Author's Note: Ouch, my Dean. This chapter made me sad to write.

Thanks so much for the reviews, faves, and follows! I love hearing what everyone is thinking.

The pistol is still pointed at Jack's chest, but he no longer really cares.

The boy in front of him is a picture of misery: no longer the tough, confident young man who cornered him in the alley. As Jack studies him, he sees that his face is pale, the circles under his eyes deep and bruise-like. There's something unfocused about his gaze, but it could just be that Dean is fighting to keep a lid on his tears. His breathing is controlled and even. Jack nods slowly and takes a step back. "Okay. All right. You want to come in?" he asks.

Dean's eyes dart for a moment, from Jack to the room to the car park and back to Jack. His brow furrows as he studies him, green eyes searching for some tick, some tell, some sign of malice. He catches his lip in his teeth, gaze landing somewhere over Jack's shoulder as he contemplates.

Looking suddenly his age, he drops his arm and nods, his head drooping. Jack ushers him in, feeling a swell of sympathy for the boy, and closes the door behind him after checking the car park for unwelcome tag-alongs.

When he turns back, Dean is already sitting on the bed, his pistol still in his right hand and his left hand covering his face. Jack says nothing. He puts his blaster down on the table, far away from both of them, and walks back to Dean. He's careful to make sure the boy knows he's there before he sits down, slowly, on the bed next to him.

Dean freezes, then flinches away from Jack a minute amount. "Hey," Jack says, quietly. "It's okay. I'm really not going to hurt you."

Dean says nothing, but Jack sees his throat work as he swallows down a sob. "This is nuts," he whispers, his voice tremulous.

"Tell me about it," Jack replies, choking out a single laugh. That's enough to break Dean's gaze from its fixed place on the floor, and he looks up. Jack smiles sadly. "We're both deep in it, Dean. And it's not fair. But at least now we have one person we can count on, right?"

"I can't count on you," Dean says through his teeth, which Jack notices are chattering slightly. Must be nerves; it's still hot and muggy outside, and his air conditioner isn't doing much to keep away the stuffiness inside, either. "I don't even know you."

"No," Jack agrees easily. "But even if you don't trust me, I'm gonna help you find your brother. We're gonna get Sam back safe, Dean. I promise."

Dean's eyes are searching his again, as though desperate to find some sign of treachery. Some sign that the status quo is the same: trust your family, nobody else. Something to convince Dean that Jack is going to double-cross him. That he's going to go back on his word.

They might never trust you. It won't matter. It didn't for me.

Huh.

"But what about you, Dean?" Jack asks, and the boy frowns, eyes widening for a moment as though he's startled by Jack continuing to talk. "As long as the thing we're doing is finding and saving Sam, can I count on you?"

Dean's eyes clear, and he rolls his shoulders back. "Yeah," he says, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course."

"Good," Jack says. "So what I need you to do is tell me what happened. Start as far back as you need to. In fact, why don't you start with the diner? And where the two of you went?"

Dean narrows his eyes, but the look is more incredulous than distrustful, and for that small concession Jack is relieved. Then he notices the almost imperceptible tugging at the corner of Dean's mouth, and realizes that it's a smile trying to form. "Seriously?" Dean asks.

Jack frowns. "Seriously what?"

The grin breaks free, and it lights up Dean's face, takes off years of worry and pain. There's pride in that smile, and amusement. "You seriously don't know where we were all day?" he clarifies.

Jack's frown deepens. "Yes, Dean, seriously. I seriously don't know."

Dean presses his lips together to avoid laughing, and says, "We were behind you. The whole time. We didn't leave the diner until you did, and we just kept going to places you'd already been."

Jack is quiet for a moment, letting his injured pride knit itself back together in the face of that obvious solution, and the way that this stupid mistake has possibly lead to Sam getting hurt. If he'd just looked behind him. If he hadn't underestimated these boys and their dedication to not being found, their lifetime of training in hiding and running. If only he'd been smarter, quicker, more observant.

"Okay. So you knew when I left from the motel. Where did you go then?" Jack asks.

Dean shifts uncomfortably, his eyes glued to his pistol. "We stayed at the motel," he says. "Just...camped out there. I tried to call my dad, but he didn't answer his phone."

Jack has to force himself not to look away at that. He can't afford to tell Dean he knows where his father is; it would lead to way too many questions he doesn't have time to answer right now. It hurts, though, to watch the kid wonder if he should be grieving for his father, to have to prioritize his family. His brother, or his father? But if Jack is being honest, the question doesn't seem hard for Dean. Find Sammy. Protect Sammy.

"So we waited," Dean continues. "In the bathroom. And then, maybe like three hours ago, we heard somebody kick the door in. I thought it was you. So I took a shotgun and went out."

Dean's free hand grips the blankets, kneads them fretfully as he casually discusses his plans to murder Jack. His lips press together until they are white, but it doesn't keep the tears out of his eyes. One falls down his cheek, and he wipes it away angrily. "It was one guy. Just one guy. He crossed the salt line so I even think he was human. But he had a crowbar."

Jack's eyes widen in horror at the same moment that Dean laughs, his voice hollow. "A crowbar. Of all the damn things. I've fought things that normal people can't even imagine and I get knocked out by a damn crowbar."

Jack's hands lift almost before he knows what he's doing, reaching for the swelling that he can now see on the back of Dean's head. Dean tenses and glares at him, and Jack pauses, his fingers spreading in a gesture of surrender. "I just want to see if you're okay," Jack says, apologetically.

"I'm fine," Dean spits.

"You probably have a concussion," Jack argues.

"Do you want to hear what happened, or are you going to mother-hen me until that guy's so far gone we never find Sammy?" Dean shouts, and Jack backs off. Dean exhales, setting his jaw and steadying his breathing before he goes on.

"It knocked me out. The blow. I mean, just for a minute. But I was so sick when I woke up that I couldn't do anything. Couldn't move. I saw the door close behind the guy, and I heard Sam yelling, but I couldn't stand up."

"You have a concussion," Jack insists, reaching for Dean's head again. Dean slaps away his hands, upset.

"It was hours ago," Dean says irritably. "I've been looking for Sam for the last three hours, once I stopped throwing up."

"Dean," Jack says, alarmed, "you could be very sick."

"I checked my damn pupils!" Dean shouts. "I remember what day it is and who the president is. Yeah, he got in a good hit. But my brother is missing and I'm not letting a concussion stop me from getting him back. Are you on board for that plan or should I just go on my own?"

The kid glares at Jack, and Jack watches him carefully. He shakes his head, gets off the bed, and goes into his backpack. He can feel Dean's eyes on him. "What are you doing?" Dean demands.

Jack comes up with an automated syringe, but it evidently looks a little too much like a gun to Dean, who swings the pistol back to aim at Jack, eyes wild. "Put it down," he barks. Jack sighs. "Put it down!"

Jack doesn't put it down, but points it at the ceiling. "It's just medicine, Dean," he says. "It's an anti-inflammatory and pain reliever. You can't afford to be getting sick while we're looking for Sam. Right?"

Dean doesn't put the gun down, either. "Give it to yourself first," he orders. It's all Jack can do not to roll his eyes, but he extends his left arm and presses the syringe against it, giving himself a shot of the medicine. He winces a little as the injection goes in, but it's mostly for Dean's benefit, to prove to him that he'd really done it.

He looks up at the kid, as though to say was that enough?, and Dean looks away. His eyes look unfocused for a moment, and that is, indeed, enough for Jack. He stands, takes Dean's left wrist into his hand, and lays the syringe along his forearm. He glances at the boy, who nods slowly. He depresses the trigger, and Dean hisses as the medicine hits his veins.

Jack watches his eyes as the pain reliever begins to kick in, and is gratified to see them clear. Dean inhales, long and unsteady, and looks reluctantly at Jack. "Thanks," he says brusquely. Jack just smiles. "Okay. We've got to find Sammy. I don't have any idea where they could have taken him. But we have to hurry, because..." Dean trails off, and Jack understands.

We have sixteen and a half hours is what he wants to say. Your brother won't die until noon tomorrow. You won't die until noon tomorrow. I won't let either of you die at all, but you're not even really in danger until noon tomorrow. The Doctor promised me that I had until then to save you. He promises, I promise that your brother is safe right now, alive and maybe scared and maybe hurt and definitely missing you but he's not dead.

That would be difficult to explain, and probably not as comforting to Dean as it is to Jack. But those words are in his mind as he puts his hand on Dean's shoulder. "We're gonna find him," he says, and the boy shrugs beneath his palm. It doesn't mean I don't know, it means, you don't have to tell me. So Jack stands, collecting his things—weapons, medicine, letter—and turns to Dean. "Are you ready to go?"

Dean stands in reply, slipping the gun into the back of his jeans, and just as Jack thought he keeps his gun precisely where John kept his.

Jack opens the door, lets Dean out first, and then locks it after he steps through. Dean, standing at the edge of the covered walkway, peers through narrowed eyes at the dark sky. He studies the horizon as though he could find his brother in the inky blackness, find some signal to lead them to Sam.

A thought occurs to Jack, and he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small, plain black wallet. He flips it open, revealing a blank white card. Sam was blocked to Azazel, but maybe not to Jack. Maybe the kid has some kind of psychic ability; maybe the psychic paper can pick him up. He glances over the paper at Dean, who is still frowning out at the sky, and then looks back down at his paper.

Let me find him just please let me find him I'll do anything just don't let me have lost him

Jack sighs. Radiating thoughts and prayers, Azazel had said. Right. Even if Sam were yelling with all the psychic power he could muster, Dean would be drowning him out with his prayers.

"Okay," he says, and Dean jumps, then tries to play it off by pretending to work a knot out of his shoulder. He meets the older man's eyes solemnly, waiting for instruction.

The change in demeanor takes Jack by surprise. Out the door, their arrangement agreed upon, suddenly Dean is ready to take orders from a man he'd been willing to shoot minutes earlier. But the Doctor had said that he was John's perfect little soldier. Sam's protector. But what was Dean to Dean?

But there isn't time for philosophical speculation, or even for more pity heaped upon the boy. Jack tilts his head towards the rental as he says, "We'll take my car." Dean nods and follows obediently, climbing into the car and shutting the door quietly as Jack hops in the driver's seat.

While Jack steers the car out of the car park, Dean begins to methodically clean his pistol. Jack only watches out of the corner of his eye, but there's something unnerving about the automatic way the boy does it. Like it's as natural as breathing. "Pretty familiar with that gun," he remarks.

Dean shrugs, a bit sullenly. "Gotta be," he replies. "Part of the job."

Jack just nods, merging onto the main drag. He doesn't know where he's going, but he supposes he'll figure it out as he goes along. At least this time, he can keep an eye on one of the boys.

A long moment passes in silence, and Dean is getting twitchy in the passenger seat. Eventually he surges forward and hits the power button on the radio with perhaps undue violence. Jack glances at him, and turns the volume down as some classic southern American rock song starts playing. Dean glowers at him.

"I need you to talk to me, Dean," he says. Dean's glare fades in intensity, and turns into something sadder, something more fragile. "I need you to tell me anything you remember about the man who took Sam. Any detail you can think of. Anything could be important."

Dean shifts away from Jack, staring out the window while his fingers pass lightly over the barrel of his gun. "He wasn't very big," he says quietly. "Shorter than you. I think he was white but I couldn't see much of his skin. He was wearing, like, a ski mask. Or whatever. Black clothes. Gloves. I mean, like a real movie bank robber kind of guy."

"Did you hear him talk?" Jack asks.

Dean begins to shake his head, then frowns. "Yeah, actually. But he wasn't speaking English."

"Do you remember what it sounded like he said?" Jack presses, a tight band of worry forming around his chest.

Dean thinks for a moment, and in his peripheral vision Jack can see the lights from the few other cars and the few street lamps lining the road reflecting off of Dean's face, illuminating his pensive expression, making him look older and weary in their gray light. "It sounded like he...I mean, the words don't make any sense, but it sounded like he said all are pash."

It isn't the first time Jack misses having the TARDIS to translate for him, but the longing is rarely so strong as it is right now.

It's no form of Latin that Jack's ever heard of, so it's not likely to be a spell. (Jack can hardly believe he's even thinking those words.) And if Dean recognized them in any way, he would have said something. "Okay. So you're pretty sure he was human, maybe not American, probably white. Anything else?"

Dean considers, then shakes his head. "No. He was already in the room when I got in, and I just got a quick look at him before he hit me with the crowbar. By the time I really came to again he was out the door with—" The rest of the sentence is too painful for Dean to articulate, so he stops.

Jack doesn't press it.

They ride around the town together for a while, keeping a sharp eye out on either side for any probably white men in balaklavas. Obviously there's nothing. Obviously Sam's abductor isn't going to be stupid enough to walk along the side of the road, waiting for them to come looking for him.

The silence isn't comfortable, but it's not as hostile as Jack was afraid it would be. He glances over every now and then to see Dean huddled smaller and smaller in on himself, as though if he took up less room there would be more room for Sam to come back. Occasionally, Jack notices his eyes shut, probably in prayer. He'd bet that if he pulls out his psychic paper, it would have the desperate, fevered wishes of a teenager on it: all for his little brother, for his safe return, for his courage until they got there. Until they got there.

"Hey!" Dean cries, slapping Jack's arm, and Jack has to focus very hard on not wrecking the rental car as he is violently pulled out of his reverie. "That car! It has a busted tail light. I only saw one tail light when the guy pulled out of the parking lot with Sammy."

Jack hesitates for a minute. It's not much to go on. There are probably lots of cars in this town with busted tail lights.

But it's all they've got, so he follows the car.

Dean is now leaning forward in his seat, his breath shallow. Jack looks quickly at him, and Dean looks back, his eyes shining with excitement and fear and hope. "This has got to be him," he says.

"Let's not get too excited," Jack admonishes, but he knows that his warnings are falling on unwilling ears. Dean has a lead—or something that looks like a lead if you squint hard enough. He's not going to let go of it. And Jack can't blame him, not really.

The car turns onto a service road, and Jack follows it. Dean is drumming his fingers against the door, his eyes never leaving the car, as though he's afraid that Jack is going to lose it and he's the only one who can keep a proper eye on it. This time, when Jack glances at him, Dean's lips are moving silently in a prayer that's now too much for his head to contain but that he can't say out loud for fear it won't come true.

Jack is about to say something to Dean, something wise and reassuring, undoubtedly, when the tires of the car he's following squeal as its driver jerks it off the road, heading into a pitch-black field surrounded by trees on the side of the interstate.

Jack swears like the serviceman he is and follows the car off the road, hoping that his practical little rental car can take a beating better than it looks like it can. Dean grips the handle above the window, his face pale and drawn, as he stares at the car careening in front of them.

The car stops, and one person, probably male, probably a little shorter than Jack, runs out from the driver's side.

Jack slams on the breaks just in time to not hit the car, and he and Dean throw off their seat belts almost in unison. Dean goes for the door handle, and Jack grips his arm. "I want you to stay behind me," he says. Dean is ready to argue but Jack gives him his best Commanding Officer look, and the boy quiets. "We don't know what this thing is. I don't want you hurt."

"It has Sammy," Dean says, as though no further explanation is needed. He jumps out of the car, and Jack has to run to stop him from going into the woods by himself. Dean pulls away from Jack's grip on his arm, but Jack doesn't let go, glaring into Dean's eyes.

"You're no good to Sammy if it gets you, too," Jack says. "Now I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. Stay behind me."

Dean is angry. He's frustrated. He's scared and excited and desperate to find his little brother and almost as desperate to get away from Jack. But Jack keeps giving him that I am your captain and that is an order look, and the boy caves. He looks down, bites his lip hard, and nods. "Yes, sir," he mutters, his voice stiff.

It doesn't sit well with Jack, the yes, sir. A little too obedience for its own sake. But he needs Dean to listen to him, and maybe now there's just not enough time to reason with the kid. So instead of looking this gift horse in the mouth, Jack grips Dean's shoulder. The fact that the boy allows it is surprising enough.

They check the parked car, neither one expecting Sam to be in the back seat, or in the trunk once Jack pries it open. The younger boy isn't, but at least it's not too much of a disappointment. Jack turns to Dean, who is looking down at the ground. Not too much of a disappointment.

"Stay with me," Jack says. "Stay close." A thought occurs to him, and, keeping Dean in his sight, he goes to the car and retrieves something from the back seat.

He doesn't know why he gives it to Dean. He just feels like he needs to, and Jack has learned to trust his instincts.

He hands Dean the dagger that Azazel had given him. "Keep this on you," he says, as Dean studies the weapon in something that looks like awe. "It's supposed to kill whatever the Black Annis were working for."

Dean looks up sharply. "Were?"

"Are," Jack corrects himself, cursing silently. "What they are working for. If anything happens to me, run, and keep that dagger on you. Don't be afraid to use it."

Dean's grin is not something that should be on the face of a child. "I won't be," he says.

Jack believes him.

The man had run into the woods, and Jack looks out into the inky blackness and sighs. "We'd better get going," he says quietly. "Stick close."

Dean nods silently, and Jack marvels at him.

Jack had been right, the first time he looked out into the sky at the motel. The stars are bright, unimpeded by light pollution, shining down on them with the light of a thousand other worlds.

As Jack leads Dean Winchester into the woods to find his brother, even those thousand systems can't give enough light to guide their way.