Notes: The next chapter is the last one for this particular arc. There is a half-written "third arc", which is really more like a prequel, plus a laundromat scene.
Please forgive my latin.
"Look at this."
Dean spreads the newspaper flat against the car bonnet and taps a finger squarely on the article he wants Sam to read. Sam frowns as he scans the text, then the picture. "Offering a thousand dollar reward for anyone who can give information on their daughter's whereabouts," he repeats the words almost exactly as they appear, impressed by the effort it must have taken to become news on a national scale.
"Sounds like a pretty expensive thing they've got going," Dean says, leaning casually against the side of his car.
"They must be desperate," Sam agrees. His frown deepens as he looks at the small black and white photo of the couple. The man tall and thin, the woman short and plump. They're like a study in physical opposites, different in every way except their expressions. He looks up when Dean's phone slides innocently across the top of the newspaper, pushed by his brother's fingers. "You're kidding," Sam says.
"Dude, how perfect would it be if it worked?"
"She's not ready."
"She's fucking annoying. She's taken every single bait she's been given. I don't give a rats if she's not ready, do you?"
Sam pushes the phone back. He rips the article from the paper and shoves it into his pocket. "I'll take a look at the map," he says. "And if this doesn't work you're going to owe me big."
"If it doesn't work I'll get down with the black magic houdou to get you a demon girlfriend."
Sam rolls his eyes. "Voodoo that you do," he mutters under his breath, earning a grin and 'Black Magic Woman' on repeat for the entire drive back to the cabin.
-
A new system to manage Ruby and her temperament is instigated in the last two weeks that they stay in the cabin. It was reviewed in the dark hours of the morning, using what the brothers remembered of their father's less military discipline methods and Castiel's memories of raising a well behaved little girl. He gives the advice as if reciting from a textbook, like the life he talks about wasn't actually his.
This time there are no jokes about time-outs.
Sam springs it all on Ruby as soon as she wakes up, taking her aside to tell her that she has to start earning her keep. It's just little things, the sorts of things a teenager would be expected to do around the house, and Sam impresses the importance of it with rough kisses and soft words.
She starts off well enough, only pouting a little when she's told to do the cleaning up after breakfast. Ruby manages for two days under Sam's gentle encouragement - which is much easier to listen to than Castiel's blunt disapproval - before disgust overtakes her when she's told to take out the garbage.
The look on her face when Sam carries her to the woodshed is one of shock. It's a wakeup call, he tells her through the cracks in the door. If she wants the good she has to wise up and stop acting like she expects to get everything handed to her free of charge.
Ruby sits in the shed for hours.
"I'm not six years old," she says to Sam when the door is opened again. "I'm grown up. I'm not a child."
"You need to stop acting like one," Sam tells her, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.
"I don't think I can," Ruby admits quietly, looking at his hand and how it covers her own. It makes her look tiny by comparison, reinforces the feelings that make her forget how to act her age. "I feel so strange... I can hardly remember..."
Sam's hand squeezes hers just a little too tight. "Don't remember," he says, drawing her out of the shed and into the sunlight. "You don't have to be the same person, Ruby. You just have to grow up a little."
It feels as if something has snapped back into place after that. In the remaining eleven days she's only given 'time outs' twice, punnishments fair outweighed by praise. If she pouts and complains a little it doesn't matter. As long as she still does what she's told.
-
"Pride."
Dean looks up from the leather bound notebook that he's been flicking through for the thousandth time and across the bed to where Castiel sits, patiently sharpening his razor. "What?"
"Spoiled and willful," Castiel reiterates without looking up. He tests the blade against his thumb. "Ruby suffers an excess of pride."
"So that's six," Dean says, and wonders why they didn't pick it up before. "One more to go."
"I still don't like her."
"But you have the patience of a saint, angelface. You'll get over it. You know she'll be family if she can make it through number seven."
"Family are not required to like one another."
-
They pack up efficiently, used to coming and going, living out of duffel bags and their car. Ruby stands there awkwardly at first, not sure what to do or where to go so that she's not in the way. She shuffles from foot to foot until Castiel shoves a bag into her arms and points at the car. The message couldn't be clearer. Ruby earns herself a nod of approval when she doesn't complain, but carries the bag out to the car and tucks it into the boot with the others before tucking herself into the back seat.
One last sweep of the cabin to make sure that everything is where it's supposed to be and Sam locks the door. It's likely they wont come back for another couple of years, maybe more. He doesn't look back, not even when the black beauty is speeding towards civilisation and away from one of the last places on earth where there are no lies and nobody chasing them.
The only sentimentality the Winchesters need is in the car with them; In shared history and the guns they grew up with.
The trip is long, with a brief stop at a motel in between the change of drivers. There's only one room, but Ruby had begun to realise that there was almost no such thing as privacy or modesty as far as the Winchesters were concerned. Two beds and one bathroom was better than sleeping squashed in the backseat of the car with nothing even remotely resembling indoor plumbing.
She notices when Sam disappears from the bed sometime during the night but isn't awake long enough to feel it when he climbs into the bed again.
-
Sam uses a cheap prepaid phone that he bought at an all-night convenience store. He's not about to take any chances when the cops have plenty of reason to believe that Ruby is a victim of the infamous Winchesters. It's close to midnight, long after eleven, and the line rings for a long time before he hears someone pick up.
"Hello?" The voice belongs to a woman. She sounds tired, not just from sleep.
"Hi, is this the Fields residence?" Sam asks, putting on his very best sympathetic, good Christian boy voice. "My name is Sam. I saw your article in the paper a couple of weeks ago..."
"Yes." She's more awake now. The one word sounds as if she's poised between hope and despair, not sure which way to jump. "Yes, we put an article out. We posted on bulletin boards, in papers, we put it everywhere we could think of."
"I'm sorry to call so late."
"No, not at all. Do you... have some information about my Ruby?"
"Yeah. Yes. I heard... I mean, I thought I saw..." Sam clears his throat. "She was at this diner, with these two guys. At least, the girl looked a whole lot like her picture. She looked all strung out though, like she was on drugs or something. I didn't think anything of it until I saw the paper."
He gives the name of a diner he hasn't seen in a long time. It's just a few hours drive away, plausible if Sam had waited and fretted before calling. He hangs up with a smirk on his face, and tosses the phone straight into the trash.
-
Dean is lounging on the motel bed, legs crossed at the ankle, a bowl of stolen chips balanced on his lap. He's alone, for once, just him and a stolen car and a motel room that's he hasn't paid for. The night clerk is a mess on the floor behind the counter, tucked away out of sight.
He looks at the cheap phone he's picked up, then fishes out a crumpled piece of paper from his jeans. He punches in the number digit by digit, double checking before hitting the send button. Then he waits.
"Yeah," he says in answer to the person on the other end of the line. "Dean Winchester. Now - hold up there cowboy, don't get your panties in a twist. You really think I'm going to call you up on a phone you can trace?" There's a short pause. Dean rolls his eyes at what's obviously some kind of righteous 'we will find you' drivel designed to keep him on the phone for longer. "Yeah, whatever. Shut your cake hole, or I shoot the girl. She's right here with me. Ruby. You don't stop talking over me and I'll just grab my gun and pop her one with you listening in."
That's got their attention. Cops are all the same. The only difference is in what sort of names they'll call you when they try and threaten from a position that holds no authority. They know he's probably lying, but they still can't take the chance.
"See, me and my brother, we've been getting pretty antsy about all this publicity. All this name dropping, it's not good for business... so we're willing to give her up, just a little bit dented and a whole lot alive. All you've gotta do is scrape up some cash and play nice long enough to drop it off."
By now they've probably got a rough idea of his location, so Dean slides off the bed, letting the bowl of chips fall to the floor. By his count he's still got at least a minute before they manage to notify the locals. Another minute before they mobilise, and two, maybe three before they get there. But Dean still has the advantage.
"Two hundred thousand, babe. One hundred each in two separate locations. You know the drill. One bag goes to Derby -Do's Roller Rink at 346 Miller Way, the other goes to St. Elmo's Park at 200 Fairlea St. You make the drop off at six tomorrow night. If me and Sammy find your bags of cash acceptable then my boy Cas will make sure Ruby goes free." Dean ends with a smirk; "You don't want to fuck with us. Or we'll bring your whole department crashing down around your ears."
He hangs up, dropping the phone right outside the motel room door, and walks off into the night.
-
It's late, maybe early depending on your perceptions of time, and Dean has just disappeared into the night with a smirk and a cool reminder that he knows exactly what he's doing. Sam had watched from the window until his brother had walked out of sight, musing on the ins and outs of a plan that had every reason to backfire if things didn't go just right.
"Ruby..." Sam's voice purrs into her ear as he slips into the bed behind her.
"Mmm?"
"What would you do for me?" One of Sam's hands slides over her waist, inching up under her tank top to splay across her stomach. "Would you do anything for me?"
"Mm-hm," Ruby murmurs sleepily, pulling his arm up so she can snuggle against it. "Go anywhere," she says, tired and muzzy, "do anything."
"Would you kill for me, baby?"
The question wakes her up. Sam doesn't have to see her face to know that she's frowning. "I don't... I don't know," she says finally. Ruby squeezes his hand tight. It's pretty clear, he thinks, that the conversation is making her uncomfortable.
"Would you do it if I wanted you to?"
There's a long pause, long enough that Sam can easily imagine Ruby trying to work it out in her head. It's a delicate balance that they need, a place between reality and fiction. Ruby might still wind up scrapped, or as a body dragged around and kept quiet until they can find something else to put in her. The silence carries on for too long, so Sam kisses the back of her shoulder. "Don't worry about it," he says, a smile in his voice. "It's just a question. It's not life or death."
There's a small, slightly explosive noise from the other bed; Just enough like a sneeze to not quite sound like a laugh.
"Bless you," Ruby pipes up quietly.
"Deus te benedicat, Ruby," Castiel replies in a murmur from the other bed. It strikes Sam as being very odd, considering Castiel's clear views of the absent nature of God. He realises just a moment later what the blessing actually means. Blessings from an absent God, empty sentiments the night before Ruby's debut performance. Sam presses his lips against Ruby's hair and smiles with yellow eyes. God had nothing to do with the outcome.
-
They keep a careful watch on the house that Ruby's parents lived in; hidden just far enough away to never be noticed, close enough to track the movements of each officer that came and went. It was Dean who took that job, settled in for a long day of playing eye-spy while Sam took Ruby shopping in town and Castiel prowled the neighbourhoods, memorising the very best escape routes in case things went badly. Even with no intention to fail it was best to have a contingency or two.
At two in the afternoon the door to the impala opened. Dean didn't even twitch. "Well?"
"Your initial assessment is correct." Castiel slid into the front seat beside him, smelling faintly of sweat and earth.
"God bless street maps." Dean checks the time, then kicks back in the seat. "Just about four hours to go, angelface. We meet up with Sam in three."
"Three hours in the car."
Dean glances to the side enough to see blue eyes looking him up and down with a contemplative air. The green-eyed murderer smirks. "I'm watching the house here."
"I'm not. I'm watching you."
"You're getting possessive."
"Sam doesn't share Ruby, why should you share me?"
"Good question." He pauses for a beat. "Next question."
"I'm not a pet, Dean."
This time Dean looks for longer, taking in the subtle differences in posture and facial expression that go with the stubborn, righteous anger in Castiel's eyes. "No," Dean agrees finally, dry-voiced and struck by something close to resignation. "No, you're damnwell not. I gave you dad's razor, I tell you what we're planning, where we're going. No, you're not just some pet, Cas."
"Communal property."
"My God damn property." Dean realises that his hands are tight against the wheel, clenched so hard that his knuckles are turning white. It takes a conscious effort to relax his hands, to pull them away from the black beauty's wheel and let his arms drop by his sides. This is not the time, definitely not the place.
"You're getting possessive, Dean."
The smug tone makes Dean roll his eyes in disgust; "You're such a fucking tease."