That Hollow Feeling (Cinderella1181 and Mim)

[Madam Mim]

The closer to Keene they'd gotten, the more agitated Dean had become. Really he'd been agitated since he'd found the case, but Sam couldn't for the life of him figure out why. He'd probed several times, trying to read Dean as he mentioned the town, the police force, the case. All of it seemed to have his brother on edge and he visibly tensed as he clammed up whenever the topic of Keene or anyone in it was touched. Whatever was wrong about this town, Dean wasn't telling his brother. There had been maulings all around the tiny New Hampshire town, population 23,000, but Keene proper had seen the majority of it. Their first instinct had been a werewolf, but the hearts had been left intact. It wasn't an animal, though; bears don't usually take the eyes of their victims, and when they do it doesn't look like it was done with a scalpel.

"So..." Sam glanced sideways as they strolled through the parking lot of the sheriff's station, "who do you think we'll be getting this time? 'Stupid feds leave us alone we can handle it,' or 'thank God you're here'?" It was an old bet they had, one Dean was usually good at unlike rock-paper-scissors. When they entered the receptionist was gone from the front desk, so they stood awkwardly in the lobby and waited.

"Any luck, Sheriff?" Jude sat a box of Dunks on the table with the coffee and their hot plates. She had been the secretary, receptionist, and general gopher extraordinaire at the Keene PD for years now.

"Nope, nothing." Sheriff Parker's fingers were buried in his hair as he pored over the case files. There had been another murder last night and still they had no leads.

Jude sighed sympathetically and put a hand on his shoulder. "You'll get there. You are New Hampshire's finest, after all." And she meant it. Jude believed in the inherent goodness of mankind and the potential for greatness in everyone. With a gentle squeeze she got herself a cup of tea before returning to her desk.

And there he was. Judith McGann would have been certain she was dreaming again, were she not in her workplace with a cup of tea steadily burning her fingertips. She'd had this dream many times, but it never took place in her office and was usually much more...interesting. Of course he wouldn't look the same as he had when he was sixteen, but it was definitely him. The wind had blown Dean Winchester into her life twelve years ago and they had raged like a wildfire for what she still considered the best year of her life. And then he had shattered her heart, leaving without so much as a goodbye. She'd written a lot of terrible poetry and cried an ocean of tears, but she'd forgiven him long ago. With a shaking hand she slowly set her tea onto her desk, staring through the reception window, not taking her eyes off of him lest he disappear again.

The receptionist was draped in gauzy, billowy shawls and a flowing skirt more fit for summer than for the drizzly, chilly spring morning. The forecast was calling for snow later in the week, after all. She stopped and stared, mouth slightly open, and Sam figured she'd probably never seen an FBI agent before; they often didn't in small towns like this. He cleared his throat and flashed his badge.

"Morning, ma'am. Special Agent Hendricks, FBI. This is my partner Special Ag--"

"Dean?"

Sam stopped midsentence, eyes widening a little. "You ah...you two know each other?"

She ignored him. "Oh. My. God. Dean Winchester!" With a jangling of bangles she hurried around to the side door. Hair flying, jewelry jangling, the smell of lavender and orange trailing after her, Jude came flying out after fumbling with shaking hands at the lock that separated the lobby from the station proper and barreled into Dean with an enormous hug.

Sam tried really hard not to laugh. "I ah, I see you've met," he all but snickered as the tiny slip of a woman hugged his brother tightly around the middle. "Look at you! FBI!" Jude stood back with her hands on his arms, looking him up and down. "This is incredible! I'm so glad you didn't waste your talents becoming a mechanic or whatever your 'family business' is. I knew you had more in you than that!" She grinned and reached up to gently touched his cheek, which was as far as she could reach; he'd grown so tall while she'd stayed much the same height. "I'm so proud of you, Dean," she murmured. "And now I can sleep at night, knowing what happened to you. Disappearing in the middle of the night, no note, no goodbye..." She shook her head and tapped his cheek gently. "Worried me sick! Dad'll be glad to know, too." Finally her attention turned back to Sam. "Oh, I'm so sorry how rude. Jude McGann." She reached out and shook Sam's hand. "Agent Hendricks, right? I'll go get the chief." The receptionist fluttered and jangled away, back through the door from whence she'd come, to fetch the chief of police.

"So..." Sam raised his eyebrows as his gaze slid sideways to his brother. "Care to tell me what that was about?"

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean clenched his jaw a little, looking at his brother. He had a hand on his waist and was easily thinking about he wanted to run, call another hunter and go hide back in the bunker. "There isn't much to talk about Sam...Dad and I may have passed through here once when I was a kid, a time you were with Bobby. A case, that was it."

Sam looked at him his eyebrow peeked. "And?"

"And what? I hung out, met her, hung out with her...end of story." Dean snapped back at him. "Just leave it alone Sammy. It is ancient history."

Sam looked at his brother and rolled his eyes. "Sure didn't look like it was history. She said you left in the middle of the night. Sounds like dad got done with the hunt..."

Dean moved close to his brother, but before he could get anything out, she was just there again, standing in his space. He felt his body betray him. He smiled softly at her. "Hey Jude." He had a smile in his voice, his wanting to murder his little brother gone in a flash. "How is your dad? Still preaching?" Dean could see Sam look at him in utter disbelief. "Or has he retired now?"

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude couldn't just sit behind the glass window and pretend that she wasn't excited to see him again. It really was a load off her mind to know that he was safe and doing well instead of just dead in a ditch somewhere. When Dean asked whether her dad was retired she laughed and shook her head.

"Todd McGann retire? He'll be in that pulpit eulogizing at his own funeral." She folded her arms and looked him over again. "Chief'll be out in a few minutes. He had some paperwork to finish up. FBI..." Jude shook her head again, slowly, still not quite able to believe it. "You here about the murders?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, we figured you guys could use a little help. Did you know any of the victims?"

She nodded. "It's a pretty small town. Everyone's known at least one of them. I went to school with Simon Lancaster and Terry Fisher. They were found out in the woods." Jude shivered and rubbed the back of her neck, looking away from Agent Hendricks. She had in fact known all but two of the seven victims, and to her knowledge only one had been even the least bit Peculiar. There were only a few of her kind around these parts anyway; the anonymity of cities was attractive to Peculiars in these troubling times. That meant that the Hollowgast was probably looking for her, though it didn't know it...and she had to find it before it killed someone else.

"Did they have anything in common?" Sam hadn't missed the body language. The receptionist was hiding something. "Same line of work, intersecting families...?"

Jude shrugged. "They were both on the lacrosse team in high school, but they were like three years apart and--"

"Gentlemen!" Chief Parker came through the door and shook the agents' hands. "We can talk back in my office and I can show you what we've got on the case. We're real grateful you fellas showed up." He held the door open for them, then for Jude as she followed and took her place back at her desk. "Route my calls to Joe, will ya Jude?"

She nodded, but tugged on Dean's coat sleeve as he passed. "Hey...stop by on your way out?"

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean looked at her a second and then nodded, following after Sam and the chief. Something was upsetting her, he knew that. He walked into the office. "Cheif Parker, if you could just show us the files, and we will get out of your hair. Maybe point us tot he morgue." He said.

Chief nodded. "Anything you want...I gotta ask. Jude called you Dean Winchester. You didn't happen to know John Winchester did you?" He sat back in his chair. "He helped me out on a case, oh...twenty some years ago."

Dean smiled. "He was my dad."

Parker stopped and looked at him. "Well, I'll be damned. Your that boy...that boy Jude begged me to search for for weeks." He smiled. "Glad to see you ain't dead. What a relief to that little slip of a thing out there too. She cried and cried. I though we were going to have to commit her." His face turned deadly serious."You know you broke her heart boy..."

Dean sighed. Great...just great. He pressed his lips together. "That was never my intention sir. My dad...he wouldn't let me say good bye. After he finished helping you, he came in the room we were staying in, told me to pack up and drug my ass out of her." He glanced towards the door. "I wanted nothing more then to tell her I was going." He suddenly felt his heart clench up. "Preacher is gonna kill me isn't he?"

Chief Parker laughed a little. "More then likely. I may just have to look the other way for that one."

Sam bit his tongue. Obviously there was a lot more to this story then Dean was letting on. He flipped up the sheet of paper. "Chief Parker, you are rally sure there is no connection?"

 

[Madam Mim]

Sam bit his tongue when the chief mentioned that his brother had broken Jude's heart, and that this preacher--Jude's father, apparently--was going to kill him. There was clearly more than Dean was letting on and now wasn't the time to ask. The question was whether his brother would ever tell him the truth, and if he was going to tell the entire truth.

"Well, four of 'em were the Rev's flock," Chief Parker mentioned, flipping through his files, "but that's not really much of a connection at all. Town this size you've got the Episcopalians and the Methodists or you're shit outta luck for a Sunday service, unless you wanna drive half an hour each way." He looked up through the files and handed the stack to Agent Hendricks.

"No patterns in victimology?" Sam asked, flipping through the top file. Ernie Logan had been the first victim.

"Men and women, different hair and eye colors before the son of a bitch took 'em, all white but that's New Hampshire for you, ages twenty to sixty-three...er..." Parker's face turned ashen. "Make that six to sixty-three. We had an eighth victim last night." He shuffled through the papers on his desk and put a folder on top of Ernie's. It was labeled Abigail Adams and to it was paperclipped a school photo of a little blonde girl in pigtails. Sam didn't want to open the folder to see the crime scene photos "They were all found out in the woods, all killed at night, but the victims' tracks were the only ones we've ever been able to find. Eyes gone, mauled to death...chests torn open. You boys ever faced a monster like this before?"

"We've had some big fish," Sam said slowly, carefully sliding Abigail to the bottom of the stack to keep them in chronological order, "but we've never seen this before. We'll get 'em for you, Chief...or we'll die trying."

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean hated the fact that there is a kid. He frowned a little. They stood up and head out the door. He saw Jude and his heart skipped a beat. Damn it. Why, why had they come to this town. He looked at Sam. "Hey.. go wait by the impala. I'll be right there." He said. It was a command not a request.

He moved away from his brother and went over to Jude. "Hey, what do you know. what can you tell me." He asked. He searched her face a moment. "I am sorry." He said quietly. "I am really sorry. For everything." He ran his hand into his hair and down the back of his neck. "Look, I just wanna get all the info you have. Maybe we can get some dinner tonight...talk?" He said quietly.

 

[Madam Mim]

Sam opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. When Dean wanted to hide something there was no prying it out of him until he was ready...or through sneaky intel-gathering, but he couldn't exactly do that in the lobby of a police station. Sullenly he went out to wait by the car.

Jude looked taken aback when Dean demanded to know what she knew. "Nothing. Dean, I'm just as glad as the chief is to get the fed's help on this. Everyone's scared, including me." It was true that she was scared, but that wasn't stopping her from going into the woods at sundown with a bucket of paint, trying to find the Hollow herself. She looked like an idiot, walking around in the twilight flinging paint over the dead leaves, but she was the only one who could stop it. After a few moments Dean apologized...then asked her to dinner.

"Sure," she said with a slow smile. "Papagallos has some good food. I know you're a burger kind of guy, but maybe it'll be nice to eat something that doesn't come in a wrapper? I don't imagine you get much in the way of home cooked or sit-down meals if you're on the road all the time." Jude liked cooking for people and she was pretty good at it, but she figured after more than a decade inviting him into her home without so much as drinks first might be taking things a little quickly. Despite time and herself, Jude couldn't help the resurfacing of all those old feelings. "Seven?"

With a time for dinner set, Sam looked over to Dean when they got in the car. "You're not gonna tell me what that was all about, are you?"

The body had been taken from the crime scene, but the tape and markers still remained. Alone in the woods the Winchesters were able to conduct their usual tests without having to disguise it. As far as they could tell no ghosts or demons had been through, not that this was their usual MO anyway. The hunting ground was huge, with bodies spread out over fifteen miles. Sam shook his head as he looked around, not catching the retreating shadow which hadn't had a source.

"I don't get it," he admitted, running a hand through his hair. "What kind of monster does this?"

At the motel he didn't say anything as Dean got ready for dinner with Jude, instead turning to his research and pretending not to notice. He wasn't coming up with much in the way of lore, and by the time his brother was out the door he was poring over a digital scan of some ancient tome called the Map of Days, trying to puzzle out the legend. Something called Tales of the Peculiar was mentioned in a handwritten note in the margins and he frowned at that, but didn't say anything as Dean headed out.

"I'm really proud of you, Dean." Jude smiled as she slid into a booth at Papagallos and the waiter handed them menus. "I never pegged you for the FBI type, but you look like you've done really well for yourself."

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean smiled a little at her and glanced over the menu. "Well, it is, a part of...well..my life now." He commented trying to sound as vague as he could. Let's just tell her...she'd think it was cool, I could give her the talk... He frowned a little and sighed. "It means I am always working, always on the road with my partner but, in the end, ganking the bad guy makes it all worth it." He thought about the last one that he had taken out and smiled. He had also saved a couple of teenagers. In all, it had been a good case. "I really like to make sure that I am successful, it is nice to get someone out of the world to make sure that there are people who would have died, don't. That they survived." Just then the waiter came with their drinks. Dean picked up his beer and took a long drink, setting it down, quiet for a moment.

He looked over at Jude. "I think we need to talk about what happened when I left." He was, as always, blunt to a fault. "I want you to know, it wasn't cause i didn't care about you, and I never meant to break your heart." He sighed. "I want you to know...dad and I fought for like 300 miles. I begged him, and I mean begged him , Jude to let me contact you. To let me even just send a postcard. But he refused." He picked up his beer and took another drink. "It took me a long time to get over you."

And I'm still not sure if I totally am... He thought quietly to himself. What a place he was in. "I have to know, being here now, if it is causing you pain. Cause I will leave, I will go and get Samm...er my partner and send some other people in. If this is going to hurt you, then...it's not a case I need."

 

[Madam Mim]

"That's good." Jude took a sip of her wine as Dean talked about work. "I always could see you in some sort of job getting justice for the helpless. It's good to see that worked out for you. Your talents would have been wasted as a mechanic."

"I think we need to talk about what happened when I left."

Jude raised her eyebrows momentarily. She had always liked his frankness. Setting her glass down she nodded in agreement and listened to him lay out his case. Get over her? That felt a little...harsh. But it was fair, wasn't it? It wasn't like she hadn't dated other people, wasn't like they'd had contact in over ten years. It was fair, she decided, that he'd gotten over her. She hadn't wanted him to, but that was her problem. He asked for honesty, though, and she sighed and didn't look at him for a long time. Instead she twisted the stem of her wineglass, watching the yellow-tinged liquid swirl around the glass as she did so.

"I'm glad you're here, Dean," she said at last, finally looking up at him. "We need your help. I need your help, and I wouldn't trust anyone else with something so important. As for what happened...what you told me about your dad it sounds like he's not the type of guy who takes no for an answer. I just thought that you'd, y'know, liked it here...with me. I cried a bunch, wrote a lot of bad poetry--and I mean a lot, and it was really bad--and I don't think I ever stopped looking for you around every corner. You were the love of my life. I mean, I lost my virginity with you." She smiled ruefully and shrugged. "And I'll be honest, I'm not sure I ever completely got over you. But people change and I know that, and I'm not expecting to be able to just pick up where we left off or even if you want to pick back up with me at all. But regardless of all of that I think you should stay on this case. We need a good man like you."

I should just tell him, she thought as she waited anxiously for Dean to digest everything she'd just said. It would be so much easier if he knew I was involved, and I could just be frank with him. But what if he didn't believe me...?

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean looked at her and sighed. He took another swig of his beer. "I loved it here with you Jude. Loved it. You were my chance at a normal life. You and I, the white picket fence and all." He said quietly. He set the bottle down. "I loved you...Hell...I think I still do in some way." He looked at her. Dean sat back and ran his hand over his face and then into his hair. "I am not sure what I can do about it, and the life I lead though. I am really conflicted and confused." His hand rested on the back of his neck and looked across the table at her.

We need a good man like you is what she had said. Dean knew deep down who he was but good? He wasn't sure. He looked at her,quietly, probably longer then he should and blurted out finally. "Monsters are real...all of them. Vampires, Demons...the whole bit. And I am not really an FBI agent, I am a hunter." He said "Before you freak out, let me tell you what that means, and then if you want to tell chief then, well...you can. You can tell him that Sam and I are impersonating federal agents." He sighed. "But this...hunting whatever this is that is killing people. This is what Sam and I do. "

And Dean waited. Waited for the water to be thrown, the slap across the face. Something, but it didn't come. Jude was just sitting at him smiling. "What? Are you in shock? Are you okay?"

 

[Madam Mim]

Dean mentioned the white picket fence and Jude couldn't help but smile. Embarrassed, she turned her grin to the tablecloth and curled a lock at the nape of her neck nervously around her finger while he admitted that he thought he might still love her. Over the years she had imagined every now and then how this might go, what it might be like if Dean Winchester ever swanned back into her life. She'd imagine it going a few different ways, but his admitting he might still be in love with her wasn't one of them.

Then he blurted out that monsters were real. Her first reaction was no shit. Then came the vampires and demons, that he apparently hunted. She leaned back a little, watching him, unsure what to make of it. Jude knew monsters were real. She'd lived her entire life in fear of the monsters who hunted her and her kind...but demons and vampires? What about werewolves? Ghosts? This was some Hollywood-level stuff. He asked whether she was in shock, and she came back to herself, shaking her head.

"No I um...I'm okay." Jude smiled as the waiter came by to take their orders. She ordered an eggplant parm and once he had left leaned slightly across the table. "There's...I um...Can you come back to my place? After dinner?" She tilted her head gently in the direction of the waiter. "I think we need to talk about this some more, but this is a really small town." She took a sip of her wine to play for time to try and think of where else to steer the conversation that wouldn't make it seem like she was trying to avoid the topic altogether. "I'm not going to tell Chief Parker, though. I don't think he'd handle it very well."

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean looked at her, nodding simply. "Yeah, no problem." He smiled. "Lets just talk about the last 12 years." He smiled a little. "I hunted. A lot." He shrugged. "And I am done. What about you?"

He heard her laugh. It was a little like bells, and he was in love with it all over again. He remembered the first night they ever kissed.

He had been sitting on a limb in the big tree in the from of the yard, just generally having a rough time. She had came out, climbing up next to him and then facing him on the branch. She reached out and touched his hand. He took hers into his and turned it over slowly. He brought it up to his lips. "Thank you Jude. For being a good friend. I appreciate it more then you know." She smiled shyly at him,moving closer. He leaned in and kissed her. Slowly, unsure. He had kissed girls before, but with her it was different. Much different and it was nice. It made him feel...normal.

He smiled. "You remember that first night you and I kissed?"

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude laughed a little when Dean summed up twelve years in four words. He never was one much for idle chatter; he said what he needed to say, nothing more nothing less. "Well I went to UNH, got my bachelor's in English. Surprise of all surprises, there's not much you can do with an English degree outside of teaching unless you've got some business connections. So I came back home and I've been pretty happy as a receptionist at the police department. It's usually a lot quieter than this. Umm...oh, I was a semi-professional David Bowie drag impersonator for a few years. That was fun." She laughed at Dean's reaction and shrugged. "Hey, after you left I went looking for myself. Sometimes looking for yourself leads to drag. Don't judge. Dated a lot, met some real interesting people...but mostly I've stayed in the area. It's been a mostly quiet life." Mostly. The occasional weight notwithstanding.

"You remember that first night you and I kissed?" Dean asked with a smile.

Jude returned the smile. "You mean the night I started practicing my signature as Judith Winchester in my diary?" she countered, blushing a little. "How could I ever forget? I fell hard and fast, Dean. Not sure I ever really got back to my feet." It was so awfully cliche to still be in love with a high school sweetheart, but there it was. They were probably completely different people now, as different to their past selves as they always had been to one another. Still, a part of her had a little glimmer of hope that maybe he'd be willing to give it another shot...if he could accept her for what she was.

 

[Cinderella1181]

He grinned at her. "Drag huh...really not surprised." He reached across the table and brushed his fingers over hers. He grinned. "I'd like to see that sometime.." He smiled. He took his hand back.

Chuck damn it, get your head in the game Winchester your on a hunt.He smiled at her. "I fell hard and fast too. I am glad I wasn't the only one." He ran his hand over the back of of his head. "Jude, I am not gonna lie, you are the girl, that sometimes when I am laying on the magic fingers, I dream about." He smiled that Winchester Charm smile at her. The one that left every girl weak.

He grinned and before he could say more, their food came. He grinned and rubbed his hands together and began to eat. Like Dean Winchester. It was defiantly gross but...endearing in his own way.

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude raised an eyebrow when Dean said--suggestively, she thought--that he'd like to see her drag persona sometime. It had been a while, and naturally everyone discovers their kinks as they get older, but Dean Winchester and drag kings wasn't something she'd ever thought of before. His fingers brushed over hers and she shivered, goosebumps raising on her arms. He still had it and she was still a sucker for him. Even if his personality had changed, if she didn't like who he'd become, casual sex absolutely wasn't out of the question. Then he turned on that smile that had always made her knees weak and she laughed, shaking her head even as their food came.

"Well I guess it's...flattering? that you still masturbate to thoughts of me," she said uncertainly. "I'm not sure flattering is the right term. But I'd be lying if I denied that I still think about you, too." As she cut into her own meal she watched him eat and shook her head. What little table manners her parents had instilled in him seemed to have disappeared, but that wasn't much of a surprise at all. He'd been all but feral when her dad had gone down to the police station to pick him up and take him home, unable to find any family in the area and unwilling to send him to a boys home. If he'd continued living the same lifestyle as before, it would make sense that he hadn't exactly been practicing his table manners.

"So with the hunting...what's that like? I mean, is that how you grew up?" Jude asked between bites. Now that he was being entirely honest with her maybe she would get answers to questions she'd had for years. "How is it you came to be alone on the side of the road up here in the middle of nowhere?"

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean sighed. "I guess you could say I started hunting just short of my fifth birthday." He swallowed. "You knew my mom died, well, she died in a fire, having been killed by a demon, trying to get to Sam." He shrugged. "Dad had a little bit of a break down and we started after that. Me and Sam. Dad would leave us for days or weeks at a time once I got to be of a useful age. When he knew it was going to be months he'd drop us off at Pastor Jim's or Bobby's." He smiled a little. "Bobby really got to be our second dad. Dad taught us to shoot a gun or hunt with a cross bow. Bobby taught me how to play catch. Damn fine man." He sighed and took a bite of his food, watching her face as he did.

"The side of the road story is a little longer. Sam had bust an arm art school. So dad and I dropped him off at Bobby's and we headed out to hunt." He sat back grabbing his beer. "There had been some werewolf action in Maine. We were heading back and he and I got in a fight. Which, wasn't uncommon, but this time, he stopped the Impala and told me to get the fuck out." He shook his head and pulled a long swig of beer. "So, being the dumb ass I was, I started walking. I was pissed Jude. I was gonna walk to a town and call Bobby. But then I got picked up and well... you know the rest of the story. Seems Bobby and your dad kept in tabs with each other, in case something happened. But Bobby knew better then to come and get me. Dad would have been incensed and Sam would have suffered, cause they were like oil and water. So I just hung here, hoping to make it to 18 before dad came back for me, and I could get Sam and we could just be normal."

He set his beer down. "You were the first shot at normal I ever had. I had all these feelings that dad had had talked about with mom. You were like... heaven on earth Jude."

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude covered her mouth with a hand when Dean described his childhood and how he'd come to Keene. How could anyone raise a child like that? With a frown she reached across the table and put her hand over his.

"I can't imagine growing up like that," she admitted. "You were...well, you were the most interesting person I'd ever met. I liked that you weren't normal, but I never realized the price of that. Quite a pair we would've made, huh?" Quite a pair they had made. With a gentle squeeze she let go of his hand and continued her meal. There was too much small talk for her liking, but they couldn't exactly talk about the truth out in public where she knew nearly everyone, could they? In high school she'd babysat their waiter, for heaven's sake!

Jude was quiet as she drove Dean out of downtown, past fields and pastures and the ice cream stand they'd gone to after church on Sundays. Finally she pulled into a driveway and headlights fell onto an old converted stone barn. Inside, the slightly cluttered kitchen smelled of a stew she'd put on in the crockpot before work. She led the way through the cozy living room to the back door, flipping on the outside light before holding the door open for Dean. The grass was wet and the night was chilly, but she kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot into the garden, taking Dean's hand gently to indicate that he should follow.

"Remember how I was always growing something, even if it was in a pot during the winter?" she reminded him. "And in the summer I'd spend hours outside in my garden."

It was early spring, and though she'd planted her garden most of the plants weren't very tall. Even the largest tomato plant only came to her knee. Jude's heart thudded against her chest and she swallowed hard, having to remind herself that 45 minutes ago Dean Winchester had told her that he hunted demons. It wasn't like he wouldn't believe her. She turned to face him and slowly knelt on the ground, laying her palms flat in the mud. Gradually at first, then at an alarming rate the plants around her began to grow, springing forth into life double-time like a timelapse on a science show Dean had accidentally watched in a motel in Scranton. Tomatoes shot up to chest height, watermelons sprawled across the ground, even weeds popped up. These latter Jude touched one by one with the tip of her index finger and they immediately retreated back into the ground, the whole process growing in reverse. Swallowing her fear, she looked up at Dean for a reaction. Any reaction.

"You're looking for a Hollowghast," she informed him shakily, "and it's looking for me."

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean stood there, just quietly watching. He wasn't sure what to feel. He went over and sat in the little chair by a new set of plants that had popped up. His mind churning. She's supernatural...she makes plants grow... He rubbed his hands over his face. "Your supernatural." He said quietly. "Your ....what exactly are you?"

He looked up at her. "Is this...the extent of your power." His hunter mind running a million miles an hour. Please let this be it. Please let her just be able to make things grow. That is okay...that...that works. He sighed. "You know what.. I don't care. I don't." He stood up and went over to her. He took her face in his hands. "I don't care what you are. I just...god this is a lot of take in."

 

[Madam Mim]

What. The word stuck in Jude's mind like a bad taste in her mouth. She had expected a few different sorts of reactions, but she hadn't expected suddenly being a what. She had to suppress her initial reaction to come back with anger and hurt; he hadn't meant anything by it, that much was clear when she stood and he took her face in his hands. If he hunted things that went bump in the night...well, who knew what sort of experiences he'd had? Maybe he'd hunted a few Peculiars gone bad. It wasn't like they were all harmless like her. She took a step away from him and brushed the wet dirt off of her hands.

"Let's go inside," she suggested, taking his hand without answering his question. "It isn't safe out here; they hunt at night." Jude shivered, feeling as though she could feel the Hollow's eyes on the back of her neck, though she didn't know just how close it was. She imagined if it had found her it would have attacked. It was a Hollow and Dean was a Common, after all--it wasn't like he could protect her from it.

Jude led the way back inside, setting her discarded shoes just inside the door and wiping her bare feet on the rug before directing Dean towards a kitchen chair. She opened the fridge, slicing up a leftover apple pie from the previous night and warming it up before topping it with vanilla ice cream. Dean's favorite was cherry, she knew, but apple was all she had for now. With a sigh she sat across from him, sliding the pie over to him.

"To begin with, I'm a who, not a what, Dean," she said at length, just the slightest betrayal of aggravation in her voice. "The Romani people call us Syndragasti, but these days we just call ourselves Peculiar. The best anyone can figure it's a genetic mutation passed on, though it pretty reliably skips generations. Both of my grandparents on my mom's side were Peculiar, and Mom's a Common but it passed down to me. It was a 50/50 shot between this and a mouthful of bees, so I count myself lucky." She smiled ruefully and shrugged. "Think of us as like the X-Men. One power each, so yes growing plants is all I can do. Some are useful like this, some not so much; I knew a girl once who levitated, but she didn't have a choice in it. She had to wear lead-soled shoes or else she would've floated off into the sky. My granddad had a thousand bees living in his stomach. He could command them, which was pretty cool, but still...a stomach full of bees 24/7." She shook her head.

"Anyway, there are monsters out there called Hollowghasts, or Hollows for short. They used to be Peculiar, but now...now they're less than human." Jude shuddered and rubbed her arms as though she'd suddenly gotten a chill, then her eyes darted to both the front and back doors to make sure they were locked. "They'll eat anyone, but they crave Peculiars. Once they've eaten enough of us, absorbed our souls, they become wights. That's pretty much their old selves, but usually without their powers. Wights are masters of disguise, and if there's a Hollow around it's almost guaranteed there's a wight close behind trying to pick out who the Peculiar is. Those people out in the woods, most of them were Common but Jimmy Smits and Edith Arbuckle were both Peculiars. The problem with trying to avoid Hollows is that they're invisible. You can see their shadows in the daytime, but that's why they mostly just hunt at night, and you can only see them when they're feeding." She set down her fork and rubbed her face.

"It's probably against your instinct not to kill me Dean, and I get that," Jude admitted with a sigh. "And if that's a problem then I'll stay out of your way. But Dean...I'm not the one you should be hunting. I'm prey, and I'm scared." She did in fact look pale, eyes wide with fear, hand shaking slightly.

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean listened to her. He sat in the chair and looked up at her. She had called herself prey. He knew intimately what that feeling was like. He stood up and went over to her. He took her face in his hands again, looking down at her. "I will protect you." He said quietly. "You need to teach me everything about everything. How to protect you, how to kill them, every single thing." He leaned in and pressed his lips to her head. "I will find them and kill them. I will protect you."

He was a hunter, he was some one who get rid of the monsters. And these..Hallows, they were just that. Monsters. Right now, there was one after someone he cared about. He was going to make sure that everything was taken care of. He was going to protect her no matter what. "But, lets do that in the morning. I'll call and get Sammy over here and we'll research the hell out of this." He looked in her eyes. He pressed his lips to hers, quickly just a brief moment. "Now, come tell me about all the years you and I were separated. It will keep your mind occupied."

He let his hand slide into her and tugged at it towards the couch. "Come on. Tell me everything."

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude nodded and ran a hand through her hair when Dean suggested they go over the details of hunting Hollows in the morning. What wasn't expected was when he kissed her. It was a quick kiss, very brief...a peck, really. But it was pleasant and unexpected and gave her hope. When he tugged her toward the couch she followed, leaving her slice of pie half-eaten on the table. She told him about the string of boyfriends and girlfriends she'd gone through after he'd left, about her stint as a David Bowie impersonator, about college and a band she'd joined, about the year she'd taken off after college and taken a vacation in pre-revolutionary Pennsylvania. She explained briefly and simply how Loops worked--she wasn't entirely certain herself how Loop hopping worked without aging you five hundred years, but there it was--and how she had used them mostly for vacations. Loop hopping was popular with Peculiar tourists, after all. She talked about her job and her garden, about how she rarely used her power on her personal garden because that just took the fun out of gardening, about how relieved she was that she could speak frankly with him about what she could do. She talked about how she had missed him, had been afraid that she was never going to see him again, or worse had died.

When the ancient grandfather clock near the front door struck midnight she sighed. "I should be getting to bed," she said ruefully. "I've still got to be at work by seven, after all. You and Sam can stay here, y'know. I've got a spare room." Jude rose to her feet, still loosely holding his hand in hers. "But um...You don't have to use the spare room...if you don't want to..." She gave him a shy but suggestive look before slowly dropping his hand and walking toward the bedroom, glancing occasionally over her shoulder at him.

 

[Cinderella1181]

Dean followed after her, watching her move lithely thought the house. He smiled,he knew what was going to happen. He knew what he wanted, the one thing he had always wanted. Her. The furthest star in his night, the one thing that kept him going sometimes when the world was at his worst, there was only ever one name he whispered like a prayer.

Jude

He caught her hand by the door to her bedroom, gently tugging her back to him. He looked down at her and smiled. "You always were my little pixie." He said quietly. "Now, I guess you really are." He bent his knees a little and engulfed her. Pulling her in close to him, crushing her against his chest and crashing his lips in to hers. He had grown several inches in the years he had left her. His just a tad over six foot frame wide in the shoulder. He carried her like it was nothing to the bed and plopped her down on it and smiled. "You know what the best thing is about this? You can see how much I have learned and grown."

He reached for the buttons on his shirt and opened it peeling it off of himself. He had a predatory look in his eyes. He wanted her, and the more he thought about it, the more blown his pupils were. He tossed the shirt in the chair and looked at her grinning. "I have been thinking about this since the moment I left all those years ago. The moment I could get back to you." He walked over to the bed and looked at her. His hands threading gently into her hair. He bent down to kiss her, deep, long and hot.

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude's heart leapt into her throat when she felt his hand around hers. The short walk from the couch to her bedroom door had seemed to take forever when she was afraid that he wasn't going to follow her. She had been terrified that after all this time he wouldn't want her anymore. When he caught her up and looked down at her she could have just died of joy. She always could have lost herself in those eyes. With a whoop of surprise and a giggle, she didn't struggle when he picked her up and carried her to the bed, instead biting her lip and watching hungrily as he pulled off his shirt.

"Well, you've certainly grown at least," she grinned, not disguising her appraisal of his body.

He had indeed grown taller and broader since she'd last seen him, no longer looking like an awkward Great Dane puppy who hadn't yet grown into his feet and ears. Last time they'd met neither of them had had prior experience, so she could only imagine that as magical as their awkward teenage fumblings had been, having had a number of partners would only make things better. At 5'3" she was much the same height as she had always been, but her breasts and hips had filled out since high school, which was easily visible as she untied her dress and let the gauzy fabric fall to the floor. The cut hadn't really allowed for a bra, so she sat there in her panties under his gaze.

When Dean admitted that he'd been dreaming of the moment he could get back to her she melted in his arms, kissing him back deeply and leaning back onto the bed, pulling him with her. Surely this was all just some vivid dream, and she would wake up in her same old normal life with a Hollow on her trail and no Dean Winchester. It was only the familiar caress of his calloused hands that kept her from believing this entirely.

"God I've missed you, Dean!" she breathed, pulling him back into a kiss and letting her hands slide down his sides to undo his jeans. Jude ached for him; they could take things slowly the next time around if he had the stamina for it...which she had no doubt that he did.

 

[Cinderella1181]

He moaned and moved his pelvis in such a way, as to give her ease of access. He wanted to be a million things at one, let her touch him a million ways, but he knew he had to slow down. He growled and pushed himself up on the bed and looked down at her, his hands making short work of the buttons on the fly of his jeans and pushing them down. His excitement was obvious in the thin material of his boxers. He grinned at her and hooked his thumbs in those as well. "Different then how you remember it?" He smirked.

And just like that he was without his boxers. He grinned at her. "I know this has had some years and mileage on it. I think you'll find I was a pretty fast learner." He grinned. He pulled up her leg by the thigh, and then bent her knee. He leaned in and kissed the inside of her knee, before slowly working his way down leaving scorching hot kisses every few inches. "I want to do so many things to you. So many." He moaned. He ran his fingers down the outside of her thighs and hooked his fingers in to the her panties. "But I think I know just where to start."

 

[Madam Mim]

Jude's eyes flicked down and she bit her lip and smiled. "A little," she admitted, curling her fingers around his shaft. "Guess neither of us were done with puberty." She chuckled, which was interrupted by a sharp intake of air when he pulled away from her grip and pulled her thigh up and kissed the inside of her knee, telling her about the things he wanted to do to her. Jude lifted her hips as he pulled her panties off and discarded them with the rest of their clothes on the floor. Dean kissed his way up to her center and she let her head lull back, sliding his fingers into her hair.

Jude had had a lot of partners. Not as many as Dean, she assumed, but still a pretty good number. In the past twelve years she hadn't met anyone quite so good at oral as Sarah Willoughby, her twelfth grade lab partner. But Dean Winchester was different. He was always different. Whether it was truly technique or because of the depth of her feelings for him, Jude found herself gripping his hair, raising her hips to him and moaning. She was shaking like she hadn't in many years, not since her first few times with him, though now just as then she wasn't sure whether it was from cold or adrenaline. Jude slid her knees over his shoulders, arching her back and biting her lip.