Heya!

CHAPTER 10

"Y'all be careful on this one." Bobby was saying as Sam, Dean, and Emma were putting their bags into the back of the Impala. Dean took Emma's from her. Even after two weeks, she was still sore. Sam had tried to make her wear a sling, but she wasn't having it.

"We will, Bobby." Emma said as she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. Bobby made a face but Emma saw the little smile. "Be back," she said to the brothers and made her way toward the broken remnants of her truck. She grimaced as she ran her hand along the top of her compressed cab. "Hey, girl." She mumbled and opened the driver's door.

She hadn't gotten around to cleaning out her truck since her best friend had crashed it, months before. Her best friend who was now nowhere to be found – presumed dead, but Emma refused to believe it. Glass was wedged in between the seat cushions and Emma could still detect the slightest scent of sulfur. It was Lilith who had caused the truck to roll. Emma was the kind of person who took something terrible that happened to her and walked away from it, she always had been. She had experienced PTSD when she was young, but since then she had taught herself to shut down after. The hunting life didn't leave any room for prolonged suffering.

But her death and the moments leading up to had done something different to her, especially now that the girl who had been her rock for the last fifteen years was gone. Lately, with the memory of Luke coming in through her bedroom window, she found herself thinking about the beginning of the apocalypse that the hunters now found themselves neck deep in. She thought about Sara. After some digging and a phone call or two ("Emma! We heard you were dead!"), she had learned a lot about the demon that had inhabited her body, that was so important to the end of the world. It played out that the demon could only inhabit men throughout Emma's life, because Emma herself was the only girl she could ever possess. That explained Emma's failed hunts for her over the years, she had been missing a very important piece to the puzzle. With a sigh, Emma cautiously reached behind the cab seat of her old Chevy Silverado. The first thing she pulled out was her old acoustic guitar. The case was bent, but upon further inspection, she saw that the instrument was unharmed. Humming in interest, she set it on the seat. After a few more moments of rummaging around, Emma found what she was looking for. Hopping out of the truck, she turned to go back to the Impala. Not two steps and a hundred thoughts later, she mumbled "fuck it" and pulled the guitar out.

"That thing is so hot." Dean sighed as he watched Emma strap her shotgun holster onto her back. She spent a few moments adjusting it before sliding her holder, gun, and guitar into the trunk. Sam peered interested at the instrument. Bobby said nothing. "You know we could stay one more night." Dean said seductively as he cornered her against the Impala.

"Boy…" Bobby warned. Emma just laughed and pushed him away from her.

"I liked you better when you were eighty." She teased him. Dean's expression turned deadpan. The three were leaving Bobby's from a case on a witch and a strange card game, that involved betting years of your life. Dean had lost 50 before they were able to stop the situation. Emma had missed most of the action, as they had confined her to the hotel room on research duty. Emma hadn't complained too much. Three broken ribs and a stab wound would do that to anyone.

The upside to her aching body was that she got to sit in the front of the Chevy Impala that was pushing eighty down the freeway toward a town in Oklahoma. Emma always felt a little odd returning to the state that she had grown up in. She hadn't returned to her town in a long time, and with her short but confusing meeting with her father in Heaven, she was glad that wasn't where they were headed. Where they were going was the city of Ponca, where Emma had spent one of her foster home years. This was where she had met Maggie. There was very little that she remembered with even a hint of a smile about her childhood. She had seen on some late night psych show that this should worry her. It didn't.

"So," Sam's voice brought her back to the present. "We wanna run over what we know?"

"Four bodies found." Emma recited from memory – the blonde hair and southern accent always led people to believe she was stupid, but she was actually incredibly bright. "One male – age 24 – drank and ate himself to death, which would be not necessarily supernatural related except he was a religious vegan. And it wasn't no kale he exploded his stomach with."

"What even is kale?" Dean wondered aloud. Emma shrugged and looked over at him from the passenger's seat.

"I think it's a leaf." Emma saw Sam roll his eyes as he leaned forward. "Anyway the next two, a married couple in their thirties, died while getting it on. Also weird because they were in the process of divorce and the wife's friend said that they hadn't had sex in months. I'll leave the details of their death up to your imagination."

"I read the file," Dean said with a grimace. "It says that the guy –"

"Don't! Don't tell me." Sam interrupted. Emma laughed.

"The next girl…"

-+s+-

"So," the ME was telling the three hunters as they followed her into the small examining room. "We've gone through the first three. This is Ms. Lilian." Sam and Emma followed the woman to the last of the four tables. Emma ran her hand through her hair. "Like the first three, it looks like Lilian kept at what she was doing up to the moment she died." This body's face was the only one that was covered. It was obvious why. Emma gave a little gasp at the cuts under the woman's eyes. Her nose was gone. And it only got worse as the ME pulled down the woman's sheet. "Judging by where the incisions were made, it looks like she was trying to perform plastic surgery on herself." Emma watched as Dean raised an eyebrow and looked down.

"What about drugs? Alcohol?" Emma asked as she put one hand on her hip. She leaned down close to the body, causing both the brothers to make a face. She was looking for bites, holes, anything that would suggest what it was that had done this.

"Toxicology reports haven't come back from the lab yet but initial testing came back zip for all of them." Emma made brief eye contact with Sam before nodding.

"Alright, thanks doctor." she said and shook hands with the woman. "You have my number if anything else comes up."

"Youre really taking the reins here." Dean was saying as the three of them pushed out the doors and into the parking lot.

Emma shrugged and smiled at him. "Glad to be back." she said. Sam was checking his voicemail. "What do you think about me getting some work done?" Emma teased, pulling at the subtle bags under her eyes. Dean shot her a look and squeezed her arm affectionately.

"Not in a million years. I love you - big feet and all." Emma stopped short, her mouth wide open.

"I do NOT have big feet!" she shrieked, glancing once down toward the ground. Dean started laughing, leaning over to kiss her as they waited for Sam. Emma pushed him away and pouted, arms crossed on her chest. "I don't have big feet." she said quietly. She felt Dean's lips on her forehead, hearing his chuckling mumble that he was just kidding.

Sam came jogging over to the Impala, frowning at the scene in front of him. "They found another body, downtown apartment - what did you do to her?"

"He said my feet are big." Emma pouted at Sam before Dean could rush to defend himself.

"But they're not... Okay. Anyways. I have the directions, lets go."

Dean shook his head. "You two go ahead. I wanna run and grab a few things."

Emma frowned, "Like what?"

"Salt, lighter fluid. Maybe some more ammunition for the guns."

"I did all of that yesterday..."

Dean kissed Emma quick on the lips before walking in the other direction. "I'll catch up to you later. I'll call you."

"Dean?"

"Love you!" Emma turned and looked at Sam, eyebrows meeting in the middle in an intense frown. The Winchester only had a shrug for her. That was weird.

"Well we better get going." Sam said as he pulled open the door to the Impala. Emma made to take the keys from his hand.

"Give them to me!" she cried, laughing. Sam smiled as he held the keys high above her head. She jumped. "Dean said I could drive her!"

"Not with that shoulder." Sam shook his head. "I'm not risking sudden Dean death."

"My shoulders fine." Emma said defensively.

"Lift your arm over your head." The hunter looked down at her shoulder before, with a 'hmph' and a pout, getting into the passengers seat. "Thats what I thought."

As the Impala rolled down the city streets at speeds far too reasonable for Emma's taste, she found herself worrying about the man next to her. "Sam?" she asked tentatively.

"Hm?"

"How are you?" she asked. Sam frowned in confusion. "Getting over your blood problem."

"Oh... I'm, I'm fine." Sam said with a shrug. Emma didn't believe him. "I just try not to think about it is all." Emma saw the slight shift in his position, the tiny clench of his hands on the wheel.

"You can always come to me." she said, "if it ever gets to be too much." Sam said nothing as they drove down an alley toward the flashing police lights. He simply nodded.

-+s+-

"Sorry to have wasted your time, agents. Just some greedy bastard." The body was being rolled out into an ambulance. "We just thought a robbery was weird in the middle of the day." The man had been shot while robbing a couple's home. The husband, in a shaky voice, had said he wouldn't stop taking things off the shelves. Not when he confronted, not when he dialed 911. Only when the robber saw an officer's gun did he draw a knife.

"Greedy bastard..." Emma mumbled as the two of them walked through the warmer sunlight spot as it peeked through the storm clouds. She couldnt shake the feeling that they were being watched. "Greedy... Sam! Thats it!" The tall man raised his eyebrows as his large hands dug around for the Impala's keys.

"Whats it?"

"Greed." Emma said excitedly. "Look. Ate himself to death. Sexed..." was that even a word? "themselves to death. Performed her own plastic surgery. Couldn't stop stealing." Sam frowned and Emma watched it slowly dawn on him. "Gluttony. Lust. Envy. Greed." Emma waited for Sam to exclaim her genius, but he only shook his head.

"Not possible." he said, more to himself than anything before pulling out his phone. Emma frowned.

"Why not?" she asked. "Seven Deadly Sins wouldn't be the craziest thing we've seen." Sam looked at her, stony faced.

"Dean? Yeah she's okay. Look, meet us at the hotel. We got a problem." Emma had pulled her phone out, preparing to call Bobby.

"Sam what's going on?"

"We killed the Seven Sins. Not exorcised. Killed - with Ruby's knife - two years ago."

"So it's a coincidence." Dean said with a vague swipe of his hand. He and Emma were seated on their hotel bed. Emma rolled her eyes.

"Lucifer comes back and suddenly we run into a case with demons who are supposed to be dead -and you call that a coincidence?"

"Maybe we're being tricked." Sam offered. Dean shrugged his shoulders. Emma sighed and looked down at the ground. Sam watched in the quiet as Dean ran his hand over Emma's leg and sighed himself. "I'll go get some dinner."

As the door shut behind Sam, Dean turned to Emma, who hadn't moved. "What are you thinking?"

Emma lifted herself to lean her elbows on her knees and stares across the small hotel room. "What if it really is them?" she asked. "Who else could Lucifer have brought back?" Dean knew she was thinking about Sarah.

"Well take care of it." he said in that protective and confident voice that sent shivers down Emma's spine. "Just like we'll take care of these." he leaned forward and planted a kiss on her lips. As he bit her bottom lip lightly, Emma couldn't help the quiet moan that slipped out her lips. She wanted to touch him all over. As he leaned her down onto her back, cold fear suddenly took over her heart and she leaned away from him, taking in every inch of him. Dean watched her with brilliant green eyes. "Hey..." he said. "What is it?"

Emma suddenly felt silly. "I'm just worried about you." she said, shaking her head. "I felt like something was watching us while Sam and I were at the last crime scene. I know he felt it too. There's nothing more dangerous than a demon who wants revenge - let alone seven." Dean just held her gaze and smiled.

"Well that's why I got this hot," he kissed her, "badass," another kiss. Emma made a little happy sound, "girlfriend around."

"Mmm better believe it." she mumbled against how lips. Dean looked at her and grinned.

"In fact, she'll be here any second."

Sam walked back into the hotel room, an arm full of Chinese boxes to find Dean pinned under Emma's frame, arm twisted behind his back. She was laughing. "Help me, man!"

"I dont even want to know." Sam shook his head and kept walking.

Next one up as soon as I can! Sorry if its short. Im on my phone so I cant really tell.