A/N- Hey guys! A lot happens in this chapter, a lot of secrets revealed, alliances made, violence, etc. I hope you guys enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it! I've mentioned before that this is a collaborative effort so I cannot claim all the credit for any of the ideas you read. Enjoy! Please R&R, any feedback is, as always, welcome! Quick shout out before the fun begins to Maria for the review, it is appreciated, love!
Disclaimer- Violence and scheming, the flashback in italics is not mine save the very last part, I claim nothing on that part, all thanks for that particular scene should go to the amazing Eric Kripke!
Dean's POV
Cicero, Indiana
Of course he had known someone had broken into his Impala. He made it a regular habit to check in on his supplies and make sure nothing had been tampered with. It had become a particular obsession after he had caught Ben going through his trunk. He still remembered the sight of Ben holding the sawed off to his shoulder. He shook his head to clear the image and the tightening in his gut away. As he stared down at the collection of hunter tools he felt like he had been violated just knowing that someone had reached their thieving mitts into his baby and stolen from him. He shook his head. This was not the first time he had stood staring into the depths of his trunk, pondering who had broken into it. They had obviously known what they were after and that he had it so they were knowledgeable whoever they were. He heard the door to the garage open and his hands flew to the lid of the trunk already pulling it down to close it before he glanced over his shoulder to see Lisa staring at him with her head cocked to the side, that cute little furrow between her eyebrows suggesting she was confused. She had stopped only a few steps from the doorway. Over a year he had been with her and Ben and still he couldn't bear her to see any evidence of what he was. He let the trunk close and turned his back on it resting his hips against the tail end of the car. Lisa stared at him before closing the distance between the two of them, pressing her body flush against his and wrapping her arms around his waist. He knew she felt hurt by his actions, knew it was painful for her to watch him flounder around and hide anything that had to do with hunting from her. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. She lifted her head to look into his eyes and her lips parted to say something but she never got the chance. He dipped his head down to claim her lips. She let out a surprised sound before sinking into the kiss. When he pulled back his breathing was a bit irregular and she seemed to be completely out of breath. She stared into his eyes as she ran a finger along his jaw line.
"Come to bed. It's late and I'm cold." He smiled a bit at the last part of her statement and she smiled in return. The missing knife brought him back though. He placed a light kiss on her lips and turned her around giving her a light nudge toward the door with a swat on her ass. She let out a little yelp and looked back over her shoulder at him, standing and waiting for him to follow her. He smiled and shook his head.
"Go warm the bed up. I'll be up in a bit." Her smile fell a little and he could see the effort she put into not looking disappointed, the knowing gleam in her eyes before she nodded and turned away to start walking back to the house.
"Don't be too long or I'll start without you." She called over her shoulder and closed the door with a little wink. He sighed, wondering why he couldn't live a normal life then laughed. This was the most normal he had been his entire life. He turned back to the trunk and started pulling the tarp back over it before he saw a figure standing in the corner. He froze gauging how much time he had before whoever or whatever it was attacked him and decided he didn't have enough time to get to his weapons. But he tried anyway. He tore the tarp back and yanked the trunk open grabbing the first thing to come to hand, which happened to be a sawed off loaded with rock salt rounds. Well, at least if it was human this was pretty much the only non-lethal scare tactic he had. He put the gun to his shoulder and moved to the side of the trunk aiming at the corner to find it empty. He moved forward in a fast crouch-walk looking around as he did. He was almost to the corner before he heard the thump of his trunk closing. He pivoted around to see a woman leaping up to sit cross legged on the roof of his impala. He circled back a bit keeping the woman locked in the sights of his shotgun. She watched him with a smile pulling up the left corner of her mouth as if she had expected this. The light caught her eyes showing them to be a spectacular shade of brown that was more golden-yellow than actual brown. Her hair was dark and curly, falling down to her hips. She sat casually, elbows resting on her thighs hands hanging loosely. He felt his face crumple in confusion. Why was she so familiar to him? He could have sworn he had seen her while working a case. He saw the woman in a lab coat sitting at a desk talking to him and Sam. He remembered her being hung over from a night of partying the first time he and Sam had met her. The name finally came to him.
"Dr. Kara Roberts?" The woman nodded.
"Good memory, Dean!" He flinched at the way she said his name as if she was really familiar with him, then snugged the gun to his shoulder a little more firmly. She nodded in the direction of the garage door with a coy smile. "Your woman is positively luscious." She grins now. "Fiesty..." She leans forward a bit. "I like my meat a little spicy." She winks then sits back. A spike of fear shoots through him. If she was threatening Lisa and Ben he was going to put her down.
"How do you know my name? We never give out our real names." She laughed and he slid his finger into the trigger guard, preparing for anything. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Kara's head tipped to the side and a playful smile came to her lips.
"I'm Dr. Roberts, Dean. You know that." He stared at her, really looking at her then shook his head one time in both directions, trying not to let her get out of his sight.
"Not anymore you aren't. So, who are you?" She sighed, placed her palms behind her flat on the roof of the car and leaned back.
"You know, you aren't very hospitable. You could at least invite me in or ask me if I would like something to drink. I am kinda hungry. Who do I have to kill to get some French fries around here?" He tensed up at that last knowing just who was sitting in front of him and fired the shotgun in a ringing explosion. Ruby rolled down the windshield landing in a crouch, staring at him. "Now that was rude."
"You want to know what rude is? Rude is breaking into a man's garage and car and stealing from him. That's rude!" She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout as she drew herself up to her full height and crossed her arms across her chest.
"If you want to get really technical it wasn't stealing. As far as I remember, I never gave the Kurdish knife to you guys, you confiscated it. So I was technically reclaiming my property." She lifted her chin as if challenging him and he scoffed.
"Really?" He raised his eyebrow, "Who did you kill to get a hold of that knife in the first place, Ruby?" She stared at him for a second before throwing her head back in a laugh.
"That's the question, isn't it? It is a really old knife so there have been many predecessors who have wielded it before either of us. So, does it really matter who I killed to get it?" He shook his head and lowered the shotgun. He still had it at his shoulder and ready to fire but it was pointing at the ground now. No point in aiming it if he wasn't going to shoot her. Yet.
"Besides, it was the instrument of my death. I think that makes it more mine than yours anyway, don't you?" Dean shrugged off her last statement remembering the satisfaction he had felt plunging that knife into her as Sam held her for him. He remembered feeling a dark smile curl his lips as he twisted the knife, watching Ruby's wide, surprised, pain-filled eyes flash in recognition of her demise and the O of her mouth widen with pain. She had made only a small choking noise, to her credit. He had admitted to himself that he wished she would have screamed to punctuate the moment in his memories all the more.
"What are you doing here, Ruby? Better yet...how are you even alive?" She cocked her head to the side with a smile, but it was more irritated than amused.
"I can answer the former but not the latter."
"You don't know who or what brought you back? Because you were dead. I killed you myself." Frustration and anger glinted in her eyes as she lifted her chin to look down her nose at him.
"No. I don't know anymore than you do about my reappearance. But that isn't why I am here." Now Dean was confused. Did she think he had brought her back...not that he hadn't thought about it but that was about the only reason he could think for her being here.
"Then why are you here?" She stared at him for a minute then laughed so hard she had to put a hand against the hood of the Impala to steady herself.
"You thought I came here because I thought You..." She pointed a finger at him, "YOU had something to do with my resurrection?" She chuckled a bit then shook her head. "You daft boy, you. No, I know you had absolutely no reason to bring me back. Hell you killing me was a long time in coming." He was offended at her insinuation though he couldn't quite pinpoint why.
"What if I found a way to resurrect you so you could help me get Sam out of the cage?" He was the one who took on a haughty look now and Ruby was speechless for a minute before shaking her head.
"Because I wouldn't have been able to surprise you if you had been the one who brought me back. Let us not play games, Dean. We have both been through too much together for such insignificant measures." He scoffed and she straightened a bit and took a few steps around the front end of the car to rest her butt against the right panel, he watched her every move.
"Ironically enough, I came here to talk to you about Sam." He flinched and unconsciously moved the gun up an inch. "Calm down. I want to help you spring him from the box."
"Why?" He marveled at how much suspicion and derision one word could hold as Ruby stared a hole through him. She stared at him as if willing him to believe her.
"Because. There is something about you boys, some power or influence that drew me in." She looked away when he scoffed. "I fear, you gave me back a piece of my humanity..." He laughed and the shotgun fell to hang loosely in the grip of his right hand while the left was wrapped around his middle.
"OH SHIT!" He laughed so hard he staggered back into a tool box. "Oh, that was a good one, Ruby!" He wiped the tears from under his eyes then wagged his finger at her, "I thought you didn't want to play games?" Another whooping fit of laughter followed. When he finished he looked up at her and he felt his laughter fade, his face slowly wiped clean of the humor he had felt. Her eyes were shining with sincerity. Her lips twisted into a hard line as if willing him to feel the truth behind her words.
"You have got to be kidding me, right? All the shit you put us through and you expect me to believe you have feelings for us?!" He threw his head back, staring at the ceiling and releasing a frustrated breath. When he looked back at Ruby she was still staring at him, biting her lip. She almost looked as if she were scared he wouldn't believe her. "This has got to be the weirdest shit I have ever lived to see! A demon loving the Winchesters." A sneer crept across her mouth.
"Not so much you, jackass, as Sam!" She looked away, staring at the wall just to the left of him. He swore under his breath as he saw fear and pain flit across her face. He had felt those same things so many times when he thought about his life and where Sam was. He flinched as it occurred to him that Ruby might actually love Sam. It wasn't the sunniest thought in the world but her feelings for Sam would pretty much guarantee her loyalty and devotion to getting Sam out of the box. He looked her over again and shook his head with a small smile. Did she know that Sam was walking around the Earth, still? His smile disappeared as he remembered finding out Sam was alive, then how deluded he had been at thinking Sam without a soul was better than no Sam at all. She probably didn't know that Sam had attempted to kill Bobby and was now on the road somewhere, running...from Dean. He was going to restore his brother...even if it meant destroying him. If he had to use Ruby to do it...pffft! He wouldn't hesitate. She had used both of them before so it was almost as easy as taking his next breath for him to commit to using her for his means.
"What is your plan on getting Sam back?"
··········
Ruby's POV
2 days 13 hours later
Illchester, Maryland
St. Mary's Convent
She couldn't believe it had taken her this long to think of it! She was still kicking herself for it as she walked through the door to the lower level chamber of St. Mary's church, the very room where Sam had killed Lilith and broken open Lucifer's cage. This damned church had seen a lot of action. Bad planning on the founders part to build a church on top of the original door into the cage. She shrugged. Oh well, it wasn't her problem. She dropped the bag she was carrying in the middle of the room a muffled, incessant crying sounding from the it. Azazel had come here and talked to Lucifer without the aid of a sacrifice, but she wasn't as strong as him, she needed young, innocent blood to kick start the connection. She knelt before the bag and remembered the joy and pride she had felt as Sam had killed Lilith. The pure bliss she had felt at knowing Lucifer was going to be free. She shook her head and unzipped the bag, the crying got louder. She grabbed the chalk out of the bag and drew a circle. Inside of it she drew thirteen half circle lines joining in a single point on the center. She then took out five candles placing them in points around the circle forming a pentagram, starting to light them at the northern most candle.
She reached into the bag and lifted out the most important ingredient to the ritual, a three month old baby. She hooked her hands underneath its arms and held it at arms length watching it wriggle. She stared at it, seeing how its fat, useless little legs pinwheeled and jerked as if trying to find purchase on something. Its little face was scrunched up and red, covered in tears. Snot was running from its nose and its hands were balled up moving back and forth and occasionally moving to its face, rubbing and irritating the skin more. She felt her face scrunch up and couldn't imagine why the main goal of human lives was to make one of these. Clearly the fun had to be in the making of and not the aftermath. The baby opened its eyes and stared at her as if sensing her thoughts making her jerk a little. Its eyes were glassy and pink from crying but the big crystal blue portals that stared at her stopped her cold.
The eyes were filled with innocence and purity, something Ruby had lost so long ago she saw it only as a weakness. It wasn't until she felt the moist little hand on her cheek that she realized she must have slowly let her arms drop and pull the baby closer to her. The hand moved to her nose then to the hair at her neck. The thing was making these cute little cooing noises and squirming its little body to get a better angle to play with the long hair. It grabbed a handful and brought the hair up to its face laughing a small yet high pitched squeal of laughter as it rubbed the hair on its cheek then put the tuft of hair in its open mouth. Ruby felt a twinge of something twist its way down her throat and spear through her core. She could kind of understand what would make humans, like the babies mother, so crazy to protect them that they would carelessly put their lives on the line. The little beasts had a certain magic to them that was endearing. The thought made her jump and the babies eyes met hers sensing the change. Ruby put her hand on the back of the babies head and lowered it to the floor to lay it in the center of the circle.
As she pulled back and dug through the bag she couldn't help but remember the incredibly, unreal softness of the babies hair. She pulled the newly stolen athame, nothing tainted or already used for this, from her bag and watched how the babies fast uncaring movements jerked its little body. She shook her head and began the ritual. She raised the point to the sky then put it to the circle tracing the outside ring then brought the blade to the flesh above her heart pushing the blade in at a forty-five degree angle to allow her blood to flow down the blade. Once her blood flowed from tip to hilt she raised it with both hands to the sky and rose up to her full height on her knees. She stared down at the small defenseless creature and saw it chewing on its fist and staring at her, moving its little legs and free arm. Its eyes were filled with tears as if it knew what was coming and knew it could do nothing to stop it. She looked to the ceiling and closed her eyes, chanting the five Latin words required. She felt the ground rumble slightly beneath her knees then turned the blade in her grip so the point was angled down. She squeezed her eyes shut as she brought the knife down. She had expected small screams of some sort but heard nothing. She opened her eyes and looked down to make sure she had met her mark.
The knife was buried in the babies chest right where the heart should be. Its legs pinwheeled frantically for a second, its face the reddest shade of red, mouth open as if the scream it wanted to let rip was lodged in its neck. Its eyes never left Ruby's as tears leaked from its giant, clear blue ones. She had seen many things in her almost eight hundred years but as tears spilled from her eyes and her heart clenched, she knew this moment would haunt her. As she watched the life fade then abruptly end of the small creature before her the blood she had spilled began flowing in a spiral pattern until it was flowing in a constant wave. A breeze of unknown origin began to rip through the room tangling Ruby's hair around her. A sonic pop sounded through the room and everything suddenly stopped. She could here the staccato rhythm of her breathing and the techno skip of her heart as she felt another presence.
"Lucifer?" She was having a hard time breathing. "My lord?" She gasped out. She didn't get a verbal response. No, she was slammed with a montage of images that knocked her head back and bowed her spine.
She was standing in a cemetery with a man whom she knew was the vessel for Michael. They had been talking and she had tried to convince Michael to join her, that they didn't have to do this. Michael would not budge and so the apocalypse was here. They circled, sizing each other up when the rev of an engine sounds. Suddenly both she and Michael turn their heads to watch the black impala blaring some old school tune, Ruby recognizes it as Def Leppard's Rock of the ages, come cruising into the graveyard. When it comes to a stop Dean steps out and leans on his car door.
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" She and Michael glare at Dean as he closes the door and moves forward. "Hey," He says to her. "We need to talk." She and Michael share a look before looking back at Dean.
"Dean." She stared at him as if he had grown another upper body at the waist. "Even for you, this is a whole new mountain of stupid."
"I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Sam." She felt her eyebrows raise.
"You're no longer the vessel, Dean." Michael pipes in from the background. Dean moves his eyes to look at him. "You've got no right to be here." Dean moves his head so he is looking at Michael full on.
"Adam, if you're in there, I am so sorry."
"Adam isn't home right now." Michael responds smugly.
"Well then you are next on my list, buttercup. But right now I need five minutes alone with him." He indicates her with a tip of his head.
"You little maggot! You are no longer a part of this story!" Michael takes a step towards Dean.
"Hey!" Michael turns toward the voice, "Ass-butt!" Then Castiel launches a molotov at Michael who screams and goes up in flame a sub-sonic ringing goes through the atmosphere before Michael explodes in a small shower of particles, disappearing. She moves the hand she had put up in a feeble attempt to protect herself from the explosion to see Dean staring at the spot Michael had just occupied in shock. Dean moves a few steps and looks back at Castiel.
"Ass-butt?" He asks the angel who shrugs while breathing heavily.
"He'll be back and upset, but you got your five minutes." She turned to look at the angel who had dared kill her brother in front of her.
"Castiel." She takes two steps forward. "Did you just molotov my brother...with holy fire?" The angel holds his hands slightly out to the side and begins shaking his head back and forth, taking a step backward.
"Uh...no...I-" She cuts him off.
"No one dicks with my brother, Michael, but me." Castiel takes a deep breath as if sensing his demise then she raises her hand to her face level and snaps her fingers. The angel explodes in a shower of blood, guts and bones to the sound of one solid crunch. Bobby Singer who was standing behind and to the right of where the angel had been flinched back as he was sprayed with the gore and he and Dean turn to stare at her breathing heavily with fear and disbelief.
"Sammy, can you hear me?" She turns to look at Dean. Then faces him completely.
"You know, I tried to be nice, for Sammy's sake." She takes a few steps, closing the distance between her and Dean. "But you..." she reaches out to grip the lapels of his brown leather jacket, "Are such a pain, in my ass." She launches him backward onto the hood of his Impala splintering the windshield under his weight and the force of the impact. She takes a step toward Dean who is sprawled on the hood making pain noises when she hears the bang of a gun and barely feels the stinging hot entrance of the bullet in her shoulder. She turns around and sees Bobby Singer with the Colt pointed at her. He fires another round hitting her in the chest just below her left pectoral. She felt her face fall into tight, pissed off lines, head cocking to the side as she watched him lower the gun. She glanced down at the hole he had just made in her chest. Bobby looked over at Dean then shrugged right before she lifted her hand and moved it in a sweeping motion from left to right snapping Bobby's neck. Dean stared in horror.
"NOOOO!" Dean screamed, sitting up on the hood as she walked over to him and grabbed his ankle, dragging him off the hood of the car.
"Yes." Then her fist connected with the side of Dean's face, spinning him around, blood pouring from his mouth onto the hood of his Impala. Dean stands straight and turns to face her.
"Sammy?" he stares at her willing Sam to talk to him. "Are you in there?" She moves forward.
"Oh, he's in here alright." She smashed her left fist into his face sending Dean crashing back onto the Impala's hood. "And he's gonna feel the snap of your bones." She grabbed his lapels, standing him up to punch him again, this time sending Dean falling to the ground. "Every single one." She says as she moves forward to jack him up off the ground against the side of the car. "We are gonna take our time." Following that last line came a series of fast, devastating punches. Each hit gashed his face open and puffed it up in the spots she made contact with, snapping his head back and forth with the force of them.
"Sammy, it's okay..." He turned his head to look at her, "It's okay, I'm here! I'm here, I'm not gonna leave you." She felt the tug of compassion tear through her telling her to put her fist down and step back. Felt her face crumple into something frantic as she felt Sam really start to fight against her. She punched Dean again and again and still he continued to plead for Sam.
"I'm not gonna leave you!" She pulled her fist back but it was slow, like she was fighting against hurricane winds.
Sam was clawing his way to the surface and she felt panic rose within her. If Sam got to the surface something told her she wasn't going to make it but she couldn't bring herself to hit Dean again. The desire to hit him screamed through her but the body wouldn't, couldn't respond. She could feel the internal fight between Sam and herself raging, the two at a draw for dominance. Then the sun gleamed off the silver trim on the door and caught her eye. She knew she wasn't the one who moved their eyes to look at the little green plastic soldier jammed into the ashtray in the backseat but that Sam had done it. She felt the fist she had raised in the air begin to unclench and fought to keep her arm up, but as images slammed through her mind of Sam and Dean, one after another she felt her control over him fade. She felt Sam surge to the forefront, taking control and shoving her into the background to be the spectator. Sam's fist unclenched and he staggered back with a gasp letting Dean fall to the ground. She felt Sam's horror at what he'd done to Dean, felt his chest rise and fall rapidly, then an odd wave of relief swept through him. She felt fear kick in but Sam paid it no mind.
"It's okay, Dean. It's all going to be, okay." He breathes heavily for a second then says with assurance he truly felt, "I've got him." he digs in his pant pocket and retrieves the four horsemen's rings looking down at them. She felt the pure joy of Sam and the absolute terror and hatred of Lucifer clash, Lucifer trying to rise up but Sam just swatted him back as if he was no more than a nuisance to be rid of. He throws the rings onto the ground and says a brief Latin chant. The ground around the rings crumbles and gets sucked away into what looks like a bottomless hole, but she knows where it goes. Sam turns back to give Dean a lingering stare full of things he wished he had done and said, the fact that he had always thought, even in their line of work that there would be more time, that he loved him and wanted nothing in this world or the next more than to see Dean happy, alive and with a family. He breathes heavily as he fights Lucifer, who is bucking like a mad man against Sam, and nods at Dean, glancing at the hole he was about to jump into then back at his brother. Right as Sam is about to dive into the hole Michael's voice turns him around.
"Sam!" Michael shakes his head, "It's not gonna end this way. Step back."
"You're gonna have to make me!" Sam screams, daring Michael to come closer.
"I have to fight my brother, Sam. Here and now. It's my destiny!" Sam breathes raggedly as he looks back at his own brother. He was going to end it all, take it all down: destiny, the prophecy, the apocalypse...it all ended here but it wouldn't end in fire. He closed his eyes and held his arms out to his side allowing the wind from the hole and gravity to pull him backwards.
"NOOOOO!" He heard Michael scream and felt the angel grab a hold of his shirt to start pulling him back. Sam grabbed a hold of Michael's arm and pushed off the ground with his feet, pulling Michael with him, backwards into the hole. Right before they fell she felt Lucifer throw his essence out giving his power to resurrect to a demon and giving him orders to bring her back.
She pulled away from the memories with a scream as she crashed to the floor.
"Get me out!" Lucifer's voice, or at least she assumed that was who it was, screamed through her mind. She got two more words out of it all, "Find...Astaroth..." then the connection ended with a fizzling noise and a small pop that seemed to sound through her head, making her jump. She lay there, tears running down her face, breathing raggedly. Her poor, foolishly brave Sam! A sob escaped her as she sat up with what felt like way too much effort. She was shaking as she sat there. Astaroth. She had to find Astaroth.
