Author's Note: This is it, the final chapter. Thanks to everyone who read through the end. I had to post everything much faster than I wanted to so I can go deal with real life. I do want to write again, maybe even a sequel for this story, so please let me know what you think and be honest so I know what I need to work on next time.

"FUCK!" Jo spat as Sam was finally able to pull the bullet free from her leg. "Remind me to never ever under any circumstances have someone pull a bullet out of my body without proper anesthetic again."

"Baby," Dean teased her.

"Damn straight. Is that how it felt when I pulled that shot out of your shoulder? Because fuck, Dean."

"Yeah, well. I'm just more of a badass than you are cupcake." She kicked at him lightly with her good leg and Sam admonished her to hold still while he finished bandaging her other one. Jo had gulped down as much Tequila as she could while the boys patched themselves up, then Sam had dug in with the tweezers while Dean held her leg still against the hotel mattress. The Tequila hadn't done much to dull the pain. Jo retroactively gave thanks that Dean had been such a good patient. He could have been a total pain in the ass.

Sam stood, after finishing taping the gauze he'd wrapped around her leg.

"I'm going to go get some ice for your throat," he offered sympathetically. Jo gave him a small smile in gratitude, pushing herself up from where she had been laying to sit back against the headboard. She hadn't looked in a mirror yet but she had a feeling her neck looked exactly like it felt; bruised to hell. When Sam was gone Dean sat on the other bed and looked everywhere but at her. Jo shifted through her hazy memories and winced.

"So….did we…?"

"Uh……yeah….um….I thought….I mean, I didn't know….so….." Dean trailed off and Jo couldn't blame him. Miss Manners didn't exactly cover this in the etiquette handbook, Jo thought. What do you say to someone you slept with when they weren't really them? The silence stretched on and Jo wondered what was taking Sam so long.

"Well this is awkward on a level I previously didn't know existed," she said out loud. She thought she caught a very small grin tug at his lips, but he didn't look up. Jo bit her lip and let out a slow breath. "Dean? Could you look at me for a second?" Dean sighed but complied. "Please don't blame yourself for it, OK? I don't know what I feel yet, about anything right now, but I know how I don't feel. And I don't feel victimized by you."

Dean just continued to stare at her and Jo felt herself growing slightly inappropriately hot. Was it really fair for him to still, after everything that had happened that night, look that pretty? Jo had been and still was confused about what to feel for Dean. With him looking at her like that, and with memories of him naked floating through her head, Jo was finding herself drifting dangerously back into her old fantasies.

The two were startled out of their gazing by Dean's phone ringing. He glanced at the caller ID before answering.

"What's up Sam?" He listened to his brother for a few moments before nodding. "OK, sounds good. Don't be gone too long." He hung up the phone and looked back to her. "Sam says the ice machine is broken so he's going to the store to buy some and get you some stronger pain meds."

"And Sammy shoots to the top of my 'favorite people' list." She gave Dean a smile. "You're number two, by the way. I've been meaning to thank you."

"Thank me?" Dean asked, sincerely befuddled.

"For shooting me when I asked you to," Jo said with a slight smile. Dean stared at her incredulously.

"I…you're actually thanking me for shooting you? Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought" Jo gave a half hearted laugh, fully aware her gratitude was a tad odd.

"My head is fine. Physically anyway. It's just…" Jo trailed off, biting her lip again, her laughter fading. She drew her knees up to her chin, mindful of her injury, and stared off into the distance as she continued. "I was trapped. I've never felt so helpless in my life. I had to watch while she killed those people. Feel their blood on my hands." Her voice cracked a bit and she wiped at a single tear that had escaped down her cheek. She heard rather than saw Dean move, and then he was sitting next to her on the bed, facing her and reaching for her hand. She looked into his eyes. "You saved me. Even if…if things had gone another way. I still would have been free from her. So yes, thank you." She leaned forward and hugged him impulsively, and was relieved when he hugged her back instead of pushing her away. Seemed even Dean Winchester could suppress his fear of emotions when the occasion called for it. She let her head rest against his shoulder for awhile, enjoying the feeling. She pulled back suddenly, surprising Dean.

"Oh my god. I need to call my mom. I usually check in every couple of weeks and it's been months, she's probably completely freaking by now." Dean nodded and handed her his phone. Hers had been crushed sometime during the fight.

"Don't make it sound like I had anything to do with anything," he said while she dialed, "I'd like to still be alive tomorrow." Jo was rolling her eyes when her mom answered.

"Hello?"

"Mom." There was a pause on the other line, as if she were the last person her mother had been expecting to hear from. That didn't last.

"Joanna Beth, where the hell are you and what the hell do you think you're doing not calling me for two whole goddamn months?" Jo smiled at her mom through the phone. It was so good to hear her voice, even if she was cussing her out.

"I'm sorry mom. Something happened." Dean got up and walked to the small table in the room while she talked, where he picked up a pen and started to write something. Jo talked to her mom for several minutes, but she kept things vague, not wanting to cause her mother to panic and promising to tell her more when she came to visit, which she hoped would be within a few days. After awhile they said I love you and hung up and Jo held Dean's phone out to him. He came and took it from her, sitting down next to her again. When he handed her the paper he'd been scribbling on she saw that he hadn't been writing at all, but drawing. It was some kind of symbol that involved a pentagram.

"What's this?"

"That is a symbol that wards off possession. Wearing an amulet in that shape as a necklace is good enough, but I suggest getting it tattooed over your heart as soon as you're up to it." He pulled the collar of his shirt down as he spoke to reveal his own tattoo. Jo studied both him and the symbol for a moment before breaking into a teasing grin.

"Soooo….you want us to get matching tattoos?" Jo's grin grew at the expression on Dean's face.

"Sam has one too, ya know. It's not like it's…I mean, I'm not…."

"I'm teasing you Dean," Jo said lightly, punching one of his shoulders playfully.

"Oh you're hilarious," he mumbled. Jo gave a short laugh and shook her head at him, then trailed off and gazed around the room for awhile, thinking about things. After a few minutes of silence she turned back to him suddenly.

"I want to watch cartoons." Dean seemed to be at a loss for words.

"Uh…..wha-….um…..Huh?" Jo laughed fully for the first time in months.

"I don't know, I just…I used to watch cartoons all the time when I was a little girl, and I haven't in forever. And for some reason…I just really want to watch cartoons. Like I used to when I was a kid." Dean was giving her that look again, the one that made her go slightly hot in places where she shouldn't be. For a second she wondered if he was going to kiss her. He brushed a piece of hair behind her ear and let his thumb trail across her jaw for a moment and even leaned in ever so slightly. But then he just smiled.

"OK. Cartoons it is.

--

When Sam came back a full half an hour after leaving the motel room he found Jo and Dean sitting back against the headboard of one of the beds, their shoulders touching slightly, arguing with each other. Sam at first was confused, but when he saw the TV was on their argument began to make more sense.

"Wile E. Coyote was brilliant, OK? It's not his fault that those acme products are all faulty. It's takes true creative genius to come up with plans like that."

"Oh give me a break Dean. Elmer Fudd could have outsmarted that idiot. And besides, Bugs Bunny is clearly the smartest out of all of them!"

They looked up briefly when Sam came in and gave a tandem "Hey Sam" before resuming their debate. Sam laughed at them and went to the bathroom to get Jo a glass of water, handing it to her along with the medicine he'd bought when he came back into the room. She swallowed the pills and took the bag of ice he offered next.

"You know," he said, sitting against the headboard of the other bed, "I always liked Foghorn Leghorn." Jo and Dean stared at him, turned and looked at each other, then turned back to Sam.

"Dude," they said at the same time in twin voices of disgust.

"I can't believe I'm related to you," Dean was looking at Sam with disappointment. "If you were going to pick a lame character couldn't you at least have gone with Pepe' Le Pew or something? At least he had decent priorities."

"Oh, and of course you consider chasing tail a decent priority," Jo said, smacking him in the chest lightly with the back of her hand. They quickly devolved into arguing with each other again and Sam sat back to watch cartoons with a smile on his face, laughing at his brother and the woman he had a feeling they would be seeing a lot more of from now on.