"So . . . who are you?" Dean asks.

The soldier smirks, "an old friend of Bobby's."

The brothers share a look before returning their eyes to him. Sam leans forward on his elbows, licking his lips nervously.

"Why are you here?"

"Bobby sent me. That spirit you're hunting?" The boys nod, "it's not a spirit. It's a rathe."

Sam and Dean share startled looks. They weren't equipped to handle a rathe, prison or no prison.
(A/N: totally made that up, just go with it)

"I'm here to get you two," he gestures to each of them, "to Bobby's and dispel the rathe before it kills anymore people." He says with a slight smirk.

"But, how are you going to do that? The longer a rathe is active, the more vicious they get."

The solider just smirks but doesn't give a verbal response.

––––-----------------------------–––
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Sam and Dean lay deathly still until they herd two hard taps followed by one light tap of the truck they were hiding in.

Climbing out, they stretched hard before looking around and smiled. They were back at Bobby's house.

––––-----------------------------–––

Bobby was sat in his recliner, the boys on the couch across from him, each had a beer in hand.

Finally, Bobby spoke. "Hope you boys didn't drop the soap while you were away," he teased.

Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably at the mental images and silently thanked what little Winchester luck they'd had while they were in prison.

"Nope. No butt rape," Dean replied, looking a little green at the thought. "We did run into a rathe and almost went after it, thinking it was a spirit . . . Until an old friend of yours stopped us, that is."

Bobby immediately straightened up, slightly startling both of the Winchesters.

"What old friend? Did they give you a name? What'd they look like?" He demands.

"Never got a name or a good look at his face-" Dean starts but was cut off by Sam.

"He wore military fatigues, was sharp-tongued and carried a cane."

Bobby slumped in his chair, shakily bringing his beer to his lips and chugging.

"What? Who are they?" Dean asks nervously.

Bobby gave a dry, humorless laugh.

"Boy, you two sure know how to attract the attention of some very big people. That was Black, only hunts the baddest of the bad. Ran into him a couple times, enough to learn his name and stacked up quite a few life-debts to him for all the times he saved my sorry ass."

"So, what do we do now?" Sam and Dean ask.

"Now, we wait."

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