Dean had heard the scream echo through the forest and sprinted that way. He'd been following the same trail Sam had been, but he knew he was behind, no matter how fast he was. Hearing a scream meant he had a direction; he could book it.

He could feel a few sharper plants pulling at his clothes and cutting a few lines into his skin, but he kept running—and ran faster when he heard the familiar high-pitched whine of the sonic screwdriver. Of course the Doctor had found trouble and thrown himself into the middle.

He leaped over a fallen log and kept running until he caught sight of a dilapidated cabin out there in the middle of nowhere. It looked like it belonged either to hunters or to rangers, but he was approaching from the back and couldn't see anything to indicate who owned it.

"Ha!" He heard the Doctor cry out in triumph and heard the sound of a lock coming undone—and then, someone screamed inside the house.

The window on the back looked small enough that Dean wasn't sure he could fit his shoulders through if he tried, so he took off running again. The Doctor and Sam were already inside—Dean heard gunshots a second after he got to the front door—and the door was wide open. So, Dean rushed inside and pulled up short when he saw the gory scene.

The Doctor had pulled a young woman away from Sam and the rugaru. She was missing chunks from her forearm, where she had clearly tried to defend herself, and she was hyperventilating, crying into the Doctor's side while he tried to keep her calm.

The rugaru himself was already covered in blood—and some of it was his own, judging by the holes Sam had already put in him. He was crouched low and snarling, blood and bits of flesh dangling from his teeth, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers stretched out as if they were animal claws.

"You got a medical degree to back up your title?" Dean called out as he drew his own gun to help Sam deal with the problem. Sam was in between him and the monster, so he started to circle—and swore when the rugaru pounced toward Sam. They were too close together.

"Took you long enough!" Sam shouted over to Dean as he managed to get his foot in between himself and the rugaru, kicking hard enough to send the monster flying until it collided with the other end of the small cabin. The impact knocked a few things off the wall, including a deer head with antlers long enough to scrape the rugaru's face badly as it came down on him.

"Had to stop and smell the flowers; you know me," Dean said before he unloaded into the rugaru. The thing was fast enough to make a hard target, and the bullets didn't stop it as well as they should have, but enough hits and it should go down.

Bang. Sam shot the rugaru just as it crouched to spring itself at Dean, leaving a hole in its head. And Dean fired three more just to be sure.

For a long moment, the two of them stood in front of the dead body of the rugaru, side by side, almost like it had always been. And then, Sam turned on his heel and walked out the door, leaving the Doctor and Sam to the hysterical girl.

Dean frowned toward Sam's back, but he figured Sam didn't have anywhere to go for the time being. Hopefully. With a sigh, he crouched down beside the Doctor, who was still sitting with the girl as she cried into his stomach, absolutely beside herself while the Doctor did what he could for her wounds.

"Let me help with that," Dean said, letting the Doctor shift so that he was more the emotional support than the physician. He made quick work of wrapping her arm but winced. "You're gonna want to go to the ER. That might get infected."

The girl let out a sound that perfectly conveyed exactly how Dean would have felt about the situation in her shoes. A big ER bill. Yeah, that sounded right. She was overwhelmed and annoyed at having yet one more thing put on her plate.

"I get it," Dean said, sitting down in front of the Doctor and the girl. "I hate doctors too."

The girl let out a soft sob-laugh. "I'm a nurse," she said.

Dean winced in sympathy. "So you hate doctors more than me, right? Get to see the god complex up close and all?"

The girl laughed again, starting to gain her composure with something else to focus on now that her arm wasn't in immediate need of attention. She still leaned heavily into the Doctor, obviously exhausted from her order, but she turned toward Dean and regarded him more carefully. "Where did you even come from?"

Dean grinned crookedly. "I get that one a lot," he said before he held his hand out to her. "Do you think you can walk?" he asked. "The Doctor and I can put you between us if you need the extra help."

The girl looked between the two of them and then nodded, though she winced her way through it as they got her upright. Dean and the Doctor shared glances over the top of her head, but whatever they both wanted to talk about had to take a backseat, for the moment. A civilian had been hurt, and they couldn't leave her there in the middle of nowhere. Not after they'd gone to all that effort to save her life.

"We can give you a lift to the hospital, but after that, my brother and I need to get going," Dean told her in a low tone as they walked.

"Going to go save another damsel in distress?" she asked. Now that she was coming back to herself, Dean liked the personality he saw poking out. If it hadn't been for Lisa and Ben at home—or if it hadn't been for the fact that she was so gravely injured—he would have turned up the charm even more than he already had it turned up.

"That's the job description," Dean told her, grinning widely.

"Lucky me."

The Doctor shook his head, his smirk barely restrained, though he looked past them toward Sam and then nodded toward Dean. "Have you got her?" he asked softly.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, of course."

"Good," the Doctor said. He pressed his mouth into a line as thin as his eyes were narrowed. "I'd like to have a talk with your brother."