The words that go there, they're predictable. Dean could probably pick them in less than a second. Her Dean would have. Except she watches them roll by, no more than a confused fog of a dust cloud. Because it's not true. There is ... was? ... always will be more to Dean Winchester, the one she knew, the one she loved, than puncturing his ego. It never would have worked if they were just sarcastic insults and flash bright attraction.

She wouldn't say that to him now on her life. In fact, when he doesn't look up, it's heavily painful.
He's not him, but he is, too. Somewhere, somehow. Not like their world, but stuck in his.

Her food gets a look but she's not sure she could stomach another bite now, and she reaches up to rub two of her fingers at the side of her head, and comes away pulling at a long strand of blonde hair. Looking more at it than him, or the table, or the end. "We were." She rolls her eyes at the golden strand, at how small and stupid that sounds. How small her voice is. "Obviously." In retrospect. Surprise. Shock. Founderingly, almost apologetic.

Even when the one thing she refuses to regret of the last decade is him. Well. One of two. But he'd been first.

"Three years. The better part of four depending on where you start and stop the counting."
Jo's mostly sure he doesn't want to know. Not if. But she can't help or stop herself now.