Dean stepped out into the gloomy and weak rays of sunlight that fought to be cast down through the overcast sky. A chill breeze greeted him, whispering through the dry weeds and pushing up small grains of dirt, which tickled at Dean's nose and scratched at his exposed skin. The scent of the soil and horse manure wafted to his nose, carrying memories from the last time Sam and him had been there in the quiet town of Sunrise, Wyoming.

They'd been searching for an ingredient to defeat the Mother of All with, and they had needed it quickly. However, the ingredient in question had been extremely difficult to retrieve, and had required traveling back in time - to the very place where Dean stood now. Dean and his brother had nearly been trapped in 1861 in their effort to get the ashes of a phoenix. But this had happened several years ago, when Bobby was still-

A pang of remorse chimed inside him like a bell, making him feeling empty and sick. He shook his head, dismissing his train of thought. He couldn't let the events of the past get to him and impair his chances of returning him to the present.

Damn, cruel irony, Dean thought, and he couldn't help but smile sorrowfully. To deal with getting out of the past, I first need to forget my past.

Then there came a noise from behind him, a swishing of heavy doors swinging on their hinges. "You!" said Owen, stomping towards him, an accusatory finger extended and pointed at in his direction.

Dean sighed. If only I could get this guy off my back. The man had caused nothing but trouble for Dean, and the hunter still wasn't ready to forgive Owen for letting a member of his team shoot him multiple times in the chest. Even though it hadn't inflicted any permanent damage in Dean, and the wounds had healed remarkably quickly, it still hadn't been a pleasant experience.

Dean looked at Owen with a blank expression. Just then, he noticed that the man was wounded; a scarlet patch stained the sleeve of his coat. Dean couldn't keep the guilty frown off his face; he recalled firing a shot and hearing it hit somebody, and he knew that the bullet must've entered Owen's arm. "You're bleeding."

Owen glanced at his sleeve, seeing the blood that had stained through his jacket. "Oh, bugger," he said, rolling his eyes. "It's ruining my clothing. And you know who's fault that is?"

"Yeah, just be glad I hit your arm and not anywhere important. You were lucky I wasn't able to see, or you wouldn't be standing there right now."

The comment seemed to keep Owen quiet for a moment as the man considered it. Dean guessed it was one of the rare moments where the agent wasn't complaining about something.

Owen pursed his lips and studied Dean for a moment, his eyes searching the hunter's face. After awhile, he asked with all seriousness, every trace of his earlier demeanor gone, "What are you?"

Dean laughed softly to himself and peered at his feet, before bringing his eyes up to meet Owen's. The look on the agent's face made it appear as though he was afraid Dean's eyes would turn pitch black again, but Dean's eyes remained a soft, light green. "I'm Dean Winchester."

"Where's Ianto?" Toshiko asked urgently. She and Gwen hoisted Jack as quickly as they could through the door and into the gift shop that served as a disguise to the entrance of the Hub. Both of the women cringed when the door slipped from behind Gwen's foot, knocking Jack in the head with a painful crack.

"I'm here," said Ianto, rushing in behind them. He held the entrance to the shop open, allowing Gwen and Tosh to easily slip inside the rest of the way. Ianto froze, staring at Jack's bloodless, ghost-like face, which was usually animated and tan. The time-traveler appeared much older than he should, with dark shadows below his eyes, and flesh the color of an overcast sky. "Don't tell me he's died."

Gwen shook her head. "Thrown like a doll, and it feels like he cracked his skull, too. We don't know what it was that did it."

Tosh supplied more, "The thing that attacked Jack and the rest of us jumped for Owen - no doubt intending to rip him apart." A look of great fear washed over her. "The both of them disappeared, and we've no clue where they've gone."

Ianto's eyes widened. He hurried ahead of the women to open the next door, which entered into a cool, dimly lit hallway. Once they were through, he followed after them, a frown on his face. "Did you see the face of the beast that attacked you?"

Gwen was the first to reply: "Yes, actually. It looked like a man, but it wasn't. It couldn't have been. I saw it's eyes turn black, blacker than you could imagine. And, it was quite handsome."

Oh no. Ianto's heart dropped, and as he walked he could swear he heard it squishing around in his feet. It was Sam's brother, Dean. Who else fit the description so perfectly? Ianto tried to ignore the headache that bloomed in his head and focus on the urgent matter at hand. He knew Dean, with his violent temper, couldn't be trusted to control himself. After all, if Sam had not been there to stop him, Dean would have probably killed Ianto when they first met.

"We have to lay him down somewhere before he wakes up," Tosh said, shattering the silence that had fallen over the three.

It wasn't difficult to do this; by now the medical table, which Owen used for surgical purposes, was only a few steps away. Once the three were beside it, they worked together to gently pick Jack up and lay him gingerly on the table's cold, metal surface. Afterwards, they all stood back and watched.

They waited for forty minutes, fifty minutes, and then an hour. Eventually Gwen turned to the others and asked, "Do you think he'll wake up?"

Ianto stared at Jack's white lips. Lying there, he looked so gray and pale he could have blended into the metal table below him. "Of course he will." Ianto hesitated before adding, uncertainty creeping into his voice: "He always does."

"The thing that attacked us, though….it was powerful…" Tosh said.

Yes, that certainly made sense, unlike everything else that had happened in the last few days. Ianto knew Dean had to be incredibly strong to overpower four Torchwood agents by himself. Also, if Dean was responsible for the vanishing act that Tosh had described, then that would be a sure sign that the black-eyed man had more power than anticipated. To pull off something like that required a large amount of energy, enough to rip into the bindings of space and jump into the vortex. To do something so giant, Dean must have had something to help him. Jack had an instrument that strapped to his wrist, Ianto knew - Ianto had seen it. Where would Dean have found something like this, though? Had he come with it, or had he stolen from the Hub? The latter was a strong possibility; he and his brother were both extraordinarily stealthy on their feet. Ianto had learned this when the brothers had broken into the Hub.

If Dean had stolen one of the artifacts… Ianto gasped. Jack always warned of the terrible things that could happen if they ended up in the wrong hands.

Another possibility came to his mind, however. It was possible that Dean Winchester was not the one responsible for the disappearing of himself and Owen. It was possible that the thing to blame for their vanishing was the rift. It had always caused trouble, why shouldn't it start swallowing people? If this was really the case, Ianto hoped that the rift was spitting the things it swallowed back out somewhere, and not just sucking them from existence. Even if Ianto didn't care for Dean Winchester, he still wished for his colleague to come back alive.

Whether Dean had stolen an artifact, or the rift had taken a bite out of time, chewed it up, and spit it out elsewhere, Ianto wouldn't be able to rest until Jack awoke and Owen was found, which were two things he knew wouldn't happen without intervention. That meant that Ianto would have to do something, and quickly.

He barely paid attention to Gwen and Toshiko's calls as he rushed down the hall and out the door.

Ianto needed to find Sam, and quickly. The hunter needed to know about what had happened, and what his older brother had done.

He'd run out into the night with just a coat and a flashlight, and had been searching every nearby inn and bar. He didn't dare take the black Torchwood vehicle; Tosh and Gwen would be able to track him if he did, so he so took every step on foot.

Sam could easily find Ianto if he needed information or assistance, but Ianto had no way of finding Sam. This was proving problematique - especially in a time like now. Sam had specifically told Ianto that he couldn't tell the rest of his team what he knew about the Winchesters. As far as they knew, the two hunters didn't exist. But this meant that Ianto had to do everything on his own. There were plenty of things that Ianto was good at doing, even when he was alone...but searching all of Cardiff for one man was not one of them.

As he neared an intersection, Ianto came to a stop. He scanned the sidewalk and store fronts all around him in one last hope that Sam would suddenly appear, but to no avail. It was hopeless, he decided. He had to get back to the Hub without finding the younger of the two brothers and giving him the news, or else Tosh and Gwen would comb the entire town searching for him. What all three of the remaining Torchwood agents really needed to be doing, was making sure they were there when Jack regained consciousness. Ianto was hoping that when his boss awoke, he'd get some answers. There was a chance, albeit slim, that Jack knew what Dean Winchester was.

Ianto turned suddenly. He grabbed for the gun stored in his back pocket and held it out in front of him. He'd heard something...someone. Someone had been talking.

"Hello?" Ianto called out.

He waited for a response, but there wasn't one.

"Hello?" he called again.

Still, he was met by silence. His voice echoed off of the empty street and the darkened and locked stores.

"Hel-"

Ianto's third call was interrupted as a thick hand clamped over his mouth. Ianto tried to struggle, but the man had a strong hold on him. Still, Ianto continued to try to kick his assaulter, until he pulled a knife and held it to Ianto's throat. He could feel the metal blade's chill touch, which discouraged him from struggling. He quickly stilled, like a rabbit that's just spotted a hawk diving down on it, sharp talons poised and ready to pierce.

"You're working with the Winchesters," came a gruff voice from just beside his ear. His head was yanked back, and Ianto saw that his captor had pitch black eyes. But this time, it wasn't Dean. What he saw, though, made him wish that it was.

There were two of them - the one that held Ianto down, a muscular man who looked to be in his mid-thirties and had the shadow of a beard growing, and the other, a tall, slender woman who appeared to be in her forties. Both had black eyes, and grins on their faces that gave Ianto a grinding sense of dread.

"What do you want?" Ianto said, trying his best to sound unafraid. Still, his voice was small, like a child's.

The woman tilted her head, her curly bob of yellow hair shifting as she did so. "What do I want? Well, I want you dead. I want to destroy all those you care about and bathe in their blood. I want to bring the Winchesters both down to hell and claim my reward for it. But, this isn't about me. This is about...you," she said, taking a deep breath before the last word. She smiled again, making a sinuous shiver travel up Ianto's spine at the sight of her perfect teeth.

"I don't understand," Ianto said. "Who are you?"

She ignored his question. "You know the whereabouts of Dean Winchester?"

He frowned. If she was searching for Dean, then she could join the club. Ianto's only hope of finding out where the man was was by first finding Sam, who might know what was going on.

The woman grabbed Ianto's shirt and yanked him toward her, snarling, her teeth bared like a rabid dog's. "Do you know where Dean Winchester is?" she repeated.

"No, no," Ianto said, shaking his head. "I've no idea."

The woman didn't seem to believe him. She pulled a knife out of the back of her pants and held it up against Ianto's throat. "It's not good to lie to me."

"I don't know where he is!"

The woman lowered the blade until it rested on his collarbone. His skin felt cold as it bit into his flesh. Blood welled underneath the skin and rushed out of the wound as Ianto yelled out in pain.

"This doesn't have to happen anymore. Just tell me his location, and the both of us will leave you alone." She was smiling sickly. She moved the knife down an inch, then pressed into the skin again.

"Hey!"

Ianto and both of his attackers turned to find the source of the voice, and found Sam, standing a few feet away. He held a gun in his hands, which was pointed toward the woman's head. She laughed.

"Sam Winchester," she said. "Come to join the party?"

"Let him go," he demanded.

"Oh, but the fun was just starting!" she exclaimed. The knife pressed into Ianto's skin further, and he bit his lip, unsuccessfully stifling a cry.

Bang, bang!

Two deafening shots rang out, ricocheting off of the street and surrounding closed storefronts. The hands holding him loosened, and the knife fell to the ground, though the stinging sensation remained.

Both of his attackers fell to the ground with a thud. They glowed a bright red for a second, before there was a sizzling sound and the color disappeared, leaving corpses on the gray sidewalk. They looked uncannily like average humans...Ianto shivered.

Sam slipped his pistol back into his clothing. "You alright?" he asked, stepping closer. He inspected Ianto's cuts. "Not too deep," he said. "You will need stitches, though."

Ianto nodded. He could tend to his wounds later, but at the moment… "I need to talk to you," he said.

Sam glanced around them, his eyes searching for something. "Sure, but later. Right now, we need to get out of here."