Right another chapter, I'm on a role here I even managed to get half of the next chapter written imbetween writing up an entire months worth of lecture notes for two of my modules in two days. If there are any massive errors then I'm sorry, blame it on a serious lack of sleep. Thanks for readng!

And once again I don't own Supernatural.

Chapter 9

Since meeting up with the Winchester's a new plan had come together. Dean wanted to grab any demon he could and make him talk so he could find out who was holding his deal. I couldn't see a demon being easy to break; the bastards took great pleasure in making our lives difficult nevertheless it was worth a shot.

The demon was screaming, writhing about on the chair unable to flee because of the tight rope binding it to the chair. Tipping salt down its throat hadn't made the demon talk so Sam had picked up a bottle of holy water. I didn't need to see what was going to happen now, instead I walked into the grimy kitchen and sat on one of wobbly the chairs around the rotten table and flicked through the paper listening to the demons cries of pain. Most people sit sipping coffee, with their feet up reading the paper. I sit with a screaming demon in the background. It should probably bother me but it doesn't.

Flicking the page I couldn't help but be amused after reading that a stripper had suffocated a man with her thighs. I must remember to show Dean that. Sam read out the exorcism and with one final scream the demon was silenced. Having finished the paper I tackled the Sudoku puzzles trying to kill time. Both Winchesters' walked into the kitchen.

When it came to burying the body we decided on rock paper scissors. I lost and ended up with body burying duties. Sam insisted to help; I didn't decline the help because one thing was sure I sure as hell didn't want to have to bury a body. It took too much effort. I flicked back to the stripper article as I waited for the boys to load the body into the car, "here Dean, something to entertain you."

He took the paper and skimmed through the article with a grin, "I bet that would be one wild night." I rolled my eyes and took the paper back so that I could finish the Sudoku puzzle in the car.

Having buried the body we returned to the motel we were staying in after picking Dean up from the derelict house we had used. He had reset everything for tomorrow so that we could try again. Fingers crossed we had better luck.

Whilst Sam and Dean lured a demon back to the run down house we were currently using I lit a fire in an attempt to keep the chilly Pennsylvania night away. I picked up my book and sat in the chair closest to the fire as I waited for them to return.

"Ready to talk," Dean stood in front of the demon tied to the chair in front. Sam was not far behind him both of them towering over the demon somewhat intimidatingly. I leant against the wall by the fireplace watching as the scene played out. It wasn't exactly going to be pleasant to watch but it was necessary. They were planning on torturing the demon with rock salt and holy water till it talked. It was the only way left to find out how to stop Dean's deal, if they could just find out who was holding the contract. This had been the second demon they'd tried.

As we anticipated the demon wasn't talking. Dean asked once more who his deal was with having forced holy water down its throat. The demon grinned, "Your mother," it replied. Immediately I cast my gaze on Sam who was frozen still, Dean seemed to pause for a moment as well. That was it, the demon had now blown its chance, not that they were going to let it walk free in the first place.

"We're doing rock paper scissors again to see who buries the body," Dean declared.

"But Sam and I did it yesterday, it's your turn," I argued.

"Correction you did it yesterday, Sam didn't have to, he chose to," Dean grinned. Sometimes he really irritated me.

I looked to Sam hoping that I would be excluded, instead he smiled. Scratch that, both Winchesters' were perfectly capable of irritating me. "On three," Sam counted. God help them, both them if I end up burying the body. I had to think clever. Sam said that Dean always chose the same the problem was I couldn't remember what. Deciding that I had no choice but to guess I closed my eyes and went for paper, "sorry Dean."

I opened my eyes and looked down, "oh hell yes!" I exclaimed glad that I didn't have to bury the body again. Dean had chosen rock, whilst Sam had gone for paper as well. Satisfied I turned to Dean with a triumphant smile.

"Dean are you ready?" Sam asked he grabbed the arms of the demon. I'd offer to help but I wasn't that kind and besides the demon was heavy.

"Yeah yeah, chill a bit Sam. It's not like he's going anywhere," Dean had a point. The man was dead, killed once the demon took possession. However, that didn't stop me from hoping Dean would hurry up. Sam and I had barely had any time together since we met up at Bobby's. Even if we just sat around and chatted, at least it was something. We cleared up once Dean left restoring the house back to its former shabby self. All evidence of demon questioning had disappeared. "Sam that's two demons who haven't said anything useful or that we didn't already know," it seemed that no one had mentioned it. It was a subject topic that was generally stepped over. Sam ran a hand through his hair as he leaned on the fireplace, his head down. I stepped forward and bent down slightly so I could get his attention, "your brother is tough and there's still time. We'll just grab another demon and try again tomorrow."

Sam lifted his head up and sighed, "You honestly believe that. I'm starting to think that we should abandon the demon idea and find something else. There has to be something that we haven't tried."

He stepped away and paced across the room, I turned around to face him, "of course I believe that. What kind of results would we get if we weren't the slightest bit optimistic?"

"Alice we've hunted more this year than any other year you would have thought that something would have presented itself. We've exhausted every contact in Dad's journal, Bobby has been asking around. I'm sorry but I'm fresh out of ideas," Sam paced across the room in frustration. He was angry at himself, not that he'd admit that if I asked. Sam had been bought back by Dean's deal he would do anything to save his brother from hell but he couldn't and it wasn't through lack of trying. If I knew of a way to bring back someone you love then I'd have shared it with Sam from the start. Seeing Sam like this was torture. I felt helpless. All I could do was be there for him and help him find a way to stop the demon deal.

"Just trust me that maybe something will turn up, we still have three weeks. Maybe Bela and the colt will turn up, you never know," Sam stopped his pacing.

"Let's just hope I get to her before Dean. I'll leave her alive," Sam sat down on the threadbare chair resting his head on his hands.

I smiled despite the situation; Sam who had spent so much of his life hunting things, who had lost so much still had room for compassion. It was just one of the many things I loved about him. Discussing Dean's deal wasn't exactly how I'd anticipated spending the time alone with Sam. I hadn't expected him to have a weak moment, but who could blame him, it was only a matter of time before everything finally got to him.

"I know you worry about your brother but for now there's nothing more we can do, not tonight anyway. We need to get some rest so we can start afresh tomorrow," I reasoned. Sam didn't answer so I left him to it and went into the kitchen to grab a couple of beers from the cool box. I nearly dropped them as two arms snaked around my waist. I hadn't expected Sam to sort himself out so quickly.

"Thank you," he whispered into my ear. I leant back against him and closed my eyes.

"Sam you don't have to thank me for anything. You'd do the same for me, in fact you have done the same for me in the past," it was strange. Here we were stood in a kitchen like a normal couple. Okay so the kitchen smelt funky and had some huge cockroaches, there was no running water or heating and it wasn't our home but a part of it felt so normal. It made me long to be with Sam in a normal relationship, with normal jobs in a normal house with nothing abnormal going on but I knew better than to expect that. This was the life I'd signed myself to; I just had to make the most of it. I loved being with Sam the problem was the hunts, sometimes they really got to me. If a child died or a family was ripped apart, they were the worst.

I stepped away from Sam and opened the two beers handing him one of them. Taking a long swig I returned to Sam's arms and rested my head on his chest. "Sam promise me that if this does go south and Dean ends up dying you won't shut me out, you'll let me help," I leapt at the chance to corner Sam into a promise. I'd learnt enough about him to know that he would do anything to get Dean back even give up his own life. The fact of the matter was that I didn't want to lose him.

"I won't shut you out," he replied.

I pulled away from him and raised my eyebrows, "Oh really? It's all you do, is keep secrets from each other and you hardly ever let anyone else help you."

Sam sighed in defeat and changed the topic, "I think I've found a case, in the paper." I turned away from him and picked yesterday's paper up; I didn't remember seeing anything unusual in it.

"Stripper suffocated a guy with her thighs, a murder, someone living to one hundred and two. What's unusual about them?" I asked before sipping from my beer. I sat on the rickety kitchen table and swung my legs whilst Sam flicked through the paper.

"Don't you find this murder a bit odd?" he asked as he handed me back the paper.

"Not really, guy gets stabbed and dies," I replied.

"Yeah but he stumbles into a hospital and his intestines fall out and his liver is missing, sounds like something worth checking out," Sam stated.

"Maybe the killer had a sick fetish or something, I only read the headline," I added in defence of my lack of knowledge. I had to admit though, liver theft was something unusual. Why not steal jewellery or money, heck even the man's car keys.

"It's worth checking out," I could tell that Sam was deep in thought; he had that funny look of concentration upon his face. I couldn't see how checking it out would help Dean but I didn't argue, it wasn't worth the effort.

"Who or rather what could still a liver?" I asked. I'd never come across something like that in my hunting career but that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen.

"No idea, I'm going to do some more digging," Sam lifted the paper from my hands and took his mobile phone out.

"Who are you calling?" I asked.

"The paper, I want to know if they've had anything similar," he replied.

"Oh, anything I can do?" I was a little disappointed that Sam was throwing himself into another case. I had kind of hoped that we could do something a little more fun for the next hour whilst Dean was gone. Instead I would have to resign myself to hunting research.

"Not at the moment, go back to your book," Sam already had the phone to his ear. Annoyed that he'd told me what to do I leapt from the table and walked back into the other room picking up my book anyway.

I didn't really read but listened to Sam as he spoke with the paper and then the local police department before finally talking to a forensics laboratory. It was pretty amazing that he had managed to trick the police department into giving him a contact for forensics. Dean returned as Sam hung up, "you bury the body?" Sam asked.

"Yeah poor schmuck seems like these demons ride them hard just for kicks," Dean opened a beer.

"Errrgh," he flopped down into a chair, "what was the phone call about?"

"You remember that thing in the paper yesterday," this time I actually read my book. I'd leave it to Sam to convince Dean that we had a case.

"Stripper suffocates dude with thighs?" trust Dean to think of that story first.

"The other thing," Sam prompted as he rolled his eyes at his brother.

"Right, the guy who walks into the ER and his stomachs ripped out."

"His liver actually, anyway I just found out something pretty damn interesting," I closed my book; I guess all those phone calls that Sam had made had paid off.

"What?" Dean took a swig from his beer.

"The dead body, covered in bloody fingerprints, not the victims," Sam was right, that was pretty damn interesting. Still probably just a murder, one with not very bright murderer. Honestly, who leaves prints? "Those fingerprints match a guy who died in 1981," Sam stated. Maybe we had a case on our hands.

"Really? So what are talking walking dead? Walking killing dead," Dean's attention had been grabbed. I had never come across zombies before so this was bound to be interesting. Maybe they would be like dawn of the dead or night of the living dead. Totally gruesome. Oh how could quite easily sit and watch a zombie film.

I tuned back into the conversation, "Hey man you're the one who's been all gung ho to hunt, I just thought I was doing you a favour," Sam sad to his brother.

"Hey no no no no, I didn't say I didn't want to do it, I mean obviously I want to hunt some zombies," I was not surprised to find that Dean would enjoy hunting zombies.

"I second that!" I called from the chair; I definitely needed to see a real life zombie.

"Okay fine whatever," Sam answered. Something wasn't sitting right, I had a feeling that Sam wasn't letting on everything that he knew. Maybe he would share it later when we were on the road.

I leaned forward from the back seat to read the journal in Sam's hands over his shoulder. "You know," I said as he flicked past the page on demons the word sulphur catching my eye, "Sulphur is the ninth most abundant mineral in the world."

"Sam your girlfriend is a bit of a nerd," Dean teased but Sam hadn't heard him, he was too busy reading their Dad's journal. Dean looked at him and back at the road, "oh you two are so suited to each other."

"Shut up Dean," I punched him in the shoulder lightly, "what have you found Sam?"

"Huh? Oh it's nothing," he replied, I was doubtful that he was being honest. I tried to read over his shoulder but between Dean's driving and the really bad hand writing it was a difficult task so in the end I gave up and went back to staring out of the window.

We checked into a motel. Sam and Dean changed into suits to go and talk to the coroner. I whistled, "Very sexy," I called.

"Oh I know," Dean replied.

"I was talking to Sam, moron," I clarified. Sam gave Dean a smug look before kissing me on the check and leaving. I hated the investigating bit so I was more than happy to stay in the motel and research online.

Sam called to update me on the case, "How's the dead man deep freeze?" I asked.

"Dead," he answered, "but listen to this. His liver wasn't ripped out it was surgically removed."

"Can zombies use medical equipment? They strike me as the more impatient, I need to eat human now kind of creatures," unless my zombie knowledge was wrong, after all it came from cheesy horror films.

"Yeah so we're going to look for living victims at the hospital, want to help?" Sam informed me.

"No thanks, hospitals creep me out. I'll stay here and tackle the online newspaper reports," I sighed in relief when Sam said that was okay. I had just stumbled onto an article from a month ago where a guy had woken up in a bath of ice without his thumb. Okay so it wasn't organ theft but limb theft was close enough.

I met Sam for dinner that night; we went to a bistro in town. Over dinner I shared what was in the newspapers having listened to Sam's retelling of the kidney man. Nice pleasant dinner time conversations.

On our way back we stopped in a fast food joint to pick a burger up for Dean who had gone back to the motel earlier. Stuffed from dinner and growing tired I pulled my book out from my bag and sat on the bed, leaving Sam to research alone. Sam began to explain to Dean about infected wounds stitched up with silk. Not a fan of the conversation I tried my hardest to concentrate on my book but snippets of their conversation kept interfering, "his body cavity was stuffed full of maggots."

"Dude I'm eating," Dean looked at his burger with disgust. Not wanting to hear anymore I stared intently at the words on my page. It wasn't until Sam pulled out their Dad's journal that I abandoned the book. Sam had achieved a breakthrough.

"Can I look at that?" I requested once they'd finished reading the page. I wanted to read it for myself. It was nasty stuff. "Dense forest with access to a river or stream," I repeated what Sam had said earlier. "Leave it with me," I'd leapt at the chance to look over some maps. Finally having a use for my half finished college course. I repacked by laptop and picked up my jacket. "Sam?"

"Yeah?" he answered, not looking up from the journal.

"Are you coming?" let's be realistic, I wasn't going to spend all night looking at maps not when there was perfectly good motel bed that we could make use of.

"Errrrrm right yes," he leapt to his feet and followed me from the room.

"Go Sammy!" Dean called as Sam shut the door behind him.

We spent two hours trawling through online maps until we found an area of woodland with some abandoned hunting cabins. It fit the scenario nicely. A copy of the map was saved so we could print it in the local library in the morning. "Is that it for work tonight?" I wrapped my arms around Sam.

"Reckon so," he replied.

"In that case," I leaned up to kiss him before stepping back towards the bed.