let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2012-12-28 12:27 am
alexseanchai) wrote2012-12-28 12:27 am
Entry tags:
Talitha Rising
Title: Talitha Rising
Rating: PG-13
Summary: If I'm buried 'neath the sod, still the angels won't receive me— Jo's confident she knows who rescued her from hell—the same sister who's the reason she went—but it's a long road before she finds out for sure, or what the price is for her soul. Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gold_bluepoint for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_j2_xmas, with considerable inspiration owed to belisaros's prompt from ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
srs2012.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: If you survived the season four premiere, you should be good.
Word Count: 3600
Jo wakes in a small dark space. For a long moment she's back in that sewer under Philadelphia, waiting for Jess and the Winchesters to find her, hoping Mom won't be too mad, hoping she'll live long enough to find out how mad Mom will be. But it smells of corpse, not crap and piss, and Jo reaches for her pocket, where her keys should be, her keys with the LED flashlight on the keyring.
No keys. No flashlight. No nothing but a cigarette lighter, which ought to be in her purse. It'll make light, which is all Jo needs.
The ceiling a few inches from her face is pale wood. The walls are quite close on both sides.
Coffin. Buried. Alive.
Oh God oh God no—out out gotta get out—if the coffin's as deeply buried or sturdily constructed as it ought to be then she'll die here Jess why did you let them bury me—
The next thing she knows, she's sprawled across the ground, staring up at the clear blue sky. Her shoulder hurts. Nothing else does.
Coffin made of plywood, Jo judges. Under twelve inches of dirt, if that. Half that dirt is now on her—okay, lies, but she could really use a shower. And a gallon of water to drink. She hasn't had anything to drink in—she casts her mind back and the last thing she can remember drinking is her official last beer with Jess and Mom before—
Okay, not thinking about that, or about what happened between then and now. Jo has an impression of considerable time passing, but that can't be right, not if she drank nothing during that time.
She gets to her feet and looks around. There's a marker at the head of her grave, two feet of two-by-four sticking out of the ground with a simple JB inexpertly carved near the top, the lines filled in with what looks like red Sharpie. (Red for Joanna Beth, blue for Jessica Lee; it's been true of everything from plastic cups and bath towels to laptops and cars.) It and she are the only things standing for quite a distance; the fallen trees all point away, as though she's standing at ground zero of a miniature Tunguska.
If you get lost, Jo thinks, sitting down again to laugh, hug a tree and blow your whistle. She has got neither whistle nor tree, nor hand grenade nor loaded .44; shut up you stupid dinosaur, you were only useful for keeping Lydia and Adam Winchester amused. When they were six and nine.
The other side of the two-by-four says D—D X only the verticals of the Ds are horizontal. Jo eyes it for a moment before the obvious explanation presents itself: shovel. X marks the spot.
She has not got a shovel either, but what's a couple more broken nails?
The prize, buried no more deeply than Jo's coffin was, is another plywood box. It's glued shut, no indication of how to open it, but so was the coffin, she suspects; she's not quite curious enough to look. She takes off her shirt, spreads it over the box, and slams her elbow down; the wood breaks easily.
Jo moves to put her shirt back on, then stops. She recalls, vividly, claws tearing into her thighs, breasts, abdomen. She sees no mark. Her wrists don't have the white lines acquired after one time or another struggling with handcuffs; no amount of contortion will show her the place on her neck where a vampire sucked on her, but feeling the spot, there's no scar there. She yanks her jeans off too; the only indication she can see anywhere of having had any injury ever is a second-degree burn on her shoulder, healed as if inflicted days ago, hurting less than a burn of that age and severity ought.
How could she have gotten a burn in the shape of a hand?
Or—horrible thought—if this isn't her own body—there is silence in her head save for her internal monologue, so it's probably no one else's, and it's shaped right, hair's the right color, so it could be hers, and the gravesite has everything but Here Lies Joanna Beth Harvelle, Beloved Sister and Daughter, 07 Apr 1979 – 05 May 2008 to mark it her own—but—
Jo shakes the grave dirt out of her clothes as best she can, dresses, and pries the box the rest of the way apart. Red Jansport backpack, stuffed full, and two liter bottles of water.
A third of the first bottle is down her throat before she remembers she ought to drink slowly. She caps it and sets it aside to take inventory of the backpack: a bag of pretzels and a box of protein bars. A canister of Morton's, and she rips the bit of paper off the spout and spills some on her palm.
No reaction. Nothing whatsoever, not even when she tastes the salt.
She's not a demon. She's been to hell, and now she's back, and she's not a demon.
Nothing happens when she touches the baby cast-iron skillet or the sterling silver necklace and earrings. The cheap plastic rosary, one of the sort Catholic churches hand out like Halloween candy, has no effect, nor does swigging her water once she's dipped the rosary in and recited the blessing to make it holy. (Jess must have kept Jo's rosary bracelet. Presumably for the sentimental value, because twenty dollars of cubic zirconia on a chain certainly has no other value.)
Swiss Army knife. Blank spiral-bound notebook and multi-pack of black pens. Two jeans, four shirts, jacket, a pack each socks and panties, all Jo's size; she'll have to make do with the boots she's wearing and no bras. Basic toiletry kit, basic first-aid kit. Basic makeup kit, including small mirror that reflects Jo's own face, and a nail clipper; she pauses the inventory long enough to trim the broken bits off her nails and get the dirt out from under, because they'll drive her batshit until dealt with otherwise. Wallet with a Michigan driver's license with Jo's face and the name Beatrice Messina, and—she counts quickly—four hundred dollars, mostly in twenties. In God We Trust has been blacked out on every bill. Jo shakes her head, laughing; it's just money, Jess, nobody cares whether what's on it violates anybody's First Amendment rights as long as it can be exchanged for goods and services.
And a phone.
Probably the cheapest model on the market that comes with a camera, and undoubtedly prepaid, and of course it won't come on, but that's all right, there's a charger. All Jo needs now is a wall outlet. And a shower, and—she daydreams as she repacks the backpack—a Whopper: protein and carbs that aren't meant to be shelf-stable for ever, lettuce and tomato and onion, ketchup and mayo, fries and Barq's on the side, she'll even take the damn pickles.
She slings the backpack over her shoulder, picks a direction at random, and starts walking.
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah, the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah, the ants go marching one by one, the little one wishes she had a gun, and they all go marching down in the ground where the dead men go, to hell which is circular all around, down in the belly of the big cold ground, the moving shadows were everywhere, the very trees seemed to bend and stare—HEY WHISKEY YOU'RE THE DEVIL, YOU'RE LEADING ME ASTRAY, O'ER HILLS AND MOUNTAINS INTO AMERIKAY—
She's a mile away when she realizes: Jess escaping Lilith with Jo's body reasonably intact and surviving long enough to raid Walmart and Lowes for everything to bury Jo with and to bury with Jo doesn't mean Jess is still alive.
Jess being able to bury Jo instead of helping Mom burn her means a really good chance that Mom's not.
Nothing Jo can do about that now. She plants Olive Garden breadsticks and salad and umpteen ways to serve pasta firmly in the front of her mind and keeps walking.
She hits road eventually, turns right, and keeps going. A while later, there's an intersection, two gas stations catty-corner and baby strip malls on the other corners. One station has an Arby's attached, so Jo goes in there, strips down in the bathroom and scrubs down as best she can (which isn't very well, but short of throwing out a substantial fraction of her wardrobe, she has nothing to do with her dirty clothes that won't get the rest of her stuff dirty, so there isn't any point putting on clean clothes anyway), then buys a sandwich and curly fries and a Pepsi and a couple water bottles to replace what she drank while walking.
The receipt has a date: Thu Sep 18 2008
Four and a half months, then. That's...Jo doesn't know what to think about it, so she finds a booth with a wall outlet so she can charge the phone while she eats and doesn't think.
The receipt doesn't say the location, but it does say the store number. When Jo runs out of food, she tosses the trash, turns on the phone, checks—yes, prepaid, with a hundred dollars on account. There's one entry in contacts that doesn't look factory default: JL.
Jo dials.
The phone rings a few times, then goes to voicemail. "Leave me a message," says Jess's voice.
"Jess, it's Jo," says Jo. "I don't know what you did and I might kick your ass for it later but it worked. I'm at Arby's," she recites the store number, "it's not very far from where you left me. Come pick me up. Unless Mom gets here first, I'm calling her next, but if she beats you here I'll call you. See you."
Jo stares at the phone until the text saying how much the call cost and how much balance is left has come through, then dials the familiar number of the Roadhouse.
"Harvelle's," says Mom.
"Mom," says Jo, and tries not to cry from relief.
Click.
Wait, what?
"Who is this?" Mom asks the second time she picks up.
"It's me, I'm back, I'm fine—"
"This isn't funny," Mom says. Click.
Jo's crying now for sure, but 'relief' really isn't the right word here. She puts the Roadhouse's number in contacts, because really, why not, but...that is clearly not a potential destination until Jo can get a trusted third party to vouch for her to Mom.
So. Trusted third parties.
Jo pulls out notebook and pen and starts writing down the names of all the hunters she knows. It's a substantial list. It's less substantial when she's eliminated the ones whose phone numbers she hasn't memorized. Cross off the ones likely to shoot first and interrogate the corpse...
Jo dials Mary Winchester.
"Hello?" says Mary.
"Mary, it's Jo," she says. "I'm back. Jess did something, I don't know what, but it worked and she shouldn't have done it. And she won't answer her phone, and Mom won't talk to me, and I'm stranded, and nothing's wrong, I promise, I checked, but—" She chokes back a sob.
"Oh, honey," Mary says. "Where are you?"
Jo repeats the Arby's number. She's not going to cry. She won't.
"Let me look that up," Mary says, and a moment later, "Nearest civilization is Pontiac, Illinois. I can come get you, but it's a seven-hour drive. What do you mean by 'stranded'?"
"I have feet," Jo says. "There are other customers, but..."
Mary snorts. "I'm not paying your bail, so try not to need any."
"I don't think I'd be up to that sort of drive today anyway," Jo says. "I've been walking for hours in the sun with a heavy backpack, and I won't mention where I found it this morning, or where I found me. I want a shower and a bed."
"Go find a motel," Mary says. "I'll call Ellen and yell at her, and one of us will find you tonight or early tomorrow. Which one depends on whether I can persuade Ellen to check whether you're human before deciding how to react to you, and whether I can get Lydia to cover for her."
That's right, Lydia's campus is only an hour and change from the Roadhouse. "Thanks for the benefit of the doubt," Jo says.
"Oh, I'm going to test you six ways to Sunday," Mary says cheerfully. "Don't you worry about that." Jo blows a raspberry. Mary laughs, then sobers. "And I don't know what your sister did, but I can guess. If I'm right, there's no more wrong with you than there was with her."
"But there's a catch," Jo says.
"There's always a catch," Mary answers. "You said she wasn't answering her phone?"
"It rang before it went to voicemail. If it was off, it would have gone straight to voicemail."
"The rest of us are getting that her number's been disconnected," Mary says. "She calls Ellen once a week to say she's alive, but it's always a borrowed phone."
"Oh," Jo says. "Um. I don't know how to get at contacts on this without hanging up. I'll call you back." She hangs up, pokes the phone until she can copy down Jess's number, then finds her own for good measure. As soon as Mary answers, Jo recites both numbers.
Mary repeats them back. When Jo confirms, Mary says "Good. Now go get some sleep."
"Thanks, Mary," Jo says, and hangs up. She heaves a sigh.
"Excuse me, missy, I couldn't help overhearing," says an unfamiliar voice, and Jo looks over. White man, maybe fifties, bigger than Jo but no muscle tone to speak of, has clearly noticed her lack of bra. "Do you need a ride? There's a Greyhound terminal in Bloomington. I can take you there, it's only an hour and it's not out of my way."
Getting offers of help because she's white, crying, and has boobs. She'd rather steal a car. It's more honest.
"I appreciate the offer," Jo says, forcing politeness, "but all I really need is to get to the nearest motel." An hour of her skin crawling—no. She unplugs her charger and stuffs everything back into her backpack.
The ride to the motel is exactly as pleasant as Jo anticipated, but it's short, and the room's cheap. Blue paint peeling in places, but no mysterious stains that she can see, and a hot shower and brushed hair and clean shirt and panties makes her feel almost human. She calls Jess, then Mary to update them on her location (Jess's phone rings, then goes to voicemail; she gets Mary's answering machine, then realizes the number she memorized is Mary's landline, not Mary's cell), then flops on the bed to sleep.
To try to sleep. Whenever her eyes close for too long, there's screaming. Some of it's her voice. Some of it's not.
Jo's almost managed a whole consecutive hour when the door bangs open. The streetlight produces a familiar silhouette.
"Jess," says Jo.
"What are you?" Jess says, gun leveled at Jo.
"You rescued me, you figure it out," Jo says. "Put down the gun. You didn't think to leave me one, so the balance of power here is making me a little nervous."
The gun wavers.
"I touched the iron," Jo says. "I touched the silver. I touched the salt. I blessed the water and I touched that. I'm me, Jessica. Just like you were you, after I brought you back."
"I didn't bring you back." Jess says. "Her back. I didn't bring her back. I tried."
"And yet here I am," Jo says. "If I show you I'm human, will you put the gun down?"
Jess nods sharply. Jo flips on the light, goes over to her backpack, pulls out the necklace, the skillet, the salt, showing Jess that each is in her hand and not causing any burning or disintegrating. "I drank all the holy water," Jo says. "You want to make some more?"
Jess lowers the gun and comes close enough to take one of the water bottles and the plastic rosary. Jo pointedly doesn't move. Jess's voice is unsteady as she recites the words to drive evil influence out of the water. (Jo still prefers to make holy water by boiling the hell out of it; unfortunately that's funny, not effective.) Jo takes the bottle, glugs some, and shows Jess the bottle. Clear plastic: she can see that the water level's dropped.
Jess puts the safety on the gun, sets it down, and throws her arms around Jo, clinging like she means to never let go.
Mom calls a little before dawn, looking for confirmation on what Mary told her and a location to meet, and she shows up a little after, wary, but Jo repeats her little demonstration and Mom relaxes. Recapping the summer vacation doesn't take long, because Jo can't talk about it and Jess won't, but it makes them all nervous that Jess was in the area to chase demons who suddenly found something very interesting near Pontiac.
One of Mom's friend-of-friends is a psychic in Springfield, it turns out. Pamela Barnes, with a tattoo on her back that says Jesse Forever. "Well, it wasn't forever," Pamela says when asked, laughing.
"His loss," Jo says.
"Her," Pamela corrects. Jo eyes her. "I never got around to getting it fixed before we broke up. Her loss might be your gain," she adds, suggestive.
"My mother's listening," Jo points out. (Not a yes, but not an always-and-forever no.) Mom just laughs.
Pamela cops a feel when asking about "something our mystery monster touched". Jo yelps, but only because it's unexpected, and pushes up her shirt sleeve to let Pamela at the handprint.
"I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle," Pamela says, repeats, as the candles flare and furniture rattles and lightbulbs explode. "Anael? No. Sorry, Anael, I don't scare easy."
"Anael?" Jo asks. It sounds almost familiar.
"Its name," Pamela says. "I conjure and command you, show me your face! I conjure and command you, show me your face! I conjure—"
Stillness falls as the candles all go out. Pamela blinks, keeps reciting, but the tension's gone.
She's on the seventh time through that line when, with a sound like the flapping of wings, a young white woman with vivid red hair appears between her and Mom. The woman touches Mom's forehead and Pamela's, and both slump down, unconscious. Jo goes for her gun (retrieved from the arsenal in Jess's Camry's trunk), but has barely had time to draw it when the woman keels Jess over.
"Who are you?" Jo asks. Her hands don't shake as she stands and aims the gun. Point-blank range: the muzzle is not quite touching the woman's heart.
"Don't be afraid," says the woman. "My name is Anael. I delivered your soul from the lowest hell."
"Thanks," Jo says. "What did you do?" She waves her free hand at Jess and Mom and Pamela.
"They sleep," Anael says. "We need to talk alone, Joanna."
"Mm-hm," Jo says. "What are you?"
"I am a messenger of the Lord," says Anael, implacable.
Utterly implausible considering the long, long history of no confirmed encounters with angels, but—not completely impossible. "I'm gonna test that, if you don't mind," Jo says, and pulls the trigger. The lead slug does jack except put a neat little hole in Anael's blouse. Jo sets down the gun, grabs her iron knife from one boot and her silver knife from the other, stabs Anael with both, with about the same effect. Jo snags a salt packet and the flask of holy water from Jess's purse, and Anael's continued nonreaction—she isn't even blinking, let alone getting out of Jo's reach, it's creepy—rules out the vast majority of supernatural nasties.
Okay. Angels.
"My sister prayed every day for a year to find a way to keep me out of hell," Jo says. "She prayed to everyone she could think of who might possibly be able to help, and I know angels were on the list. Where were you then?"
"There are a great many humans and few angels," Anael says. "We can rarely distinguish individual prayers worthy of an answer from the many prayers best answered by 'do it yourself' or 'no'." She lifts a hand to Jo's shoulder. "By the time we learned that you were going to hell, Joanna, you were already gone."
"Then what took you so long?" Jo asks.
Anael's hand squeezes painfully. "A week ago there were nineteen angels under my command, Joanna. Today there are thirteen. Zedekiah, Chloe, and Valoel fell as my garrison assaulted the gates of hell. Mara bought me the time to pry you out of Alastair's grasp." That name has painful familiarity, but no concrete memories are attached. "Nemamaiah and Zuriel sacrificed themselves to cover our retreat. My siblings died for you, Joanna."
Twenty attacked, fourteen survived. That is a shitty survival ratio. Shitty risk-to-reward ratio, too, since it sounds like the whole mission was to retrieve Jo and Jo alone. "So why would angels rescue me from hell?" And what, Jo doesn't quite dare ask aloud, is the catch?
"Because God commanded it," says Anael. "Because we have work for you."
Rating: PG-13
Summary: If I'm buried 'neath the sod, still the angels won't receive me— Jo's confident she knows who rescued her from hell—the same sister who's the reason she went—but it's a long road before she finds out for sure, or what the price is for her soul. Written for
gold_bluepoint for spn_j2_xmas, with considerable inspiration owed to belisaros's prompt from srs2012.Pairings: None.
Warnings: If you survived the season four premiere, you should be good.
Word Count: 3600
Jo wakes in a small dark space. For a long moment she's back in that sewer under Philadelphia, waiting for Jess and the Winchesters to find her, hoping Mom won't be too mad, hoping she'll live long enough to find out how mad Mom will be. But it smells of corpse, not crap and piss, and Jo reaches for her pocket, where her keys should be, her keys with the LED flashlight on the keyring.
No keys. No flashlight. No nothing but a cigarette lighter, which ought to be in her purse. It'll make light, which is all Jo needs.
The ceiling a few inches from her face is pale wood. The walls are quite close on both sides.
Coffin. Buried. Alive.
Oh God oh God no—out out gotta get out—if the coffin's as deeply buried or sturdily constructed as it ought to be then she'll die here Jess why did you let them bury me—
The next thing she knows, she's sprawled across the ground, staring up at the clear blue sky. Her shoulder hurts. Nothing else does.
Coffin made of plywood, Jo judges. Under twelve inches of dirt, if that. Half that dirt is now on her—okay, lies, but she could really use a shower. And a gallon of water to drink. She hasn't had anything to drink in—she casts her mind back and the last thing she can remember drinking is her official last beer with Jess and Mom before—
Okay, not thinking about that, or about what happened between then and now. Jo has an impression of considerable time passing, but that can't be right, not if she drank nothing during that time.
She gets to her feet and looks around. There's a marker at the head of her grave, two feet of two-by-four sticking out of the ground with a simple JB inexpertly carved near the top, the lines filled in with what looks like red Sharpie. (Red for Joanna Beth, blue for Jessica Lee; it's been true of everything from plastic cups and bath towels to laptops and cars.) It and she are the only things standing for quite a distance; the fallen trees all point away, as though she's standing at ground zero of a miniature Tunguska.
If you get lost, Jo thinks, sitting down again to laugh, hug a tree and blow your whistle. She has got neither whistle nor tree, nor hand grenade nor loaded .44; shut up you stupid dinosaur, you were only useful for keeping Lydia and Adam Winchester amused. When they were six and nine.
The other side of the two-by-four says D—D X only the verticals of the Ds are horizontal. Jo eyes it for a moment before the obvious explanation presents itself: shovel. X marks the spot.
She has not got a shovel either, but what's a couple more broken nails?
The prize, buried no more deeply than Jo's coffin was, is another plywood box. It's glued shut, no indication of how to open it, but so was the coffin, she suspects; she's not quite curious enough to look. She takes off her shirt, spreads it over the box, and slams her elbow down; the wood breaks easily.
Jo moves to put her shirt back on, then stops. She recalls, vividly, claws tearing into her thighs, breasts, abdomen. She sees no mark. Her wrists don't have the white lines acquired after one time or another struggling with handcuffs; no amount of contortion will show her the place on her neck where a vampire sucked on her, but feeling the spot, there's no scar there. She yanks her jeans off too; the only indication she can see anywhere of having had any injury ever is a second-degree burn on her shoulder, healed as if inflicted days ago, hurting less than a burn of that age and severity ought.
How could she have gotten a burn in the shape of a hand?
Or—horrible thought—if this isn't her own body—there is silence in her head save for her internal monologue, so it's probably no one else's, and it's shaped right, hair's the right color, so it could be hers, and the gravesite has everything but Here Lies Joanna Beth Harvelle, Beloved Sister and Daughter, 07 Apr 1979 – 05 May 2008 to mark it her own—but—
Jo shakes the grave dirt out of her clothes as best she can, dresses, and pries the box the rest of the way apart. Red Jansport backpack, stuffed full, and two liter bottles of water.
A third of the first bottle is down her throat before she remembers she ought to drink slowly. She caps it and sets it aside to take inventory of the backpack: a bag of pretzels and a box of protein bars. A canister of Morton's, and she rips the bit of paper off the spout and spills some on her palm.
No reaction. Nothing whatsoever, not even when she tastes the salt.
She's not a demon. She's been to hell, and now she's back, and she's not a demon.
Nothing happens when she touches the baby cast-iron skillet or the sterling silver necklace and earrings. The cheap plastic rosary, one of the sort Catholic churches hand out like Halloween candy, has no effect, nor does swigging her water once she's dipped the rosary in and recited the blessing to make it holy. (Jess must have kept Jo's rosary bracelet. Presumably for the sentimental value, because twenty dollars of cubic zirconia on a chain certainly has no other value.)
Swiss Army knife. Blank spiral-bound notebook and multi-pack of black pens. Two jeans, four shirts, jacket, a pack each socks and panties, all Jo's size; she'll have to make do with the boots she's wearing and no bras. Basic toiletry kit, basic first-aid kit. Basic makeup kit, including small mirror that reflects Jo's own face, and a nail clipper; she pauses the inventory long enough to trim the broken bits off her nails and get the dirt out from under, because they'll drive her batshit until dealt with otherwise. Wallet with a Michigan driver's license with Jo's face and the name Beatrice Messina, and—she counts quickly—four hundred dollars, mostly in twenties. In God We Trust has been blacked out on every bill. Jo shakes her head, laughing; it's just money, Jess, nobody cares whether what's on it violates anybody's First Amendment rights as long as it can be exchanged for goods and services.
And a phone.
Probably the cheapest model on the market that comes with a camera, and undoubtedly prepaid, and of course it won't come on, but that's all right, there's a charger. All Jo needs now is a wall outlet. And a shower, and—she daydreams as she repacks the backpack—a Whopper: protein and carbs that aren't meant to be shelf-stable for ever, lettuce and tomato and onion, ketchup and mayo, fries and Barq's on the side, she'll even take the damn pickles.
She slings the backpack over her shoulder, picks a direction at random, and starts walking.
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah, the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah, the ants go marching one by one, the little one wishes she had a gun, and they all go marching down in the ground where the dead men go, to hell which is circular all around, down in the belly of the big cold ground, the moving shadows were everywhere, the very trees seemed to bend and stare—HEY WHISKEY YOU'RE THE DEVIL, YOU'RE LEADING ME ASTRAY, O'ER HILLS AND MOUNTAINS INTO AMERIKAY—
She's a mile away when she realizes: Jess escaping Lilith with Jo's body reasonably intact and surviving long enough to raid Walmart and Lowes for everything to bury Jo with and to bury with Jo doesn't mean Jess is still alive.
Jess being able to bury Jo instead of helping Mom burn her means a really good chance that Mom's not.
Nothing Jo can do about that now. She plants Olive Garden breadsticks and salad and umpteen ways to serve pasta firmly in the front of her mind and keeps walking.
She hits road eventually, turns right, and keeps going. A while later, there's an intersection, two gas stations catty-corner and baby strip malls on the other corners. One station has an Arby's attached, so Jo goes in there, strips down in the bathroom and scrubs down as best she can (which isn't very well, but short of throwing out a substantial fraction of her wardrobe, she has nothing to do with her dirty clothes that won't get the rest of her stuff dirty, so there isn't any point putting on clean clothes anyway), then buys a sandwich and curly fries and a Pepsi and a couple water bottles to replace what she drank while walking.
The receipt has a date: Thu Sep 18 2008
Four and a half months, then. That's...Jo doesn't know what to think about it, so she finds a booth with a wall outlet so she can charge the phone while she eats and doesn't think.
The receipt doesn't say the location, but it does say the store number. When Jo runs out of food, she tosses the trash, turns on the phone, checks—yes, prepaid, with a hundred dollars on account. There's one entry in contacts that doesn't look factory default: JL.
Jo dials.
The phone rings a few times, then goes to voicemail. "Leave me a message," says Jess's voice.
"Jess, it's Jo," says Jo. "I don't know what you did and I might kick your ass for it later but it worked. I'm at Arby's," she recites the store number, "it's not very far from where you left me. Come pick me up. Unless Mom gets here first, I'm calling her next, but if she beats you here I'll call you. See you."
Jo stares at the phone until the text saying how much the call cost and how much balance is left has come through, then dials the familiar number of the Roadhouse.
"Harvelle's," says Mom.
"Mom," says Jo, and tries not to cry from relief.
Click.
Wait, what?
"Who is this?" Mom asks the second time she picks up.
"It's me, I'm back, I'm fine—"
"This isn't funny," Mom says. Click.
Jo's crying now for sure, but 'relief' really isn't the right word here. She puts the Roadhouse's number in contacts, because really, why not, but...that is clearly not a potential destination until Jo can get a trusted third party to vouch for her to Mom.
So. Trusted third parties.
Jo pulls out notebook and pen and starts writing down the names of all the hunters she knows. It's a substantial list. It's less substantial when she's eliminated the ones whose phone numbers she hasn't memorized. Cross off the ones likely to shoot first and interrogate the corpse...
Jo dials Mary Winchester.
"Hello?" says Mary.
"Mary, it's Jo," she says. "I'm back. Jess did something, I don't know what, but it worked and she shouldn't have done it. And she won't answer her phone, and Mom won't talk to me, and I'm stranded, and nothing's wrong, I promise, I checked, but—" She chokes back a sob.
"Oh, honey," Mary says. "Where are you?"
Jo repeats the Arby's number. She's not going to cry. She won't.
"Let me look that up," Mary says, and a moment later, "Nearest civilization is Pontiac, Illinois. I can come get you, but it's a seven-hour drive. What do you mean by 'stranded'?"
"I have feet," Jo says. "There are other customers, but..."
Mary snorts. "I'm not paying your bail, so try not to need any."
"I don't think I'd be up to that sort of drive today anyway," Jo says. "I've been walking for hours in the sun with a heavy backpack, and I won't mention where I found it this morning, or where I found me. I want a shower and a bed."
"Go find a motel," Mary says. "I'll call Ellen and yell at her, and one of us will find you tonight or early tomorrow. Which one depends on whether I can persuade Ellen to check whether you're human before deciding how to react to you, and whether I can get Lydia to cover for her."
That's right, Lydia's campus is only an hour and change from the Roadhouse. "Thanks for the benefit of the doubt," Jo says.
"Oh, I'm going to test you six ways to Sunday," Mary says cheerfully. "Don't you worry about that." Jo blows a raspberry. Mary laughs, then sobers. "And I don't know what your sister did, but I can guess. If I'm right, there's no more wrong with you than there was with her."
"But there's a catch," Jo says.
"There's always a catch," Mary answers. "You said she wasn't answering her phone?"
"It rang before it went to voicemail. If it was off, it would have gone straight to voicemail."
"The rest of us are getting that her number's been disconnected," Mary says. "She calls Ellen once a week to say she's alive, but it's always a borrowed phone."
"Oh," Jo says. "Um. I don't know how to get at contacts on this without hanging up. I'll call you back." She hangs up, pokes the phone until she can copy down Jess's number, then finds her own for good measure. As soon as Mary answers, Jo recites both numbers.
Mary repeats them back. When Jo confirms, Mary says "Good. Now go get some sleep."
"Thanks, Mary," Jo says, and hangs up. She heaves a sigh.
"Excuse me, missy, I couldn't help overhearing," says an unfamiliar voice, and Jo looks over. White man, maybe fifties, bigger than Jo but no muscle tone to speak of, has clearly noticed her lack of bra. "Do you need a ride? There's a Greyhound terminal in Bloomington. I can take you there, it's only an hour and it's not out of my way."
Getting offers of help because she's white, crying, and has boobs. She'd rather steal a car. It's more honest.
"I appreciate the offer," Jo says, forcing politeness, "but all I really need is to get to the nearest motel." An hour of her skin crawling—no. She unplugs her charger and stuffs everything back into her backpack.
The ride to the motel is exactly as pleasant as Jo anticipated, but it's short, and the room's cheap. Blue paint peeling in places, but no mysterious stains that she can see, and a hot shower and brushed hair and clean shirt and panties makes her feel almost human. She calls Jess, then Mary to update them on her location (Jess's phone rings, then goes to voicemail; she gets Mary's answering machine, then realizes the number she memorized is Mary's landline, not Mary's cell), then flops on the bed to sleep.
To try to sleep. Whenever her eyes close for too long, there's screaming. Some of it's her voice. Some of it's not.
Jo's almost managed a whole consecutive hour when the door bangs open. The streetlight produces a familiar silhouette.
"Jess," says Jo.
"What are you?" Jess says, gun leveled at Jo.
"You rescued me, you figure it out," Jo says. "Put down the gun. You didn't think to leave me one, so the balance of power here is making me a little nervous."
The gun wavers.
"I touched the iron," Jo says. "I touched the silver. I touched the salt. I blessed the water and I touched that. I'm me, Jessica. Just like you were you, after I brought you back."
"I didn't bring you back." Jess says. "Her back. I didn't bring her back. I tried."
"And yet here I am," Jo says. "If I show you I'm human, will you put the gun down?"
Jess nods sharply. Jo flips on the light, goes over to her backpack, pulls out the necklace, the skillet, the salt, showing Jess that each is in her hand and not causing any burning or disintegrating. "I drank all the holy water," Jo says. "You want to make some more?"
Jess lowers the gun and comes close enough to take one of the water bottles and the plastic rosary. Jo pointedly doesn't move. Jess's voice is unsteady as she recites the words to drive evil influence out of the water. (Jo still prefers to make holy water by boiling the hell out of it; unfortunately that's funny, not effective.) Jo takes the bottle, glugs some, and shows Jess the bottle. Clear plastic: she can see that the water level's dropped.
Jess puts the safety on the gun, sets it down, and throws her arms around Jo, clinging like she means to never let go.
Mom calls a little before dawn, looking for confirmation on what Mary told her and a location to meet, and she shows up a little after, wary, but Jo repeats her little demonstration and Mom relaxes. Recapping the summer vacation doesn't take long, because Jo can't talk about it and Jess won't, but it makes them all nervous that Jess was in the area to chase demons who suddenly found something very interesting near Pontiac.
One of Mom's friend-of-friends is a psychic in Springfield, it turns out. Pamela Barnes, with a tattoo on her back that says Jesse Forever. "Well, it wasn't forever," Pamela says when asked, laughing.
"His loss," Jo says.
"Her," Pamela corrects. Jo eyes her. "I never got around to getting it fixed before we broke up. Her loss might be your gain," she adds, suggestive.
"My mother's listening," Jo points out. (Not a yes, but not an always-and-forever no.) Mom just laughs.
Pamela cops a feel when asking about "something our mystery monster touched". Jo yelps, but only because it's unexpected, and pushes up her shirt sleeve to let Pamela at the handprint.
"I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle," Pamela says, repeats, as the candles flare and furniture rattles and lightbulbs explode. "Anael? No. Sorry, Anael, I don't scare easy."
"Anael?" Jo asks. It sounds almost familiar.
"Its name," Pamela says. "I conjure and command you, show me your face! I conjure and command you, show me your face! I conjure—"
Stillness falls as the candles all go out. Pamela blinks, keeps reciting, but the tension's gone.
She's on the seventh time through that line when, with a sound like the flapping of wings, a young white woman with vivid red hair appears between her and Mom. The woman touches Mom's forehead and Pamela's, and both slump down, unconscious. Jo goes for her gun (retrieved from the arsenal in Jess's Camry's trunk), but has barely had time to draw it when the woman keels Jess over.
"Who are you?" Jo asks. Her hands don't shake as she stands and aims the gun. Point-blank range: the muzzle is not quite touching the woman's heart.
"Don't be afraid," says the woman. "My name is Anael. I delivered your soul from the lowest hell."
"Thanks," Jo says. "What did you do?" She waves her free hand at Jess and Mom and Pamela.
"They sleep," Anael says. "We need to talk alone, Joanna."
"Mm-hm," Jo says. "What are you?"
"I am a messenger of the Lord," says Anael, implacable.
Utterly implausible considering the long, long history of no confirmed encounters with angels, but—not completely impossible. "I'm gonna test that, if you don't mind," Jo says, and pulls the trigger. The lead slug does jack except put a neat little hole in Anael's blouse. Jo sets down the gun, grabs her iron knife from one boot and her silver knife from the other, stabs Anael with both, with about the same effect. Jo snags a salt packet and the flask of holy water from Jess's purse, and Anael's continued nonreaction—she isn't even blinking, let alone getting out of Jo's reach, it's creepy—rules out the vast majority of supernatural nasties.
Okay. Angels.
"My sister prayed every day for a year to find a way to keep me out of hell," Jo says. "She prayed to everyone she could think of who might possibly be able to help, and I know angels were on the list. Where were you then?"
"There are a great many humans and few angels," Anael says. "We can rarely distinguish individual prayers worthy of an answer from the many prayers best answered by 'do it yourself' or 'no'." She lifts a hand to Jo's shoulder. "By the time we learned that you were going to hell, Joanna, you were already gone."
"Then what took you so long?" Jo asks.
Anael's hand squeezes painfully. "A week ago there were nineteen angels under my command, Joanna. Today there are thirteen. Zedekiah, Chloe, and Valoel fell as my garrison assaulted the gates of hell. Mara bought me the time to pry you out of Alastair's grasp." That name has painful familiarity, but no concrete memories are attached. "Nemamaiah and Zuriel sacrificed themselves to cover our retreat. My siblings died for you, Joanna."
Twenty attacked, fourteen survived. That is a shitty survival ratio. Shitty risk-to-reward ratio, too, since it sounds like the whole mission was to retrieve Jo and Jo alone. "So why would angels rescue me from hell?" And what, Jo doesn't quite dare ask aloud, is the catch?
"Because God commanded it," says Anael. "Because we have work for you."
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Mary has a land line? Interesting,
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Bobby has a bunch of landlines connected to his house. Mary has a house. Why wouldn't Mary have a landline? Jo's had that number memorized for years, anyway.
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This is so - ok, maybe it's weird to say something this grim and SPN-y is cute, but I love Jo's voice in this; she is so practical and focused in between her flashes of COMPLETE BEWILDERMENT and TERRIBLE FLASHBACKS. :DD I just SUPER LIKE this and awww, sibling love!
I really liked this! Thank you. :)
- gold_bluepoint on lj
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