The next day, entering the library after a solitary breakfast, Sam was surprised to find Dean, trawling for a case. "Already? We've only been back for a day."
"Yeah, well, I thought maybe I'd take Cas and give you and Nana and the newbie some space."
"Uh-huh. Come on, Dean, what's this really about?"
"Honestly?"
"That would be my preference, yeah."
"What you and Cas said yesterday kinda threw me. Except it also kinda didn't, and I'm pretty sure that's worse. And I think best when I'm driving, and I need to think. So, I figure, I find a case, ideally one that's at least a two-day drive from here, I take Cas as a sounding board and 'cause he can still use all the practice he can get with, you know, everything, you stay here and work on whipping Lulu into shape, everybody wins."
"Wow," Sam said after a pause. "That's got to be, like, the most mature thing you've done in . . . ever."
"Shut up."
"Ah, there's the brother I know and love."
"Dude."
"Yeah, yeah, no chick flick moments, I know."
Sam worked with Lulu on commands for a few minutes, then settled in to work on the day's projects.
By the afternoon, Dean had found a case in Florida, and he and Cas had left. Sam almost decided to go after all so that Cas didn't have to deal with Dean in the vicinity of beaches on his own. But at some point Cas was going to have to sink or swim, and Cas had Sam's number in case things got out of hand or he just wasn't sure what to do. Sam stopped his train of thought before he could start imagining all the potential awkward or embarrassing scenarios that might arise given the equation of Dean plus beaches plus Cas being Cas.
Sam hummed contentedly as he went to the kitchen to make dinner that evening. He put his iPod into the speakers and cranked up Of Monsters and Men, then pulled up a recipe he'd been wanting to try, the kind that brought out Dean's inner picky two-year-old with its wide variety of colorful vegetables and exotic-smelling spices. Nana and Lulu lay contentedly in the doorway, watching him move around the kitchen, chopping, measuring, sautéing, singing along with his favorite songs.
The album came to an end as Sam was pulling out the casserole dish, and he froze. Had it really been almost an hour? It didn't feel like an hour. Had he listened to every song? Could he be sure? Dean and Cas weren't here to ask, just Nana and Lulu. Would the dogs even know something was wrong if . . . Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod. Sam sank to the floor, casserole dish forgotten, breathing in hitching gasps, heart racing. What the hell had he been thinking, staying here alone, no Cas no Dean to check in with, to make sure that when he spaced out from concentration that's all it was and not . . . that. Sam swallowed hard, fighting a wave of nausea, shoving down the fear that even if it was possession they wouldn't tell him because Dean hadn't before he'd let it happen but things were different now better now Dean understood now wouldn't do that again he said he'd do it again but he didn't understand then he understands now does he does he really how can you be sure fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—
Something nudged his face, his hands, something made a sound that wasn't him or his skittering thoughts. Sam reached out instinctively, buried face and hands in soft fur, pulled large warm heavy body against himself. Nana. His breathing and heartbeat settled to nearly their normal rate, the contents of his stomach stopped trying to claw their way up and out. Nana stopped whining. Lulu, who was tethered because she was still learning that she wasn't allowed in the kitchen, did not, because she was unable to follow Nana and feel for herself that Sam was OK. He extricated himself from Nana and crawled over to Lulu, who launched herself at him, licking his face, still whining, wagging her tail so hard it seemed a miracle it didn't fly off.
"Shhh, shhh," Sam murmured, pinning her in his lap and trying to calm her down before she lost control of her bladder from excitement. "It's OK. I'm OK now, calm down." Lulu stopped trying to reach up and lick his face when he managed to roll her on her side and began rubbing her belly. Nana whined, and Sam reached out to scratch her ears with his free hand. "Thanks to you, I'm OK now," he told her. "Really."
A few more minutes of mutually reassuring petting, and he got up to finish getting his dinner in the oven. Nana resumed her position just outside the kitchen, but watched his every move and whined periodically. And Sam wasn't OK, not really. He was grateful, so grateful, that Nana and Lulu were able to bring him back from a panic attack, but it still didn't answer the question of whether they'd be able to tell if there was an angel in him, or if they'd be able to do anything about it if there was.
He tried to be rational, tried to remind himself of all the reasons that his fear was unfounded: his bedroom was angel-proofed, and he checked to make sure the symbols were unharmed every morning when he got up and every night before he went to sleep. Therefore, if he was possessed, it had to have happened between when he got up this morning and now. Unlikely, since he hadn't given conscious consent to anyone, and hadn't been injured or passed out long enough for another trick—if he had, Dean never would have left him to go on a hunt. OK. OK. And yes, he'd been alone since the early afternoon, but angels weren't like demons, they needed a yes, mockery of consent though it was.
Unless this is all in your head. The voice of doubt was Lucifer's, and Sam grabbed his left hand with his right and squeezed, but this wasn't that, not really, so the voice went on. He trapped you in your head before, did all kinds of things, and you had no idea, you thought everything was fine, was normal. You thought Dean was off on a hunt and you'd stayed behind to run research. You have no way of knowing what's real. And isn't it all a little too good to be true, these last few months? Dean apologizing and really trying? Cas being your friend? Nana and now Lulu? Come on, this doesn't happen to you, not without an enormous catch. This is just the other shoe, dropping hard.
Except, no, that wasn't right. Because the last few months were borderline unbelievable. And if something had wormed its way inside him and didn't want him to know, was messing with his perception, locking him out from reality, then what he was experiencing wouldn't be . . . this. Not nightly phone calls with Jody and Dean trying, really trying, and Nana warm and solid and fierce and there and Cas learning humanity from the inside this time and not being half bad at it and now bouncy energetic Lulu.
Sam ran his right thumb over his left palm, lightly tracing the faded scar. "Stone number one," he murmured. Not a desperate, near-suicidal Dean in a warehouse who didn't understand and hadn't tried. No, this time stone number one was the very thing his fear tried to use against him: a brother trying, a friend learning, two beautiful dogs, and a home to come back to at the end of each hunt. That, he could build on. And if one of the pieces (the brother piece the painfully frank part of his mind whispered) crumbled, the others might still be able to hold.
He was alive, he was as close to human as he could ever be, and he was happier than he'd been in so, so long. It wasn't enough to banish the fear entirely, but it was enough to get him through putting dinner in the oven, sitting down on the floor so that Nana and Lulu could swarm him again, and getting out his phone to call Jody.
. . .
Sam walked the perimeter of his bedroom, checking the wards five times before climbing into bed that night.
And even then he couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned, bumping into Nana and Lulu. Every once in a while he drifted off, but was greeted by nothing but nightmares of blood and fire and grief, from which Nana dutifully woke him. Just like he used to do before she came into his life, at 5:30 he gave up and got up. However, even Lulu thought that was too early, so he checked his wards three times and went out to the library to work for a while.
At 6:15 Lulu came to find him, so he took her out for her short run, then hauled an even more reluctant than usual Nana out of bed. "Sorry, girl. I know you didn't have the most restful night, either. But hey, at least you can nap all day to make up for it."
Half an hour into what was usually a 45-minute run, a figure appeared on the road ahead of them. Sam would have assumed that he hadn't seen them because he wasn't paying close attention, except that Nana jerked to a halt and then got in front of him, snarling, hackles up.
The figure approached slowly, hands raised to shoulder level, palms out, and resolved into a woman. A familiar woman, one who Sam had never expected to see again. And who he wasn't nearly as sorry as he maybe should have been to see alive.
"Heya, Sam. Yes, the rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated, yada yada yada."
"Meg. How the hell are you alive?"
She grinned. "Everyone always forgets. I've been around a long, long time, Sam. Angels still walked the earth when I first came smoking out of hell. I've got more than a few tricks up my sleeve. Faking my death for a jumped-up salesman and you and Deano was small potatoes. So is your bodyguard gonna let me approach, or what?"
"Nana, sit," Sam told her. She obediently dropped to her haunches and ceased growling, but the look she gave him could only be described as skeptical. He smiled ruefully and scratched her ears, glad there was someone there to keep him honest and watch his back.
"OK, so you faked your death. That was like a year and a half ago. Why come here now? What do you want?" Meg always wanted something. Not that he blamed her; in a way it made her easier to deal with. She didn't do false favors, and she didn't do social calls.
"And here I thought we parted friendly." She relaxed her stance, hooking her thumbs into her jeans' pockets.
"I'm not threatening you, am I?" Sam pointed out. "You know as well as anyone, this is about as friendly as it gets between me and demons."
She raised her eyebrows, cocked her head, and smiled suggestively. He grimaced. Nobody would ever let him forget Ruby, no matter which side they were on. "You know what I mean."
Meg chuckled. "Fine, we can skip the foreplay. I figure, I may not have died helping your sorry asses, but I did get hurt, and there's still the matter of me being left to Crowley's oh-so-gentle ministrations for a year and a half. So you owe me. And I'm cashing in. Crowley's consolidating his power, and it's getting harder to not get caught. I won't serve that arrogant toe rag, and I don't want to die or get stuck in one of the nastier corners of hell, either. I'm running out of options."
"And you think we can help?" She wasn't wrong, but he still didn't know what her angle was.
"Depends. Is it true you can cure a demon? Make them human?"
Sam stared. OK, that was beyond the last thing he expected. "Yes," he answered slowly.
"What about if the demon in question was never fully human in the first place?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Meg was full of surprises today, and they were coming on top of a terrible night's sleep and no coffee yet that day.
"Nephilim, dumbass. Azazel was my father in the literal, biological sense, and you know as well as I do that he's a fallen angel. Don't you remember your Genesis? 'And the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them'? Yeah, that happened."
Huh. Sam wondered whether the Men of Letters knew about this bit of angelic and demonic lore, and he just hadn't come across it yet. "Well, you were human enough to die and go to hell, so odds are that's human enough for the cure."
"'Odds are'?"
"Sorry, it's the best I can do. There are only two definite cases of the cure being successfully completed. One was just a run-of-the-mill demon, and the other was . . . call it a unique circumstance." Meg looked at Sam knowingly, and he avoided her eyes. "I got pretty close with Crowley, though, and since he's the King, that's gotta count for something, right? And it sounds to me, assuming this conversation is about what I think it is, like it's still your best offer."
"Man, you really would have made a good lawyer. I'm almost sorry we ruined it for you. Well, sorry you were so dead set on sticking to the straight and narrow that we had to, anyway," Meg said with a smile. Sam couldn't help smiling back, because at the end of the day, Meg would always be Meg, and he liked her honesty and her integrity and her fearlessness. She said what she thought, regardless of consequences, so even though just now it was a reminder of something he'd lost, Sam smiled.
"Is that a yes, then?"
"Yeah, I guess it is," she said, returning his smile with a smirk. "So lead the way back to whatever secret hideout it is that you go to when you can't be traced by means magical or infernal." She extended her hand in an "after you" gesture, bowing mockingly. He told Nana to heel and stepped forward. Meg fell in beside him.
"Is that why it took you so long to find us? Because when we're in the bunker we're shielded, and when we hunt we take hex bags?"
"Right in one, smarty-pants. But I consistently caught traces of both of you in this area, and eventually I realized it probably wasn't because you kept passing through. Speaking of both of you, you're not gonna let Deano stab me or anything, are you? I mean, he is fully defused, right?"
Sam sighed. So she did know about Dean's stint as a Knight of Hell. Naturally. "Fully defused, yeah. Also not home at the moment." He hesitated. Oh, what the hell. "He and Cas are out on a hunt."
"So Clarence is back in the good books, huh? He still owes me pizza."
Sam had a vivid flashback to a warehouse, Cas pressing Meg against a wall and kissing her, saying "I learned that from the pizza man," and came to the unfortunate conclusion that, assuming Meg stuck around, he was going to have to have the sex talk with Cas, because last year it became painfully obvious that he was lacking in all the salient details. Just great.
"Yeah, Cas is a permanent member of the team these days."
"At least until the featherbrains have their next crisis, you mean."
"Well, no, because he's not really an angel anymore." It's not like that's confidential information, Sam reassured himself. Sometimes Meg was too damn easy to talk to.
Meg stopped walking. "What d'you mean?"
"Long story, mostly his to tell if he wants to, but he lost his grace for good and is, for all intents and purposes, human," he informed her, stopping as well.
She whistled, long and low, and started walking again. "Wonders never cease. I guess that adds a little more appeal to the whole human gig."
They walked in silence for a few minutes, Sam wondering whether he should ask what it was about Cas that fascinated her so much. "Wait, what about his meat suit?" Meg asked abruptly. "I mean, vessels still have to have the human soul stuck in there somewhere so the angels can pretend like they're better than we are. But if Cas isn't an angel anymore, where did trench coat guy go? Last I heard the rule was one human soul per body."
Sam glanced at her sidelong while focusing on keeping his breathing even. Meg was the last person he wanted to talk meat suits with, and she probably knew that but she was Meg so of course she asked anyway. "Why do you care?"
"Curiosity," she said, stretching luxuriously and brushing her hair back with her wrist in a cat-like gesture. "And an ingrained distaste for hypocrisy of any kind, but especially from my halo-wearing cousins."
OK, he could grant her that. "Fair enough. Guy's name is—was—Jimmy. This is Cas' second brush with humanity, and he says Jimmy's been gone since the first one, almost a year and a half ago. Cas checked, before he de-haloed for good, said Jimmy's in heaven. Finally got away, poor bastard," Sam's voice softened as he finished. He spent both too much and not enough time thinking about the fates of vessels.
"So Clarence is the sole occupier of a stolen meat suit. The guy just keeps getting sexier."
Sam chose not to take the bait because god he just couldn't, but after a brief silence she asked about Nana, which led to questions about Dean and what he'd done this time and why Sam put up with him, which led to Sam venting more than was wise considering his audience, which led to Meg offering to disembowel Dean.
"Uh, once again, why do you care? In case you've forgotten, it wasn't my first rodeo with possession, or even my second: you were. So how is this not hypocrisy?"
"Because when I did it I was being what I am. I wanted revenge, and I knew you were scared of going dark side, knew how much you valued your independence, so I used those fears against you. Dean knows those same things about you, but he still claims that putting you through that was an act of love and care. I call bullshit, and violence happens to be my favorite way of dealing with bullshit. Besides, 'you're a king and I'm a lion heart'," she sang.
Oh for fuck's sake. "Uh-uh," Sam said, stopping in front of the entrance to the bunker. "You do not get to ruin that song for me."
Meg smirked, and opened her mouth, probably to continue ruining one of his favorite "Of Monsters and Men" songs, so he cut her off. "OK, this is it. Before I let you in, let's go over the rules. I like you more than I probably should, but it doesn't mean I trust you, so any time I need to do something that means I can't supervise you, for instance the shower I'm going to take once we get inside, you stay in a devil's trap, and you don't fuss about it. Clear?"
"Crystal."
"Good."
Sam undid the ward just inside the door and led her into the bunker. Here goes nothing.
. . .
"Something I probably shoulda mentioned," Meg said when Sam came to let her out of the dungeon after his shower, "is that I'd like to grab a different meat suit to get all squishy and human in. What with this one being kinda recognizable and all?"
Sam frowned and folded his arms. No way in hell. "I'm not gonna let you possess some innocent girl just to make it easier for you to go incognito."
She shrugged. "So find me one who's not so innocent."
No such thing, he thought. "Still not happening," he said, turning to leave without letting her out of the trap.
She sighed in exasperation. "Fine. What about a coma patient or someone recently dead? You find me someone like that, I'll make it work."
He turned back. "OK. You got yourself a deal." He let her out and led her to the library.
"That one," Meg said, leaning over Sam's shoulder to point at the laptop screen, where he'd been searching for recently deceased Jane Does. Meg had chosen a probably homeless mugging victim from New Orleans, early thirties, dark brown skin and short curly hair.
"Can I ask why?" Sam asked, twisting around to look at her where she stood behind his chair.
Meg cocked her head. "Can't quite put my finger on it. I think maybe . . . I think she might look like me."
"You mean . . . when you were human? You were from Africa?"
"Well, yeah. What part of 'angels still walked the earth' are you not getting? Humanity was young, and that's where most of the action was, so that's where Lucifer and his people were focusing their efforts. You're smart, Sam, please tell me you didn't fall for that Anglo-Saxon crap where everyone from biblical times is drawn as blond-haired blue-eyed whiteys."
Sam laughed. "I guess I never thought about it."
"Most people don't."
He looked at her calculatingly. How was it that, though she was perfectly frank and comfortable being what she was, a demon, she still managed to be so human? Maybe that was why she'd understood about . . . unicorns. Maybe it was why he couldn't seem to help liking her, even after everything she'd done.
"What?" she asked.
"It's interesting, the things you choose to care about."
"I'd take that as praise if you weren't such a goody goody. You people are a bad influence. Well, not Dean, but you and Cas."
"From you, that's quite the compliment."
"Shut up. So when do we pick up my new ride?"
"Tonight."
Meg teleported them to the morgue, Sam hacked the system so it looked like the body had been transferred, then Meg took them back to the bunker. Sam felt bad that, on the slim chance that the woman's family or friends were looking for her, they would never get closure now. But she herself, whoever she'd been, wouldn't be hurt by this, so he'd have to be satisfied with that. Meg smoked into the new body, got dressed, and helped Sam bury the old one out behind the bunker.
"You should, uh, do whatever it is you do to rest and relax," Sam told her as he escorted her to the dungeon for what remained of the night. "Tomorrow's gonna be rough."
It was strange how, no matter what face she wore, Meg's smile remained the same. "Unfortunately for me, none of my r and r activities can be done from inside a devil's trap. With one exception," she added as an afterthought, sticking her finger in her mouth and sucking it suggestively.
Sam shook his head. "See you tomorrow, Meg."
His last conscious thought before falling asleep was how odd it was that the presence of a demon in the bunker, albeit one who was a sort-of friend, was enough to keep the panic at bay.
. . .
The cure was strange and terrible and familiar and not terrible. She didn't fight him when he cuffed her to the chair as a precaution, just smirked and said "Kinky." She breathed her way through the pain, smiling and joking that it was nothing, not compared to what she'd felt, and Sam didn't push because he didn't really want to know whether the cure hurt worse than hell's tortures, didn't want to know whether the worst pain the last person shackled to this chair felt had come at his own hands.
In the hours between injections, they talked. He tried not to think about the difference between a familiar person behind a strange face and a strange person behind a familiar face, both bound in that chair with needle marks in their arms. He must not think of that; he cannot help thinking of that. Meg asked him if the Men of Letters were as much of a good ol' boys club as they sounded, pulling him out of the dangerous turn of this thoughts and back to the present. He did not think about the difference between her ranting about all the forms of patriarchy she's seen through the millennia and the brother-faced monster that confirmed all his worst fears when it sat in that chair and told him things his brother would never say but might easily believe.
No, he did not think of that at all.
The change in her was gradual. Her conversation turned more and more introspective as the hours passed. She wondered whether what she was, what she'd done, was her fault, if she ever really had a choice. But you don't go to hell without fucking some serious shit up—"trust me, I would know"—so perhaps, perhaps she cannot blame Azazel and Alistair and Lilith and all the rest. Perhaps she was accountable. Sam's participation in the conversation was no longer required, not until: "Sam?"
He looked up: "Yeah?"
"I think . . . I think maybe I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For what I did to you."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Well, all of it. But I was thinking of the possession, and the things I did with your body while you screamed at me to stop. I want to say it's your fault, that if you were strong enough to beat the devil, you were strong enough to beat little old me if you really wanted to, but that's not right, is it? So I'm sorry."
She did not expect him to answer. She did not see forgiveness as her due. She did not wear his brother's face.
Another injection, more time slipping by.
"I can stay, right? I mean I've just been assuming, because you're you and 'cause Cas has a soft spot for me, but I shouldn't have, should I? I mean, I'm sure I can take care of myself, I always have, it's just—"
"Meg," he interrupted, "of course you can stay. Unless you're telling me you think you'll be a less useful ally just because you're human?" She looked so tired, he couldn't help but give her an out.
She smiled. "Way to kick a girl when she's down." A pause. "Is it time?"
He looked at his watch. "It's time."
"Last one, right?"
Sam nodded. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus. Hanc animam redintegra, lustra." He plunged the needle in one final time, and the light came, and she gasped and writhed and he had one hand on her shoulder and one supporting the back of her head, and it was over.
Meg slowly raised her head to meet Sam's eyes where he was crouched in front of her, eyes intent on her face. "I don't know about you," she said with a weak smile, "but I could eat a moose."
Sam returned her smile. "One final check, and we'll see what we can do about that." He handed her the flask of holy water, and she drank it down and smacked her lips with a satisfied "Aah."
"Welcome to humanity," he said as he unlocked the cuffs. "I just realized: do you even want to be called Meg? I mean, it was never your name, just the name of the girl you were wearing when I met you."
She stood carefully and stretched, arms reaching over her head while she raised herself to her tiptoes, braced herself on the chair and twisted, eliciting several pops from her back, then stretched again.
"Yeah, I think I'll keep it. It fits, and like you said, it's the one I took when I met you, and it was that that led me here, so that seems right, somehow."
"Fair enough." Sam caught Meg when she took a step forward and stumbled. She allowed him to support her as they made their way to the kitchen. "How does scrambled eggs with all the fixings sound?" he asked.
"Perfect."
. . .
The next day, Sam showed Meg around the bunker and took her shopping for clothes, a laptop and phone, and other necessities. They agreed on Meg's surname (Donovan) and birthday (November 4, the day before, because, as she pointed out, it really kind of was) and went to Kinkos to make her the basic fake IDs; Sam had a contact for the ones that needed to be really good, and he emailed her the information.
When they returned to the bunker late in the afternoon, Meg stretched out on the couch Dean had gotten for the library to set up her electronics while Sam worked on his research projects. At one point he heard Lulu whine, and glanced up just in time to see Meg resume rubbing Lulu's ears while she worked on her laptop. He smiled and went back to work.
He made her wash the dishes after dinner that night, they watched V for Vendetta, and went to bed.
When Meg had yet to make an appearance at 10 the next morning, Sam let Lulu into her room. "Aw, Jesus fuck I'M GONNA KILL YOU SAM get off—" To Lulu's credit, she jumped down as soon as Meg said "off," but she stood with her head on the bed, staring pleadingly at Meg and waving her tail. Nana, not to be left out, joined her. Sam leaned against the door frame, chuckling.
"So what's the emergency?" Meg asked, trying to ignore the dogs.
"No emergency. But it's after 10, and we've got stuff to do." He spotted her laptop on the bedside table. "You stay up late or something?"
"Turns out Orange is the New Black totally lives up to the hype. What stuff do we have to do?"
"Couch shopping for the library."
"You guys already have a couch in the library."
"Yes, but that's Dean's couch, so to avoid you two fighting over it, we're going to get another one."
"For this, he interrupts my beauty sleep," Meg groused to the dogs, giving in and scratching their heads.
Sam snorted. "There's coffee in the kitchen. I'll call them off as long as you promise to be out there drinking it within half an hour."
"I hate you."
"Half an hour," he called over his shoulder as he left, taking Nana and Lulu with him.
They took the old truck that Dean had gotten into working condition to the nearest furniture store, picked a couch, and between the two of them managed to haul it back and wrestle it into the library.
After a late lunch, as Sam was about to start a quick obedience session with Lulu—he did multiple short ones throughout the day, and put Nana through her paces, too—Meg interrupted: "I can help with that, you know."
"You know about dog obedience training?"
"I worked with the hellhounds. I was really good at it, actually. And infernal or not, a dog is a dog."
"Do I want to know what your training methods were like? Dog trainer or not, a demon is still a demon."
"True, but the hounds wouldn't be what they are if they weren't canine, and that means that, if a person can stomach it, love works better than fear. The hounds I trained loved me, and not in a Stockholm syndrome way either. Just pure doggy love and loyalty. So I'm not gonna hurt these cuties, if that's what you're worried about."
Sam reflected on the fact that both Nana and Lulu liked Meg, and that she had shown them a lot of affection over the past few days. "What the hell," he acquiesced.
"Will you teach me?" Meg asked that night as Sam pulled vegetables out of the fridge.
"Teach you what?"
"How to cook. Seems like a skill I should have."
Sam chuckled.
"What's so funny?" she asked suspiciously.
"You're human for all of two days and you're already asking for help learning practical skills like cooking. Cas has been human for months and can't do much more than make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
Meg snorted. "Typical."
"Pretty much," Sam agreed. "Well, if you want to learn, wash up and we'll get started."
. . .
Sam didn't know what to think about how easy it was, having Meg around. She'd been in the bunker four days, only two of them as a human, and she already seemed fully settled in. On the third day she started her own morning workout routine in the bunker's gym. She helped Sam with the dogs, and between the two of them they were able to let Lulu be off-lead, even though she still acted heartbroken about not being allowed in the kitchen when that's where the people were and she loved the people couldn't they see. They shared cooking and clean-up at lunch and dinner, and talked while they did. She found ways to entertain herself while Sam worked on his projects, including occasionally wandering over to peer over his shoulder and throw out random comments or insights. They watched movies in the evenings.
And Sam didn't once worry about possession or other intrusions.