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”Winchester!” The scream isn't loud, in fact, it's hardly a scream at all, but it echoes through Dean's brain. He's not done anything this time, at least, he doesn't think he has, but Ellen has that effect on him, he gets embarrassed and apologetic even when he's in the right. He suspects a psychologist might have something to say about it, but he's not going to tell them.
“Ellen,” he says while turning to face her, trying to sound jovial despite the fact that her sawed-off is pointing steadily at him. “Sam and me were just...”
“I don't care if you were about to save the goddamn president, you're coming back with me and doing the honorable thing.”
“Er, what?” Dean says, because he wouldn't have expected this in a thousand years.
“Get in the car,” Ellen says, and Dean shoots a glance at Sam, but Sam is too busy laughing to help him, so Dean gets in the car. It's that or get shot, and while Ellen might try not to kill him, it's bound to hurt. Sam makes some kind of gestures that might indicate that he would follow with the Impala, or maybe that he was taking up interpretative dance, but either way, Dean buckles his seatbelt and Ellen takes off, spraying gravel.
***
“Ok,” Dean says after a while, when the silence starts getting to him. “Why have you kidnapped me?”
“Don't play coy with me,” Ellen says. “You know why, and you're making an honest woman out of my Joanna even if it has to be at gunpoint.”
“Whoa, hang on, stop, make an honest woman out of Jo? What the Hell, Ellen.”
“I ain't saying anything else before we get there.”
Dean says nothing, and the drive to Ellen's home, which Dean hasn't been to and therefore has no idea where it is, is one of the most horrible things Dean has ever done.
***
Jo and Ellen live in a shack that reminds Dean of The Roadhouse, but possibly anything with Jo and Ellen in it would. It also has that unmistakable hunter look, perhaps not notable to non-hunters, but patently obvious to him, the little hints of various protections around the place.
Jo is sitting on the sofa but she gets up when he walks in with Ellen walking threateningly behind him. She hasn't brought out the sawed-off again, but there is the unspoken threat that she might at any moment.
Jo has always been thin, not stick thin, but very fit, a hunter to the core. Now she's not though. Not that she's fat, more like...
“You're pregnant,” Dean blurts out.
Jo lifts a sarcastic eyebrow as Dean sinks down into the sofa and puts his head into his hands.
“Mum, can you leave?” Jo asks, and Dean hears the door close and Ellen's footsteps out on the porch.
“Is it...” Dean starts, but he has no idea how to continue the sentence.
“It's human,” Jo says as she sits down next to him, notably less graceful than she usually is.
“What? Did you think it wouldn't be?”
“The only person I've had sex with lately is you, and we didn't get that far, if you remember,” Jo says, and Dean thinks there's something accusing in her voice.
Of course he remembers, they had been hunting a Jawa, which none of them had done before, and after getting rid of it, and then all the clothes they'd been wearing, since they got monster goo on everything, they'd gotten drunk, him, Jo and Sam. He and Jo had been too drunk, but they'd fumbled a bit without even getting their clothes off, and Dean had come in his pants. He's not sure he'd even call it sex, but he gets her point.
“So it can't be mine,” Dean says, because he might not be the brightest person ever, but he knows how babies are made.
“I don't know,” Jo says. “Mum is convinced it is, and really, what other explanation is there?”
“I'm calling Sam,” Dean says, because there has to be something he can do, and Sam is the one who knows about things.
***
It is possible that Sam could help out, if Dean could only get him to stop laughing. It's not even full out laughing, he just looks at Dean and smiles in a nasty, infuriating way, and Dean is this close to punching him when Sam asks about the monster they hunted.
“It was a Jawa, you were there,” Dean says. “You know, great big hooded thing.”
“It might have been a hooded spirit,” Sam says, and then he looks expectantly at Dean.
“Yes?” Dean says, but he's interrupted by Jo making a distressed noise.
“They're sort of fertility spirits,” Sam says. “Maybe that's why...”
“No, absolutely not,” Dean protests. “It can't be mine. I can't be a dad!”
“I don't want you to,” Jo says. “I don't know why mum dragged you here, but I don't want you to marry me, I don't want you to be a dad to this child, I'm giving it up for adoption.”
She slams the door as she leaves the room, and Dean shouts “good!” after her, but he's not at all sure how he feels.
***
Dean and Sam sleep in the living room; the Harvelle shack isn't really big enough for a guestroom. Sam sleeps like a log, but Dean can't go to sleep, and then he hears voices. He's honest enough with himself that he can acknowledge that he wants to know what they're saying, because he's not at all sure he's fine with Jo giving their baby up for adoption. Well, he's fine with it, because it's not really his choice, but he might actually want to give this a go. Or maybe not, but if Jo had decided to keep the baby he wouldn't have hated it. Once the shock wore off.
Listening at the door doesn’t give him anything though, Jo is crying and it makes Dean uncomfortable, so he goes back to bed and tries to sleep.
***
Jo obviously doesn’t want them there, so Dean suggests leaving when they’ve been hanging around and getting annoyed at each other for three days.. Sam looks at him with big, sad eyes, so Dean decides to try talking to Jo again. She has been avoiding him so far, but he’s determined to talk to her, and then he can tell Sam he tried everything he can, and they can leave.
He finds Jo out in the yard, sitting on a bench and looking out at the horizon. The shack is surrounded by forest on three sides, and on the fourth there’s a drop in height so there’s a view, not that there’s a lot to see. Dean sits down next to Jo, and she doesn’t move, which he hopes means that she wants to talk to him.
“Look, Jo...” he starts.
“I’m keeping it,” Jo says.
“Er...” Dean says, thrown.
“I lied to you. I’m keeping the baby.” Jo doesn’t look at him, but at the horizon.
“Ok,” Dean says. “Ok.” There doesn’t seem to be much more to say.