Alice, Through the Looking Glass

[veneficusvenato]

Do your job, you love it, Lee had said,

and Sokka hadn't helped adding, Be good
and we'll make it worth your while even.

For them, Jo'd stood still while two of the costumers got to make her over in a way she rarely agreed. She told herself if was for Sokka and Leah, but it was for Gillespie, too. Who might have been a Gil, but could have been a Dick, John, Harry or Bartholemuel, too. That was the job, after all. Part of which was dressing up and dragging the newest trainee to a Ministry Function, because that, too, required training this high up.

Learning that this was all part of it, too.

Blending in, using your real name, but with the longest-lived lie you were handed.

Today, which involved watching two people curl her hair and apply her makeup with wands, and even a board that looked more like an artists pallet. Then a short white dress, with just enough give to hide her wand but nothing else, and an even smaller, more ornamental, looking shoulder jacket.

It would have been lovely if that was the worst the night could offer. Dresses, makeup, small talk, and Gillespie. But things never went that easy, really, did they. She couldn't just go home and bitch to her people about the mind numbing boringness and the funny tasting food. No, of course not. Instead the night went from that to explosions, sparks raining purple and black, from two dozen people dressed in black and purple, and running.

Shoving Gillespie, while shouting and and firing behind them. Creating a diversion. A spectacle. They weren't meant to be the people who did clean-up or cattle herding of the ministry wives and children. This wasn't exactly what they were for either, but they excelled in a pinch. Just like a handful of the other groups that had been in the milling dinner crowd.

The throbbing knuckles, and the disarray of her curls, as well as a rip along one side of her skirt, had happened before the running started, but they were lost in that. The way running did. Took every thought that wasn't attacks, hexes, and counter-spells. Stumbling through the doorway that should have led to a staircase, but didn't. She felt it sizzle through her skin, but all the three wizards were following right after, and as a burst of purple exploded toward them, Jo shoved Gillespie out of the path.

But it slammed straight into her, acid burning and needle stinging, sending her stumbling backwards, with a crack that she was sure was one of those damned heels they'd insisted on, which only helped it. She reached out to catch the reddish drape hanging behind her, but her fingers went straight through it, and her shoulders followed sending her into a tumble.....


...that did not have her slamming the ground less than a second later.
Or the one after that. Everything went black around, and she swore she would
have Gil's ass for breakfast, as well as the costumers, and her best friends.....

....before the light returned in a blinding assault and Jo collided solidly,
in an all too familiar feeling, with another body beneath her.

[ Jo's Timeline: 1 Year Before Order of the Jobberknoll
SPN Timeline: ??? ]

Comments

[itsawinchesterplan]

The evening had been simple, spending some time with Amy, annoying Dean, doing his best to juggle the slightly complicated and yet incredible life he led. It was a good evening, despite the complications. He recorded in his head several more moments of Dean looking... well, like he was choking between both wanting to yell at Sam or Amy, or both, or wanting to laugh, and say something like "Thank God." or "It's about time you got laid.", or something similar. He would remember those.

And it ended, or so it was supposed to, in bed with Amy, very nicely. Quietly, mind you, because they were both exhausted. But nicely. And he could lay there next to her, and grin. Or at least he could right up until there was a crack like a roll of thunder, right above his head, and a flash of purple and brilliant white light, and something like a rip opened up above him, and a body slammed out of that rip, which rip slammed shut, and the body slammed onto him, hard.

He barely had a moment to cry out, and one hand to slap the panic button on the wall, before blonde hair, white dress, and flesh, oh so much flesh, was covering his face.

What even was his life?

[notthatpond]

Amy scrambled to get out of the way, getting tangled up and falling on her ass. Because sometimes she wasn't a graceful as she liked to think she always was and things suddenly appearing put her off. She also liked to think that she'd be a little more use in that sort of sudden attack situation. But she'd been nearly asleep, so her claws had only killed off a pillow when she'd gone down fighting.

Sitting up and trying to untangle herself, Amy peered over the edge of the bed from the floor where she'd ended up. And there was a someone on top of Sam. It was a someone not wearing very much.

"Sam?" She wanted to know if he was okay.

[veneficusvenato]

Person shaped impact is hard, but somehow not a hard as she thought it would be, and she can tell a second later trying to push herself up why -- there's a bed. There's a bed and holy -- it's not his first name, it's never first names in the field, sometimes never even surs or initials, it's all depending, but it still shoots out of her, as she springs backwards.

"Winch-" But the shocked, confused word doesn't make it through the full syllables.

There's a hiss and a sharp cry when Jo tries to catch herself on her hand and sags sharp and fast from the pain it slams into her shoulder.

[itsawinchesterplan]

He heard Amy's word, and he tried to answer, but until the body was springing away, he didn't see, didn't answer, and then as he opened his mouth, he heard his name again, and then saw her, and heard her cry of pain and...

What the hell?

"Jo?"

Her cry and flinch, he knew those too well, and memory slammed into him. His mind told him it had to be a demon, or something else, but scent, and touch, and voice, and that flinch...

everyone flinched just so, just one way, when they were hurt, and this person... she flinched like Jo.

Sam slowly sat up, staring.

"Holy shit. Jo Harvelle? You died. What the hell is going on?"

One hand rubbed his chest, then he looked at Amy, confusion and old pain written on his face. "Amy, Jo. I think. Maybe. She was a hunter. Is--- was.... uhm..."

he stared at Jo again.

"What?" Somewhere near his bed was a gun, a knife, and even a hammer, but right now, he was just worried his instinct to go treat her obvious hurt would get him, or worse, Amy, killed. Shit.

[notthatpond]

Hunter.

That was the word that Amy heard first. Or more appropriately processed first. Hunter. Someone who could and she assumed would try and kill her given a chance. It was too late she could have seen Amy's claws. Her eyes. But the familiarity Sam said her name told Amy she didn't have to go on the offensive to keep him safe.


The fact the hunter, Jo, was hurt hadn't slipped her by. She looked to Sam then back to her.

"Want me to go get the first aid kit?" Because she thought Sam would want to help someone he knew. Might help show that she wasn’t so bad either. Still didn't mean she wasn't going to keep a wary eye on her.

[veneficusvenato]

It's because it's Sam, okay. Not in spite of the fact it is, that she lets herself sag on the soft bed. The words are a river of blaring noise, but he isn't moving, and someone to his side isn't either and she doesn't have time. Gil wasn't prepared for this. Not for a banquet hijacking. Not for being alone with three of whatever new sparkle squad decided to get a wand up their arses and try to make this kind of showing.

She pushed back up only second later, shaking her head at the girl and turning toward Sam.

"No. No, just fix it. I can't stay. I didn't even mean to-" Jo twisted her torso, looking at her shoulder at the same time as sort of positioning it more toward Sam. Trying not to feel woozy, and uncertain where at all that came from. She never got woozy. It wasn't one of her things. Not even this should have done it. Not even when her fingers are slick with blood, and that might be her shoulder bone under them in the ruin of skin, too.

"Just fix it, and I can go, and you can let Dean bitch all he wants about how I still break bones better than I mend them."

[itsawinchesterplan]

Sam nodded to Amy, starting to speak as Jo did, then falling silent, and staring. And blinking, then nodding to Amy again. "Yeah... and hot water. And... the silver bound book next to the first aid kit." He had a bad feeling about this. He flashed Amy a grateful look, and more, and then refocussed on Jo again.

Fix it? Shit.

He wet his lips, and stared, and his mind ran through possibilities, and then he nodded. "I think... there is something else wrong here." He swore to himself, under his breath, then apologized, under his breath, to God, then facepalmed at himself. Argh.

"Jo, ah... where were you right before you showed up here?" Somehow, this was starting to feel like a few of the adventures he had experienced with his brother that were... odder. Man, he hated those adventures!

But as he looked at Jo, alive and healthy, if hurt(ALIVE!!), he couldn't be mad at a new adventure rising. Not if she was back... from another... world.

[notthatpond]

Amy gave one last look at Sam before she headed off. It wasn't final. She told herself that, that woman was in no state to get past Sam and come after her. There wasn't any danger. That was a lie. It bothered her. Taking as little time as she could to gather what Sam had asked. Only the water would be take the longest.

She ran to the kitchen and set the kettle to boil, scurrying around she found the book he had asked for and brought everything to the kitchen filling the empty coffee pot to use as a jug. She also pulled a beer from the fridge and a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. She took a drink from the bottle before she headed back to the room she shared with Sam.

"I got everything." She stuck close to Sam feeling safer. For herself and for his friend.

[veneficusvenato]

"Too long. He doesn't have that kind of time." He could be dead, dying, or captured. Maybe he got lucky. Maybe he took one of those bastards out. Maybe he got lucky and he was hiding. She didn't know. She didn't have the time to question it like a bump on a log. Nor for the slow butchering from the retrieved supplues over a fast torture of one that would at least leave her arm usable.

"Ministry banquet had a--" There's a flicked glance toward the girl. The one Jo didn't know. She could be another Unspeakable or she could be civillian. "--a problem. Here." She reached out for his wrist, all familiarity and seriousnes. "Just keep your hand here over mine even if I scream, good?"

Except it's not a question. He knows his job. They all know the costs are sometimes high, higher if you want to win. Jo closed her fingers over her ripped up shoulder, screwing her eyes tight closed, to focus harder, closer, without her wand to direct, only her focus, and started the first incantation of the Vulnera Sanentur, which was a soft, archaic latin sung nearly right at the barely there level of her breath.

Even as she shivered, pain like a knife, against her grip and her magic, the blood trickling down her arm slowed noticably.

[pielemental]

Only ten in the morning and Dean's already had a somewhat busy day. There was getting up, breakfast, cleaning the kitchen to keep it spotless, looking for potential cases and finding a few for Sam to also look at to see what he thought, and finally working on his car.

Which is why he got to be in the middle of looking for the source of a slightly odd sound that shouldn't have been coming from the engine when there's a sound like a thunder-crack happening right there in the garage and he has a weight driving him to the floor, resulting in him getting to lose some skin to the car. "Son of a bitch!"

Having kept hold of the wrench he had been using, he automatically twists as he falls to hit whatever just landed on him. He sure as hell's not going down without a fight in his own home.

[veneficusvenato]

Impact is hard. Harder than expected. Metal and solid, slamming her thigh and the already hit shoulder even harder, making her cry out. The scent of oil, mixing with blood that was already there and being ignored. The fight is almost a given. That makes more sense than the black, or the white, or the curtain, or the falling. The feeling of the form as it twists under her and twisting with it, in any attempt to find the ground, purchase, the ability to get even half a foot away. To find her wand and get it back out in front.

The staggering problem is when she sees the face, and the name she's not supposed to say, not on the job, not ever, pops out, with a full body flinch, almost as away as is possible from her position, like it's her face instead of her already raised forearm that catches the oncoming blow from the wrench. "Dean?!"

[pielemental]

"Jo?" Seeing Jo was enough to give him pause. To say that he never expected to see her again outside of Osiris throwing her ghost at him would pretty much cover it.

Then his face hardens as he realizes what she had to be and takes another swing with the wrench. "That's not funny, you fucking shape--"

[veneficusvenato]

"The hell?" That one is shock again, but a completely different kind of flare.

Because she has to roll. Heart hammering higher, punched and punched again. Dodge, and she can hear the metal slam down hard where she was only seconds ago. Her shoulder is still throbbing, or maybe seeping is the right word, as her eyes scan the ground in fast sweeps, before finally --she spots her wand, point end peeking out from next to a wheel of the, also, all too familiar Impala-- and lunges in that direction.

The might deserve a fight for what she did, but not a wrench to the face.

[pielemental]

"You're the one impersonating a dead person," Dean spits, throwing himself at her to tackle her; feeling the assorted pains brought on by his collision with the floor along with the bleeding from leaving some of the skin of his arms and face on bits of the engine. He doesn't know what she was after--he hasn't had time to look--but whatever it was couldn't be good for him.

[veneficusvenato]

"Dead?" There's a grunt, for a solid land, and the rebound that makes her shoulder slam the car she'd had to try and dive half under to get close enough to the wheel. Pain spasms her shoulder, and part of her lower body. All too familiar. The fight and the weight. Fingers closing around the wood though for the prices it comes with. "Seriously?"

She rolls the opposite direction, knowing she'll slam her shoulder again, but needing to get her arm under herself and pointed at him. It's an arc, fast and fierce like a knife. Pain slamming down that same shoulder as she threw all her focus, through her wand at the wrench as much as the arms around the lower part of her. The disarming charm slamming through her, and it, toward him, wordless as nearly every spell she used in the field, even as she snapped.

"You chose to go with dead?" She supposed she may even have deserved that. But it hurt.

It made her want to rearrange the pieces of his face. Just a little bit. But her concentration didn't waver.

[pielemental]

Dean swears as he's knocked back before he collides with the ground again and gets the breath punched out of him; the sound of the wrench landing somewhere else only dimly registered. That hurt. Then once he can breathe again, "Because so many people survive hellhound attacks."

Did she just use a stick to knock him on his ass?

[veneficusvenato]

Don't mind Jo just holding on to the ground a little, even as she levers herself out from under the car. Because her body is not liking any of this. Something is off. She doesn't know what it is. She knows he's fine. He's an Unspeakable. He's always fine. Always been fine. Anytime she pulled the file she doesn't pull. Because she doesn't. She doesn't have the right. But something is wrong.

She can feel it. Behind her forehead, between her eyes.

Somewhere in that word that is more her mother than them. "What are you talking about?"

Her hand is shivering just the smallest bit, but she can tell. Even when she won't take it off of him.
But she's reaching up her alternate hand to get her fingers on her shoulder.
The bleeding burn straight through the jacket and too much skin.


"You didn't go native for the newest sparkler parade." Nonsense was not his thing. "That's not you."

[pielemental]

Dean's once again working on his car. Hopefully without anyone falling out of the sky at him this time. If someone does, he's either giving up or moving the car so whoever the third person to do so can just hit the pavement instead of taking him with them.

The first thing he did was clean off the traces of blood and bits of skin before moving on to checking for anything that may have gotten screwed up on his trip to the floor the other day.

[veneficusvenato]

Do you know what's unfair? Everything. But do you know what's even more unfair than that?

Getting herself together, at least as much as she can once she feels like Dean and Sam have driven something long and wicked sharp straight through her guts. Thinking she's absolutely not about to burst into tears at the thought of her mother being...blown up. Along with her. Martialling every single bit of Who She Is every day in her world. Her Real World. The. Where even her name is a weapon. Getting all the way to this door and just standing in it feels like being spelled, or punched, again.



That would be Dean Winchester, leaning over his car, all long, too familiar lines, in an all too familiar position, looking exactly like himself, doing exactly what she'd seen done a million times. Back home. When home was a place where that word meant something more than the bookcase with her tomes and the room with her bed.

She's not even positive she's totally ready for him to look over at her again, and somehow she wonders, absolutely out of left field, if he hadn't been busy trying to kill her and positive she wasn't her, because she blew up in a hardware store of all places, if he would have hugged her the way Sam did when he finally got to her. She's not sure she even know what do with the question, or the idea, any more than she did with the fight. With standing here. With him. Over there. Like that.





Instead she leans her shoulder, and her temple, through her loose blonde hair, against the door frame. "Hey."

[pielemental]

Dean finishes tightening a loose nut that needed it before standing up straight to set aside the wrench and pick up his rag to try to get his hands cleaned off, looking over at her. "Hey. How're you doing?"

Loaded question, he knows. That conversation hadn't been fun for him either. It dredged up all the old guilt he had managed to shove into a box in the corner of his mind. He didn't get much sleep that night. He wouldn't be surprised if Jo hadn't gotten much either.

[veneficusvenato]

"Still upright." Standing. Capable. Not down for the count. Even if she still couldn't do healing or transportation spells. Was somehow managing to be in the dead heart of Winchester Central in another universe like that was a thing you just learned to keep breathing through.

"I'd offer to help, but I'm pretty sure you'd rather do it yourself." There were spells to wipe away everything that could have been caused by what happened. Even to actually tighten up and check on it all. She knew them. Had even learned them from Dean, when he was in a rush and things were dire.


But when they weren't?

When life was just slow and right, he'd still done it all with just his hands. Taken the time.

[pielemental]

"I wouldn't complain about you handing me things as I need 'em if you felt like it," he says with a quick look down at his hands to check if he got at least most of the grease and oil off them. Deciding they were as clean as they were going to get without scrubbing them in soap and hot water, he tosses aside the cloth and shifts to be resting his ass against the car.

"You need something? You've been kinda..." he makes a hand motion that indicated anywhere but where he was. Not that he blamed her in the least.

[veneficusvenato]

"Alive?" She asks, filling in for him, like it's a better word than scarce.

But she's walking across the room toward him. It's not like there is another direction to go now that she's crossed the whole of this bunker, again, and made it through the doorway, and back into his presence, again. She's not good at retreats. Not even tactical ones. Not even when it might be safer and smarter. She never was. She can't help wondering if the version of her here was. Was different. How she was.

[pielemental]

"Yeah," he says, pushing off from the car so he could turn and look for anything that needed doing besides what he's already taken care of within the last half-hour. Conveniently, it also meant he couldn't see her. "You getting to wear you're ready to get some clothes of your own so Amy can have hers back?"

A moment later and he thinks he's found what needed finding the first time he was working on Baby before he was so rudely interrupted. "Hand me the socket wrench. Second from left."

[veneficusvenato]

"I wouldn't hate some good jeans, no." But, then, Jo snorted. "I know what a socket wrench is."

It was actually all too easy for her to name all the things he had sitting out, and even to rattle off things that weren't out, but that were probably somewhere hidden in this room. Needed for other repairs that whatever he was working on didn't require. She picked it up, and handed it over.

Deciding to say something too simple, and that might go far too far, she knew.

But. It was Dean. "I've helped worked on the Impala before."
It was almost your Baby, but no. Not yet. Not quite.