No apology can say how sorry I am for not updating this in months. I thought I left off with this amazing chapter, but it turns out I did not! And for that I am really sorry, especially to the wonderful AC! Hope you enjoy all the same!

xXx

AC's note: I shamelessly stole a couple of lines from Buffy in this chapter, but I claim no ownership.

When Sam finished outlining the basics of it, Bobby pulled the car over on the side of the deserted road and turned off the engine. They sat for a long time without saying a word, and then Bobby said, "Sam, do you have any idea what you're proposing here?"

"I think so…" Sam said slowly. "Don't you think it would work?"

"Yeah, I think it might. But I also think it's insane, crazy, and impossible."

"Nothing's impossible," Sam said, his face already setting into a determined mask.

"I'm telling you right now, that's not true. You want to kill Lilith, Sam. Lilith, the most powerful demon in Hell. You want to summon her and stick a knife in her. It can't be done, Sam."

"Yes, it can. I don't know how, but it can."

"Sam—"

"He was terrified," Sam said suddenly, quietly, his eyes trained on the dashboard. "In my dream. I saw Dean, and he was terrified. He thinks I'm dead. He was hurt, bleeding—there was so much blood, but he just kept screaming. For me. I've never seen him like that before. He's usually so strong, but that place…" He lifted his head and met Bobby's eyes, and his were a hardness Bobby had never seen before. "I'm not leaving him there, Bobby."

Bobby looked at him for a long time, then sighed heavily and said, "Look, even if it was possible to kill her, we still don't know how to even get her here."

Sam was about to answer when he froze, his eyes locked on the road straight ahead. Then he did something so completely unexpected that Bobby, for a moment, couldn't comprehend it.

He smiled.

"I think we're gonna have some help with that."

XXX

Ruby looked much more like her former self when she came strolling up to the car as if she took incredibly long walks on deserted country roads every day. She was back to being an extraordinarily pretty blonde with striking features and a strong taste for leather and, in fact, Sam thought for a moment that she'd repossessed the girl she'd been in the first time they met. But it wasn't the same girl—not quite the same.

Still, he recognized her immediately, and when she reached the car he stepped out of it and gestured silently for her to get in. Then he folded himself back in, closed the door, and said, "Let's go, Bobby."

Bobby seemed tempted to ask, but instead he just shook his head and muttered, "Oh, yeah, I can't see anything going wrong here…" before starting up the engine and pulling back onto the road.

XXX

When Sam finished explaining it, Ruby thought about it and then calmly pronounced him insane.

"And I mean more insane than you were in the padded room. I didn't think it was impossible, but you've proven me wrong, like always," she said, pushing herself up off the couch and beginning to pace Bobby's small living room.

Sam watched her progress with uninterested eyes. "That's okay. I don't mind being crazy if it helps me save Dean."

"You mean if it helps you resurrect Dean," Ruby said. "He is dead, Sam. I think we should probably get that out in the open right now. He's dead and cold in the ground, kid."

Sam's hands clenched into fists, his jaw clenched as if he wanted very much to stand up and knock Ruby flat. But after a moment, he slowly let his hands fall open again and asked quietly, "Are you going to help us or not?"

"Oh, I'm gonna help you, because I care," Ruby said, and it was hard to tell exactly how sarcastic she was being. "I'm just telling you upfront that you're setting yourself up for a serious fall here."

"You're not going to keep me from doing this, no matter how much you warn me," Sam informed her. "He already tried," he added, gesturing to Bobby.

"I know," Ruby said. "That's one of the things that makes you weird." She didn't give Sam a chance to reply to that before she turned to Bobby and said, "Grab me a book with a summoning ritual in it, will ya?"

"A summoning ritual? That'll work?" Bobby asked incredulously.

"No," Ruby said, already examining the volumes lining one of Bobby's bookshelves.

Bobby stared at her back for a moment, opened his mouth, closed it, and after a moment he shook his head and shuffled into one of the other rooms.

Ruby didn't say a word to Sam while he was gone. She didn't even turn away from the shelves until Bobby came back in, carrying a thick tome in both hands which he handed reluctantly over when she reached for it.

"Thanks," Ruby said absently, settling herself at the table and opening it. "Let's see, general summon, general summon…ha. Index—not just for decoration." She flipped through the book until she found the page, then leaned closer to it and started to read in earnest.

After several minutes of shifting impatiently in his seat, Sam asked, "So? Can we do it?"

"Shut up," Ruby said flatly without looking up.

Bobby growled low in his throat, but Sam silenced him with a look and sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

The next ten minutes dragged by before Ruby looked up and said, "Got any paper around here?"

Once she had that and a pen, she started writing. Bobby and Sam had no idea what—any inquiry they made was immediately met with the only two words Ruby seemed able to speak aloud—a flat "Shut up."

Over the next hour, Bobby did everything he could to help pass the time, to keep Sam distracted. It didn't work, but it was a nice effort.

And finally—finally—Ruby put her pen down, closed the book, looked up at Sam, and said evenly, "This might be possible."

XXX

Bobby finished reading the new ritual that Ruby had written, and then he looked up and said gruffly, "I don't get it."

"What's not to get? You go to a crossroads, perform that, she'll come. All you have to do is follow the directions. You can follow directions, right?"

Bobby glared at her. "Now you look here. I know you're helping us and I know you're a demon and you could kill me in a snap, but if you take that tone with me one more time I'm not gonna hesitate to exorcise you."

Ruby looked him straight in the eye and said, voice layered with varying levels of sarcasm and admiration, "Yes, sir."

Bobby seemed willing to take that at face value rather than delve more deeply into her attitude. "Right, then. So explain this to me. If Lilith can ignore any normal summoning ritual, why would she respond to this one just 'cause you changed a few words around?"

"Hey," Ruby protested. "I worked hard on that!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it'll work."

"I never promised it would work." When Bobby only raised an eyebrow in reply to that, Ruby sighed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Look, here's how it is. You know about the Crossroads Demon. Obviously. I mean, you know she existed. But did you ever wonder why she always answered summons?"

Bobby shrugged. "Guess it's just 'cause she liked to make deals."

"Well, yeah, there's that, but she never didn't come. Ever. Not if you summoned her at the crossroads. Ever wonder why?"

"Guess not, but I'm sure you'll tell us."

"Yeah, I will. I'm cool like that. It's because of the power of the crossroads. It drew her and it was impossible for her to resist. But that power was hers alone—she was the only one drawn in by it and she was the only one who could use it."

She paused there and looked at Sam, as if he should see the significance of this. When he only looked nonplussed, she rolled her eyes.

"God, I really do have to spell everything out for you guys, don't I? Fine, let's see if we can deduce. The Crossroads Demon was the only one with that power, right?"

"If you say so," Sam said.

"And what happened to the Crossroads Demon a few months ago? Where did she go?"

"Uh…I dunno. Wherever demons go when they die…"

"Exactly!" Ruby said emphatically. "She died." She paused and looked at Sam and Bobby again, and when they didn't answer she said, "Seriously? You still don't get it?"

"We'd get it a lot faster if you'd just tell us," Bobby said impatiently.

"No way, dude, this is the most fun I've had in weeks. So the Crossroad Demon is dead. And since she's dead, do you think she has the power anymore?"

"Um…no?"

"So who does?"

"No one?" Sam said, and Ruby laughed delightedly.

"Yes! By Jove, I think he's got it. And that means the power is just floating out there in the universe. Which means we'll be able to tap into that power, limited time only. So if we perform a ritual that specifies the demon we want to summon, that demon will have to come, period."

Bobby raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"Well, we could take a bow or something, but pretty much, yeah."

"It sounds pretty far-fetched."

"Yeah, it does."

"And this'll really work?"

"I didn't guarantee anything. I never sign contracts. But we can try it. How about it, Sam?"

Sam, though, was already standing up, straighter and taller and stronger than he'd been in weeks. He was turning to Bobby and focusing those new, hardened eyes on him.

"Bobby, I'll need the knife."

XXX

Sam probably should have felt more when it worked. He should have felt triumphant, nervous, excited—one or all of them, but something.

But even what meager emotions he had experienced in the hospital and since his escape were gone, burned away as if they had never been, burned away like Dean never would be after tonight.

He was about to bring his brother back from the dead, and he felt nothing at all.

He felt nothing as he traced the sigils in the ground.

He felt nothing as he performed the ritual.

He felt nothing when Lilith appeared in front of him, spitting mad and hiding it beneath a smile pasted on an eight-year-old face.

Her first words to him were intentionally mundane.

"You didn't bring backup?"

Sam didn't step forward, but he didn't step back as his instincts told him to, either. "No," he said without taking his eyes off of her. "This is my thing." Not that there hadn't been any argument over that fact—there had. But to Sam, the fact that he was going to do this alone had never been in question.

"Huh. Well, aren't you reckless? Must be the lack of a father figure…"

"We're not here to talk about him."

"Well, what are we here to talk about, then?"

Sam did step forward then, shifting his hold on the dagger that was his only weapon. "Dean." He lifted the dagger and pointed it at her. "You're going to let him go tonight, one way or another."

Her laugh was creepy in its childishness. "So that's what you came here for. I'm really not surprised. It is nice that you came all this way to let me kill you—it cuts down my search."

Sam shifted his stance a little and said, "I didn't come here to talk."

"But see, I want to talk," Lilith said. "I've been waiting to have a real heart-to-heart with you for a long time."

As she said it, Sam remembered another of Dean's old tricks—to keep 'em talking, and to let them pick the subject so that it would hold more interest for them. It looked like Lilith was going to do most of the work for him in that instance.

"I want to talk about you, Sam," Lilith said. "All evidence to the contrary, you're a pretty interesting guy. A psychic wonder-boy whose powers are completely unreliable, and yet you're probably one of the most dangerous humans in the world." She paused, and then said thoughtfully, "There's that word again. Human. It's funny that very few would hesitate to put you in that category. I mean, you're not really, are you?"

And no matter how determined Sam was to ignore everything Lilith said, he couldn't ignore that.

"You're lying."

"Oh, I'm really not," Lilith said happily. "That's the fun of it. I'm telling the truth, and you know I am." She took a step toward him, completely ignoring the knife in his hand—or appearing to, anyway, and it was then that Sam realized he couldn't move. Whether it was demon-mojo or shock didn't really matter. He was still trapped where he was.

He had still missed his chance to get Dean back.

"You can feel it, can't you? You've always been able to feel it. You even told Dean once, but you were possessed at the time, so he didn't think it was true. But you've felt it—felt the anger, the hate, the violence. You've felt the part of you that's lacking in humanity, and sometimes you've wanted to embrace it. Isn't that right?"

Sam shook his head desperately.

"Well, of course you're still denying it. You're still human enough for that. But it won't last. Don't make the mistake of thinking it will. There's darkness in you, Sam, and it won't be long before it takes over." She smiled suddenly. "But if you think about it, it could be worse. Sure, supposed to be the big bad evil, but at least Dean's not here to see any of it happen, right? So when you think about it, shouldn't you be thanking me?"

And just like that, Sam's mind went from a babbling mess to cold clarity.

"You want me to thank you for sending my brother to Hell."

"Hey, he got himself sent there. I just gave him a ride. It was really very big of me. And what's with the attitude, anyway? You should really show more respect…"

Sam didn't mind her words anymore—he was experiencing that same clarity of vision that had allowed him to finally decide to save Dean. So he waited for a break in the chatter, and then said calmly, "Lilith, shut your mouth."

She was so surprised that she did—for two seconds.

"You really aren't big on self-preservation, are you?"

"Not anymore, no. What I am is sick of listening to your endless chatter."

"Boy, you are pushing it. I could kill you where you stand."

She seemed honestly taken aback when Sam laughed.

"You're not the brightest devil in Hell, are you?"

He took a step to the side, no longer surprised to find that breaking Lilith's hold was as easy as breathing.

"You want to talk about darkness? We can go on about it all day long, if you want. But in the end, it all comes down to the same thing. You want to kill me more than you want just about anything—and I've finally figured out what that means."

He raised his knife again, and went on.

"What it means, Lilith, is that I can hurt you."

"Enough of this," Lilith spat, and raised her hand to kill him.

Nothing happened, except that Sam lifted his blade to eye level and studied it nonchalantly.

"That didn't work last time, either, did it? I almost forgot…" He shrugged and looked back up at her. "So…I only have one question left for you."

He was in front of her before either of them could blink, grabbing her by the arm and driving the blade home.

"How do you like my darkness now?"

He waited until she was gone before he uttered the last word—Dean's favorite.

"Bitch."