Dean woke up with a headache and a strange dizzy-falling sensation that made him nauseous, indicating that he probably had a concussion. Lying on his side in the back of what appeared to be the Impala as it sped along a bumpy road was not helping. The last thing he remembered was exorcising a woman in an alleyway, then being hit hard by something he hadn't seen coming. Sam must have found and saved him. Dean tried to talk, but he was still too groggy from being knocked out. He instead settled for trying to regain his motor skills and wits, but mostly spent the drive failing to exert any strength with his arms.

By the time that he was starting to feel well enough to try sitting upright, the car had come to a halt. He heard Sam rushing out the driver's door. Dean expected his little brother to try to assist him, but instead Sam was opening up the front passenger side door and picked up a small woman that Dean hadn't realized was riding shotgun. It was the woman who had been possessed in the alleyway. Thinking about it, Dean could understand Sam wanting to make sure that she got some help—she had looked pregnant—but for some strange reason Sam had taken her to Bobby's instead of a hospital.

Without saying a word to Dean, Sam turned, then rushed to get the woman inside Bobby's house. Dean hurried after him, a little less sure-footed than usual. Sam had yelled for Bobby to open up before he ran in the door past the confused-looking Bobby. He took the woman straight up the stairs without explanation. Dean's head was still spinning slightly from being knocked out so he lagged behind Sam by several long strides. As Dean reached the doorway Bobby touched his arm, stopping him briefly. Dean looked at Bobby, who eyed the stairs.

"Who's the woman?"

"Hell if I know," Dean muttered as he started toward the stair and Bobby followed. "She was possessed. I got knocked out. Sam grabbed us both."

Dean found Sam and the woman in one of the second-floor spare bedrooms. Sam had laid her down on the bed and was kneeling on the floor next to her. He was carefully looking her over for injuries. Her palms and knees were scraped up, she had a cut on her upper right shoulder, and a bruise on her cheek, but that was all that Dean could see in the way of injuries. She seemed fatigued or disoriented, head slumped to the side with her eyes only partially open. What was most striking about her appearance was just how pregnant she actually looked. Earlier Dean had seen her from a distance in dim lighting. She had looked large and probably pregnant then, but up close and in good lighting there was no doubt about it.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. The last thing they needed was to have some ex-meatsuit go into labor. They weren't equipped to deal with that situation. He glanced at Bobby who also seemed to be nervous about her being there. Dean stepped forward, clearing his throat a bit to get Sam's attention. Sam had been asking her questions to test her awareness, but stopped at the sound of the pointed cough. He turned his body towards Dean slightly, but didn't look up to meet his brother's eyes.

"Hey, Sammy…. Uh... I know that she got banged up a bit, but she should go to a hospital. We can't handle this sort of thing and with the demon out, we're done." Dean was trying to use a reassuring tone because Sam's posture looked like he was upset. He couldn't tell whether Sam was angry, sad, scared, or some combination, but something was definitely off. Dean rubbed the back of his neck and felt his head throb. He thought back to being charged or thrown by some demon that he didn't get a look at, and getting knocked out on the pavement after exorcising—but he was hit before he finished the exorcism. Dean's body tensed slightly. He reached into his jacket pocket and clutched a flask of holy water.

"Sam, you did finish the exorcism, right?" Dean asked cautiously.

"Yeah, she's fine."

Sam turned up to look at Dean. The expression on his face was poorly-masked concern. His skin lost a little color as his eyes darted between Dean's face and coat pocket. Dean couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was an overwhelming feeling of wrongness about Sam's reaction. Maybe Sam was just worn out from a stressful few days... but he had been the one who took off with no explanation and voluntarily ran straight into another brawl with way too many demons. He was hiding something. It was an all-too-familiar feeling, but Dean always hated to concede its existence.

Dean pulled the flask of holy water from his pocket and flicked the cap open with his thumb. Sam had immediately stood up, putting himself between Dean and the woman on the bed. Dean's heart was pounding at the surprise standoff. He took half a step back and splashed a little holy water onto Sam's face. Nothing happened. That didn't make any sense. Sam was trying to protect some demon, and by the new expression forming on his face he was done trying to hide it. All the fear had melted away and now Sam looked pissed off more than anything else.

"So, Sammy. You exorcised the demon?" Dean lips turned up into a sour smile before thinning.

"You've got to hear me out." Sam's statement was half-plea and half-demand. That was rich. He had knowingly brought a demon into their home and then was making demands. Dean felt like he was going to throw up even more than when he was being jostled in the back seat.

"You brought a demon here and lied to us about it!" Dean shouted.

"She isn't just some demon," Sam shot back. "It's Ruby."

Dean couldn't tell if that made things better or worse. Everyone knew that he and Ruby hated each other, especially Sam. It wasn't just the fact that she was a demon that bothered him. She was bossy, stubborn, and didn't care about anyone but herself. Worst was that she had wiggled her way into Sam's life with false promises of being able to save Dean from Hell, and in the process started Sam's habit of keeping secrets. There had been a time when he and Sam had been inseparable, but then Sam had found his secret demon helper on the side. And now she was back with a whole new bunch of shit that was inevitably about to hit the fan. Dean wasn't sure how the situation could get worse, but with Ruby in the mix it was guaranteed.

"So knowing the bitch that's riding some pregnant woman makes this better? Do you have any idea how much damage she might be doing? All that demon stuff could fuck up the kid!"

As much as Dean wanting to pin some blame on Ruby, he was also legitimately concerned about the woman and baby. The idea of making a meatsuit from a pregnant woman was so perverted that he was honestly a little surprised he didn't see demons doing it more often.

"The body's dead. Ruby's the only thing keeping the baby alive and you almost exorcised her!" Sam's face was turning red. He was obviously pissed off and not thinking clearly. There were certain standards of decency you did not cross.

"Well, I'm sorry, but demons aren't life support systems," Dean argued. "You don't just shove a demon in someone to keep things ticking. You can't save them all, even some kid, and you sure as hell don't do it by using demons."

As soon as he'd said it Dean realized that Sam was going to call him a hypocrite. Sam would give him shit about selling his soul and probably even working with Shola in order to find him. But Dean knew better than anyone that he wasn't the kind of person that anyone should be looked to as an example. He had signed himself up for an eternity of torment and had only managed to get out of it through blind luck. But Sam didn't call him out. Instead he said something that managed to hit Dean even harder.

"That's not just some kid! That's my kid!"

The silence that followed seemed to be endless. Dean looked at Sam and then glanced at the woman—technically Ruby—then back at Sam. He was struggling to process what he had just heard. The idea that his baby brother was expecting a baby just wasn't quite fitting together. Rationally he understood, but the shock was too much and he was getting dangerously close to throwing rationality out entirely. Thank god Bobby was cool-headed enough to break the silence and even tried to calm the situation.

"Sam, I understand what you're doing with having Ruby keep... her alive, but Dean's right. There's got to be some effect exposing the kid to a demon," Bobby said, causing Sam to roll his eyes in exasperation. Sam's lips moved slightly like he was going to say something, but couldn't figure out how to begin so Bobby tried to give him a place to start. "How long has the baby been exposed? How long has Ruby been possessing her?"

Sam threw up his hands as if he was done with attempting something. He shook his head and an unamused smile flickered on his face. "Ruby's been in the body the whole time. She's been in it for like a year and a half."

"I don't get it. What about the mom?" Dean asked.

"I am the mom, you fuckwit." Ruby's voice was weak, but caught everyone's attention. She was lying on her left side, holding her belly with her arms minus her cut up palms. She looked completely worn out, but her eyes had a venomous quality when she looked at Dean.

It took a minute for Dean to process the new information. Ruby had been in the body for over a year and pregnancies only lasted about nine months. She was the mom. Sam had had sex with Ruby, and he almost certainly knew it was her…. "You and Ruby?" Dean could barely get the words out.

"Yes." Sam stood up to his full height, indicating his determination.

Dean looked like he was going to say something, stopped himself, paced in a small circle, then threw up his hands. "I don't know which is worse: that you fucked a demon or that you spent the whole afternoon lying to me!"

"I was going to tell you—"

"That you're gonna have a kid!" Dean shouted. "I'm your goddamn brother and you just leave that out of our fucking heart-to-heart reunion. That's kinda a thing you tell people."

"Like I could ever tell you and not have you completely flip out about this. Look at yourself!" Sam's voice raised to match Dean's.

"Look at me? You've been running around for a year hanging out with witches and fucking demons. What the hell else have you been doing?!" Dean took a step toward Sam, who just stood his ground and scowled down at Dean in return.

"Don't you dare pretend to know what it's been like—"

"Stop yelling!" snapped Ruby. "Just stop…. You two are exhausting."

"She's right. You two need to cool off before you do or say something you might regret," Bobby added as he stepped forward, ready to forcibly separate the brothers if necessary.

"I think Sam has done enough stuff to regret for the both of us," Dean muttered.

Sam didn't respond, but he looked like it was taking all his willpower not to throw a punch.

"Sam," Ruby said weakly. "We need to get the alarm spell up." She was trying to break up the argument before it turned into a full-blown fist fight by giving Sam something urgent to do.

"Come on, Dean." Sam wanted him to come with him... or more accurately Sam wanted him to not be left alone with Ruby. Spitefully, Dean wanted to say that he'd rather stay there, but he knew that that would almost guarantee him a punch in the face. After the blow to the head from earlier, Dean decided against the comment. Anyway, as much as he hated Ruby he wasn't sure what he was actually prepared to do. All that information was too new to him. He didn't know how to feel… other than betrayed.

"Sure," Dean agreed, then asked, "Bobby, you got any salt?"

Sam candidly glared at his brother. "You aren't going to salt her in here."

"Why not?" Dean prodded.

"Dean, give it a rest," Bobby said, trying to cool the situation. He grabbed the collar of Dean's shirt like he used to do when they were children and began leading Dean out of the room. Dean almost resisted, but he decided not to alienate the one person that might be on his side. "Come on, let's go help Sam."

'Help' turned out to be an overstatement. Bobby and Dean were mostly following and observing Sam. Bobby had wanted to put some distance between Dean and Ruby while trying to find a way to restart the dialogue with a less hostile tone. That was made difficult by Sam actively trying to ignore Dean and Dean visibly fuming over the smallest things. When Sam opened the trunk of the Impala to retrieve supplies for the alarm spell, Dean became more vocal.

"Let me guess, she's the one that scratched up Baby?"

"It's not scratched up; it's warded. Anyway, it was my car," Sam said defensively.

"Still is. I mean you locked me out—"

"For fuck's sake Dean, I'll add you to the spell!" Sam snapped. "Just stop acting so melodramatic. You don't need to freak out—"

"Are you fucking kidding me? Of course I'm freaking out. I mean, just take a step back and look at the situation. You're a hunter! You damn well better start thinking like one!" Dean was yelling, but he immediately regretted it when he saw that he had accidentally struck a nerve.

"I am not a hunter!" Sam shouted as he wheeled around to confront his brother. "This isn't some job; it's my life! You can't just take a problem, draw some line in the sand, and kill everything on the other side. You're talking about Ruby and my kid, and you're talking about me. Being a hunter doesn't mean you have the moral high ground. It doesn't make you right. It means you have a gun, a fucked up past, and a hero complex. I'm done with hunters and their holier-than-thou bullshit!"

His outburst seemed to be only half-directed at Dean's comment. Something must've happened to make him so sensitive and Dean restrained himself slightly. He was prepared to argue in defense of himself and hunting, but with Sam so upset it'd be dangerous to get into a two-way, heated shouting match… again.

"What the hell happened to you?" Dean asked in a calmer tone.

"You know what happened: hunters," Sam answered coldly. "They were just doing their job. I wasn't doing anything—fuck, I was killing demons by the dozens—and some hunters decided that I'm the number-one bad. They came after me. They came after Ruby and the baby."

"They?" Bobby asked with worry in his voice.

"Some hunters out of North Carolina."

"How many?"

"Something like twenty." Sam made a little move alluding to a shrug. "I stopped counting."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Sam had gone back to looking into the trunk, trying to avoid the others' eyes. Dean and Bobby exchanged a look of concern. Neither knew exactly what Sam meant, but it obviously wasn't good. News had come through their hunter network about a hunting group from North Carolina suffering some bizarre injuries and even fatalities in the last year or so, but neither of them wanted to believe that Sam would really be fighting hunters. Though, if they had been hunting him, that did change things a bit.

"We tried to just knock them out and leave them alone," Sam explained. "But they kept coming. You wanted to know about the gunshot: hunters. You wanted to know about the handcuffs: hunters." He pulled back his sleeves to reveal the matching wrist scars and held them out to emphasize the point. "They jumped me, cuffed me to a beam, beat me, and used me as bait to catch Ruby, because they couldn't just kill me. They had to kill the kid too. You don't know—I was chained up and he hit her, knocked her to the ground—"

"Demons are tough," Dean said. "I'm sure—"

Sam lunged at Dean, but Bobby jumped in between them, grabbing Sam and holding him back. Dean fell backward trying to dodge Sam's unsuccessful attack and hit the side of a junk car. He had meant to rationalize the hunter's action, but only ended up pissing Sam off more. He mentally kicked himself.

"Sam, he didn't mean it like that." Bobby tried to calm the situation. "You're both just pissed off and saying things ya don't mean."

"You're damn right I'm pissed off," Sam agreed. "Dean's defending some fucking hunter who hit Ruby—"

Dean explained, "I was just trying to say that any hunter worth his salt knows that demons—"

"They thought she was human! She was almost eight months pregnant and he hit her. He held a shotgun to her belly. They were going to kill her and the baby on the chance that it was mine. So tell me again about the nobility of being a hunter."

Bobby and Dean looked like they'd had the wind knocked out of them. Neither had a response. There were plenty of things that they could say to try to convince him that not all hunters were like that, but Sam already knew that. He knew that there were good hunters in the world, but he had also learned firsthand that there were cruel or misguided ones. That was his point, and there was no real way to argue with it.

Bobby and Dean had known this truth abstractly, but they had never been the victim of it. It wasn't personal to them the same way that it had been to Sam. Gordon Walker's mission against Sam had been the closest Dean had ever come to being on the prey side of the line, but he never really was prey exactly. He had been the bait and cared about the prey…. Dean remembered the overwhelming helplessness and fear that he had felt, tied to the chair being used to lure his only remaining family to his apparent death. Sam had gone through almost the same thing. No wonder his wrists had been cut up so much. If Walker had cuffed Dean instead of using ropes, he might very well have had matching scars.

"What happened to the hunters?" Bobby asked softly.

"Those ones, they're dead." Sam's expression was almost remorseless. Looking at Dean he added, "I skipped the traditional pyres because of my broken ribs and almost-slit wrists. I hope you aren't going to give me shit for that too."

Dean couldn't bring himself to argue with Sam. He was upset and still in varying levels of shock over everything that had come to light in barely a half hour, but mostly he was concerned. He was concerned for his little brother, who had somehow become hardened. Sam still seemed like there were soft edges to him, but the Sammy that Dean remembered wouldn't have been so dismissive of killing people. Dean could try to blame it on Ruby, but after hearing about the hunters…. Maybe it wasn't having evil as an ally that had changed Sam; maybe it was having 'good' as an enemy.

Dean didn't want to be Sam's enemy. He wanted to bring Sam in from the cold and the chaos. But he didn't know how to be supportive when faced with this whole mess. He couldn't pretend to like Ruby or be okay with some sort of half-demon kid. Maybe with time he could warm up to the idea of the kid, but there were too many of his instincts screaming that that was wrong. He needed to get a little distance so he wouldn't snap at Sam and make the situation worse.

"I'm gonna go take a walk. I need some time to cool down— Don't throw a bitch fit; I'm not going near Ruby." Dean tried to be as diplomatic as possible and then walked off into the junkyard.

Bobby took the opportunity to speak with Sam alone. "Sam, I can see that you've been through a lot, but you're home now. You don't have to fight anyone. I'll bust Dean's ass if that boy says anything out of line, but I can't have you two tearing at each other's throats. You boys need to find a way to be civil at the very least."

"He was about two seconds from suggesting killing Ruby and the baby. 'Think like a hunter'—we all know what that means." Sam was scowling, but it wasn't directed at Bobby.

"I'm not defending what he said, but he's not thinking about it as a baby. He's thinking about it as some unknown danger."

"You're right; he doesn't know. So he's just going to assume the worst. He always was fine dropping 'monsters' without a thought to why. It's them or us to him. Well, my kid isn't a monster and Ruby—"

"I'm not saying there isn't some truth there. Your daddy did instill an awful black-and-white view of the world in him, but think about what this is like from his perspective," Bobby suggested. "You disappeared for a year and a half, then show up with a demon baby-mama and talk casually about killing hunters, the people who raised you boys. Of course he's freaked out. And the more you act out against him, the more he's gonna want to try to save you from what you've become."

"I haven't become anything. I'm still me, but I'm done letting him tell me what to do or how to feel. I'm done being pushed around. I just want to live my life."

"Well, if you want to keep your brother in that life, you're going to have to work for it." Bobby put his hand on Sam's shoulder and gently turned Sam to look him in the eyes. "It seems to me that you've become a man in the last year and a half so maybe you should act like one and forgive your brother."

Sam rested his forehead against the raised trunk of the Impala. He exhaled slowly. It would be hard, but he knew that Dean wouldn't really be able to move past that awkward night if Sam kept being offended at everything he said. If Bobby was trying to talk him down, then Bobby would almost certainly talk to Dean too. It had to be a two-way street.

After a thoughtful pause, Sam replied, "I'll try."

"Good. Now let me give you a hand with this spell. And you're gonna explain it to me. You know the rules; no working magic in my house without you telling me about it first."

Bobby cleared the kitchen table and Sam laid out the supplies to cast the alarm spell. They worked in an uncomfortable silence, except for the occasional explanation given by Sam.

After about twenty minutes, Dean came in the front door. His cheeks and ears were rosy from the cold winter air. He walked into the kitchen without acknowledging Sam's presence and began making a pot of coffee to warm himself up. After pouring a mug, Dean stepped a little closer to the kitchen table, finally succumbing to his own curiosity. Sam retrieved a small amulet from the cigar box of mementos, which had been placed on the table. As he continued arranging spell components on the kitchen table, Dean walked over and pulled something from the box.

Dean had always known about his little brother's collection of random things. As kids when Sam was sad Dean would ask him what each of the objects meant and Sam would usually be cheered up slightly recalling memories of better times. The last time Dean had seen inside the box was before Sam had left for Stanford. Now Dean didn't recognize half the objects. It was painful for him to see another physical reminder of how much his little brother had changed and experienced without him. Dean picked up a small person made of sticks, glue, and orange yarn.

"Hoodoo totem or souvenir from a craft fair?" Dean asked, turning the figurine in his hand.

"Be careful with that." At Sam's stern warning Dean suddenly handled the possibly-dangerous object with care. Softening his tone, Sam added, "It was a gift."

Bobby walked over to stand between and slightly behind them, allowing a view of the spell that Sam was casting and the contents of the box. Dean placed the stick man back into the box, then resumed investigating the other keepsakes. Dean skipped a large section of papers, instead opting to look at the stones, pins, charms, and other random objects. But Bobby spotted something among the papers. He reached across Dean to pull the set of ultrasound photos from the box. Dean stopped playing with an old coin and Sam glanced over at Bobby, but didn't say anything. Bobby quietly looked through all the photos, then returned to the one with the clearest image before speaking.

"So, when's she due?"

"A week or two." Sam self-consciously adjusted some of the spell components and tried not to look at Bobby. He didn't know what to expect from the conversation, but Bobby's voice had lightened in a way that made Sam's heart feel tight.

"Do you know if it's a boy or girl?" Bobby was asking normal baby questions and Sam realized that he was trying to be accepting of the situation.

"We don't know."

"Well, have you at least got names picked out? If you're gonna make me feel old by turning me into a grandpa, then I damn well get to be the first one to know the name."

A choked-up laugh escaped Sam. Bobby gently squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. Within a second Sam had Bobby in a desperate hug and Bobby returned it, softly patting his back.

Dean quietly watched, still processing everything that he'd been feeling earlier and what he had just witnessed with Bobby. It had been no secret that Sam had always wanted to be normal with a nine-to-five job, a wife, and two and a half kids. Dean wanted Sam to be happy, but the current situation wasn't right no matter how he looked at it. If things had been different…. If tomorrow morning there wasn't a single monster left in the world and they had nothing better to do than go domestic, Sam still wouldn't be getting the apple-pie-and-white-picket-fence dream that he deserved.

Instead he was having a baby with a demon. It had upset Dean on several levels. Sam had stopped trying to get him out of Hell and moved on with his life. In a way it made sense, but it still hurt. Then he had lied to Dean about what he'd been doing. He had started fucking a demon—and not just any demon, but one that Sam knew he hated. And now Sam wanted to leave hunting and possibly him, after they had just been reunited, to be with Ruby and some demon baby. That was about as far from what he had wanted for Sam as it got.

But part of the problem was that, it'd be easier if Sam was being tricked or if something mischievous was happening, but so far it didn't really seem like it. Yes, Sam had changed and was acting strange compared with what Dean had known, but the changes seemed almost understandable considering everything that had happened. Maybe that was really the new Sam? Seeing the way Sam talked about Ruby and the baby, his feelings appeared sincere. Maybe Sam had settled or fallen in love, but he was different. Dean had heard that becoming a parent changed people; maybe it had already changed Sam? Or maybe it was being away from Dean for so long? After all, Sam had changed so much after Stanford and he'd had the stability of a normal life then. A year and a half through a gauntlet had to leave a mark or two.

Dean wanted his little kid brother back, but it was clear that that wasn't going to happen. Bobby had already made the gesture of acceptance, even if he didn't necessarily agree with Sam's choices. But Dean wasn't sure he could do that yet. All he had was hunting with Sam and the idea that his brother would give that up, no matter the circumstances, was heartbreaking. It was only made worse by Sam choosing a demon over him. But those choices had been made back when he'd thought Dean was dead and they couldn't be unmade now.

"Sammy," Dean said as he shifted uncomfortably and crossed his arms in a defensively determined gesture. "I don't like what's going on. I can't even begin to tell you how much I—you know, whatever. I'm not going to fight with you. You're my brother and I'll deal."

"Dean, stop being such a hard ass and hug your damn brother." Bobby stepped out of the way and basically shoved Sam into Dean. The brothers awkwardly embraced, but both of them were secretly grateful for Bobby forcing the act. Dean broke the hug first. "Okay, now that that's over you better finish this spell of yours before we've got demons at the door."