Summary: Just months after their last encounter, Dean receives a call from a distressed agent. A dead body in Quantico brings Dean to the home of the FBI to investigate what may be a case of demonic possession. The problem takes on a life of its own, leaving Dean to wonder whether he's in over his head.

A/N: Chapter 2 is here! Read on!

2. Two Days

It took two days for Dean to make it to Virginia, longer than it should have in his opinion. Despite what he thought while running through the woods, his wounds would likely heal well on their own. Before he even thought about driving out to Quantico, he'd stopped at a rundown hotel, paid for three hours, and took the time to shower, change, and stitch himself up. There were more scratches than anything, and only four groups of bite marks where different fairies had bitten over and over in a single spot. Those hadn't needed anything but some antiseptic and a bandage.

He did, however, need to stitch where the blade had cut, since both wounds were deep enough to continue bleeding even after he'd bandaged them up. He didn't take anything for the pain while he stitched the wounds, not wanting to wait another day to begin his drive, so it hurt, but he worked quickly. He taped his ribs, sure that they were either bruised or cracked, but not broken, and changed his clothes. Then he was gone, on the road to FBI headquarters.

It took him two days to get there. He was too tired to not stop the first night and three highways were closed down the next day, forcing him to take the traffic jammed freeway part of the way there, keeping him on the road an extra six hours. By the time he pulled his baby into the nearest—and by nearest, he meant cheapest—hotel to where he needed to be, the sun was just coming up high enough over the buildings to beam directly down on him.

He dialed the phone number quickly, surprised when the call went straight to voicemail.

"You've reached Emily Prentiss. I am unable to answer the phone right now…"

Dean hung up, cursed the fact that he forgot to call in advance—though he was sure he could blame that on his injuries; his head just didn't feel right—and called Bobby.

"Yello," Bobby answered.

"Bobby? It's Dean. Can you get me Penny's number? Prentiss's phone went straight to voicemail."

"Give me a minute… Yeah, here you go."

Dean scribbled the numbers on the pad and closed the phone, set on ringing Penny when his cell phone rang, an unfamiliar number flashing across his screen.

"Yeah," he answered, not wanting to give his name.

"Dean?" It was Prentiss, and she sounded even worse than she had in the message. "It's Emily—Prentiss," she corrected. "I need your help."

"I got the message," Dean told her. "I'm in town now. You and the team come across something?"

She hesitated. "Not really. It's… personal."

Okay? "What do you need?"

"Can you meet?" she asked. "It'll be easier to show you."

Dean was suspicious, but he agreed. "One o'clock. Coffee shop. Adams and Third."

There was a pause and Dean imagined her writing it down. She seemed like the type of person to make sure she wouldn't forget something important like this. She would have made a great Hunter, and he could imagine her journal crisp, clean, and detailed. Hotch probably had wet dreams about her reports.

"I'll meet you there," she said, and the line went Dead.

He only had an hour, but that was plenty of time to scope the place and make a few arrangements. There was no harm in making sure Prentiss was actually Prentiss before he helped her. As he knew from experience, bad things could happen when you weren't careful.

Prentiss hung up the phone and nearly collapsed in relief. She knew she could have gone to her team with this. Normally, she would have gone straight to Hotch and presented the case, would have asked him to have the team look into it, but it wasn't an FBI case. It was a Hunter's case. Within minutes, Dean could tell her whether she was wasting her time with the things that go bump in the night or whether she needed to arm herself with salt and iron—as if she didn't already have those with her at all times.

One hour. One hour and she would know for sure whether Matthew was murdered or whether he was possessed. All evidence pointed to a possession, but from what she'd seen of Morgan's and those people in the diner, the human bodies were fine afterward. They didn't die from the possession itself, but from physical injuries they'd sustained during the possession.

A heart attack. That was what the report said, a heart attack. Matthew had died of a heart attack. Demonic possession wouldn't kill him with a heart attack, would it? Prentiss didn't know. She didn't know enough about demons to know how they killed when they did. She knew they were mean, nasty sonsabitches—true psychopaths in every sense of the word—that liked to inflict fear and pain on any creature it came across, especially if said creature was human. They wouldn't kill with something as simple as a heart attack, would they?

No. She shook her head. Of course not. They would stab and maim and torture. They wouldn't let their meat suit die from a heart attack. They would make it painful and frightening.

But she shook her head in defeat. There were too many factors for her to consider, too many things that could have happened for her to feel comfortable making a decision on her own. That was why she'd called Dean in the first place. Dean could help. Sure, Bobby had more experience with Hunting, but she didn't know him as well as she knew the kid. They'd fought side by side, true comrades in arms, against some horrible odds and had come out nearly unscathed—she was still surprised she'd made it out of there with nothing more than a small scar on her wrist from where she'd hit a table. Dean would know without asking how important this was. He would tell her immediately what he knew, would help her without question.

Then she sighed a third time and shook her head again before she left her apartment. Dean was only fourteen, not even old enough to drive and she was placing all of her faith on him, on a kid. It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't fair to him. He already had enough to deal with without having to handle her problems. The guilt would have eaten her alive if it wasn't for the desperation holding it at bay. She needed to find Matthew's killer. It was the least she could do to honor the memory of the smiling boy she'd known. It was the least she could do for everything he'd done for her. It was the least she could do for ruining his life.

The coffee shop was far from quiet, definitely not a place Prentiss would have chosen to meet, but then she saw the corner table Dean had secured outside and understood why he'd wanted to meet there. It was public for one, limiting the odds of an attack—a supernatural one at least. It let him see in every direction, had multiple escape routes, and gave him an advantage over his opponents—though who his opponents would be, she didn't know. And, probably most importantly, it was far enough from where she'd been that, even if she'd left as soon as she hung up, Dean would have had enough time to scout the place and ready it before she got there. He was probably staying close by then.

And then Prentiss stopped analyzing and focused on why she was there. It didn't matter to her why Dean had chosen this particular coffee shop. All that mattered to her was finding Matthew's killer. Dean could help, she knew. All she had to do was present the facts.

Dean was well aware of Prentiss's approach, but he allowed a small amount of surprise to show on his face anyway. In all actuality, he was a bit surprised, though not at her approach, but her appearance. She was barely holding it together, and it showed, even through the mask of confidence she projected. He'd caught the same look in the mirror enough to see right through it. No doubt, if he could see it, the team could too. They had to be worried about her.

"Prentiss," Dean greeted.

"Winchester." She copied his tone and sat when he motioned to the seat across from him.

Calling the place a café was a stretch. It was more like a mini-restaurant, without the courtesy of a burger. It didn't matter, though he promised himself to stop off as soon as he could to grab some real food. Food wasn't why he'd chosen this place. The waitress—barista, he corrected himself—came by with two small bowls of fruit that he'd ordered in advance. Prentiss looked surprised, but she picked up her fork quickly enough to eat.

Dean looked closer at her and realized that she probably hadn't been sleeping or eating. The first thing he needed to do, even before he took the case, was to get her up to Hunting health. This no-sleep, no-food, bordering-on-obsessed focus she'd adopted was weighing her down enough to make her a liability on the case. Besides that, it wasn't healthy. Sure, there were cases that made him the same way, but this was about her, not him, and if he could convince her to get a good night's sleep before they started, all the better.

The first piece of fruit hit her mouth and Dean crossed shapeshifters off of his list. Dean took a sip of water and she followed suit, removing demon as a possibility as well. There were a few other things she could have been, but those were the two biggies he could eliminate right off the bat. The others would only be disproven with time. For now, he was pretty certain that she was who she claimed to be.

"Satisfied?" Prentiss asked him.

He quirked an eyebrow in question. "Not sure what you mean," he said.

"Really?" she sounded somewhat amused, but a little angry at the same time. "Silver knife. Holy water. I wasn't born yesterday."

Dean shrugged, nonplussed. "Can't hurt to check," he said. "You can't tell me you didn't expect it though. Just be happy I've had practice spotting silver irritation on a shifter without having to cut, otherwise you'd be sporting a small scar on your arm. Well," he amended. "Another scar."

Prentiss grimaced and rubbed the scar in question, her eyes distant, remembering. "Yeah," she mumbled, trailing off.

Dean leaned forward in his seat, creating with the single movement, a small bubble of space around them. "Whatever's eating at you, you know I'll do whatever I can to help, right?"

Prentiss looked at him, taken back by his forthrightness. "I know," she said. Then she handed him the folder she'd been clenching in her ghost-white hands—and Dean would know, he'd seen plenty of ghosts to compare them to—trusting him with everything.

He flipped through the photos, looking with trained eyes at the obvious exorcisms-gone-wrong, noting the ligature marks, the age of the victims, the locations the bodies were found, the times, the personal information. He sorted through it all, filtering things out, mentally adding information to the folder and marking areas for further review. He tried to be clinical about it, looking at the corpses, but he couldn't help but compare the long hair and hazel eyes to Sammy, seeing his brother cold on the slab, dead from someone performing careless exorcisms on higher-level demons.

It bothered him more than it should have, but he didn't let it deter him from his job. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to find whoever was performing the botched exorcisms and, at the very least, kick his ass. Then he was going to find the demon that was still floating around and send it back to Hell the right way. There was nothing he hated more than people who came in way over their heads and didn't ask for help from people who knew what they were doing. It was overconfident, smug sonofabitches like this that—

"So," Prentiss said, trying for nonchalant, but failing miserably. "Is it your kind of problem?"

Dean looked at her over the case file, making and keeping eye contact. "Without a doubt," he said.

With just those three words, Dean watched the tension drain out of Prentiss, relief that she wasn't crazy, that she'd made the right call, that there would finally be some closure, that she would have some help, because there was no doubt in Dean's mind that she'd kept this all a secret from her teammates.

"But," he added, ruining what little relief she'd allowed herself to feel. "It's also your kind of case. There's a human Unsub mixed up in all of this, and we're gonna need the team to find him. At the very least, we're gonna need Hotch."

Prentiss nodded. "You're right. If it's an Unsub, we'll need to go through official channels."

"Yeah," he said. "Plus, it couldn't hurt to have some backup."

Prentiss looked confused. "Backup? If we need backup, shouldn't we call Morgan?" She didn't look all that confident in Hotch's ability to have her back.

Dean quirked an eyebrow. Didn't she know Hotch was a Hunter? Judging from the look on her face, obviously not. He smirked at her. "I'll call Hotch," he said.

A/N: Chapter 3 will be posted this Sunday :)