Carry On

Dean awoke with a jump, his eyes widening as he saw the figure standing in the living room. It looked so much like Jenna he almost froze, but saw her on the floor between the couch and his chair, scooting closer to him. He lunged for his gun, but it was flung out of either of their reach, and Dean looked for something that would be able to protect them. There was no fireplace and therefore no iron poker or anything like that, he was running out of ideas fast.

“So nice of you to finally acknowledge I was here,” the figure hissed, and Jenna froze.

“W-what…?”

“Time to finish this,” in one swift motion the demon moved toward Jenna, but the loud sound of gunfire made both Jenna and Dean flinch, and suddenly they were the only two people in the living room. The light came on and Dean looked over to see Sam standing in the doorway, his gun in hand and still smoking slightly.

“You all right?” he asked, and Jenna nodded; visibly shaken up.

“It wants to kill me, doesn’t it?” she asked, and Dean swallowed hard. He didn’t want to say it out loud, but he was sure they didn’t even have to.

“We won’t let it,” he instead told her, and she took a deep breath.

“That… that almost sounded like Jasmine. But not, at the same time…” she whispered, looking up to meet Sam’s concerned gaze. There was no way that could be her best friend, but it was too eerily familiar to not be.

“Could… could it have possessed her? Would that have done it?” she asked, sounding desperate. She didn’t want to believe that there was any chance that Jasmine could have done something so horrible to Jill, that she could do anything that terrifying at all.

“Maybe, we’ll have to catch her and find out,” Dean replied, and they both saw her pale.

“Catch her?”

“Devil’s Trap – once a demon walks into it they’re powerless and they can’t leave,” Sam explained gently, walking in and helping Jenna up so she could sit down on the pullout. “Then if it’s a demon possessing Jasmine we can figure out what it’s after and then exorcise it and send it back to hell, and then it’ll all be over.”

“But what if it’s not… I mean…” she couldn’t force the words out, but Dean understood.

“If she’s not just possessed?” he finished for her. She nodded, but Dean couldn’t answer. There was no way in hell he was going to tell her what they would have to do; she’d lost too much already.

“Oh God…” she sobbed, and Sam put an arm around her shoulders. They sat in silence for a while, until Jenna calmed down enough to speak again.

“Poor Jill… I mean, if it wants me dead… maybe she just got caught in the crossfire,” her voice trembled, and Dean moved to sit beside her as well, wrapping his arms tightly around her as she struggled with her newfound thought. “Maybe she was never supposed to die, and it’s all my fault?”

“It’s not your fault Jenna. You did everything you possibly could have, and more. You can’t do this to yourself,” he insisted, and she nodded, although she still didn’t believe it.

“Let’s get some sleep, okay? Do you want to go to class tomorrow?” Dean asked, and Jenna shrugged.

“I have no idea. I mean, the prof’s will understand if I’m not there and all…”

“It’s totally up to you. With everything that’s going on maybe some normal would be good,” Sam told her, and she nodded, agreeing with him. Sam said goodnight once more and made his way back upstairs and to Jenna’s room. There was a small pendant that Jenna always had on that had piqued his interest, but he didn’t ask to see it. It was a cross, which was nothing unusual, but the flash of an inscription on the back was what he was wondering about. The brief glance he’d seen looked to be Latin, but he had no clue. One thing he was positive about was that somehow Jenna had been Jill’s guardian angel, even though she’s human. Or at least mostly human anyway. The way that her guilt was tearing her apart was more than enough to convince him, especially after hearing even just one incidence where she’d saved Jill’s life.

Going through Jenna’s file had filled in a lot of holes for him. It had also given him enough reason to pull Jasmine’s files, which had made their childhood make sense. Jasmine and Jenna looked so much alike because they were twins –their shared birthday hadn’t been just a coincidence. A fire had killed their parents when Jenna and Jasmine were just about to turn four – Jill was just seven months old. The three girls had went to separate families for reasons unbeknownst to him, but had still been kept together; going to the same school, living fairly close to each other. Jenna’s family had often babysat her, and so had offered to adopt her after her parents had been killed. But with their fairly modest income they knew that they couldn’t adopt both twins, but couldn’t bear for her to go to some stranger’s home when she was so much a part of their family. That was all typed up in the report when they’d applied to adopt her.

Jasmine had been adopted by a young couple in town who couldn’t have a child of their own – her adopted father had had cancer, and so couldn’t have kids. They’d divorced when Jasmine was ten, and she’d stuck with her dad ever since. Her mother had stayed in town but remarried and now had a young family of her own. Jill went to a family who’s baby had died of pneumonia, and after what Jenna had told him about her father being a mean drunk attributed the loss of their biological child to the drinking. Jill had great marks through school, seemed to be cut-and-dried a great girl, but it’s hard to please parents who wondered what their own child would have been like.

An even more interesting note was that their father – the one who’d died when Jill was a baby – wasn’t their biological father either, and there was no father’s name on their birth certificates, which he’d pulled copies of as well. It was so strange, he had no idea how any of it played into Jill’s death or made even a lick of sense. Bobby would have an idea if he was still around, but Sam didn’t even have him to ask anymore.

It just wasn’t adding up about Jill’s murder, and why this demon was after Jenna too. It could have something to do with Jenna’s guardian angel status, and he needed to tell Dean about it as soon as he could speak to him privately. Then they could decide what to do and how to tell Jenna about this whole ordeal.

The demon didn’t make an appearance that night – at least not one that they knew of anyway. Jenna got up and ready to go to class, something that felt so foreign and otherworldly that she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go. She felt light years away from normal, and worst of all she was afraid of seeing Jasmine there.

“I’ll drop you off and pick you up, okay? And take this with you,” Dean pulled out a necklace, which Jenna took and inspected. It had a weird symbol in it, one she’d never seen before.

“What is this?”

“Well, it’s a Unicursal Hexigram, and it’s supposed to help ward off evil… I just thought it might help,” he shrugged. Without any hesitation Jenna immediately put the necklace on, letting the pendant sit beneath her sweater. She didn’t really have words that would explain how thankful she was that Dean would give her something like this. She wouldn’t feel as safe as she did when they were with her, but this would definitely help.

“Thanks Dean,” she pulled him into a quick hug before waving to Sam, and she then followed Dean out to the Impala.

Dean drove right up to the building she had her first class in, and when he put the car into park he noticed Jenna’s slight hesitation to get out.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Dean quietly told her. Jenna took a deep breath before looking out across the campus.

“It’s not that I don’t want to… it’s just that I’m kind of scared. I mean, what am I going to be able to do if this thing comes after me?”

“I don’t think the demon will come after you here; there’s too many people around and so far it’s only showed up at night, right? So as long as you’ve got some friends with you I think you’ll be all right. And if you want to leave, just call me; it’s not a problem,” he insisted. Jenna nodded before leaning over and giving him a quick hug before getting out of the car and heading off to class. Dean was caught a little off guard by her actions before he smiled to himself and drove back to her house. As much as he put on a front for her he hated the thought of letting her that far away from him.