Carry On

“So… this is your place?” Sam asked, Jenna nodded, taking a deep breath and eyeing the small house that had been her home for the past three years. It looked so foreboding now; as opposed to the feeling of safety she always got from seeing it before.

Dean took in the modest two story home; a dark grey with white shutters on the windows. There was a small stoop with a dark grey mat on it, the flowery font that read ‘welcome’ appearing welcoming and cheery, even as it was hung over the rail as if it had been cleaned and hung to dry. The paint was slightly chipping in a few places on the shutters, the siding a little dirty. It looked like the most unsuspecting place for such a terrible murder to have occurred. But then again, Dean didn’t consider their childhood home to have looked like a place where a terrible murder could have taken place either.

“Yeah, this is it,” she confirmed, giving the door of the Impala a bit of a push as she got out. She led the brothers inside, automatically wiping her feet on the rug just inside the door and taking off her shoes. The brothers followed suit, placing their much larger shoes next to hers in the porch.
She hung up her jacket, and took theirs before inviting them in and up to Jill’s room. To Jenna it looked just like it always did; pictures on the wall, a few posters on one closet door; the other door open and showing an array of LuLu Lemon yoga pants and assorted T-shirts. The two men walked in and began looking around, while Jenna couldn’t make herself cross the threshold. The bedframe was bare, and there was no longer any traces of blood anywhere. The police had had someone come in and basically clean up while she’d been staying at Thompson’s; she hadn’t came back since Jill’s funeral. Her parents were out camping, and had just changed the locks before leaving. Jenna hadn’t managed to get her copy of them before they left, so she’d stayed with their neighbor to keep away from the house.

“It’s okay – you don’t have to do this Jenna. Why don’t you wait downstairs?” Sam suggested. She stubbornly shook her head and crossed her arms.

“Why don’t you look through the rest of the place for anything like… this,” Dean told her, and she forced herself into the room, a cold chill washing over her the moment her foot touched the floor inside of the doorframe. Dean held up two fingers, and she saw a soft yellow colored dust.

“What’s that?” she asked, touching the dust herself before wiping it on her jeans.

“Sulfur. This means a demon was definitely here,” he gently explained to her, noticing that she was beginning to shake. Her brow was furrowed and her brown eyes darted back and forth across the windowsill as if looking for an answer there.

“So it came through the window then? I think it was open last night,” she stated. Sam and Dean both nodded, and she let out a long breath before looking up to Dean.

“So how do we kill it? Aren’t they already kind of dead?” she asked, and Dean chuckled, clapping a hand on her shoulder and steering her out of her murdered friend’s room.

“You know what? I like you. And if you’re really that determined to help we’ll have to teach you,” he told her, and Sam shook his head. He didn’t want to drag this poor girl into their world; not when she’d never look at things the same way after. Why Dean was so open to the idea he didn’t know.

He followed them downstairs and sat down at the island with his brother while Jenna seemed to robotically move around the kitchen making coffee. She was quiet, and didn’t seem to have much for questions for them, which was confusing Sam a little bit, especially considering her earlier attitude about helping.

“So, do you have to like, exorcise these demons or something?” she asked, and Dean nodded. She placed coffee cups in front of them, the liquid steaming from the cups. Dean figured she’d been mulling over any information she’d heard from movies or books or whatever about demons before asking her question. She seemed the type to think through her questions rather than just ask.

“Sometimes. It depends; if they possess somebody then you exorcise them, and it sends the demon back to Hell. If they aren’t possessing a body we have to kill them ourselves,”

“So, these demons are going to get wiped out then? I mean, do they like, reproduce or…?”

“No, they’re… well, human souls that have been tortured and twisted in hell. If they’ve been there long enough they lose their humanity and can become demons,” Sam explained and her face fell.

“So they’re people. You’re re-killing people,” she stuttered, and Dean shook his head.

“No. Most of them don’t even believe they were ever a person Jenna. You have to understand, these are twisted, messed up bastards; they enjoy causing pain and chaos, they have no connection to even being human anymore,” Dean assured her, and she nodded, but looked very pale. She sat down heavily on the counter, holding her coffee cup in two hands, and even still it was shaking pretty badly.

“So how will we know how to find it?” she asked, and Dean looked to Sam.

“We have to start digging. Find out if there is a history of any murders like this around, and we’ll need to dig into Jill’s past to see if there’s anything there,” he explained, and she nodded.

“I can help with that – I’ve known Jill since I was five years old, she was only two and we met at daycare,” she offered, and Dean looked a little surprised.

“That long?”

“Yeah, even then I looked out for her,” she nodded, trying to keep her voice even and strong. “And she always wrote journals. She never showed them to anybody, but I think she’d understand…” she choked on the words, and Dean nodded.

“Thanks Jenna. I know this has to be hard,” he offered, and she nodded.

“I’ll be okay. So again, how do we kill these things?”

“Well, an exorcism is the best way to – as long as we can spare the person it’s taken over.
They have no control or idea of what their body has done while the demon’s possessed them. Salt is a good way to protect yourself though,”

“Salt?”

“In a lot of cultures salt is a sign of purity – so it means that it helps to ward off things that are impure, right?” Jenna nodded, hoping to memorize the words as Sam said them. “So salt wards off demons – they can’t cross a line of salt, and they can’t physically break a line of salt themselves either. But some higher demons are immune to it.”

“Then there’s Holy Water – that burns them like acid,” Dean continued, and again Jenna nodded, soaking up the information as best as she could. She tried to file away the things about some colt gun, a knife, and some kind of circle thing that would trap them, but knew that she wouldn’t be able to remember all of this the way that the two men did.

“Slow down for a second – I think my head is going to explode,” she told them after about an hour or so of this, and Dean leaned back in his chair, shifting uncomfortably.

“You all right? I know it’s a lot to take in,” Sam told her, and she slowly exhaled a long breath.

“You’re telling me,” she mumbled, and Dean laughed. She glared at him, and he just shrugged, finding her behavior slightly amusing.

“You wanted to be in on this remember. It’s not too late to back out now,”

“I’m not backing out of it. You’ve had a long time to learn all of this… I’m trying to go from living a normal life to all of this in a couple of hours! Give me a break,” she snapped at him, and Dean had the decency to look sheepish at her comment.

“Why don’t Dean and I find something for us to eat and then we can keep going with all of this stuff afterward, all right? That’ll give you some time to just think,” Sam suggested, and Jenna nodded.

“That’d be good. What do you guys want to eat?” she asked, going to the fridge. The brothers shared a look, before looking to Jenna and finding her staring at them, one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed.

“Well… what’s there in town?”

“Don’t worry about that; I’ve got lots of food – what do you want me to make?” she shook her head, and they both stumbled over the thought of a real home-cooked meal. It had been far too long for either of them, so neither really knew what to say.

“You two are hopeless,” she rolled her eyes, before going to the freezer and pulling out a package of hamburger. “Spaghetti and meat sauce sound all right to you?”

“Sounds fantastic,” Sam smiled, and Dean even cracked a grin.

“Sounds great,” he agreed, and soon she had supper going – the smell making both men’s stomach’s growl loudly. She seemed to relax and be at ease while she was preparing dinner, a fact Dean didn’t miss. He figured it was because it was such a normal thing to do that she found it comforting.