As I've discussed in a few replies to reviews, I've been having a little trouble with this fic for a while now. I'm still writing it and it'll still get finished, but that's why update times have been less than ideal and why this chapter may seem a little disjointed. I'm actually thinking of redrafting the whole thing sometime after christmas but I'm not entirely sure I know where to start so if anyone wants to give me a hand with that then please do drop a message.

Disclaimer: Not my characters or my universes. Why, oh, why do I write these each time? I'm not actually legally obliged and nobody reads them anyway. Even if they did, the site we're on pretty compelling argues the point anyway.

Sam sighed deeply. "I shouldn't have told you."

"No, no. It's not like I haven't been used as a quick route to the apocalypse before." Dawn shook her head. So she'd had a mini break-down after waking up to her throbbing wrists and unbearably stiff fingers, looking long and hard at the small scabs and smears of blood on her skin where the cuts had broken open again when she shifted in her sleep. It was a long time coming. When Sam has told her in the car the day before, she'd barely paid attention, hadn't needed to. It absorbed into her brain and merged with memories of Glory, barely touching her thoughts as it went in. She couldn't even remember the conversation. With the exhausted fog somewhat cleared from her brain and the harsh light of day shining over traces of that part of her that could doom worlds it had all hit her at once. She cleared her throat. "We'll get back to the others, Willow and I will find a way to get home and then we won't have to worry about it."

"Well, yeah, but it's still pretty scary in the meantime." Sam argued.

Dawn shot him a withering look paired with a humourless smile. "I'm a big girl. This ain't my first apocalypse. Probably won't be the last. Besides, Lilith is a lot less scary than Glory was."

Sam was torn between creeped out by Dawn's expression, impressed, confused and disbelieving over the whole 'not my first apocalypse' thing, and horrified at the thought of something more scary than Lilith. If anything Dawn said could be taken as truth that is. If, as was likely, she was making it up, then he was straight up impressed at her acting ability.

"She didn't just torture people physically, though believe me, she did a fair amount of that too; she messed with your head." Dawn let her eyes drift to the window. "Got inside you and made you crazy, put you somewhere dark in your own mind that was a thousand times worse. Like being in hell."

Sam wanted to ask how she knew to draw the comparison, but decided it was probably better to keep his mouth shut. She'd probably have an answer.

"Are we getting back on the road?"

Sam shook his head, "Not in that shirt, you're not. We'd be arrested in a second if you walk around with blood all over you. It'll swamp you, but I probably have a spare you can borrow."

Dawn nodded. "Thanks. And I'm sorry, for the breakdown I mean. It's just been a rough couple of days."

"Sure. No need to apologise. Happens to the best of us." He smiled and went to dig around in his duffel. "Dean once had a panic attack because the Impala went missing. Freaking out over demons wanting to kill you and end the world? I think I'll let you off the hook."

Dawn laughed. "I guess you can sympathise, huh?"

Sam tensed. "What do you mean by that?

"Um," Dawn stammered for a moment, trying to come up with an explanation which wouldn't involve 'I saw it on TV, well done with that letting Lucifer free thing, oops! Spoiler alert! "You guys have demons wanting to kill you all the time, right?"

Sam forced himself to relax and plaster a friendly expression onto his face. "Right, right. Yeah, fun times." He looked away from her, eyes landing on a newspaper left on the TV stand. He grabbed it as Dawn went to the bathroom to change her shirt. He needed something to keep Dawn occupied and away from Willow and Dean, something that wouldn't let her know he suspected her. For once the gods were smiling on him as he skimmed through, finally coming across a haunting in a town about three hours over.

She couldn't complain about him doing his job; a job which she claimed to be involved in, in her world. Especially when it could save lives. It was perfect.

"Hey, Dawn?"

A vague, acknowledging hum came through the door.

"Mind if we delay a bit? There's a haunting not far away that I want to check out." Sam said, drawing a ring around the article and checking his back up supplies for salt shells. Not many left in there, but should be enough for one haunting.

"A haunting?" Dawn repeated, stepping back into the room and joining Sam in looking at the paper. After a second she laughed. "You want to go investigate a missing hamster?"

Sam gave her a look and a badly suppressed grin. "If you read the rest of the article, you'd know there's also missing jewellery, spontaneously blowing fuses in a house where the electrics have been checked three times in as many months and a hair-dryer that keeps turning itself on even though it's been replaced six times. The hamster can be assumed to be the first casualty. These things tend to escalate"

"Alright, alright, we'll go dispose of the rodent hating poltergeist." Dawn agreed only a little reluctantly. Eager as she was to get back to Willow, she had to admit there were a few things she wanted to try with regards to ghosts in this world, and it shouldn't take long to deal with. "I don't have any fake ID or anything though."

Sam shrugged. "We'll manage."

The hunt was a bust. The ghost of a suicidal teen who dropped a hair-dryer in the bath and didn't like being ignored. They burned the bones, but there wasn't any real threat.

The hamster was alive and well, having spent its absence in the pantry. It was a little obese and the germophobic father put the entire contents of the pantry on top of the burning remnants of the ghost, but when they had last seen it it was happily sleeping, unaware of the trauma it's five year old owner had gone through.

They'd bought Dawn a suit to wear first, which now had scorch marks on the pant cuffs but was otherwise fine, and apart from the mother wanting to know what her skin care regime was because she didn't look any older than a college student, no one questioned her identity even without a fake ID.

Sam was busy in the bathroom when Sam's phone rang, and she wasn't going to answer it. Didn't the first three times it rang. But then she went over to turn the ringer off and saw the name on the screen. She picked it up, not saying a word, waiting for the caller to speak first.

"Sam! Thank god! I've been trying to reach you for ages, you should pick up your damn phone when it rings!" Ruby's voice came loud and clear through the speaker, her relief audible. "The girl isn't psychic, she won't know it's me. Anyway, you need to move. Now. Fast and far as you can, and avoid maps and signs and anything that might identify your location. Just drive and keep driving."

Dawn hung up, the phone nearly dropping from her grip as Sam exited the bathroom.

"Who was it?" Sam asked warily.

Dawn forced a smile. "Wrong number. You wanna order pizza or find a diner?"

"Pizza." Sam answered instantly. With any luck he'd get the toppings he wanted now Dean wasn't around to insist on meat feast.

"Cool. I'll go up to the front desk and get a flyer." Dawn volunteered, already heading for the door.

Sam waved her down. "I have the number for Dominoes already."

Dawn took a breath to steady herself and sat down.

"Something wrong?"

She shook her head. "Just tired."