Frail

This is a sequel of sorts to Strangers and Angels, although I don't think you need to have read that one to understand this. It might help with knowing some of the characters that aren't Dean or Sam or, eventually, John.

I've dropped everyone back into the regular Supernatural timeline. Kind of. So, the finale has happened and it's several months later. The show timeline and the story timeline aren't really going to match up, though.

xxxx

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm." Ephesians 6:12-13

xxxx

He could hear screams and taste the acrid smell of smoke in the back of his throat as he ran up the stairs. He knew where to go though he'd never been in that part of the apartment before, sprinting down the long hall, cries echoing around him, bouncing off the walls, confusing him, driving him forward.

The door was closed, but he could see the glow seeping from under it, undulating, spilling into the hall, dying the hard wood floors a deep crimson. He didn't pause, hitting the door with his shoulder, heard the lintel crack, the voices of the children suddenly deafening as he staggered into the room.

They were on the bed, three boys, staring at the ceiling, mouths almost perfect "O"s in their terror. His own eyes went upward, fixing on the woman pinned there, flames engulfing her, lips moving silently, trying to tell him something.

Jo.

xxxx

Dean bolted up right in bed, a scream swallowed to a muffled croak as reality returned with a jolt.

Sam stirred in the next bed, and Dean sat panting, head and heart pounding as he reached out blindly for the lamp between them.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was hoarse, concern and annoyance making themselves known in equal parts as the light flipped on.

But Dean was reaching for his cell phone, hands fumbling with the buttons as he tried to find the number, shaking from adrenaline and fear.

"Dean, what's going on?" Sam rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow, hair standing at all angles as he squinted at his brother.

He punched the button to connect.

"Dean?"

Ringing.

Silence from Sam, brows drawn together as he waited.

"Hello?" A sleepy female voice.

"Jo?"

Sam's eyebrows went up.

"Dean?" He could hear the rustling of sheets as she sat up in bed. "Honey, what's wrong?" Concern started into her voice. "Are you OK? Is it Sam?"

Dean was suddenly flustered, embarrassment taking hold, pushing aside the lingering urgency from his dream. He shouldn't have called without having talked to Sam first. And it was probably nothing. A nightmare. He was overreacting. He knew he was overreacting, but…

"No, no, we're fine." His eyes strayed to the clock. 3:27. Shit. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was this late."

There was a pause. "You didn't realize it was 3:30 in the morning?" She sounded doubtful and still worried. "Dean, are you sure everything's OK?"

"Yeah, everything's fine, we…" he trailed off, not sure how to get out of this. "We were just out late and, you know, didn't really…" He was floundering, eyes straying to Sam, who was staring at him brows drawn into a frown.

"We thought we might come visit," he blurted.

It was nothing; it had to be nothing. Sam said he'd dreamed about Jessica for days.

Sam was now sitting up in bed, leaning toward him.

"Well, that would be wonderful." Dean could hear the confusion in Jo's voice.

"Are you sure? We don't want to …"

Jo cut him off.

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm just slow because I'm only half awake. You and Sam are always welcome. You know that."

Dean drew in a deep breath. "Thanks." Awkward pause. "We'll see you tomorrow, then."

"We'll look forward to it," Jo said, the warmth and pleasure in her voice washing over him. "The boys will be so excited."

Dean closed his eyes. "Yeah, we are, too. See you soon."

"See you soon."

The call was disconnected and Dean got up, heading to the bathroom, avoiding Sam's worried stare. Sam waited while Dean ran the water, splashing his face and his head, still struggling to get himself under control.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on?" Sam asked.

Dean came back into the room and sat on the bed across from his brother. Their knees touched across the space between them, and for once, Dean didn't move away. Even the bony contact of Sam's knees seemed to help.

"I had a dream," Dean said to the floor.

Nothing from Sam. Dean's eyes came up from studying his brother's long toes on the carpet. He could see Sam trying to process this. There was a brief expression of confusion and then a dawning comprehension. Dean watched Sam's breath quicken, shock forcing the air out of his younger brother's lungs as he realized what Dean was saying.

"What kind of dream?"

Sam's voice was like sandpaper, the question scraping out of his throat. Asking. Even though he knew.

"Jo." Dean's throat closed up. "On the ceiling. Fire."

Sam's face had turned white in the lamplight.

"Like Jess." Dean said it thickly, remembering.

The girl on the ceiling, a red slash across her midriff, flames exploding around her. Sam on the bed, paralyzed as his nightmare came to life above him, Dean faltering as he burst into the room, his terror for his brother momentarily forgotten in light of the horror overhead.

Dean stood abruptly, moving around the room, picking up clothes and weapons, thrusting things into bags, packing his stuff and Sam's haphazardly, unmindful of what was going where.

He went into the bathroom, shoving razors, toothbrushes, and toothpaste into a battered Dopp kit, waiting for Sam to start—questioning, demanding.

But there was only a hanging silence from the other room.

Dean reached into the shower, pulled out shampoo and soap, stuck them in the other kit, did a quick once over to make sure he had everything before he went back into the bedroom.

Still nothing from his brother.

"Maybe it's just a nightmare, Sammy, but …" Dean broke off. It felt bizarrely presumptuous to consider that he could be having a premonition, and he wanted to deny it. But how could he risk it? Knowing what had happened before.

He tossed the toiletry stuff into one of the duffels and turned to Sam, almost willing his brother to challenge him.

But Sam, frozen on the bed, was looking to Dean.

"What do we do?" Sam's tight whisper gave voice to Dean's own rising panic.

I don't know.

"Stop it," said Dean grimly.

"How?"

I don't know, he wanted to scream.

"We'll figure something out."

xxxx

For once Sam didn't give Dean any trouble about his speed.

They'd gotten almost 20 miles down the road when Sam's brain kicked back into gear.

"Do you really think it was a vision?"

The question came after complete silence from Sam for the last 30 minutes.

Dean glanced quickly at Sam, who was staring at him intently.

"I don't know, Sammy."

Sam's eyes went back to the road.

"It might just have been a dream."

"I know that." Silence stretched between them again. "Do you want to risk it?"

Sam shook his head. "We can't."

"I know."

Quiet.

Dean risked another glance at his brother, and he could almost see the wheels turning in Sam's head as the younger man tried to figure out what their next step should be. Dean felt some of the tension in his neck ease, relieved that Sam was back with him.

"Should we tell Jo and Luke the truth?"

"Maybe."

Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don't know, Sam." He left one hand on the wheel while he rubbed the other over his eyes. God, he was tired. "They know us too well. I don't think we can bullshit them about this." He caught Sam's eyes. "Jo'll see right through any story we try to tell." He snorted softly. "Luke will, too, for that matter."

Sam bit his lip, tugging at his ear while he thought. "Yeah." He sighed. "How do you think they'll take it?" he asked quietly.

Dean shook his head, unhappy. "I don't know."

xxxx

They reached the motel close to noon, pulling around back to the house where the family had moved after Jo and Luke had married. The apartment attached to the motel had been a tight fit for a long time, but the old ranch house that sat back from the commercial property had been in no shape for living. Sam and Dean had spent four days before the wedding helping Luke and the boys make it habitable before they all moved in. It was still a work in progress.

The screen door flew open as the Impala slowed to a stop.

"Dean!" Tommy flew across the porch and down the steps.

Dean only had time to straighten getting out of the car before he was hit solidly in the chest by the hurtling projectile. He took a step back, wrapping his arms around the boy, picking him up and swinging him around, relief making him feel almost giddy, the sound of delighted laughter making his heart constrict painfully in an odd mixture of elation and dread.

"Dude." He set Tommy back on solid ground. "You're going to kill me next time you do that." He reached out and put a hand on the boy's head. "How tall are you anyway?"

The rest of the family had not been far behind its youngest member, and Sam was being hugged and punched as Dean and Tommy joined them. Sam's and Dean's eyes met. Dean could see the uncertainty there and knew that it was mirrored in his own.

"Dean." Jo stepped forward.

"Hey," he said softly as he leaned down to give her a hug.

"We're so glad you're here."

He smiled, and Jo frowned slightly as she looked into his eyes. Crap.

"Aunt Jo's been using your room for her sewing, but we cleared all that stuff off the beds, so you can sleep there," Tommy offered from his perch on Sam's back.

"If you give me your keys, I'll get your bags." Michael held his palm out to Dean.

Dean turned and looked at him narrowly.

"What?" Michael's eyes were wide, face radiating astonished innocence.

Dean jangled his keys in his hand.

"Just the bags."

"Just the bags," the boy said.

Dean held the keys out. Michael reached for them, and Dean snatched them back.

"You're not driving my car."

"Jeez!" But Michael was grinning, caught.

"Amateur," Dean scoffed. He tossed the keys to Sam, who caught them in one hand. Jostling Tommy on his back, Sam got a firmer grip on his passenger as he went to the car, bouncing as he walked. Awkwardly, he unlocked the trunk, lifting the lid. He settled Tommy more comfortably before he turned back to Michael. Tommy's foot was swinging rhythmically as he peered over Sam's shoulder at his brother.

"There," Sam said. "Now you can get our bags." He lobbed the keys back to Dean over Michael's head. "Thanks," he said brightly.

Jake was snickering at his brother, and Dean hooked an elbow around younger boy's neck, pulling him close, scrubbing knuckles over the top of the kid's head. "You think that's funny?"

"Yes," Jake gasped, fighting back, surprising Dean with his strength.

"Oh, yeah?" Dean tightened his grip, and Jake's hands scrabbled for a hold. Michael, dropping the bags, came to the aid of his brother, and Sam swung Tommy down, backing his own. Tommy danced indecisively around the edges briefly before finally hurling himself into the melee without actually choosing a side.

Jo side-stepped the struggle easily and started up the stairs of the porch as the whole writhing mass of flailing arms and legs toppled over into a pile in the dust.

"When y'all are finished, lunch will be ready."

xxxx

Lunch had been casual—sandwiches and chips and Coke—laid out on the table for the family to grab as they had time. Jo and the boys stayed busy with the motel in the afternoon while Sam and Dean got settled and then pitched in to help around the diner. They weren't really needed, but it gave them both an excuse to sit at the counter and catch up with the people they'd gotten to know over the time they spent with Jo and her family. Marge brought them piece after piece of pie and kept their coffee mugs filled as they worked the register and bussed the occasional table. Even in the midst of the anxiety that lingered just under the surface, Dean could feel the increasingly familiar sense of "home" begin to settle in.

Luke arrived after they'd already started dinner, a domestic dispute in town having kept him busy all that afternoon and into the evening. He'd greeted Sam and Dean warmly, if distractedly, taken his seat and plowed single-mindedly through his meal.

Dean could feel the tension radiating off Luke, and swallowed his own rising discomfort as he thought about the conversation he and Sam were going to have to have with Jo and Luke. The younger boys chattered at Dean and Sam, filling them in on what had been going on. Over the last year or so, they'd all kept in touch with email and phone calls. The last time they'd visited, Michael had set Dean up with an email account that he remembered to check sporadically.

"So, we decided that we should break up and just be friends," Michael was saying.

"Yeah?" Sam asked. He took another bite of casserole. "How's that going?"

Michael shrugged. "Pretty good, I guess. I mean, it's hard, but with her at Tech and me at A&M next year…. It just seemed like we should be open to something new. I mean, it's college, right?"

Now, Michael's eyes shifted to Jo. "Besides, her mom had started talking about the wedding, and that freaked us both out a little."

Dean choked on the mouthful of milk he'd just swallowed.

Jo snorted. "Yeah. Never mind the kids. It was freaking me out." She shook her head as she met Dean's and Sam's astonished eyes. "I'm just glad that Michael and Emily had enough sense between the two of them not to let Muriel rush them into marriage right out of high school." She smiled across the table at her oldest nephew. "I'm really proud of both of them. It was a difficult, difficult decision, and they've been incredibly mature about it."

Michael's face flushed at the praise, and he lifted one shoulder in a shrug, before turning the conversation to a topic that didn't involve him.

"So," he said with a grin. "Jake's got a girl."

Now it was Jacob's turn to blush.

"Shut up!"

"Don't say 'shut up,' Jacob. And stop teasing him, Michael."

Dean let Michael's comment hang for a little while, taking another bite of his dinner. Then he asked, nonchalantly, "So, is she cute?"

"Yeah," Jake muttered to his green beans.

"Have you kissed her yet?"

The boy's ears flamed.

"Dean!" Jo exclaimed. "Leave him alone! All y'all mind your own business." Jo got up from the table, running a hand over Jake's head as she moved to the sink.

Still not raising his head, Jacob's eyes tracked his aunt, and then slid over to Dean, looking at him through his eyelashes. He grinned. "Yeah," he said softly.

Even Luke roused enough from his preoccupation to laugh at Jake's revelation. Jo set down the mugs she'd taken out of the cabinet on the way back to the table, and grabbed a handful of the boy's hair, shaking him gently. Her eyes met Luke's. Jake looked both enormously pleased with himself and a little nervous.

"We'll talk later, young man," Luke intoned, pointing a fork at him.

Jo arched an eyebrow at Dean. "Should we ask you about your love life?"

Dean grinned at her. "Probably not."

"I thought as much." She'd brought coffee with her as well, and she walked around the table filling cups. She sat down with her own, and looked at Sam.

"How about you, sweetie?"

Sam smiled. "Nothing really."

Jo shook her head. "Y'all need to stick around here a little longer. There are some really sweet…"

"Anyway!" Both Sam and Dean raised their voices over Jo's. The boys at the table laughed and started to rise, clearing plates and silverware.

"One day," she promised, narrowing her eyes at them.

"Yeah, yeah."

As the boys cleared the table, the adults sat and drank their coffee, chatting about things other than girls, waiting for the younger members of the family to finish and head for the television in the other room. Eventually, Jake and Tommy wandered off, squabbling over whether to watch something on television or find a movie.

Michael, feeling very adult at 18, rejoined the group at the kitchen table.

Jo cleared her throat. "Honey, why don't you go see what your brothers are up to?"

Michael looked around the table. "Why? What's going on?"

"Nothing," Luke said. "Go make sure they haven't decided to watch something they shouldn't."

Scowling, Michael pushed back from the table. "Fine," he said. "But I'm not a little kid any more."

Closing her eyes against the drama, Jo said, "Of course you're not, baby." Michael's face darkened. "I mean, sweetie." She bit back a sigh of impatience. "We just want to talk to Sam and Dean alone for awhile, OK?"

"Fine." He stalked out of the room.

"What was that?" Dean asked.

"With college next year, he's very aware of how 'grown up' he is these days."

"Ah." Dean's eyes cut to Sam and back to Jo significantly. She bit back a laugh as Sam reached for a cookie, oblivious.

They waited until they could hear the voices of all three boys in the back room. Luke hitched his chair around so that he had a clear view down the hall to check for eavesdroppers.

"So, what's going on, you two?" he asked.

Dean and Sam exchanged looks. Dean cleared his throat.

"Well." Dean scratched the back of his neck, looking at Sam again.

"Uh," Sam tried to start.

Jo and Luke exchanged their own glances.

"This is going to sound strange," Dean finally said. An unfamiliar nervousness constricted his chest, making it difficult to breathe normally.

"OK."

"Last night I had a dream. A nightmare. About Jo." Dean kept his eyes on the table in front of him, afraid of what he might see if he looked at Luke or Jo. "The thing is. Sam had the same dream. The week before his girlfriend died."

Silence.

"What was the dream?" Jo asked it cautiously, eyes straying to Luke uncertainly.

Dean cleared his throat. His eyes went swiftly from Luke to Jo to Sam.

"It was night, and I was in the kitchen of the old apartment. I could hear the boys screaming, and I ran upstairs. There was fire under the door at the end of the hall, and when I opened the door, the kids were all on the bed." Dean could feel his heart starting to respond to the residual fear from the night before, speeding up, his breath keeping time even as he tried to steady himself. "They were… staring up at the ceiling, and… when I looked, Jo was on the ceiling. There was blood… and there was fire. She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't…"

Dean jumped at a touch on his hand. Jo had put her hand over his, warm fingers wrapping gently around his cold ones. She smiled at him.

"It's OK."

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the haunting images.

"It was just a dream, Dean," Luke said, confused. He was concerned, Dean could tell, but really more about the crazy man at his table than about his wife.

"Maybe." Sam said it softly, bringing all the eyes in the kitchen around to him. "But it might not be." Sam was a little gray, Dean's recitation of his dream stirring up memories of Jess. And his own failure.

"I had the same dream before Jess died," he whispered. "And that's how she died."

"I was on the bed, and when I opened my eyes, she was there, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding. And then she disappeared in an explosion of fire. Dean pulled me out. Otherwise…"

Luke and Jo were looking at him, mouths slightly open, not sure how to respond. Their eyes moved to Dean and then back to Sam.

"I've had other dreams, visions that have come true." Sam looked over at Dean. "We couldn't risk…" He stopped.

Luke looked at his wife and then again at the two young men sitting at his table. The anxiety was clear on their faces. Anxiety, he realized, not just about Jo, but also about his own reaction, and Jo's, to this story.

Luke drew in a deep breath, forcing himself not to overreact.

"So, you're afraid that Dean may have had one of these dreams that come true. Like what Sam has had." Luke hesitated. "A vision," he said uncomfortably.

Dean nodded stiffly.

"Have you had a dream like this before? One that's come true?" he asked slowly.

"No."

Luke considered.

"How similar was your dream, Sam, to what actually happened to Jess?" Luke offered the question carefully. "Location? Details? Was it exactly the same?"

Sam took a moment before he answered. "Exactly." He cleared his throat. "Everything was exactly the same."

"How about your other dreams or visions? Exactly the same?"

"Yes," Sam said. As far as they knew, he believed they were the same. His eyes cut to Dean and Dean knew what his brother was remembering. "Except where we've been able to stop it." Dean, a bullet hole in his forehead, blood on the wall. Except not.

Luke's eyes now went to Dean, who was listening intently to the exchange.

"There's nothing in the old apartment any more. No beds, no other furniture. Dean, if Sam's visions are precise, even in the details, it seems to me that this dream of yours must only have been a dream. There wouldn't be a bed for the boys to be on; there'd be no reason for them or Jo to be there at all."

Dean nodded haltingly, eyes turning to Sam, who was also clearly thinking through what Luke had said.

"Maybe," conceded Sam, looking at Dean.

Dean had only come to accept Sam's budding psychic abilities reluctantly, and so to argue for the possibility of his own made him incredibly uncomfortable.

"You're probably right," he said quietly, "but…" Dean could feel the heat start to rise in his face. "But. What if…?"

"I understand what you're saying, Dean," Luke said. "If your… abilities, I guess, manifest themselves differently from Sam's…"

"I'm not saying that I have any… abilities. I just…"

"No. I know." Luke met Dean's eyes squarely. "We shouldn't disregard anything. And we won't."

There was a long moment of silence.

Dean cleared his throat and laughed a little unsteadily as he tried to ease his fingers out of Jo's grasp. The slight, self-mocking grin he sent her was an attempt to lighten the tension in the room, to give her, he thought, the opportunity to put some distance between herself and the crazy people she'd let into her life and the life of her family.

Jo's grip tightened on his hand gently, not letting him go.

"The way Jess died…" she started. "Did you ever find out how… that happened? What could have done that to her?" She asked it hesitantly, clearly sure that the answer would be nothing she wanted to know.

"It was a demon," Sam answered softly. They'd started this, they might as well finish it. "The same demon that killed our mother."

Jo blinked rapidly, shock and understanding plain on her face. "The fire?" she asked Dean. He nodded and she looked quickly at Luke, trying to gauge his reaction.

Luke's eyes had hardened at this revelation.

"A demon," he said, flatly.

Dean tensed at the tone of Luke's voice.

"Yes."

Sam said it steadily, but Dean could hear Sam's recognition of the tone, as well.

Dean braced himself and saw Luke turn his head from Sam to look at his wife. Jo's hand was icy as it held Dean's, and he expected at any moment to have it withdrawn, forever.

"So, is it the demon that's got me in the dream?" she asked, her voice uncertain. "Why? Why would it want me?"

Luke moved sharply in his chair, leaning forward, not liking the direction the conversation was taking.

Dean sat up, suddenly rigid. He really hadn't thought about the bigger picture implications of his dream.

If it was a vision, why? What would the demon want with Jo?

Stupid, he thought to himself. He and Sam had reacted purely on emotion. Think.

"We don't… We haven't…" Sam stuttered to a halt. "I don't know." His brow furrowed as he thought about it. His eyes turned to his brother.

"It killed Mom and Jess because it said they got in the way." Sam said it to Dean. "If it thinks Jo is in the way, why am I not having visions? I did before. With Jess. With Max. In Salvation."

Luke's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. "'It said'?" he asked incredulously. "You've talked to it?"

Dean's eyes flicked to Luke and then back to Sam.

"I don't know."

Sam's eyes darkened. "It was pretty pissed at you," he said softly. "Maybe its focus has changed?"

"Maybe." Dean thought about this. "But that doesn't explain why I would suddenly have the shining." He looked doubtfully at Sam. "Unless it's what's sending the visions?"

"I don't think so," Sam said, finally.

Dean agreed.

"Yeah. Me either."

"When did you talk to it?" Jo asked into the silence that descended. "When did it get pissed at you?" Worry made her sharp.

Dean ran a hand over his face, unconsciously rubbing at his chest with the other where the scars had healed.

"Last spring." He met Jo's eyes. "Right before the accident."

"The internal injuries," Luke said suddenly.

Dean looked at Luke in surprise at the seeming non sequitor.

"There were things about your injuries that the doctors couldn't explain. Damage they said they'd never seen before." Luke's voice was rough when he asked, "Signs of this demon's displeasure?"

Dean nodded, eyes dropping at the concern he saw in Luke's face.

"I figured there were things you weren't telling us then," Jo said, "but it didn't seem like the time…"

"We're sorry," Sam said, haltingly. "There was Dad, and we couldn't…" He broke of helplessly, looking to Dean. "We didn't know how you'd react, and we…"

Jo reached out to Sam across the table, one hand still holding Dean's, the other grasping Sam's. "It's OK, sweetie," she said kindly. She was pale, but composed.

She looked at her husband and then back to Dean.

"What do we do?" she asked.

xxxx