Archive of Our Own ^beta

To: Fiona Phillips [[email protected]]
From: Joanna Harvelle [[email protected]]
Subject: fellow hunter needs help

Fiona,
My name's Jo, I'm a friend of Ash. He gave me your e-mail because I mentioned I was stumped by a case I was working on, and he said you might be able to help. Everything I've found points to this bad guy being the Jersey Devil, but I'm in Dallas, Texas. Have you ever heard about it being spotted this far south?

-Jo

To: Joanna Harvelle [[email protected]]
From: Fiona Phillips [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: fellow hunter needs help

Jo,
That's... really weird. Not only is there no way it would ever migrate that far south, I also know for a fact that about six months ago a group of hunters banished it, and the ritual was supposed to hold for 50 years at least. Whatever you're hunting, it's not the Jersey Devil.

I actually just finished up a job in San Antonio, I could be in Dallas in a few hours—it might be easier to figure out what this thing is and take it down if we work together. It's ultimately up to you. I know a lot of hunters like working alone. I for one don't.

Fi

Dallas in early September is so hot that Jo can see the heat rising off the pavement in waves, practically shimmering back and forth in the sunlight. She tugs at the strap of her tank top, fidgets with the hem of her cut-off shorts—anything to keep the fabric of her clothing from sweat-sticking to her body. Just as she's beginning to consider leaving—Fi's a half-hour late, and she's probably getting a sunburn from waiting this long—an old blue Mustang pulls into the motel parking lot, dull paint spattered with mud. The driver, a girl with dark, perfectly straight long hair, slides out of the driver's side window like she's Bo Duke, perching on the door with her elbows resting on the roof of the car. She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head and squints in Jo's direction.

"Joanna—Jo, right?" the girl calls, and Jo nods. Her grip loosens on the knife in her pocket, but tightens again when the girl slams her fists down on the hood of the car with a broad grin. "Fantastic! I'm Fi Phillips. Sorry I'm late, got a little lost. Dallas is huge."

Jo shrugs. "You're here now," she answers, letting go of the knife entirely, and the girl hops out of her car.

Jo stays where she is by the door to her room, eyeing Fi from head to toe as the other girl strides toward her. She's trying to gauge what kind of threat Fi would be if she wasn't who she said she was, what kind of weapons she has on her.

A tank top, shorts, and a multitude of beaded jewelry doesn't exactly provide a lot of places for concealing weapons, but she's got enough cleavage to hide a small knife in—if Jo had tits like that, that's exactly what she would do with them—and there's definitely a gun tucked in the back waistband of her jean shorts. And while Fi's skimpy summer attire doesn't hide weapons, it does show off a body of solid muscle underneath curves; Jo probably couldn't take her in a fight without resorting to underhanded tactics.

But the thing is, while Jo's capable of fighting dirty it doesn't look like Fi is; her smile is genuine and her hazel eyes earnest as she tucks her hair behind her ear and says, "It's really great to meet you—I've heard so much about you from Ash, and I haven't come across too many other female hunters." Fi blinks. "God, you're pretty," she adds, like she's completely stunned by the fact, and it surprises Jo into laughing.

So Fi's probably not a crazy axe murderer. Jo can live with that. "Thanks. Listen, you must be thirsty after a ride like that—why don't you come in, I'll give you a run-down of what I know, and we can figure out where to go from there?"

"Sounds great."

Jo unlocks the door to her motel room and props it open with her foot so Fi can enter first, half because her momma raised her right, and half because she's not ready to turn her back on a stranger. Even one as innocuous as Fi.

It's not much cooler in the motel room than it is outside, even with all the lights off and the shades drawn.

"Sorry," Jo apologizes, "the AC's broken." She shrugs. "You get what you paid for, and I didn't pay a whole hell of a lot."

Fi's broad smile disarms Jo just a little bit more. "The AC's busted in my car, too. At least you have that little fan in the corner—I had to roll down the windows and hope my blood didn't boil in my veins." She glances around the room, taking in little details, then turns to Jo with a down-to-business smile. "So I couldn't help but be intrigued by your email," she begins. "The Jersey Devil in Texas, really? What makes you think that's what it is?"

Most hunters would ask that and mean Do you have any idea what you're even talking about? but Fi clearly doesn't; she's just curious. It still makes Jo defensive, like she has something to prove. "Well, for one, I've seen it. Wings, red eyes, goat hooves, the whole nine yards. Forget for a second we're in Texas—what the hell else could it be?"

"Hmm," Fi says, pulling out a chair and slouching in it. She studies the array of research on the table in front of her with an interested air. "You've got a point. But here's the thing: I didn't personally see it happen, but I know a few hunters who banished it about six months ago. It can't be killed, only sent into hibernation, and even then it wakes up after forty or fifty years. This has been going on for centuries... if it's coming back after just six months, something is very, very wrong here."

"But suppose it is," Jo insists, taking the seat opposite Fi and tapping her fingers on the pages in front of her. "Suppose it really is the Jersey Devil. We can't banish it ourselves, can we? How did your friends do it? I thought I read somewhere that only a shaman from the tribe who created it could put it into hibernation."

"Yeah, the Lenape tribe. They're the only ones with any kind of control over the Jersey Devil."

"So what can we even do?"

Fi shrugs. "We can trap it. It's still just a spirit. It's an especially vicious, especially corporeal one, but it was created when a Lenape shaman summoned a chimera spirit to possesses the fetus of a settler's wife. Rock salt will hurt it a little, but it won't disappear like most spirits; iron; if we can get it inside a salt ring we can trap it, maybe buy us enough time to find a shaman. But we gotta get it in one place long enough to do that, and we don't even know how to find it."

"Yes we do. I know where it lives—I've tracked it," Jo volunteers, and Fi's eyes widen in surprise.

"What, seriously? By yourself?"

Jo feigns nonchalance. "Yeah, why?"

"Nothing—just. I wouldn't have tracked something if I didn't know how to kill it, or hurt it enough to get away at the very least. That was really brave of you." And Jo's ready to be pissed at her, because when other hunters call her brave they really mean reckless, but she realizes with a start that Fi's being totally straight with her.

"So where is it hiding?" Fi continues, not realizing she's just passed a test. "I mean, there aren't exactly a whole lot of woods around here."

"Yeah, that's the weird part. It's down in the sewers, there's an open grate about three miles from here that I tracked it to, but I didn't follow it inside. I guess that's the closest thing it could find to a cave." From the mess of paper she tugs out blueprints of the Dallas sewer system, points out an x-marks-the-spot. "Right there."

"Suppose we put a salt line at the entrance of the sewer," Fi says, slowly, chewing absently on her thumbnail as she studies the plans. "And then we draw it out to... here, put a salt line behind it. There's no tunnels between those two lines and no street grates, so that should be enough to trap it until we can get someone down here to banish it. I mean, it's down in the sewer... not like anyone's going to come along and break the lines."

Jo tries to picture it in her head. "If we trap it near the entrance, how are we going to get past it to leave?"

"We could probably head further into the sewer and escape through one of the street grates," Fi suggests, and Jo's got to admit that would probably work.

"One other thing. I don't think it's going to just stand there and let us trap it," she points out. "How are we going to keep it from killing us while we do this?"

"Shotgun with salt rounds," is Fi's prompt answer, "or I've got a crowbar made of pure iron in the trunk. Should hurt it bad enough to keep it distracted while one of us makes the lines."

"I don't know about you, but there's no way in hell I'm firing a gun inside the sewer," Jo says. "That's just asking for someone to get killed. But I'll take the crowbar," she adds, on an impulse, and she's startled to realize it's because she'd do anything to hear Fi call her brave again.

"Guess that means I got the salt," Fi replies. "When do you want to do this?"

"Now?" Jo suggests, and Fi beams like it was exactly the answer she'd been hoping for.

The sewer opening the Jersey Devil's been using is built into the side of a hill on the outskirts of town, and the girls hide in a clump of brush about twenty yards away to keep an eye on it. They've timed their stakeout well, because about twenty minutes later—when the heat is just beginning to get unbearable—Fi makes a choked off noise and grabs at Jo's arm.

"Jo," she hisses, staring at the approaching monster, "that's definitely the Jersey Devil! What the hell is it doing in Dallas?"

"I don't know, but let's get this son of a bitch inside some salt and figure the rest out later."

They wait until it disappears into the sewer, then follow it as quietly as they can manage. Fi climbs up into the opening first and then turns around to give Jo a hand up. While Fi busies herself laying a thick salt line just inside the entrance, Jo pulls out a flashlight and quickly examines the first twenty feet of the sewer. True to the blueprints, there are no exits or tunnels until further in—so far, so good.

"All set, come on," Fi says, and together the two girls creep down the passage.

About sixty feet in there's a pile of flesh in the middle of their path, and Jo's hand flies up to cover her mouth when she smells it. "Oh, jesus," she chokes out. "Is that leftovers?"

"We can only assume so," is Fi's answer, but she's just as grossed out as Jo is. She pokes at it with Jo's crowbar and Jo tries not to think about the weird squishing noise it makes. But a louder noise grabs their attention, and quickly Jo extinguishes the flashlight.

And just in time, too, because a few seconds later a hulking shape turns a corner and enters their line of sight.

Showtime.

Jo motions for Fi to duck down into the shadows of a nearby tunnel and summons all her courage. It's harder than she thought it would be, but she manages it. "Hey!" she shouts, voice echoing off every surface.

The Jersey Devil turns to look at her, and glowing red eyes? Yeah, they're freaky as shit. "Come and get me, you ugly son of a bitch!" she hollers, and holds her ground as it charges her. When it's about fifteen feet away she runs back toward the entrance of the tunnel. She can hear Fi following behind it, and when she gets to the entrance she turns around and swings the crowbar at it with all her might.

The crowbar connects with a sickening, all-too-solid thump and the Jersey Devil swipes at her with one of its huge claws in response, like it hardly even felt the blow. She just barely ducks out of the way, whacking it one more time to be sure.

All that does is make it angrier. There's no way the iron is having any kind of effect on it.

"It's not working!" Jo screams, backing up.

Fi throws a handful of salt at it and that doesn't do anything either: it's about as effective as throwing sand at a bear. Oh shit, oh shit.

"Tactical retreat!" Fi yells back, and the girls turn tail and run. It's not far to the sewer opening, maybe a hundred yards, but to Jo it seems like forever. Fi beats her to it, climbing out and dropping to the ground, and Jo just jumps down beside her, hitting the ground hard and rolling.

"We're good," Fi says, relief evident in her voice, as Jo gets up. "It didn't chase us. It's still in there, but we're good."

"Shit," Jo pants, hands on her knees as adrenaline rushes through her blood. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to figure out what this really is," Fi answers. "To the internet!"

But they don't quite make it that far: about halfway back to the car when a thought hits Jo and its utter rightness surprises her into stopping dead.

"Wait." Jo grabs Fi's bicep and Fi turns to look at her, puzzled. "Something that looks exactly like the Jersey Devil, in a place where the Jersey Devil wouldn't be. Rock salt doesn't do a damn thing, neither does iron, so it's not a spirit. Living in the sewer. Do you think... shapeshifter?" Jo suggests, and Fi pauses for a minute, considering.

"A shapeshifter that takes on the form of monsters?"

"Why not?" Jo asks, growing more and more excited as the pieces of the puzzle snap into place. "Good for a little wholesale terror—you don't get much scarier than the Jersey Devil—and an extra bit of protection from hunters. They come armed to fight whatever it is they think it is, it kicks their asses or at the very least buys itself some time to escape." Her eyes widen. "That's why it didn't chase us—it wasn't worth killing us, because it figured it'd have time to skip town before we caught on!"

Fi shrugs. "Makes sense. Definitely worth a shot."

"You got silver bullets in the car?" Jo asks with a sly smile.

Fi nods, catching on. "In spades."

"Wanna waste this bitch before it has a chance to move on to the next town?" She's still hopped up on adrenaline, so charged she has absolutely no regard for her personal safety, but this sounds like a great idea to her.

And, apparently, to Fi, who's beaming at her and saying, "It's like you know me."

It's dark by the time they get back to Jo's hotel, and she's completely wiped. She's willing to bet Fi is, too, just by looking at her.

"You get a hotel room somewhere?" she asks, and Fi shakes her head.

"Not yet, I forgot. Plus I didn't think we were going to go after it right away."

Jo glances up at the motel sign, the No in No Vacancy flickering neon red against twilight. "You gonna be able to find something at this hour?"

Fi shrugs. "Probably, if I drive around enough. But if I can't I'll just sleep in the car, it's not a big deal."

Jo rolls her eyes. "That's stupid. Come on. I've only got the one bed but it's huge, and I totally owe you for having my back today."

"You don't owe me anything," Fi says. "But thanks," she says.

They both smell like sewer and charred flesh—after they'd killed the shapeshifter they'd burnt it to a crisp, just to be sure; Jo's dying for a shower but she lets Fi go first.

By the time she's done scrubbing sewer filth from her body, Fi's already in bed, but she looks like she only just dozed off. Jo flips off the overhead light and slips in on the other side. She turns on her side to face the center of the bed, sliding one hand beneath her pillow to loosely grasp the handle of her father's knife. Fi sleeps peacefully on, facing away from Jo, the sloping curves of her body silhouetted in the moonlight streaming through partially-closed window blinds. Jo means to keep one eye open until Fi's breathing evens out into deep sleep, but the day's events take their toll early and she's asleep before she's even realized she's closed her eyes.

When she wakes up it's late morning and Fi's still asleep beside her. It doesn't look like either of them moved a muscle all night, and given how exhausted they both were Jo can't say she's surprised.

Fi wakes up about twenty minutes later, while Jo's packing, and suggests they get lunch somewhere to celebrate a job well done.

Jo can't think of a reason why not, especially when they're outside and Fi offers,

"You want to drive?"

Jo's eyes go wide with surprise. "Seriously?"

"Sure," Fi shrugs. "I spend so much time in here, it'll be nice to be a passenger for once.—But," she adds, eyes sparkling with mirth, "shotgun picks the music. It's a rule."

And, hey, Jo can live with that.

Fi shoves a cd into the drive, and four seconds later Dolly Parton's voice comes out of the speakers; Fi sings along at the top of her lungs. "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jo-leeeene," she half-shouts, "I'm begging of you, please don't take my maaaaan." She clasps her hands together and leans toward Jo, looking up at her with a pleading expression. "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Joleeene, please don't take him just because you caaaa-aaaan."

Jo shakes her head, laughing, and pushes Fi's face away. "Don't—"

Judging by Fi's shit-eating grin, it doesn't deter her in the slightest. Jo's got to hand it to her: she's one stubborn son of a bitch. "Your beauty is beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair, with ivory skin and eyes of emerald green."

Jo glances over at her, smile curving her lips against her will. Eyes closed, Fi's using an empty water bottle as a microphone and rocking the fuck out, complete with dramatic hand gestures and hair flips.

"Your smile is like a breath of spring, your voice is soft like summer raaain, and I cannot compete with you, Joleeene. He talks about you in his sleep and there's nothing I can do to keep from crying, when he calls your name, Joleeene..."

They make it through "Jolene," "The House of the Rising Son," "Heart of Glass" and "Piece of My Heart" before Jo spots a Cracker Barrel and pulls over, because she's fucking starving and she's going to crash the car laughing if Fi keeps this shit up anyway.

"You have a nice voice," Jo tells her as they walk across the parking lot, and she's pretty sure she's smiling like an idiot, but she can't bring herself to care. It's been a long time since she met someone like Fi, and she's enjoying it while it lasts.

Fi shoves her hands in her coat pockets, pleased. "Well, it kind of runs in the family. My parents were singers, you know."

"What, for real?"

Fi nods. "Yeah, Molly and Rick Phillips. You know, the Phillips-Kane Band?"

Jo can feel her eyes go wide. "No way."

Fi laughs, looking over at her. She nudges Jo's shoulder with her own. "Way."

"That's crazy," Jo tells her, smiling like a maniac. "‘Another World' is on the jukebox at the Roadhouse, I used to put it on all the time when I was cleaning up after closing."

"Maybe I should take you home for Thanksgiving dinner," Fi teases, holding the door open. "Introduce you to my mom, my brother. My mom's Molly Phillips, and Jack married one the guitarists from her first solo tour. You'd be so adorably starstruck. Mom would love it."

"What about your dad?" Jo asks, voice tentative, as she ducks inside the restaurant—and just like that, both of their moods shift.

"No," Fi answers. "I mean—he died a long time ago."

Oh. "Mine too," Jo blurts out, like that's in any way a comfort. "When I was a kid."

Fi touches her hand to Jo's, fingertips brushing against the base of Jo's palm. "I'm sorry."

Jo shrugs. "It was—well, like you said, it was a long time ago." She forces a smile. "Come on, lunch."

"How did your dad die?" Fi asks out apropos of nothing, like she can't help herself, and Jo trails off in the middle of her sentence about vampires. Fi immediately looks sheepish. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—just—mine died in a car accident. When I was a baby."

"Hunting accident," Jo answers slowly, trying to decide how much of it she wants to reveal to Fi. "His partner screwed up and got him killed." And, Christ, it still hurts to say—to think about, even.

"How old were you?"

"Eight? Nine?" Jo laughs humorlessly. "I can't even remember at this point, he's been dead for more of my life than he was alive."

"What do you remember about him?" Fi presses, and Jo shifts a little under the rapid-fire questioning. She doesn't know why Fi cares enough to pry into a stranger's life like this; worse still, she doesn't know why she keeps answering like it's any of Fi's business. Is she really hurting that bad for someone to talk to?

She shrugs, playing idly with the ice in her water glass. "Not much. Nothing really specific, just... impressions, mostly. The way he smiled, the way he laughed, how happy he made my mom." She bites her lip, feeling bad. "I guess you don't have any memories like that."

"No." Fi's voice is distant, but then she shakes her head like she's clearing it. "But I got to talk to his spirit when I was a teenager—only for a few minutes, but I remember every second like it just happened a couple hours ago."

"That's..." Something a little like jealousy and a little like empathy tugs at Jo's chest. But whatever she was going to say is interrupted by the arrival of their food, and when the waitress walks away the feeling's gone, curiosity the only thing left in its place. "So what happened next?" Jo asks. "You said it was his ghost. Did you have to salt and burn his bones?"

She wonders if she'd be capable of doing that to her own father. Her mom had given him a hunter's burial (Jo can still remember the smell of charred flesh and the heat of the fire from when she'd snuck out of her room to watch) but if she hadn't, if Jo came across his ghost one day, would she be able to do that to him? She doesn't know, but she's sure as hell glad she'll never have to find out.

"I never got the chance," Fi's saying, "and anyway I don't think it was really his ghost, not in the sense you're thinking. To this day I haven't been able to figure out exactly what happened or how we were able to speak, but while we were talking something came up and dragged him away. Damn near killed me doing it, too: we'd been on the roof of this old high-rise, and I almost went over the side. By the time I got back on solid ground, he was long gone, and so was the thing that took him.—Besides," she adds, "I wouldn't even have known to salt and burn back then, so it's a good thing I didn't have to."

"I thought Ash said you'd been doing this since you were a kid?"

Fi blinks. "Oh, yeah," she scrambles to explain. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I have, but for the longest time I didn't know you could get rid of a spirit as easy as just... destroying the remains. In a way, I'm glad."

Jo glances over at her, surprised. "Why? It's so straightforward."

"I guess," Fi concedes. "I just… well, I'm living proof that sometimes you can get rid of spirits by finding out what they want, and helping them." She looks over at Jo, looking a bit worried for reasons Jo can't fathom. "Some of them are violent, I know, and I salt and burn with the best of them now, but when I was younger I didn't scour the paper for violent deaths and weird things. I just investigated things as they came up, and a lot of the times it was relatively peaceful. It was nice. It was fun."

"You're lucky you got all the nice spirits," is all Jo says to that.

"Yeah, well. I always thought it was my dad looking out for me, but—" Fi shrugs. "Maybe you're right, and I'm just lucky."

"So why become a hunter?" Jo asks, curiosity getting the better of her. "You can't be doing it just because it's fun, because it's not."

Fi shoots her a glance. "Isn't that why you're doing it?"

"No," Jo says, and doesn't elaborate. She fixes her gaze with Fi's, as if to say, I asked you first.

"My cousins," Fi says, after a long pause. "I have these two little cousins, Maggie and Miranda. I even lived with them for about a year before I went to college. And—well, they started fucking around with this old Celtic spellbook I have. I was away at school when it happened, but it was my fault. They'd always looked up to me."

"What happened to them?"

Fi bites her lip, and Jo would have to be blind to miss the amount of guilt Fi carries about this, even all this time later. "They got into witchcraft, Maggie got hurt—she's okay now, but it scared everyone in the family."

"A lot of people, that'd be enough to scare them into giving up the life," Jo observes. "Not make them choose it."

Fi shrugs. "Yeah, well—when I was a teenager I met this trickster spirit, Bricriu, and he told me I was a lightning rod for the paranormal. So I knew no matter what I did, this kind of stuff would always be around me, but I could protect my family by not being around them as much. And I could help other people by hunting down the bad stuff and getting rid of it. It was the hardest thing I ever did, but at the same time there was really no question."

Jo doesn't say anything for a minute, and Fi adds, "Plus my dad used to do this kind of stuff too. Not all the time, but whenever he came across it. Mom said that was pretty often, so I think maybe he was a lightning rod like me. And it makes me feel like he'd want me to do this."

That Jo can definitely understand. "Yeah, that's..." Jo clears her throat. "My mom worries about me, she doesn't think I can do this, but if my dad were still around I think he'd be proud of me."

"Did he teach you a lot about hunting?"

"Not a lot." Jo's laugh rings hollow. "Momma never wanted me learning, so he'd have to sneak in quick little lessons while she was at the store. And then every couple months she'd go to visit my gram in Minnesota for the weekend, and those were always my favorite times. He'd lock the door the minute she left and look at me with this big ol' smile on his face, put me on his knee and start telling me about one of his hunts—what the monster was, how it was hurting people, and what he had to do to make it stop. But I was so little, if you asked me today what he taught me I couldn't tell you—most everything I know I learned eavesdropping on conversations in the Roadhouse. What about you?"

"The internet," Fi answers. She's grinning. "When my mom decided to go out on tour when I was a teenager, she got me a laptop so I could keep in touch with my friends back home. What I ended up doing instead was starting a website about all the weird stuff I encountered on the trip, and it didn't take long for people—hunters, mostly—to find the messageboard. We used to share information like that. Still do, actually: the website's long gone but I still maintain the forum. That's how I know Ash: he was one of the first members."

"Oh." Jo hadn't even thought to ask, but it makes perfect sense.

"I have all the archives, too," Fi continues, "so it's like my own personal encyclopedia on how to kill evil shit. But it's funny—I know, or know where I can find, a way to kill almost everything on the face of the planet, and I still feel like love is the only true way to defeat evil."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jo asks, actually shocked by the utter naivety of the statement. "Salt. Holy water. Exorcism rituals. Silver. They all work against evil. I've never heard of a single instance in which love defeated evil all by itself."

Fi shrugs. "And every method you use, no matter what, you're doing it out of love. Out of love for the people you're protecting, or to honor your father's memory—it doesn't matter. You're motivated by love, Jo, and that's what makes everything you do so effective."

And Jo doesn't agree, not in the slightest, but Fi looks so convinced it's probably not worth arguing about it—after all, once they part ways odds are they won't see each other again.

But, once again, Fi surprises her: after the check comes, when they're heading back toward the car, she clears her throat to get Jo's attention. A quick glance at her face tells Jo she's nervous about whatever she's about to say.

"So... I was thinking, there's really no reason for either of us to do this alone. We make a pretty good team, Jo. What do you say?"

Jo blinks, surprised. "Fi, I—" And the thing is, she has absolutely no reason to turn Fi down: she's funny and smart, a good hunter, and they made a great team. But when she opens her mouth she finds herself saying, "Actually, I got a call from a couple friends yesterday night, they asked if I could come up and help them with a case they're working on. Thing is, they're not too trusting of strangers... you know how hunters can get sometimes."

"Oh. Right." Fi's smile seems forced. "Well, it was just an idea." She sounds so disappointed, and already Jo wishes she could take it back. But to do it now... she can't. She'd have to admit that she just lied, and she'd have to explain why, and she doesn't know how to. It's too late.

"We can keep in touch though?" Jo asks quickly, desperate not to part on bad terms. "E-mail, texting, whatever."

"Oh." Fi looks like she doesn't know how to take this offering. "Yeah, of course."

"Where are you headed? I could... I could give you a ride wherever. I don't have another job lined up right now." She tries a grin. "Kind of at loose ends."

Jo swallows, hard. "Thanks, but I wouldn't put you out like that. I'm just going to catch a bus."

She misses Fi. She hadn't thought she would, not really, but she does. Through hundreds of e-mails and texts over the course of the next few months, she gets to know Fi pretty well. And she likes what she gets to know. Fi's smart and funny, more passionate about hunting than anyone else Jo's ever met—and that's saying something. It becomes a game, almost—every time she emails Fi for advice on a case, Fi tells her what she needs to know and then offers to come down and help. Each time Jo gently turns her down, and at first she means it. Ever-present at the back of her mind is the knowledge that taking a partner is what got her father killed. But as the weeks pass something changes; when life slows down she finds herself thinking about the way she rejected Fi's offer out of hand, just because of some strange, stupid sense that she's got to prove herself on her own terms: that she can hunt on her own, get along just fine by herself.

But now she's proved it (to herself, if not her mother) she begins to wonder if maybe having a partner isn't such a bad idea. As long as it was someone she knew she could trust, what would be the harm in that?

She's in Duluth, Minnesota when her money runs out, and it doesn't take much effort to get a job in a bar, doing exactly the same thing she did at home. And it's the perfect opportunity: she decides to take a break from hunting for a little while. Just until she can figure out what she really wants.

The last thing she expects is for Sam Winchester to drop in and make the decision for her.

Jo stares at the door of the bar for a long time after Dean walks out with half a wave and a half-hearted promise to call. Stares, and wonders if Fi feels this same bitter, let-down ache when Jo calls her for advice but never assistance. She doesn't like the way the Winchesters breeze in and out of her life, accepting her help but rejecting her, and the thought that she might be to Fi what the Winchesters are to her makes her feel all kinds of low.

Before she can stop to think about it she's pulling her phone out of her back pocket, sending Fi a quick text: On a case right now? before she sets to finishing what she was doing before Sam showed up. The bar ain't gonna clean itself, and if she's going to quit tonight she might as well have the courtesy to finish her last shift properly.

It doesn't take Fi long to answer: Visiting mom actually. Why?

Just had a shitty day, wish I had something to distract me.

About thirty seconds after she hits "send," her phone rings, and Jo doesn't even try to fight the grin that comes to her face when she sees the name on the screen.

"Hey, Fi."

"Hey. Thought an actual conversation would be more distracting than some words on a screen."

Jo laughs quietly, touched by the gesture. "You're probably right."

"So... do you want to talk about it?"

She doesn't, not really—she'd like to forget the glint in Sam's eyes, doesn't want to remember the things he told her about their fathers or the way she unconsciously opened her legs when the point of the knife touched her face. But at the same time, she wants to complain about Sam and Dean and the way they treat her; the way Dean barely said thank-you for digging a bullet out of his shoulder; Sam's kind of a schoolgirl remark. And she knows Fi—she's going to push until Jo tells her anyway.

"Jo? You still there?"

Jo startles, and stops drawing patterns in the puddle of beer and shattered glass on the bar. "Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking. I met a demon for the first time today, did you know that?"

"What?" Fi's surprise comes clear across the line. "Jesus, Jo! What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she answers, because she is. She's got a split lip and the mother of all migraines coming on, but she's alive. It could have been a lot worse—it would have been a lot worse, if Dean hadn't showed up when he did. "I don't know if you know Sam and Dean Winchester—they're hunters."

"Never met ‘em," Fi laughs. "Heard a few things, though."

"Trust me, they're probably all true, and more besides. And they were here. But they're gone now. So's the demon, but..." She licks her lips, hesitating because she just doesn't know how to say the next part even though she's been thinking about it for months. "Listen, I want you here. I... I need you here."

In the background Jo can hear a scrambling noise, like Fi's suddenly a ball of activity. "You still in Duluth?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"I can leave right away, be there by tomorrow afternoon. Or we can meet halfway somewhere? What about the Roadhouse?"

"How about somewhere in South Dakota?" Jo asks, and though Fi doesn't know, can't know that part of her's hoping it'll be the somewhere in South Dakota that the hunter Dean knows lives, she still tries to offer a flimsy excuse for it: "I just want to avoid home right now."

"Of course," Fi breathes. "Yeah, whatever. Pick a town, I'll be there as fast as I can."

"You don't need to rush—" Jo begins, but she stops when she realizes she really wants Fi to be there now. Of if not now, as soon as possible. She wants Fi to rush. And it's really not fair of her to pretend otherwise.

It's early morning, just before sunrise, by the time Jo makes it to the meet-up spot in South Dakota. Fi's already there, perched on the trunk of her car as her knuckles drum out a nervous little rhythm. Jo maneuvers her piece of junk car into the spot beside the Mustang, and Fi jumps off the trunk before Jo's even killed the engine.

"Have you been here long?" Jo calls as she slides out, and when she turns Fi's right there.

"About fifteen minutes," Fi says. Then she gets a good look at Jo's face in the dim morning light. "Christ," she breathes, eyes going wide as one hand coming up a like a reflex. She stops it just short of the shiner on Jo's forehead, letting it hang there in the air like she wants to touch but won't let herself. Jo wishes she would. "That demon did a number on you."

Jo shrugs. The air's cold in that way it is just before dawn, chilly with the dew settling over the earth, and she pulls her red leather jacket tighter around her body. "Could have been worse."

"Don't say that," Fi scolds, finally letting her fingertips brush against the swollen skin. They're smooth and cool against the blood-hot bruise, as soothing as any balm, and Jo closes her eyes against the feeling.

When Fi moves her hand away Jo has to shake her head before it clears. "Hey, so remember how you lent me that silver knife when we went after that shapeshifter?" She pulls it out of her back pocket. "Found it with my stuff after you left."

Fi shakes her head, trying to hide her amusement. "And you didn't think to mention that before now? I've been looking all over for that. For months."

"Sorry." She's not that sorry. If she's honest, she liked having something of Fi's around.

"Come on," Fi sighs. "Let's put that away before I forget it again."

Fi keeps photos stuck to the inside lid of her weapons box: her and Jack, Jack and Clu, the entire crew of Molly Phillips' comeback tour. There's one of her father sitting in a plastic lawn chair, making faces at a toddler in his lap—Jo can only assume it's Fi. They're all old, curling around the edges, except one that was clearly only taken a year or two ago.

A tall guy with spiky blond hair is leaning against the trunk of the car, one foot resting on the bumper the opposite arm slung around Fi's shoulders. She's pressed up against his torso, resting her head on his shoulder, and flipping off the camera. They're both wearing sunglasses and grinning.

Jo reaches out and presses her fingertips against the glossy paper, wondering who the guy is and where he is now. There's a shotgun behind them on the trunk, Jo can see the edge of it—so he's probably another hunter.

"That's Carey."

Jo jumps, having not heard Fi come up behind her, and she drops her hand like she's been caught doing something wrong. She hates the fond smile she heard in Fi's voice when she said Carey, the affectionate inflection of remembrance. That he's the one who put the little quirk of a grin on her face just be existing, by being a memory.

She wants to ask who he is, who he is to Fi, but she's not sure she wants to know the answer.

"Look, I have something for you." Fi bites her lip, looking almost nervous. "It's—well, it won't really help if something like this ever happens again, but I still think you should have it." Fi opens her fist; a polished silver pendant nestles in the palm of her hand, pooled chain obscuring one of the star's five points.

"An anti-possession charm?"

"Yeah." Fi takes a breath. "Technically it's mine, but I want you to have it."

Jo shakes her head, tries to push Fi's hand away. "No. I'm—don't do this. I'm not a child. I can take care of myself."

"It's not about that," Fi insists. "Look, this is basic stuff: hunter 101. Always wear an anti-possession charm. I don't know who Sam Winchester is, but he's an idiot."

Jo laughs despite herself. "Kind of, yeah."

"This isn't about me trying to mother you, or thinking you can't take care of yourself," Fi continues, turning Jo's hand over and pressing the necklace into her palm. "We're hunters. That makes us sisters. I want you to be safe."

Jo looks at her for a long moment, then lets the charm fall back into Fi's open hand. Fi closes her eyes briefly, disappointment written in every line on her face. Jo just maintains eye contact, gathering her hair and twisting it in a knot against the back of her head, exposing her throat.

It takes Fi a second, but she gets it, and Jo sees the ghost of a smile on her face just before she circles around to Jo's back. Cool metal drapes against Jo's skin, diametrically opposed to the heat of Fi's fingertips as they brush against the nape of her neck, fumbling with the clasp on the pendant. Despite herself, Jo's eyelids flutter shut to better allow the rest of her senses to drink in the contact.

"What about you?" Jo asks, snapping herself out of the haze, trying to ignore Fi's proximity, the welcome body heat radiating from her. "If I'm wearing this, what are you gong to do? I can't just let you walk around unprotected."

"I already called the friend who made this one for me. I'm going to go get a replacement right away." Her fingers tangle with Jo's, tugging them away so Jo's hair can fall down against her back. When Fi speaks again, it's teasing and casual, with an undercurrent Jo can't identify. "If you're really that worried, you can come with me and protect me. Who knows, maybe we'll find something interesting to hunt on the way."

Right away Jo recognizes it for the invitation it is: Stay with me. Neither of us need to do this alone, and all at once she understands the catch in Fi's voice. Those offers, time after time—they were never a game to Fi.

Jo smiles, biting her lip, trying to pretend like warmth isn't blooming everywhere inside her. "I guess I can put up with you for a little while. After all, we're sisters." But the word seems wrong; it doesn't quite fit what they are, simultaneously more and less. She doesn't want to think about it, not now, not when everything else is falling into place, so she pushes the instinct to the back of her mind. "So where are we headed?" she asks, and Fi throws a look at her, grinning.

"Lawrence, Kansas."

Deep in the suburban area of Lawrence, Kansas is a cozy-looking house belonging to one Missouri Mo. She's a pleasant, sweet-voiced older woman who takes one look at Fi and Jo and welcomes them into her home with a kind of restrained enthusiasm that can't be faked. She shoos them into her sitting room and bustles off to make tea, saying she'll be back in five minutes.

While they're waiting for her to return Jo realizes Fi never introduced them—she should feel more uncomfortable sitting here, but there's something indefinable in the air, an aura of hospitality that makes her completely comfortable in a completely foreign place.

"So how did you meet her?"

"Came through a while back on the trail of a shtriga, Missouri helped me out with a little bit of info."

"She's a hunter?" Jo hadn't pegged Missouri as the type, but to be fair, nobody ever pegs her for the type either.

Fi shakes her head. "She's a psychic."

"A real one," Missouri elaborates, brushing through the beaded curtain with a tarnished silver tray, which she sets down on the coffee table with a light clatter.

Fi shifts a quarter-turn to face her, and her knee brushes against one of Jo's. "Missouri, this is—"

"Joanna Harvelle," Missouri finishes, smiling, and Jo blinks in surprise. "It's good to finally meet you, Joanna." She sets to pouring tea, and the cup she hands Jo is sweetened just the right amount, with no milk.

Missouri slides a charm across the table, toward Fi, before handing her a cup as well. "There you are, my dear."

Fi grins, sliding the necklace over her head. "Thanks." She takes a sip of her tea and doesn't seem at all surprised that Missouri knows exactly how she takes it.

"I hear you got yourself into a tight situation recently," Missouri says to Jo. "With a demon." She cocks her head to the side, all concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Jo answers. "Thanks. It was more surprising than anything, but—now I know better." She glances over at Fi, and can't help smiling. "And now thanks to Fi, I have a little bit of protection."

Missouri's pleasant and full of surprising knowledge. She quickly draws them into conversation, and before Jo realizes it several hours have passed.

As they're getting ready to leave Fi excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and as soon as she leaves Missouri turns to Jo. She's smiling, but there's a weird gravity to her gaze, like she's looking at Jo and pulling her insides open to find her secrets. It makes Jo uneasy: she has secrets she doesn't even want herself to know, let alone a complete stranger.

"How's hunting going?" Missouri asks, and Jo shouldn't be surprised, but she is.

"I—fine, I suppose."

"You're not finding it lonely, being on your own all the time?" Missouri probes.

"I don't know," Jo answers, shrugging, and they both know it's a lie. "I liked it at first, but now... maybe it's time for a change." She sips her tea awkwardly, for wont of something to do.

"You should follow your heart, Joanna," Missouri tells her. "Don't be afraid, it's not going to steer you wrong."

"Oh, I—"

"Don't make me tell you twice," Missouri says sternly, and it surprises Jo into laughing. She can see why Fi likes Missouri; even more, she can see how Missouri's gentle but no-nonsense demeanor would be good for someone like Fi.

"You guys talking about me?" Fi asks, coming back into the room, and Jo grins.

"What else?" she asks, clapping a hand on Fi's shoulder.

Fi smiles at her, resting a hand on her waist. "Ready to go?"

"Yep."

They say their goodbyes to Missouri and head out. Jo's just about to climb into the passenger seat when she notices Fi hesitate. "So. Where do you want me to drop you off?" she asks.

This is it, Jo thinks. This is the time to decide once and for all. "Nebraska," she answers, and she watches Fi's face fall just a tiny bit, like she was hoping Jo wouldn't have chosen anywhere. "The Roadhouse. I had my boss send my last paycheck there, and Ash can probably find a case for us, or maybe one of the other hunters will have a lead they don't feel like chasing down."

It takes Fi a second to catch on, but when she does, her face brightens like the sun coming up. "Guess we better hit the road, then," she says, sly smile in her voice, and something sticks in the back of Jo's throat.

"Guess so."

The sun's setting when they pull up to the Roadhouse, throwing shadows over the parking lot and building. Jo glances over at Fi as she climbs out of the car, unaccountably nervous about bringing her home, and she catches Fi squinting at the front door like she's trying to decide if anything's changed.

"You know, I've been here once before."

"Really?" Jo asks, slinging her pack over her shoulder. Most every hunter in America has passed through at one point another, but for some reason she hadn't expected it of Fi. Maybe because Fi's not like any other hunter she's ever met.

"Yeah, about a year back. I was passing through and Ash had me stop by, said it would be nice to meet in person for once. You served me at the bar and I asked you to go get him for me."

Jo frowns, trying to remember even though she knows finding Fi in a sea of half-forgotten strangers would be like finding a teardrop in the ocean. She hates to say it, but: "I... I don't remember you, Fi."

"Must not have made much of an impression, I guess," Fi replies, and doesn't seem hurt in the slightest, judging by her lopsided grin. Gravel crunches under their feet as they make their way to the front door, and Jo wonders that she never remembered her. Wouldn't she have, if such a pretty girl asked for Ash and he greeted her as an old friend? The idea that Fi could come to mean so much to her and Jo can't remember how they met bothers her, like it somehow cheapens their relationship even though logic dictates otherwise.

"Must've been real busy that night," Jo counters finally, and holds the door open for Fi to duck inside.

The jukebox is going, playing some country song Jo's heard too many times—with her every little move / she's telling me ‘I'm over you' / she's got the rhythm / and I've got the blues—and the bar's as dingy and smoky as ever. It's just like coming home, like she never left.

Her mom's behind the bar, pulling a round from the tap, and glances up when the door shuts. Her eyes go wide with surprise, and Jo feels vaguely guilty for not even giving her a heads-up that they were coming. She grabs Fi's hand and leads her over to the bar.

"Hey, momma," she says, leaning on the bar but not letting go of Fi's hand. Ellen just grabs her face with both hands gives her a kiss on the cheek. When she pulls back she's smiling broadly, and Jo finds herself grinning in spite of herself. She hadn't realized how much she's missed her mother until just now, but she also knows this feeling will only last until they butt heads over something trivial five minutes from now. Better enjoy it while it lasts.

"Hey, girl. I was beginning to think you'd never come home."

Jo shrugs. "It's just a visit. Hey, I want you to meet—"

"Fiona Phillips, ma'am," Fi answers, offering her hand. Jo's hand feel strangely empty without it. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Ellen looks at Fi for a long minute before shaking her hand. Jo knows her mother's face of silent judgment, and this isn't it—this is something more searching, like she's trying to find something familiar in Fi's face. "Phillips. Not... you're Rick Phillips' girl, aren't you? You look so much like him."

"You knew my dad?" Fi asks, and her voice cracks just the tiniest bit, enough to make Jo flinch. She sounds so young whenever anyone mentions her dad, like a little girl who still hasn't grown up into not missing her father, and Jo can relate. She wonders if she sounds like that too. She thinks back to the tantrum she threw when she found out the role John Winchester played in her father's death, the way she treated Sam and Dean.

"He came through every once in a while, but I haven't seen him since Jo here was a baby," Ellen answers. "I heard somewhere he died in a car accident. If that's true then I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Fi says. "I mean, I'm only about a year older than Jo so you probably knew him better than me, but... thanks. Did he come in a lot?"

"I didn't know him that well, he wasn't exactly a regular. But I know your parents spent a lot of time on the road, and you dad dabbled enough in this stuff that he found his way over a time or two looking for information."

"About what?" Fi presses, and Jo wonders if she's going to have to reel Fi back in at some point. She knows what Fi can get like, her single-minded determination to the exclusion of all rational boundaries. "The last time he was in here, what did he ask you about?"

Ellen shrugs. "It was something to do with demons, that's all I remember. It was a long time ago."

Fi opens her mouth, probably to ask another question, and Jo squeezes her hand. "Listen, mom, did you get any mail for me?"

Fi shoots her a questioning look and Jo shakes her head. Not now, she tries to communicate with her eyes, and Fi's expression changes to annoyance.

"Yeah, just this afternoon," Ellen interrupts, looking between the two of them with a little bit of confusion. "From some place in Minnesota, I think. I put it on your bed because I didn't know when you'd be back."

"Great. We've had a long drive, we're going to go dump our stuff and say hi to Ash, maybe grab some dinner. We'll see you later." She tugs Fi away from the bar, and Fi follows with some measure of reluctance, but Ellen's voice stops them before they get too far.

"Hey, how long're you staying?" she asks, and Jo glances over her shoulder. She shrugs.

"Tonight, maybe tomorrow? We're just passing through, really."

Ellen nods, her lips pressing in a tight line, and looks down at the bar.

Fi's pacing the length of Jo's bedroom, getting up and sitting down and getting up again, staring at the door like she wants to leave, and Jo knows it's because she wants to go interrogate Ellen about her father.

"Drop it, Fi," Jo says tiredly.

Fi spins around. "I can't just drop it! This is my dad we're talking about! If you were in my place, wouldn't you want to know everything? I need to know what happened to him, and a good place to start is knowing what he was looking for.

"Why? So you can go after it and get yourself killed, too?" She hadn't even considered the possibility until she said it, but as soon as the words leave her mouth she knows with cold certainty that this is exactly what Fi would do, and just the prospect of it squeezes an icy band of fear around her heart. "Sometimes it's better not to know," Jo tells her. So my dad... killed him. Put him out of his misery like a sick dog. My daddy shot your daddy in the head. "Besides, you got to talk to your dad, remember? You got to see him again and say goodbye. I was at school when my dad left on that hunt with John and he never came back and I have no idea what the last thing I said to him was. I don't even remember if I talked to him that morning!"

Fi stares at her like pieces are falling into place. "Are you jealous of me because of that day on the roof with my dad?"

"No," Jo denies. Yes. Yes.

"Don't you understand, Jo? I got five minutes with my dad's spirit and that's the only memory I have of him. I've spent my entire life missing someone I never knew and it kills me. At least you've got happy memories of your dad, at least you knew what he looked like outside of pictures. I bet you have at least one memory of just the two of you, right? Something not even your mom knows about?"

Jo nods. She was eight or nine, and her mom had gone to pick up supplies. Her dad taught her how to hold a knife to accurately throw it, showed her the knife with his initials and said, Someday I'll give you this, when you're real good. and told her not to tell her mom.

"I don't have anything like that," Fi says simply. "All my life I missed him because the people around me missed him and I felt so left out. Everything I knew about him, somebody else had to tell me, because I just didn't know a thing. I have a list of things we had in common, and every single one of them I had to learn from someone else. At least you know who you lost; I never will. Not really."

"You keep a list?" Jo asks, curious, and Fi cringes in something like embarrassment.

"Yeah."

"Can I see it?"

Fi looks surprised, like it's the last thing she expected Jo to say. "Yeah, I guess." She pulls her laptop out of her bag and opens it. "Come on, I keep it on here."

It's not a very long list, and for some reason that saddens Jo more.

• brown hair
• great swimmer
• cry watching home movies
• hate Rocky Road ice cream
• play guitar
• love of weird stuff
• sometimes we look the same
• good singing voice
• hunters

"It's a little cheesy, I know," Fi begins. "Most of that list is from when I was about fourteen."

"Except the last one," Jo laughs. "Or at least, I hope so."

"Well, yeah. I mean, back then I was investigating all this stuff, but I wasn't... a hunter."

Fi heads over to Ash's lair while Jo snags the three of them dinner from the kitchen. By the time she gets back all traces of Fi's bad mood have disappeared like it had never been there to begin with. Jo has no idea what Ash said or did to cheer her up, but she doesn't care as long as it means Fi's smiling and laughing again.

Eventually she leaves them to catch up and distracts herself by hustling a little pool in the bar proper; when she overhears some cocky young hunter boasting to his friends about his video game prowess, she can't resist the chance to challenge him to a round or two on the Roadhouse's machine. She wonders if she's still the undisputed champion.

She is, and victory is a sweet, sweet thing.

"Hey Jo, when you're done taking that guy's money you should come over here," Fi calls from her seat at the bar, and Jo scoops up the pile of cash next to the machine and grins at the hunter.

"Better luck next time, buddy," she says, smacks him on the ass, and heads over to the bar, making sure her hips sway like a boat at sea. Fi watches her do it with an amused grin, thisclose to laughing.

"You're shameless," she says, and Jo winks and pulls up a barstool. Fi has a file spread across the bar surface, newspaper clippings and article printouts scattered without much obvious organization.

"What's all this?"

"Possible case Ash pulled together for us. It's a series of car crashes in Pulaski, Tennessee—same place, same day, year after year. Locals are starting to call the place cursed, and a few people swear they've seen a ghostly shape in the woods next to the road. As far as Ash could tell it started five years ago next week." She rummages through the mess of papers. "First couple was... Robert Graves and Abigail Johnson."

"What happened to them?"

"Well, according to the article Ash found, they were on their way back from a party when they took a bend in the road too fast and spun out of control. No other cars were involved, Robert walked away with cuts and bruises, but Abigail was brought to the hospital in critical condition." Fi pushes the article at Jo, who scoots her barstool a little closer. "She was in a coma when this was written."

"Did she make it?" Jo asks, scanning the article for any other details.

Fi shrugs. "Dunno. That's the only article about this accident, the rest are about the other ones."

"We should find out what happened to her. If she died, that's a pretty compelling case for a vengeful spirit." Jo taps the newspaper clipping. "Look, it says here it was her car but her boyfriend was driving. I wonder why?"

Fi edges in a little closer, until their shoulders touch. "Maybe he was the designated driver?"

Jo bumps their shoulders together and then jumps up off the stool, circling around to the inside of the bar. "Keep talking," she instructs Fi, bending over to search the shelf under the register. "Next accident?"

"Uh..." Fi shuffles some papers as Jo rummages around in the detritus collected on the shelf. "February 14, 2004, exactly a year later."

"Same story?"

"More or less. James Fillimore and Georgia Evans, on their way home from a visit with friends. James is driving, takes the corner too sharp... they crash into the guardrail. Georgia's fine, James dies instantly."

"He dies?" Jo asks, finally locating the notepad she was looking for and grabbing a pen out of the mug by the register.

Fi shrugs. "Yeah, I guess."

"Sucks to be him, then." Jo hops back up onto her stool and flips open the notepad. "Okay. Check up on... Abigail Johnson. Coma?" she writes, underlining coma three times. She pauses, then writes below it, If dead—find bones.

As they scour the other articles for clues they pick up on a pattern that might be nothing and might be everything: in each crash, a teenage couple is involved, the boy is always driving, and (with the exception of the first crash) he always dies. The girls escape with minimal injury; the worst was a broken arm two years ago.

They're so absorbed in the details of the case they don't notice the hours pass, and before they know it all the customers are gone and Ellen's locking up for the night. As she starts counting the money in the register, Fi glances up and nudges Jo with her shoulder.

"Hey, maybe we should help your mom out."

Jo looks over at her mom. "She's got it."

"No, come on. Didn't you say once you used to put my parents' band on the jukebox and clean up? It's my turn to pick the music. Plus I think I need to—you know. Apologize."

"Helping my mom clean is definitely the way to win her heart," Jo concedes, and stretches. "Yeah, let's get it over with."

As Jo collects all the papers and shoves them back into the file folder, Fi heads straight for the jukebox, feeding it all the change in her pocket and jabbing a couple buttons. Jo watches with amusement as she grabs a couple rags. Fi steps away from the jukebox, looking very satisfied with herself, as familiar chords fill the too-quiet saloon, and catches the rag Jo tosses at her.

"It's been seven hours and thirteen days—since you took your love away," Fi sings along with all the soul in her white little body, wiping down the nearest table, and Jo starts cracking up.

"‘Nothing Compares 2 U'?" she asks, pausing to give Fi a look. "Seriously?"

Fi swats her with the rag and Jo dances out of the way, laughing. "Don't you hate on Prince, child—I go out every night and sleep all day, since you took your love away."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jo drawls, and looks away, making a split-second decision. "Since you've been gone I can do whatever I want, see whoever I choose. Eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant, but nothing can take away these blues." Ellen's head snaps up the second Jo starts singing, and she stares for a couple of seconds before shaking her head and looking back down at the money she's counting. Jo doesn't really know how to be self-conscious about it, not when Fi's looking at her like that, the ghost of a smile on her face, and together they sing the next line:

"Nothing compares—nothing compares to you."

When the song ends Fi grins up at Jo, pinching her cheek before dancing off, and Jo follows her with her eyes until her mother's quiet voice catches her attention.

"Jo Beth," she calls quietly, making a clear come here gesture. There's nothing in her tone to betray what she wants to discuss, so Jo tucks her rag into the back pocket of her jeans and heads over to the bar, lounging against it.

"What's up?"

Ellen glances over at Fi, who's putting chairs up on the tables and humming along to Otis Redding. I don't want a fancy girl, powder and paint / and I don't want me a woman / who thinks she's a saint.

"Listen, Jo... Fiona's dad. He wasn't a hunter, not the way your father was, or Gordon or the Winchesters or anyone else we know. He was an amateur." Here Ellen pauses, like she's trying to get Jo to comprehend the gravity of the situation. "He thought he knew about this kind of stuff, but he didn't—not how bad things could really get. From what I heard about his accident, he learned the hard way. So what I want to know is, can you trust Fiona? Does she know what she's doing?"

"Mom, yes." Jo rolls her eyes, and Ellen fixes her with a stern look.

"I'm serious, Joanna Beth. Are you going to be safe with her, or is she going to get you both killed one day?"

Jo hates it, this sins-of-the-father bit her mother keeps getting hung up on; she doesn't bother to hide her annoyance as she answers, "Fi's got her shit together, I swear. I didn't think so, at first, but she's been doing this for a lot longer than you think, and she's good at it. As good as any of the hunters that come through here—probably better. You don't have to worry about us."

"You watch your tone with me, young lady," Ellen snaps. "I'm still your mother."

But she doesn't say anything else, and after a minute Jo just sighs, snatches the case file off the bar and walks away, heading up the steps to the pool area where Fi's still busy tidying up. Jo touches the small of her back to get her attention, and Fi turns, tucking herself into the curve of Jo's arm and her personal space. "Hey," she says lightly, resting her hand on Jo's hip, and Jo can't help but smile.

"Hey. Mom can take care of the rest. Why don't we head to bed?"

Something indefinable enters Fi's eyes at that, and leaves just as quickly. Jo thinks maybe she imagined it, but Fi's still in her personal space. Jo would be surprised that she doesn't mind but these days she doesn't mind anything Fi does. "Sounds good. I'm beat.—'Night, Ellen!" she calls over Jo's shoulder, and Jo twists to look.

"Goodnight, mom."

Ellen glances up, making a gesture of dismissal so familiar it's probably unconscious at this point. "Sweet dreams, girls. See you in the morning." Her eyes catch Jo's briefly, just long enough to communicate an unspoken message, and Jo's arm tightens around Fi's shoulders as she leads Fi to her bedroom.

She makes it there, even managing to shut the door before:

"My mom's afraid that neither of us know what we're doing and we're going to get ourselves killed," Jo blurts out, unable to hold it in any longer.

"Well, we kind of are," Fi points out, yanking her t-shirt over her head. "I've never known of a single hunter that didn't eventually bite it during a hunt." She strips out of her pants, too, kicking them aside before heading over to her pack. Jo watches her cross the room, swallowing.

"Yeah, but she thinks it's going to happen, like, tomorrow," she calls.

"Nah," Fi says. "Tomorrow we're sleeping in and then we're going to hit the road. We're not even going to make it to Tennessee until the next morning. We'll be fine tomorrow."

Jo rolls her eyes and yanks open one of her dresser drawers, pulling out an old, worn shirt for sleeping in. "You know what I mean."

"So we make sure we don't get ourselves killed anytime soon, and maybe your mom stops worrying a little, okay?"

"She's never going to stop worrying."

"Is this a bad time to mention she basically interrogated me earlier tonight? While you were playing pool. She was being subtle about it, but she was testing me to see if I knew what I was talking about."

"She what? Jesus, I don't believe her! This is why I haven't been home since I left, if you hadn't guessed."

"This is nothing," Fi comments, flopping back onto the bed. "Just wait till you meet my parents."

"Parents?" Jo asks, raising an eyebrow. "As in, plural? Did your mom remarry?"

Fi starts in surprise, then laughs quietly at a private joke. "Sort of," she allows. "You'll see."

There's badly-concealed mirth in her eyes, and her mouth is a tight line as she tries not to smile. Jo just rolls her eyes and doesn't try to hold back her own affectionate smile, flipping off the lights and crawling in bed beside Fi. It's a tight fit—they're both small but twin size beds only have so much space. Even though she turns on her side to face Fi, Jo carefully maintains an inch of space between their bodies.

"Anyway, thanks," Fi says, turning her head but not her body in Jo's direction. "I mean—the singing. You're a much better sport than Jack."

"Your brother Jack?" Jo asks, a thought striking her.

Fi grins at her. "I don't know any other Jack."

"Oh," Jo says. "I was wondering—I thought maybe he was—" She stops, takes a deep breath, and composes her thoughts. "Do you have a boyfriend?" she manages finally.

"Boyfriend?" Fi's staring up at the ceiling, expression unreadable in the near-dark.

"I mean, I never hear you mention one, but I just..." she trails off, not sure what she's trying to say. "I wasn't trying to pry."

"No, uh—no boyfriend. That's not really my thing."

"Oh." Jo pauses. "I know hunting makes that kind of thing hard, but some people manage."

Fi rolls over on her side and studies Jo in silence for what seems like forever. "No. I mean guys in general are not really my thing."

"Oh." Jo blinks in surprise. "I—"

"Do you—is that going to be a problem?" Fi interrupts, and she sounds hesitant and small, more guarded than Jo's ever heard her sound. Like she doesn't know if Jo is going to be okay with them hunting together anymore.

"Fi," Jo rushes to say. "Fi, no, that's—it's fine. One hundred percent." She laughs lightly, trying to shake it off. "I mean, it's not any of my business anyway." Maintaining eye contact is the hardest thing she's done in a while, but there's really no alternative. To look away now would be to make Fi think she's uncomfortable, and she doesn't get to treat Fi like that. Not anymore.

"Hey, that's okay," Fi answers, after a pause, and it sounds like she's trying on a smile. "Means I get to ask nosy questions about your personal life too."

"Ask away," Jo answers, relieved. "I've got nothing to hide—no skeletons in this closet." She pauses, then adds, "Maybe in the one across the room, though. I wouldn't open the door too fast if I were you."

"Boyfriend?" Fi asks, and Jo frowns. She thinks about Dean, about Rick, about Gordon and all the other hunters that have come through the Roadhouse: the ones she wanted, the ones who wanted her, and the very small circle where the two categories overlapped. And, god, how pointless it all was.

"No boyfriend," she says. "I mean, for a while, there was this guy, a hunter that came through here pretty regularly. Rick. But I haven't heard from him months—years actually, now that I think of it—and I don't even know if he's still alive or if he just didn't want to be with me anymore." She smiles, wry, and cuddles further into her pillow. "I think it's pretty safe to say that relationship's over. And the only guy I want right now, well... let's just say I got a pretty harsh wake-up call about that one, courtesy of one demon-possessed Sam Winchester."

Fi frowns. "Not... Sam?" She's heard a lot about the Winchesters, courtesy of Jo, and she's not exactly their biggest fan.

Jo rolls onto her back, sighing. "No, not Sam. Dean." But the name leaves a bad taste in her mouth, like it doesn't belong there anymore.

"Oh." There's something funny about her tone, something Jo can't quite name even though she's desperate to figure out what Fi's feeling about all of this right now. But Fi falls silent after that, and Jo stays awake for a long time, listening to Fi breathe and wondering when everything changed.

And how she didn't notice it happening until it was too late to stop it.

Finally, when the chirping of crickets and utter stillness of the night threaten to drive her insane, she rolls over, shakes Fi awake. "If we drive all night we can make it to Tennessee by morning," she states all in a rush, though it's not what she had intended to say, and even through sleep-bleary eyes Fi's smiling up at her like there's nothing she'd like better in the entire world.

They can't, in fact, make it to Tennessee by morning. Broken Bow, Nebraska to Pulaski, Tennessee is exactly one thousand miles; a seventeen-hour drive adhering to the speed limit. Jo takes the first shift and pushes ninety the whole way. Fi's curled up dozing in the passenger seat and Jo keeps glancing over at her, shifting her gaze away like she's been caught doing something wrong, and pressing down on the gas pedal like if she just drives fast enough she can outpace this feeling. She can't, of course, but the open road goes a long way to helping her pretend she can.

Just over the border of Missouri she stops in the middle of nowhere to fill up the gas tank and get a cup of coffee. The sun's only just beginning to rise, throwing scarlet-orange light across the empty landscape, and it's beautiful enough that Jo feels something like peace cut through her scattered emotions to settle deep in her chest. Fi's still sound asleep, head pillowed on a hoodie wedged against the window, and though Jo should probably wake her—it's her turn to drive—she doesn't want to disturb her. She shuts the car door as quietly as possible and shifts the car into gear, pulling back onto 70E.

Missouri passes in a blur of highway, and they're about halfway through the state when Fi stretches awake and smiles sleepily at Jo. "What time is it?" she asks, because the clock in the car's been broken for years, and Jo shrugs as Fi digs around in her backpack for her phone.

"Nine? Ten?"

It's ten-thirty. Jo's been driving for almost seven hours straight and they're just about halfway through the trip. Exhaustion is pulling at her, eyelids getting heavier by the mile, and it must show on her face because Fi volunteers to drive the second she gets a look at her.

"No, I can—" She doesn't know why she's protesting. She needs to sleep, she knows this; but driving has kept her occupied for the last seven hours, something to focus on beyond her thoughts, and she doesn't know what she's going to do when she doesn't have that distraction anymore. There's so many things she'd rather avoid. "Fine. Next rest stop, we can switch."

She needn't worry: she falls asleep about forty seconds after Fi pulls back onto the interstate. When she wakes up it's early evening and Fi's shaking her awake. "Hey. Hotel. I already got us a room and brought everything up there, but if you think I'm carrying you up three flights of stairs you're in for a surprise."

Jo groans and gets out, stretching muscles that have been locked in place for too long. She glances over at Fi and catches her staring. "What?"

Fi blinks. "Nothing. Just tired, I think."

When Jo pulls out her phone she's got two missed calls and a voicemail she doesn't bother listening to, all from her mother. She feels bad about the way they left, sneaking out in the middle of the night and leaving a note by the register, but there's nothing she could do about it, not really.

"So I was quizzing the desk clerk while I was checking in," Fi's saying. "There's two hospitals in Pulaski, but only one graveyard."

Jo stares at her. "How did you find that out? ‘Hey, I was wondering if there were any good places to go grave-digging around here?' "

Fi's rueful grin is as familiar as the back of Jo's hand, at this point. "Pretty much."

Jo snorts. "God, I don't know how you haven't been thrown in a loony bin yet. The things you ask people. How do you get away with this shit?"

"It's called people skills, Joanna. You'd know that if you had any."

"If that's what having people skills entails, I think I'll stick with emotional isolation, thanks."

"Shut up. Do you want to try the hospitals or the graveyard first?"

Jo shrugs. "Graveyard, I guess. Hospital visiting hours are probably almost over, anyway, and there's nothing like a sunset to get you in the mood for traipsing around with a bunch of dead people."

"That's my girl."

They buy a two-dollar bouquet of daisies from a gas station and pretend to be old friends of James Fillimore, one of the victims, in town to pay their respects on the anniversary of his death. There's a map of the graveyard with color-coded sections that cross-reference to a list of names, and it doesn't take long for them to find where each of the dead boys are buried.

They look for Abigail Johnson's name on the list, but it's not there. It doesn't necessarily mean she's still alive, but it doesn't rule out the possibility, either.

Jo draws a map of the quickest route between the graves should they ever need to get to any of all of them in a hurry, and Fi insists that they do a quick walk-through to make sure nothing's changed. Jo knows better than to point out that a cemetery's the last place on earth things might change, and it's not like they have anything better to do at this exact moment anyway, so they go for a walk. With a grin she offers Fi her elbow and Fi gets the joke, sliding one hand into the crook of Jo's arm and curling the other around her bicep.

Fi leaves a daisy by each of the graves. She kneels down beside them, runs a hand over each headstone and promises in a quiet, serious voice that they're going to find out what did this and make it stop. Promises that whatever it is isn't going to kill anyone else.

Jo stands off to the side, hands shoved in her pockets, watching.

The next morning finds them in Stephen Pulaski Memorial Hospital, watching monitors beep at Abigail Johnson's bedside. The long-term ward isn't exactly a hub of activity at ten AM on a Tuesday morning, and it's the only place in the hospital where the patients never complain, ask stupid questions or talk back to their doctors. The girls don't make an active decision to stay silent, but they do anyway, enveloped by the quiet peace of Abigail's room.

"Oh," comes a voice at the door, and it startles them into turning around. A middle-aged woman in pastel purple hospital scrubs is standing there, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. She waves her clipboard vaguely. "I didn't know Abby had guests. I just need to check a couple things, then I'll get out of your way."

"Of course," Fi answers, shaking herself out of her reverie. "We were just leaving."

"No, no, stay," the nurse answers, coming further into the room. She pats Abigail's hand fondly, looking down at her with such love that if Jo didn't know any better she'd think the woman was Abigail's mother. "It's been so long since Abby had any guests other than her parents. And it's so often the case that coma patients can hear you—I think it'd do her a world of good if you stayed a little while. Are you friends of hers? I don't remember seeing you here before."

"Cousins," Jo answers quickly. "From out of town. We come every year around this time, to see her…"

The nurse nods. "Of course. It's five years next week, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Fi slips her hand into Jo's and squeezes. "Has there been any change? It's been so long…"

"No. She hasn't shown any sign of improvement since day one. It's a shame, because the doctors and her parents are beginning to talk about whether they should… you know."

"Is that unusual?" Fi presses. "That her condition wouldn't have changed after all this time."

The nurse shrugs. "Sometimes. Other times, not so much. I've been here ten years: I've seen patients wake up, I've seen them fade away, I've watched their families make the hardest decision of their lives and let them go." She glances up. "You get to know your patients, here, get attached to them. But I've never wanted anyone to wake up more than Abby.

"I was on-duty, you know, when they brought her in. I've seen her, talked to her, every day since then. It drives me insane that a pretty girl like her could suffer like this when her boyfriend got away with a couple scrapes and bruises. She wasn't the one who was driving like a maniac; she doesn't deserve this."

"I think it's the nurse," Fi says as soon as they're in the parking lot.

"Really?" Jo asks. It's not the last thing on earth she expected Fi to say, but it's pretty damn close.

"Absolutely. Did you hear the way she was talking in there? She wanted blood."

"So what, she put a curse on the entire town? Just that stretch of road? How is she making this happen?"

Fi chews her bottom lip, thinking. "No, that doesn't make sense."

Jo's sarcastic, "You think?" goes unheeded as Fi continues,

"I still think we should check out the first boyfriend, that Robert guy. See what he remembers about that night."

"I think you're right."

A short, red-haired girl with about a million freckles dusted over pale skin answers the door, and for a minute Jo thinks they've gone to the wrong house.

"Can I help you?"

"Er… is Robert Graves in?"

"Yeah, hold on." She hollers over her shoulder into the house proper then looks back up at them. "Hi, I'm Georgia. And you are…?"

They'd decided on newspaper reporters as their cover, reporters doing a tribute to all the teenagers who've died at Pike's Corner over the past couple of years. It turns out to be exactly the wrong approach, because as soon as they introduce themselves Robert's carefully polite air closes off into unmistakable unfriendliness. But Fi apparently takes "newspaper reporters" as an excuse to ask people a barrage of extremely personal questions, and doesn't heed Robert's body language.

He answers with hostility—Jo probably would have too—and tells them in no uncertain terms to get lost. He also mentions, in graphic detail, what he's going to do to them if he ever sees them again, and they can quote that in their fucking article for all he cares.

"I think he's hiding something," Fi says as they head back to the car. She doesn't look offput in the slightest, which would probably worry Jo if she wasn't so annoyed.

"Ya think?"

The front door opens behind them and Jo turns, slipping her hand into her pocket to grab her knife, but it's just the girl who answered the door earlier, hurrying down the steps.

"Wait," she calls, and they wait. "You're not really newspaper reporters, are you?"

And Fi's answering, "No, we're not," before Jo has a chance to open her mouth. She shoots a glare at Fi, but Georgia's nodding in a satisfied way that bodes well for the both of them.

"I didn't think so. Who are you really? Why were you asking him all that?"

"We think something's making all those crashes happen," Fi says, earnest and sincere as a boy scout and Jo really hopes she's not about to say what Jo thinks she's about to say. "Like a ghost, maybe."

Of course. "Seriously, Fi?" Jo hisses, just as Georgia blurts out,

"I knew it!"

"You…"

"I knew it," Georgia repeats excitedly. "Listen, a couple years ago—I coming home from a party with my boyfriend, and we… we crashed. Right at that corner. And I swear to god, right before we did, I saw this thing. I don't remember much about the crash—it all happened so fast—but I felt like there was some kind of force pressing down on me." She gestures vaguely. "Like protecting me, you know. And I never used to believe in ghosts, but after that night… well, I guess I do now."

"You should," Fi tells her. "They're out there, more than you'd think."

"And most of them aren't exactly Casper," Jo adds, annoyed. "So be careful."

Georgia nods, biting her lip. "I will," she promises. She looks so young, and then her face breaks out in a radiant smile, laughter bubbling out of her. "Thank you," she says, shaking Fi's hand. "Thank you," she repeats, shaking Jo's hand. "I thought for so long I was crazy, but if I am then so are you, and that's okay with me."

And, god damn. Fi lost them one witness but got them an even more cooperative one in the process.

"Hey, Georgia," Jo says. "You said it looked like someone you knew. Who was it?"

Georgia's quiet for a minute before she answers. "This girl I went to high school with, Abby Johnson. But she's not dead. She's been in a coma since senior year, but she's not dead."

In the car the girls turn to look at each other, both wearing identical expressions of shock.

"Holy shit," Jo breathes.

"You're telling me."

"It's Abby causing the accidents! Her spirit must have separated from her body during the crash somehow, but never got reaped for whatever reason? So instead of dying, she lingers in a coma."

"And her spirit is hanging around," Fi continues, "and she hears the nurse talking to her, hears how upset she is. Talking about how she doesn't deserve this, how Robert should pay for what he's done. And it doesn't take long for her to start turning vengeful, to be angry at him."

"But she's probably stuck between the hospital, where her body is, and the crash site, where she sort-of died, and if he doesn't show up at either of those places, she can't get to him."

"So she starts going after guys who are like him, who are driving their girlfriends home down that road. She appears in front of them on the road, frighten them into swerving, crashing. She protects the girls and lets the boys die, just like that."

Jo frowns. It makes sense, but… "But what can we do about it? She's still alive. We can't salt and burn her bones, and I'm not going to wait for them to take her off life support. We've got to save her too if we can."

"There's always a way," Fi tells her, positive. "And we'll find it."

Four hours later, they still haven't found it. Fi had posted an inquiry on her messageboard on how to effectively communicate with coma patients; Jo's scoured every source she owns and every possibly-relevant title (all three of them) in the Pulaski Public. Although neither girl's ready to give up, they're starting to get frustrated.

But then Fi sits up very straight in her chair. "Astral projection," she breathes, eyes going wide. She flips open her laptop and starts typing something, fingers tapping out letters with manic intent, like if she doesn't do this right away something terrible will happen.

"What are you talking about?" Jo asks, watching with mild interest and some bewilderment.

"Astral projection!" Fi repeats, as if that explains anything at all. She doesn't slow her typing or take her eyes off the screen. "Look, I just have to—email someone, and then I'll explain." About a minute later she hits the enter button with satisfaction, and looks up at Jo with a huge smile on her face. "There."

Jo rolls her eyes. "Okay, so…?"

Fi visibly startles, like she'd forgotten the promise she made sixty seconds earlier. "Oh yeah. Right. So I was thinking, we've been trying to figure out how to communicate with someone in a coma, but the whole point is that Abby's spirit isn't with her body anymore—even if we could figure out how to make her hear us, her spirit could be miles away! So we have to find her spirit and reason with that, not her body!"

"Okay," Jo says slowly, "but how do we do that?"

Fi's eyes light up. "Ah, see, that's the beauty of the plan. Must've been ten years ago, I met this girl who had taught herself astral projection. She would use it to do stuff like go to the carnival when she was supposed to be in class, dumb teenager shit like that. And she could do that because she's a psychic, although neither of us knew it at the time. And I know now that she's good enough at it to bring other people out of their bodies—she's mentioned doing it before. And if we can get her to do that for us..."

"We can get to Abby," Jo finishes.

"Exactly." Fi gets up and stretches, then pushes her open laptop closer to Jo. "Keep an eye on that, would you? She'll probably answer pretty quickly, but I want to take a shower."

To: Fiona Phillips [[email protected]]
From: Claire Avner [[email protected]]
Subject: Re: help!!

Fi—
Who's this other hunter? I thought you were working with Carey! Should I be jealous? ;)
Anyway, it doesn't sound TOO crazy… well, at least not considering who it's coming from. It might even work! Where are you? I'll be there ASAP, just gotta send me your coordinates!

xoxo,
Claire

Claire's set to arrive later that evening, and sure enough, around nine-thirty there's a knock at the door. Fi's across the room in four seconds flat, and another two seconds later girly squealing fills the air as she embraces the girl at the door. Claire's about six inches taller than Fi, with close-cropped brown curls and cheekbones most girls would kill for, and she smiles and waves at Jo without letting go of Fi.

Jo basically hates her on sight, and her dislike only intensifies when Fi takes a step back and tugs Claire into the room by her hand. "Claire, this is Jo Harvelle. We hunt together. Jo, this is Claire Avner."

"Good to meet you, Jo," is Claire's instant response, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. Jo shakes it, not wanting to be rude, but her,

"Yeah, likewise," could have been a bit more enthusiastic, if she's being honest. But she's not in the mood to be honest, and anyway Fi and Claire don't seem to notice a thing, too caught up in catching up.

"I didn't expect you to get here so quickly," Fi's saying. "Were you in the area?"

"Yes and no," Claire answers, setting down her oversized purse. "I mean, I live in Mississippi now—I moved down there with my fiancé about three months back—so I wasn't far to begin with. Add in the fact that work's been real slow lately... I basically left the second you texted me the address."

"Fiancé?" Fi asks, and of course that's what she'd latch onto. She grins. "Poor Clu and Jack are going to be heartbroken. You know after they met you they argued for days about which one of them you were going to marry?"

Claire snorts, rolling her eyes. "Like they ever had a chance. Truth be told, of the three of you, you were the one that even came close."

"Me?" Fi asks, the tips of her ears going pinkish.

Claire nods. "Are you kidding? You didn't know? Why do you think I finally let you help?" As an aside to Jo, Claire adds: "Fi has this way of just… sneaking up on people when they least expect it. One minute she's a total stranger, and then suddenly you trust her with your life. With everything. She just sort of steals a place in your heart."

Like Jo doesn't already know. She swallows hard. "Yeah, I've seen her do it on cases a few times. It's a really great talent for a hunter to have."

"It doesn't always work, though," Fi puts in, but she's looking at Claire. "Remember the first time we met? I was trying to help you and you just slipped out of your body and left me rambling like a dweeb in your bedroom."

"I let you help eventually, remember?" Claire points out. "Besides, you weren't rambling like a dweeb. It was cute how prepared you were."

"Says the girl who ignored me," Fi responds, but she's smiling. Jo has no idea what they're talking about but she does know she doesn't feel like listening to another minute, so she mumbles an excuse they barely appear to heed, and escapes.

Ten minutes later she's returning to the room (after taking the world's most circuitous route to the vending machine) when the door opens and Fi and Claire walk out, laughing about something or other. They're too far away to hear what they're saying, but Jo watches them hug before Claire starts across the parking lot.

"See you later, Jo!" Claire calls, waving. Jo waves back as she reaches Fi.

"So?" Fi asks, grinning wide. "What do you think?"

"She's… nice," Jo hedges, trying to ignore the burning in her sternum.

"Nice? She's amazing!" Fi answers, and she's practically bouncing, vibrating with energy. "So we were going to head out to the bar, catch up a little. You're welcome to come along if you want, it'd be a good way to get to know each other."

Jo can think of about a million things she'd rather do than watch Fi and Claire talk about the good old days and flirt with each other, including stab herself in the face. "Oh... thanks, but I'm kind of tired," she lies, crossing her fingers behind her back so she doesn't have to feel bad about it. "You two go on ahead, I think I'm going to watch some bad tv and pass out early."

When Jo wakes the next morning, it's to the feeling that she's being watched. On reflex her hand slips under her pillow to grab her dad's knife, and then she rolls over to confront whoever's there.

She's not expecting it to be Claire, sitting cross-legged on Fi's bed and looking ten kinds of shocked that Jo's pointing a knife in her general direction. Which Jo can't exactly blame her for. She lowers her hand.

"Where's Fi?" She'd been awake when Fi had returned the night before, so she knows Claire didn't spend the night in the room, but she has to wonder why Claire's here now.

"Supply run," Claire answers casually, like she hasn't been sitting there watching Jo sleep like a total creeper. "She left about a half-hour ago, so she should be back soon."

"Supplies for what?"

"The ritual. I can yank myself out of my body no problem, but to get other people out I need a little bit of help." She glances around the room. "You know, I saw that you had two beds when I arrived last night, but I hadn't thought that you used them both."

Jo blinks a couple of times, trying to follow Claire's line of thought. Maybe she's more asleep than she'd thought, because it makes absolutely no sense. "Why wouldn't we? It's not like we share a bed," and, oh.

Claire looks puzzled. "You mean you're not—? When I met you I basically assumed... I mean, the way you are around each other, and the way she was talking about you last night..."

"Well you assumed wrong," Jo answers shortly. She knows she shouldn't be like this, but Claire's words hurt: if she could see it, the whole world could probably see it, and Fi doesn't even realize what she's been doing to Jo. It's unfair in the strictest sense of the word.

"Oh." Claire doesn't appear offended, just thoughtful. "You know, Fi's really friendly. With everyone, and I mean everyone. But she's... different, with you. I think maybe you should keep that in mind."

It makes her suddenly, irrationally furious that Claire thinks she doesn't already know these things about Fi, like she's some stranger that needs to be filled in before she can truly appreciate her hunting partner. Like Claire knows Fi so much better, has a right to her because she met Fi ten years ago instead of six months ago. It's condescending and makes her feel stupid, like she's on the outside of some kind of exclusive club because she only met Fi recently, nevermind that they spend practically every waking hour with each other and all the time they spend apart Jo's thinking of her every minute.

"S'that what your crystal ball's telling you?" Jo snaps. She's not used to having to share Fi with anyone, and she feels selfish and petty for hating Claire for it, but the simple truth is that she'd be lonely without Fi. In a life full of people who walk in and walk out at their own convenience, for whom her home is just a port in a storm, with only her mother (and, in recent years, Ash) as anything resembling constant, all she wants is someone to be hers, a kind of permanence she's never known despite living in the same place her entire life.

"No," Claire answers simply. "That's what I'm telling you. But I do have a crystal ball, and if I asked it'd probably tell me the same thing." She grins. "Or it might say ask again later. It's temperamental like that."

The first thing Fi does when she realizes the ritual worked is try to poke Jo with her now-ethereal hand. Of course. Jo had absolutely been expecting it, and she dodges out of the way with ease.

"No, come on—" Fi starts, and Jo turns back.

Fi reaches out her hand as if to touch, and Jo can't resist bringing up her own hand to meet it, their fingertips not touching but instead falling straight through each other. It's odd: though she knows, intellectually, that spirits don't feel anything, part of her still believed she would feel something, the way people experience pain in limbs that have been amputated. But she was wrong.

"Whoa," Fi breathes, awestruck. "This must be what it was like for Claire. No wonder she left her body so often; if I could do that all the time, I probably would too." She grins, poking her hand through one of the kitchen chairs. Then the kitchen table, then Claire herself, sitting quietly on sentry duty with a rock salt-loaded shotgun by one hand and the ritual bowl by the other.

"Fi," Jo snaps, more amused than she's letting on. "Come on, we've got lives to save."

"Come on, we've got lives to save," Fi mimics without malice, swooping her hand down as if to smack Jo on the butt. It slices right through her and back out the other side; Jo doesn't feel a thing. It does make her jump though, and when she looks back up Fi's got this triumphant little grin on her face.

It's a challenge if Jo's ever seen one. She narrows her eyes. "Oh, it's on now," she threatens.

Fi yelps and races through the door—literally through the door—and Jo tears after her, catching up with her halfway across the parking lot, slamming through Fi's astral form with her body braced like she expects a blow that's never going to come.

This time she feels something more than nothing, but only barely. It's more of a chilly sensation, less about the temperature and more about a total sense of wrongness, but she supposes that's apt: she did just run straight through another person.

But she doesn't have long to think about it, because Fi's looking at her with a wicked grin and Jo takes off running; she doesn't have to look behind her to know that Fi's chasing her, and Jo screams, laughing because nobody can hear her, because she doesn't have to worry about anything or anyone but Fi, and Fi doesn't care.

And suddenly Fi's in front of her and Jo stops abruptly, shrieking again—this time in surprise—as her ghost-heart tries to hammer out of her nonexistent chest.

"Christ, Fi—warn a girl! How did you even do that?"

Fi looks way, way too pleased with herself. "I decided that I wanted to, and then I concentrated really hard on doing it. And it worked."

"What was it like?"

"Like... one minute I was there, the next minute I was here. Like it happened while I was blinking. I didn't feel a thing, except a serious case of space-time disorientation."

Jo bites her lip, concentrating on a point about five feet off. Fi laughs.

"You look like you're staring down an angry dog," she says. "Chill out a little bit."

"Shut up," is Jo's intelligent response. "Don't we have shit to do, anyway?"

"Yep." Fi goes to grab Jo's arm and giggles when her hand slices right through empty air. "Nevermind. Let's get going. We've got less than an hour before we turn into pumpkins, so we need to make the most of it."

The whole incorporeal thing sort of puts a damper on their ability to just get in the car and drive to the hospital, so walking it is. And though there are people and cars out and about—it's the middle of the day, after all—none of them can see or hear the girls, and Fi apparently takes this as an excuse to talk a mile a minute about whatever comes into her head. Jo doesn't really mind, until things take a slightly more morbid turn.

"Did you know, with astral projection, sometimes you can go back into the wrong body?" Fi asks, as if Jo actually wants to hear anything even remotely like that right now.

"Oh?"

"Yeah!" And the thing is, Fi's excited. Like she thinks this is cool. There really is nobody like her. "There was this guy who was famous for being able to take himself out of his body. And then one time—" she pauses for dramatic effect— "he went back into a corpse."

Jo raises an eyebrow. "So what you're saying is, there's a chance that Claire's going to screw up pulling us back and we'll have some Freaky Friday body-swapping shit going on? 'Cause I gotta say, Fi, you're cute and all but I'm partial to my own flesh and bones."

"Can't say I blame you. If I looked like you, I'd be pretty fond of my own body as well. But you got nothin' to worry about—Claire's the best." The fondness in her voice grates, though Jo tries to tell herself it doesn't.

That doesn't stop her from changing the subject like a total coward. "So, hey, if Abby's just a spirit like us, how can she protect those girls?"

"Maybe if she concentrates hard enough she can turn herself solid for a couple of seconds—long enough to keep them safe. Who knows."

"Huh. I guess that makes sense."

"Do you think we could, if we tried?" Fi looks far, far too interested in the possibility.

Jo shrugs. "Maybe?"

In a second Fi's squared off in a fighting stance, shifting her wait from foot to foot exaggeratedly. She punches the air a couple of times. "Come on, take your best shot."

Jo watches her in amusement before she figures, what the hell. She squares off too, and swings a right hook at Fi's cheek. Fi ducks out of the way.

"Oh, too slow." Fi aims an uppercut that slices right through Jo's chin and out the top of her head. "Darn."

Jo narrows her eyes at a leaf hanging from a nearby tree, then reaches up and snatches it off. She doesn't quite keep her grasp on it, but it flutters to the ground. And god damn, is she ever proud of herself.

Fuck, that took a lot of energy. She kind of wants to take a nap now, not fight evil.

"Okay, that's awesome," Fi's saying. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

"After we save Abby Johnson," Jo bargains, mostly because she doesn't think she can manage it a second time. "Sound good?"

"Sounds good."

Fi spends the rest of the walk trying to make things move, to no effect. Jo spends the rest of the walk making fun of her. As they round a corner and the hospital looms into view, Fi executes an abrupt change of subject.

"I brought this other girl out of a coma once when I was younger, you know."

"Really?" Jo asks, kicking a rock and watching her foot go right through it. "How did you get her back to the land of the living?"

"Google maps."

Jo's head snaps up in surprise, and Fi bursts out laughing. "I'm serious. Well. It was Mapquest, not Google Maps, but this was in the days before Google. She was lost inside her own head and she—" Fi trails off, eyes following something in the distance.

"What?"

"Isn't that her?" Fi points. "Going into the hospital."

Jo looks. "Yep."

They take off running. The clock's ticking.

Every hunter knows that a spirit who dodges their Reaper, refuses to move on, or is stuck on Earth against their wishes, will eventually turn vengeful. No matter how sweet they were in life.

Abby was probably very sweet before the coma, Jo muses, ducking the vase of flowers flying toward her non-corporeal head.

"We're trying to help you!" Fi yells.

Abby clearly isn't interested in being helped. They'd followed her all the way back to her room, which in the spirit world looked a whole hell of a lot gloomier than in the real world. Abby had been sitting in the chair beside her bed, looking down at her comatose self, and Jo had let Fi enter the room first to do her magic.

And her magic had worked, at first. She'd spoken to Abby in a gentle, low voice, asking her if she missed being alive, and how easy it would be to wake up, if only she would let herself. Abby had even listened, looking interested, until Fi had slipped and mentioned Robert.

Funny how one word, one name, could incite such violence, but there you go. That's a textbook vengeful spirit for you.

"Come on!" Jo hollers. "Let's go!"

Abby doesn't follow them as they retreat into the hallway, and Jo can only thank god for small favors. "Our hour's almost up," she reasons, out of breath somehow even though she doesn't need to breathe. "Let's just wait it out until Claire brings us back, and then we can figure out where to go from there."

"We just need to get her back inside her body," Fi asserts. "We can do it, I know we can."

Jo waves her arms in jerky movements, trying to speak but momentarily unable to. "No, we really can't. Were you in the same hospital room with me? She's pissed off enough that she's throwing shit, Fi. She's going to kill us."

"We have to try," Fi insists, and if she's going to go back in there no way in hell is Jo letting her go alone. Cursing the day she ever met Fiona May Phillips, she steps back over the threshold.

And she gets an idea.

It's probably the stupidest idea she's ever had, and it might not work. If it does work, it might kill her. But she's not thinking about any of that right now. She can hear the echo of Claire's voice in her ear, beginning the incantation to bring them back to her bodies, and she has less than five seconds to make this happen.

She steels her nerves, concentrates really hard on what she wants, and tackles Abby's spirit onto the hospital bed.

The two of them hit Abby's comatose form with a wham, and then something's pulling on her, yanking her away, and the last thing she sees before she disappears is Abby, opening her eyes.

A split second later, she's across town, heaving in deep breaths as a hand pulls her up off the bed. By the time she's cognizant of what's happening, Fi's already let go, taking a couple steps backward.

Jo looks over at her, wide-eyed, one hand splayed across her diaphragm to steady her breathing. "That worked. She woke up, that worked."

Fi looks like she can't contain her excitement—or her relief. "I know."

"Holy shit, that worked!" Jo repeats in disbelief, laughter bubbling out of her oxygen-starved lungs. "Oh my god—makes you wonder why more hunters don't do it."

"Are you kidding?" Fi asks, grinning like a mad thing. "This shit's dangerous."

It's far funnier than it should be, and Jo laughs long and hard, just barely tamping down the urge to take Fi into her arms, kiss her longer and harder. The adrenaline high her body's riding is curiously disconnected from her mind and she's operating on base instinct. It would be so easy to cross the room—three steps, one second tops—press Fi flat against the wall, grab a fistful of her shirt and kiss her so hard their knees go weak.

But, then—their knees are weak already, Jo's body reminds her with a dangerous buckle, and suddenly her number-one priority steadying herself on the nightstand long enough to get back to her bed.

"You okay, Jo?" Claire asks, all concern, and in an instant both she and Fi are at Jo's side.

"Yeah, fine," Jo answers, and actively restrains herself from leaning into the gentle touch of Fi's hand on her cheek.

"What's wrong?" Fi's voice is low, just this side of frantic.

"Some people have a harder time adjusting to being back in their body," Claire answers before Jo can respond. Not that she would've known what to say, but it grates even though Claire's only trying to help.

"Is there anything we can do for her?" Fi asks. Her fingertips are cool against Jo's temple, brushing a strand of Jo's hair back. Jo blinks a couple of times to clear her head.

"Not really, but—"

"I'm fine," Jo interrupts, flashing a quick smile. "I'm probably just hungry. We haven't eaten all day, and I did just body-slam a ghost back into her meatsuit."

"That's right," Fi answers, fingers still carding through Jo's hair like she doesn't even notice she's doing it. "Tell you what, hmm? You rest up for a couple minutes, get your feet back under you, and then we'll all go out and get some supper." She presses a kiss to Jo's cheekbone, and Jo closes her eyes with a faint smile. "I'll go get you some water."

Claire presses down on Fi's shoulder to keep her from standing. "I'll go. You stay with her."

Part of Jo is annoyed that Claire is treating her like some fragile, breakable thing. Another part of her is just glad that Fi won't be leaving her side.

Claire comes out of the bathroom a second later with a glass of water in one hand and her cell phone pressed to her ear. Drink this, she mouths at Jo, before saying, "Yeah, hold on—it's in the car, let me go check," to whomever she's on the phone with and striding out the door.

It's tap water, so it's room temperature at best, but Jo gulps down as much of it as she can anyway—it really does help. She can already feel her body returning to its normal equilibrium.

Fi watches her for a second, face inscrutable, before getting up and crossing the room to peek out the curtains at the parking lot. "I wonder who that is on the phone?" she asks, and she's just being her normal curious self but it fucking gets to Jo.

"Probably her fiancé," she replies shortly, not bothering to hide her irritation. "Or did you forget she had one?"

Fi whips her head around so fast Jo thinks for a second her neck is going to snap. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Jo answers, too exhausted to want to get into it. She shouldn't have said it in the first place. And she should know better than to think Fi would drop it, too.

"What's your problem, Jo? You've been so bitchy ever since Claire got here and all she's done is help us. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous." Fi spits the word like a curse, and it hangs there in the silence between them for a telling moment.

"I am," Jo admits, feeling the weight of the words only after they leave her mouth. She realizes belatedly that Fi's accusation was just a way to rile her up, not serious: she's gone and given away the game.

She doesn't have long to worry. Fi's across the room in two seconds flat, gripping Jo's shoulders tightly enough to bruise. "Jo. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. There is nothing for you to be jealous of." She breaks their eye contact, glancing down. "Nothing," she repeats, with a curious emphasis Jo's never heard for her before.

She's heard it from other people, though, that odd seriousness, and she knows what it means. She can hardly process what Fi's trying to tell her. "I thought—"

"You thought wrong," Fi cuts her off, and Jo doesn't even know what she was going to say so it's just as well. Fi just stares at her incredulously for a second. "God. You really don't know, do you?"

And this. This is really, really important. "Know what?"

A smile tugs at the corner of Fi's lips as she shakes her head. "You're an idiot." Her eyes dip down to Jo's lips for just a fraction of a second, and when their gazes meet again the heat in the room cranks up a notch or five. "I push too much," she says slowly, eyes never leaving Jo's. "I promised myself I wouldn't—not about this—not unless you made the first move."

It's about as clear a confession as anyone ever gets—hell, it's practically a request—but it still takes every ounce of bravery Jo possess to lean in, angle her head, and brush her lips against Fi's. The Jersey Devil had nothing on the kind of breathless terror that runs through her veins for the split second it takes Fi to kiss her back.

Fi kisses with her characteristic enthusiasm, like everything Jo imagined she would, and already Jo's thinking about getting them both up off the floor, onto the bed and out of their clothes. Fi's giving her an inch and she wants a mile, a kilometer, zero to sixty down life's endless highway with Fi in the passenger seat.

"Wait," Fi says, breaking the kiss. "Dinner. Claire. We can't just—"

"Fuck dinner. Fuck Claire," Jo answers, resting her forehead against Fi's.

"Well, I would," Fi jokes, "but I think you'd get jealous."

"I'm not jealous," Jo denies, easy as a reflex.

Fi smiles so often it's basically her default expression, but Jo's never seen one like this before. "Yeah. You so are."

Claire, of course, chooses that exact second to walk back in the door, and Fi's attention shifts so fast it makes Jo's heart sink. "Hey, Claire. You ready for dinner? There was this diner we passed on our way into town that I—"

"I think maybe I should get going," Claire interrupts, and she sounds like she knows what's going on and finds it all pretty amusing. Damn psychics.

"You don't have to..." Fi begins.

"Yeah," Claire says, smiling. "I really do. I gotta hit the sack, I'm heading out early tomorrow morning."

Jo maybe doesn't hate her so much anymore.

Later that night, as Fi drifts off to sleep beside her, Jo thinks maybe she doesn't hate Claire at all.

They make it through a tulpa in Maryland, the ghost of a Civil War casualty in Pennsylvania, a djinn in California and a couple salt-and-burn variety restless spirits scattered around the country before Fi announces in a diner in Alabama that she needs to head home soon.

"I'm almost out of money," she explains, "and there's several months of royalty checks waiting for me in Hope Springs."

"...Royalty checks?" Jo raises an eyebrow. "Did I miss something?"

"How do you think I pay for my life of crime?"

Jo shrugs. She hadn't really thought about it. "Hustling pool, poker, and video games like the rest of the hunter community?"

"Well." Fi smirks, popping a french fry in her mouth. "That's to supplement. Most of my money comes from my share of my dad's music royalties. When I told my mom I was going to start hunting she gave me his rights to the royalties from PKB... she says it's so she doesn't have to worry about me running out of money in some backwater town, but it's really just her way of getting me home on a regular basis—this is the longest I've ever gone without at least dropping by for a day since I started hunting."

"Well god damn, Fiona. All this time and you never told me? I'm wounded."

Fi laughs. "So are you up for meeting my family, or what?"

And Jo isn't, not really, but since she doesn't think she'll ever be ready, now's as good a time as any.

Hope Springs, Colorado is a tiny little town where everyone knows everyone else and Fi waves to at least six different people between the town line and her mother's driveway. They pass house after house, each more Stepford-perfect and picturesque than the last; with every sprawling ranch and split-level Jo tries to sink further into the passenger seat, the nervous pit in her stomach deepening. She doesn't belong here any more than she did at college, but she doesn't think she can stand being the freak with a knife collection to Fi's family.

When they arrive Fi notices her reluctance, and tugs her out of the car and into a kiss. "Come on," she cajoles, brushing her thumb against Jo's cheek. "Stop worrying, they're going to love you as much as I do."

The words are meaningless—in that they don't mean what Jo wants them to—but they improve her mood just the tiniest smidgen. "If you say so," she says, but her tone implies a distinct lack of confidence in Fi's words.

She almost misses split-second flash of hurt across Fi's face. Fi opens her mouth as if to say something more, but before she can the front door opens and thin, middle-aged woman comes out.

"Fi!"

Even if Jo didn't recognize her from photographs, the family resemblance and the way she's hurrying toward them means she can only be Molly Phillips. Fi's beaming—

"Mom!"

—and letting go of Jo to meet her mother halfway across the lawn and pull her into a tight hug. Jo watches for a minute, almost jealous of their easy affection: it's so different from the way she is with her mother and yet so similar.

Two more people, both adults around Molly's age, have come outside. Fi waves to them from inside her mother's hug as they approach.

"Jo, come on!" Fi urges, but she's so busy embracing the man and the woman she doesn't even see Jo reluctantly head over to meet them. Molly gives her a brief, polite smile but doesn't introduce herself.

"Where are the guys?" Fi's asking, stepping back and slipping her hand into Jo's as naturally as if it belonged there.

"Inside," comes the gruff answer from a guy who looks like a sasquatch, and Fi makes a face.

"Jack!," she yells, at the top of her lungs, in the general direction of the front door. "Clu! Carey! Get out here!"

Three seconds later, "Jesus Christ, Fi, could you yell any louder?" comes from a guy Jo recognizes as Jack. He's followed by two very tall blonde guys—one of them's Carey, and the other looks just like him, only younger.

"Nope!" Fi answers sunnily, as Carey says,

"Yeah, Fi, I think the whole neighborhood can hear you." But neither he nor Jack sound as annoyed as their words imply.

"Shut up and give me a hug, you jerks."

"Don't listen to them, Fi," Clu says, picking Fi up and spinning her around. "I'm glad to see you." He catches sight of Jo. "And who's your friend?"

Fi glances over her shoulder. "C'mere, Jo." She wraps one hand around Jo's bicep and pulls her close, bringing her forward to face five complete strangers who are all focusing their undivided attention on her.

"Everyone, this is Jo Harvelle. We hunt together and she keeps my sorry ass out of trouble, so be nice to her. Jo, these are my parents: Molly, Irene—" pointing to the blonde woman— "and Ned." Ned's the sasquatch, but judging by his smile he's probably the gentlest of them all. Fi points at each of the guys in turn. "This is my brother Jack. And my brothers from another mother—by which I mean Irene—Clu and Carey."

"It's nice to meet you, Jo," Molly says, stepping forward to shake her hand. Then Ned, Irene, Clu and Carey; each of them seems genuinely pleased to make her acquaintance, but Jack's standing toward the back of the group, watching her carefully, and when he finally shakes her hand it's flawlessly polite but not exactly welcoming.

"Why don't you girls come inside?" Irene suggests. "Ned's about to start dinner, and there's warm apple pie."

"From the store, don't worry, I didn't let Irene cook," Molly interjects, and Irene makes a face at her like they're teenagers instead of grown adults. They immediately start bickering, and Jo watches them head inside with growing amusement.

"Hey, guys, make yourself useful and get our stuff out of the car," Fi instructs, throwing the keys at Jack. "Don't touch the stuff in the trunk, just the bags in the backseat."

"Out of my car, you mean," is Jack's immediate response.

"Our car, bro," Clu reminds him.

"And that includes me, brother dear, don't forget," Carey adds, and it sounds like an age-old argument that's less about actual claim and more about habit.

Fi rolls her eyes. "And yet, if you look at the title in the glove box, it's got my name on it. Or do y'all not remember signing it over to me on my twenty-first birthday?"

"Nope," says Clu.

"Not me." That's Carey.

"Wait, I think it's coming back to me..." Jack says, looking off into the distance as if in a reverie. Then he shakes his head. "Nope. I got nothin'. Thanks for my keys back, though," he finishes, shaking them so they jangle in his hand.

"I hate you all," is Fi's succinct response, and she pulls Jo toward the house without waiting for a answer (which comes anyway, in the form of Clu hollering No you don't, you love us! at their backs).

"Carey's your brother?" Jo asks incredulously. In all the months since she'd first seen the photo of him and Fi in her weapon box, she'd considered several possibilities, but never that they were family. The boys are cheerfully arguing with each other, trading insults as they head toward the car, but she keeps her voice down anyway.

"Sort of," Fi allows, grinning up at her. She laughs, bumping her shoulder against Jo's. "It's a long story. I'll explain later."

Later turns out to be after dinner and dessert, after Jo's been the center of attention for over an hour. Fi, to her credit, tries to keep them distracted with funny tales of life on the road and questions about each of their lives, but her family is as tenacious as they are curious, and every time she steers the conversation away from Jo (and Jo's family, and how she got started hunting, and what it was like to grow up at the Roadhouse) they manage to direct it back on-track.

Finally, when they've been excused from the table, Fi grabs her hand and drags her out onto the back porch, where there's three rocking chairs side-by-side and blessed quiet. Jo's never been more grateful that Fi gets her, that she can understand what Jo needs and give it to her without making a big deal about it.

"Sorry about that," Fi says, after a minute. "They can be a little... enthusiastic with new people. And you're the first hunter I've brought home, so they were even worse than usual."

"Don't worry about it. What doesn't kill me..." she starts, with a wry grin, and is rewarded with affectionate laughter and a quick kiss from Fi.

"Yeah, something like that."

"So, ah..." Jo's not really sure how to begin the conversation. "Your family? Specifically, your parents? You promised you would explain."

Fi grins and squeezes her hand. "Kind of weird, huh? Irene's my mom's manager so we all grew up together. Irene and Ned have been married for ages, but after my dad died they kind of..." she gestures vaguely, "opened up, I guess you could say, to include my mom. It's weird. The three of them have been together since I was four or five, but they only told us a few years ago. But it's like they didn't even need to, because we knew already, without really knowing. Ned and Irene were as much my parents growing up as my mom was, and Clu and Carey were always like brothers to me. When I first decided to start hunting, Carey went with me because he'd always had my back with that kind of stuff before."

"What about you?" Jo asks, acutely aware of the way her heart is trying to beat out of her chest. She tries not to let the words come out shaky, but it's difficult. "Do you believe in that kind of thing?"

Fi shrugs. "It works for them, and as long as they're happy I don't care how. But—" she glances up at Jo, eyes indefinable under dark eyelashes. "I don't really think it's for me. I'm more of a one-girl kind of girl."

And Jo's positive they're about to have a moment, but then—

All three boys burst out onto the porch, talking over each other about a game of badminton, and they manage to rope Fi into playing with them. Jo begs exhaustion—she'd done most of the driving, only switching when they hit the Colorado border—and curls up in one of the rockers to watch.

After about five minutes Jack loudly begins accusing Clu of cheating and storms off in a huff. It's the thinnest of ruses to drop into the chair next to Jo; it'd be funny how transparent Jack is if his intent didn't worry her. While the others are distracted with their game, Jack strikes up a conversation entirely composed of quiet, probing questions even more invasive than what she'd been asked at dinner. And all of those questions circle around Fi, about how dangerous the life is and about how long Jo's really been hunting.

Jo doesn't have an older brother, but she figures this is kind of what they're supposed to do, and she doesn't begrudge him his white-knight complex. She does, however, wish he would come out and ask her the question he's been dancing around.

Are you going to get my sister killed?

A thought strikes her. "Jack," Jo asks, cocking her head to the side, "do you still have the necklace Gabe gave you?"

"Fi told you about that?" Jack's surprise is evident.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but she kind of overshares." She tries to say it lightly, but somehow there's affection in her voice. She looks straight ahead so as not to betray herself with her face.

Jack tugs a chain out from under his shirt; sure enough, there's a small angel charm dangling from it. Before she knows what she's doing Jo's reaching over, rolling it between her fingers, pleased to note it's pure silver. "What does this—"

Jo yanks down the collar of her shirt to show off the anti-possession charm Fi'd given her. "Look familiar?"

"That's Fi's." It isn't a question.

"You got it. Relax," she placates, because Jack immediately looks disconcerted, "she got another one. I wouldn't let her walk around unprotected like that, because I know how dangerous it can get out there. But this necklace? She gave it to me for the same reason Gabe gave that to you—" which may or may not be true, she honestly has no idea why Gabe gave Jack her necklace— "and that should mean something to you. I'm not asking you to trust me, but I am asking you to trust your sister."

Jack scrutinizes her for what seems like forever. "You keep her safe?"

"Whatever it takes," Jo answers, letting go of her shirt. "I've got her back, she's got mine." Jack still doesn't look totally satisfied, so she adds: "I would do anything to keep her safe."

It's like getting hit out of nowhere, the realization of just how true that is. Her only consolation is that Jack seems just as surprised as she is.

They don't talk after that. Jack doesn't need to and Jo doesn't think she can, heart threatening to beat out of her chest as the sun goes down on Hope Springs.

They stay for three days and Jo gets the idea that Fi wouldn't mind staying for even longer, but she's itching to get back out there and she knows Fi can tell, so she's not terribly surprised when Fi flops down beside her on the bed while she's wasting time on her computer and says, "Where should we start looking for our next case?"

"Last month I picked up on a pattern of deaths that looked a little bit like werewolves," Jo answers immediately. She's been thinking about how to bring this up for the past day. "The full moon was over by the time I noticed so I let it lie. I figured this month we could head it off, make sure nobody else gets killed. If we leave today or tomorrow morning we can get there just before the start of the lunar cycle."

"Hey, sounds good to me," Fi answers. "Mom and I just went to the store and she bought us tons of groceries. She does this every time I come home, like if she doesn't buy me food I'm not going to eat and I'll starve to death in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio."

It takes the better part of a day to get to Rockdale, Iowa, which isn't Nowhere, Ohio but might as well be considering how itty-bitty the town is. It's mostly farmland; Jo has to wonder if anyone even lives there.

"This town's so small it doesn't even have a crappy motel, if you can believe it," Jo says, grin tugging at her lips as she turns down a side road. It's a lie. Of course it's a lie. "So I booked us into this little bed-and-breakfast place.—Should be nice," she adds nonchalantly.

Fi just smiles at her like she can see through it all, and Jo knows she probably can. "I'm sure it'll be lovely, Jo," she answers, kissing her on the cheek. "How much longer till we get there?"

"It's actually just at the end of this street."

Fi rocks forward in her seat eagerly, peering down the road. Half a second later her eyes go wide and she sits back with a whump, looking like she just saw a ghost.

Well. She'd probably look excited if she'd seen a ghost. She looks terrified, in a shocked kind of way. Jo has no idea what to make of it.

"Babe?" she queries, spotting the correct house number and turning into the driveway.

"Hmm?" Fi glances over at her, and just like that her face changes, relaxing into its normal configuration. "Oh. Nothing. I'm just pretty sure I've stayed here before. On one of mom's tours, I think."

"Here as in this town or here as in this particular B&B?"

"Both, I guess," she shrugs, like it's no big deal even though Jo's ninety percent sure it is, actually, some kind of big deal. That rockets straight up to a hundred and fifty percent sure as soon as Fi pulls a baseball cap out of the backseat to sling low over her eyes. Like she's trying to hide who she is. Like she's trying to make sure someone doesn't recognize her.

But then a woman is stepping out through the door to greet them, and Jo pushes it away for later. The woman on the stoop shields her eyes. "Joanna Harvelle?" she asks.

"That's me," Jo volunteers, slinging her pack over her shoulder, and the woman brightens, hurrying down the path to meet them.

"It's so nice to meet you, Joanna," the woman says, shaking her hand. "I'm Judy Whittaker, the owner."

"It's real nice to meet you too, Judy. This is—"

"Fiona," Fi interrupts.

Jo shoots her a look—because, seriously, what?—before turning back to Judy. "Thanks for taking us in on such short notice."

"Oh, wasn't a bit of trouble!" Judy answers, and it only sounds a little bit forced. "It's not exactly the middle of tourist seasons right now. In fact, if you hadn't come along I'd've had an—an empty house."

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Fi start in surprise, but she doesn't think anything of it until Judy's given them a quick tour of the house and shown them to their room—that's when Fi starts to pace the length of the room, muttering to herself and very resolutely not looking at Jo.

Nothing about this can possibly end well.

"Her husband, where's her husband? What happened to him?"

"Maybe he's just not here," Jo answers slowly. "Maybe he's at work or something?"

"No!" Fi insists, turning around and slamming her open palm against the dresser. The loud crack surprises Jo into flinching; she has no idea where Fi's coming from right now. "This is their farm. Their home. He'd be here. And where's their daughter? Why did Just say it would have been an empty house?"

"Fi, honey, a lot changes in ten years. How old was their daughter when you were last here? Maybe she went off to college or something."

"Ten, maybe eleven?"

"So she'd be twenty at least now. Come on, Fi, you can't expect her to still live at home."

"Yeah, I can," Fi answers, but she doesn't offer an explanation. Jo furrows her brow, then shakes her head.

"Whatever. Come on, food."

"You go ahead," Fi answers, pacing. She's going to wear a hole in the faux Persian rug soon if she keeps this up. "I'll stay here."

"Nope," Jo decides, grabbing her arm. "You're coming with me. I don't know what's going on with you right now, but you're freaking me the fuck out, so come on."

He half-drags Fi out into the hallway. Once they're out of their room, though, Fi follows along behind her until they get to the stairs. Judy's in the living room, dusting and humming something melodious and old-fashioned, and as soon as Fi sees that, she tries to turn around and bolt.

"Fi!" Jo snaps, at the end of her patience. "Cut it out."

"Fi?" Judy asks, turning around, and Jo watches their eyes meet and recognition pass between them. "I don't believe it. Fi Phillips?"

"Er," Fi says. "Hi, Judy. Nice to see you again."

Judy drops her feather duster and all but runs up the stairs. Fi flinches back just a step, but Judy doesn't seem to notice, taking up Fi's hand in hers and pressing warmly. "Fi, oh, Fiona," Judy says. "I've been praying to see you again. Karl—and Laura—and—I just don't know what to do."

"What—?" Fi beings faintly, eyes wide. "I don't—"

"Maybe we could sit down?" Jo suggests, stepping in because she has to. "Talk it over, figure out what to do." She's flying blind here, but talking can never hurt.

"Oh, that—" Judy grabs Jo's hand too. "Yes, that's a wonderful idea. I'll go make some tea." Quick as a blink she's hurrying down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"The fuck is going on?" Jo hisses, watching her retreating figure. "Seriously, Fiona, what the fuck?"

"Her daughter..." Fi begins, voice thick, staring ahead like she's in a trance. All at once she snaps out of it, looking up at Jo with something like guilt in her eyes, pressing the tips of her fingers hard against her mouth to leave bloodless white spots behind. "Oh, this is bad."

"How bad?" Jo asks. "Fi! Get back here!" She scrambles down the steps after Fi, catching up with her just as she perches on the couch like she hadn't tried to run and hide in their room five minutes ago. "Are you ever going to give me a straight answer?"

Fi turns pleading eyes on Jo. "Just wait until Judy gets back. We'll explain together, I swear."

"Fi, is she—?"

"She's like me," Fi says to Judy, tone reassuring and calm. Like she is with anyone she's trying to get information out of. "You can speak freely in front of her, don't worry."

Judy is visibly relieved. "Oh, thank god. Now, Joanna, you need a little bit of background, I think; you're just as confused as can be, aren't you?"

"Um.. yeah," Jo answers. "Fi said she'd been here about ten years ago, but I don't really know anything other than that."

"Well, she helped us very much. My daughter, Laura, was adopted by me and my husband—God rest his soul—when she was very young."

"They found her in the woods," Fi clarifies.

"Well, we—we looked everywhere for her parents, you know, but she seemed so... feral, we began to worry that she didn't have any, or that she'd been abandoned... We took care of her, and after several months, when nobody had stepped forward, we made it official. And we've never regretted it, not ever, not even when we found out—"

"She's a werewolf," Fi interrupts quietly, and Jo almost chokes on her sip of tea.

"Excuse me?"

Judy frowns like she doesn't like the word. "We had no idea. She was fine until she was about ten, then she started... showing signs."

"Signs?" Jo asks in disbelief, glancing at Fi for confirmation.

"There have been several documented cases of children who were bitten when they were very young not actually turning until they reach the beginning of puberty, Laura included," Fi recites, like she's rehearsed this. And—she probably has, Jo realizes, her fury increasing. She's probably been trying to figure out a way to explain this since she realized where they were staying, and the fact that she's sending Jo into this without any kind of explanation...

"Fi and her family were staying with us when Laura began showing her... other side." Judy glances at Fi, eyes full of fondness. "She was the one who figured out what was going on, who helped us even when nobody else would believe it. She helped us figure out how to control Laura's nature, keep her human."

Jo feels like she can't breathe. "Oh," she manages finally, faint as it is. "How—?"

"I'll explain later," Fi says quickly, and doesn't look Jo in the eye. "Judy, where is Laura now?"

Judy's face falls. "That's just it. I don't know. She disappeared about a month ago, just after my husband—after Karl passed. They were so close, but I never expected her to take it this hard. I was at the funeral home, making arrangements... she left a note... I don't..." she trails off, helpless, wringing her hands together because she can't finish the sentence.

"We're very sorry for your loss," Jo puts in gently, placing a hand over Judy's clasped ones, and it brings Judy back to herself long enough to bravely try a smile. "If you don't mind me asking," Jo continues, "how did your husband..."

"Heart failure," Judy finishes quickly, like she doesn't want Jo to complete the sentence either. "It was very sudden..." She trails off, laughing a little. "We'd always thought—well, I'm the one with the bad heart." She touches her chest absently, like she doesn't know she's doing it. "Karl was so healthy, we never imagined—"

"We're sorry," Jo repeats, because Judy's eyes are filling with tears and that's the last thing she wants, and Fi's being completely useless right now.

"Thank you. It's just—Laura. I'm so worried about her." She looks at Fi. "You know about... what she is. Is there anything you can do...? If you can find her, do you think you can help her?" Judy asks, and she's so earnest and hopeful that Jo almost wants to cry. She glances over at Fi, who's frozen in place, panic settling across her features.

Jo clears her throat. "We're going to do everything we can," she answers, because she knows Fi can't.

Judy's so grateful Jo doesn't know how to respond; with every passing moment she feels worse and worse—when they leave, Judy walking them to the door and thanking them profusely, Jo's never been happier to leave a place, even as Fi's hand tightens around her elbow to let her know this isn't over yet.

Once they're out of sight of the house, Fi stops dead, yanking Jo around to face her.

"What were you thinking in there?" Fi demands, furious. "How could you lie to her like that?"

"Did you really want me to tell her the truth? ‘Sorry, ma'am, your daughter's a monster and we're going to have to shoot her with a silver bullet'? She just lost her husband, excuse me for not wanting to give it to her straight!"

"She's about to lose her daughter, too, and the last thing she needs is for us to give her some kind of false hope. Hunters have a responsibility to the people they help—"

"Right, like you were jumping all over the chance to tell her the truth," Jo shoots back, and immediately regrets it.

There's a long silence before: "She's a good person," Fi insists. "She doesn't deserve this."

There's such regret in her voice that Jo can't do anything but pull Fi against her body and wrap her arms around her. "Fi, baby," Jo tells her, stroking her hair. "Nobody ever does."

Fi just shakes her head and settles closer to Jo, clutching at Jo's jacket. "We should be better," she says.

Jo presses a kiss to Fi's temple. "Nobody's perfect, love."

Between the two of them they have state police IDs for about half the country, but not Iowa. The FBI is always a good fallback, though, and when they head to the county coroner's office they introduce themselves as Agents Dickinson and Sawyer, inquiring about the series of possible murders last month.

They're escorted down to the morgue, where a dark-haired man in his late twenties is hunched over a microscope with what looks like blood and tissue samples.

"Jonah Welsh, ME," he introduces himself, shaking their hands. "Always glad to assist the feds. Gotta say, though, you're a little late to be much help."

"We were tied up with other cases," Fi explains smoothly. "But we're here now, and we're going to focus 100% on solving this problem."

"To be honest, I'm not sure what you can do at this point anyway," Welsh says, scratching his head. "A bunch of people with their hearts ripped out? It's weird, sure, but there's no connection between the three victims and all the wounds suggest a wild animal rather than a person. Add in that there's been no repeat incidences in almost a month..." he trails off, shrugging.

"We'd like to leave no stone unturned," Fi tells him. "So we're going to need copies of the autopsies you did on the three victims, and any other information you might have on them."

"And Karl Whittaker?" Jo interrupts. "Can you include a copy of his autopsy with the rest of them?"

"Why?" The ME looks surprised. "He died of a heart attack."

Jo puts on her best you're an idiot but I have to be polite to you smile. "We'd still like to see the file, if you think you can manage that."

"Sure I can manage that. But I'd be looking at the Whittaker girl if I were you, not her father."

Jo blinks. "Excuse me?"

"Laura Whittaker. Karl's daughter, must be nineteen, twenty years old. I grew up in Rockdale, met her a couple times. But I heard a lot more than that." He's purposefully vague; Jo would be hesitant to tell the FBI she thought someone was a werewolf, too. "There's something not right about her, and then suddenly her father dies and she goes missing and three other people turn up dead? Girl's always been a little cracked if you ask me. You know they found her in the woods when she was a baby?"

"I thought you said it was probably a wild animal," Jo points out tersely; she can feel Fi's hackles rise at Welsh's casually cruel tone and she knows they need to get out of there ASAP.

"That is what I said, yeah." He doesn't elaborate and his face is totally impassive.

"We'll look into it," Jo assures him, annoyed (but not for the reason Welsh thinks). "The files, if you would, Dr. Welsh. Thank you."

The autopsies on the three victims are consistent with the signs of a werewolf attack; merely confirming what they already knew. Karl Whittaker's autopsy, however, is startling.

Welsh included several photographs of his heart, and heart failure isn't a strong enough word for what killed him. Doesn't even begin to conjure up an accurate picture of why he died; his heart is desiccated and old, looks like it withered up and died in his chest.

"What the..." Fi breathes out, staring at the file.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"No," Fi says, "but I have a feeling it's related."

Funny. Jo kind of had that feeling too.

Fi pulls out her laptop. "I'm going to start a new thread on the forum, see if anyone's heard of anything like this." There's a note of hope in her voice that Jo absolutely hates to hear. She doesn't want to be the bad guy, but someone's got to.

"Fi," Jo says, watching her type out a post. "Fi, you know this doesn't change anything."

Fi glances up. "What do you mean?"

"Laura. We're still going to have to kill her."

She doesn't miss the way Fi flinches at that. "Yeah, I know."

"I mean it," Jo implores, gesturing at the autopsy reports. "Do you have any doubt at all that she's responsible for those deaths?"

"…No." Fi clearly doesn't want to say it, but they both know it's the truth.

"Then we need to kill her, tonight, and I need to know you have my back on this one."

"I do." Fi looks at her earnestly. "Jo. I swear."

"Okay. I'm not saying you can't post that. But I'm going to start getting ready to track Laura, and no matter what we find out from your friends, when the moon comes out we're going out to finish this job. Right?" She looks Fi right in the eye, and Fi takes a deep breath.

"Right."

But she keeps opening up her computer to check the forum every five minutes—at least—and Jo can see in her face the way her heart leaps when there's a new message, and she can see how it breaks when all it says is some variation of No idea, sorry.

Until, about three hours later, one of them doesn't.

"Look at this, babe," Fi says breathlessly, jumping off the bed to bring her laptop over. She hovers over Jo's shoulder as she reads the newest post:

I've seen something like this before, but only once. It's the result of a spell used to bind a werewolf's animal nature to someone who loves them, it keeps them somewhat harmless. Think of it this way: werewolves always go straight for the heart, right? As long as the spell's in place the werewolf feeds off the heart of the person who loves them most, and it sustains them enough to keep them from killing.

But it's a temporary fix, and as you can see, it completely destroys the heart of the person who cast the spell. Eventually they'll die, and then the werewolf's animal nature is released again.

"He must have used that spell—he would have done anything for her. Maybe it's still somewhere in the house. If we can find it, we might be able to find a way to help her—" Fi begins weakly, and something inside Jo snaps.

"No!" she shouts. "No, Fi, we can't. There is nothing on god's earth that can help her right now. Even if we could find the spell her father used, it killed him. Her mother has a bad heart, she has no other family." Jo just stares at her for a second, shaking her head. "God, you really still think we can save the world with the power of love," she finishes, and she's bitter; she's so bitter, when did she get like this?

"What about those vampires that tried to get Jack? The necklace Gabe gave him warded them off long enough for him to escape. That was love, Jo," Fi insists. "Love can do amazing things."

Is Fi fucking kidding her right now? "That necklace? It was made of silver. You know better than this, I know you do. How can you even pretend to still believe in all that happily-ever-after shit? If you keep this up it's going to get you killed and it's like you don't even care."

"I care." Her eyes are wide, a little scared, but Jo's too caught up in her own anger to stop.

"No, you don't! I care. It's going to destroy me and you don't even give a shit. There is a werewolf out there and tonight's a full moon and if we don't find her and kill her right away, someone's going to die. And you're sitting in here grasping at straws, trying to figure out a way to avoid pulling the trigger! You care more about someone you met ten years ago than your own safety—it's going to be the death of you, and what am I going to do then? What the fuck am I supposed to do without you?" It took her so long to let Fi in that she can't even begin to imagine how to let her go, and the idea that Fi might make her figure it out slices right through to the core of her, a searing pain she can actually feel in her chest like heartburn. And she can scream at Fi until the end of time and Fi still won't understand what she's trying to explain, because this isn't the same for Fi; it's so different, so much less, and Jo hates her for making her feel like this and not returning the courtesy.

Fi sags against the wall, all the fight drained out of her, and then her face is crumpling and she's sliding down until she's sitting with her head buried in her hands. And, oh god, she's crying. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. In an instant Jo's at her side, argument forgotten, pressing a palm to Fi's cheek. Fi looks up at her with red eyes.

"All those people," Fi says, her voice small. "They're dead because I thought she could be tamed. It's my fault."

"You were a kid, you didn't know any better."

"Yeah, but I—I learned better. When I got older." She wipes at her tears with the back of her hand, and inhales a ragged breath. "I should have come back, should have finished the job myself."

"We can't change the past, but we can stop her from hurting more people. We have to, Fi. Can you do that for them?"

Already Fi's tears are slowing, her face hardening into something like resolve. She doesn't speak—she probably can't—but she nods her head once.

She's quiet for the rest of the evening, somber, and Jo knows better than to try to draw her out. In near-silence they pack their things, head across town to the crappy motel Jo had said didn't exist, and ready themselves for the hunt.

The sun's just beginning to set as they finish cleaning their guns, and Jo tries to give Fi one last out. "I have friends, you know... other hunters. We could call one of them, hand the case over." There's nothing in the world she'd rather do less, but at the same time if it eases Fi's guilt there's really no question about it.

"No," Fi answers, determination in the hard line of her jaw. "This is something I've got to do. My mess to clean up." She snaps a clip into her pistol and flicks off the safety.

But all the determination in the world isn't enough to keep Fi from freezing up when she actually goes to kill Laura. They've tracked her to the edge of the woods, have her cornered against a rock formation, growling low and feral and lashing out in desperation. A shallow gash from her claws bleeds freely on Jo's arm and her gun's useless on the ground, too close to Laura to dare trying to retrieve it.

Fi stands five feet to her right, frozen like a statue demonstrating perfect shooting form, pistol levered right at Laura's heart, but she's just shaking, unable to take that final step. Jo wonders how much this feral teenager resembles the kid Fi used to know, if Fi can look into her wild eyes and see a scared little girl. But Jo can't, and she knows if Fi doesn't do something soon Laura's going to lash out again—they haven't left her any other options—and maybe this time Laura's aim will be better.

Carefully, slowly, Jo shifts until she's behind Fi. She curls her hand over Fi's on the gun, slipping one finger onto the trigger. "I'm with you," she whispers. "You can do this." She feels Fi take a shuddering breath.

The recoil jerks Fi's body against hers, but Jo had been waiting for it, had braced herself, and she brings her other arm up to hold Fi against her. She can see from here that Laura's dead—a clean shot, right through the heart—and though Fi struggles to get free, Jo doesn't let her. She just drops the hand gripping Fi's gun and wraps it around Fi's torso, holding on with everything she's got.

And waits, until Fi stops fighting her.

The motel room is dark when Jo walks in with a brown paper sack stuffed full of McDonald's. She flips on the light and the first thing she sees is Fi, slouched on the couch in a leather jacket about four sizes too big for her, staring at the wall.

"Hey," Jo says quietly, and Fi doesn't even look at her. "You okay?"

She doesn't say anything.

"I brought dinner," she tries. "I even got you one of those little apple pie thingies, and if you want to have dessert first I promise not to tell your mom."

Silence. Jo can hear Fi breathing, and she blinks every so often, so at least she knows she's alive. But it's so weird—to be walled off like this, completely shut off—it's not like Fi. Jo is the one to distance herself from the world, to view it in terms of how different she is; Fi is the one to find similarities everywhere and make friends wherever she goes. She's the one who drew Jo out into the world just by welcoming her into her life, and for her to shut down and wall off like this is a complete disconnect from everything familiar. Jo never thought she'd see a day when Fi didn't welcome her presence, and now that it's come she's suddenly aware of how much she relied on it.

"Listen, I know you're mad at me," Jo starts, but really doesn't know what she's trying to say, so she stops. Everything she thinks abut saying sounds so trite in the face of Fi's (mostly justified) anger, so she just stands there in the pin-drop silence of their motel room and slides slowly toward a panic attack, the fear that she just ruined everything good in her life growing until it threatens to choke her.

"Right. I'm just going to... get a soda," she lies, and doesn't even bother to make it sound believable, knowing Fi doesn't believe her and also profoundly not caring. She shuts the door to their motel room behind her and leans up against the brick next to it, dialing Fi's home phone number.

Molly picks up after a couple of rings. "Hello?"

"Hey, Mrs. Phillips. It's Jo Harvelle, Fi's friend?"

"Jo, of course," Molly answers warmly. "What can I do for you? Is everything alright with Fi?"

"Um," Jo says. "Well, I mean, yes. She's okay. But she's—upset. I made her do something she didn't want to, because it was the right thing to do, and—she's mad at me." She laughs a little even though it's so far from funny it hurts. "Furious, actually, if we're being honest here." Jo falls silent, not sure how to say the next part. She won't talk to me and I don't know what to do so I called her mother even though I'd be furious if she did the same thing to me.

Fortunately Molly seems to understand. "Let me guess," she says, voice crackling a little on the line, "she's curled up on her bed in an old leather jacket, giving you the silent treatment and looking miserable? Maybe hugging a pillow, too?"

Jo blinks. "She's on the couch, but—yeah. How did you—?"

"It's what she does," Molly answers, and Jo can hear an undercurrent of amusement in her voice, something familiar and maternal. "I can't tell you how many times she's done it when she was mad at me. The jacket she's wearing belonged to her father, I think it makes her feel better."

"Okay, but... what do I do?"

"There's not much you can do, sweetie. Just let her be, she'll come around."

But I love her, and I'm terrified she won't. "What... what if she doesn't?"

Jo can practically hear Molly shrug. "I can't promise you that she will. But I know my daughter, Jo, and she cares about you. I think things will be okay, in the end. You've just got to be patient. Let her be angry. When she yells at you—and she is going to yell at you—explain your side of the story."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Thanks," Jo says, in a rush of gratitude. "Really. Thank you."

"Good luck, Jo," Molly says, and she seems to genuinely mean it. Like she's rooting for them as much as Jo is. "Keep her safe, okay?"

"I will. I'd do anything." It's no less true a statement than when she'd said it to Jack—it might even be more true at this point—but it feels less like a revelation. Like she's finally okay with it.

She hangs up with Molly a minute later, tipping her head back to rest it against the brick of the motel, closing her eyes and breathing in the night air to steady herself. When she heads back inside there's an emptiness in her chest to rival the Grand Canyon, and the sight of Fi curled up on the couch threatens to deepen it until her heart's been carved right into halves.

She knows she's supposed to be giving Fi space, but it's too hard not to crawl onto the couch beside her, drag Fi backward into her arms and her embrace. Fi doesn't say anything but she doesn't resist either, and Jo curls their bodies together.

She breathes in deep, the scent of the leather jacket tugging at the corner of her mind, a mix of her dad and Fi's dad and Fi. Though she knows it only smells of leather and Fi at this point, the scent tugs at the corner of her mind, reminding her of her father. She knows it does the same for Fi.

They say scent is the last memory to fade, and maybe that's true, because commingled with her anxiety is the sense of relief she used to feel scooped up in the arms of her father after he came home from a hunt, smelling like leather and cheap motel soap. It takes the edge off the anxiety she feels, puts her almost at peace in the odd stillness of the room. It's what gives her the confidence that everything will be okay even though it really might not.

They stay like that as long minutes tick by. That's okay. Jo can wait. She can wait forever, because she is sure to her very bones that this is something worth waiting for.

In the end, it doesn't take forever. A few hours, maybe. She's not sure exactly how long it takes because she keeps dozing off, but every time she wakes Fi's still in her arms, and finally, one time, Fi speaks.

"Why—" her voice is scratchy with disuse, and she clears her throat. "Why'd you stop me? I wanted to be with her."

Jo skims her fingers up Fi's torso and tugs her closer. "Well, that's tough," she answers decisively, voice low and soft in Fi's ear. "I didn't want you to watch her die."

"I've seen people die before, Jo."

"That's not the point."

"Yes, it is. I killed her, and all I wanted to do is tell her before she died how sorry I was. How I didn't want to do it."

"I think she already knew that. And if she didn't, I don't think she would have understood. And for what it's worth," she says, "I think if she'd known, you're the one she would have wanted to do it."

"Would you do that for me?" Fi asks her, voice small.

"Do what?"

"If I had to be killed. If I had been bitten, or if a vamp turned me, whatever—would you kill me yourself, or would you want someone else to do it?"

"Me," Jo answers without a second's hesitation, pulling Fi closer to her body, and maybe she's showing her hand but it's not like she doesn't already do that with every word, every look; Fi must know by now, so it's not like she's admitting to anything new even though her heart's beating like she is. "I could never watch anyone else do it. I'd do it myself even if it killed me."

Fi turns like she's trying to burrow into Jo's embrace, wrapping her arms tight around Jo's torso. "Me too," she replies, voice muffled against Jo's arm, and for a second Jo can't breathe because it hits her all at once how much she means to Fi. It's everything she'd been craving for months and for a minute she doesn't know how to process it; so used to wishing and hoping that actually getting it blows her mind. Fi glances up, anxiety in her hazel eyes. "Shouldn't that worry us?"

"Seriously?" Jo laughs, looking down at her in disbelief. "You're the one that can't wrap your mind around this?"

The smile that breaks out across Fi's face washes Jo over with relief. "Nah. I just wanted to hear you say it."

Jo closes her eyes, fighting a smile. "I hate you so much."

The day Dean Winchester claws out of his grave, Jo sleeps in. Every muscle in her body is exhausted; when she shifts, she can feel minuscule tears in the tissue waiting to stitch themselves back together, into something stronger than they were before. Stifling a groan of discomfort, she rolls onto her side and drapes an arm around the body next to hers. Fi sighs in her sleep and shifts against Jo, and Jo's asleep again before her eyes shut.

They wake up in the late afternoon—Jo first, and she nudges Fi awake and kisses her as soon as the other girl opens her eyes.

While Jo uses up all the hot water in the shower, Fi sits cross-legged in a chair, laptop open on the kitchen table as she scrolls through news sites with her right hand and eats Apple Jacks right out of the box with her left.

Jo wrinkles her nose. "No milk?"

Fi just grins. "Boring. Hey, listen to this."

It isn't the life either of their mothers wanted for them. They both think their fathers would be proud.