Outside the motel

Jenny had just got back to the motel room and was standing outside. It was dark, bringing up her paranoia again since she knew what could be out there. She'd come to investigate the circus that had been going on in that area - having some hints that it wasn't all human fun. She'd had doubts when Davis said he was going to bother coming, when she'd called him, but came anyway. A little show wouldn't hurt.

However when she'd finally got there it was too late, and she'd have to check it out later. Motel after motel disappointed her. At least this one didn't look so bad from the outside, though. She'd gone out quickly to get something to eat and had come back, tired enough to actually sleep. Not till after another painful exorcism though.

She dug right down to the bottom of her bag, trying to find the annoying keys, getting more flustered when she knew she only had about an hour.

Dean had just pulled into the Motel car park, a couple of paper bags of fast food in the passenger for him and Sam. They had got to this place earlier in the day, and Sam had been bitching the entire way that he felt ill, so as a result he was currently holed up in the cheap motel room whilst Dean got the two of them food, though he doubted Sam would be able to hold it down, if he even felt like eating. It looked like he was coming down with a nasty bout of flu. Doubtless he would use that as an excuse to make Dean investigate this on his own.

He pushed open the door of the Impala, the cold night air greeting him as he stepped out, bringing the food with him. The motel was nondescript and heap looking, so nothing different to normal, in some town in the middle of nowhere. They were here to investigate a travelling circus - Cirque du Freak - or something. There probably was nothing up with it, but some of the acts certainly sounded a bit out there, leading them to wonder if there was more to it.

Opening the door, Dean was flooded by the lukewarm air of the motel interior, a slight improvement on the temperature outside. He walked up the corridor, looking for the room that Sam would probably be moping in.

Jenny carried on rummaging through her bag, getting annoyed now that the keys must have floated all the way down to the bottom, which wasn't good, considering what she had in the bag... Hearing someone coming down the corridor, she quickly stood up, closing it most of the way so that no one would be able to see what was inside if they had to go past her.

"Come on." she muttered to herself, trying to find the keys, making it harder for her since she couldn't just pull everything out.

Dean heard a voice as he walked towards his room, and it sounded vaguely familiar. It was female, and sounded irritated, and blonde hair came into view. Dean's frown at having to deal with Sam turned into a leery grin. Would it be wrong to try and get it on while Sam was ill? No... course not.

"Hey there," he greeted, as he came up by her, and then the grin fell. Shit. Was this Jenny? "Jenny, is that you?" he asked, his words echoing his thoughts, as he came to a standstill. He stood there, slack jawed. He hadn't seen her in years.

Jenny looked up slowly, ready to give this guy a load of attitude for trying to hit on a random girl, who he really shouldn't even be trying to get close to, but when she saw who it was she furrowed her brow, knowing that this guy was different. Where did she know him from? Scruffy jeans and brown leather jacket. That charm around his neck... she knew that charm.

When he said her name she knew who it was. "Dean?" she asked, happy to see him. "Oh my god..." she dropped the bag with a clunk and wrapped her arms around him. It had been so long since she ran away... too long. And she'd missed him. He was her family after all. She'd forgotten that smell - the Impala. Jenny had loved how that car smelt since the few times she had been in it. For some reason it had stayed with her.

Dean was greeted by an armful of Jenny. He wrapped his arms around her, grinning softly. He hadn't seen his cousin in far too long. She looked exactly the same as she had when he had last saw her, about, what, was it ten years ago now? It was something like that, he wasn't sure. She had not stayed with them that long, so he did not really know her as well as he should of, but that did not lessen how good it was to see her again.

"Good to see you too," he murmured, before letting go, and taking a step back, food still in hand, "You been taking care of yourself?"

Jenny shrugged, smiling, still so happy to see her cousin again. "Here and there..." she shook it off, avoiding the question. Dean shouldn't notice though, because she was a hunter - of course she would get hurt quite a lot, but she would try to stay okay. 'Looking after yourself' hardly fit well with the job.

"What about you? How's uncle John?" she asked, remembering her uncle John. He was a great hunter, and had actually done a lot of things in front of her that she did't forget. Like he'd shown her the best place to hide a knife with easy access when they'd met when she first started hunting.

Dean looked away, a little uneasily. Their dad had been missing for the past couple of months, and Jenny didn't know anything about it. Well, logically she didn't, it was not as if they had kept in contact.

"I'm fine," Dean answered, and he really would have loved to have evaded the question about their dad. Every time he admitted that he was missing, it just seemed to bring it all home. Making it all the more likely that they would not find him again. "He's been missing for a couple of months now," he said after a few moments silence, shrugging, and keeping his features schooled to a neutral expression.

Jenny's face fell. "Missing?" she repeated. A couple of months? How could he have been missing for that long? As far as she could remember he was the best hunter she'd come across. Even Davis admitted that he'd met John once and he was the best he'd seen, too. How could one of the only people of her family be gone? Since when had the whole Winchester family started dropping off the tree?

She glanced down at her watch. She only had forty eight minutes.

"So you're just here by yourself?" she asked. "What... are you doing here?"

"Yeah," Dean said, trailing off. He didn't really want to talk about it. If she wanted to know more, then she would be better off asking Sam. He loved talking about things like that in great detail. Dean had never been great with externalising things.

"No, not here by myself," Dean shook his face, which seemed to light up as the topic of his brother came up. They had only just started hunting together again, since dad had gone missing, and Jess had died. "I'm here with my brother Sam. Remember him? I think he was in high school when you were with us." He glanced ahead of her, to where their motel room was a few doors up, "We're in town for circus thing. Apparently there's something going on there, but we're not really sure. Sammy's got himself ill though, so won't be joining me. What about you?"

"Sam... you never mentioned him." said Jenny, thinking back to when she was with Dean and John. Maybe they had but she could never remember Sam. Probably because he wasn't there at the time. It seemed that Dean had forgotten her running away from them and leaving nothing but a measly note, which was good, because she was far too tired to argue, and there was already pain coming soon.

And Sam was ill. Well, at least he would get better.

They wouldn't be able to hear the screaming, thank goodness, because she'd tamed herself to stop crying out so loud anymore. It had taken her about a year to get over that. Davis helping her though most of it. She had to keep it from Dean, of course, so she'd have to make an excuse if this conversation was going to go on.

"Me too." she grinned. "My friend - Davis - he's kind of my partner but I do most of this alone - he said it wasn't worth it, but I don't know. It just all sounds a bit weird. I needed to get away for a while anyway." She shook her head. "It's such a coincidence." she stated.

"You don't remember Sam," Dean's face creased in confusion. "How can you not remember him? He was there when you stayed with us, you know, all floppy hair and puppy dog eyes?" Dean was seriously confused. She seemed to remember him, which was fair enough, he was a pretty memorable guy. But Sam? It seemed really odd, completely forgetting your own cousin. Still, it had been a long time for her, and Sam was studying half the time she was there, going through his textbooks and trying to blank the rest of them out, particularly their dad.

"Davis? Who's this then?" Dean grinned, eyebrows raised suggestively, "Your partner? Didn't know you'd met someone..."

"No." she frowned, shaking her head. How could she not remember Sam? She had forgotten some memories when going through the whole exorcising, but a lot of it she did remember. She remembered going to their place and John telling her a lot about the supernatural world. And talking with Dean, too. But Sam just wasn't there.

She smiled. "No, he's just a friend. He's helped me through a lot - especially money and on cases. You can't really get to attached to anyone... you know? It's always gotta be family... or it's just too... I mean if things didn't work out... he's all I got. I don't wanna loose him." Especially when she needed to get that thing out of her every 72 hours.

"Yeah? Good for you," Dean said, smiling at her. He still didn't quite get why she did not remember Sam, but was willing to drop it. She had after all had quite a busy childhood, and as weird as it was forgetting your own family he wasn't going to press on it. Probably just her being forgetful.

"I would say come in, but now's probably not the best time to be meet him," Dean said with a grimace, as he looked towards his and Sam's motel room, "Sammy's got himself the flu."

She laughed. "That's alright." Dean's little brother with the flu - that did sound amusing even if she couldn't remember Sam. She noticed Dean grimace and knew that he probably wasn't enjoying looking after him.

"Hey, you wanna come in?" she asked, looking through her bag again, finally finding her keys at the bottom. Shaking some stray grains of salt off them, Jenny intended to put them in the lock but her hand slid down making her hit door instead. "Damn it." she muttered narrowing her eyes, slotting them in the lock properly. She always go like this when there was an hour or two left. What were the chances she would see Dean again in that time? Great... she was making herself look weak in front of the son of the best damn hunter she knew of.

Dean shook his head regretfully, "I've got to get back to Sam, try and get some food in him," he raised his hand with the bags of food, which he really needed to get in there before it went cold. Not to mention that Sam was probably wondering what was taking him so long, and he needed to go and check that he was alright.

Still, he would like to go in, catch up with Jenny. She had not exactly given them any warning as to her whereabouts and her reason for leaving, and they had not stayed in contact. Hopefully he would have a chance to later though. He did not notice as she missed the lock, caught up in his thoughts.

"Well," she shrugged. "I've been driving for about nine hours straight." she lied. "I'd better get some sleep, anyways." Jenny glanced down at her watch. Chiz. Time had seemed to speed up. She didn't have long. The effects were already starting to show.

She opened the door, trying to be subtle about it, but it really got to her in this little time she had. "I really hope Sam get's better. Good to see you again." she said so fast it barely made sense. And then she shut the door in Dean's face, breathing heavily. Wow. She really knew how to lie.

Okay... well that was weird. She must have been really tired, though seriously? Nine hours? That wasn't that long. Dean walked over to the door of the motel, fishing through his pockets for the keys to the room. He found them within seconds, and opened the door quietly, gingerly stepping inside.

The curtains were drawn, and the lights turned off. Sam was on one of the two beds, under the covers which was lying across him hazardously. Though Dean could not see his face, as a result of him facing away from the door, he knew that he looked like crap. He was probably asleep, leaving Dean with the option of letting him continue, or waking him up and coercing him into eating food that would likely be thrown up later.

Trying to keep herself calm, Jenny set herself down on the bed. She couldn't say it yet - it was too early. This part was always the worst. Waiting for the thing inside her to rise up enough. It had learnt a few things. If it kept it's self buried far enough down then she couldn't push it back. So it tried to get up and it lingered there. She'd never felt a worse pain than feeling like something was ripping you from the inside to get control over you. It felt like there were knives trying to push themselves through.

Finally she felt it. The sickening feeling that told her it was coming up. So she recited the verse that she knew off by heart that she'd said over and over hundreds of times. She let out a loud cry, much louder than she'd meant it to be and put a hand over her mouth to stop her yelling. She collapsed on the bed, waiting for the pain to pass, and her breathing to slow.

Sam groaned upon hearing some small noise like a girl crying out, but thought it was just part of his crazy fever induced nightmares. He had been sick for a few days now, and was not enjoying it. They had come all the way there for a case and he couldn't even do anything - no researching - nothing. Just sleep and try not to puke up everything that came into contact with his stomach.

"Dean?" he murmured, hearing someone moving around in the motel room, smelling food. He really didn't want to think about food right now.

Looked like Sam was still awake after all. He didn't look so good, which was not surprising considering how he had been for the past few days. His voice was quiet as he spoke, and he looked vaguely nauseous, so he was probably going to be ill for a while longer.

"Hey, I bought us food," Dean said, though he kept his tone low, "You think you can keep it down?" He didn't really fancy cleaning up Sam's sick again, though that did seem pretty inevitable, especially if he was going to try and feed him. He glanced down into the take out bag. There was a paper cup of soup in there, some sort of dodgy looking vegetable one that he had imagined Sam would find more appealing then standard diner food.

Sam shut his eyes tightly as the headache wasn't improving that he'd had for days. He took one look at the food and groaned again. "I don't know. Later. Not right now." He turned over, not wanting to even smell the food. He really wasn't hungry, and probably wouldn't be for a while.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, wondering if that yell he heard earlier was real or not.

Jenny rummaged through her bag again, looking for her salt which she needed to swallow in order to keep the curse down. She found some and swallowed it hungrily, trying not to cough it up as it dried the inside of her mouth. She coughed loudly letting out a small scream. Damn it got so loud when she was emotional. It was seeing Dean again - knowing he was here was making her loss come back to her. No. Dean and Sam needed to stay out of this. It was her problem.

She reached for a glass, shakily towards the sink and then got some water and drunk it all, and had a second glass. Accidentally she dropped it on the floor and it smashed. Damn it! Glass flew all over the floor. Thank goodness she'd kept on her shoes.

Dean heard some sort of noise, though whatever it was it was muffled through the motel walls. "I heard something," Dean said, smirking as he set down Sam's soup on the aged bedside table, "It's probably just next door having a good time."

It was probably a good thing that Sam didn't try drinking the soup, seeing as it was unlikely that he would be able to hold it down. He did look a little peaky after all. Dean pulled out a burger, and took a bite, wishing it was pie instead.

Jenny swept up the glass, accidentally cutting her hand in the process and dropped the shards in the trash. She sighed, leaning against the counter, wrapping her hand in a cloth. There wasn't enough blood for it to seep through though. After she'd wrapped it up in some gauze, she looked through her bag, wondering if she could get anything for Sam, which could be an excuse to go back and see the boys. She needed some kind of an excuse after slamming the door in Dean's face, which made her feel bad, and getting something for Sam seemed a pretty good way to make up for it.

After finding some flu medication, she left the room and walked down to where she'd seen Dean looking earlier - which had to have been their room. Jenny knocked on the door, and waited.