Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:24:41 GMT

He didn't call.

I didn't believe him when he said he would.

I guess there'd be no right place in the world, never a right time.

It was the other one who called instead.

Sam.

I don't know why I picked up. I saw his number come up on the screen of my cellphone and something dropped in my stomach like a stone in a cold, deep lake.

My daddy killed your daddy.

And fear, and fuck, I hate fear. Fear makes you weak and if you're a hunter, you can't afford weakness. Tied to a post with a gag in my mouth, I was weak. I was just another helpless little girl and it was that helplessness that scared me the most.

But I picked up anyway.

"H-hey, Jo."

For a second, it was hard to force the words out of my mouth, up my throat, over my tongue. "Sam."

"Hey, uh-"

"You said that already."

"Uh, yeah." He doesn't know how to start. Neither do I.

You carry quite a torch.

"Look, I just wanted to say-"

"Don't."

A pause.

"What?"

"Dont' say you're sorry." I sigh. "You were posessed. It wasn't your fault. You don't need - don't bother."

"Jo-" Stop saying my name.

Stop saying my name like that.

"Yeah. It's okay."

I can hear him exhaule audibly on the other end of the line. I don't blame him for what happened. Just as, now, I don't blame him or Dean for what happened to Dad. The man to blame was dead.

I could be so much more to you.

"Dean, he's - he said to tell you hey."

No, he didn't.

His hand on mine. Sam's, not Dean's. And that weird feeling, that skip of a heartbeat when Sam first looked at me, before the look in his eyes turned dark, scary and before his fingers on my wrist started to bruise. Sam?

I laugh despite myself.

"I'll call you," Sam said.

I believed him.

Jo Harvelle