Verity

Well, this is unexpected.

Verity is reasonably certain she's dead. Really dead, dead-for-a-demon dead, not just dead-for-a-human dead, which she's been for centuries. And while she can't say she's ever given much thought to where you wound up when you were dead-for-a-demon dead, if someone had asked, she probably would have guessed, well, nowhere.

Not the bar at the end of the universe.

Then again, this may not be Milliways. It may just look like it. End of the universe, last stop on the way from somewhere to no where, final frantic blip of a dying consciousness, a place and a time that are in fact neither a place nor a time, who can say? That stuff gets determined way above her paygrade.

Well, above what was her paygrade. She does seem to have been recently terminated.

The place, whatever and however it is, is silent and deserted -- there's not so much as a waitrat to be seen. Even without looking, she knows there's no one else here. Just like she doesn't need a mirror to know that she's wearing her own face for the first time in . . . well, the years are hard to compute. Let's just leave it at ages.

On the other side of the observation window, the universe goes on ending, and with nothing else to do, Verity wanders over to watch it do so.

And then nothing changes but everything does. There's not even a whisper of sound, not so much as flicker to change the light, no telltale disturbance of the air. But she's no longer the only one here, and she knows it. Knows who she'll see if she turns around, too.

"I probably should have guessed you'd be here, darling."

As coded messages go, Verity will admit, reluctantly, that it's pretty elegant.

No note, no password, nothing someone can read over a shoulder or inadvertantly overhear. Just a key to a room, left for her with the bar.

A key to this room, in point of fact.

A room Verity's been in before. A room number she recognizes.

Who knew Ruby was so fucking sentimental?

. . . little play on words, there, Verity supposes.

Verity doesn't bother to knock, just lets herself into the room.

When you walk down a city street just after noon in what are clearly last night's clothes, you draw certain types of looks. Some of are of deep disapproval, especially when the looker realizes you're not big on the shame part of the phrase walk of shame. And others are of approval, with grins and winks and catcalls.

The businessman on the corner looks up from his texting with one of the latter. It's a leer when he starts and it's bordering on an ogle when he finishes, and asks, "Good night, was it?"

"Darling," she says, "you have no idea."

The hotel bar is all but deserted, when she steps into it. Not that she'd have trouble spotting him, even if the place were packed.

She takes the bar stool next to the only other patron's.

"Hello, Verity," he says. "How is my favorite shop girl?"

"Crowley," she says. "I like the new look."

"I wish you'd do something different with your hair." Crowley summons the bored-looking bartender with a short gesture. "She'll have what I'm having. And I'll have a refill."

"Anything else for you, sir?" he asks, when their glasses are full and in front of them. His eyes take in Verity's incredibly short skirt and nearly obscene neckline. "Or for the 'lady'?"

Crowley puts his hand on the bare skin of Verity's thigh, thumb just edging under the hem, and then turns back to the bartender. "Just some privacy," Crowley says and, with another gesture, snaps the other man's neck.

"Cheers." Verity picks up the single malt and sips it. "Oh, very nice. Eighteen years old?"

"Twenty-two," he says. "You're losing your touch. It's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

Almost any other demon, and Verity would have made it clear just how not lost her touch was. With Crowley, however, she just raises an eyebrow and waits for him to continue. "Oh?"

"I heard you had a meeting with Abby Fischer recently. Or whatever it is she's calling herself these days."

"Bela Talbot."

"Right. And I thought to myself . . . now, that's odd. What would my Employee of the Year be doing, wasting everyone's time, by making deals with a woman we already own?"

"No deals. Just an agreement. And really more of an audition to consider an agreement."

"What kind of an agreement?"

"I told her to find the stone tablet," she says.

"The one John Winchester locked up?"

Verity nods. "I might have left that part out. I said we lost track of it in Dresden. I never said we didn't find it again."

"Why?"

"Because she'd be suspicious if it were too easy."

"No, I mean, why do it at all?"

"Because she's a good distraction for the Winchester boys. She'll divide their attention. Keep them off kilter."

Eat up time they could be doing other things.

Maybe make certain alternatives look more attractive.

After all, when you run out of options, sometimes you take whatever's left.

Even Ruby.

Not that Verity can tell Crowley about that part. It's strictly need to know.

And she hasn't been told that he needs to know.

"She's pleased with the idea," Verity adds. She doesn't specify who she is. She doesn't need to.

"Ah, yes," Crowley says. "I heard you had already told her about it."

Verity shrugs. "It was inspiration in the moment. There wasn't time to run it by you first. Besides, I haven't promised Abby anything yet. Except that if she got it, I would discuss things with my colleagues."

Crowley studies her for a long time, like he's looking for the information she's leaving out. Verity keeps her expression bland, sips her drink, and waits.

"You're up to something, Verity."

She smiles. "I'm a crossroads demon, darling. I'm always up to something. It's my job."

"And you're almost too good at it. Sometimes, I think you're after my job."

"Would I do that to you, Crowley?" she asks, all false innocence.

"In a heartbeat. If you could. Which you can't."

"Then what could you possibly have to worry about?" she asks.

"If I figure that out, you will be the first to know."

Lost is one of those words that is ever so very often a matter of perspective. A person can know exactly where he is (or think he does) and it will never occur to him that someone else might be lamenting the fact that he is lost. Things that are lost to one party are won to another (and sometimes won is just lost tarted up like a Pyrrhic whore, but that's a story for another time).

And sometimes a thing that is lost was quite deliberately placed where it is by someone who found it, or made it, or has acquired it. It's not lost, it's just not meant to be found, and confusing the two, well, it can lead to . . . unpleasantness.

And if some glory-seeking archaeologist with delusions of Indiana Jones grandeur decides to go snooping around for a lost artifact that was hidden by the powers beyond his comprehension . . . that's when things are going to get unpleasant.

Let's get something straight: Verity may be just a saleswoman by her own admission, but she is not some black-eyed errand girl. She's a specialist, she's an expert. Her orders can come from close to On High (or perhaps On Low) as it has gotten for centuries upon centuries. And if she's being sent to take care of something outside her job description, you do not want to be the something she's taking care of.

It's the work of mere minutes, and it only takes that long because all work and no play is no way to live. (Also because it would be such a pity to get viscera on Jimmy Choos, even "borrowed" ones. One does have to take some care.)

The wreck of the archaeologist is left with his team and his equipment to be some other century's discovery. And the thing that was never actually lost are also still not found.

Nor will it be, not where it is now.