memento vivere - supernatural & criminal minds

chapter 7

Chapter 7
Once a Hunter

Jude sat on the edge of her desk as she sang along to the team's extremely off-key rendition of 'Happy Birthday' for Spencer. A massive chocolate cake with twenty-four candles sat on his desk - trick candles, an evil idea of Morgan's - and a plush birthday cake hat was shoved on his head. Jude had gone to three stores for the hat for the express purpose of using the photo of him in it for blackmail.

She fished the first part of Spencer's gift from her bag and ate her cake while she waited for him to open it. The noise that left him could only be described as a squeal and Jude beamed while he admired his perfect replica of the fourth Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver.

His birthday was on October twenty-eighth, so the second part of his gift was a Halloween movie marathon with Jude and Penelope that weekend. They'd decided to make it an annual tradition after last year's incident in which he'd told them he'd never watched Hocus Pocus. Penelope, in her shock, had launched a plate of cookies clean across Jude's apartment. There was still a dent in her wall from the impact.

***

Jude was doing paperwork when she got the call.

She was halfway through her third cup of coffee, though the caffeine had done little more than make her restless. She almost wept with joy at this interruption, which would be to everyone's benefit. Morgan, her desk partner, had a habit of clicking his pen while he worked and Jude had been considering jamming it into his eye.

Jude left her desk and wedged herself in the corner of the kitchenette, twirling a coffee stirrer in her free hand. She squinted at the unfamiliar caller ID and picked up. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jude."

The coffee stirrer snapped in half. "Fuck."

"What, not happy to hear from me? I'm a little hurt, I won't lie."

"What do you want?" Jude snapped, tossing the wood fragments in the garbage.

"So nice to hear from you, Dean. How've you been?" he mocked in his gravelly Kansas drawl. It had deepened in the ten years since she'd last heard it.

Jude closed her eyes, rubbing her thumb to her temple. Any length of conversation with Dean Winchester was enough to give anyone a headache. "Sorry, yes, it is good to hear from you, but..." Jude exited the kitchen with what she hoped was an air of nonchalance, leaving the glass doors to the bullpen swinging behind her. She took up residence beside a potted plant and tried to look inconspicuous. "We haven't talked since before I left the family business, and I can't believe you'd make a decade-late social call." For all intents and purposes, her family's business was pest control - it wasn't all that far from the truth. "How'd you get this number, anyway?"

Dean went quiet. Jude heard him sigh, crackling through her speaker. "My dad found it, he said it was for emergencies only."

"This is about him, isn't it?"

"You always know," Dean laughed, and she could almost see him shake his head. She'd spent countless nights locked in motel rooms with him and his brother. If anyone could read the Winchester boys better than each other, it was Jude. "He went on a solo hunt and I haven't heard from him in a long time. Too long."

Jude sighed, failing to hide her frustration. "Dean, you can't be serious-"

"Look, I know how it sounds, okay? Trust me. But this time it's different. I think he may have also been chasing a lead on the thing that killed my mom."

Jude's lips formed a soft, "Oh." Dean hummed quietly in her ear, giving her a moment to think. "Wait, did you contact me before Sam?" Silence. He hadn't counted on her knowing that his brother had been at Stanford University for two years. "Dean."