Sam was asleep on the couch and Ruby was gone when I woke up the next morning. The first thing I noticed was that his bottle, the one he'd been carrying around like a talisman for the last month, was gone, too. I guessed he'd taken Ruby's demand for sobriety to heart. I scrounged up some breakfast for myself from the food that we had and got dressed to go running. I left a note for Sam on the table and headed outside.

He'd really picked a house in the back-ass of nowhere to hole up this time. Half the house was covered in vines and plants, and there was an ancient realty sign in front of the house. I doubted that they were still actively trying to sell it, which was probably why he chose it. The back yard had several trees and a large, ramshackle old shed. Woods stretched out behind the house, with a trail that went through them. I headed towards the woods at a jog.

With Sam and Dean training me pretty regularly over the several months, I was much more physically fit than I'd ever been, and I wanted to stay that way. Sam had said lots of times that sometimes the thing that made the difference between living and dying was just being able to run a little farther or a little faster than the monster.

The trees stretched out to the left and right of me, and I followed the dirt trail through the woods until it ended at water's edge. A small lake spread out at the end of the trail, dirt surrounding it, with a thin line of grass before the trees started. I smiled. Maybe tomorrow, I'd go for a swim. It was the middle of June after all.

I ran around the lake once before heading back to the house to do a bunch of other exercises, like sit-ups, pushups, and squats. I found a tree with a branch I could pull on and tried to do some chin-ups. I really wasn't good at those. When I was done, I went inside and took a shower.

I'd spent the entire time thinking, zoned out and trying to make a decision. What the hell was I going to do? Should I tell Sam? Should I keep it to myself, let Gabby read me, and then let her teach me how to control my fire? And then there was Ruby. I hated her. I didn't want her around, and I didn't want her near Sam. I couldn't trust Sam when she was around.

I'd come to no decisions, but I knew that I wanted to talk to Sam. When I got out of the shower, I got dressed and went back into the main room. Sam was awake and looking through a book.

"Hey Sam," I said, dropping onto the couch next to him. His hair was still sleep-mussed. I cuddled close to him and leaned my head against his shoulder.

"Morning, squirt," he said. "You go running?"

"Yeah, there's a trail and it goes to a little lake. I ran around the lake and back, and then I did the rest of my exercises on the lawn."

"Good job," he said. "You sleep ok? We didn't keep you up, right?"

I frowned. "No," I said. "Sam…"

"Ruby's on her way here," he told me, interrupting. "We're going to work on strengthening my abilities today so I can go after Lilith. You be nice to her while she's here, ok?"

I sighed. "Yeah," I said. "But before she gets here, I need to tell you something."

He finally put the book down and looked at me. "Sure, what is it?"

I opened my mouth to tell him about my dream, but Ruby knocked on the front door. Sam held his finger up. "I'll be right back," he said, getting to his feet and heading towards the front door.

I sighed again, defeated, and headed to the room where I kept my stuff. I dug my ropes out of my bag and went back into the main room to sit on the couch and practice knots. Ruby came in carrying three or four bags of stuff. She set them on the table and then started telling Sam that they needed to set the house up with devil's traps and salt lines. She didn't even notice me, and now that she was here, Sam was paying even less attention than he had been.

They spent some of the day setting up the house, including drawing a devil's trap in front of the fireplace in the main room, and then Sam banished me to another room while they talked about what he had to do to use his powers. I practiced knots, played my Game Boy, and read my novel, listening to the faint sounds of their voices as they talked.

The pressure in my head grew and grew as the day passed, and by the middle of the afternoon, my head started pounding. I struggled to hold it in, because Gabby had said that I didn't have very much control, but it wasn't working. Finally, even though I'd been banished, I went in search of Sam.

Unsurprisingly, he was in the main room with Ruby. She was explaining something to him, but the pounding in my head was louder than her voice, the whoosh of my blood turning into a steady drumbeat. His back was to me, so Ruby saw me first.

"Sam told you to stay in the other room," Ruby started, annoyance in her tone.

Sam turned around and saw me, immediately getting to his feet. "Oh my god, Jessie. Let's get you outside."

"It hurts, Sam," I said, as he hustled me out the back door. He grabbed the fire extinguisher from the steps and threw the five remaining bags of charcoal into a pile on the lawn. I thought vaguely that it probably wasn't enough, but my head was pounding and I just needed to get it out. I held on until Sam had stepped away from the bags, and then I aimed at the charcoal and let go.

The initial whoosh was too much and the charcoal disintegrated under the flash. I panicked when I realized I had way more in me than the charcoal could take, that I was going to end up setting the lawn and probably the house on fire. My eyes shot to the ramshackle old shed and it burst into flames. The wood disintegrated, the shed collapsing into itself, but it was still burning, still letting me pour my flame into it. I pushed and pushed, the wood disappearing into ash as a machine of some kind came into sight, the metal glowing red hot from my flame. I pushed into the machine until I was empty.

For once, I was still standing when I was done. I blinked several times. Sam was just finishing putting out a swath of grass that spread from the pile of charcoal to the shed way at the back of the yard. He turned to look at the shed, but the fire there was out, only the machine heated to red-hot temperatures.

He came back to me. "Good thing that baler was there," he said. He pulled me to him, and I sagged into his strength, wrapping my arms around his waist. "You ok?"

"Yeah," I said. He stroked my hair.

"Was this because you only burned up one bag of charcoal last night?" he asked me softly.

I shook my head against his stomach, realizing I had his attention for the first time in a couple of days. "Gabby came to me last night," I whispered. I weakly waved my hand behind his back. "All of this happens when I see her. She… I don't know… overfills my furnace? Or something."

He hugged me tighter and then let me go, crouching down in front of me to meet my eyes, holding my hand. "Did you use the dream root?" he asked me. I shook my head.

"She said I called her, when I burnt up that trash from my bag, the bread and the salt packets." I said. "But I didn't mean to. I didn't know. I didn't say the blessing, but she came anyway. That's why I didn't need to burn so much last night. She said that my flame was used to call her instead."

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing in thought. "What did she want?"

"To know what's wrong," I started.

"Sam," Ruby said, interrupting me from where she stood at the door. "If you're done with your firestarter, we need to get moving."

Of course she'd interrupt. I sighed in defeat. I expected Sam to go to her, but he didn't. Instead, he said, "I'm dealing with something right now, Ruby."

Ruby huffed and said, "Daylight's burning. If we don't go soon, we'll have to go tomorrow."

"In a minute," Sam said. He met my eyes again. "What else?"

Hopeful that he would help, I said, "She wanted to help me learn how to better control my flame. She said she needed to see how deep my well was before she could do that, though."

"What did you say?" he asked, concern creasing his brow.

"I said no. I wanted to talk to you first," I whispered.

"Good girl," he said. "Don't call her again, ok? And if she somehow still manages to turn up in your dreams, you just keep telling her no." He went to stand up, and I clutched at his hand.

"Sam, what if she tries to make me? I can't do anything to her. I can't even wake up when I'm talking to her. She keeps me there. I need to keep her away from me!" Panic laced my voice. I felt like he was dismissing me.

"Ok, honey," he said, looking down at me. "Here's what you do. If she comes to you again on her own, then you tell her you're still deciding. Think up some questions to ask her, and act indecisive. You've got the power there right now. She needs you. You don't need her. I'll start looking for something that will keep her away from you."

That made me feel a little better. He was going to help me. I sighed in relief. "Thanks, Sam," I whispered. "I won't call her again if I can help it."

He hugged me to him and kissed the top of my head. "Ruby and I need to go out on a hunt. We can't take you with us. Are you going to be ok here at the house while we're gone?"

"What about dinner?" I asked.

"We'll go out before we leave," Sam said. "Then drop you back off here. We'll be back later tonight, after you're in bed."

I sighed in disappointment, looking down at my feet. He was leaving me to go hunt with Ruby. "Sure," I said. "I can take care of myself for a couple of hours."