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Commentary: The Haunting of Jessica Moore
Writing The Haunting of Jessica Moore was an interesting experience. I found myself struggling to remember my own student-days, and working really hard to portray the kind of female friendships that, being fundamentally anti-social, I never really experienced myself.
These are just my own musings on the story and what I hope people will find in it.
Setting and Inspiration
This story is inspired by two classic novels: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is quoted at the beginning of the story and will be an obvious influence to anyone who is familiar with it. My story outline is kind of an inverted version of Shirley Jackson's novel. Her characters come to Hill House with the intention of investigating the paranormal phenomena there; my characters are simply on vacation with no idea what is to come. The appearance of a new character who (falsely?) considers herself a paranormal expert happens partway through The Haunting of Hill House; in my version that character is Dean who doesn't talk himeslf up as an expert, but in fact is one. Shirley Jackson's characters recognise the danger and try to get Eleanor to leave; my characters are fairly oblivious until it's too late.
The other big influence is Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca: the cliffside setting of the house is an homage to Manderley and Claire's made-up ghost on the cliff (just a passing mention in this story) hints of Rebecca. Both of my influences feature an intimidating female housekeeper...a detail I felt was best left out of this story :). Despite those inspirations, though, the characters I'm writing about and the story are firmly rooted in Supernatural canon.
When I first began writing SPN fanfic, I wanted to write a story in which Sam's college friends wanted to spend a weekend in a supposedly haunted house. Would Sam go with them? If he did, would he risk "blowing his cover" by trying to protect them? If something ghostly happened, how would Sam deal with it? But the time never seemed right to write that story. It wasn't until I hit on the idea of writing it from Jessica's perspective that it really became clear in my mind.
Background to the story
It's a Supernatural fanfic, but it's set pre-canon, which means the huge pressures on the boys during the series are just not there. The story is written with an eye to that future, so the reader will be aware that Sam's life at Stanford isn't as perfect as it seems, and hopefully will know from his first appearance that Brady is a demon sent by Azazel to watch Sam. For me, at least, a key aspect of the tragedy in this story is knowing what the future holds for Jessica, Sam and Dean. But none of that is actually in the fic: it's just in my mind as I wrote it, and I'm assuming that most readers will be familiar enough with SPN canon to be aware of it, too.
The story is written, all but the epilogue, in Jessica's POV, third-person-limited. Meaning, nothing goes into the story that Jessica doesn't witness. In one sense, this is demanding a lot of the reader, because I do expect the reader to be able fill in a lot of things that Jessica doesn't know. For instance, after the first supernatural disturbance at night, Sam leaves his bed. Jessica assumes he's going to the bathroom; I expect the reader to realise he's going to check out what he's heard. Similarly, I expect the reader to be able to decode the cryptic conversations between Sam and Dean, even though Jessica can't. So, yeah, I'm asking a lot of the reader.
But for me as the writer, I found it simultaneously freeing and challenging. Do you know how much fun it is to write SPN without guns? Dean is present in the fic, as is the Impala, but Jessica never sees the arsenal in the trunk and has no idea Dean is probably packing a gun the whole time. So I don't get to mention it. No doubt "offscreen" Dean's walking around the haunted house with a rock-salt loaded sawn-off, but since Jessica has no idea, there's no way of including that in the story. Oh, I put in a throwaway mention in the context of Jess dismissing an idea that's way more accurate than she knows, but that's it. No guns.
This suits me very well. True heroes should not wave guns around: it makes them unheroic. (As a Brit I need not subscribe to the moronic 'right to bear arms' and Hercules, The Doctor and Buffy agree with me, so I reckon I'm in good company on this.)
Ghost Stories
Sam tells the story of the "Great Amherst Mystery". It's a very famous haunting; I first came across it when I was about 12 in a book titled something like The World's Greatest Ghosts. So it's a safe story for Sam to tell: it wouldn't be strange for him to know about it. But it's also a story that ties into canon in a small way: in the SPN pilot, Sam cites "the poltergeist in Amherst" as another occasion when John vanished without a trace for a while. Since it's unlikely John Winchester was in 1878, presumably the same poltergeist resurfaced in the twentieth century and came to John's attention.
Claire's ghost story is a re-telling of one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies; it isn't important which one. The point, from a characterisation perspective, is that what scares her is nightmares, not the supernatural.
Dean's werewolf story is, of course, entirely true, although I suspect he took credit for John's part in that hunt as well as his own. He simply couldn't resist telling a story that would embarrass Sam in front of his friends, and poor Sam can't object without giving away that the story isn't fictional.
Brady instigates the ghost stories but does not tell one himself. He's gathering information about the others. I did think about the kind of story he would tell. For me, it would have to be something that hints at his true demonic nature: if he was going to poach from a movie it would be something in the genre of Saw or Hostel. Or perhaps Doctor Faustus. But that's why I ultimately chose not to include Brady's ghost story: I didn't want to make Sam and Dean look stupid for failing to pick up on that clue.
Jessica's choice of "ghost story" illustrates the contradictions in her character. It is borrowed from The Company of Wolves, Neil Jordan's film based on Angela Carter's book, but it's not an accurate retelling of the story in the movie. Jessica's version is sweet and romantic: her werewolf is not a monster, but a victim in need of help and deserving of sympathy. And yet her conclusion, which warns of monsters lurking behind a sweet smile, doesn't reflect the story itself. She warns, but doesn't understand her own warning.
Jessica
Jessica is a canon character but we know so little about her that anyone giving her a prominent role in a long fic is practically creating an original character. Really, the only canon we have on Jessica is the pilot episode: every other time she has appeared in canon she's been a vision or a dream. The details we know are pretty sparse. There's a suggestion that she's an artist (if you look closely in the pilot, you can see artist's equipment in the apartment where she lives with Sam), so I've gone with that. We know she's a typical student in that she enjoys parties and fun from the Halloween scene and that she drags a reluctant Sam to the party. We know she was very supportive of Sam's academic ambitions because her primary argument against him leaving with Dean is the law school interview he risks missing. And that's about it. Oh, and she bakes cookies.
This story is set at the beginning of Jessica's relationship with Sam so much of the above became irrelevant. My characterisation of Jessica is based more on the kind of women we've seen Sam is attracted to than anything we've actually seen of Jessica herself. Sam's women are mostly strong-minded and independent (even the suicidal Madison was, in her way, quite determined). Although he has strong protective instincts, Sam likes women who don't need him. So that's where I went with "my" Jessica. She's an average girl who just wants to have fun. She's strong in a crisis, but she really feels it when the crisis is over. She likes to take care of people. She's creative. I also ran with the cookies thing and gave her a love of cooking in general; this also seemed to me consistent as a quality in someone Sam would fall in love with; at this point in his life (when he's chasing that "normal" life) it makes sense to me that his ideal woman would have some "50's housewife" qualities.
If Jessica comes across as too perfect that's certainly not my intention. We are all "Mary Sue" in our own story and this story is very much in Jessica's perspective. She may fail to notice (or even mention) her own faults but that doesn't mean she's faultless. Her reaction to the supernatural mystery is inconsistent, she's a pretty harsh judge of Adrianne's belief in the supernatural, yet she almost encourages it in Claire. She is furious with Sam for failing to tell her the truth yet she never discussed her own suspicions about Brady with him and thus bears some responsibility for what happens in the end (and, by extension, for what will happen in the canon-future), as she could have provided Sam and Dean with the clue that would have solved the mystery. But in her POV, these aren't faults or failings in her.
Brady
Demon!Brady's appearance in season five was the last component I needed to make this a story worth writing. It changed the "reality" of the plot from a ghost story to the beginning of Sam's overall story arc, though again, this isn't made explicit in the story. Is there really a poltergeist at the house? I think the reader can interpret it that way, but in my mind it's all Brady trying to mindfuck Sam. Sam's ghost story on the first night provided him with the inspiration: the rest is Demon!Brady's attempt to provoke Sam into revealing himself as a hunter. He feigns poltergeist activity so Sam won't suspect a demon and discover him. Claire's accident on the cliff may or may not be his work; as the writer I am honestly not certain. Claire's death, though, is certainly his work.
Brady is an interesting character. What's clear from canon is that he was already close to Sam before he was possessed; the demon had to maintain that friendship and conceal his true nature from Sam. We know - again from canon - that he succeeded on both counts: Sam never suspected his friend was a demon. I had to maintain that in my story. So I had to assume that demon!Brady is very good indeed at playing human. No one, not even Dean, would suspect he's anything but what he appears: a college kid. I figure he's from a very wealthy background because I don't see any other way he could have become CEO of a major drug company in only five years, demon or not. That company had to be a family business, which would mean Brady probably had a few million tucked into a trust fund even as a student.
Why did he target Claire and not Jessica? As the seance says, because it's fun. I think demon!Brady is tired of pretending to be her friend; a pretence he has to keep up because his orders are to watch Sam and that means being as human as possible. But Claire isn't part of the master plan: she serves no purpose for Brady or Azazel, she's just a remnant of human!Brady's life. So playing with her and ultimately killing her is just getting rid of an inconvenience. I've hinted at something a bit more sinister between them; I was thinking of the stalker/rapist mentality where a man considers he has a right to a woman's body for no other reason than he wants it. That seems to me a logical attitude for a demon to take and might be a secondary motive for Brady to target Claire: she turned him down and he doesn't like that one bit.
Alternate Universe or Canon?
I started out with the intention of keeping the story canon-compliant, but that would have meant leaving out Dean's appearance and I quickly realised I needed him. So while I've stayed as close to canon as I could, the story is AU. The main divergence from canon is Dean's appearance: in the SPN pilot episode, it's quite clear that Jessica and Dean have never met before, though she's aware of his existence. In this story, set prior to that time, they meet and interact enough that there's no way she wouldn't recognise him two years later. It wouldn't add anything to invent some spurious memory loss for Jessica to maintain that consistency with canon, so it's AU. But that led to another significant change: by the end of this story, Jessica knows far more about the supernatural and Sam's family history than canon-Jessica knew. In the pilot, when Dean asks if Jessica knows, Sam insists she doesn't and that he won't tell her. Certainly, when Dean mentions hunting he ensures Jess won't hear the rest of the conversation. This doesn't preculde Jessica knowing some things: Sam could have been lying to Dean (though I think that's unlikely) and Jessica probably knew only Sam's "official version" of his family history, which would have excluded anything supernatural. But I have no doubt that Sam, like Jo Harvelle, was unable to conceal himself completely. Canon-Jessica must have realised, at the very least, that there was more to her boyfriend than met the eye.
In this story, Jessica is a witness to supernatural events. Much of what happens she can ignore or explain away, but ultimately I think it would have made her look foolish in the extreme to reach the end of this story and remain oblivious. I didn't want my Jessica to be a fool. A sceptic, yes, and if she clings to her scepticism in the face of evidence the reader may see that as stupidity. But at the end she had to accept it. So I chose to take that other fork from canon.
In terms of the possible future for Sam and Jess, this is the change that has the most AU potential: if Jessica knew the truth about Sam, is it not possible her fate could have changed? I think not, given the role we know demon-Brady played in her death. It was Sam's choice not to protect her in spite of his prophetic visions, that determined Jessica's fate, not her knowledge or lack of it.
So will this version of Jess still die in a ceiling fire? I honestly don't know. It's possible a bit more honesty in her relationship with Sam would be enough to change things. It's possible that her own knowledge acquired in this story would save her: I hope the reader will notice that Brady did not in fact cross the salt line into the bedroom - he couldn't. He talked the girls into leaving the safe room. Dean only knows the three went downstairs together, so he mistakenly reported to John that they were all in the protected room.
I think there are two ways Jessica's story could go after this fic. If Sam's decision to reject his family once again holds, and Jessica goes along with that, they're both walking into the future largely as we saw it in canon. On the other hand, if Sam and Jessica's relationship is more honest from this point onward, I would think that they have a chance of avoiding her canon-fate. Perhaps even of identifying Brady before it's too late. I don't know, but I'm fond of this Jessica; I'd like to think that in this 'verse, she'll survive.
These are just my own musings on the story and what I hope people will find in it.
Setting and Inspiration
This story is inspired by two classic novels: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is quoted at the beginning of the story and will be an obvious influence to anyone who is familiar with it. My story outline is kind of an inverted version of Shirley Jackson's novel. Her characters come to Hill House with the intention of investigating the paranormal phenomena there; my characters are simply on vacation with no idea what is to come. The appearance of a new character who (falsely?) considers herself a paranormal expert happens partway through The Haunting of Hill House; in my version that character is Dean who doesn't talk himeslf up as an expert, but in fact is one. Shirley Jackson's characters recognise the danger and try to get Eleanor to leave; my characters are fairly oblivious until it's too late.
The other big influence is Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca: the cliffside setting of the house is an homage to Manderley and Claire's made-up ghost on the cliff (just a passing mention in this story) hints of Rebecca. Both of my influences feature an intimidating female housekeeper...a detail I felt was best left out of this story :). Despite those inspirations, though, the characters I'm writing about and the story are firmly rooted in Supernatural canon.
When I first began writing SPN fanfic, I wanted to write a story in which Sam's college friends wanted to spend a weekend in a supposedly haunted house. Would Sam go with them? If he did, would he risk "blowing his cover" by trying to protect them? If something ghostly happened, how would Sam deal with it? But the time never seemed right to write that story. It wasn't until I hit on the idea of writing it from Jessica's perspective that it really became clear in my mind.
Background to the story
It's a Supernatural fanfic, but it's set pre-canon, which means the huge pressures on the boys during the series are just not there. The story is written with an eye to that future, so the reader will be aware that Sam's life at Stanford isn't as perfect as it seems, and hopefully will know from his first appearance that Brady is a demon sent by Azazel to watch Sam. For me, at least, a key aspect of the tragedy in this story is knowing what the future holds for Jessica, Sam and Dean. But none of that is actually in the fic: it's just in my mind as I wrote it, and I'm assuming that most readers will be familiar enough with SPN canon to be aware of it, too.
The story is written, all but the epilogue, in Jessica's POV, third-person-limited. Meaning, nothing goes into the story that Jessica doesn't witness. In one sense, this is demanding a lot of the reader, because I do expect the reader to be able fill in a lot of things that Jessica doesn't know. For instance, after the first supernatural disturbance at night, Sam leaves his bed. Jessica assumes he's going to the bathroom; I expect the reader to realise he's going to check out what he's heard. Similarly, I expect the reader to be able to decode the cryptic conversations between Sam and Dean, even though Jessica can't. So, yeah, I'm asking a lot of the reader.
But for me as the writer, I found it simultaneously freeing and challenging. Do you know how much fun it is to write SPN without guns? Dean is present in the fic, as is the Impala, but Jessica never sees the arsenal in the trunk and has no idea Dean is probably packing a gun the whole time. So I don't get to mention it. No doubt "offscreen" Dean's walking around the haunted house with a rock-salt loaded sawn-off, but since Jessica has no idea, there's no way of including that in the story. Oh, I put in a throwaway mention in the context of Jess dismissing an idea that's way more accurate than she knows, but that's it. No guns.
This suits me very well. True heroes should not wave guns around: it makes them unheroic. (As a Brit I need not subscribe to the moronic 'right to bear arms' and Hercules, The Doctor and Buffy agree with me, so I reckon I'm in good company on this.)
Ghost Stories
Sam tells the story of the "Great Amherst Mystery". It's a very famous haunting; I first came across it when I was about 12 in a book titled something like The World's Greatest Ghosts. So it's a safe story for Sam to tell: it wouldn't be strange for him to know about it. But it's also a story that ties into canon in a small way: in the SPN pilot, Sam cites "the poltergeist in Amherst" as another occasion when John vanished without a trace for a while. Since it's unlikely John Winchester was in 1878, presumably the same poltergeist resurfaced in the twentieth century and came to John's attention.
Claire's ghost story is a re-telling of one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies; it isn't important which one. The point, from a characterisation perspective, is that what scares her is nightmares, not the supernatural.
Dean's werewolf story is, of course, entirely true, although I suspect he took credit for John's part in that hunt as well as his own. He simply couldn't resist telling a story that would embarrass Sam in front of his friends, and poor Sam can't object without giving away that the story isn't fictional.
Brady instigates the ghost stories but does not tell one himself. He's gathering information about the others. I did think about the kind of story he would tell. For me, it would have to be something that hints at his true demonic nature: if he was going to poach from a movie it would be something in the genre of Saw or Hostel. Or perhaps Doctor Faustus. But that's why I ultimately chose not to include Brady's ghost story: I didn't want to make Sam and Dean look stupid for failing to pick up on that clue.
Jessica's choice of "ghost story" illustrates the contradictions in her character. It is borrowed from The Company of Wolves, Neil Jordan's film based on Angela Carter's book, but it's not an accurate retelling of the story in the movie. Jessica's version is sweet and romantic: her werewolf is not a monster, but a victim in need of help and deserving of sympathy. And yet her conclusion, which warns of monsters lurking behind a sweet smile, doesn't reflect the story itself. She warns, but doesn't understand her own warning.
Jessica
Jessica is a canon character but we know so little about her that anyone giving her a prominent role in a long fic is practically creating an original character. Really, the only canon we have on Jessica is the pilot episode: every other time she has appeared in canon she's been a vision or a dream. The details we know are pretty sparse. There's a suggestion that she's an artist (if you look closely in the pilot, you can see artist's equipment in the apartment where she lives with Sam), so I've gone with that. We know she's a typical student in that she enjoys parties and fun from the Halloween scene and that she drags a reluctant Sam to the party. We know she was very supportive of Sam's academic ambitions because her primary argument against him leaving with Dean is the law school interview he risks missing. And that's about it. Oh, and she bakes cookies.
This story is set at the beginning of Jessica's relationship with Sam so much of the above became irrelevant. My characterisation of Jessica is based more on the kind of women we've seen Sam is attracted to than anything we've actually seen of Jessica herself. Sam's women are mostly strong-minded and independent (even the suicidal Madison was, in her way, quite determined). Although he has strong protective instincts, Sam likes women who don't need him. So that's where I went with "my" Jessica. She's an average girl who just wants to have fun. She's strong in a crisis, but she really feels it when the crisis is over. She likes to take care of people. She's creative. I also ran with the cookies thing and gave her a love of cooking in general; this also seemed to me consistent as a quality in someone Sam would fall in love with; at this point in his life (when he's chasing that "normal" life) it makes sense to me that his ideal woman would have some "50's housewife" qualities.
If Jessica comes across as too perfect that's certainly not my intention. We are all "Mary Sue" in our own story and this story is very much in Jessica's perspective. She may fail to notice (or even mention) her own faults but that doesn't mean she's faultless. Her reaction to the supernatural mystery is inconsistent, she's a pretty harsh judge of Adrianne's belief in the supernatural, yet she almost encourages it in Claire. She is furious with Sam for failing to tell her the truth yet she never discussed her own suspicions about Brady with him and thus bears some responsibility for what happens in the end (and, by extension, for what will happen in the canon-future), as she could have provided Sam and Dean with the clue that would have solved the mystery. But in her POV, these aren't faults or failings in her.
Brady
Demon!Brady's appearance in season five was the last component I needed to make this a story worth writing. It changed the "reality" of the plot from a ghost story to the beginning of Sam's overall story arc, though again, this isn't made explicit in the story. Is there really a poltergeist at the house? I think the reader can interpret it that way, but in my mind it's all Brady trying to mindfuck Sam. Sam's ghost story on the first night provided him with the inspiration: the rest is Demon!Brady's attempt to provoke Sam into revealing himself as a hunter. He feigns poltergeist activity so Sam won't suspect a demon and discover him. Claire's accident on the cliff may or may not be his work; as the writer I am honestly not certain. Claire's death, though, is certainly his work.
Brady is an interesting character. What's clear from canon is that he was already close to Sam before he was possessed; the demon had to maintain that friendship and conceal his true nature from Sam. We know - again from canon - that he succeeded on both counts: Sam never suspected his friend was a demon. I had to maintain that in my story. So I had to assume that demon!Brady is very good indeed at playing human. No one, not even Dean, would suspect he's anything but what he appears: a college kid. I figure he's from a very wealthy background because I don't see any other way he could have become CEO of a major drug company in only five years, demon or not. That company had to be a family business, which would mean Brady probably had a few million tucked into a trust fund even as a student.
Why did he target Claire and not Jessica? As the seance says, because it's fun. I think demon!Brady is tired of pretending to be her friend; a pretence he has to keep up because his orders are to watch Sam and that means being as human as possible. But Claire isn't part of the master plan: she serves no purpose for Brady or Azazel, she's just a remnant of human!Brady's life. So playing with her and ultimately killing her is just getting rid of an inconvenience. I've hinted at something a bit more sinister between them; I was thinking of the stalker/rapist mentality where a man considers he has a right to a woman's body for no other reason than he wants it. That seems to me a logical attitude for a demon to take and might be a secondary motive for Brady to target Claire: she turned him down and he doesn't like that one bit.
Alternate Universe or Canon?
I started out with the intention of keeping the story canon-compliant, but that would have meant leaving out Dean's appearance and I quickly realised I needed him. So while I've stayed as close to canon as I could, the story is AU. The main divergence from canon is Dean's appearance: in the SPN pilot episode, it's quite clear that Jessica and Dean have never met before, though she's aware of his existence. In this story, set prior to that time, they meet and interact enough that there's no way she wouldn't recognise him two years later. It wouldn't add anything to invent some spurious memory loss for Jessica to maintain that consistency with canon, so it's AU. But that led to another significant change: by the end of this story, Jessica knows far more about the supernatural and Sam's family history than canon-Jessica knew. In the pilot, when Dean asks if Jessica knows, Sam insists she doesn't and that he won't tell her. Certainly, when Dean mentions hunting he ensures Jess won't hear the rest of the conversation. This doesn't preculde Jessica knowing some things: Sam could have been lying to Dean (though I think that's unlikely) and Jessica probably knew only Sam's "official version" of his family history, which would have excluded anything supernatural. But I have no doubt that Sam, like Jo Harvelle, was unable to conceal himself completely. Canon-Jessica must have realised, at the very least, that there was more to her boyfriend than met the eye.
In this story, Jessica is a witness to supernatural events. Much of what happens she can ignore or explain away, but ultimately I think it would have made her look foolish in the extreme to reach the end of this story and remain oblivious. I didn't want my Jessica to be a fool. A sceptic, yes, and if she clings to her scepticism in the face of evidence the reader may see that as stupidity. But at the end she had to accept it. So I chose to take that other fork from canon.
In terms of the possible future for Sam and Jess, this is the change that has the most AU potential: if Jessica knew the truth about Sam, is it not possible her fate could have changed? I think not, given the role we know demon-Brady played in her death. It was Sam's choice not to protect her in spite of his prophetic visions, that determined Jessica's fate, not her knowledge or lack of it.
So will this version of Jess still die in a ceiling fire? I honestly don't know. It's possible a bit more honesty in her relationship with Sam would be enough to change things. It's possible that her own knowledge acquired in this story would save her: I hope the reader will notice that Brady did not in fact cross the salt line into the bedroom - he couldn't. He talked the girls into leaving the safe room. Dean only knows the three went downstairs together, so he mistakenly reported to John that they were all in the protected room.
I think there are two ways Jessica's story could go after this fic. If Sam's decision to reject his family once again holds, and Jessica goes along with that, they're both walking into the future largely as we saw it in canon. On the other hand, if Sam and Jessica's relationship is more honest from this point onward, I would think that they have a chance of avoiding her canon-fate. Perhaps even of identifying Brady before it's too late. I don't know, but I'm fond of this Jessica; I'd like to think that in this 'verse, she'll survive.
no subject
Once I begun, I just couldn't stop! And I really, really enjoyed the ride. I love your Jessica. I love how you portrait her relationship with Sam, how we can go with her view of what's going on. I could see everything: the people, the house, the storm (I'm so with Jessica about storms over sea!).
Another thing I enjoyed was Jessica's draws as a way to see some of the characters *smiles*
And, BTW, I totally missed Brady not going into the room until Dean's talking with John. Only then I went: Now, wait a minute!!!
And I also really like Dean's chat with Jessica, how he tried to make her understand why Sam acted the way he did, even as I also understood Jessica reluctance to forgive Sam lies.
And I'm fond of this Jessica, too *g*
So, in short, I love this. It has been a while since I was able to miss myself into a story for as many hours as I did today, so thank you for that gift!
no subject
You have no idea how happy that makes me. Seriously - that's exactly why I didn't draw (Jessica's) attention the salt line until they're coming home. I figured it's fair for her to not notice it during the night: she's kinda distracted. I was hoping that the reader wouldn't realise until later that Brady couldn't get in.
And I also really like Dean's chat with Jessica, how he tried to make her understand why Sam acted the way he did, even as I also understood Jessica reluctance to forgive Sam lies.
I think it seems out of character for Dean now, but back in season one it's the kind of thing he would have done.
From a fannish perspective, I think Jess's anger with Sam seems unreasonable, but that's because we understand him, we know why he's so secretive. Jess doesn't (not yet, at least) and she feels betrayed. He did lie. She's got a right to be mad at him for that.
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it :D