Disclaimer: I am the proud owner of a co-dependent cat, a slow dial-up connection and way too much free time. And that's all.

It watched the two hunters scurry away from the police, whispering about something, their Dean no doubt, and dodge into a motel more rundown than the first. Daytime was not usually It's favorite time to be out and about, but those two were planning something. It kept watching them from down the street, keeping carefully out of view whenever one of them looked out the window of their ground level floor.

Dean was being very quiet for the past few hours, maybe it was time to make him scream again. It spotted a young man, walking a dog down the street and moved from the shadow of the building to follow him.

"Leave him alone." Dean started to stir once more.

"We tried that game Dean. It didn't end well remember." It taunted him.

"You gonna kill him in front of the cops, genius?" Dean asked smugly when the boy let his curiosity take him to the small group of people watching the cops work at the crime scene they'd left behind the night before.

"Maybe we should go make a full confession." The demon snarled angry it had missed its prey.

"Fine by me." Dean said right back.

"That's exactly why you humans are so weak. Your guilt, your self sacrifice. You would have put yourself between me and those two children even if I hadn't gotten to you first. Its pathetic the way you cling to each other." The demon said in a bored voice as It walked back the way it came.

"Yeah, yeah you're a badass, heartless demon. You'll skewer humanity…. Blah, blah, blah." Dean said. "I've heard this speech before."

The demon laughed at his host's attempt at being blasé. Dean was the mental equivalent of being curled in a corner shaking with the ongoing replay of murdering that girl.

"Jack, c'mere." Sam said from his laptop. Jack came from the window to look over Sam's shoulder at whatever he was reading. The cops were all over the neighborhood, so they opted to stay indoors till sundown. It wasn't a decision either liked. They'd been going stir-crazy all day in that room.

"Scrying?" Jack frowned at the webpage. "Does that even work?"

"Never tried it before but it couldn't hurt right? We' can get a map from the gas station and try." Sam said.

"I guess. It says we need quarts here." Jack pointed to a part of the article they were reading.

"Any clear crystal might work though." Sam said scrolling down a little more. Jack looked down at her wrist and fingered the long strand of amber colored beads she always wore twined around her wrist. They weren't really that clear.

"Think these will work?" She asked Sam.

"Don't really have a lot of options do we." Sam said looking at the beads. They looked fragile but they must have been tougher than they looked because he'd never seen her without them on and they didn't look all that worse for wear.

Halfway down the block Sam felt a chill up his spine like he was being watched. He grabbed Jack's hand and made her stop.

"What?" Jack reached under her jacket for her gun.

"I thought I felt something." Sam frowned. The feeling had disappeared as fast as it came.

"You think it was him?" Jack asked scanning the area discreetly.

"I don't know. Its gone now though." Sam replied in frustration.

"Are you sure?" Jack asked.

"Yeah." Sam said. "Lets go."

Jack hung back a second looking carefully at every face she could see then caught up with him. They hurriedly bought a dingy map of the city from the corner gas station and headed back to the relative safety of the motel room.

Sam spread the map out on the bed trying to make it lie as flat as possible.

"Hope this works." He said.

"Same here." Jack said. She slipped the first of many loops over her wrist and started to unwind the long strand of beads. She saw Sam open and close his mouth when he saw the skin that the bands covered was lined deep with a jagged circular scar that ran around her whole wrist.

"War stories later." Jack said. She handed the beads to Sam, the sun glinting through the windows made amber colored lights dance across the map.

"These are beautiful. What are they?" Sam asked holding the long make shift pendulum over the map.

"Thai protection beads. I've had them forever." Jack answered fondly. Sam ran his fingers along the smooth glass.

"Okay what next?" Jack asked sitting down on the bed.

"We need something of Dean's something he touched or used a lot." Sam said.

"One of his guns? Dean doesn't go anywhere unarmed." Jack said opening Dean's pack.

"Lets try a t-shirt. At least then if one of us gets spooked we don't have to worry about a bullet wound." Sam said.

"Zeppelin." Jack smiled pulling out Dean's favorite concert tee.

"Come over here and put it between us." Sam said pointing to the spot next to him on the bed.

"Now we concentrate on Dean." Sam said as Jack sat next to him on the foot of the bed with Dean's shirt sitting between them.

By some instinct they both closed there eyes and pictured their missing partner. Silence permeated the room, the tension growing. Sam didn't realize how much hope he'd put in this idea till that moment. He held the beads clenched in his hand over the general area, it was still in his grasp. After a few minutes he started to give up hope of the finding Dean by scrying. What was he thinking? Was this supposed to actually work? Even if scrying was legit, they didn't know what the hell they were doing? And-

He stopped berating himself when he felt a sharp tug on the beads. His eyes flew open to make sure it wasn't Jack trying to get his attention and tell him to give it up. Her eyes were still closed tight with lines of concentration marring her forehead. Sam held his breath and looked down at the beads. They were twisting and twirling as though pushed by an invisible wind. He fastened his eyes on the paper and thought harder about his brother, willing it to show him where Dean was.

"Jack." Sam whispered sharply when the necklace started circling smoothly over one area of the map. Jack opened her eyes, saw what was happening and grabbed for the red marker Sam had placed next to the map. She circled the approximate area it was showing them and gave Sam a triumphant look that he returned.

"Where is this?" Sam asked mostly to himself pulling the map towards them. It only took him a moment to work out where the circle was.

"He's here." Jack said. She jumped to her feet and walked to the window. The map said that Dean was in the immediate area.

"He's waiting for us to come out." Sam said pulling back the threadbare draperies to look out the other window.

"Good." Jack said. The sun was starting to go down. Another half hour.

"Here." Sam said holding out the beads to Jack.

"Hold 'em for me. This'll work better without the extra protection." Jack said. She reached for the razor sharp metal that doubled as a small throwing knife and a fastener for the brown leather cuff she wore on her left wrist. The toughened leather was branded with intricate Celtic knots. Then she removed the two silver bangles and the copper one, all handcrafted and inlaid with symbols. Jack had had them all her life. She felt almost naked without them.

Sam took those from her hand too, his hand grazing lines of scarring on her left wrist that matched the ones on her right. He put the precious tokens in the pocket inside his jacket. Jack left her medallion on.

Sam didn't need the book this time, he'd spent most of the day memorizing the exorcism ritual.

"You ready?" Jack asked checking the clip in her gun so she'd have something to do with her hands.

"Are you?" Sam asked. It was her ass on the line there.

"I know you've got my back. You just be fast with the spell. Demon Boy's gonna be pissed." Jack said. She was buzzing with nervous energy.

"Dean's gonna be pissed when we get him back." Sam said.

"I can deal with a pissed off Dean, just so long as he's back to being our pissed off Dean." Jack said.

"Just remember that when he's chasing us with a shotgun full of rock salt." Sam warned.

"I'll bribe him with peanut m&m's." Jack said. Sam barked a laugh and got serious again. This was dangerous, very dangerous.

"Go over it again." Sam said pacing over the small length of the room. He wanted to make sure they each knew what their part was.

"You rush him first, try to get him inside a space. Then I sweep in from behind, give him a taste of the fire to entice him. While I'm getting my ass kicked around the block you hang back and fake him out with the prayer so he panics and tries to jump again, to a more psychic body. When he's got me done on the ground and he's trying to do the body jump you exorcise his demon ass." Jack recited with more bravado than she felt. The demon was more vulnerable while it was trying to switch bodies, that was when they'd strike. The Devil's Trap on her back would keep her from getting possessed. The trick was getting the spell done before the demon realized he couldn't have her. Once he did he was going to be very pissed.

Jack didn't expect to get out unscathed. He couldn't use her as a meat puppet but he could still see into the darkest parts of her mind, he could still kill her with how close they had to be for this façade to work. She was a little scared but more than that she just wanted to get Dean back. Sam nodded and they prepared to go.

"Jack," Sam stopped her at the door. "If this starts to go south we stop. I'm bringing the shotgun loaded with rock salt."

"Yeah. Okay." Jack said.

It ran his hands along the iron railing enjoying the hiss against his flesh. The shadows grew longer and all the trash come out to play and ply their trade, not that it had to be night for them to do it. Some how the night brought them to his attention more. Like roaches that scuttled away when you flicked a light switch.

"They aren't stupid. They're not going to just walk out for you to pounce on." Dean sneered as the demon walked casually through the slums like he was waiting for something.

"You over estimate their intelligence." The demon mumbled back as he felt a flicker of something coming closer. It doubled back towards the building he'd gotten his new body in. It thought it was the perfect place to slaughter the remaining hunters.

It turned to the right alley and barely registered the shock before a large fist slammed into his face. The demon fell back against the hard concrete. Sam grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up from the ground.

"Give me back my brother." Sam said menacingly.

"Uhuh, he's mine now." The demon taunted turning Dean's green eyes black. He shoved his hands against Sam's chest slamming him backwards. Sam rolled with it and pushed off the wall swinging hard at his brother. He spied the door behind him. Where it all started.

He dodged an attack that still clipped his shoulder and saw a flash of red behind Dean, Jack had the shotgun, ready incase this part of the plan went bad. He'd take it when she made her appearance. Sam took a kick to the jaw that made his head swim. And he was being pulled back to through the doorway. Sam hooked his leg around the charred doorway and wrenched himself from the iron grip on his shirt.

Sam jumped to his feet and blocked Dean's knee aimed at his abdomen and thrust the heel of his palm into his chin hearing the painful click of teeth and an inhuman snarl from his brother's mouth. Dean lashed out grabbing Sam's hand twisting it painfully so he had to jerk forward or have his wrist broken. Dean's booted foot slammed into Sam's chest making him double over more.

Sam felt a small hand graze his back and Dean was letting go of him falling backwards.

Jack used Sam's back as leverage, pushing her palm against it and kicking Dean's face as hard as she could. Sam spun away as soon as his wrist was free. He took the opportunity to land one more crushing blow to the side of Dean's skull before doubling back and letting Jack take over.

Dean felt the pain of Sam's fist but he couldn't help the swell of pride that accompanied it as the demon fell back in his body. Then Jack was attacking fast and dirty like she always fought.

Jack didn't let him regain his balance after Sam knocked him into the wall. She rushed at her possessed friend, grabbing his shoulders and driving her knee hard into his stomach. She backed away a step and hit him with a back kick. Then the demon was crouching down on the floor growling at her, blood all over his chin and face. He shot at her fast and low, the way Dean had done in their sparring. Jack pivoted out of his range and danced on the balls of her feet.

"You move like a fucking slug compared to Dean." She taunted.

"I wouldn't get to cocky girl." He warned baring his teeth at her. He moved faster than a second ago and slammed Dean's fist into her cheek, snapping her head sideways. Jack stumbled to the ground and rolled out of the way of the boot that would have crushed her throat had it made contact.

"Get up! Kick my ass already!" Dean was shouting inside wishing t hey could here him.

"Jack, Jack, Jack." It tskd at her. She crouched down shifting weight from right leg to left leg.

"You couldn't beat Dean before what makes you think you can now?" The demon said with a viscous smile.

"It was a tie!" Jack said pushing up from the ground at Dean. He blocked the first two punches and countered with his own. She felt the blood dripping out of her nose and retaliated by biting hard and deep into his arm when it crossed her again.

"Bitch!" It screamed ripping his arm from her teeth. Jack spit Dean's blood to the floor and looked inward in concentration. She saw him pause, probably remembering the night before.

"Oh no you don't." He said grabbing her shirt and flipping her over his shoulder. She tried to hide her look of triumph as her back hit the dirty ground with a thud.

Sam was watching the fight tensely. They moved fast, giving no quarter. Finally he saw his cue when Jack started to call her fire and was slammed into the floor instead.

"Fuck Sammy do something!" Dean shouted wondering where the hell his brother was.

"Shut the fuck up!" It yelled aloud though it was directed at Dean. Dean was about to retort by telling the demon he was getting his ass handed to him by a girl who weighed 120 soaking wet when he heard the mumbled Latin in the background.

Dean jumped up pumping his fists in the air inside his mental prison. Sam was going to do it.

"No he's not." The demon turned hits gaze to Jack who was still coughing on the ground trying fruitlessly to get up.

It walked two steps towards her and pinned her to the floor with his foot on her chest. Dean watched in horror as It straddled Jack's waist and took her head roughly in his hands holding her still. She glared up at him defiantly and spit a mouthful of blood in Dean's face. He would have cheered if he didn't know what it was going to do.

"Sammy! Sam! Stop the spell and help Jack! Sam!" Dean screamed even though he knew Sam couldn't hear him. And the demon was opening its mouth starting to drain out of Dean and into Jack.

Why wasn't Sam helping her? Dean heard Sam stop talking but now it was just Jack struggling against Dean's weight trying to buck him off the way he'd tried to with Andy and getting nowhere.

"No let her go!" Dean pushed and tore for any control he could of his body.

Jack was terrified. The demon was pressing into her mouth, nose and eyes. Invading her. She instinctively fought back trying to get out from under him but she couldn't. Sam could feel Sam struggling not to do anything. It wasn't the right moment. Not yet.

"You-What is this? Why can't I-" Its mental voice was like something grating against every nerve ending in her body. "Bitch!" It screeched inside her mind when it came up against her protective barriers. That was when Sam started with the real exorcism, when it was enough between bodies to be vulnerable.

Sam spoke rapidly and loudly. He couldn't see clearly what was happening but he felt a pressure building over the whole room. He'd taken up the shotgun and aimed it at his brother. Its face twisted impossible towards him and Sam didn't see Dean but the things true face. Something twisted and out of his worst nightmares.

"I'll take you with me." It hissed turning back to Jack. It howled and Jack saw every horrible, broken thing she'd ever experienced tearing out of the confines of her mind and into the forefront.

Blood on her hands and the knife glistening with it. Glass under her knees as she knelt down in it. Guilt nearing insanity and the long buried glimpse inside another mind that made her bury that aspect of her ability. Jack felt the barbed wire twisting around her wrists again and the first bullet she ever shot. She saw that exorcism and her little playmate killing herself. Everything being played out before her eyes again.

Dean couldn't make sense of what he was seeing it all flew by so fast. He had a horrible tearing feeling like he was being ripped to shreds. He'd realized at the same time the demon did what their little plan was. If they lived through this he was going to kill both those idiots.

"ET Nomini Patri Et Fili Spiritus Santi!" Sam finally yelled finishing the prayer.

He'd had to put his hands over his ears to cover the awful sounds echoing off the walls. Now though he looked up to see his brother's head jerk back upward opening his mouth as the demon was forced out of him. Dean fell boneless off of Jack.

"Dean!" Sam cried out running forward. He dropped the shut gun by Dean's side and kneeled by his brother.

"Dean? Dean? Are you okay?" Sam asked softly shaking his brother a little. Sam looked up to see Jack shaking hard next to him with her eyes closed.

"Jack?" He asked trying to balance himself between the two. Jack's eyes flew open and she sat up twisting away as her stomach lurched and she got sick. She coughed and sputtered wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She felt raw and sick but her first thoughts were of her friends.

"Sa-Sam?" She said crawling the few feet over to him. "Did it work?"

"Are you alright?" Sam asked her. She nodded shakily. She wasn't she needed a drink and a distraction, she needed to be alone to collect herself.

"Is he him again?" She asked sidling up to Dean.

"Dean. Wake up man." Sam said barely above a whisper. Dean opened his eyes and gasped like he was breathing fro the first time in a long time.

Dean's lungs burned and his whole body hurt and not just from the tag team beating he took either.

"Dean is it you?" Jack asked. Dean looked at her.

"Are you insane!" He yelled hoarsely. "What the hell were you thinking? It could have killed you."

"He's Dean." Sam and Jack said simultaneously.

"Damn straight and I'm going to kick both your asses once I can move again." Dean growled at them. He couldn't remember being so relieved or pissed off at the same time.

"I think its time for the m&m's Jack." Sam said. Jack laughed weekly and on impulse grabbed one of his hands and one of Dean's. She could feel tired and sad and angry later. Right now her friends were alive. Dean and Sam fell into silence looking at their clasped hands and thought the same thing.

TBC………………

AN: You like? I'll have you know, my pretties I now have a permanent ass imprint in my chair from sitting all this time to write this. You better appreciate it (jking). We're not done yet though, there are issues abound and then Hunters:Bad Moon Rising starts. For those who have been asking after it, that's the story with the Broken teaser in it. Muhahahahaha! Till next time……