Outside the motel

"Sam went to college? Even with you guys both working this job?" Jenny's brow furrowed in confusion. How could Sam have done that? Didn't he realise that they should stick together. He was younger than Dean - at least, he seemed to be, and Dean was looking out for him. Jenny had never seen anyone come out of hunting once they'd got into it. Jenny hadn't been to school since she'd left middle school. She'd never been to any high schools.

"I guess." She said casually like it was nothing impressive. "I kind of started a journal, and getting all the information I could on anything strange. I met some other guys and we all kept our stuff together. Until they disappeared with it." She said bitterly. "Then I just tried to get on by myself, faking my age till I was actually my age. I didn't go out looking for any trouble till I was seventeen n' started a new journal. Then I met Davis, and I can actually trust him, unlike those other bastards."

Dean looked back at Sam, who seemed to be sleeping more or less peacefully behind him. The topic of college was a sore spot for all three of them. Now that Jess had died it was even more so. Both him and his dad had been annoyed - angry - at Sam for going off to college, leaving them hunting alone. Hell, their dad had gone as far as to effectively cut Sam off. Dean had been pretty pissed off at the time, but he hadn't gone that far.

"He was never into hunting like me or dad," Dean answered after a few moments, looking back up at Jenny, "He wanted out, to be normal," and look at how that turned out for him. Dean left that unspoken. Jenny didn't need to hear about Jess.

He was glad to hear that Jenny had waited a while before getting right into hunting, even if some of the hunters she met were bastards. At least she had found someone she could trust, even if he didn't help her much with any of the actual hunting. "Sorry to hear about those guys," Dean added on, "Though I'm glad to hear you took it slow."

"Oh, believe me," Jenny continued. "I wanted to just grab a dagger and run right in and kill all of them. But I didn't know a thing, and I doubt a fourteen year old girl would be able to handle that, no matter how much of a rebel she was." She laughed darkly. "No. Waiting was better. Get stronger, get more information, and then strike when there's less chance of making a mess."

She hadn't wanted to wait at all. She wanted them all dead, and all in hell where they belonged. For everything they'd done to everyone in her family. All the pain they'd caused, and the messes they'd made. Sometimes not even to her family - but to the people around them. It wasn't right. It wasn't natural.

"Fair enough," Dean said, nodding as she spoke. He could understand the need for revenge, he had it instilled in him by his father. Still, hearing it now from Jenny it seemed disturbing. She was obviously overwhelmed by this need to avenge her family, much in the same way that his dad was, and himself, though to a lesser extent, "So, did you get them back?" He didn't really even know what they were. It could have been anything that killed her mother, and her foster family.

"Don't you remember? I killed that shape-shifter that killed my foster family. They just happened to have silver cutlery. I didn't even know what it was when I saw it killing them. And then after, all I could think about was how the last thing they would have seen was me slitting their throats. In their eyes, it might as well have been." Jenny swallowed, looking down at her hands, remembering how they'd been covered in blood from all four of them in the room. First the things, and then she'd got hurt too. Then her foster father, and finally her foster mother. So much for the happy couple. She bought her head back up to the room. Having her head down like that was a sign of weakness - a sign of defeat. She could never show that in front of anyone other than Davis. He was the only one who'd seen her in that kind of state. Maybe John and Dean a few times. But that was it. She knew she couldn't keep giving into her emotions. She had to bury them deep and hide them away. Only great hunters could do that.

"But I don't know what killed my mother. All I know is that she would never kill herself. There's a million things it could be. It's too late for anymore research into that."

Dean internally winced. He shouldn't have forgotten what had killed Jenny's foster parents, but after so many years of hunting a lot of the cases all started to blend into one. The fact that Jenny did not know what killed her mother was unsurprising. It was probably a good thing that she had not tried to find it. Dean's dad had been trying to find the thing the killed his wife for the past twenty two years and had no luck so far.

"The shape shifter thing, it wasn't your fault," Dean said, after he listened to what had happened, "You did good, getting rid of it," he paused, peering at Jenny, "and whatever it was, if something did go after your mom, it was out of your control. There's nothing you can do about it now."

Jenny was surprised at the comfort Dean was giving her. It had been so long, she wasn't used to it. She remembered once after that fight when Dean had tried to get her to talk about it. She remembered her uncle John telling her it wasn't her fault, and when she cried about it they'd tried to tell her anything that would make it okay. But nothing had. Her foster family was dead, and they thought it was because of her. That was the night that the police saw her dead body and said the three of them were dead. How little people knew of... anything. "Thanks." She smiled weakly.

Of course it was out of her control. She'd been four.

The way Dean said that there was nothing she could do now, made it seem so official and set in stone. There was nothing Jenny could do... nothing she could ever do to make it okay. There was one thing she knew though - that her mother hadn't killed herself. That would never be a possibility.

Her cell phone buzzed on the table, moving sideways a little with the vibrations. She looked down on it blankly. Davis always seemed to know when she was upset.

Smiling back, Dean glanced at the time. It was seven now, the time passing slowly. He was going to have to head out to that circus thing soon, probably in about half an hour.

Dean looked away uneasily, as he heard her cell phone ring. It was probably that other hunter, Davis. He'd have to get Sam to do some research on him when he got better, for his peace of mind more then anything. He felt uneasy knowing so little about who his cousin was hunting with.

"You gonna get that?" he asked, as the phone continued to vibrate.

"I have a voice-mail." said Jenny bitterly, waiting for it to stop buzzing. It did. Davis probably did leave a message saying he was sorry and that he was going to call her anyway until she picked up. She was still angry at him, and he should know better than to have the same argument with her over and over. Dean, though, probably would tell her to quit being a hormonal teenager and call him because she could be in trouble and it would put his mind at ease. She would cave later. For now, she was going to just leave Davis to indulge in apologetic endless calls.

"So, what do you do?" asked Jenny randomly, changing the subject again. "I mean in-between hunts."

Looked like she was still avoiding him then. The argument he overheard parts of earlier on going to some lengths explaining why, though he had no idea what Davis had done.

"Not much," Dean shrugged. It was rare that they got much time to themselves after hunts, they pretty much went straight on to the next ones as they were sent the relevant co ordinates. The one thing they did do was hitting the bars, Dean getting it on, though that wasn't so much Sam's thing since Jess, and not something Jenny wanted to know. "Catch up on sleep, eat, drive, nothing exciting," he answered after a few moments contemplation.

"You not going to find out what he's saying?" Dean asked, as he watched the phone that had just stopped buzzing, "Could be important."

Jenny wasn't really satisfied with that answer. She wasn't going to persist it, but he was missing things out. Like anything that would suggest that he wasn't thinking about this life all the time. This life just... sucked.

"It's not." she said shortly. "It's Davis trying to apologise... again." She was sick of talking to Davis and thinking about Davis and talking about Davis to Dean. Ugh. She couldn't do anything without thinking about him, which was a bad thing. Especially since he was a hunter, too. The job was very unstable. You could go any moment, any day. No, she'd call him later.

"So why are you not picking up?" Dean asked, more then a little confused. If he was trying to apologise, then what was the problem? That argument must have been pretty big for Jenny to still not be answering her phone.

Should he offer to answer it? Actually, probably not. That wouldn't go down very well with Jenny. Adding to that the fact that he would probably try and interrogate the guy about whatever was going on with him and Jenny, something that although it appealed to him, would probably not to his cousin.

"Because." said Jenny. "When a guy apologises to you a thousand times for the same thing, it gets a bit old." she exclaimed vaguely. Dean was surely going to want to know soon if she kept bringing up the unknown. She really need to quit doing that. It was like tempting a person with waving it in front of them, and then pulling it back at the last second out of their reach. She was showing parts of information that would only make sense with the main source to Dean, and that was just pure torture.

Sighing, she slowly reached out for her cell phone to listen to the message. When it was over, she put the phone back down, silently. "Liar." she muttered to herself.

Dean nodded, still confused and not having a clue what she was going on about. What exactly was he meant to be apologising for? Dean had no idea, and just watched as Jenny listened to the message, her proclamation that he was a liar seeming a bit out of the blue, making him wonder Jenny was going to share what he was lying about. That seemed unlikely.

"What's he done?" Dean asked, as Jenny put the phone down.

This was difficult. She couldn't share any of this stuff with Dean, yet her mind was begging her to let it go. He was family, he would understand. No. No he would never understand. No one ever would. That was why she kept it to herself. If Dean wasn't her cousin and he found out, he would want her dead, and no matter if he was her cousin or not, she didn't want anything like that to be thrown on someone.

"He's been looking into something... and it's just all a bit messed up." she made up. "So he's dumping a whole lot of stuff on me that I don't need right now, especially since I'm already working on a case." she pouted. "He seems to have forgotten what it's like to work on a case."

Sounded fair enough. The guy was obviously putting too much on his cousins shoulders, and should probably try and do some of the cases himself. He couldn't really blame Jenny for not wanting to talk to him. It didn't seem like their relationship was very fair, and it appeared like Jenny got the brunt of it, having to carry out all the hunting while this Davis guy stayed on his ass at home.

"He sounds like a dick," Dean conceded. He really did not understand why she stuck with the guy. Were there no better hunters to hunt with?

Jenny burst out laughing. "Real nice, Dean." she said, trying to keep her laughing down so she wouldn't wake up Sam. "Alright, he's a pain in the ass, but he's saved my life a bunch of times, so I can't complain. And if it weren't for him I'd still be wondering how to stop spirits getting too close."

She smiled, starting to talk about him better than before. "He's like my brother. Drives me insane, makes me want to kill him, but I still love him, no matter what."

Dean nodded sceptically. He wasn't convinced, but if Jenny said so then he was not going to argue. She needed someone like him by the sounds of it, he sounded like some sort of surrogate family by the way she described him. He sounded like he took care of her, so who was he to complain? Though that did not change the fact that he did not really like the sound of the guy.

"If you say so," Dean said reluctantly, eyeing the phone. He remained unconvinced, but by the look on Jenny's face he meant a lot to her, so he should probably put a stop to insulting the guy.

Jenny could tell that Dean wasn't convinced by her short praise of Davis so she carried on. "I mean I know he's not the best, but he's the only guy I could actually tell my life story and whatever without him looking at me in another way. He's one of those people who you feel like you've known your whole life. Davis is a good guy, even if he hates going in on the action. If there was the apocalypse he'd sure throw himself in the fire before me." She paused. "Like you would for Sam."

If what Jenny was saying was true, then maybe she did have a point. He still couldn't get himself excited about the guy, bailing out on a hunt, but they obviously had a bond, and it would probably be best not to question that. By the sounds of it he would do anything for her, if Jenny's comparison of him and Sam was anywhere near accurate.

He smiled faintly at her, nodding, "He sounds all right," he agreed after a few moments, "Even if he does sound like a bit of a girl," because seriously? If he was holding out on the action as much as Jenny said he was then he could hardly be classed as anything other.

Jenny raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You're calling him a girl when I just told you my life story." She rolled her eyes. "Sure, cause all girls are wuss'."

"Naw, he's just... tired."

Calling him a girl was probably the wrong thing to do, considering present company. Jenny certainly didn't look impressed at that comment.

"Tired? Sounds like a pretty lame excuse," Dean smirked, "He sounds like a wuss to me."

"Did I forget to mention he's been in this for twenty three years?" said Jenny, sticking up for him now. Only she was allowed to insult Davis. Dean didn't even know him, and he was getting carried away. "I think he's deserved to just research for the rest of his life and leave the hunting to me."

Jenny flipped open her phone at another text message and actually replied to this one. Davis knew she would never hold a real grudge against him, so no matter what they said in their fights, they would always still be cool. It had always been like this since they met.

Twenty three years? He hadn't realised he was so old. He had gone under the assumption that he was perhaps a few years older then Jenny. He hadn't expected to be that far out. Still, his age didn't mean he couldn't give Jenny a hand. After all, his dad was what, fifty now? He was still hunting. Or would be, were he not missing.

"So how old is he?" Dean asked bluntly. Hopefully he wouldn't be too old, it would be less fun taking the piss out of him.

Jenny smirked, seeing that Dean hadn't expected this. "Thirty six. Something like that." She could see that he still wasn't happy with her saying how Davis didn't help her on the hunts. Even though it wasn't his fault, and he just thought that he could do more researching at home. He'd hunted a lot - almost excessively in the years he'd been going around - and he'd never got a chance to settle down. Jenny hated how everyone treated this job as a responsibility. If you knew about evil, automatically you were supposed to be hunting these creatures. Davis didn't need to hunt like that - he'd only done it before for peace of mind, and now that he seemed to be okay after getting rid of everything he could find in Iowa, he settled there.

"He really is a great guy." she said. "You just haven't met him."