Confessions to My Past

“You wanted to talk?”
“Not really. But I suppose you will ask, anyways.” Josie smiled bitterly as Dean walked into the living room where she was just putting back the clean dishes into the huge cupboard, an heirloom of her parents.
“Ask what?”
“What Alejandro wanted.”
“Oh, so it’s Alejandro to you? You two were that close?”
Josie could hear from his voice he was getting pissed already. Awesome. Great way to start a productive conversation.
“Dean-“
“Did you know him before yesterday?”
Josie bit her lips. “Yes.”
“How?”
“He called me some days before the showdown with Lucifer… made me an offer. To join Lucifer and be spared.”
“And you didn’t think it necessary mentioning that.” Dean’s voice was too calm.
“For what purpose, Dean? What difference would it have made?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Dean raised his voice. “Maybe I would have known there was yet another psychotic nearly invincible killer out there?!”
“Who I thought would die with Lucifer. Geez, Dean, I just came back from the dead, I’m sorry I had other concerns than making a list of possibly alive potential killers! I left that life behind me, remember?”
“Maybe you did, but you dived right back in.”
Josie crossed her arms before her chest, her voice jumping back to normal volume as she coldly said: “Yeah. Carrying your child kicked me back in.”
“Are you saying this is my fault?”
“No. I’m saying that when I decided I wanted to have your baby, I made my choice of returning, at least partially, to your world. What I didn’t think of is that it’s not you or me who draws attention from killing monsters.”
Dean had a horrible premonition of what Josie was going to say. He should have thought about it before…after all, supernatural destiny was all about bloodlines. And the Winchester bloodline was VIP… and he was carrying it on.
“Then what is?” Dean asked.
“Our son. He has an epic destiny coming for him, Dean – and the bad guys know it, too.”
Josie had never wanted to get this involved into the hunters’ universe again, she thought she could have a relatively normal life with the only odd thing being her boyfriend’s job and working hours. She’d been wrong; she was as deep in as before; because she carried Dean Winchester’s child.
“What do you want me to say, Josie? That I’m sorry?”
“No. Not at all. Just…” She looked for the right words. She didn’t even know what exactly she wanted anymore. “Damn it, I don’t know.”
“We need to get you away from here.”
“No.”
“Josie.” Dean was losing his patience - again. “They know where we live now, it’s not safe here. I’m getting you out of here.”
“It’s safe nowhere! They found us here, Dean, they’ll find us again! I’m not going to live a life on the road again, end of story. I’m not moving again. I’ve had enough, I want a stable home.”
“Are you really that selfish?”
“Selfish?!” Josie’s voice was just a breath, an enraged, unbelieving breath.
“You’re just thinking of yourself, just like you did four months ago. Did you ever think about how I would feel seeing you leave? I was stuck in that life while you walked off to live your dream. And now you’re doing it again. You’re exposing yourself and our child willingly to danger just so that you don’t have to move out of your comfort zone.”
“If that’s what you think about me, I’m sorry.” Josie said, forcing back tears. “Sorry for wasting both our time with what I, at least, thought would work out. But maybe you’ve just never known me.”
Josie wasn’t the run-out-of-the-room-type, but she did it now. She turned around without another word as she feared that sobs would escape her throat if she said something, and she took her car keys and slammed the front door behind her.
Josie sat in her car before Dean even fully realized the door slamming shut behind her.

*****

“Josie, sweetheart, where are you? Call me. I’m worried about you.”
I listened to Amy’s message, deleted it and drove on. Maybe she was worried about me, but she seemed to be the only one.
I’ve been such a fool. I believed Dean would accept me the way I really am; Not a hunter, but a girl who wanted a life with lots of friends, parties, afternoons of shopping and having coffee, girls’ nights, have a nice job, fancy clothes… vacations, a home, a not-always-changing environment.
And for a while, I had believed Dean wanted part in that. That we could work it out.
Now it seemed that we’ve been living and loving an illusion: I thought he could change enough as to be a hunter and a father, he believed I would eventually ‘drop the show’ of a normal life and hit the road again.
I thought back to what I could have said or done that had betrayed my honest-spoken words that I did not wish to ever return to a hunter’s life. The fact that I carried a child with a great destiny couldn’t be enough to justify me ruining my dreams.
‘Dean’s just worried about you.’ An inner, sensible voice told me. Maybe I knew it was right, that Dean didn’t want to hurt me, but wanted to protect me… but did he really know me so little that he thought I’d be happy about that?
You could argue now that I had a responsibility as a mother-to-be, a responsibility to keep my baby safe. Well, I also had the responsibility to give him a happy life, and that certainly did not include growing up in cheap motel rooms surrounded by shotguns and rocksalt.
My phone rang again. Amy.
“What?” I snapped, harsher than I intended.
“Josie, please… come back home. I’m so worried about you!”
“I’m fine, no need to worry. Are they still there?”
A pause at the other end. “Josie…”
“Are they still there?”
Amy sighed. “No.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Look…” I could hear a door close. “What happened between Dean and you surely can’t be so bad as that you’d run from him.”
“We’re over and done, Amy.” The moment I said it I realized that it was true.
“Don’t say that.” She said in a pleading and at the same time reconciling tone. “I’m sure you can work out whatever differences you’ve had.”
“No, we can’t, Amy. If a girl is a vegetarian and her boyfriend likes his steak rare, that they can work out. If a guy likes fast cars and his girlfriend enjoys long walks, they can work it out. What Dean and I have is principally different ideas of life and of how to raise our child, apparently. That’s not something that can be worked out.”
“Honey…you’re pregnant with his child.”
“Yeah, so? It’s my child, too.”
“Don’t you think he should have a say in this?”
“He almost didn’t even know about his child, he was about to leave us both behind without as much as a word.”
“Yes, but only almost. In the end, he didn’t.”
“Why are you defending him so much, Amy?” I asked with a weary sigh.
“Because I know how it is to be a hunter. Don’t you think I would give anything to have a family? And if I had one, don’t you think I would do anything to keep her safe?”
“Would you rip them from living the life that they want so badly to do so?”
Amy sighed. “Dean, he…”
“No. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Josie?”
“Yes. We both apparently are.” Or he would have called, I thought and forced back tears again.
“Where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“When will you be back?”
“No idea. Goodbye, Amy. And I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

*****

“What the hell did you say this time?” Sam snapped when Dean and he were sitting in the Impala, alone again. Amy had promised him to call should she find out anything about Josie.
“Oh, so it has to be me who’s done something wrong. Not like Josie would say anything less than perfectly true and right.”
“Dean, what could have been so awful that the two of you split up? She’s pregnant, for God’s sake! With your child!”
“If it is mine.” Dean said nastily. That was just a weak attempt to ease his own guilt, though, as he knew Josie would have never called him if she didn’t know for sure it was his; and Josie might be a lot of things, but a deceiving, whoring liar definitely wasn’t one of them.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that? You finally get what you’ve wanted, hell, what I wanted, too, and you’re throwing it away.”
“It takes two to have a fight, Sam! Josie made it clear she didn’t want to have any part in my life, and we’re gonna leave it at that. She wants her apple-pie life so bad, she can go ahead and live it. Just without me.”
“So, what, you’re just gonna leave her and your kid? Maybe be around at your son’s birthdays, if you’re lucky enough to get Josie to tell you when that is?”
“Looks like.”
“Drop the show, Dean. I can see right through you. You don’t want it to be this way, and I bet Josie doesn’t, either. But you’re both too damn proud to admit it.” Sam could throttle both his brother and Josie for being so damn stubborn. Yes, their lives didn’t exactly match; yes, they had differences. But they goddamn loved each other and were having a baby together; you should think two adults could pull themselves together a bit for that.
“Whatever, Sam, it doesn’t matter, okay? Josie and I are done. End of story. Now let’s get working.”
Sam didn’t bother arguing back; he was tired of fighting with Dean. The false bravado, I-don’t-give-a-crap-attitude… he’d seen it before, when Dean was going to go to hell, and he hadn’t been able to get Dean to drop it then, either. His brother would take out his annoyance at himself at the next monster stupid enough to cross his path, but never would Dean admit his weakness.
“Is it that you don’t want yourself to be happy?” Sam asked after an hour of silence.
“Sam, if you bring up Josie again, I swear-“
“Punch me all you want. It’s not gonna change anything, Dean. I just want to know what went so terribly wrong as that you’d leave your pregnant girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore, Sam, and that’s it. We want different things, it didn’t work out. End of story.”
“Yeah, right.” Sam just snorted. No way was that the whole story. “And she might not be your girlfriend any longer, but she still is pregnant, and it’s still your child.”
“So what’s the deal with the drownings in Maine?”