When she tripped she knew she was pretty much fucked.

She wasn't one of those girls who wore heels and dresses all the time. Not least because she was a Hunter and she knew she was good looking enough not to need all that crap. Not being arrogant or anything…but Jo Harvelle was pretty sure that a dress wouldn't make much difference to a guy in the grand scheme. He would either be interested or not.

However when Dean had persuaded her (aka when Dean had nagged like an old lady until she'd said yes) into wearing a dress for what he called 'an undercover mission' she had acquiesced…just so she could be on the team for once. Cause since her Mom had allowed her to join Dean and Sam on their jobs she'd always felt…sidelined. The brothers were close as close, Jo had known that going in there, and Bobby always looked out for her even when Dean was being an ass and Sam was pulling a big fat bitch fit. But Bobby wasn't always there.

And she hadn't really bet on Castiel either.

An angel of the Lord was a spanner in the works. Because while her big fat teenage crush on Dean Winchester had subsided to almost non-existence in the past couple of years she was aware of him enough to know that his gaze lingered a little too long on the angel, that his face was sometimes just a bit softer than usual when they talked together and that he was, whether he wanted to admit it or not, in there deep. And from what Jo could tell Cas was no better. Which was fine. Cause she kinda liked Cas. Sure he was weird but he could be cool sometimes and when he fought she always just wanted to stop and watch. He was a badass - there was no other word for it.

But he was also the third part to the Team Free Will triangle of doom. He was what she would have been, what she had been once upon a time - the odd one out, the wild card in the mix. His presence left her out in the cold. All the Goddamn time.

So when she tripped, wearing a dress and some spiky freak show heels, and heard Dean shout something about him and Sam being on the way through her ear piece just before it guttered out to static while the demon in front of her grinned like a piranha smelling fresh blood - yeah, Jo knew she was screwed every which way. If it had been just him and she'd been on her feet then maybe, just maybe, she could have taken him. But him and his two buddies too? Not a chance.

So this was how she was going to die. On her ass in clothes a hooker would be proud to call her own, smelling of some cheap body spray Dean had spritzed her with before she left the motel room and scared to death of that feral grin right above her.

Fan-freakin-tastic.

The demon took out a wicked looking knife from seemingly thin air and knelt down before her. She pressed her back against the cold brick wall, the damp jaggedness pressing into the exposed, tender flesh of her back. Despite herself she could feel terror clawing at her belly, making a cold sweat break out on her forehead.

"This is going to be fun." the evil fucker hissed, swinging the blade inches from her face and making her flinch back. Her handbag, containing salt, holy water and a nifty dagger, was on the other side of the alley, well out of reach.

Screwed.

The demon leaned in, black eyes seemingly endless as he gazed at her hungrily. Jo's entire body was tense with morbid anticipation and she clenched her jaw so tightly it hurt. She wasn't going to scream. No screaming or begging…she wouldn't die like some scared little girl. She was going to go out a Hunter - fighting and proud until the end. Her Mom would want her to go out like that. So would Sam and Dean. And her Dad would've…

The demons behind the one kneeling over her suddenly let out joint sounds of surprise. Jo's eyes flicked up to see them both standing together, tense and…glowing? Their bodies jerked fiercely as the halos of light around their heads seemed to fill them up - fill their mouths and eyes and every pore so brightly Jo had to look away. And then….it stopped and they crumpled. Revealing a very rumpled, very forbidding and very welcome angel in their wake.

"Cas!" Jo called out, unable to stop herself from calling his name.

He looked at her, just for a moment, his gaze intent and head tilted. Then she was being gathered up to the demon who'd been about to cut her up; with his dagger at her throat and his breath on her neck. She struggled, sure she did, but he was strong as hell and when the knife pressed worryingly hard into the soft flesh of her neck, so hard she startled to feel something warm and wet trickle down her throat as well as a sharp, slicing pain, she fell into deathly stillness.

Cas couldn't help her if the demon sliced her neck open after all.

"I'd move if I were you, angel" the demon hissed in a low, slippery voice, "Unless you want this one to be minus several of her pretty features…"

If it was possible Jo tensed further.

"You will release the girl. In return I shall allow you to live." Cas said in a strangely bored tone. Jo wasn't sure if it was a ploy or not - to get the demon to think he didn't care. She hoped so.

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" the demon growled.

Cas merely raised a brow, slowly. He'd learned that from Dean, Jo thought absently.

"Seems to me you've got no right to be calling the shots here, angel." the demon interceded, sounding almost gleeful despite his precarious position, "I have the girl. You have nothing. You move, she dies. So we do this my way."

Cas was still for a very long moment. He stared at the demon for what felt like forever, but was probably only a couple of seconds, before turning his eyes to Jo's. She could feel that blue gaze boring into her and, in her head, she could almost hear his voice. Maybe she really could hear him. He was an angel after all. And he seemed to be saying one thing, over and over, in that one stare.

Be ready.

Cas had a plan. And it involved her. Being ready. Unable to nod her head to say she understood Jo did the only thing she could in return. She smiled. It was no doubt shaky and insincere, weak to say the least, but it was all the acknowledgement he needed. Because the next second Cas was gone and Jo did the only thing she could think of. She stamped on the demon's instep as hard as she could.

God bless killer heels.

The knife at her throat clattered to the ground and Jo could see a hand holding onto the arm of the demon, the arm which crossed her body - a tanned hand which was partially covered by the cuff of a tan trench coat. Jo twisted away wildly, spinning until she hit the opposite wall of the alley, and turned just in time to see Cas pin the demon to the wall, avert her eyes from the burst of light which followed, and hear the shallow, rasping, desperate breaths which, she realised with surprise, were hers. Somehow she was sitting on the ground again, slumped against the wall, because Goddamn she'd almost died. Again.

"Jo, are you alright?"

Cas was in front of her now and he looked…concerned? It was hard to tell with Cas. Sometimes his emotions were really obvious (see Dean Winchester for more details) but there were times when she couldn't read him at all. However when he knelt down to a crouch, trench coat dragging on the filthy alley floor, and looked at her expectantly she felt…better.

"Yeah," she answered somewhat breathlessly, "Yeah, I'm fine Cas. Thanks."

He nodded and stood, holding out a hand to help her up. Normally she'd ignore a guy offering to help her up cause this wasn't Victorian England and she could take care of herself but…well. She was tired. And Cas wasn't really a guy. He was a freakin' angel. It made a difference. So she took the hand and allowed him to pull her smoothly, effortlessly, to her feet, keeping a hold of her hand until she was steady (which would be never in those Goddamn heels).

"How did you know I was…?" she began, unconsciously huddling closer to him as the cold night air bit into her skin. How girls wore scraps of cloth like this and didn't catch their death was anyone's guess, she thought.

"You are cold." Cas stated in return, ignoring her question and pulling off his trench coat effortlessly, draping it around her shoulders before she could protest.

Sure the trench coat was it's fair share of dirty and tattered as hell but it didn't smell. Of anything actually - which was kind of weird until she remembered that its owner was currently an angel and then…well then it made sense in all sorts of ways. And it kept the cold out so who was she to complain?

"Thanks," she murmured, pulling the coat closed around her and wincing as the collar brushed against her sore neck.

A hand placed at her pulse point caused her to freeze - because savior or no savior if Cas got handsy Jo was going to call him on it - only for the stinging of the tender skin at her throat to subside to nothing an instant later. Of course, she thought, don't be stupid Harvelle. The angel isn't groping you. He's healing you.

"Thanks." she said again, unsure of what else to say.

"You have already expressed that sentiment." he answered - typically Cas and strangely reassuring with it.

"Yeah…well I guess I really mean it." she replied, unable to stop herself from trying to sass out the angel. "And you never answered my question. How did you find me? Did Dean call you?"

Cas looked at her, doing that head tilting thing again, eyes impossibly blue and holding what could have been confusion as he replied,

"No. You did."

Jo frowned.

"Sorry what?" she blurted out.

"You called for me. Prayed in fact. You called my name in your mind with such force and desperation I was compelled to answer with immediacy. Which is fortunate as if I had been any later you would have been maimed at the very least."

His stark words floated over her as she tried to remember calling Cas. She couldn't recall doing it but he was here so she must have. She called an angel out of heaven. And he came.

"You came." she repeated her own thoughts in the senseless kind of voice which would make her Mom want her to sit down for fear of concussion.

"If I had not you would be dead," Cas answered stoically, "And I found myself displeased by that idea."

Displeased by that idea. Cas was displeased by the idea of her dying. Well that was…weird, yeah, sure, weird as hell but also…he was saying he didn't want her dead. But not like that. She knew what he meant. He meant that he wouldn't like it if she died. Which was…nice? Yeah, she decided, that was nice. Hell; for Cas it was practically a friendship bracelet.

So she reached over, poking a slender arm out of the expanse of the trench coat covering her, and touched Cas on his blazered arm, a gentle touch which drew his attention to her.

"Really, Cas," she said with as much sincerity as she could muster, "Thank you."

He looked at her intently, eyes as blue and piercing as ever, and she thought she saw a hint of a smile in the nod he gave her. But before either of them could say anything else the sound of her name being shouted was precluded by two Winchesters barreling round the corner and coming to a stop in front of them - a mass of heaving, sweating man flesh standing side by side and blocking out the end of the alley beyond.

"Jo! Jesus we thought you were…" Dean gasped out.

"Are you okay?!" Sam panted simultaneously, hands on knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Both brothers seemed to scan the area, looking from the bodies of the demons to Cas (where Dean's gaze lingered longer than his brother's Jo thought gleefully) and Jo - who was still wearing the trench coat.

Suddenly Jo knew exactly what to say. With a smirking glance to Cas she turned to the brothers and smiled as airly as she could, proclaiming easily,

"It's cool guys. Cas and I have got it."

When she looked up at the angel again she didn't need to look hard to see that half smile on his face. It was plain as day.