Calling For Help

"Hey, thanks for getting here so quickly." A dirty blonde-haired man smiled softly, embracing a short, Puerto Rican woman after waiting at the gate for her in the airport in Florida.

"Yeah, I got here as soon as I could." She embraced him tightly and then pulled away from him, looking up at him, how incredibly ill and tired he looked, "I'm not gonna ask how you're holding up, Dean. Your eye bags are pretty self explanatory." She squeezed his arm softly as he just smiled at her.

"It's been a crazy few weeks." Dean nodded, "Is that the only bag you brought?" He asked her, looking on at her small travel case which she had wheeled behind her off the flight.

"Yeah. I can make a quick trip home if I need anything else." She nodded to him as they began to head for the main exit of the airport.

"I hope… you don't mind me calling you, AJ." Dean said as AJ looked up at him. AJ was abbreviated for April Jeanette. She was short, dark-haired, smart, successful and beautiful, and she'd known Dean since she was sixteen years old, "I uh… I don't know what else to do." He shook his head, "if I'm honest, I'm sort of losing my mind out here." He said as AJ nodded.

"I know. I couldn't believe it when I heard." AJ said, "I just told Ben it was… family stuff." She nodded to him.

"How is he?" Dean asked, not because he wanted to, had AJ not brought her husband up, he would have completely forgot she was even married.

"He's fine." AJ smiled, knowing fine well he didn't really care to know how her husband was, "Are you out here on your own?" AJ asked him as they walked outside the airport, waiting in the queue at the taxi rank.

"Yeah." Dean nodded, "Well who else is gonna be here?" Dean asked her as AJ just nodded and sighed.

"What the hell was he doing out here anyway?" AJ asked him with frustration.

"He took a job." Dean said, "It was last minute sort of thing. Some scaffolding project he jumped on. Next thing I know I'm getting calls left right and centre and my brother's face is on the front of the newspaper." He shook his head as AJ groaned, moving down the line as the taxi's came one by one.

"Have you been allowed to see him?" AJ asked him as Dean nodded.

"I've saw him a few times. The first time he didn't say a word." Dean said, "It's uh… it's not looking good."

"No, well the whole situation isn't good." AJ shook her head, "Never thought I'd have to... have him as a client." She shook her head, "Especially not for this." She said as Dean nodded.

"I don't think he's expected any of it either." Dean said as AJ looked up at him, "What?"

"Well I have to ask, don't I?" AJ said.

"What? If he did it?" Dean said as AJ nodded, "You've known him since you were a kid. You work it out." Dean said, a little annoyed.

"Well can you blame me? There are… a lot of factors indicating that he did it." AJ said quietly.

"I didn't call you out here to go all attorney on me. I called you out here for your knowledge and you're the only person that can get through to him." Dean said as AJ sighed and looked down at the ground, "Of course he didn't do it."

"Ok." AJ nodded, "Ok." She said quietly as a cab pulled up as they were next in line to get in, "Are we taking the same cab?" She asked.

"Yeah, get in." Dean nodded as AJ sighed, following him in behind once putting her case in the trunk.

"Sorry, that was just Ben." AJ said, later that night coming out of the bathroom in her hotel room where Dean was waiting.

"Why didn't you just tell him why you were coming out here?" Dean asked, moving the empty pizza box over to the coffee table, sitting back down where AJ had been showing him some legal documents that she'd brought with her, trying to figure this out the best she could.

"Because." AJ shrugged, walking back over to him and taking a seat across from him.

"Because… what?" Dean smiled a little as she scooped the papers back up in a neat pile.

"Because… you know why." AJ eyed him as Dean just nodded.

"He think you still got a hard on for him?" Dean asked.

"No." AJ said, "Because I don't." She said, "Look, I'm not here to discuss my family life with you… I think we have a little more to concentrate on." She told him as Dean just nodded.

"If he's from Chicago, can't that mean that they prosecute him there?" Dean asked, "Of all fucking states, we're in this one." He groaned.

"No, he committed the crime…" AJ paused, "He supposedly committed the crime in this state which means he'll be prosecuted here." AJ said.

"There's no way getting around that?" Dean asked as AJ shook her head.

"How long was he here for?" AJ asked him.

"Uh… few days at least." Dean said.

"And who did he go with?" AJ said.

"He was with Pearce and Kane." Dean said, "He uh… he got fired, so he was… well he barely had money to heat his apartment, so they offered him a job with them at some scaffolding site here." Dean said, "He took it and left."

"And he was only here a few days until it all happened?" AJ asked him as Dean nodded.

"I've still not got a chance to properly speak to him. Every time I've been to visit he's just… it's like staring at a blank page." He said.

"I'm gonna need to know his whereabouts that night. What he was doing, where he was..." AJ nodded, scribbling things down on a notebook as Dean watched her.

"You uh… you gonna go see him tomorrow?" Dean asked her as AJ looked up from her notebook, "He might talk to you better."

"I'm not the prisoner whisperer." AJ told him.

"No, but he still loves you." Dean said abruptly as AJ just raised a brow, "You're the only hope I got for him. That's why I called." He said as AJ nodded.

"Ok." AJ said, "I'll go see him tomorrow. I'll get a rundown from him of what went on and… I'll do everything I can to help him." She nodded as Dean smiled

"Thank you." Dean nodded as AJ looked across at him, seeing a glint and desperation in his eyes amongst the tears welling in them, "I'll be back in a minute. I'm going for a smoke." Dean said quickly, standing up as AJ watched him.

"Dean." AJ said as Dean turned around, trying not to look her in the eye, "I'll… I'm gonna do everything I can to help your brother." She nodded, "I promise." She said as Dean nodded.

"Thanks." Dean said, turning back around and heading out of the hotel room quickly as AJ sighed, leaning back on the chair and running her hand through her hair as she looked on at the documents in front of her, the documents she'd never even had to use before, the high-profiled documents.

"Sign here." A warden said as AJ scribbled her signature on a visitation list in the prison she had just entered with Dean, "If you're his attorney, only you can be present." He said as AJ nodded.

"I know." AJ said, turning around to Dean, "I'll get you outside when I'm done." AJ told him as Dean nodded. She was trying to hide the fact her stomach was doing somersaults and she felt like she was going to vomit. Not because she was in a prison. She'd been in many prisons all over the country, but because she was going to see him.

"Follow me." The warden said as AJ nodded to Dean and followed the warden down the hallway. She was wearing a tight grey dress with a black coat, which was her normal work attire, but this suddenly felt like more than work.

"I thought this would be opened visitation." AJ turned to the warden as she saw the set-up of the desk with a caged panel splitting down the middle.

"You kidding?" The warden arched a brow, "Take a seat." He told her as AJ sighed, walking into her side of the room and sitting her purse down, pulling the chair out and running her hand through her hair as she watched the door open on the other side.

She listened as handcuffs rattled, not only against each other, but against the chain which linked down to his feet and around his waist. She'd sat and spoke to lots of prisoners but not any who had more restraint than just a pair of handcuffs.

She saw his face turn the corner and swallowed the lump in her throat as he approached the chair. What hurt, was that he still looked how she remembered. She always wondered what it'd be like if they bumped into one another again… she never in her wildest dreams thought it'd be like this.

"Hi." AJ whispered once he took a seat, resting his hands on the table as he looked across at her through the cage, swallowing his own lump in his throat.

"Dean called you?" The man asked as AJ nodded, looking past him outside the door where she saw many guards standing. She didn't understand it. She knew this man. He had a temper but… he wasn't an animal, not like everyone thought.

"I uh… I'm here to help you." AJ nodded as the man laughed and nodded.

"Mhm? How?" He asked, "You already bailed me out of jail one time. I should be the one oweing you."

"I think this is gonna take more than bailing you out of jail, Phil." AJ gritted her teeth, not understanding how he still managed to find humour at a time like this, but maybe that was why she loved him so much.

"So… what is it? What do you want to know?" He asked exhaustedly, "I take it you're my attorney now?"

"Yeah." AJ said, "Dean called me for help. Said the one you had wasn't doing anything." She said, "Do you know how serious this is?" She wondered if he was still in shock.

"I'm aware." Phil said, or Punk to most people, a man covered in tats with slicked back hair, dark eyes and a stubbly beard.

"You need to tell me everything." AJ said, "So I can help."

"I took a job here." Punk took a deep breath, having lost count of how many times he'd told his story, "I took a job here with some friends, I was here three days, working on a building site. We went out for drinks one night, or… a soda in my case." He said as she nodded, already figuring that. She did know him after all, "We were hitting up another building site the next day and Kane had forgotten his tools, since they were both blitzed, I volunteered to go get them, and that's when I found them. Cops showed up two minutes after and here I am."

"Did you touch them?" AJ asked him.

"No. I looked at them, in shock, as you would… uh… then I heard the sirens, they charged in, full attack team… I thought they were gonna kill me to be honest." He admitted truthfully, "Well… back then." He said as AJ sighed.

"How come their blood was found on your pants back in your hotel?" AJ asked.

"I don't know." Punk shrugged.

"Phil, you gotta give me more than that. I don't know isn't saving you from all of this." AJ said, angered by his lack of strength. She knew he was stronger than this, but she supposed in his situation, she wouldn't know how to feel.

"Look, I'm telling you what I've told the cops, and the investigators, and the press and all these people who are treating me like some sort of celebrity. I don't know how those girls' blood ended up on my pants in the hotel, I don't even know how those girls ended up in the building site, alright?" Punk said.

"Did you do it?" AJ asked, not being able to bite her tongue, "I'd like to think I know you, and I know that… the Phil I remember wouldn't have done this-"

"I didn't do it, April. And you can just go back to Chicago if you insinuate I did, again." He warned as AJ looked across at him.

"They are going to put you to death." AJ spat as Punk looked across at her and gulped, looking into her worried eyes, "You need to tell me what the hell is going on."

A/N: I'm excited about this! Let me know what you think!