaned back. “It’s understandable though. Him, I mean. Jo did have a thing for you for awhile.”

“I remember.” Dean sobered and returned his attention to the couch. He’d missed out on a chance with Jo. That timetable had run out before he’d even realized it was gone. It was a bitch to notice these things long after the fact. She was married now, to Jimmy Novak, with a baby on the way. Could the world get any weirder? A sudden thought hit him. “Hey, you think Jo is the news Ellen knew and the reason she wanted us to wait?”

He put the footrest up. “I’m thinking probably she was.”

Dean switched off the lights and climbed beneath the blankets.

Jimmy and Jo’s couch was the most comfortable couch Dean had slept on in a very long time. He woke feeling rested and stretched. The house smelled comfortingly of cinnamon, evergreen, vanilla, and coffee. If he didn’t move, he thought he could slip right back to sleep, wrapped in the welcoming feel of Jo and Jimmy’s house.

A door opened and closed. Gradually, he became aware of voices -- Sam laughing about something with Jimmy and Jo. He turned his head and saw Sam go towards the garage, Jimmy and Jo behind him. Jimmy and Sam wore coats. Jo touched Jimmy’s shoulder and he turned, leaning down and kissing her with a fervor that was uncomfortable to witness.

Dean looked away until the only sounds he heard were those of Jo, alone in the kitchen.

She came into the living room, setting two mugs on the coffee table and sitting on the floor, a tiny mischievous quirk to her lips as she adjusted her blouse over her stomach. “You going to get your ass up anytime soon? It’s after nine. Sam almost shot the papergirl already this morning and you somehow slept right through it.”

“I was tired. Where’d they go?”

“To get breakfast. We found a bakery awhile back that has some amazing things. Besides, we needed salt.”

He sat up and reached for the coffee, nodding at her mug. “Thought pregnant chicks couldn’t have coffee.”

“Jimmy makes me a separate pot of decaf.” She sipped it, then tilted her head a little. “So. Why don’t you tell me about her?”

“What ‘her’ is there to tell you about?”

“The ‘her’ named Lisa.” She shrugged. “Sam told me.”

“Yeah, well Sam’s got a big mouth.”

“Come on. It’s Christmas Eve today, Dean. Something obviously happened between you or you’d be there with her, not sleeping on my couch and certainly not running around the country with Sam. Spill.”

He took a long drink of coffee in an attempt to stall answering. “I haven’t told Sam everything yet. He, uh, caught me in a whopper lie. I should have been straight with him, but he wanted so much for me to have the normal life I wanted. How could I disappoint him, tell him normal fell apart on me?”

“Go on.”

“Lisa is an amazing woman. Beautiful, smart, compassionate. She raised a kid all by herself. Raising, I guess I should say. That takes strength, you know? Single moms are a wonder to me.”

Jo’s gaze was understanding as she nodded. “It does take strength. It’d hard doing the job of two parents.”

“Her boy, Ben…. He’s turning out great. He’s independent as hell these days, smart like her, and the kid’s got skills, Jo. He can do anything he puts his mind to and he will. I know he will.”

“Sounds like you love him.”

“Who wouldn’t? He treated me like a father. We tossed a ball around, talked music, movies, tv, girls…. I even helped with homework. Can you believe that? Me, helping with homework while Lisa cooked dinner.” He looked away, sipping at the coffee. “But he had this knowledge. I don’t know where it came from. Intuition maybe? We were tossing the ball around one night after dinner and he said he knew I wasn’t going to stay. Said it so matter of fact, too, like it was some truth. ‘Heroes don’t stay,’ he told me. ‘They do what they came to do, then leave to be heroes for someone else.’ I thought maybe he’d been watching ‘Shane’ too much.”

“Maybe he just picked up on things between you and Lisa?”

“Maybe. He’s smart, though. Figures out things that’d horrify Lisa that he knew.” When he’d reached the last swallow of coffee, he set the cup down and slid back down on the pillows, adjusting the blankets. “Jimmy said that you ‘get’ him. Well, I thought Lisa ‘got’ me. I thought she was everything I ever wanted.” Dean glanced at her. “You ever want something so badly, Jo, that when you get it it doesn’t meet your expectations?”

She set her own mug down. He could see that the question had touched a nerve by her expression. Her lips pursed and brows shrugged in an almost regretful way. “I’ve been there. Couple times in my life now.”

“I wasn’t the man she remembered and she wasn’t the woman I did. That’s it in a nutshell. There was no way I could be who I was back when she and I first met. Too much water under the bridge. Too much she didn’t understand, though she tried. Then Sam came back and that was it.” He stretched out his arm, fingers barely able to touch one of her knees. He tapped it lightly. “Tell me things really are good with you and Jimmy.”

Give me hope, he wanted to say, yet couldn’t loose the words.

Jo took his hand in hers and held it. Her smile was soft, content. “Things are better than I ever thought they could be. Marriage is so much more than I thought it was. Every day is different. Every day I learn something new about him. And he ‘gets’ me, too. He’s got me figured out, Dean. He knows when to let me do my own thing and when to be king of the castle and lord of the manor.”

“Self-respect intact,” he asked, smiling.

“Very much so, though Gabriel’s stunt back in July was a tiny stumbling block when he quit changing my memories and I knew what happened.”

“You really think you can make this work?”

“Hell, yeah.” Her smile faded and she sighed, her other hand now holding onto his hand as well. “But would you do something for me? Please?”

“Name it.”

“Stop thinking in terms of normal and not normal. There’s no black-and-white of what’s normal for relationships. Normal is a crap idea anyway. Geez, look at me and Jimmy. I’m a dead hunter. He’s a twice-dead angelic vessel and widower about a decade older than me. Does half that even sound like normal to you? We’re hardly a normal couple by your definition of it. Maybe we have what looks like normal, but it’s anything but under the surface. It’s not what it seems. To look at us, no one would guess the truth.” She shook her head. “And that’s okay. The idea of being like everyone else is stupid, in my opinion. I’m hardly like anyone else. I’d be willing to bet that most of those people you think are so normal are anything but.”

“Jo….”

“If you have to separate the life from everyday clueless society, then thinking in terms of civilian life and military life works far better than that whole normal crap. There are so many similarities when you really think about it. You’re like a career soldier, Dean, but don’t give up. Adjust your definition and stop worrying so much about normality.” She released his hand and slowly got to her feet. “If you want a shower before they get back, I’d take it now.”

He took her advice.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Sit down,” Bobby told Ellen for about the fifth time in twenty minutes, looking up at her from over the top edge of his newspaper. Their layover had the tremendous potential of becoming an extended stay if the snow didn’t let up soon. While he understood Ellen’s nervous fidgeting -- one didn’t fly to meet one’s formerly dead daughter every day -- she was starting to make the other passengers nervous. One man all bundled up at the edge of the row was watching them and a young mother of two young children kept a wary eye on Ellen as she paced and muttered.

“I can’t,” Ellen hissed back.

“Sit down or I’ll tie you down,” he replied in a low, mild, yet firm tone.

Ellen snorted. “You can try it.”

One teenager with eyebrow, lip, and nose piercings and a lovely all-black ensemble that was strategically ripped to expose his underwear and everything else smiled, his beady gaze traveling over Ellen with speculation. He could almost hear the kid’s lascivious thoughts.

Bobby rolled his eyes. “Been there, done that.” Literally. In Georgia. A mind control incident. Wrestling with her had thrown his back out for days. “You know I can and will.”

The teenager’s brows rose and his mouth opened. Bobby leveled a calm, bland stare at him until he got up, grabbed his things, and left.

Ellen sat down, feet tapping. “I can’t sit still, Bobby. I’m two hours from my kid and might as well be two weeks away. If this damn storm would let up….” She made a noise of frustration.

The young mother’s expression became one of understanding and she hugged her children tighter to her.

“You could try Dean again. Or Sam.”

“Goes to voicemail. Same as Cas. You don’t think they went on to Jimmy’s without us, do you?”

It was his turn to snort as he folded the paper and set it aside. “You ever know those two boys to mind?”

She pursed her lips, brows shrugging. “Not especially.”

“You really think they’ll start now? Besides, don’t you think they can take care of any trouble they might’ve found there?”

Ellen looked at him. “I can’t lose Jo again, Bobby. Not when I just found her.”

He understood that, too. Perhaps more that she could know. “We’ll get there. I will get you to her.” It was a promise he intended to keep, but Bobby had no idea how he’d manage it.

To his surprise, the snow stopped not five minutes after his promise and less than an hour later, they were on the plane and taking off.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ellen hadn’t expected a welcome party, but as she and Bobby got off of the escalator, she saw Jo waiting with Jimmy. It had to be Jimmy and not Castiel, because he looked very nervous. Sam and Dean were behind them. Jo’s coat was open and she wore a thin loose blouse and jeans. Her long hair was down and to Ellen’s eyes, she’d never looked more radiant, beautiful, and peaceful. She was holding hands with Jimmy and Ellen was glad to see that bit of affection. She thought it meant that Jo did have feelings for this man she’d married.

Beside her, Jimmy was in jeans and that dark blue shirt she remembered Cas having worn. He wasn’t wearing the tan coat Castiel always wore, but rather a heavier black winter coat.

Jo saw her and waved, her grin one of excitement that nearly had Ellen bursting into tears. Ellen pushed forward through the crowd of people, forgetting Bobby, forgetting Jimmy, Sam and Dean. Jo did the same and they met half way, arms going around each other. Somehow, Ellen had begun crying, but decided it was okay, as Jo was, too.

She drew back, hands going to Jo’s arms. “Let me look at you.” Her voice shook. “Oh, Jo! You’re okay, right? You and the baby? Nothing’s wrong, no high blood pressure or gestational diabetes --”

“No, mom, I’m fine. We’re both fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ve got one of the best doctors in the area. Your granddaughter and I are perfectly healthy.”

“It’s a girl?” At Jo’s nod, she hugged her again, and noticed the mother with the two children from the plane smiling at them as they passed by.

“Leave me with the bags, Ellen. Thanks. I love being a pack mule.” Bobby walked up. Ellen only vaguely remembered dropping her bag in her haste to reach Jo. He looked Jo up and down. “You look good,” he told her, “for a dead girl.”

“You look good too,” she replied with a mischievous quirk to her brow, “for a grouchy old man.” She jerked her head towards the three men waiting. “Come on. Since you’re both here, you can both meet my husband.”

“Did he know it was gonna be two for one,” Ellen asked, retrieving her bag from Bobby and starting forward at Jo’s urging.

“He did, but he didn’t, so go easy on the poor guy, okay? He’s nervous enough as it is without you two pulling some kind of stunt on him.”

As they stepped over to them, Ellen smiled a little at Dean and Sam. “I don’t know why I thought you two would mind me any better than my own kid ever has. You look more rested this time around, boys.”

Dean shrugged. “Jo took good care of us last night, gave us a place to crash, and couple good meals now.”

“That’s my girl.” Sounded to her like Jo had done for them exactly what Ellen had done for several hunters over the years she’d run the Roadhouse: given them a place to rest and a meal or two.

“Jimmy did the cooking,” Jo corrected, stepping to him and slipping one arm around him so that they were side-by-side. “I just sat and watched him. He likes to cook far more than I do.”

Did Jo even realize how Jimmy visibly relaxed when she leaned against him? Yes, Ellen decided. Jo knew very well how to soothe Jimmy’s nerves. She also knew how to make it clear that she was all adult now, a mature woman. There’d be no caving in to Ellen’s strong will. Jo was a married woman with a baby on the way and the only option Ellen had was to treat her like the adult she was.

Her pleased smile at seeing Jo faded a fraction. Was this why they’d been kept apart? So Jo could settle into an adult role without Ellen holding her back? If they’d been together, Ellen would have wanted to protect her more than ever. Maybe their relationship would even have taken a huge step backwards. This way, though, Jo had had a chance to really stand on her own.

In her heart, she suspected it was the truth. Maybe if she could corner Castiel later, she’d drag it out of him.

“Mom, this is Jimmy, my husband.”

Ellen looked up at those familiar features. He looked like a nice guy, but she knew very well he had to have a bit of naughtiness in him to attract Jo. If he couldn’t tease or flirt, there wasn’t any way Jo would have looked twice at him. “I’m Ellen.”

“Hi Ellen.”

“You treat her well?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Take her out to nice places?”

“Only on days ending in ‘y’.”

A reluctant smile tugged her lips. “Make sure she feels like a princess?”

“Every day and a little extra on weekends.”

She nodded in approval of this initial impression he gave. “Well, what are we all standing here for? Feels like we’ve been traveling for days and not just hours. I, for one, could use some dinner.”

Ellen’s first priority was to spend some time with Jo. Her second?

Have a little talk with Jimmy Novak.