entrancelogs | [CLOSED] Family matters.

Entry tags:

[CLOSED] Family matters.

Who: Jo & Ellen Harvelle
Where: Ellen's room.
When: Backdated to the evening of October 14th.
Rating: PG
Summary: Now that Ellen's settled, it's time for Jo to fill her in on why things are so strained.
The Story:

It was early evening by the time Jo made her way to Ellen's room, complete with a six-pack of beer she nicked from the bar on her way over. The conversation they were due to have wasn't one she was particularly interested in postponing any longer - she had gone out of her way not to mention any part of the dispute that she and Dean had only recently begun to lay to rest, not because she was ashamed or embarrassed but because as much as she both wanted and needed to talk to her mother about what had happened, it was too much to heap on her when she was still adjusting to her new surroundings. Wonderland was a lot to swallow. Jo had been more than willing to put her personal life on hold to give Ellen time to settle in and wrap her head around the place.

Their brief conversation on the network earlier that day hadn't been unwelcome. She wasn't hiding anything, just waiting for the right time to talk, and apparently that time was now. She was prepared for the lecture that was sure to come. Hell, she might even welcome it. Anything that made her feel like life was normal and that this wasn't some strange shadow of an afterlife was always welcome, although she had a feeling she might feel differently once said lecture was underway.

Sighing softly to herself, she knocked. "Mom? You in?"

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Ellen comes out of the bathroom, wiping her hands on a towel. The closets are making her experiment with a few things. "Come on in, Jo." She calls, moving books around her room. Might as well get caught up on some reading she never got to do because of some reason or another. Most are books on lore - not surprisingly - but others are books on economics, history, even a few cook books scattered amongst the piles.

Ellen had always loved to read, but between the Roadhouse, Jo and then hunting, she just never had the time. (And Stephen King is a twisted bastard.)

She sees her daughter, crosses her arms and raises that eyebrow. "JoAnna Beth, what the hell is going on?"

Jo lets herself in once Ellen calls out, shutting and locking the door behind her as she sets the beer down on the nearest table. She takes a moment to look over the number of books that Ellen's collected and smiles to herself, recognizing it for what it is. A chance to do something she enjoys but never quite had the time for back home, between the roadhouse and parenting and then hunting, not to mention all the strays that came through that she had a tendency to mother.

For as bad as some people seemed to think it was, Wonderland gave people some rare and interesting opportunities. Some big, some small. Most worth sparing a second glance.

"Hey." She grabs two bottles of beer and holds one out, offering. It's the kind of story that needs beer, if she's being honest. She's been beating herself up since long before there was any fallout and it hasn't stopped, even though she and Dean have technically made amends.

"A lot. I wanted to talk to you about it sooner--" Really wanted to. God, she could have used someone else's perspective or even support, though she wasn't counting on the latter. "Just didn't feel appropriate to unload everything on you when you just got here. Bouncing back from what you and I went through-- not exactly easy."

She shrugs a little, feeling more awkward than she'd like to admit as she helps herself to a seat. "Dean and I had a thing for a little while. Didn't last long for a number of reasons. That's the short version. Long version's a lot messier."

Ellen takes the beer, but waits for Jo to spit out whatever is on her mind. When she mentions that her and Dean had a thing, Ellen's mouth thins. She'd warned....

"A thing? Jo, I warned you about getting involved with the Winchesters. You think that just extended to hunting?" Christ, Jo. Ellen thought she'd taught her daughter better than that.

She scrubs a hand over her face and sits in the squishy armchair the mansion had provided for her. It's the comfiest damned thing and Ellen's fallen asleep more than one night in it. "Well, give me the entire damned mess. What did you get yourself into?"

"Not exactly the support I was looking for." Jo has to make an effort not to heave a sigh, instead gritting her teeth and prepared to meet this head-on. Yes, Ellen had warned her about the Winchesters early on, but the fact was that even with those warnings in place, they trusted those boys. Treated them like family when they came around, trusted them to have their backs in a pinch.

The last job they'd worked together hadn't gone well for her or for Ellen, but that wasn't Sam or Dean's fault. It wasn't their actions or their choices that had lead to that ending. If anything, it had been Jo's choice. She could have run on without Dean and let him get torn to shreds, but she would never have been able to live with herself. She'd had to go back. Not because she liked him, not because of a crush, but because she trusted him to do the same for her - which he had proven.

It wasn't all that long ago that hellhounds had invaded the mansion, and Dean had done exactly that. Sacrificed himself so that she could escape. Deaths here weren't permanent, not at first, but that didn't make it any less traumatic. She'd come to the decision that it was worse. If she were back home, she would have moved on and been at peace, or so she imagines. Here, her death is like any other in Wonderland. Real and painful and haunting and so much heavier just because she's still alive to feel those things. It was the one major drawback to this second chance of hers, and she assumed it wasn't all that different for others. They didn't necessarily have the threat of permanence that she did if she were to go home, but she would bet money that the nightmares were more or less the same.

She leans forward in her seat, bottle of beer hanging between her knees. "Kind of goes without saying that we spend a lot of time together. We run the bar. Dean heads up the resistance, we work real hard to make sure people get through these events okay." Even without blood, they're family, like they always say. They're best friends. "A few months back, the mansion was overrun with hellhounds. Dean didn't want a repeat of what'd happened in that hardware store. He protected me and died doing it. Kind of made things really clear afterwards, when he got back. Like putting things off wasn't going to do either of us any good, so we gave up dancing around it and decided to--"

She cuts herself off, because she's not sure how to say it, what to call it. They'd never talked about or defined things, but they had been together in a firm enough sense that what came later counted as betrayal.

"It just wasn't what we thought it would be." She shouldn't have to say it. Ellen knows. Jo had been waiting for Dean to come around for years. "Pretty sure we were both miserable. Too many elephants in the room. It's been a long time for him, you know? I've been-- gone a long time." Four years of blaming himself for her death, four years since he's had to mourn both her and Ellen. "Neither one of us was happy but it seemed like neither one of us was willing to talk about it, either."

Maybe that would have felt too much like giving up.

Ellen doesn't drink from the beer. She just listens to her daughter, and can picture most of it in her mind. Jo's always had a hero-worship thing for hunters. Probably partially Ellen's fault, with all the stories she'd tell Jo when Bill was gone, or after he died.

Heroes one and all, but none of them made great husbands or even great significant others or whatever the hell she is supposed to call it. She knows what it's like. Hell, at eighteen, she'd jumped at the chance to run out of her small little town with a hunter with a pretty smile and prettier words.

That had been a huge mistake, and Bill had saved her from that. Ellen knows how it goes. And she knows how big the elephants in the room can get. She'd watched it before. Hell, it'd happened to her.

"What happened? Because it isn't just the time, Jo. Finish it." The words are soft steel. Ellen wants to know the whole of it, before she says too much.

The whole of it was coming, though it took Jo a moment to collect her thoughts, to try and find a way to put what had happened gently. Truth of the matter was that she would have to use ugly words because it had been an ugly, messy thing that had happened. No escaping that.

"It was more than the timing. There was a lot of guilt." Mostly on Dean's part; he'd never really been able to leave her death behind him entirely -- if he had, they would have been able to talk about it. But they hadn't. Not once since she'd arrived here six months ago. Neither one of them had ever uttered the D-word in each other's presence, though she had said it to others, people she trusted and confided in. Gabriel. James. Tom. "And on top of already being strained, it got lonely. He loves to play hero, you know? Has to find time to be there for everyone, to be a leader and be a friend. Leaves him with a pretty tight schedule."

She smiles thinly, punctuating that by taking a long swig of her beer. Timing had been a problem.

"So when things got rough or I needed someone to talk to, Dean's not the one who was there for me. Tom was. And not like-- it's not as bad as it sounds. But he was a friend, and I needed a friend. Someone who wasn't from home so they could talk to me like a person instead of just looking at me and feeling guilty or feeling pity because of what happened." Because she's dead back home, and there's nothing to go back to. "And everyone else-- Dean and Sam and Cas, they all have futures that I'm not a part of. If we ever get out of this place, if they ever go home, I can't go with them. My future doesn't change. It just felt... bad. Being left behind. Seeing them with all these people who are a part of their lives however many years down the line, and I won't be."

She grimaces. She's not looking to throw a pity party, she doesn't want or need anyone to feel sorry for her, but it's important for her to explain that disconnect. Ellen of all people should understand. Their situation is the same, isn't it? Neither one of them has anything to go back to. Just an unknown afterlife, while the rest of their family has a future.

"I didn't mean for anything to happen. I wish I had slowed down and handled things different and done them in the right order, realized what was happening and talked to Dean before I got caught up in someone else. But I didn't. I screwed up, and I let myself get carried away because I was hurt and I was lonely, and I'm not proud of myself. If I could do it again, I would do it differently, but I would still have made the same decision in the end because it was the right one. It's only because we're not together anymore that Dean's suddenly decided our brief relationship was perfect. It wasn't. If he actually felt about me the way he seems to think he does now, I wouldn't have left."

"And it doesn't hurt that he looks exactly like Dean, does it?" Ellen isn't an idiot. She knows that if someone who looked like Bill showed up, she'd be hard pressed to keep in mind that it isn't Bill.

She sighs and rubs a hand over her face. Ellen hates that she's landed in the middle of this mess. But Jo is her daughter, and damn but Dean is family.

"JoAnna Beth, you were raised better than that." It's tired, almost old, but not nearly as scathing as it could be. She understands mistakes. Her life isn't devoid of them. "You know better. All that time in the Roadhouse, and you didn't learn how dangerous it could get, stepping away from one guy for another?"

She shakes her head. Then Ellen puts down her beer. "This is your mess, and I'm not going to help you clean it up." Because, there comes a time when children have to pick up after themselves. "You make peace with Dean. He's family, and no matter what happens, that's more important than any guy." No matter how much Jo might like him. No matter how good he is, or whatever it is.

Ellen reaches out and cups Jo's face. "When we Harvelles step in it, we really step in it. No one's going to come out happy, Jo. You gotta know that."

"It has nothing to do with what he looks like," is the almost automatic response, but it's almost too defensive, as though she has her own doubts about that particular detail. She's asked herself countless times if that was the main reason, hell, if it was the only reason, but she'd decided no, it wasn't. Ellen was right, it didn't hurt, although sometimes she wished he didn't look like Dean if only because it would keep that seed of doubt from rooting itself in her so deeply. She knew it was a major factor in helping her feel comfortable around him sooner than she might have otherwise. Aside from that -- projecting was dangerous territory. She didn't want to go there, but more than what made him similar to Dean, it was everything that made him so radically different than she liked.

"I'm pretty sure that when he got here, I was the only one who didn't make a huge deal about who or what he looked like." That, at least, was the honest truth. There's no doubt in her voice now. "Nobody else even thought to treat him like a person at first." It had been frustrating to witness. As uncanny as the resemblance was, it wasn't what defined him.

She gives Ellen a long look before taking another pull of her beer, and at the advice, she actually manages a bittersweet half-smile. "That's just it. I'm not asking you to fix anything for me. I don't need someone else to clean it up. We've made peace." She was on sabbatical from the bar a bit longer, but that was her choice. She was pretty sure there was a standing invitation to come back, they'd both known she wasn't stepping away from it forever, but they'd needed space. A break had been necessary. "I'm not saying things are perfect, and a little more time and space is probably in order, but we're talking. And-- I mean, we talked about everything. How it happened wasn't ideal, but he actually agrees with me."

It sucked. The way it went down had just been one mistake after another, and it hurt, but maybe what hurt them both more than the betrayal and the resulting fallout was the fact that their relationship had been uneven. That was why Dean worked so damn hard to take it out on Tom when he couldn't stay mad at Jo herself, even though she had been the one to make the choices that hurt him. He didn't love her, and they both knew it, and they were both disappointed as hell. It was the same reason why Dean insisted on telling people she'd slept with someone else, when that hadn't exactly been the case. It bothered him more that sex had nothing to do with it -- but that someone else had given her something he was unable to, and it was enough to get her to leave him.

She carefully lays a hand over Ellen's against her face, looking down into her beer. "I just wanted you to hear about it from me first. That's all. I know I screwed up, and I'm not proud of myself. Everything's as fixed as it's gonna be until time heals the rest. Just didn't want you to think I was hiding anything. I'm not." She looks up, her mouth set into a hard line. "I haven't run or tried to hide from my mistakes. I owned up to them and made things right the best way I knew how."

Ellen is actually proud of her daughter. Jo isn't running from the issue, or looking to hide from it. Her baby girl really has grown up and Ellen feels that little bit of her heart break, knowing that she's done a good job. But she knows that she'll never quite be able to let Jo go. Never quite stop seeing that baby girl in pigtails in the window seat waiting for Bill to come home; or the heartbroken baby that had crawled into her lap and sobbed because Bill wasn't going to come home again.

She leans her forehead against Jo's and just breathes in her daughter's scent. There are so many things that she wants to tell her daughter, that she wants Jo to hear because there hadn't been time back home.

"JoAnna Beth Harvelle." The full name is almost cracked. She takes a deep breath. "I'm proud of you." Ellen feels the need to say that. "You did good. Dean holds a grudge like no other, but you did good."

There's pride in her voice and she's not sorry for it.

She breaks into a smile, closing her eyes momentarily as they press their foreheads together. More than anything, that was what she needed to hear, and she hadn't even realized it. Confirmation from someone that doing her best had been enough. That it was good enough, that she'd managed to pull through and do the right thing in spite of her mistakes. She feels the tension ease from her shoulders and pulls back long enough to rub at one of her eyes with the back of her hand, urging the beginnings of tears to stay back.

It had been difficult. It had been painful and convoluted and messy and more trouble than she'd ever thought to ask for. It had been unexpected, but she had survived it, and so had Dean, and she wanted to think that their friendship had, too. Even if it would take a little longer to mend fully. They were family. There wasn't much that could change that.

"Thank you." Her own voice cracks a little, but God, she means it. It's exactly what she needs to feel at peace with what happened. "It'll... I mean. I think it'll pass. I don't expect them to ever really be friends, but Dean won't always be this--" Petty? She's not sure that's the word she wants to use.

"He just needs more time. But we're okay now. I promise. You missed the worst of it."

Ellen gives a small, sad smile. It doesn't reach her eyes, but only because she knows that her baby has grown up. Even if she hadn't believed it in Carthage, this place is proving that she needs to let go of the apron strings a bit.

A deep breath, and Ellen just wants to hold onto her baby girl. To crawl into bed and cuddle her the way they used to when Bill was out on a job, or after he died.

"I'll straighten Dean out. For all he might like to think it'd be perfect, you'd have eaten him alive and spit him out, eventually." She smirks. "Winchester men can't handle women like us."

"We're just as stubborn as they are and twice as resilient," Jo agrees with a smirk of her own, leaning against Ellen and feeling infinitely lighter now that they had talked. It felt good to have it out in the open, to know that the person who mattered most to her supported her no matter what decisions she'd made. She probably could have used a lecture or two while the whole thing was underway, but Jo had done a hell of a job of putting herself back in line in Ellen's absence.

"I think after awhile he would have gotten tired of all the headbutting." They're too much alike in too many ways. Conflict would have been unavoidable. "But now you know why he was trying to stir up trouble."

Ellen just holds her baby girl. She knows what it's like to want to have someone just say that you're doing okay, that all the work, all the sacrifice is for the good.

After Bill died, she didn't get it. She had to find it for herself. But damn if she wouldn't have liked to hear it.

"He would have gotten bored with it. Gotta keep a man like Dean on his toes or he's gone." Ellen shrugs. She knows too many like that. "And it sounds like he was trying to tattle." Because Dean is known for his maturity at times. "Again, don't worry. I'll handle him." She has the advantage of being mom and nothing else.

"Don't feel like you have to fight my battles for me." She knows it's not really what Ellen is suggesting, but she has to make sure. She smiles wryly, wearily -- it's been a long couple of months, and while she's glad she and Dean are on the mend and their friendship isn't irreparable, his pettiness is exhausting, even if she does feel like he has the right to be angry.

"Personally? I think he's in for a surprise, sooner or later. If he keeps pushing, he's going to get pushed back." Her mouth hitches up a bit higher on one side, a tired smirk. Tom may have been mild-mannered, he may have been non-confrontational, but he was stubborn as any hunter she'd ever known and he didn't like to let people walk all over him. There was a line to be drawn when it came to politeness, and he knew where Dean had been wronged, but he would only take it up to a certain point before he started dishing it back. Their fistfight in the hall had proven that, considering both parties had walked away from it with broken noses.

"... I'm really glad you're here, you know."

"Oh, I'm not fighting your battle. Doesn't mean it won't get dropped on my doorstep now and again. I'm just reserving the right to kick it a little." Alright, maybe a lot, but honestly, sometimes, Dean is just like his father and too damned stubborn for anyone's sanity - including his own.

"And Dean can take it. He dishes it out, he knows it'll come back and bite him in the ass sooner or later." Usually sooner, but she hopes he's learned some.

She smiles and leans up to kiss Jo's forehead. "I'm always with you, baby girl. Don't worry." Because she knows Jo thinks about her. They've been together - just the pair of them - far too long.

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[CLOSED] Family matters.

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whoops I wrote a book

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