The next night, she was driving back from class when her phone rang. She answered without looking at the caller ID and was greeted by Sam's rough voice.

"What's wrong?" she asked immediately.

"Turn on the news," Sam said hoarsely.

"Sam, I'm doing sixty down a highway. I can't turn on the news, so how about you just tell me?"

The story spilled out: They'd gone to Bela Talbot's apartment to look for the Colt, found themselves in lockup, been attacked by demons, convinced Henriksen (who Rachel gathered was the FBI agent who'd been hunting them) of the truth, performed a mass exorcism, and escaped. Lilith (Rachel guessed she was a high-ranking demon) found the station and destroyed it, killing everyone inside.

"You've had a sucky night," she said bluntly, changing lanes to get onto the exit ramp.

"Yeah, you could say that. Henriksen was a good guy. So were the people who worked in that office. I just don't - why do innocent people always have to die?"

Rachel wished she could close her eyes and bang her forehead against a wall. Or bang Sam's forehead against the wall. "Sam. You're not responsible for what demons do. It seems like a lot of innocent people die because you don't know who's innocent or not by looking at them. Who knows, maybe the people who worked there were sacrificing people to a local god." She remembered a story they'd told her about one of the first hunts they'd taken after Sam left Stanford. "You can't save everyone, Sam, no matter how much you wish you could."

"Have you-"

"I've got nothing on Dean's deal. I don't know if there is anything, Sam."

"There is." His voice was firm. "There has to be."

"What the - Loki!" Rachel steered the car back into her lane from where she'd swerved off the road. He'd just appeared in her passenger seat between one blink and the next, looking smug. "Don't do that!"

"Do what, grace you with my gorgeous company?" he teased.

"Not when I'm driving down the middle of a road! Warn a girl!"

He laughed, bright and open. "See, that's why I like you. You're telling off a god. Not too many humans have the balls for that."

She rolled her eyes. "Not too many humans know gods exist."

"You live in one of the most religious countries in the world and saying people don't know we exist?"

"Yes! People have faith, that's the whole point of religion, but they don't know." A smile played around her lips. "Although I will admit people would probably be too awed about being in the presence of a god to mouth off."

"But not you. Mint?"

"Sure," she said, taking the offered candy. "Thanks."

He waved her off. "So what's on tap for today? Going on any big hunts?"

Rachel laughed. "I don't hunt. I do translation and man the phones in case anyone needs help."

"That sounds...incredibly boring, actually, is that all you do with your life?"

"Well, I'm in school to become a math teacher."

There was a long pause, and the Loki said, "I honestly don't know how you aren't bored to tears."

"Different strokes for different folks, I guess." She reached forward to crank the heat; South Dakota was freezing at the tail end of February. "So what have you been up to today? Find someone who deserved your special brand of justice?"

And so their friendship grew, based as it was on a shared love of seeing jerks get their comeuppance. The good-natured teasing they had going on was something Rachel had been missing since her friend Robert had moved away back when they were in high school; she hadn't really clicked with anyone since then. People were usually put off by her morbid sense of humor, and she hadn't found anyone to really relax around since. With Loki, she didn't have to be anyone but her sarcastic, occasionally vicious self, and she savored the time they spent together. She wasn't really sure what was in it for him, but she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

She did get the occasional call from Sam or Dean, usually after they'd finished working a case where something strange had happened and they wanted her or Bobby's input or when the stress of Dean's deal was getting to them.

The search for an out wasn't going well. Rachel was running through Bobby's books as quickly as she could, but she could still read barely a quarter of them. She tried not to be too upset by that; learning to read six languages in less than two years was nothing short of miraculous, she knew, but she still vaguely hated that the answer could be in a book written in Gaelic or Arabic or some other language she couldn't yet decipher.

One day, desperate after a call involving Sam asking if she could figure out how to recreate a medical procedure by some guy named Benson who had Frankensteined himself in the early 1800s, she asked Loki if he knew anything about backing out of demon deals.

"This is about the Winchesters, isn't it?" he asked. He took her blush as confirmation and shook his head. "Don't know why you hang around with them, sweetheart. But no, I don't know any way to get out of the deal short of killing the demon that holds the contract."

"And the demon who holds the contract is more or less untouchable right now," Rachel said. "Basically, he's boned."

"To put it mildly," Loki said. He spent the next hour coaxing a smile out of her.

The day Dean's deal was due, he popped in on her while she was in Bobby's dining room. "Hi."

"Hi," she said absently, poring over a book in Greek.

"Still looking for a way out of the deal?"

She grimaced. "I've given up the ghost, actually. There's nothing that's going to be helpful in here."

"But you're still reading." He shook his head in mock disapproval.

"Hey, the books still need to be translated, typed out, and posted online," Rachel said defensively. "When I'm done with this page, though, I have homework."

"Homework, huh? Sounds like someone needs to have some fun." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Loki!" she complained, laughing. "You're such a horndog. Or are you a fertility god, too?"

"Hello, god of fire? Festivals where people leap over fires for luck in conceiving? It's related."

Rachel snorted. "Related like Kevin Bacon, maybe."

"More like Mary-Kate and Ashley," he shot back, and Rachel wondered how such an ancient god had such a good grasp on pop culture.

He stayed with her longer than he usually did, and he was there at midnight when the clock chimed and she knew Dean was gone. He put a hand on her shoulder and stayed until she fell asleep, eyes red and aching from crying, and was still there when she woke up twenty minutes later.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Not a problem," he answered, and she realized that for all his jokes and good humor, Loki knew when to be serious.

Bobby and Sam stumbled into the house, exhausted and filthy, with red eyes from crying, and dropped into chairs at the table. Rachel silently poured them coffee and made herself scarce. When it came down to it, she didn't know Dean nearly as well as those two did. She felt like an intruder to their grief.

When she got back from work, Sam swept her into a hug. She hugged him back and nodded to Bobby. They told her they hadn't eaten, and she made them sit at the table while she made something for dinner. She really wasn't sure what it was, but cooking had always made her feel better.

They sat, silent and barely eating, until almost ten. When Sam left the next day, Rachel couldn't exactly say it was a surprise.

"Call me," she told him. "And don't get yourself killed."

"I won't," he reassured her, closing the Impala's creaky door and driving off.

A/N: I know. Short chapter. But these past two stories have been more about introducing characters and relationships. A lot (read: basically all) of my main ideas for this 'verse happen in seasons 5 and 7. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and please leave a review! Even if it's just pointing out a typo, it's much appreciated.

So here's a review prompt, for all you shy ones: What do you want to see next? More dialogue with Loki? A plot set outside established SPN canon? What were your favorite/least favorite parts?