"The Five People Ruby Used to Be"

By December

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: None

Warnings: Spoilers for "Sin City," "Malleus Malefrcarum" and "Jus in Bello." Domestic violence. Some graphic imagery. Some swearing.

Summary: Every story has a beginning. Some more than others. (This is essentially a "Five Ways" fic.)

A/N: Edited after original posting to fix several verb tense errors. Bah.

NAOMI

Naomi slipped softly into the apartment. Maybe he wouldn't be home yet. Maybe ...

"Where you been, bitch?" Vince's voice grated in the darkness.

He turned on the dim light. Oh, god, he'd been drinking.

"I had to work late. You know Fridays are busy at the bar." Naomi answered timidly. Maybe this time he'd understand …

"You get home when I tell you, Naomi. You got that? How often do I have to beat that into your thick skull?" Vince didn't even wait for a reply, just moved in and backhanded her across the face. She staggered to the floor, clutching the wall. The last time she'd tried to use her hands to defend herself, he'd broken two fingers. Vince had hit her several times when he paused unexpectedly. She opened her eyes to see a strange black wisp of smoke hovering over their heads. The smoke darted towards her, disappearing down her throat.

Naomi stood, her eyes closed, suddenly confident in her movements. Before Vince's eyes, the cut on her lip and the other one below her eye vanished. She opened her eyes to look at him. They were jet black.

"Naomi?" Vince asked, suddenly afraid.

"Naomi's gone," she said coldly. "I'm Ruby now."

WINTER

Ruby settles into the booth at the diner, scootching in so that Sam can sit next to her. The man opposite them is little more than a teen, not quite as tall as Sam and much thinner, with his head shaved bald, a tattoo sneaking up his skull from below his shirt collar.

"So this is the Boy King, is it? Gotta say, sire, it's an honor. I'm Alfonse," the man greets Sam, sticking his hand out. Sam just looks at the hand without shaking it. Alfonse grins, his eyes becoming completely black for a moment before returning to their normal watery blue.

"Let's get on with it, Alfonse. What's the information you have that you'll only tell Sam?" Ruby demands curtly.

"Hey, hey, easy now. We're waiting for another party," Alfonse tells them casually. He takes a swallow from the cup of coffee on the table in front of him.

About five minutes of uncomfortable silence passes, none of them saying a word. Alfonse surrenders first, nodding at Ruby. "So you decided to go blonde. Looks better than before."

Ruby snorts. "I just had to wash out a bad dye job. Why do they think it has to be black? I see you've been keeping up the bald guy look."

"I kinda like it," Alfonse comments, rubbing the top of his head. "You should see the tattoos and piercings this guy has."

Ruby shakes her head. "I took all the piercings out, first chance I got."

Sam is looking from one to the other, puzzled but not willing to ask. Alfonse notices the look and explains. "Ruby and me, we got out of Hell at the same time. The bodies we're in were performing a ceremony together when we possessed them."

"Ceremony?" Sam asks, against his better judgment.

"They were Satanists," Ruby explains. "Trying to summon something from Hell. And, hey, look, they got their wish."

MARY

Sam had no idea who Mary Wilson was. Neither did the county hospital who'd found his cell number scribbled in a notebook carried by an unconscious woman admitted some hours earlier. The hospital was only three hours away, so he and Dean made the trip.

Once they explained who they were (with a convenient lie they told the hospital staff), they were directed to Mary Wilson's room.

The woman in the bed was hooked up to an IV and a machine that beeped at regular intervals. She looked pale and wan, tired just from being awake. And familiar.

"Ruby. What the Hell is this?" Dean demanded, glaring at her as he entered the room. Sam followed wordlessly.

"Oh, hi. I remember you." Ruby said almost cheerfully. "I'm glad you came."

Sam and Dean exchanged puzzled looks. "What are you up to this time, Ruby?" Dean asked, hands on his hips at the end of the bed.

"She's gone. There were these men and they did something and now she's gone." Ruby told them, in a distressed voice completely unlike the Ruby they knew. She paused to cough, a raking cough that left her exhausted.

"Who's gone, Ruby?" Sam asked, impatiently. Like Dean, he'd had enough of Ruby's games.

"That's just it. I'm not Ruby, I'm Mary." Ruby/Mary stopped to cough some more. "I was in hospice a few months ago and Ruby took over. And I got to live again."

Sam and Dean once again exchanged looks. Was it possible …?

"There were some men. And they trapped us in some (cough cough) sort of pentagon. And one of them started (cough) saying something in Latin. And then Ruby was (cough cough) gone. That's all I remember." She started coughing in earnest this time.

Sam drew Dean aside, speaking in a whisper. "Dean, what if she's telling the truth? Some hunters caught Ruby and exorcised her, and this woman is the human Ruby was possessing?"

"It's some sort of trick. She's up to something." Dean frowned.

"Guys?" Ruby/Mary called wanly. "I don't know what she's up to, but she kinda (cough) saved my life. I mean, I'm dying." She paused, picking the right words. "Before Ruby, the doctors gave me a month, and I (cough cough cough) don't have anyone. And Ruby … I don't have any say, but we do some (cough) crazy stuff together. I wanna help save the world." She smiled wanly.

Sam stepped forward. "That's really sweet, Mary, but what do you want us to do?"

"Can you bring her back?"

ALICE

He'd lied. He said that his heart was full of love for her, but she couldn't find it anywhere. Only solid bits of flesh that made squelching noises when she searched for the love he claimed to have. He was just like the others.

She'd have to buy another deep freezer. They only held two bodies each, and the first three were full. Fortunately, there was plenty of room in the basement of her father's house, and he wasn't going to complain. He liked it where he was in the first freezer. And, hey, Sears was having a sale. With free delivery.

It was too late to go shopping tonight. Maybe she'd call up Todd, the cute guy from the auto body shop that was working on her car. She was unattached now, and needed some company. Someone to love her. She'd need proof eventually, but not on the first date. Really, that would be expecting too much.

She'd have to clean up, first, though. Make sure she got all the blood out from under her fingernails. Maybe wash her hair while she was at it.

How strange. There was a cloud of smoke in the room above her. Flickering oddly. Hovering. Now diving towards her throat, and she felt like she was choking for just a moment …

Ruby was aware of these thoughts as she opened Alice's eyes for the first time. She knew everything that Alice knew. What she had done. She stepped over to the kitchen sink, scrubbing the blood from the hands that were now hers. She made sure to get all the blood under her fingernails.

CHRISTINE

Dean and Ruby were arguing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. More precisely, Ruby was insulting Dean and he was restraining the urge to throttle her in public. A man in his fifties coming out of the restaurant nearly ran into her, an apology dying in his throat as he stared at her.

"Christine? Oh my god, Christine, is it really you?" he hugged her, tears running down his cheeks. Ruby extracted herself from the hug, clearly annoyed.

"Sorry, mister, you've got the wrong girl," Ruby told him curtly. Dean watched, not interfering.

"Christine, what happened to you? Where's Angela? Where have you been all this time?" the man asked, desperately trying to touch her arm; her face. She pulled back, still irritated.

"You deaf? Wrong. Girl." Ruby snapped at him. He finally got the message, because he stopped trying to close the gap between them. But he still couldn't take his eyes off her face.

"I'm sorry, miss, you just look so much like my daughter, Christine. She was camping with her little sister last summer and we haven't seen them since. We never did find out what happened to them …" the man broke down and started sobbing. Dean thought he should pat the man on the shoulder or something, but he'd never been very good at that sort of thing.

Ruby took off, striding down the street like she was going somewhere. Dean followed, waiting until the older man is out of earshot before demanding "He wasn't wrong, was he? You possessed his daughter's body. What'd you do to the sister, Ruby? You kill her?"

Ruby stopped abruptly, drawing a haggard breath. She fished a wallet out of her jacket pocket and searched through it for a moment, finally passing a worn photograph to Dean. "You should see this."

He took it, puzzled. The picture was Ruby and a younger girl with brown hair, about ten years old, both grinning at the camera. Ruby sighed. "If you ever meet her, run for your life. That's Lilith."