Sam's been at the cabin six weeks when he pulls his phone out of the bottom of his duffle, plugs it into the charger and turns it on.

A message flashes up telling him he has voicemail, and when he dials the number to pick them up an automated voice informs him that his voicemail box is full.

Sam hangs up without listening to them, presses two on his speed dial and waits for Bobby to pick up.

"Sam?" Bobby asks, like he's almost sure it's anything but.

"Hey, Bobby," Sam replies, sinking down onto the edge of the bed, his fingers pulling at a loose thread on his jeans.

Bobby's quiet on the other end, Sam listens to the slow exhale of a breath and a distant clunk like something knocking against a wooden surface.

"Boy, I should -"

"I know," Sam interrupts.

"Where are you? I've left like a dozen messages -"

"I know."

"I tried looking for you, had a friend of mine try and pin point your location, she couldn't get a fix." Bobby sounds tired and Sam can picture him at his desk, running his hand over his face and looking through his books trying to find the smallest bit of information to help on a hunt. "I thought you'd – Fuck, Sam."

"I'm sorry," Sam says, knows it's nowhere near enough. "I'm staying with a friend of Dean's. I think she has the place is pretty heavily warded. That's why you couldn't -"

"A friend of Dean's?" Bobby asks.

"Uh, yeah. An old girlfriend," he says. Bobby coughs and Sam smiles. "I guess. I'm okay. I wanted to let you know, I'm doing okay. You don't need to worry."

Bobby swears, string of curse words surrounding a declaration that Sam's as good as his own blood and worrying goes hand in hand with that.

Sam smiles, lets Bobby try and chew him a new one, laughing low and winding Bobby up all the more for it. It feels good. For a moment, it's almost like what happened in New Harmony didn't go down at all.

There's a pause on the line, neither one of them speaking. Sam can hear a dog barking at Bobby's end of the line. "I thought you'd -" Bobby's voice sounds broken, wrecked and full of emotion like it hasn't been since Sam rang him from the hospital in Shiloh County, asking him for help, asking him if he could get the Impala. "Fuck, Sam."

Sam nods and doesn't say anything. He bites down on the truth and how close Bobby's fear came to being true. "Yeah," he says instead and promises to come see him, doesn't add soon because he's sure it won't be. He can't think of being at Bobby's and not seeing Dean there.

"Don't leave it so long," Bobby says and Sam promises he won't; hangs up.

He turns his phone back off, resisting the temptation to flick through the photos and the old messages he's got stored from Dean. He considers for a moment throwing it back inside his bag, but in the end just pulls the drawer of the bedside table open and sets it down inside.

When Sam enters the main room, Hermione's sitting on the couch with a laptop open and balanced on her knees. He pauses for a moment because he's surprised, too used to seeing her always at her desk with just books and scrolls spread around her; working the old fashioned way.

It's a bit like watching one of the period dramas Jess used to like on BBC America and seeing the heroine pull out a mobile phone.

Sam smiles, leans his back against the door frame and watches her fingers typing quickly, fast little click-clacks sounding too loud in the quiet of the cabin.

"Hey," he says, sitting down in one of the other armchairs. "Didn't know you knew how to use one of those things."

Hermione glances up, rolls her eyes and pushes her hair back out of her face. "I just prefer writing things out. I find it easier to organise my thoughts when I can make notes and cross things out. I guess it's a hangover from school."

Sam finds himself looking at her sometimes and unable to stop himself from imagining Dean touching her. What they would have looked like all tangled up and kissing, where Dean would have put his hands, if he'd have tangled them up in her hair and whether Hermione would have broken the kiss with her sharp tongue. He thinks about kissing her in the kitchen that night, the memory indistinct and blurred by alcohol, the way she'd kept it gentle and tries to imagine her letting go, if she did that with Dean.

"She's kind of a wildcat."

"So, what you doing?" he asks and wonders if he'd come here with Dean - when his brother had asked him to – how Dean would have introduced them.

"Emailing my parents," Hermione answers.

Sam thinks he should have guessed from the way her lip is cracked open and sore.

Hermione's head ducks back down and her fingers move across the keyboard again. Sam stays quiet, he watches as her hair falls back over her eyes and has this vision of her on her knees in front of Dean; coy smile and her curls wrapped up and tangled around Dean's hand as he strokes his dick with it.

He coughs and looks away.

The room feels suddenly too warm. Sam stands up, crosses to the fireplace and reaches into a bowl on the mantle for one of the hair bands Hermione keeps there. He drops it in her lap as he steps past her to his seat, burgundy circle of elastic hemming in the G and H keys.

"Thanks," Hermione says, small smile stretching skin and causing a bead of blood to break for the surface of her lip. Sam watches as she stretches her arms up behind her head, gathering up her hair and wraping the band around it, her tongue darting out and swallowing up the red drop.

"Why'd you leave?" Sam says suddenly, thinking of seven years earlier, sitting in a bus station, duffle on the floor, Dean by his side and a ticket to Palo Alto in his hand - how hard it had been to walk away.

Hermione's head cocks to the side like it so often does when she seems caught or guard and doesn't have a response ready and waiting.

"I -" she flounders, mouth working. Her lips set into a firm line a moment latter and she closes the laptop, slides it onto the seat beside her.

"My friend got hurt," she says and her voice sounds thick like it doesn't want to come.

Sam nods slowly, trying to process how he's supposed to interpret that. Hermione hasn't talked much about friends. She's only gone into town that once to meet someone and that was business. She's talked about family and people from her childhood, but mostly there's just them, and Dean. Just the present and recent past, just books and work.

"Our childhood was kind of different. It's hard to explain, but there was a war on. In our community," she clarifies when Sam cocks his head. "That's not true. It wasn't just our community, but everyone else just didn't know. Couldn't because of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy. Honestly, I'd probably be in trouble for telling you and Dean as much as I have if anyone official found out."

Sam nods, knows as much from the book she'd leant him.

"Anyway," Hermione continues. "We were pretty involved in what was going on," Hermione continues. Her hands are in her lap and she's tugging a ring on an off her index finger, watching it and not Sam as she spins it up and back down.

"How old?" Sam asks, because she said childhood.

"Pretty much day one of high school," Hermione answers, her mouth a wry smile. "Before that for Harry."

"Harry?"

"Best friend," she clarifies. "One of them anyway, but Ron was -" Hermione makes a hiccupping sound and looks up at Sam.

He nods and thinks he gets it, and the way Hermione's been about Dean makes a little more sense.

"Anyway, wars come to a head and people get hurt."

Sam nods, thinks of Pastor Jim and all the time they'd spent with him as kids, their dad off on a hunt and Dean still too young to be left in charge for long. He thinks of their Mom and Dad and Jess. He thinks of Dean. "Yeah," he says. "They do."

"There was a battle, we got split up and Ron must have got hit by a curse. I didn't find him until after and there were so many that needed help. We didn't even know what he'd been hit with for over a month."

She's not crying and Sam thinks it would be easier if she was because then he could reach out, comfort her the same way he's done a hundred times before on a hunt with the people left behind. Instead, she's stiff-backed and closed off and Sam has the feeling that if he interrupts or distracts her, she'll close up and brush this off. He's not sure he wouldn't prefer it if she did.

"I couldn't cure him," she says. Sam almost can't hear her, her voice has gone so quiet, thin and barely there, more a breath than actual sounds.

When he meets her eyes it's like turning the clock back three months and looking in a mirror.

"I promised them all I would; that they'd have him back. We'd lost so many and I just needed – he wasn't dead and I should have been able to -"

Her voice breaks off and Hermione buries her head in her hands, back hitching with silent sobs. The reaction seems too strong and raw, like she hasn't talked about this before; not like this.

Sam slides from his chair, pulls Hermione down into his lap on the floor, lets her bury her head in his neck, tears soaking into his shirt, seeping through to touch his skin. He wants to push her head back ask her why now, has his answer in the way her hands clutch in his shirt making him remember an evening when their rolls were reversed.

He rubs his hand up the line of her spine, tells her it's okay, hears Hermione's words to him about Dean and says, "Shh, no one blames you."

Hermione's distant after that.

More closed off, she buries herself in her work and Sam see's the likeness between them more than ever. Sees what Dean saw.

He's taking a shower two days later and thinking about that. Thinking about Jess and the way she could be ballsy and blunt when she thought she was in the right. The way she was fiercely protective of her friends, and never backed down in defending them when she had to. The way when he'd met her she was challenging two guys from his class to a game of pool, how she'd beat them both hands down and proceeded to ask Sam out; all confidence except for the way her eyes had flicked down and away as she waited for his response, just for a moment. If Sam hadn't been used to watching out for Dean's tells he thinks he would have missed it. In the end, it's what made him say yes, not the fact that she was gorgeous or obviously bright from the conversations she'd kept up whilst she kicked Paul and Connor's asses, but the honesty in the small tell.

There's a knock at the door and Hermione saying, "Sam," soft and urgent. She says it again in the same tone, but her voice is higher and when she knocks again there's no way Sam can ignore it. He grabs a towel, wraps it around his waist and opens the door.

"Oh, thank -" Hermione's sentence splutters out, eyes dropping down and then up. Sam would smile, but she's got her wand in one hand and her hair's ruffled through like she's been pulling at it.

"What's wrong?" he asks already grabbing his jeans from the floor, pushing his feet into them with his back turned from Hermione.

"Uh, there's a woman at the gate. She's calling for you." Hermione pauses; coughs before continuing. "Sam, she can't pass through my wards."

Hermione's all business when Sam turns around except for the way her eyes are fixed firmly on a spot to his left and the way her cheeks are flushed full of colour. Sam hears Dean in his head before he thinks about how wrong that should be.

"You spoke to her?" Sam asks.

Hermione shakes her head and Sam guesses she hasn't even opened the door. "Right," he says and moves to walk past her, shrugging on a clean t-shirt as he goes.

"Sam," Hermione says, but he keeps walking, long quick strides she has to jog down the hall to catch up with.

"I'm just going to look, maybe talk to her, see what she wants."

"Sam," Hermione says, and her hand reaches out and catches his wrist, pulling him up short. "The wards she triggered, they're old wards. I laid new ones after you arrived, but due to their nature they have to be focussed on a residence. These ones keeping her out though are far more simplistic in their design. They're perimeter wards and they ward simply against intent."

Sam frowns. "Intent?" he asks.

"When I was at school, Ron my, my -"

Sam watches her hesitate, panic settling in as she tries to find a word." Sam smoothes his hand up her arm and says, "It's okay, you don't have to – I get it."

Hermione breathes in and nods, takes a moment before she continues. "He had two brother's - twins and they were always – Whenever I stayed at their house they used to play pranks on me. Fred used to say it was because I needed to loosen up so I didn't end up like Percy – one of their other brothers."

Sam smiles even though he has no idea what Percy was like. He can imagine Hermione at that age, thinks he sees a glimpse of her every time she's working on a project, can remember Dean saying much the same to him.

"Point is," Hermione says, taking a breath and seemingly distancing herself a little further from her memories, "I became fairly adept at developing protective wards to make them more effective. It was good training for – later. Then, when I moved here, I didn't want anything too specific, just something that would keep anyone out who intended anything malicious towards me."

Sam nods.

"I added you," she says.

Oh, Sam thinks.

"I'm just going to look," he says and reaches down to take her hand. It's not a gesture he really thinks about, just something he does because it seems right. Hermione's fingers curl in his and her palm feels clammy where it presses up against Sam's skin.

Sam pulls the slats apart on the window by the door, feels Hermione press up against his side as he looks out, trying to see as well.

"Do you know her?" Hermione asks and Sam hears, 'What is she?' instead.

Sam doesn't recognise her. She's tall and blonde with a face that's a little hard – all edges and attitude. She doesn't even resemble anyone he's met. But Sam knows exactly who she is as soon as he lays eyes on her. Thinks he knew the moment Hermione said there was someone here.

The woman has her hand on her hip, cocking it out as she watches the house.

"Sam," she calls out and if her stance hadn't given her away, her intonation does.

Hermione's hand's still in his and it's not until her fingers wiggle awkwardly against him - trying to break free - that Sam realises he'd been squeezing them.

He lets go, watches out the corner of his eye as Hermione flexes her fingers.

"Come on, Sam. I just want to talk, see how you're doing. You dropped off the face of the earth for a while there."

"Who is she?" Hermione asks.

"Ruby," Sam says, his voice a hissed whisper and his vocal chords tight with strain. "I have to talk to her."

Hermione grabs his arm, turns him towards her and Sam lets her. He lets her pull his attention away from the woman at the gate.

"How much does the ward tell you when it's triggered?" Sam asks.

Hermione's mouth thins and her head drops forward, shielding her eyes. Sam wants to push it back off her face and let him see.

"Not much," she says and there's regret in her voice, but it's laced with resignation. "I can tell when they are triggered. It's hard to explain, but it like a tug, like someone pulling on your hair but not. Like someone walking over your grave except different."

"Okay. What else?"

"Who the intent is aimed at. When I add another person it's like splitting the ward, creating two separate ties between it, them and me."

"And Ruby's intent?"

Hermione looks away from the window and Sam, back into the room toward the fire. "You," she answers, voice half broken like she's actually nervous and Sam finds himself surprised at that. He knows the way she hesitates when a subject makes her uncomfortable, but to actually see her show fear is somewhat unexpected. Her own issues aside, in his head, she's become this fearless figure, strong and steady, pulling him back onto his feet.

When Dean died, when Sam buried his body and drove away from Bobby in the middle of the night - getting the older hunter drunk enough to stop watching Sam so closely, leaving him to sleep it off in a motel – Sam's main plan was to follow.

Sam still can't see a future, but he doesn't feel the burning need he felt two months ago to jump first, think later.

Hermione did that.

"What else?" he asks.

"I layered in some empathic ability to the ward."

Sam smiles even though the situation doesn't warrant it. Can't help it. Hermione goes into theory even when it's not necessary, offering up the explanations and technique of why and how the ward works and was modified regardless. Dean used to chastise him for the same thing.

"Get to the point, Sammy."

"It's not concrete," she says, getting back onto the point. "It's based on emotion and that's really too complicated to interpret in a reliable way without some background knowledge of the person."

"What's the emotion?" Sam asks, keeping her focussed lest she get onto the benefits of a psychological evaluation.

"Deceit," she answers and her eyes flick up to Sam's.

"She's a demon." He shrugs.

Hermione's eyes widen. "Sweet Nimue!"

"Ruby's complicated. Her allegiances are – kind of grey. I'm just going to talk to her. Find out what she wants, and then I'll send her away."

Hermione bites her lip, says, "The wards extend to the perimeter. They'll be strong enough to keep her out as long as the gate is closed. If it's open, the circuit breaks, it'll still hold but it's weaker. She won't be able to open it, you'd have to. If those go down though, the wards on the cabin are specified to keep anything demonic out as well as a few other types of things. Well, they should – in theory. I haven't been able to test them and not having met a demon before made the preliminary weaving harder."

Sam nods. "Anything else?"

"Stay alert obviously and stay at least a meter away. That's just an extra caution. No part of her body will be able to pass over or through, but she could throw something past them. The wards only protect against sentient things and magic. And remember her main emotion right now is deceit. Whatever she says, she's likely to be playing you."

"Okay," Sam says. He reaches out and grabs Hermione's hand again, squeezes it, this time gentle and reassuring. He watches her tongue dart out and lick at her lips, finds himself wanting to lean down and kiss her, find extra reassurance in the contact.

"I'll watch from the door in case anything -"

"Just talking," Sam says and smiles. "Thanks."

"There you are," Ruby says, all fake sweetness Sam's sure wasn't there a moment ago given the way her foot's tapping in frustration.

Sam stands on the front step, Hermione at his back and just looks at Ruby. He feels brittle; the fragility of what he's built up here with Hermione - of what he's re-built of himself, seems more tangible standing looking at her. He supposes the reality of her presence makes it harder to pretend.

"What do you want, Ruby?" Sam asks.

"You recognised me!" Ruby exclaims. "I'm flattered, Sam."

"Don't be."

Ruby smiles. "Charming as ever, I see." She looks him up and down, nods. "You look good," she says, but it's not approval in her tone.

Sam narrows his eyes. He can't quite interpret the motivation behind that comment and it's so tempting to turn around, ask Hermione if her wards are picking up any changes in motivation. He wishes he'd asked more questions, he doesn't even know if that's something they could do or if it's just an initial burst.

Ruby cocks her head to the side and pouts. "No need to be so suspicious."

Sam raises his eyebrow.

Ruby huffs, but when she speaks it's all soft concern. "I was just worried, Sam. I kind of expected - after everything with Dean and then the way you just dropped off the map there – to find you drowning you sorrows in a bottle or something –" She shrugs, "- worse."

Sam bristles, his skin prickling uncomfortably at the truth in Ruby's assumption and he can't help but wonder if she knows.

A hand settles in the small of his back; tiny, but reassuring.

Sam doesn't take his eyes off Ruby, but he twists his arm around, catches Hermione's hand and squeezes it in thanks.

Ruby's face goes blank. Her head tilts to get a better look at Hermione and then down to the fence. Something flickers over her features and it's almost too quick for Sam to get a read on the emotion. Almost but not quite.

Just for a moment Ruby looks angry. More than angry; she looks pissed. And then the moment's gone.

"Shacking up with a witch, Sammy," she says, tutting and Sam knows she used that nickname on purpose. "What would dear Dean think? Didn't he hate our kind?"

"I'm not like you," Hermione says.

Later Sam will think of the fact she chose to argue that point and not the shacking up.

Hermione's shoulder brushes his arm as she steps forward out onto the step. There's an urge, Sam's pretty sure he should feel guilty for because it's so archaic, to push her back behind him. With any other girl he would indulge it, wouldn't think twice because that's the way he was raised – protect the civilians. With Hermione though, he's just pretty sure it would just piss her off and probably earn him a lecture later to boot.

Ruby's eyes narrow, then widen. She doesn't take a step back, but Sam is pretty certain that she considers it.

"No, you're not," Ruby says and looks back at Sam with interest.

"Why are you here, Ruby?" Sam asks.

"I need to talk to you, Sam," she replies, the implication clear.

Hermione looks up at Sam, opens her mouth, but he cuts her off with a quick shake of his head and a squeeze of her hand.

"You've got thirty seconds to give me a reason to care or I'm going back inside," Sam says.

"Oh come on. Seriously? Do you even know what I went through to find you? Lilith was pissed. I've seen corners of Hell I didn't even know existed. I'm a fugitive, Sam. None of the other demons, not even the ones that -"

"Thirty, twenty-nine – clock's running, Ruby – twenty-eight."

Ruby looks like she's considering testing his resolve for a moment, but Sam cocks an eyebrow at her.

"I can help you," Ruby spits out too fast.

Sam almost smiles. "Twenty six. Can you help me save Dean?" he asks and studiously ignores the way Hermione's turned to look up at him, her mouth open. "Twenty four."

Ruby's eyes dart left and her lips thin. When she answers she sounds honestly regretful. "No. Nothing I know of can do that."

Sam nods. It's what he expected, but he still had to ask. "Twenty two. You promised you'd help me save him. Twenty."

Ruby shifts her weight from the one leg to the other. "I know. I'm sorry. But Sam, I had my reasons then and I have them now. You have to listen."

"Seventeen. No, I really don't."

Ruby moves forward, tries to curl her hands over the fence and get closer, but the wards stop her from doing anything more than leaning her weight against it. "Lilith's got something big planned," Ruby grinds out. "There was talk, in the pit, when she sent me back. Rumours. It's something huge, Sam. Something apocalyptic."

Sam lets go of Hermione's hand, steps down off the porch and walks up to the fence; up to Ruby. She smiles, face relaxing into relief. Sam smiles back, but it's bitter and twisted. He moves right up to the fence, leans in so he's right up against the barrier.

"Sam," Hermione cautions from behind him.

He holds a hand up to forestall her, keep her back and let her know that he knows.

"That's why you came to find me, Ruby?" he asks, voice low.

"I can help you get her, Sam. I can teach you everything you need to know. I can help you destroy her."

Sam laughs. "How long did it take you to crawl out? How long after that to find me?"

Ruby's cheek twitches and she tries to catch his eyes, read something in them.

"You're too late. Two months ago, that might have got my attention. Hell, a month ago it might have, but right now, Ruby?" Sam shakes his head. "You have nothing I want. Lilith can bring the sky down for all I care. That's not my battle anymore and it's not revenge I want. I want Dean," he says. "And you can't help me there, can you?"

Ruby pulls back, looks at Sam. "I can help you get to Lilith and maybe then -"

Sam reaches out, grabs onto Ruby's wrist and drags her in, fastens his other hand around her neck.

"Sam," Hermione calls out from behind him.

She sounds much closer than before, but Sam just tightens his hold, leans in and hisses in Ruby's ear. "Don't lie to me, Ruby. And don't insult my intelligence. You already said you don't know of any way to help Dean. Your own words. You want to backtrack this quickly?"

Ruby doesn't answer. Her hands scrabble to get a purchase on Sam's, but they're over the barrier of the fence and she can't get them past the wards to fight her hold.

"I don't want revenge or anything you can fucking offer me. And besides, your time's up."

Sam pushes her back and she stubbles, hand reaching up to her throat and stroking over the reddened skin there, glaring back at Sam.

"Fuck off, Ruby. Go back to where you came from. I'm not buying." Sam turns around, starts walking back towards the house.

Hermione reaches out a hand and catches his elbow, but he shrugs her off.

"Gonna finish showering," he says.

She huffs, nods and looks back towards the fence. "What about -?"

Sam inclines his head, glances back at Ruby. "I may not have the Colt anymore, Ruby, but I've still got your knife. Come back here again and I'll use it."

He turns around, but Ruby lets out a bark of laughter. "You have no idea what you're doing, Sam - what's coming. I could have helped you be ready for it."

Sam pauses, looks at Hermione. "Go inside."

"Pardon," Hermione says, the irritation in her voice clear even without the way her arms cross over her chest.

Sam almost winces. "Sorry. Look, just give me a few minutes."

Hermione flicks her eyes to Ruby, nods. "Fine. Don't forget what I said."

"Yeah, I know. I won't."

He watches her go back inside; she closes the door to, but stops it just before the lock can catch and Sam walks back towards the gate, doesn't go quite as close this time.

"I got back into hunting because of Dean. Not because of Jess or Dad or anything else your kind threw at us. Without Dean there, I'd have just walked away again. Mourned for Jess, but eventually I'd have moved on, carried on with my life."

Ruby cocks her head to the side.

"You don't get it because you spent too long in the pit. You've forgotten. Hell, maybe you never even knew, but without Dean, I just don't give a fuck. I listened to you long enough, Ruby, and it never got me anywhere, never helped me save Dean. So, I'm done. We're done. Find someone else."

"There is no one else, Sam. You're the only one who can stop her."

Sam thins his lips into a sardonic smile. "Well, I guess that's tough then," he says and walks back into the cabin without looking back.