Summer 2010

Sam hot-wired a car and drove all night to get there. It was an upscale restaurant of the kind he and Dean would never set foot in even if they had the cash to do so. They served tiny portions of elaborately prepared foods made from exotic and disgustingly expensive ingredients. Dean had once said such places were a waste, quite literally.

"Why would you pay all that money for something you're just going to shit out and flush the next day?"

To his credit, Sam resisted the temptation to point out that most of the stuff Dean ate looked the same going in as it did coming out. This gave the phrase, "eat shit and die" a whole new meaning, because if a million other things didn't get Dean first, his diet was certainly going to kill him.

At this hour the restaurant was, closed, all the patrons and employees gone, except for the night manager who stayed late on Saturday nights to do the weekly bookkeeping. Sam thought he was rather foolish to be doing his coin counting without the perimeter alarm turned on, as anyone with half a brain could have picked the lock – like Sam did.

He didn't bother trying to be quiet, but stayed alert in case his quarry decided to defend himself against the intruder. Sam's intentions were, so far, benign. He wasn't there to hurt the man, nor rob him, all he wanted was information – or confirmation – he wasn't sure. It was one of a lot of things Sam wasn't sure about anymore, and once that might have pissed him off. It didn't now.

He didn't feel very much at all these days. Anger had been his emotional companion the longest and thus it was proving to be the last to go. Happiness had been the first thing he'd lost, followed quickly by faith, and hope. He had so much to be guilty for guilt had simply burnt itself out. So many of his friends had died he wasn't even sure he knew how to grieve. Anger though, that had to go, and that was because someone else wanted it. And love - Sam had given up on love long before he lost it. His love was poisonous. Almost all the people he ever loved died, and those that survived…

They no longer believed in him. Love had become pain, so Sam shut that off too.

There was a door at the end of a long hallway. It was open, and light streamed out into the hallway. Sam could clearly see a man inside. He was sitting behind a large desk working on a computer – or had been working on a computer. Now he looked out the door at his intruder, waiting.

He was in his late fifties, perhaps early sixties, with dark hair gone grey at the temples. His mustache and neatly trimmed goatee were completely grey. His eyes were dark brown with flecks of gold in them. Deep wrinkles were etched into his skin at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. As Sam approached he laced his long, supple fingers together atop his desk, and looked up with a small, wry smile.

"What took you so long?" he asked quietly. "I heard you were a good tracker, Sam." He nodded at one of the chairs sitting in front of the desk. "Care to sit down?"

"I'll stand," Sam replied. "And I've known where you've been for a long time now, over a year."

"I was promised protection."

"Haven't you heard, Kane?" Sam let more than a little sarcasm into his voice. "Nobody is safe anymore."

Vincent Kane, once one of the most powerful warlocks on the continent, appeared frightened. "Zachariah…"

"Zachariah lied to you. He lied to everyone. You're lucky Hell has been a little distracted lately because I seriously doubt Zachariah had any intention of following through with his little witness protection promises. Regardless, he's dead now. You'd better start watching your back."

"How did you know?"

"You aren't the only one with friends in high places."

Kane laughed, albeit uneasily. "You?" he said. "I doubt that, Sam.

Sam shrugged. "It's a moot point. I know you were selling secrets to the seraphs and that's all that matters. Really Kane, I'm completely floored by the fact you haven't been dragged off to Hell long before now. Demons don't like traitors."

"Is that why you're here?" Kane asked. He snorted softly. "The Apocalypse is nigh, and Sam Winchester is standing in my office. I can put two and two together. You're here because Azazel's grandiose plan actually worked despite the fact I betrayed him to the angels. So I'm to believe his chosen, Lucifer's chosen, isn't here to kill me?"

"Believe what you want, but unless you really piss me off, you'll still be breathing when I walk out the door."

Kane looked at him appraisingly for a moment. "Why do I believe you?"

"You believe me because a warlock is no different from a priest. Just because you call yourself a bookkeeper doesn't mean a damn thing; once a witch, always a witch. You can tell I'm not Lucifer."

"And you should be," Kane said quietly.

"I told him to kiss my ass."

"That's a losing proposition," Kane laughed. "But damn, boy, you are a chip off the old block!"

Sam had to admit, standing up to the devil himself was definitely a page taken from John Winchester's playbook. John never liked to admit defeat, never believed in a no-win scenario. Once upon a time Sam might have felt the same way, but not anymore. Believing it and admitting it were two different things though, and if asked outright Sam would insist he and Dean could win with the shitty hand they'd been dealt. Privately, he knew no matter what he did, eventually he would find himself facing down with Lucifer in Detroit. He didn't know how or why it would happen, but he knew he'd say yes. He'd seen it. It had been the first precognitive vision he'd had in a very long time, and it had hit him so fast and so hard he felt as if his head was going to explode.

Luckily Dean hadn't been around at the time. This vision Sam had kept to himself.

"That's one of the reasons why I'm here," Sam said. "It's about the night I got shot, back in Missouri when we busted up your demon party."

"What about it?"

"You told Dad about Azazel that night, didn't you?"

Kane didn't answer right away. He had no reason not to as far as Sam was concerned, but still seemed reluctant. The hesitation was telling in itself.

"I told him what I knew at the time," Kane said finally. "I told him a demon had come for you, to mark you as his own for some grand master plan, and Mary died because she tried to stop him. Whatever else John knew he found out on his own later. Sam…" the warlock said quickly, before Sam could respond. "You need to understand something. There was nothing, nothing, John loved more than you and your brother. He was a Hunter, and a damn good one. That night I told him you belonged to us, and that you'd never really been his son. I told him we'd made you a monster. Any other man in his position would have killed you right then. But he didn't. He couldn't."

Sam nodded, looking away momentarily, thumbing his burning eyes. "Maybe he should have," he said roughly. "Was me getting shot part of the plan?"

"No, and I honestly thought for a while there John was going to let you die. I was wrong." Kane shrugged. "But it all worked out to our advantage. We managed to get him to loosen his grip on you, and actually got you in hand for a few hours." He smiled wanly. "Azazel might have baited it, but I set the hook. After that night, Sam, your fate was sealed."

If he looked back on that night ten, eleven, years ago, Sam often envisioned a hurricane. What he remembered most about the incident was the pain, the agonizing pain in his gut and the fear that came with it. Like a hurricane, however, the torment had an "eye," a window of time in which the pain and the fear had completely gone away - before it resumed worse than ever. What happened within that window, Sam remembered with great clarity. Only recently had those memories made any sense.

"It was a binding ritual," he said flatly.

Kane nodded. "Yes, among other things. Blood and sex, they're a powerful combination, and we knew in your case blood would pack an even bigger punch. It was primarily to save your life, that was no lie, but it also presented an opportunity Azazel wasn't going to let get by him. You see, Sam, he had enough precognitive ability himself to know he wasn't going to make it to the end of the game, so he put a back-up plan in place."

"Ruby," Sam said bitterly. "Rose and Ruby were the same demon."

"Ah, give the boy a prize." Kane chuckled. "Did you just now figure that out?"

Sam shook his head, recalling the moment he realized the possibility, a realization quickly forgotten in the throes of passion. The scene had been nothing short of a reenactment of that night in Missouri. The way they made love, the scent of her body, the taste of her blood, it had all been the same. The only difference had been the body she'd been wearing, and the name she called herself. She'd even used the same knife to open her veins for him.

Ironically, it was also the same knife that would ultimately kill her.

The ritual performed so long ago set things up so Sam would have always been drawn to Ruby like a moth to a flame. Unable to resist her, it would have been easy for her to manipulate him – and that's exactly what happened. Knowing this, however, didn't make it any easier on Sam's conscience. His choices had still been his to make. His resistance had been lowered, but he still could call the shots. He'd called the wrong ones. If he and Dean were to hang on to their belief in free will, Sam couldn't make excuses regarding what he'd done. Nobody forced his hand, not really. Ruby had just set him up at the crossroads. Sam had chosen the path they took.

Kane lowered his eyes, picking idly at the edge of a piece of paper on his desk. "She contacted me once, not too long ago. I don't know how she found me, and honestly, it scared me that she had. I didn't realize at first how far out of the loop she'd had to go."

"You thought she was going to kill you?"

"Yes, I did, but when she told me she was with you, I knew she was in the game. Only a handful of demons knew what she was really doing. Most considered her a traitor and a whore. She was in as much risk as I of being assassinated."

"What did she want?" Sam asked, "If it wasn't your head on a plate."

Kane looked up. "She was scared," he said.

Sam frowned. "Scared of what, the angels?"

"No." Leaning back in his chair, Kane continued to meet Sam's eye with a frank expression. "She was having doubts. She was beginning to question her loyalties, and whether or not she could carry out Azazel's plan to its conclusion. 'Kane,' she said. 'I don't want to lose him.'"

"Lose who? Azazel?"

"You," Kane said. "She was beginning to have feelings for you, and it frightened her. Not only because such feelings were alien to her, but because no matter what she did she knew she'd lose you in the end."

"She could have told me the truth."

"And betrayed Lilith? She would have been slaughtered, Sam. You couldn't have protected her; you might not have wanted to protect her." Kane paused. "Would you?" His voice softened. "Did you?"

Sam sighed. There had been times, when they were alone, when talking was over and sex was out of the way, that he'd known how she really felt about him. He could feel it in the way she touched him, hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes. He could even taste it on her lips when she kissed him. When a woman has loved you, you recognize the signs forever, and Sam had known true love with Jessica. She'd taught him the signs. When he saw them in Rose, or Ruby, or whoever she'd really been, he'd thought – if only fleetingly – that everything was going to be all right.

But it wasn't all right. When he looked into her eyes that horrible night in Maryland, and felt her touch upon his cheek, he knew she loved him, and that made the pain of her betrayal even worse. Sam was never sure how he felt about her. He guessed he had some kind of feelings for her, although what they were, how to define them, eluded him. When Dean thrust the knife through her heart, Sam felt pain and he felt loss, but he also felt shame. Ruby had done to him what he'd done to his own brother. If Dean had tried to kill him too that night, Sam wouldn't have blamed him, and probably wouldn't have resisted.

"No," Sam replied hoarsely. "She's dead."

"You?"

"Dean – both of us."

"Ah." Kane said. He studied Sam carefully once again. "Why are you here, Sam? You already knew the answers to your questions – or thought you knew."

"I needed confirmation."

Kane continued to stare at him. "No," he said quietly. "You needed closure."

They met each other's gaze. It was Sam who finally turned away. Without another word he headed for the door.

"Sam," Kane called.

Sam stopped, and looked back over his shoulder. "What?"

"You've been given a powerful gift. You should have died that night in Missouri, but because you were marked by Azazel, you survived. I daresay you've survived a lot more than that over the years." The warlock stood up and crossed to the front of the desk to meet Sam face to face. "You can use this to your advantage."

With a bitter laugh, Sam shook his head. "I've been down that road already. I've killed dozens of demons with my 'gift,' I sent one of the Horsemen packing, and told myself it was for the greater good. But this," Sam put a hand to his chest. "What's inside me, it's like a nuclear bomb. You set it off and you can't avoid something bad happening, no matter how good your intentions are."

Kane failed to be swayed. "I've been to war, Sam. You get in a situation where you've got two armies facing off and there's nothing else to do but fight, it doesn't matter what weapons you have in your hand, you have to use them or die."

"I'd rather die."

"And take the whole world with you?" Kane replied. "Kid, I haven't kept myself out of Hell this long just to have you bring Hell to me."

Sam snorted. "Hell's coming to you whether you like it or not, Kane."

The warlock tipped his head in acquiescence. "I won't deny that, but I'm not ready to give up yet, are you?"

"You're suggesting I go up against Lucifer with the demon abilities he gave me."

"Yes."

"You're insane. That would be like trying to stop a tidal wave with a garden hose."

"From one perspective, yes it would." Kane crossed his arms over his chest. "You're an educated man, Sam. Surely you're familiar with the story of the Trojan horse."

Momentarily nonplussed, Sam cocked his head and fell silent. He had, ever since his vision, wondered what could have possibly driven him to say "yes" to Lucifer. There were a myriad of possibilities, most of them horrible, but what if there was a more positive reason behind it?

"Attack him from the inside," he murmured.

They had the key to Lucifer's cage, but getting him inside it was problematic.

Unless….

"The question is - do you have the balls to do it?" Kane said idly.

"That question has already been answered," Sam replied. "The real question is whether or not it'll work."

Kane simply shrugged. "That, my boy, is up to you, isn't it?" His dark eyes narrowed. "But what do you have to lose? Lucifer wins, you go to Hell. You win, you go to Hell. Hate to say it, Sam, but you're Lucifer's boy-toy, and have been from the day you were born."

Sam clenched his jaw. "So there's no point blaming you for anything, right?"

"I just do what I'm told."

"By whoever you're working for at the time I'm sure." Sam went back to Kane's desk and put his hands upon it, leaning toward the warlock in a clearly threatening manner. "You know what, Kane? I can see right through you. You're shifty and manipulative, and would do anything if it meant someone else got screwed up the ass. But you're Azazel's man. You always have your own back-up plan. You always carry a little insurance. You went to Zachariah to protect you from the demons, so I wonder who you found powerful enough to protect you from Zachariah."

Kane stared back at him unflinchingly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Is he here, or somewhere else waiting for you to tell him I took the bait?"

"Who, I don't…" Kane stopped as the barrel of a gun materialized in Sam's hand, its muzzle pressed to his forehead right between his eyes. Outwardly he appeared just as cool as ever, but Sam noted a bead of sweat running down his temple.

After a moment of silent contemplation, Sam lowered the gun and stepped back. "Killing you would be a waste of time," he determined. "You're just as screwed as I am." He made his way to the door, where he paused and looked back at the warlock turned bookkeeper. "Go ahead," he said. "Tell Lucifer I'll meet him in Detroit, and now that I know why I say yes, he better be prepared."

Kane laughed, cocky even now that his current alliance had been exposed. "You don't honestly believe that crap I just fed you, do you? You can't beat the Devil at his own game, Sammy."

Sam stopped short at the threshold. His shoulders tensed, and in one smooth, fluid, motion, he turned and fired. Kane flinched in his chair. He looked startled, his mouth falling slack as blood began to run down his face from the perfectly round hole in the middle of his forehead. He hit his desk with a loud, hollow, thud.

The fury subsided, swiftly supressed. Lucifer could use his anger against him, and Sam had even more reason now to prevent that from happening.

He looked down at Kane's body with disdain. He'd warned the bastard not to piss him off.

"Don't," he said icily. "Call me Sammy."