30. Fighting the Fog

Well, this is unfortunate.

I feel like I've been drugged. It's like a sickness that's crawling through my veins, and I can feel all of it. Every single inch that it moves. I can feel it tightening inside of me, taking over.

I'm not coughing like Sam is, I'm more sputtering for breath and trying to blink off the black spots that are already starting in my vision.

Dean has realized that his two younger siblings aren't okay; he rushes to us. I see his mouth moving, and I know he's talking to me, but right now I can't focus. I'm panicked, I'm frightened. I'm scared for Sam, for Dean. For myself. For the people who are stuck in this police station with us, defenseless against this fog and the people that it's already infected.

There's no stopping it.

I think about the people who are rabid to get in here. Sam and I, we'll become that. It'll be like revisiting my demon days, only amplified. Just without the demonic powers. I can't go back to that. I'm not dying, not again. I can't.

"Hey, hey, come on, Jo! Say something!" I recognize the feel of Dean's coarse hands on my face, shaking me rather harshly. "Don't go mute on me!"

"I-I'm trying," I say weakly, looking at him with half-lidded eyes.

"Folks, we need to stay together, okay?" says the sheriff. Why are you here? Go into another room already. Or do they not know the fog's breached the station?

"Sam!" says Dean.

"No, no!" Sam moans. "Get back! Don't!" He, like me, is gasping for breath. I shudder, feeling the black veins crawl.

"My god, they're infected," says the sheriff.

"Everybody, get inside!" Dean orders, gesturing to another room.

"Everybody!" The sheriff begins to herd the others into the other room. The little girl is still crying. I'm already slumped on the floor, and Sam is about two leg shakes away from crumpling to the ground alongside me. "Come on. Let's move. Come on."

I look blearily at hearing the noise. Our visitors at the front door are in a mad frenzy to reach us. Soon enough, I'll be as rabid as them. So will Sam. We'll tear each other apart. It won't matter who people are to us, we'll want to kill them. For all I know, I may turn on Sam and end up killing him. He may end up killing me.

"Come on! Let's go! Get in here!" the sheriff yells at Dean. I think back to the last time someone wanted Dean to abandon his family. I already know what he's gonna say.

"No! I'm not leaving my brother and my sister!" he insists.

The sheriff looks at Dean as though he's insane, but he respects my brother's choice and shuts the door, separating the three of us from the rest of them. To help them out, Dean focuses on sealing the door. Sam pulls me to my feet, but we almost end up falling over each other. This sickness is getting worse. How long before it reaches our minds? How long before the animal comes out in us?

I cry out, feeling something knock into my one shoulder blade, and I find myself falling into Sam. My eyes find a brick on the floor. The fog is now pooling in from the hole in the window. Glass shards litter the floor.

"Help me," Sam rasps. Between the two of us, we get a board and begin to heave it towards the broken window. But halfway through, Sam trips, and I lose my grip on the board. I hover at his side as his coughing fits continue.

"Come on, Sammy, we can fight this," I stammer. He plops himself down, continuing to cough violently. "Or not." Feeling a great exhaustion hit me, I slump beside my little brother, feeling my breaths becoming shallow.

Dean ignores door-sealing duty to check in on Sam and me. The panic is so clear in his eyes that it almost hurts me: "Sam! Jo! Hey! Listen to me!" The desperation grows in my older brother's voice.

"We're not gonna make it," says Sam.

"No, no, no. There's no quitting here."

"We're never gonna make it." Sam's tone holds the blankness that Deputy Harris' had.

"Sam, listen to me. That's not you talking, it's the fog."

"Is it, though?" My voice has that monotone quality. "Is it, Dean? Did we ever have a shot of beating this?"

"You were gonna choose Amara over me. Over Jo. Over everything," Sam continues.

"Guys, no!"

"Look, I'm sorry." Sam's voice sounds normal. "I didn't mean that, Dean. I can't fight this. You got to go. You have to get out before you're infected."

"You know he won't, Sammy," I whisper. "He's too bull-headed." I cough, covering my mouth as though that's gonna help at this. I chuckle dryly. "You'd choose her over us in a heartbeat. I get it, I do. What are we to her? There's a compulsive bond with her, not with us."

"Jo, knock it off. You know you can fight it, fight damn it!" Dean hisses at me.

"You think I haven't been fighting, Dean? You have no fucking idea." I smile grimly.

"Go before we hurt you!" Sam insists to our big brother.

"No, I'm not leaving you—ever!" Dean snaps.

"Like I said, bull-headed," I murmur. I find myself slumping against Sam, and I'm waiting for us both to hit the floor. Maybe we'll skip the insanity phase. Maybe the infection will kill us before we can kill. It wouldn't be the first time I've killed people who don't deserve it. Maybe I won't be that monster again.

Sam and I continue to grunt, groan, and moan in pain. Sniffling, I reach and intertwine my fingers with Sam's. If we're going out, we're going out of this together, no matter how bloody. I'm on a rhythm when I cough. I breathe, I cough. Breathe, cough. Breathe, cough. There's a rattle in my breathing.

The fog is completely overrunning the room. I can hear the others in the next room, crying out in confusion and worry. I cry silently, thinking of the little girl. My hand trembles, the black veins tattoos are on my arm.

"STOP THIS!" Dean roars at the sky. "YOU HEAR ME, YOU DICK?!"

I close my eyes. The banging and the screaming, it's all stopped. Somehow, I just know I'm on my way out. I can't explain how, I just know that I am. Maybe that's a sign, the silence, that death is close by.

"No. No." Dean sounds like his voice is coming from the other end of a tunnel. I barely feel his hand tapping my face. "Hey, hey look at me. Look at me. I'm right here. I'm right here. Okay, it's okay. It's all right. I'm right here. I'm right here. Jo, hey." His face swims in my vision when I open my eyes.

I squint away from a small bright light. It's not coming from above, but below, peeking out from one of Sam's jacket pockets. I barely lift my head up as Dean fishes out a small trinket necklace. It takes me a moment to recognize it.

It's the amulet Sam had given Dean one Christmas. I hadn't realized (pretty sad, really) that our older brother didn't have it around his neck for the past year or two. (But come on, who takes the time to stare at their brother's neck for a trinket like that?)

"What the...?" I croak. I feel a wave of relief wash over me. I feel like the infection has cleared from my body and my soul, every bit of me. I glance down at my hands, and Sam's.

The black veins are gone.

My mouth parts in a tiny, relieved smile, as I look at my brothers. But I don't understand. We were so close, but now we're not?

The room to the other door opens, and the sheriff and the pedestrians step out, unaffected. Untouched. Unharmed. Safe. The fog has dissipated in the room we're in, too.

It's unexplainable, almost mind boggling, or mind blowing, whichever feels more appropriate for a time like this.

With newfound strength, we Winchesters are on our feet. I stare down at the glowing amulet. As far as I was concerned, that was just a store-bought trinket. Since when did it...? My mind is reeling still, not exactly concentrated enough to think about something like this.

"You don't think...?" I whisper, my question trailing off in the air.

Wordlessly, we exit the police station. The fog has gone. The amulet still glows in Sam's hand. We take our time down the steps. Deputy Harris has no black veins on her and is alive and kicking. Someone, who I assume is her husband (who was originally dead), goes to the deputy to help her up. It's a fuzzy moment when they embrace.

In all the darkness, when all hope seemed lost, a light poked through. Something saved us.

We take our careful time walking down the street. It looks as safe as it had been before the fog rolled around. I notice one pedestrian is slow to get up. I trot to her and help her up, but I'm not the only helper. There's a mousey guy on her other side, with a bunch of facial hair.

"You okay?" he asks the pedestrian. Even his voice sounds a bit on the higher side.

"Thanks," she tells him. She runs over to her mother.

"You don't need to ask me that question," I tell the guy when he looks at me. "I'm...fine."

"I'm Chuck," he says.

"Oh, ha-ha, funny." I side-glance at my brothers, who are staring at the guy—Chuck—I'm talking with. The amulet still glows in Sam's hand. I cock my head to the side in curiosity. "Um, does somebody want to, I don't know, fill me in here?" I find my eyes going between my brothers and Chuck.

My brothers are at a loss for words, which I don't even begin to understand.

"We should probably talk," Chuck tells the three of us.

"You know my brothers?" I ask.

"What the hell's going on here, exactly?" Dean asks.

"I'm happy to...fill in the blanks, but maybe we should go somewhere where we could actually sit down," says Chuck.

"We're not going anywhere with you," I say adamantly. "I think I know better than to go anywhere with a dude I just met."

"Okay," Dean cuts me off, "how do we even know that you're really Chuck and not just some crazy spell or manifest...ation."

I blink, wondering when in the hell we made the transfer—or the ride back—from Idaho to the bunker. Whoa.

I sidestep away from Chuck warily, back towards my brothers. I'm not sure what to make of this guy, exactly. Something's sketchy here.

To make things even weirder, a vaguely familiar face pops out from behind Chuck.

"Kevin?" Sam whispers.

Before us stands Kevin Tran, a kid I only got to meet in ghost form. I don't know much about him, I never did when I got re-introduced to the hunting business. All I know is that Gadreel—the bastard of an angel—used Sam's body to kill Kevin on Metatron's orders.

"Guys!" Kevin greets them. "You're looking stressed. Especially you." That's to Dean. "I-it's cool. Trust Chuck. Whatever it is he needs you to do, he must think you can handle it. I always trusted you."

"Yeah, that ended well," Dean mutters.

"You remember me, Kevin?" I ask timidly. "Jo Winchester, Sam and Dean's sister?"

"You sure?" Kevin looks at me strangely.

"Yeah, yeah, different body," I wave it off. "We've been on that merry-go-round so many times that I'm getting sick of it." I offer him a teeny smile. "Sorry I asked. I could've really messed with you, though."

"How did you—?" Sam sputters to Kevin. "Are you okay, or—uh..."

"Um...Yeah," Kevin says awkwardly, "I mean, you know, given the circumstances."

"Yeah, I don't mean to interrupt," Chuck interrupts. "Kind of a plateful here. And, Kevin...you've been in the Veil long enough. It's time you had an upgrade." He waves his hand, and my mouth drops as Kevin transforms into a ball of light, ascending upwards, disappearing through the ceiling.

"Holy crap," Dean squeaks.

I rub my temples, trying to process this. "Okay, so...that just happened. What exactly is happening here?" I raise an interrogative eyebrow at Chuck. "You said we should talk, start talking."

"Did you want to maybe move it to a place, that's, I don't know, better suited?"

We actually don't move at all; the room we're in has enough places to plant our asses on. Dean takes a seat, leaning on a column, Sam's resting on a chair. Chuck's decided to lean against a wall.

"Look, I know you're still in recovery and all, Josette, but, I thought you would've figured it out by now," Chuck says.

"Figured what—wait, how do you know my name?" My eyes bug. "I never mentioned my name to you."

"It's okay, I'm not—"

"A creep?"

"Could you please let me explain?" He looks slightly exasperated.

"That's what I'd prefer." I cross my arms.

"I'm...well. I'm the big guy upstairs."

I laugh nervously. "Wait...you're saying that you're...?" The look on his face is almost sheepish and bashful. Almost guilty. "Son of a bitch."

**The moment y'all have been waiting for since I told you Legacy was in Season 11 is finally upon us! The big meeting between the Winchesters and the capital G himself!**