Oh shit, you're right. They're always going to wonder if it's really Bobby on the phone now.

Typo - yeah, the parallels between Ruby and Dean really struck me when I first mainlined the first half of the Season. (Points at fic.)

Mind you, I have thinky thoughts about Ruby, and a Rubycentric plotbunny nibbling at my toes.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that Sam and Dean didn't lay salt lines to protect their own vulnerable bodies, if nothing (and no one) else.

Could they get back to them past the salt? Or would it be up to Pam to let them in that way too?

I am pretty sure that a salt line would have kept them from their bodies. Or, at least, up to Pam to let them in through it. They were certainly susceptible while in their wispy state.

Oh, that's true. Good catch!

Pam was sort of on her own, then. Maybe Friends of Winchester should supply themselves with giant iron hula hoops they can sit inside.

I was thinking that salt might be a problem for the boys in their incorporeal forms, but still a hex bag might have hidden them from demons.

Yeah, I too had the epiphany (while writing) that having protection might have done a number on what they were trying to do.

Still, a well-placed Devil's Trap or three, people!

I didn't think she'd survive, but I thought the reason Sam didn't even try was because Pamela needed to be near Dean's body.

I thought the reason Sam didn't even try is because Pamela told him no, and to get him a drink.

I'm actually into full-on baffled now, having caught up with the flist, by how many people did not read it the way ita and I did. I mean, a gut wound is a nasty-ass injury, a gut wound delivered with demonic strength probably extra-nasty in terms of damage, and we're not talking damage you walk away from here. She knew she was dead before Death clocked back in.

Oh, and as I said to Jilli on our way home from work, TOTALLY a Mercurtio role played here by Pamela.

I read her as dead the second that injury happened. It just took a little while for her to fall because of the Reaper situation. And, of course, because words spoken by the dying are given a greater dramatic weight.

But, yeah, that wound was lethal looking to me. Which sucks because I liked Pamela as a character.

and we're not talking damage you walk away from here. She knew she was dead before Death clocked back in.

Yep. The only reason I have for quibbling at her death (besides the fact that I liked Pamela as a character) is that there should have been SOME sort of mystical/occult-y protection going on. If there had been something and the demon got around it or tricked her to step outside of it? Then it would have made more sense to me.

Fay, great fic. Yeah, totally what I was thinking, only way before I thought it.

I'm also interested in how Sam is going down. Yeah, they were always lying liars. But Sam doesn't care who he hurts any more. No effort at minimizing collateral damage, no thought of trying to be truthful even with friends and allies. There is no longer anyone in his life he doesn't have to lie to, except maybe Ruby.

And yeah, I'm totally prepared for Ruby to have an evil agenda, maybe be working for Lilith, or maybe be working for a demon faction that looks on non-apocalyptic earth as a place full of happy meals with legs. But at this point, I actually think it more interesting for her to be exactly what she appears to be - a demon who has turned against demon kind. Extremely angsty. Leaves her no place to turn.