The morning light ran exploratory fingers around the gaps in the curtains, probing into the darkened room. Jo lay there watching the sun draw patterns on the wall before remembering that she didn't have curtains.

She sat up, and stared up at Deacon, who was sitting against the headboard in his pyjama pants. "Morning, sweetheart."

She straightened up, and realised she was still fully clothed, which was a good sign. While Deacon was in the shower, she had curled up at the foot of his bed like a cat to watch television. She couldn't remember anything after that.

"You fell asleep." Deacon said to her unspoken question. "Unfortunately. Go see that boyfriend of yours. He's been ringing me all morning to find out if I'd seen you."

"Please tell me you said no."

"No, I said I'd taken you home for a quick shag. It's insulting how stupid you seem to think I am."

"You're right, sorry." Jo hung her head. He was anything but stupid. He was the first one to jump to conclusions, but those conclusions were usually right. And had saved her a few times. She jumped up. "I'll use the shower then give Rupert a call."

"Rupert? You're seriously dating a guy called Rupert?"

"Watch it, Deacon."

Jo gave Rupert a call while Deacon was eating a breakfast of cold cereal. "JB, I was so worried about you when you never called me."

Right. Like my Mom, if I haven't called within a given time, automatically assume that I've wrapped myself around a tree. Or possibly eaten by demons.

"Sorry, baby. Got held up on the way home from work. Bunked at a friend's place."

"Is that that Deacon Ridgeway? He swore he hadn't seen you at all in the past week."

Jealous-possessive, Rebecca had said. Stay away from those types; they'll destroy your social life. Not that she had much anyway.

"Nah, one of the girls from work."

"What about work anyway? You know I'd love to pick you up, but I can't get away today. I'll made reservations as Hardys for tonight to make up for not being around as much as I used to. Pick you up at seven?"

Overcompensating a minor infraction with a grossly extravagant gesture. Send up the flares and release the armada, Deacon had noted when Jo had first mentioned her suspicions of infidelity to him.

"I'll see if I can get away. The bar's pretty full up."

"Call me if you can."

If he really wants to spend time with you, he'll remember when you have your day off; Mom had said when she was old enough to start dating seriously.

'I know what you're up to, fungus face.' It would have been good to say it, though she was controlled enough to keep emotions to herself by now. Besides, she wanted to see his reaction. ' I hardly want to be your piece of skirt.'

Instead she breathed deeply. "I'll see you later then, Shnookums."

Deacon choked, almost bringing milk up through his nose. "Who was that?"

"My friend's cat. Awful hairballs. The poor thing is allergic to its own fur."

"Ah. See you, then."

"Bye."

"Shnookums?" Deacon was still laughing. Jo glanced at him sitting cross-legged on the counter in his paisley pyjama bottoms, balancing an overfull bowl on his knee and she couldn't help it. She began laughing too.

Later that day, Jo went to the library. While there, though, she ran into another familiar face.

Jo unfortunately had a near-death run in with this woman the first day she hit town. Unbeknown to her at the time, the new girl had been treading on the top dog's territory, and the head bitch was keen to make sure that Jo knew the ground rules. Not all hunters played nice, and it was better to remember that.

"New kid."

Carmen Lorenzo, tall and sultry and seductive. But you talked to her and she was cold. Not a cold you could feel, but stillness, a detachment. Like part of her had died a long time ago. And it made Jo think, Is that what I'm going to be in ten years? Five?

She'd only ever seen a handful of old hunters. Was that why? Did you end up seeing so much death and destruction that you just didn't care anymore? Until you were empty?

And then she had to stop thinking about it because the hypothesising was making her head hurt.

"New girl, you alright?"

Jo blinked. She must have been staring. "Sorry. Zoned out for a minute, huh?"

"From what I hear, you got your reasons to, honey." Carmen sat down opposite her, crossing her arms and legs. She wore a cropped jacket and leather pants that Jo would have killed to get the figure to pull off.

"How did you know that?" She said sharply. Carmen narrowed her eyes at her tone.

"You have your sources, I have mine." She lent forward to catch Jo's glare. Her eyes were slate grey with a flick of blue. "You play the same game I do, only differently. We are still on the same side."

"What do you want with me?" Jo asked. Behind them the librarian made shushing sounds and a group of teenage boys had turned to watch the intense conversation between the women with grins on their faces.

A muscle in Carmen's cheek twitched. "Here." Between her fingers hung a scrap of napkin from some shoddy roadhouse diner. Jo frowned, feeling a little let down. "Take it." Carmen hissed, pressing the paper into Jo's hand. As Jo tried to think of something, anything, to say, the other woman rose and simply walked out. As if she had fulfilled her duty to the world.

The Queen is dead, God save the Queen. Jo looked down at the scrunched-up paper, one eyebrow raised quizzically. Slowly she unfolded the napkin and smoothed it across the table she was sitting at.

One word was printed neatly in the centre of the napkin, followed by a set of initials.

Outside. SW.

Jo looked up, turning in her seat to peer out the long rows of plane glass windows into the sunlight. It took her a moment to spot the one person standing still among the throng of people milling about outside.

He wasn't looking at her, but at the café opposite. Alone once more, he was leaning against the side of the sleek black car, waiting.

Jo crumpled the note and slapped several books into her bag.

It was bright outside. It was harder to believe in the daylight that so many shadows could exist. Each face she walked past was the visage of a possible enemy.

Although he had his back to her, Jo was certain he was watching her every step. Finally he turned to meet her as she also lent casually against the Impala.

"Hey, Jo."

"Yo. How're tricks, Sam?"

Stay away from Sam Winchester.

"You've cut your hair. It looks funny." Be fair, what else was she supposed to say?

Sam grinned, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Nice to see you too." He was thinner then when she last saw him, but he looked tougher too.

"Sam, what do you want?"

I hear he went crazy when he couldn't save his brother.

"I saw you around, and I'd thought I'd catch up with a familiar face." He paused.

"Since most of the other familiar faces are either evil or dead?" Jo put in helpfully.

"Something like that." There was an awkward pause. "The grapevine says you went on a hunt the other night with one of the other locals."

"Well, he's not really a local. He's sort of hanging around until his sister sorts out some personal problems. He's a good hunter. Very grounded. You'd like him." Jo licked her lips. "Sam, what do you want?"

He doesn't care whether he lives or dies anymore.

Sam looked down at his shoes. "I want… I want some pie."

Jo grinned. "You better be buying."

Watch out for Sam Winchester. He'll take you down with him.

Jo stared into the froth on her girly drink. Sometimes she thought that Sam barely knew her. "You do know what people say about you." It wasn't a question.

"People will believe what they want to believe." It wasn't an answer, but it would have to do. "Hunters especially." Including you and me, she expected him to add. Instead he just stared down into his beer with that long face and those sad puppy eyes that always seemed to get him what he wanted.

Jo's eyes narrowed as she peered at him over the top of her glass. "Are you going to talk or do I have to break out the thumbscrews?" She asked. "Dude, you've been all weird ever since…" She trailed off.

"You can talk about it. He was your friend too." Jo's face twisted in a wry expression.

"A friend would have been there to help get him out of trouble." She said flatly. "I wasn't."

"He didn't want to worry anyone else."

"Ha! The guy makes a deal with the Devil and expects us common folk not to worry? Way to take one for the team, Dean!"

Sam laughed then. "I can see why he liked you. Alright, Jo, let's talk business."

He said he had been out on the south coast, following the case of the missing hunters. Jo remembered that she had wanted to investigate it herself, but her responsibilities in this sucky little place made it all but impossible.

Around nine months ago the first hunter disappeared. All Sam knew was his name. Fletcher Gable. No friends, no family. Jo frowned when she heard Gable's name; she was certain that she had heard it somewhere before, in her murky past.

Anyway, poor Gable happened to have something another hunter had wanted when he died, so this hunter (no names mentioned for fear of incriminating one of their own) got together his gang and staged a bounty hunt, with the winner getting to keep Gable's bloodstained jacket (a little macabre for Jo's tastes, but some hunters had the whole dom/sub thing coming on).

Hunters from all over poured into Gable's little hometown, but from then on the town was completely silent. Nothing else happened.

"What did you do?"

Sam broke into the house owned by Fletcher Gable when the police were still getting set up. All the evidence would still be fresh. And there, on the kitchen floor, Gable had tried to scrawl a set of coordinates before he was taken wherever. Unfortunately the pen had been snatched from him and in another hand, Sam had found something else.

He handed her his phone. There on the small LCD screen was a photo. Jo could see where this Gable began and whatever else it was had finished. It must have been a word, but it was distorted and stretched out of all recognition.

"Hey-?"

"Pretend you're looking at a Magic Eye."

"Not helpful, Sam." She looked again. Held the phone sideways and twisted it upwards. As the word emerged she swallowed, and a feeling of dread dropped into her stomach. "Ragnarok."

"Ragnarok." Sam nodded. "The prophesised end of all things."

"Call me a liar, but didn't we do that part already?"

"That's what I thought." But then he showed her other photos. The one he'd taken of Norah Frost's kitchen cupboard, the one of Max Townsend's bathroom tiles, the one of Simon Kirsh's lounge-room wall, and, most ironically, the one scratched into the woodwork of a stake belonging to Hope Hunter.

Ragnarok.

"And the catch-phrase of the day is…" Jo muttered. "Theories, Haley Joel?"

A ghost of a grin flittered across his face. It had been such a long time since anyone had called him that. "We have option 1) someone is harvesting hunters to use them for some nefarious reason, and option 2) the end of the world is nigh."

"'The meek shall inherit the earth' and all that stuff? Odin comes down in his flaming chariot and smites those who need to he smited?"

"All religions and races have their own theories about the end of the world. If you look closely and read between the lines you'll find that they're awfully similar. Someone more enterprising than myself may even go as far to say that they're all rehashes of the same story."

"Or facts. If you believe in that."

Sam nodded. Jo sighed. "Just so you know, I'm going to have to call Deacon, just to let him know that our little tussle the other night wasn't a one-off."

"Deacon is-?"

"My partner." At Sam's slightly incredulous look, Jo quickly amended herself. "Not that sort of partner. He's my hunting partner."

"Ah."

"Hunting seems to work better if you have someone at your back."

"Yes."

"And it's lonely talking to yourself."

"Mmm."

Jo shook her head. "And that's why you're here. You want a moving buddy for this little crusade of yours against the forces of Ragnarok."

Sam lent forward and caught her eye, much like Carmen Lorenzo had earlier at the library. "Are you in?"

Never make a deal with Sam Winchester. It'll get you killed.

Jo held out her hand. Sam reached across the table and grasped it in his much larger one. "I'm in."