Red River Inn - an ironically-named motel if ever there was one - boasted a Business Center on its signage, which was lucky for Dean Winchester. Less lucky was the fact that the the Business Center was a single ancient desktop computer with dial-up in the corner of the lobby. Beggars can't be choosers, though, and once Dean was done cursing himself for being too dumb to have his own laptop in 2009, he settled himself in in front of the computer and began to work.

Researching Ma'at was his first order of business. He tried all the keywords he could think of to check her out. Sam was the brother who did academic research for the joy of learning; he was more into trying to find quick answers, and no matter how many different web pages he pulled up, he could not find any evidence of "Ma'at screwing with people by sending them back in time." None of the lore mentioned time travel, but neither did it mention her doing anything malicious. It seemed that her business really had been weighing the hearts of the newly dead and sending them to their just reward.

"So here's to trusting her," Dean had muttered before cutting the computer off and walking back to his room. When he turned the key, he wasn't surprised to find the motel had the same awful flower bedspread of every other cheap motel in America. Almost like home sweet home.

He'd dropped his duffel bag on the bed, brushed his teeth, and then changed into the pair of old sweatpants he used to love and had lost sometime in 2011. They felt as worn and broken-in as he remembered, and he chalked them up as a plus to this whole situation.

The other plus sauntered through his mind wearing a green cargo jacket and a smile that left dents in both of her cheeks.

Finding a pad of notebook paper in the bag, he started to jot information down. The paper quickly became a sea of arrows and sideways notes as he tried to bring together his knowledge. He tried to write it all down, and every second, he wished Sam was there to help him remember this stuff. Where had they found Famine? Had it been Indiana or Oklahoma? Had they thought the Trickster was dead in 2009 or had they known the Trickster was still alive and just not known he was the archangel, Gabriel?

At 4 a.m., he cut on the TV and found an infomercial on some sort of pressure cooker just to let the background noise keep him awake.

Should they try to find Crowley and enlist him in the plan in order to have demon backing, or should he try to keep them from ever meeting Crowley to protect Cas from teaming up with him later on? Would Cas recognize that he was Future Dean and not actually the Dean from 2009? How was he going to convince anyone to listen to him without telling them how he knew this stuff? Telling them represented a time paradox, and he had seen enough crappy sci-fi movies to know that was bad.

He wanted to tell Sam. It had only been a few hours since he had seen his brother, and he already missed having him as a partner, someone in the exact same shit he was. Dean had no idea what he was going to say to Sam when he called him in the morning, but he didn't see any upside to trying to explain the situation. He was on his own.

At 5 a.m., he had turned his rough doodlings into enough of a plan to take to Bobby and company. Exhausted, he sat down on the edge of the bed and tried Step One. He closed his eyes.

"Dear Castiel who art not in Heaven but flying somewhere around the American Midwest, I need you."

He heard that familiar rustle, one that sounded almost like feathery wings drawing down. He opened one eye to see Cas standing in front of him. This version of the angel could not have known that he was just a few years - milliseconds on the heavenly measure - from killing hundreds of his brothers and sisters and dying himself in an explosion of primeval destruction. This version of the angel still had the stiffness of inhumanity. He was a few months out from shouting "Assbutt" and throwing a holy hand grenade at Michael, but at least he was alive.

"Hello Dean."

Even though Dean had played out the conversation in his head, he fumbled a bit now.

"Cas, listen. We've got to take a sharp right from your whole plan to find God."

Cas took a step towards him and narrowed his eyes. "You are different than you were yesterday."

Dean stood up and nodded his head. Sometimes the best defense was a strong offense.

"Yeah, watching one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse tear apart a town and nearly kill Rufus, Ellen, and Jo will do that to a person."

Cas looked up with renewed interest. "Did you see the Horseman?"

War had presented as a middle-aged man. Never had a balding man with a slight paunch looked so evil. Like all of these big-time players in God's immortal chess game, he had burned through a human to prove his point. Even Cas was just a winged creature inside of poor Jimmy Novak, a sap too stupid to know that believing in God was a giant letdown at best and a death sentence at worst.

"Kinda. It's a long story, but I've got his ring," Dean walked to the chair by the window, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled it out. He gave the ring to Cas who took it and turned it over, examining for something unseen. Dean wondered if it looked like more than a simple gold band to angelic eyes.

"In fact, not only do I have his ring, but I got some information out of him too," Dean lied so smoothly that he would have believed himself if he had not known any better. Cas listened intently as Dean explained that War had mentioned only being afraid of one thing: Gabriel. Dean slid sideways into revealing the information, Hansel dropping breadcrumbs, until Castiel said,

"Perhaps Gabriel is somewhere on Earth. He has been missing for so long that many of us thought he was with our Father, but if War has mentioned him..." Cas's usually furrowed brow deepened. "He may be present somewhere here."

"Maybe. War did say Gabriel was one tricky son of a bitch."

Dean thought his heavy-handed hints were good, but ten more minutes passed before Castiel poofed away to begin a search for Gabriel instead of God. Obviously Egyptian goddess trumped Judeo-Christian angel because Cas had not done that blue-eyed soul-searching thing and announced that "Dean was not Dean." He supposed their friendship was still new and fledgling at this point; they had not yet become family.

His next step involved leaving Sam a lengthy, pep-talk "I need you to get your ass over to Bobby's ASAP" voicemail and adding that he had discovered crucial information without revealing how.

Rather than feeling relieved, Dean mostly felt exhausted. He hit the lumpy mattress, ignored the sour-milk smell of the pillow, and slept before he had time to think about how he didn't have time to sleep. In the recesses of his own dreams, he fought his demons, and they all took Jo's shape. He saw her in fiery explosions, he saw her ghostly pale hand touching his cheek and saying goodbye, and he saw her bent on her knees praying to God for salvation on the cold, stone floor of the church where Lucifer was unleashed. The image of her face, upturned and tear-streaked, pressed itself into his brain.

He woke up twice in two hours; each time splashing water on his face and trying again. Sleep took him even as he feared what it would bring.

The third time he awoke from a dreamless sleep to the thud of someone knocking on his door. He rolled over, wiping drool from his mouth, and glanced at the alarm clock on the beside table. 9 a.m. Three hours of sleep had practically been a record for him back in 2009. Good enough. He grabbed his tried-and-true Colt 1911 off the nightstand and walked to the door. Through the peephole, he saw Jo Harvelle with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of some sort in the other, and damn her, she was smiling.

He did a quick waistband tuck for his morning wood, tying the drawstring for the sweatpants tight enough that it was uncomfortable, and opened the door.

"Good morning, Dean Winchester." Jo gave him a sarcastically cheerful smile and pushed right past him into the room. "See, at first, I thought you just didn't call - which is par for the course, by the way - but then I got up and saw your Impala still out there. And since I know damn well you didn't go to bed at 1 a.m. and sleep straight through until now, I figured you must have been working for part of the night. So I brought coffee, in addition to my winning disposition."

He rubbed a bleary hand over his face. "You're awful perky for someone who must have an ass-kicking hangover."

"I'm young and spunky, and my ass is so tight you could bounce a quarter off it so a little kick won't hurt it. I'll worry about my hangover. You worry about how me and my mom are going to help head off the end times."

She gave him another grin.

"Proud of yourself for not letting me shake you, aren't you?" Dean considered sneaking out the weird tiny window in the bathroom just to keep her from looking so smug.

"Damn straight. Now go brush your teeth and put on some real pants. I brought you coffee and powdered donuts." She tossed the bag on the desk and took a sip out of the coffee that was supposedly his. Maybe he just wasn't all the way awake yet or maybe she was compensating for last night, but she seemed awfully self-assured.

"First tell me how you got my room number out of the guy in the lobby. You don't even know what name I used."

Jo grinned at him, and his pulse kicked up at the deviousness in those eyes. "I walked in and leaned on the counter, gave him a little cleavage…" Her voice purred. Then it snapped back into her usual tone. "That did nothing though, so I pulled my shirt back up and told him you knocked me up and I had to tell you before you left town."

"Jesus Christ." He went into the bathroom and took his sweet time getting ready.

Teeth brushed, head stuck under the running water for a quick rinse, and the jeans on the bathroom floor back on his body, he faced Jo again. Rather than make his life difficult, she let him drink the coffee and eat three donuts in peace. The coffee had that burnt, watery taste of convenience store brew. He didn't complain, and she didn't waste his time with conversation. Instead, she nibbled at a donut herself.

He could practically see her stubbornness steeling itself against him. He would tell her that there was no freakin' way she could be anywhere near this fight, and she would argue that she had every right to be involved, that he wasn't the boss of her, and that she wasn't a kid anymore. And that was some bullshit. She was 24. At that age, he had been the same way, seeing star-crossed love in a pair of pretty eyes. For God's sakes, after just a few weeks, he had told Cassie the truth about hunting and had been stupid enough to let Sam be off at college on his own. What did anyone know about anything at 24?

Shoveling the last bite of his donut in his mouth, he started tossing his stuff back into his bag.

"You might as well stop trying to come up with a way to blow me off. We've been there, done that," Jo interrupted his silence.

"Oh I don't have to blow you off, sister. You're not a part of this."

"How exactly would you have found War if I hadn't been here?"

"Rufus called Bobby. Not exactly like you sniffed this lead out on your own."

"Rufus called me and Mom first. Take that for what it's worth." She jutted her chin out, and he resisted the 'That's my girl' thoughts that threatened to kick up.

"Speaking of which," he aimed for distraction. "Where is your mother?"

"On her way to Sioux Falls to meet up with Bobby. I told her I'd catch a ride with you."

He'd be damned; she didn't miss a beat, and she didn't even crack a smile. He growled and groused and grumbled and muttered profanity under his breath for the next five minutes while he loaded up the car, the next fifteen minutes while he made his way across town to the nearest Gas 'n' Sip, and for the next two hours as she sat in the passenger seat with the audacity to sit there reading a Bible.

"Dare I ask why you're suddenly religious?" He made sure his eyes were firmly ahead before he drew her attention to him.

"I'm not. I'm researching. You talking to me again?"

"Nope. Still pissed."

"Okay. Just checking."

As if it wasn't bad enough that she had conned the con man, she made his life difficult just by being in the car next to him. While reading the damn Bible, she would pull her knees up to her chest, book tucked close, and absently work that lower lip between her teeth as she read.

Without even realizing it, she had created a routine for him. Look at the road, glance at the rearview mirror, sneak a look over at that red, worried lip and the boobs pressed against the Holy Book. He had that flippant 'God's going to be pissed' thought that people often voice but didn't know if it was because he was supposed to be focusing on saving Jo (as opposed to wanting to run his finger along the bow of her mouth) or because he was lusting over breasts on the Bible. Either way he suspected he was not earning himself brownie points with the absent Father upstairs.

He made it another hour and a half without talking, which would be a record in a lot of relationships but had not yet even gotten close to the long, terse ride with Ellen and Jo after the H.H. Holmes case. Then his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket as she asked, "You gonna answer that with me in here? Does that count as you breaking the silence?"

He ignored her, saw Sam's name on the front screen, and flipped it open. "You on your way to Bobby's?"

"I thought we agreed I didn't need to be hunting right now." Sam's voice sounded like he hadn't slept in six weeks. It was the voice of a man who had kickstarted the end of the world and had no idea how to live with himself until it claimed him.

"I know, but I just think we're stronger together on this one. Listen, Cas showed up last night, and he's had a change of plans, and I found out that all of the Horsemen have rings. I bet there's a prize coming in the mail if we collect all of them," Dean said. He felt Jo's hand on his arm and glanced her way.

"Turn right up here," she mouthed, pointing to Route 341. They needed to stay on the main highway for another 150 miles before turning anywhere, so he had no idea why she was motioning out the window at the upcoming turn.

"Hold on a second." Dean put the phone down to his shoulder. "Why the hell do you want me to turn up here?"

"We've got to go pick up my car, Dean. I left it at Stolley State Park with a hunting buddy and rode with Mom down to River Pass."

His blood pressure ticked up a few extra points. "How far out of our way is Stolley State Park?"

Before she could answer, he could hear Sam through the phone. "Stolley? That's pretty much dead in the center of Nebraska. Who are you talking to, Dean?"

"Not too far out of our way," Jo said, returning her attention to her Bible. "I'll let you know when we need to turn again."

Dean breathed in and out a few times, trying to decide if murdering her himself was against Ma'at's master plan.

"Sorry, Sam. Talking to Jo. Long story. She's hitching a ride with me to Bobby's. She and Ellen think they're going to help with all this." He earned himself a dirty look from the passenger seat.

"Do you think it's a good idea to get them involved?" Sam asked, a hesitant catch in his voice that made the question anything but rhetorical. His faith in his own judgment was so shot that he needed Dean for every step again.

Dean barely caught himself from hissing in a breath because he remembered when Sam had asked him that exact same question before he recruited Jo to break into Crowley's house with him and steal the Colt. The first time around, Sam had expressed the same concern about involving the Harvelle women, and he had been right.

"We'll worry about it when we get there. You get there when you can, okay?"

"Okay, Dean."

"See you there." Dean hung up without saying any of the 1500 things he was thinking. Sam would find his way there; all the shit Sam had survived… there was no way one little trip to Sioux Falls was going to be the end of him.

This one little trip to Sioux Falls might be the end of Jo Harvelle though. They spent the next several hours alternating between arguing about involvement in the Apocalypse, sniping at one another about the radio, or bitching about either having to make the drive to Stolley or impatience, depending on which person was speaking.

All that arguing should have made Dean itchy with genuine anger, but instead, he had been battling a boner off and on for about 200 miles. The more he insulted and patronized, the more she flamed up, cheeks pink and blonde waves flying around her face, while she told him he was a dumbass, a chauvinist, and the most immature adult she had ever met. A couple times, he considered going for at least half-honesty, telling her that he was trying to protect her, but then she'd bite back at him with an especially snarky retort, and he couldn't resist volleying.

By the time they pulled in at the Park Ranger's cabin at the edge of Stolley State Park, Dean prayed grateful prayers that he had made it without killing or kissing her.

The gratitude slipped away as the biggest man Dean had ever seen in real life stepped out of the cabin with a shotgun pointed at them.

"Jo…" Dean started to reach over to pull her down, but she had already slipped her seatbelt and taken off across the driveway. The behemoth barely had time to drop his gun before she had leapt into his arms. He lifted her up and spun her in a giddy circle, her legs wrapped around his waist. No one had ever greeted Dean that way in his life, so he told himself that was why he felt a surge of something like jealousy.

Only upon getting closer did Dean realize the ranger was younger than he had thought, closer to Jo's age than his. Back on her feet, she slipped an arm around him and turned to look at Dean.

"Dean, this is Travis Parker. Travis, this is Dean Winchester."

They shook hands, Travis standing a solid three inches taller than Sam. Dean shifted in his boots and tried not to notice the height differential. He glanced over at the vehicles beside the house. There was an orange pickup truck that looked a lot like Ellen's and a battered Pontiac Fiero that had seen better days. Its side mirrors seemed to be held on with a combination of duct tape and hot glue, and its original color seemed to be blue, though its doors and some patches were unpainted gunmetal grey. As one to judge a man by the care he took of his vehicle, Dean felt a smug pride at seeing the P.O.S.

"I've heard a lot about the Winchesters," Travis said.

"I've never heard of you," Dean replied with a shrug. Jo shot him a poisonous look.

"Yeah. I'm small-time stuff. I only take jobs every once and while, but I grew up in the life."

Dean ignored the statement, not taking the time to psychoanalyze why he was being a dick to some guy he had just met.

"Travis and I have known each other since we were kids. His parents used to bring him by the Roadhouse when they were in Nebraska."

She turned up and smiled at Travis with a platonic, open grin. He looked down at her in a way Dean recognized; the angle of his head gave him a peek down the front of her tank top. While he could understand it, he didn't like it.

"Childhood friends. That's great. I'm sure you two have a ton to talk about." Dean wondered if his voice could sound any less enthused about Travis and Jo. "I'm about to hit the road. See you at Bobby's?"

As he said "you," he looked straight at Jo, just in case Travis got any ideas about being included. Her bright eyes widened, surprised to not have to fight about continuing on to Bobby's, and she patted Travis's arm affectionately.

"Sorry, buddy. Sounds like we're headed out. I'm going to follow Dean."

"That's fine, JoJo. I'll see you soon."

"JoJo. Jesus," Dean muttered under his breath, turning back to his car to avoid seeing the potentially leg-wrapping goodbye. As he got into his car, he noticed Jo opening the door of the Fiero, not the truck. He got back out.

"That's your car?"

"Yes."

"You can't possibly be planning on driving that thing 300 miles. It doesn't look like it could make it across a town with a speed limit of 25."

"It does fine as long as I stop a couple times to check the oil." Jo shut the door and widened her stance, a challenge coming into her eyes.

"She's been driving it since she got her license. It's fine," Travis piped up. At the sound of the other man defending the car he should have had the decency to fix up for her, Dean saw red. He and Jo kicked up into a name-calling, low-blow-dealing argument that sent Travis rushing inside with a hasty goodbye thrown over his shoulder.

Dean would be damned if he came back in time to watch her die in that death-trap. Jo Harvelle would not be driving that car to Sioux Falls, even if he had to throw her over his shoulder and truss her to his passenger seat.