"Last night was a…high point, if you don't mind me saying," Ruby said, swaying the hips of the new body she'd chosen as she moved closer to Sam.

"Good."

"All right. Well, I see you need to start your day. When did you say you were heading out?"

Sam stayed silent. If anything, he seemed even more quiet now, and he hadn't exactly been a big talker before.

"You didn't. Right. Damn, you know how to play that mystery card," she said. But so do I.

He cleared his throat, and she turned around to find him holding two hundred dollar bills.

"Right. I almost forgot." She took the money from his hands slowly, playing up the moment, and smiled as she said, "Next time…" She handed him a card with her cell number on it. "You can call me on my night off. If you want."

"Okay."

That was it. No final smile, no look of longing. She'd definitely been hoping for a bit more. Something was different about him. The old Sam would never even have been in this situation in the first place. "Okay." She turned to leave, debating on where she'd wait to follow him. The parking lot was probably her best bet, but she didn't know which car was his. She'd checked the parking lot here on her way in, when Sam had walked her back to the motel after finding her on the street corner last night. The Sam she used to know would have picked something old and boring to steal, something nobody would notice. It only held a handful of cars, but none that looked like one he'd take.

The doorknob prickled slightly under her skin, and she pulled her hand back in surprise.

"Doused it in holy water earlier," Sam said, his voice dangerously quiet as he walked towards her. "Not much left, but then it doesn't take much. Does it, Ruby?"

She turned and looked up at him, unable to stop the smile that spread across her lips. "When did you figure it out?"

"Last night."

She moved closer to him and put her finger on his chest, tracing it up his center until she reached his throat. "Guess I have a recognizable style, no matter the packaging, huh?"

He blinked, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face. "I could smell the sulfur in you, and when I made you scream, your eyes turned black." He grabbed her hand and clasped his large fingers around hers.

She met his eyes, curious at his next move.

"Just because it's dark doesn't mean I can't see." He released her hand and pushed it away, turning his back on her. He jumped up about a foot, and grabbed onto the pipe hanging from the ceiling, starting another set of pull-ups. Perfect movement, perfect form, no trace of agitation at all at her return. It was insulting, really.

She looked over towards the nearby table and glared at it. His cell-phone sparked as the battery overloaded. It made her feel a little better, at any rate. "You don't care that I'm back from the dead?"

"Should I?"

She scoffed. "I expected you to be...surprised, at least."

"I've died and come back. More than once. I've been to Heaven. I've been the Devil." He took a moment to shift the position of his hands, flipping his grip to put more weight on his biceps. "Not much surprises me. "

"You're different." She'd known he would be. No one came back from Hell unchanged. The cage was worse. Nothing could get out, but somehow Sam had. Or at least...part of him had.

Suddenly the reality of what had happened sunk in. It was the only explanation that made sense. "You're missing something." She walked past his moving form, watching the fine trickle of sweat down his back until she was standing across from him.

He kept moving, shallow but steady breaths, as fine tremors started in his arms. He'd have to stop soon, or switch position again.

"You don't even know how you got out, do you? Don't you want to know why you're here? Don't you want to know why I'mhere?" she asked.

He dropped down from the bar. "I don't really care." He sat down and went right into a set of sit-ups. "I'll kill you again if I have to."

That made her eyebrow shoot up. "What makes you think it'll stick this time?"

"I figure if anybody brought you back, it was Lucifer. And if I'm right, then it probably won't be as easy for him to do it again from inside his jail cell."

She nodded. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She'd been resurrected by Lucifer the moment Sam had set him free, but she'd been locked away. A contingency planthe darkness had whispered back to her, in the Devil's voice.

She wasn't set free until Lucifer was falling back into his prison, and she felt it the exact moment his power was cut off from the world. She still wondered sometimes, if Sam could feel him. They'd always be connected, and if Sam wanted to, he could reach Lucifer. The connection between a vessel and their Angel could transcend any barrier, in theory.

Then again, this Sam didn't really seem like the transcendent type. He was sharper than he'd been. The theory that was forming in her head seemed more likely to be true every passing second. But there was an easy way to be sure.

Sam had grabbed a towel from his bed and was drying himself off. He grabbed a gray shirt from his duffel bag and slipped it on.

"What about Dean?" she asked carefully.

"What about him?"

"You two are usually joined at the hip." She gestured at the room. "I don't see him anywhere."

"He moved in with someone."

"Did he now?" Ruby had checked up on Dean, of course, but Sam didn't need to know that. "And he knows you're back?"

"Yup," Sam pulled his gun out of his duffel and slipped it into his holster. "Is there a point to all this, or are you just bored?"

"Your brother wouldn't just drop the hunting life. And he'd be here with you, if you were you."

Sam cocked his head to the side. "You don't think I'm me?"

"You really don't know, do you?" She walked closer to him again and caught his eyes with hers.

"Something's different," he said. "Since I got back — things are easier. "

"Yeah, that's not usually how people react to a stint in Hell. Do you even remember it?"

"I remember. It burned and it tore me apart, but..." His eyes looked distant for a few moments as he remembered.

"But what?"

"But I'm fine." He didn't laugh, exactly. It was more like a huff — somewhat amused. "I should be a mess. I should be suffering at least, right? Or struggling against a waking nightmare…but I'm not."

"And why do you think that is?"

"Because I left the weaker part of myself behind." His mouth twitched into a half-smile. "Whatever raised me wanted me sharp. It cut off everything about me that was soft and broken. I'm what's left."

"Interesting theory," she said. From his perspective, he was right. But she wondered how much of what had made Sam Samhad been lost along with that weakness. "Any idea who got you out?"

"Unless the rules have changed, only angels can free someone from Hell. It couldn't have been Lucifer." He shook his head once. "No other angel would care enough to set me free."

"Not even Castiel?"

"Is he strong enough to spring someone from the cage?"

"Not by a long shot," she said. Not unless he had help."Whoever did this, I don't think they got all of you out."

"What do you mean?"

She tilted her head to the side and stared at him curiously. "Do you sleep?"

He shook his head. "Don't need to. Don't want to."

"You don't think that's strange?"

"I've never been exactly normal." Sam shrugged, and away from her. He crouched down to the floor and pulled his duffel bag out, then dropped it on the bed. "I'm gonna head out."

"I'll come with you."

"Why?"

"You got out of Hell, you have no idea why…and if I'm right, you're missing your soul."

That actually got a reaction. Of a sort. Sam's eyebrows moved infinitesimally upwards. "My soul?"

"Whoever pulled you out did a half-assed job. They only got part of you. The rest of you — the part that feels and cares, the part that threw himself into the Pit — that part of you is still in the cage. Probably being ripped apart by Lucifer as we speak." She said the last part half with anger, half with jealousy. Lucifer, who she'd given everything to free, was trapped again along with Sam's soul. And this part of Sam, the one who didn't sleep, who didn't feel…he could be the answer she'd been looking for. "Look, you don't care if I go with you or not, right?"

"No."

"Then I'm coming with you."

"Okay."

And that was that.

They were hunting a shapeshifter. An Alpha, according to Sam.

"You're sure he's here?" she asked, eyeing the apartment building suspiciously.

"Security camera at the bank next door caught his eye flare. He's been here for at least three days."

"Okay, and how do we take him down? You said tranquilizers didn't do jack and silver barely phased him."

Sam frowned. "We'll have to try a lotof silver." He held up his gun. "Silver bullets in here, and more importantly..." He handed her a slim black box.

She flipped the box open to find four syringes filled with liquid colloidal silver. Then she turned to Sam. "Seriously?"

"It'll do way more damage in his bloodstream. Plus, we know needles can penetrate his skin from last time. And I know you can get close enough to inject him."

"See, I'm useful already," she said smirking. Of course if he was relying on her to assist, then he considered the alpha to be quite the opponent. And if he was right, then this might be the opportunity she'd been waiting for since he recognized who she was.

It wouldn't be easy to convince him to start drinking her blood again. This version of Sam might be more ruthless, but he also struck her as the type that would see any addictive substance as a weakness. It was going to be tricky to convince him he was strong enough to handle the blood without going overboard. She'd have to go slow, she'd have to wait for the right moment.

She was good at waiting.

The Alpha came back to the apartment building a few hours later and they tracked him inside. He caught on half a flight up and started running up the steps. Inhumanly fast, he sprinted up, taking two, three steps at a time and threw open the door to the rooftop.

Ruby willed herself out onto the roof, positioning herself behind the water-tower, and watched.

Sam followed seconds later, aiming his gun at the shifter.

"Unless you can sprout wings," Sam said, "I don't think there's a way out of this for you."

The shifter's lips curved into a snarl and he changed his shape, taking on Dean's form. "Come on, you wouldn't shoot your own brother, Sam. Would you?"

"You're not my brother," Sam said, aiming for the shifter's heart.

"Seems to me, we're more alike than you think, Sam." The shifter's form melted again until he looked exactly like Sam — down to the last detail. "We're both unique in this world. First of our kind. We don't have to be enemies."

Sam cocked his head to the side, as though considering the situation. He caught Ruby's eyes then, but didn't let it show on his face.

Ruby winked at him, and lunged forward, syringe aimed at the alpha's throat.

The shifter moved faster than she could see. She'd been a demon for centuries, and had never seen anything that quick. It grabbed her wrist and pulled back, snapping the bones in her arm.

She cried out in pain as the syringe fell to the ground.

Sam fired two shots, causing the shifter to jerk. He growled and leapt forward, tackling Sam to the ground.

Ruby watched them, trying to keep track of who was winning. Her eyes couldn't tell them apart, but her other senses could.

After a minute of grappling, the shifter got himself underneath Sam and kicked, throwing Sam off of himself and up into the air. Sam landed hard against a metal leg of the water tower. He struggled to push himself up, but the shifter had already made a run for it. He jumped off the roof, sailed through the air, and grabbed onto the edge of a fire-escape the next building over. He slammed his body through the nearest window, sending glass shards flying and disappeared inside.

"Want me to go after him?" Ruby asked when she got to Sam's side.

Sam spit out a mouthful of his own blood and looked up at her, with something like anger on his face.

No, not anger. It was the look of a predator whose prey had escaped.

"No," he said, and reached for her arm.

For a second, she thought he wanted her to pull him up. And then he pushed back her sleeve and in one swift movement, pulled a knife from his sheath and sliced open her forearm. He brought his lips around the wound before she had even fully processed what had happened.

"Sam—" That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

He drank deep and quickly and pushed her arm away when he was done. He stood up, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and said, "Let's go."

"After the shifter?"

Sam didn't answer, but moved towards the edge of the roof looking the way the shifter had gone. Even with demon blood in his system, he wouldn't be able to jump that long distance.

"No, he'll lay low for a bit. But there's other hunts out there." He turned to look at her. "And now I've got another weapon back in my arsenal."

She waited until he'd pulled out onto the highway, in the direction of what he was sure were rugaru hunting grounds, to ask him the question that had been stuck in her head since the rooftop. "You're not worried?"

"About what?"

"The blood, it— you have to keep drinking it if you want to get stronger, and stay that way. You know that."

He nodded. "I just need to have a steady supply and control the dosage. Slow increases, no heavy fluctuations."

"Okay then. I mean I'm here for you, obviously."

"Can't count on that. After we take down the rugaru we'll track down a demon or two. Stock up."

"Sam, you can count on me."

"No, I can't," he said as he pulled over into the exit lane. "You betrayed me before. You're probably doing the same thing now. But then, you're not the only demon walking the Earth, are you?"

She didn't know what to say to that, so she settled for glaring out the window.

The rugaru went down quick. Sam tackled it while it was feeding, and brought it down to the ground. Before it could get back up, he brought his machete down on the monster's throat and sliced right through, lopping off the head. Its furious, distorted face stopped moving and fell still.

There'd been a lot of force behind that blow, a rugaru's skin was tough as wood, and didn't cut easily. But Sam's strength, enhanced by the demon blood, was enough. Ruby set it alight with her flamethrower to make sure it stayed dead. Rugarus had a nasty habit of regrowing heads.

Sam was pleased by the kill. Well, as pleased as this new version of Sam seemed to get, anyway. He drove down the highway at a steady, but unrushed pace, stopped at a diner to get something to eat, and even ordered french fries for Ruby. It was almost fun.

They hit the road again just after sunset. Sam pulled a map out of the side pocket of his door and tossed it in her lap. "Find us some demons."

She glared at him. "What do I look like, a bloodhound?"

Sam smirked.

She sighed melodramatically and unfolded the map making sure to shove most of it in front of Sam's face, causing him to bat it away angrily to avoid driving off the road. She found him two demons, less than twenty miles away.