He gives a vague noncommittal grunt. It is in fact the longest they've been civil. He isn't sure how he feels about that. It's not as though there's not been an uneasy truce between them, but that had always been for Dean's sake. And his own desire not to be caught in human squabbles over what makes a monster.

This is different.

Maybe it's why, after a long few minutes, he says, "Did Lucifer have something to do with it? Your death?"

It's as much a question as a guess. Jo had not recognized Lucifer at all, but he wonders now in hindsight—between the hellhound now and those woods—if Dean's insistence they stay away from the demon is more than worry, more than that brand of overprotectiveness he's beginning to recognize from the man. If it lies deeper in some fear that history will repeat.