Sorry it took me so long to update this week. If only all my time could be spent writing... Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Sam found us an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. He turned on the water and settled me into one of the rooms with a bedroll. I hated when we stayed places with no electricity, but I didn't complain. Once he'd checked the place out, he crashed pretty hard on an old couch that was in the living room.

He slept for six hours. I spent some of that sleeping, too, and some of it sitting next to him on the floor, afraid to let him out of my sight. I spent some of it playing with my Game Boy. I spent some of it reading. I still had that book that I'd taken before Dean had died. I still thought the author was full of it, but some of these ways to use my abilities could really be helpful when hunting, like melting metal, creating a wall of fire, or creating a fireball. Just reading about them made me want to be able to do them. The guys would have to let me help if I was able to do that stuff.

I thought about that for a minute and decided I was probably wrong. Their objection to me helping had less to do with my lack of skills and more to do with them just not wanting me to get hurt. I sighed. It would still be cool if I could do these things.

I wanted to try now, but I knew that Sam would be mad at me if I broke the one of the first rules I'd ever gotten. I knew I should call Bree about it, too. That's what Dean would have wanted me to do. I really didn't want to, though. Remembering Dean made my heart hurt and the idea of talking to anyone but Sam right now was just exhausting.

I cried a little, quietly so I wouldn't wake up Sam. Dean was gone and Sam was a little crazy. My world was upside down. Sam had promised he wouldn't leave me alone here, but would that just fly out the window the next time he got drunk? He'd promised Dean things before too and not followed through.

Sam woke up right when I was getting hungry. He ordered pizza and dragged me out to pick it up. I was happy to get out of the abandoned house for even those few minutes. Once we'd eaten, he dragged in a bunch of guns from the back of the Impala and started cleaning them on the table, taking swigs from his bottle while he worked.

"Can I help?" I asked, leaning against a chair and watching him. I expected the normal 'no' that I always got when I'd asked Dean, but Sam shrugged.

"You remember everything Dean taught you about this?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "He wouldn't let me shoot until I'd learned and cleaned every part of a revolver, not that I ever got to shoot…"

Sam reached over and pulled out the chair next to him. "Then you can help."

A little while later, someone knocked on the front door. I jumped and set down the revolver I was cleaning. Sam motioned to me to stay, set down the gun he was cleaning, and picked up the shotgun that was next to him on the table before heading to the front door.

It was Ruby. She'd taken the body of a coma patient and told Sam, as they came back into the room where I was, that while she couldn't bring Dean back, she wanted to help Sam kill Lilith. Sam looked at me. "Jessie, go outside and find something to do, run or go for a walk."

"Sam," I started, not wanting to leave him here alone with this manipulative bitch.

"Now, Jessie," he said. I got up and slid out of the room, going to the front door. I opened it and waited a beat and then closed it. I slipped into the room across from the door as I heard Sam guess that Ruby wanted him to use his psychic powers and told her that he was ready.

I was stunned. I only half-listened as they argued about how they were going to do it. After all the speeches, all the lectures about how supernatural beings just wanted to use you, Sam was going to give in and let this demon use him, the worst of the worst. Second, Sam had psychic powers? What the hell? If he had psychic powers why the hell did the pawn me off on Bree to teach me how to control mine?

I felt betrayed and very, very worried.

I sat in that front room for an hour listening to Ruby work her wiles, explaining how he could use his abilities to pull a demon out of a human host and kill it. If he practiced, his abilities would grow and eventually he would be able to pull Lilith out and kill her. Ruby explained technique and timing and all sorts of things. My stomach roiled and my anger grew.

Eventually, I got to my feet and crept to the front door, opening it and yelling, "Sam, can I come in now?"

Ruby stopped talking, and Sam said, "Yeah, come on."

I shut the door and walked down the hallway, into the main room. "What's going on?" I asked, as if I didn't already know.

"Ruby is going to help me find Lilith and kill her," Sam said. I dropped into the chair next to the table, resisting the urge to yell at him about having psychic powers when I knew I wasn't supposed to have been listening.

"She's a demon," I pointed out, trying to maintain my calm. "You told me that demons just want to use you up for their own purposes, that they trick you and lie to you, and that they use your weaknesses against you. Why are you helping her?"

"I'm not helping her," Sam said. "She's helping me."

I stared at him in shock. I didn't understand. "You couldn't kill Lilith with Dean's help and the knife," I said. "How are you going to do it with her?"

"I have these powers," Sam said. "I've never used them deliberately and they went dormant when the demon that killed our mother was killed, but Ruby says she can show me how to use them to kill demons."

"Sam, why are you explaining yourself to her?" Ruby asked, annoyed. "She's a kid. Just tell her to get lost."

"Hey," Sam said. "She deserves an explanation. She deserves to know what's going on, to understand. You leave her to me."

Ruby held up her hands. "Fine, sorry," she grumped. She dropped into the chair across from me, and I glared at her. She ignored me.

"I don't understand," I said, finally looking away from her. "Dean didn't want you to have anything to do with her and she can't get Dean out of hell. Why are you going to work with her?"

"Revenge, sweetie," Ruby purred. "He wants revenge against the demon who took his brother, and I'm going to help him get her."

"Ruby," Sam sighed.

"Dean wouldn't want this," I said again.

"Dean's gone," Sam said, "and it's Lilith's fault."

I rubbed my neck. "I don't understand," I said.

"Trust me, Jessie. It's going to be ok," Sam said. "I promise." I looked up at him with wide eyes, and he came over to me and hugged me.

"Ok," I said uncertainly, hugging him back.

Sam told me to go find something to do while he and Ruby talked some more. Eventually, we went out to eat dinner, and when we got back, he shooed me off again. I wasn't happy with this turn of events. It was obvious he didn't want me to know what he and Ruby were talking about, and now that they knew I was in the house, they were keeping their voices down. Annoyed, I spent some time cleaning out my bags. My clothes bag wasn't too bad, but my school bag was filled with random bits of food, papers, and other debris. I dumped the bag out on the floor and sorted through the books.

I was going to have to ask Sam to stop at a used bookstore again soon to trade out my paperbacks. I was in the middle of my last one. I stacked the two I had finished off to the side, and then stacked my schoolbooks in a pile. I hadn't touched them in months, except the Language Arts book, and I was going to have to return them at the end of summer when I picked up next year's books. Among the detritus in the bottom of the bag was a hamburger bun in a wrapper, packets of salt and pepper, and five or six candy bar wrappers.

I vaguely remembered saving the hamburger bun several weeks ago. It was dried out and moldy now, crumbling some when I unwrapped it. I wrinkled my nose. Ew.

"Jessie, bedtime!" Sam hollered from the other room where he was still talking to Ruby. I sighed.

"I need to burn something first," I hollered back. I heard his chair scrape back and his steps come down the hallway. I turned as he came into the room.

"Well, come on then," he said, holding his hand out to me. "What's all that?"

"Crap that was in the bottom of my butterfly bag," I said, getting to my feet.

"A hamburger bun?" he asked. "That's disgusting."

"I know," I said. I gathered up the trash. "I'm going to burn it all."

"Maybe throw it away sooner next time," Sam suggested mildly. He led me outside and pulled the little brazier and the charcoal bags out of the trunk. I dropped the trash on top of the charcoal and stepped back.

Glancing at Sam for permission, I opened the furnace and pushed my fire into the charcoal. The charcoal flared and caught the trash on fire. As the hamburger bun caught, my entire body started tingling, from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head. I gasped and looked at Sam, but he was looking at the house where Ruby had come out on the back steps. I ran my hands up and down my arms. The tingles persisted for the few seconds until the hamburger bun was gone, and one last flash spread through me, seeming to flow up from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. Then it was gone.

Sam went to put another bag on the brazier for me to burn, but I shook my head. "I'm empty," I said with wonder. "I don't need any more. We should save those for tomorrow."

Sam looked at me. "Only one?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Guess so."

"All right," Sam said, sounding concerned. "Let's get you to bed."

He followed me back into the house. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, and put on a nightshirt before heading back into the main room to say goodnight to Sam. Blatantly ignoring Ruby, I hugged Sam and kissed his cheek. He got up from the table and followed me into the room where my bedroll was.

I crawled under the covers and he felt my head and my cheeks as he tucked me in. "You don't feel sick," he said.

"No, I don't," I said.

"From six bags to one is a huge drop," Sam said. He tucked my snowman next to me. I shrugged.

"I dunno," I said. "I'm tired Sam." He kissed me and left. I closed my eyes.

"You need me, my child?" Gabby asked.