"NO!" Lizzy shouts out as she watches Lou's head slide off of her body, hands still attached to Lizzy's, and lands with a sick thud on the barn floor.
"Ruby!?" Sam loudly yells when he sees the demon standing behind the now headless Lou, machete still poised in her hands.
"Oh my God! No!" Lizzy cries while pulling her hands away from Lou's lifeless ones, letting the vampire's body crumple to the floor. "Louie! No! Please, no, no!" Lizzy immediately drops into a sobbing heap on the hard dirt floor. She shrinks into a ball and clutches her face in her hands, retching with the horrific display she's just been forced to witness. Deep down Lizzy knew it had to happen, Lou without a doubt had to die, but she'd never let herself truly come to terms with it. The loss, which she now experiences for the second time, crushes her completely. She continues to mutter the words of denial over and over as she rocks back and forth.
Dean lowers himself onto the floor next her, needing to do whatever he possibly can to help. He sits on his knees at her side and holds her tightly as she mourns for the second time. Once his arms surround her, she clutches at his forearms with desperate tenacity. He knows the bruises are already forming, but he doesn't care.
"Louie," Lizzy sobs out, trying not to look at what's left of her friend on the floor of the barn.
"Ruby! What…" Sam nearly shouts with shocked surprise and doesn't finish the question as he's speechless with her presence.
"…Am I doing here?" she coldly finishes for him while wiping the blood off of the large knife in her hands onto her pants.
"Uh, yeah," Sam gets pissed.
"Well, Sam… I'm saving your helpless ass once again," she says with obvious annoyance. "Seems to be a regular thing for me these days."
The room goes quiet, save for Lizzy's sob-choked cries, as Ruby numbly searches Lou's corpse. Lizzy watches in horror as the thing that killed her best friend pulls jangling keys from the dead vampire's coat pocket and gets to work opening the padlocks on the cell.
"Who…" Lizzy stutters out through sobs as she looks up to the blond woman pulling the barred door open. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Watch your mouth," Ruby tells her as her eyes flash black and she opens the door. "Because right now I'm your bestest friend in the whole wide world, sweetheart."
Lizzy flinches as she sees the black orbs stare back at her before returning to normal. She pushes backwards, scrambling desperately to get away from the demon out of instinct but with Dean holding her in place, she moves nowhere.
"What the hell!?" Lizzy shouts at the demon in front of her with new fear.
"Ruby!" Dean warns through a stern tone of voice. Not only is she revealing herself to be a demon to Lizzy, she's also making a joke about best friends when she just in fact killed Lizzy's best friend. "Take it down a little!"
"Excuse me? You should be kissing my ass right now," Ruby says while turning her back. "Not telling me what to do."
"Maybe a little fucking decorum is in order is all," Dean tells her, holding Lizzy tighter where she is.
"I'm not here to be polite, Dean," she rolls her eyes and strides quickly across the dirt floor toward the south entrance. "Later." Ruby waves her hand once over her shoulder.
"You fucking know her!?" Lizzy panics out. "You know a demon!?" She searches the faces in the room for an answer but doesn't get one. No one wants to explain.
"Wait, that's it? You're leaving?" Sam calls after Ruby as she silently walks away.
"My job here is done," Ruby plainly explains with a shrug and keeps moving.
"How did you know we were even here!?" Sam shouts to her, running after her.
She never answers and just walks out the doorway. Sam follows, sprinting to catch up, but when he gets outside the barn door she's already gone. Vanished. And her air of mystery gets that much more complex.
The flames light up the cold night sky and dance across the scattered headstones surrounding her. Lizzy sits Indian-style at the edge of the freshly dug grave, Lou's favorite sawed off sitting in her lap, and watches the fire, dazed and detached. She feels the heat on her face and it warms the tears as the silently roll down her cold, rosy cheeks. Exhaustion can't even begin to describe her state. It's been days since she's properly slept and she knows it will be many more before she ever does again.
They left the abandoned barn after disposing of the vampire bodies Bobby had taken out on his own. Digging a grave big enough for all of them was a difficult task, one that Lizzy was barely able to help with. She did what she could, dug for as long as she could manage, but her mental state made her nearly worthless. After salting, burning, and burying the vamps, Sam and Dean very carefully wrapped up Lou's body and stowed her in the Impala's trunk. They wanted to do everything they could to spare Lizzy as much trauma as possible and it seemed sacrilegious to put her body in her own beloved Mustang. Once on the road Lizzy was very quiet, another bad sign. Dean, who drove the Mustang for her, did everything he could to get her talking like he had before, but this time it didn't work. The only thing she was willing to discuss was who Ruby was, and that conversation didn't go too well. Dean held back a lot of information, giving her just an overview. Lizzy called them insane several times over for dealing with a demon, something Dean deep down agrees with.
Two days and 1700 miles later, the four found themselves in eastern Massachusetts, in the town the two girls lived in for years together, driving slowly through a cemetery Lizzy brought them to. Dean stopped the Mustang in front of the two headstones they'd been searching for and Sam pulled the Impala up behind her, Bobby's Camaro behind that. They all set to work, digging a second grave in just as many days. Sam and Dean took it upon themselves to lower Lou's body in and set to work giving her a proper hunter's burial.
Dean, Sam, and Bobby hang back by the Impala to give Lizzy the time she needs to say goodbye. The three are heartbroken, shaken by what Lizzy must now deal with.
Sam is crushed by all this. Absolutely crushed. And the tears just don't seem to stop, constantly leaving two trails running down his face as the fire puts to rest the one person he's been able to truly connect with in so damn long. He knew he'd miss her horribly with all this and he knew it would hurt but the pain is much greater than he'd ever anticipated. The lost and solitary feeling deep in his gut makes him think that maybe he took this woman completely for granted. Sam looks over at his brother, wondering how he's going to handle doing this same exact thing for him in just a few months. He knows for sure now that he has to find a way to save him. Watching Lizzy lose Lou confirms it. Sam knows he won't make it through that, not in one piece.
And when Dean turns his attention to Sam, they lock gazes. Dean sees the pain in Sam's eyes and reaches to him, dropping a hand on his shoulder. He's taking Lou death exceptionally hard. They don't say a word as there's nothing to say really. They know what's coming and this reminder doesn't help that fact.
Bobby looks back and forth between Lizzy's mourning and Sam and Dean current predicament and lets out his sadness for just a moment. He's already lost one kid and he's about to lose another. Both are exceptional people, caring, brave, and admirable. Their destinies are all wrong. They don't deserve anything that is coming to them. He quickly wipes his eyes, hoping none of his adoptees had seen him cry. He's the hard ass, the one holding it together. He has to keep up appearances for them.
"Louie," Lizzy begins quietly from her seated place, needing to let some things out before she truly says goodbye. "I'm so, so sorry. This is my fault." She stops to wipe her eyes. "And I know what you'd say. You'd tell me to cut the shit and that it isn't my fault. Then you'd tell me to move the fuck on and stop being such a pussy." Lizzy huffs a little laugh. "I even sound like you when I say it. That's probably a good thing though because I know you'll always be a huge part of me, or the best part of me, really. Without you I would have gotten myself killed so many times over that I could never count them."
Lizzy pauses as a cold wind whips around her and fans the flames so they are nearly reaching the headstone next to Lou's plot. She rereads the familiar names across them and grows sadder.
"I know you so damn well that I figured this is what you'd want, to be buried with your parents. I know that's probably what Jane and Brian would have wanted, too. And considering they were a lot like my second set of parents I'd want to make them happy if I could," Lizzy sobs out as the thought of Lou's parents comes to her. She tightens her grip on Lou's favorite weapon. "They were such amazing people and they'd be so fucking proud of you, Louie. You did so much good with your life."
Lizzy shifts to change positions and sits back on her heels, her knees just a few inches from the dirt edge.
"God, what do I do now, Lou? What happens now?" Lizzy cries out, the thought terrifying her to the core. "I don't know how to be without you. You've just always been there my whole life, holding me up and being my partner in crime. Even when we were kids." She takes a deep breath and sobs some more. "Where do I go? Do I keep hunting? And how am I going to get through losing Dean without you to help me? I can't…." She looks up into the clear night sky, the stars brightly dotting the dark space. "I can't handle all of this. I'm lost without you. I miss you so damn much, it hurts so fucking bad."
She leans down and covers her face in her hands. Her stitched chin and still blackened eye throb with her cries but she doesn't care. In the moment she feels she deserves the pain.
"I still love you, even after everything you did. It wasn't you. I know it wasn't," Lizzy cries out as she lays onto her side at the edge of the pit. It took too much energy to sit up. "I love you so, so much." The weight, the stress, the pain, the terror, the loneliness overcomes her. The sobs stop but the tears still silently spill. She feels her head being lifted and when she looks up she's not surprised to see Dean there. He sits next to her and places her head gently in his lap. They stay there, quiet, as he runs his hands through her hair and watch the flames.
"It hurts so much," Lizzy says to him in a tight, pained voice while keeping her focus trained on the fire.
"I know," Dean tells her honestly, having lost enough in his life to understand.
"I'd rather get my ass kicked into the ground a thousand times than feel this."
Dean doesn't respond. Always being the stoic person, he never truly knows what to say, even if he understands her more than most could ever.
"What the hell do I do with her car?" Lizzy wonders aloud, remembering that she now has a pristine, classic car to care for out of love for her sister. "I don't know how to take care of it. I am so fucking clueless about that shit."
"I can help with that."
"Yeah… but for how long?"
Again, Dean doesn't answer because there is no good answer to give. It's easier to just stay quiet.
"She's so good, such a good person. God, what the fuck is happening?" Lizzy reaches up and grasps one of his hands. "She didn't deserve this."
"No she didn't," Dean answers back with certainty.
"I… I wish it was me," she says as fresh tears start falling. "I want to take her place so badly."
"L," Dean starts, tears of his own finally falling as he more that comprehends what she says to him. "I'm so sorry you have to do this."
Lizzy shifts, lifting her head off of his lap and instead crawls into it. She sits with her legs across his and leans her forehead into the crook of his neck, looking for whatever comfort she can sap from him in the moment.
"And I'm sorry I'm leaving you too soon," Dean continues. The thought of making her life even more difficult weighs heavily on him. "I want to be here for you…."
"One thing at a time, Winchester," she whispers. "Can only handle one massive loss at a time. Please."
"Sorry," Dean says as he squeezes his arms around her tighter. He's got to get out of his deal. He can't leave her, not like this, not ever.
Lizzy runs her fingers along the splintered wooden handle of the shotgun, still in her lap, as she prepares to part with it.
"Lou's favorite," Lizzy sighs. "Can't let her go into the unknown without it, right?" She leans forward, extending her hand to the flames, and tosses the weapon in, letting the fire consume it along with her friend. She leans heavily back into Dean, for the first time feeling so small against his much larger frame, and lets his grip tighten around her once more.
The tears finally stop flowing. She thinks it's because she's run completely dry finally and she welcomes the reprieve. Lizzy closes her eyes and lets the heat of the fire consume her tired body. This is how it ends for Lou, the woman who's saved so many people. There're only four people there to mourn her properly. Lou's own brother refused to come say goodbye, claiming that she deserved whatever came to her. Lou had never told Lizzy that Derek thought that way, disapproving so strongly to their life and their choice to hunt. She was shocked to have such a cold tone come from him when she called him on their way back to Massachusetts. Lizzy was aware that their relationship was strained, but she didn't know it was broken beyond repair. She chose Lizzy over her own brother and this is how that decision ended.
Now Lou's gone and the world will never know what she did. It'll never know her name or pay respect to the woman who made a huge difference and saved countless lives. They'll never know how smart and cunning she was, or how brave and driven she could be.
"She deserves so much more," is the last comment Lizzy makes before remaining silent next to her best friend's burning grave, blanketed by the man she loves, until the flames die out in the early morning.
"Home sweet home, or something like that," Lizzy says while unlocking the front door of the old house she'd led them to after leaving the cemetery in the same town. It looks as though it was built at least a hundred years ago but most likely it was longer than that. The furniture is frilly and covered in flowers… and plastic. There are lace curtains covering all windows and doilies under every framed picture, lamp, and knick-knack. A thin layer of dust covers most of the house, making it appear as though it hadn't been lived in for a long time.
"Ah, whose place is this?" Sam cautiously asks as he begins to think they've just broken into an elderly person's home.
"It's mine, technically," Lizzy explains while flicking a wall switch and turning on the lights. "My grandmother left it to me in her will."
"Wait, you're grandmother died?" Dean asks with surprise. "Shirley?" He remembers her telling him a little about Shirley in the past. It was her last blood relative that was close to her.
"Yeah, about seven months ago," Lizzy tells him. "I tried to call you when it'd happened… but you never picked up." She looks away from him after bringing up one of the less positive moments of their past year.
"Oh," Dean answers, leaving the conversation where it is. That gnawing guilt comes back in full force. God damn, he really fucked up.
"It's okay," she smiles small and sad to him, seeing his guilt in his body language and trying to make it at least a little better. "It's a great place, though a little dated. Um, there's a second, nicer living room through the glass-paned doors down the hall along with a bathroom and dining room. Kitchen's just through that doorway," she points off to the right. "There's a master bedroom and another smaller bedroom along with a second bathroom upstairs. This couch in here pulls out and is surprisingly comfy so everyone should be covered."
"Not bad," Sam comments while looking around.
"Not it isn't," Lizzy agrees. "It's comforting being here. Reminds me of grandma and being here with her."
"She was a hell of a broad, that Shirl," Bobby says while dropping an arm around Lizzy's shoulder. "It was a sad day when you called and told me that she'd passed. I really liked her."
"You met Shirley?" Dean questions.
"Oh yeah," Bobby says. "She didn't like that Lizzy and Lou were out in the world just the two of 'em, especially since Lizzy let her in on the truth about what's really out there. Shirley was the only one who ever really believed what Lizzy told her."
"My grandma always believed me, my whole life. Never second guessed a thing I've ever told her. Probably because I never lied to her. She had no reason not to trust me completely."
"Damn straight. But that doesn't mean she was okay with you fighting all that evil shit," Bobby tells her before returning his attention to the boys. "She worried all the time about them, Lou having become like a second grandkid to her a long time ago. After explaining that they'd been training with me for some time, Shirley took the next flight out to Sioux Falls and was on my doorstep first thing in the morning. She wanted to check me out herself, make sure her girls were in good hands."
"Which we were," Lizzy added. "Right sensei?"
"Yeah," Bobby returns, wincing with the lame nickname Lizzy gave him a long while back.
"And the second she met him, she trusted him. She always was a really great judge of character."
"Yeah, well, after meeting Shirley it was clear as day where you get your stubbornness," Bobby comments.
"Got my caring nature from her too, so it's an even trade."
"Can't argue with you there," Bobby comments while squeezing his arm around Lizzy tighter before letting her go.
"Huh," Dean says while picking up a silver framed picture of a little girl sitting on Santa's lap. He immediately recognizes the young child as Lizzy. "You haven't changed much, have you?" he says while peering down at the wide toothy grin she's displaying, that same grin he's loved for a long time now. Of course in the picture it's a little less toothy considering her front teeth are missing.
"Not really. I've always been a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda gal, even at a young age," Lizzy explains. "Something my grandma told me she admired about me, actually. I was always me, no matter where I was or who I was with. She said it was brave to be that way… now I'm not sure if it was a compliment or a diss." Lizzy huffs a little laugh. The memories, which she was worried would sadden her and make everything worse, are doing the opposite. She finds comfort in the good times of her past. "Damn, I've been lucky when it comes to the people that have been in my life. No wonder I ended up so freakin' awesome, huh?"
Dean smiles with her comment. He must be rubbing off on her.
The room grows quiet as the three men look around the cluttered family room, getting many glimpses into Lizzy's past life with all of the pictures that are littered around the room. Dean got stuck on one picture of Lizzy's family, a happy group of three, mom, dad, and daughter at a zoo when Lizzy couldn't have been more than ten. As much as he's sad she's lost it, he's overly glad she had the chance to grow up normal, to have a long length of time that was so happy and innocent. And monster free.
"Oh, wow," Sam says while pointing happily to a yet another picture on the wall. "How old were you two in this one?"
"We were going into fourth grade. That was the first day of school," she explains while standing next to him and looking. "Louie and I were so excited because we were going to be in the same class that year. We never had been before. Teachers always kept us separated."
"I wonder why," Sam sarcastically jests.
"Right? They were a smart group of teachers. Oh man, neither of us could sleep the night before, we were so fucking excited. Our bedroom windows used to face each other so we opened them that night and talked across our lawns until way too late about the coming year and what we were going to wear on our first day. As you can tell we decided to coordinate outfits."
"Yeah, I can see that," Sam smiles when he recognizes the matching oversized pink sweaters, acid washed tapered jeans, neon multi-colored high tops, and green scrunchies holding their hair back in the same side ponytail.
"We were waiting for the bus to arrive that morning on the curb outside my house when my mom snapped this picture. There was constantly a camera attached to her hand, I swear," Lizzy grins with the memory. "She took a serious version too, regular smiles and all proper, but grandma always liked the silly face version that we insisted on taking afterwards better."
"Well, it's definitely more your style," Dean adds as he joins them and peers over Sam's shoulder for a look.
"Definitely," Sam agrees. He keeps grinning lightly as he looks at it, missing the two girls so much as he does. Lizzy and Lou had never lost that fun, happy side of them and this picture perfectly depicts their true nature… or at least what used to be their true nature. He really hopes that hasn't changed for Lizzy.
"You know what?" Lizzy says while taking the picture off of the wall. "Keep it." She hands it to Sam.
He looks at her like she's crazy. "What? No! This is yours. I can't do that," Sam refuses.
"Please, I want you to have it."
"Lizzy, c'mon…."
"Sam, Stop. I just want you to remember why it is that we do what we do, why we sacrifice so much. This is exactly it." Lizzy hold the picture out in front of her to Sam. "You were already kicking evil ass while we were posing for stupid first day of school pictures. You may never have had this opportunity but you've given it to so many others. Plus," she pulls the picture down to look at it again. "I want you to remember Lou the way she's supposed to be remembered. Like this. She was goofy, and sweet, and a hard ass at times, but most of all, she was fucking awesome. She loved you and valued you so much, Sam. You meant the world to her. Please, take this. We both want you to have it." She holds the framed picture out to Sam and waits while he hesitates. Reluctantly, Sam takes it from her.
"Thank you," he says timidly. "And I will always remember her the right way, I can promise you that."
"Good. I know that's all she would want." Lizzy takes a moment to breathe in deeply. She puts her hands on her hips, suddenly feeling awkward in the situation. It's the first time she's talked about Lou in the past tense and it's unsettling. She turns to what's currently left of her family and changes the subject. "Well, make yourselves comfortable. There's no cable or internet since I had those shut off a while back when I was never here. Didn't make sense to pay for it. Electricity is still on, and the heat, so I'm gonna go get that cranking." She forces a smile to the group before heading to the hall to turn the heat on.
The four of them eventually settle in, Bobby taking the main bedroom as Lizzy insisted and Lizzy and Dean taking the guest room. Lizzy had her reservations about that but really she just couldn't face being alone after burying her best friend. Sam settled into the living room as he was more than fine with a pull out couch. It's still better than some of the motel beds he's had to sleep on. Of course, he had to remove the plastic cover before opening it. After a yet another take-out dinner, everyone kept to themselves for the most part and went to sleep early. Days of sleep deprivation made it easy for a quiet rest to settle in across the house.