Disclaimer: I own Jack, her history, Chris and other oc's. Everything else is borrowed.

"Sam," Dean called when to his brother as he got out of the car. Sam turned to look at his brother inquisitively.

"If she gets back before I do, don't do anything yet." Dean said.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked crossing his arms over his chest.

"Don't say anything. Don't push her for answers till I get back to you guys." Dean said.

"You think I can't handle the situation." Sam fumed. "What did you go to sensitivity training while I wasn't looking Dean?"

"No and that's why you're not going to do anything." Dean said impatiently. "If Jack feels even an ounce of pity from you she'll wall off. If she catches any disgust from you she'll get on the defensive and we won't get her back."

"I would never treat her badly for what's happened to her." Sam said angrily. He couldn't believe his brother thought he would.

"I know that, but right now all she's thinking is that she'd going to be rejected again for this." Dean explained getting out of the car to talk his brother without having to shout across a parking lot to each other.

"Just treat her like Jack." Dean said in a low voice. Sam met his eyes. He wasn't sure what he'd been planning on saying to their friend when she reappeared. He wanted to be there for her, he just didn't really know how.

"Yeah, alright." He said looking down at the ground.

"Okay. Okay I'll be back in a few. I gotta stash the car farther away, because Jack-Jack knows the area." Dean said.

"Jack-Jack?" Sam asked amused.

"What?" Dean gave a fleeting smile over his shoulder as he jogged back to the car.

Sam picked the lock on the door easily. Inside Jack's room Sam leaned against the wall behind the door, so she wouldn't immediately see him when she came home. After thinking for a moment he walked to the bed and plucked her ever present backpack from underneath. He was going to take a page from Dean's book and holding the precious object hostage.


Dean drove a mile out of town to hide the car near a patch of forest. He looked at the setting sun, made a mental note to thrash Jack for going MIA while a psycho killer was on the loose in town and started back the way he came, making sure to keep to the side roads just in case she was watching, the sneaky bitch. Thinking of ways to chastise her for going missing was a way to distract himself from wanting to go back to that assholes place and hurt him in some very creative ways.

Who the hell was that son of a bitch anyway? Who was he to talk to their Jack like that? Didn't he know she could snap his neck with her bare hands? And why the hell hadn't she? Dean snorted, annoyed, he would have loved to see that, but maybe later. After they convinced Jack that it was fine, they knew survival was the name of the game, by any means necessary sometimes.

Didn't mean he didn't want to track down and kill a motherfucker. This shit went down when Jack was young, too young. And he saw what she looked like at fifteen, t here was no mistaking her for anything but a teenager back then. He had to stop, these thoughts would only lead to actually going back to that house. And that was no good, not yet. He also had to worry about Sam.

Sam meant well, but he'd go the victim route. A shit plan anyway he thought of it. Jack didn't need a counselor, she needed her friends.

Dean turned off his brain as he spotted the motel. It was completely dark by then and he didn't see any lights penetrating the thin cotton of the curtains to the rooms. She wasn't back yet, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then he worried some more.

Dean knocked on the door so Sam would know it was him and not try to tackle him or anything.

"Dean?" Sam said cautiously on the other side. Dean rolled his eyes.

"No its Santa Clause. Who the hell else would it be?" Dean said. Sam huffed, annoyed at him and opened the door wide enough for Dean to slip through then closed and locked it again.

"No sign of her yet." Sam said resuming his post against the wall.

Dean pulled out the chair from the small table in the corner and sat down, nearly invisible in the dark room.

"I knew about a girl in my second year dorm who hooked," Sam said from his corner.

"Yeah, was she hunted by blood sucking creatures and alone as a kid too?" Dean asked.

"She did it so she could buy designer clothes and bags, after her parents stopped paying for her expenses." Sam explained with the edge of reprehension in his voice.

"People are crazy." Dean muttered.

"Yeah." Sam agreed.


Jack skulked down the empty street, dodging the police cruiser that passed by. Town wide curfew, she'd discovered while wandering aimlessly, listening to other people talk and gossip without them noticing her. It was easy to disappear among normal people. People saw what they wanted to see most of the time. It used to be a game to her. She'd cut her hair shorter and make a fake id that said 'Eric' and show it to see if she was called on it. People saw the name and the M and voila she became an effeminate boy instead of a girl. People saw what they wanted to see, what was easiest for them to see. Some games were to keep what sanity she had left in place.

She didn't let herself feel anything when she went down on a stranger for twenty bucks, if she had she might have killed someone. Either the men or herself. One time she came close to killing one of the men, a guy older tan her usual targets, but she couldn't wait around all night for some twenty something who couldn't find a date and wanted a quick hand job or whatever. This man came fast in her hand and without warning so she stole his wallet even after he paid her. When she opened it she got sick, got angry and almost went back to kill the sick bastard.

Inside was a picture of his family. Pretty strawberry blonde wife, two little boys and standing next to daddy in the portrait a girl not much younger than she was. With hair almost as red as her own and who looked a bit like her if Jack squinted. Mother fucker used her as a replacement.

Jack forced the memory away. It was getting late, she had to get her things. She'd use her phony credit cards to get a bus ticket to Tulsa and then decide what to do from there. She couldn't stand to think about it too much. The thought of being alone again was almost too much to bear.

Jack walked mechanically to the motel, keeping an open eye for Sam and Dean. She didn't want to face them. When she saw the Impala wasn't in the parking lot she felt a momentary relief tinged with sadness.

She walked to her door, taking the key out of her pocket and unlocked the door without looking. She walked inside the dark room and tiredly tossed the key in the direction of the table. It had been a long day and it was far from being over.

Jack reached for the light switch, turning it on, saw the dark forms on either side of her periphery and lashed out at the first one with her foot taking out her gun and aiming at the second with the snub nose .38 she'd had up her sleeve.

"Whoa, easy darlin." Dean held up his hands to show it was just him and 'just him' was unarmed. Jack looked to see Sam pinned to the wall by her booted foot on his throat. Not any easy fete considering he had eight inches on her height wise, with her sneakers on. Tall s.o.b.

Dean was at her back without her noticing his movement and was blocking the door. In the dim light he looked all sorts of dangerous, not towards her, but to anything and everything else.

"I think he's running out of air." Dean said calmly. Sam was looking at her patiently, waiting for her to remove her foot. Jack lowered her leg to the ground slowly and edged backwards keeping her eyes on both the brothers. She lowered her lids to glance at the window but Sam was there blocking it and holding her backpack in his right hand.

"Give it back." She said wondering at how her voice sounded so tired and broken.

"No." Sam said softly, there was a red mark on his neck.

"Sit down Jack." Dean ordered firmly. She had no choice. Sam had her most prized possessions in his hand. Jack walked backwards to her bed and sat up against the headboard.

"Who was that man?" Dean asked calmly but with a dark edge to his voice. His eyes were unreadable.

"Brian McDonald." Jack answered.

"Your ex?" Dean asked.

"Yes." She said.

"Jack-" Sam started and stopped, looking at a loss for what to say. She could read him from a mile away. He looked sad.

"Give me my things so I can go." Jack said looking down at the bedspread.

"No." Sam said again more forcefully this time.

"What do you want from me?" Jack asked without any real heat.

"To know what happened." Dean said.

"No you don't." Jack said.

"Try me." Dean said in challenge.

"What? You want the truth!" Jack demanded snapping her head up to meet both their eyes.

"Yes." Dean said in a rough voice.

"You want to hear that I whored myself out when I was a teenager? That I was a hustler, a hooker, a fucking rentgirl?" Jack snarled giving them no quarter. "That I rationalized things by telling myself it was just my mouth I let them fuck."

"Stop." Sam whispered biting his lip. He swallowed deep and Jack felt another piece of her break, the sharp, jagged bits cutting deep.

"We want to know what happened, Jack." Dean took a step forward. "What happened from the night Chris died to the day we met you."

Jack felt the lump in her throat she'd been ignoring all afternoon. She couldn't. She couldn't tell them all that. She hadn't even told Brian everything, just the basics, psychic, bad things hunting her down, oh yeah and the brush with prostitution. Other things, that night, those were-

"I can't." Jack said, her voice cracking slightly.

"Please." Sam pleaded quietly.

She was quiet for so long, Sam didn't think she was going to answer and part of him, a big part of him didn't want her to. It was a lot to have to take in, he wanted to go back to ordinary problems, their kind of ordinary problems, things he could figure out. Sam didn't know the rules in a situation like this. It was one of the few times in his life he would've chosen hunting over "normal".

"I don't remember much from the night he died." Jack started barely above a whisper. She was looking down at her hands, that were clutching the coverlet tightly. Like she was trying to keep herself in place long enough to tell her tale.

"I-I get…flashes every now and then but I don't know a lot of it. PTSD, the guy they made me talk to right after it happened said. That was before I ran from foster care. I blocked it out, most of what happened. All I know is that after Chris died I nearly went insane."

TBC……….

AN: Requisite Author's Note here, ignore it if you please. For the beginning of this chapter I had the song Kansas-Carry On My Wayward Son playing in my head throughout the boy's parts. Then Three Doors Down-Love Me When I'm Gone for Jack's. The next chapter is going to be a complete flashback from three years ago. A long ass flashback too, covering much of Jack's time alone and how she met Tommy and Billie. Till then….