The only warning she has isn't much of one; there's the blur of a lunge, and then her shoulders and head crack back against a damp wall. There's the sharp kiss of a blade, against but not in, fingers digging in hard and unyielding, and when her head swings up, it's black shining demon eyes, veins of black around them, and the bottom barrel bitter vindication of being right.

That he's everything she called him out for being—that Dean's wrong.

But everything distorts around his voice. Each syllable is less clear. The words indistinguishable. His lips move, but all Jo feels is a slam of cold through her harder, farther, faster. Far more brutal and unyielding than those hands or the wall she's pinned against. Even as she's kicking out and up at him, there's the quick hiss of breath in between her teeth, like being dunked into a frozen lake—

( And then it's all gone. Geralt's gone. A flood pushing into that same space. Then. A windy street. A woman with long dark hair and dark eyes, shaking her head and smiling slyly. The growl that comes from her side. Running. Turning back to see Dean Dean Dean on the ground, shouting his name and turning back for him. No other option.


P A I N


More than she'd ever thought possible. )

And in Geralt's grip against the wall, Jo's body drops solid and complete as a stone into the hold of those clawed hands suddenly, as though her ability to stand, to hold her weight was just as suddenly ripped out.

( There's a floor; one she's not getting up from. Blood coming out as fast as she'd ever seen it come out of someone else. It only means one thing. Everything's moving so fast. That cold is coming back, here, too. Her feet. Her legs. Too many voices. She can't keep them straight. She can only just keep her back straight. Her head up. Too many voices. Too many faces. The same, but cracked. Refusal in their faces is the only fuel to keep it that way.

The plan is simple. The plan is easy. Child's math.
She just has to stay alive long enough to do it.

Press back the black just a little longer.


Even that doesn't go right. Sam. Dean.
Her mother staying. Because of her. For her.

Because she doesn't make it to the end even then.
There's the solidness of her mother's shoulder. A blast of heat. )

— Jo gasps loud and body-wracking hard; air a finite, terminal, impossibility one second ago.