Author's Note: Well, here's the third chapter! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. :) Reviews are very welcome!

TRIGGER WARNING: blood, gore, violence, fire.

"What about her body, Dean," Sam murmured at one point, as they were getting ready to check out of their hotel room. "Her and Ellen's bodies…were definitely blown to bits. You had a body to come back to, but she…"

"I've thought about it," Dean replied, cutting Sam off. He hid his face from his brother, turning his body while he grabbed for an invisible object. He had thought about it; Jo's body. Lots of times. Many different ways. "We'd have to have a miracle to get her body back," he added. "A real miracle."

Sam raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to the left. "What are you talking about?"

The older Winchester zipped his duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder, turning towards the door. "I'm going to make a deal, Sam."

Sam twitched. "What?" he said, his voice raised. "Dean—"

"What, Sam?" Dean snarled, rounding on his brother. "A crossroads demon is my last choice. I'm going to make a deal with God."

"You—you know how crazy you sound, right? Dean, you're going insane."

"I am going insane!" Dean wet his lips, glaring at his brother. His grip on the duffel's strap was strained, and he said in a calmer voice, "Every minute I waste debating whether to make a deal with God or a crossroads demon, Jo's getting tortured. I told you already, you can stay out of this if you want, but this is something that I have to do."

"I know," Sam told him, nodding. "But our family making deals with anyone has never gone well."

"Like I said, I know the risks." Dean turned around again, stalking towards the door. "Castiel, you comin'?" he called towards the bathroom. He had no idea what the hell Cas was doing in there, but it didn't really matter. The angel appeared, looking expectant, and Dean nodded. "Let's go, then."

They piled into the Impala, Winchesters in front and angel in back, and Dean drove silently, aimlessly, for about fifteen miles before he looked in his rearview mirror at Castiel. "I need you to contact God, Cas," he said.

"Alright. What do I tell him?" asked Castiel in a gruff voice.

"I imagine if you ask him for Jo's body, he'll give it to you," Dean said tiredly. "Just don't mention me." The angel was silent for a moment, and Dean checked the rearview mirror, staring at Cas's ponderous face. "What is it?" he said, a little too tensely.

"I just remember Anna telling me that she got her vessel's body back after it was destroyed by calling in a few favors," Castiel replied. "I imagine that I could do the same for Jo's body."

"Are you saying that we wouldn't have to contact God?" Sam said, turning in the front seat to look over his shoulder at Castiel. The angel nodded, shrugging a little. "What have you done for somebody to owe you a favor?"

"Stuff," answered Cas, shrugging again. His response merited a raised eyebrow from Dean in the mirror, and Castiel tilted his head to the side, squinting a little at the older Winchester, and said, "Things."

The corners of Dean's mouth turned down as he shook his head and looked out the window, watching a gas station pass by before the town turned into country. He wasn't sure where they were going, yet; maybe Duluth, Montana, where Jo had died, or Nebraska, where she'd lived, for sentiment. Right now he just wanted to put pressure on the gas pedal and think things through with just Sam and Cas in the car; with them present, he wouldn't lose his cool like last time. This time, he wouldn't end up collapsed against a dirty toilet in some run-down motel in Utah.

"Who do you need to speak to, to do that?" Dean asked. He kept his eyes on the road; his fingers itched to turn some AC/DC on and all the way up, but it wouldn't help. The memory of Jo's pale, cold, ghostly hand touching his face before she disappeared was haunting him right that moment, and he could almost feel it as if it were happening then and there.

Without answering, the angel disappeared from the backseat, and Sam wordlessly dug his phone out of his jacket pocket, flipping it open and turning it on. "He'll call us when he's done," he said simply, as if Dean didn't know. Dean nodded once, and Sam continued, "Today I was researching local myths and disappearances, and what sounds like a pack of vampires seems to be in the next town over, a place called Lake Shore, and it sounds kinda serious. Fresh, but serious."

"Yeah. 'Course it's serious, Sam, there're vampires," Dean said, sounding uninterested. "When we get Jo resurrected and safe and sound, we'll go back and take care of it, okay?"

"She'd want to help," Sam said carefully, eyeing his brother. "I know the last thing you want is for her to return to a hunter's life, but…"

"It's my fault, Sammy," Dean grumbled. "At this point, I'd let her tie me up and torture me herself if she asked. I owe it to her."

"It's not your fault," Sam argued, looking shocked. Dean knew he wouldn't have understood. "Dean, Jo was going to do it no matter if you existed or not. You said it yourself. It can't be blamed on anyone that she was there. It was her choice to turn back for you."

"She didn't deserve it," Dean said, as if it would make Sam see. "She didn't deserve a hunter's life. She deserved to go to school and be loved and cared for and happy and she deserved more than someone like me and the life I live but for some reason I'm still desperate to get her back and I don't—"

His breath hitched off as he suddenly stepped on the brakes, allowing a deer to scurry past the Impala's front end just in the nick of time. Clearing his throat, he looked at his brother in the darkness, and gave a soft sigh.

"She deserved better," he told Sam. "So do you."

Sam turned his head away, staring out at the dark roads. It was almost ten o'clock. Shaking his head slowly, he said, "Listen, Dean…you can't take care of everybody. Sometimes people don't always make the right choices, or the choices you want them to make, but you have to consider that – no matter how tough those choices end up making their lives, and how severely it damages them – that they chose what was right for them, and that they're happy. Not always, but some of the time. And that's what counts. I'm not trying to get all cheesy with you, but…Jo wanted this life, and she took it. She didn't listen to anyone, not even you or her mom. It was rough, but it was worth it. Saving people."

Dean bit his lip, pressing down on the gas pedal as they passed a sign that informed them that they were leaving the county. Sam was silent because Dean was silent, and Dean thought that his little brother might think his point had come across. Dean wasn't sure if it had or not.

As they passed another county sign, Dean looked out of his window at the stars, slowing down a little so he could focus on the surrounding area. The trees were misty even in the darkness, and the Impala's headlights lit up the fog. Dean wrinkled his nose and sniffed, wondering how long it had been since Castiel had vanished.

The country spread out before him, his brother, and his car, and the night, which he'd never been afraid of, welcomed him with its cool breezes, deer watching from the ditches, starstruck by the motion and light of the vehicle.

He hated asking Cas to pull another soul out of Hell, especially since the one in question didn't have a body to come back to. Timing was everything right now, Dean knew. Relying on Castiel to carry out a personal mission felt wrong, but Dean was used to using and hurting people. All he wanted was to acquire Jo's body and then her soul, and it was all up to Castiel pleading with his Father.

"I lied to Cas," Dean murmured, more to himself than Sam, but the younger Winchester responded anyway.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, turning slowly towards Dean, obviously coming out of a deep train of thought.

Dean lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug, raised his hand to rub at his lower lip, before saying, "I told him if he did this, it'd restore my faith. My hope in the world, all that."

Sam snorted mirthlessly. "I know that won't happen, Dean. And it's been a long time since Castiel was innocent or naïve. I'll bet he knows, too."

Accepting this information, Dean leaned his head to the side, feeling weary of the situation already. "That makes it worse, some ways."

"No, it doesn't," Sam told him. "It means he thinks of you as a friend."

They rolled to a stop in front of Dewie's Bar in Aspen, Colorado, around three o'clock in the morning. Dean jingled the keys to the Impala in his hand as he stretched outside the car. Ignoring Sam's discouraging remarks about going to a bar at this hour, he swallowed a comeback about Sam's own drinking problem. They were hunters, it was what they did. It didn't matter if it drowned their grief and guilt and trauma all the way – just as long as they went into a stupor for a little while, smudging out the rest of the world under a nice, bronze-colored, bitter-tasting haze.

Sam ordered a beer, watching his brother with worried eyes as Dean finished bottle after bottle, raising his finger every time for more. Even though he knew Castiel wouldn't send a text, he kept checking his phone, wishing that the angel would reappear so Dean had something to focus on. Judging from the look on his brother's face, Sam guessed that Dean was thinking of the Roadhouse, and Jo and Ellen and Ash; their family that had nothing to do with blood relations but still came to a screeching halt with that same blood, which now bathed and enveloped the hands of the Winchesters. Dean blamed himself for all of it, Sam knew.

Sam had his fair share of faults and blames, just as his brother did, but for all the world he wished that Dean would see that some things weren't Dean's fault. Everything Dean couldn't control, every little flaw in the plan, every twist on the path…Dean tortured himself over it tirelessly. Jo getting mauled by the Hellhound, the Roadhouse getting burnt down, Ellen's choice to stay with her daughter and therefore commit suicide…

I love you, Dean, Sam thought, watchful as his brother slumped lower and lower on his bar stool. Soon he'd be hobbling off to the car and throwing Sam the keys, slurring an order to find a motel with a few cuss words mixed in. It's not your fault.

He took the keys wordlessly and followed his slouching, swaying brother to their car, then drove around for twenty-odd minutes, looking for a motel. He wasn't sure if Dean had fallen asleep or had passed out or was just brooding heavily, but all was quiet except for the tinkling sounds of a piano coming from the radio, which was turned down.

Humming along to the tune as if he knew the song, Sam pulled into the parking lot of some run-down motel, parked the Impala, and then walked around and opened Dean's door. Dean slumped out, waking up, and said, "Where the fuck were you?"

Sam raised his eyebrows. "I've been sitting next to you this entire time, Dean."

"Just shut up," Dean said, waving a hand and pinching the bridge of his nose. "There's acid in my stomach."

"No, there's not, you just got drunk without eating anything first and now your body's dealing with that," Sam told him, rolling his eyes. Grabbing Dean's arm, he hoisted his brother up and said, "I'm gonna get us a room, and you're going to remain silent and stand behind me, okay? We don't wanna get turned away because you had fifty beers."

"Whatever," Dean slurred, frowning. "Just as long as I get the top bunk."

"Okay," Sam said, shaking his head.

In the dream, Dean was sitting in an empty, circular room. It was dank and charcoal-colored; he sat near the center of the floor, cross-legged, as if he were meditating. His eyes were open and his hands were on his knees; it appeared he was waiting for something. Facing the opposite wall, he rolled his head to one side, and then the other.

She appeared.

He didn't jump when she materialized in front of him; instead he met her dark, brown eyes and nodded his greeting to her. Her face was pale, as it had been when she was forced to testify against him by Osiris, and she was naked; gritty, as if she'd just been taken off the rack. This idea made him falter: she probably had just been taken off the rack.

"Dean," she said, as if it were a warning. "We have to go."

"Take your time," he said, then as an afterthought: "No, don't." Shaking his head, he said, "I can't choose."

"I understand," she told him, nodding and placing her hands on her knees; mimicking his position. "But you have to. Heaven or Hell, Dean?"

"Can I choose both?" he asked, laughing a little and rolling his head around again. She stared at him with blank eyes. "There's things for me in both places."

"What's for you in Heaven?" she asked, but it wasn't a bitter question. "What's for you in Hell?"

"In Heaven, there's God. And I can make deals with God. In Hell, there's you."

"Is the only reason you want to go to Heaven so you can make deals with God?" she asked sardonically. "Or do you enjoy interrogating the residents as well?"

"I'd like to go to Heaven because when I'm done, I'll be done, and it seems like a nicer place than Hell," he said quickly, shaking his head. "But I need to go there now so I can make a deal. Or two."

Rolling her eyes, Jo nodded, and suddenly, they were in a hotel room, with magazines lying on the bed and the television turned on to HBO. She cleared her throat, wiping her hands on her jeans; she was now wearing the clothes that she had died in: the light green jacket, the gray v-neck shirt. Her hair was curled slightly, and she looked embarrassed.

"What is it?" Dean asked, swallowing hard so he wouldn't react visibly to the image of her the day she'd died. At least there was no blood on her side. That would've killed him more than it had killed her.

She looked down, eyebrows rising, and laughed. "This is, uh, my Heaven. Like Ash's is the Roadhouse."

"How do you know Ash's is the Roadhouse?" Dean asked, confused. She was supposed to be in Hell and Hell alone, with no knowledge of anything other than the rack and the other souls.

She shrugged. "We're in your head, Dean. I know everything you know."

"Will you know everything I know when I resurrect you?" Now it was him rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans, afraid of the answer.

"No," she said simply. "I'm just a figment of your imagination, now. A carrier, I guess. For the thoughts you don't want to think, can't think, even in your dreams."

He nodded shyly. "Oh," he said, as if he understood; he didn't, really, but that wasn't what mattered right now. "Why's this your Heaven?" he asked, striving for a new topic. They were waiting for someone, but he couldn't remember who.

Jo chuckled. "Because this is where I was happy," she told him. "This hotel is in New Mexico. I was hunting, with my mom. She was okay with me hunting by then. She was happy with me, even. And that phone," she pointed to a shotty looking phone, black with a cord, on the side table, "is the phone that rang that night. I picked it up, and it was Bobby on the other end, saying that some angel had grabbed your ass out of Hell, and that you were alive. That night…even if I hadn't seen you…I could feel you, back on Earth. And…" Her words trailed off, and she looked at him, blinking back misty eyes and smiling.

Dean's heart felt warm for a few moments before he remembered that this was all just a dream. Jo's Heaven was probably the Roadhouse, with Ash and Ellen and Bobby and Jo's father, Bill. It made sense. He even imagined that he'd be miles away, with Sam; out of sight, out of mind for Jo.

That was okay with him. It just mattered, now, that they got down to business. Making a gruff noise, he rolled his shoulders and said, "Where's God?" Ah, that's who they were waiting for. He wondered why he'd forgotten.

"I'm right here," said a discreet-looking man with a beard and glasses. He was wearing a secondhand business suit, holding a plunger and a suitcase, and looking for all the world like he was miserable. "And I'm cranky, so hurry up and tell me what you want, Dean Winchester."

"What happened to your vessel?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. God didn't respond, so he went on, "I'm here to make a deal."

"That much is obvious," Jo muttered at his side. "Why else would you be here?"

Dean gulped. He didn't know. He definitely wasn't going to come to Heaven when his life was over. He definitely wasn't here to take a tour because he was one of next year's freshmen.

"I want Jo's body," he demanded, planting his feet on the ground and fixing the man in the suit with a determined stare.

God shrugged, smirking. "That much is obvious," he said. "We're in your head, Dean."

Dean nodded, ignoring the innuendo although that was true as well, and said, "How do I get it?" He was prepared to do anything, kill anything.

"You already have it," God replied, gazing at Dean as if he knew all the secrets of the universe…and technically, he did, didn't he? Dean's eyebrows furrowed at the thought, and he hated the way God's eyes gleamed with knowledge.

Dean's brain clicked at the response and he said, "Cas."

God's head dipped in one slow nod, beard and glasses looking so out of place on such a tiny man. "Go. Run back to Earth before your brothers forget your existence."

Dean shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, and when he looked back to God, the man had disappeared. Spinning, Dean's eyes wildly searched for Jo, but she had left as well. His shoulders slumped, and he noticed that he was now standing in the ghost town that Sam had been taken to, all those years ago.

"Sam?" he called out of habit, or instinct, or habit. "Sam, you here?"

"I'm here," Sam called, but it was a distant, muffled voice.

Dean tried to locate his brother, glancing around himself and raising his hands to his gun, holstered to his side like some western novel. His eyes felt bleary and then he was being shaken, as if a ghost was pushing him and pushing him until he fell backwards, floating in midair for what seemed like ages, before falling back into his own body, in another hotel in another city, and awakening with a jolt.

"I'm here," Sam said from his side, his hand on Dean's shoulder. "You were saying my name in your sleep."

Dean sat up, slightly embarrassed. "What else did I say?"

"Jo."

He nodded, rubbing his temples with his fingers. "What time is it?"

"Seven in the morning. Cas isn't back yet," Sam said carefully, not sure how much longer Dean would be patient.

"He'll be back today," Dean said with a nod. At Sam's confused eyebrow, he said, "Let's just say I had a prophetic dream."

Castiel appeared around two in the afternoon, looking breathless but not panting. His wide blue eyes found Dean's narrow green ones instantly, and he said in his gruff voice, "You went to see God. In Heaven."

Dean, who had been watching television, stared at him for a moment, and Sam, who had been looking up nearby occurrences on his computer, stared at Dean. "Dean?" Sam asked in a tone that was somewhere between oh god what have you done and explain yourself. Sam recalled that Dean had said he'd had a prophetic dream. "This morning?" he questioned.

The older Winchester's mouth had been parted slightly, but now it closed and the corners pointed down as he shrugged. "I thought it was just a dream. But yeah, uh, I guess I did talk to God this morning – or last night."

Castiel nodded, a faint smile growing on his face. "Well, we have God's blessing. I don't suppose he told you that."

Dean shook his head. "And you have the…body?" he asked, looking away towards the wall and focusing on the ugly painting that hung over Sam's bed. Don't get emotional, Dean, you're working.

"All ready, when you're ready," Castiel replied. "I, uh, found a coffin for her." He rubbed his hands together as if he were preparing himself.

Dean nodded, blinking. "Well, now's good." He found himself short of breath, as if the promise of having her returned to him had come too quickly and knocked the air out of him. He stood too quickly and the blood rushed to his head, but he didn't care because he was heading straight for Castiel. "Where is she?" he asked, rubbing his hands together anxiously.

Sam's cell phone rang. Two pairs of eyes turned to the younger Winchester as he pulled out his cell phone, checked the caller ID, then flipped it open and held it to his ear. "Garth," he said. "Uh, hi. What's up?"

Brow furrowing, Dean crossed his arms and turned towards his brother, watching Sam's expression change from confused to amused to troubled.

Sam nodded in agreement to something Garth said, eyeing his brother and shrugging. "Yeah, uh, we're in Colorado. Aspen. Yeah, yeah. No, we're not hunting. Okay yes, we're always hunting, but not right this second. No. We're resurrecting somebody. Did Bobby ever tell you about a family named Harvelle? Yeah, the daughter. Jo Harvelle. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, bye."

He closed the phone, sighing heavily. "He's in Nebraska. There's some werewolf running rampant and he doesn't think he's capable of…Garthing it without some backup."

"Meaning you and me," Dean said. "I'll do it. How long can he wait?" Garth was a good guy. Weird, but good. Not the type Dean would've pegged for a hunter, but he got the job done and did it well.

"He's going out again tonight," Sam replied.

Dean checked the clock that sat on the night table, giving a small, patterned tick tock. Nodding, he said, "Well, let's get this show on the road, then. We only have 'til midnight. Ten hours to drive there and get ready…yeah."

They brought the coffin into the room and rested it on the floor, and Sam stood behind Dean as Dean sat on the floor, leaning over it. Opening the coffin, Dean looked at the pale, unmoving body that God had so wonderfully restored. Taking her hand in his, he allowed tears to roll down his cheeks before inconspicuously scrubbing them away. He remembered clawing his way out of his grave and gripped her hand tightly, hoping that even in Hell, she would feel it and realize she was going to be okay.

"So it's now or never, huh?" Sam asked quietly, dipping his head down and shoving his phone back in his pocket. "I feel like it's not gonna work, Dean."

Dean turned around and clapped him on the foot. "We've got God's blessing, Sam. This has to work. It's about time you had a little faith."

The criss-crossed iron of the rack pressed against her chest and her stomach, searing into her flesh even though she technically didn't have a body. She felt the pain, the scorching, scalding metal digging and burning into her shoulders and breasts, making the skin below her belly button seem to sizzle. The tops of her thighs burned and her knees were good and charred, and she smelled the horrendous scent of burning flesh all around her, rising up in black smoke and putrid steam.

She screamed so hard her throat hurt, screamed until it was raw and she tasted blood. When she lost the energy to scream, she whimpered hoarsely, wailing and thrashing against the chains that bound her to the rack, splaying her arms and legs out and away from each other like an 'X'.

Resting her cheek against the hot iron, she spit blood through an opening in the criss-crosses of the rack, watching it bubble on the red-brown ground below her. Her back was exposed and the welts opened and closed with every breath that heaved through her body. She felt something tighten around her right hand, like another hand gripping hers, but when she looked, nothing was there.

Another lash came and lit her entire being on fire; she clawed at the metal and let out another ear-splitting screech, her eyes reflecting the flames of Hell that appeared when her nerve endings screamed. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks and she tasted blood again, this time from having been hit so hard that her teeth had clacked and she'd bitten her tongue.

After Osiris' failed stint, her soul had been cast into Hell, supposedly by Osiris himself merely out of spite. She didn't remember where she had roamed before; it had been too long. She was whipped again and her vision went white before fading back into red. Every day, she was hit one more time than the day before, if they could be considered days. The worst days were when she lost count of the lashes.

Her forehead was surely black from being scorched against the iron for so long; her wrists were bleeding and so were her ankles. Her entire back was weeping blood, and it seeped past her bottom and down the backs of her thighs, red-hot as if she were roasting from the inside. Feeling herself go faint, she wondered if today she might die – really die – and escape everything for good. It was a nice fantasy, one that flooded her mind when she lost all of her senses on the rack.

She drifted away into her fantasy, her throat whipping out bloodcurdling cries every time she was struck. Her body seemed to be on autopilot, primal and terrified. She'd soiled herself so many times on the rack, and others had too, that it smelled revolting aside from the smell of burnt flesh.

Slowly, starting at a barely-audible whisper and then rising in a crescendo, she heard a lullaby begin playing, somewhere distant. Raising her head with her ears switching to only the lullaby's frequency, she found the melody and listened to it. It sounded like a church's choir, young male sopranos singing out in a heavenly chorus.

Frowning, she tried to turn her head but the whip nearly struck her neck; flinching, she cowered against the rack and wailed. The chorus grew louder, as if she were sitting in the church pews while the boys were practicing their songs; they sang out, the most beautiful song she'd ever heard. Gasping, her tears turned cold and she cried heavily, listening carefully as music joined the voices; an orchestra full of violins passionately hitting high notes, dramatic and euphoric and wondrous.

She lifted her head again and her ears began to bleed. Her mind would not let go of the song. She stared up at the dark red-orange clouds above her, tears streaming down her face, her neck, her chest. The crusted blood on her back cracked with her movement, and she felt her soul resonate so profoundly that her body was almost weakened beyond anything the whips could do.

Pushing herself upward, she felt her greasy, sweaty hair fall over one shoulder as she propped herself up against her palms, staring at the sky as if she were seeing Heaven. Her eyes widened and the blood vessels in them popped; like her ears, her eyes began to bleed as she searched the clouds, feeling the voices in the choir call her name.

Her pale face was wistful, and she was struck again, but she picked herself up again. The chorus was almost deafening; its loveliness seemingly only heard by her. The beauty of it erased all the other screams and cries around her, and she saw a light, like the sun, form in the clouds. Her heart leapt in her chest, and she wept so hard she shook.

She felt more than saw the hand as it came down; it was see-through but outlined by constellations, shimmering and strange. It was bigger than she was but she wasn't afraid; all fear abandoned her body as she welcomed it towards first she thought Death had come to greet her, but this was not how Death worked.

Closing her eyes, she felt the voices and the strings of the chorus reverberate in her bones, making her entire body vibrate, and her heart thrum with a beautiful sense of wholeness. The angels kept singing and her body felt pure again as the fingers of the giant hand closed around her, and as quickly as contact was made, her shackles shattered.

She smiled, tears shimmering in the hand's starlight, and she felt her soul lift with it as it ascended back into the heavens. Everything grew brighter and brighter, and she smiled so hard that the muscles in her face ached.

A quiet, low voice spoke above all the choirs and the orchestras, loud and melodic itself. "Joanna Harvelle," it murmured, lovely and adoring. "You are saved."