She was crying. Oh, how Sam hated to see her cry. A painful twinge coursed it's way through his chest and grabbed at his heart and, injuries be damned, Sam pulled his bad arm up and around Ruby's side, tugging her in closer without a single care as to how his wounds felt about it. His emotions were far more powerful than any physical pain he might well take on, especially when it came down to the woman he was cradling in his arms. She needed this. She needed him and he wasn't about to let her down. "Hey," Sam said softly, leaning down to kiss Ruby's forehead, "it's okay. You're allowed to let it get to you, all right? This is something you care about. Don't be afraid to let that show." It was weird, sitting here and comforting her about the possibility of them being able to have a child being blown completely out of the water. Maybe he should have been more disappointed on his behalf, but he wasn't. It was only Ruby that upset him. Her reluctance to talk about it, the tears that were spilling down her face, the sense of Ruby's heart being torn into pieces because of the knowledge that she'd never have the opportunity to bring life into this world - Sam wished that he had some way to change it all, that she'd have that shot if she really wanted it, because it'd be one more thing in this life that he could give her. Things were pretty damn complicated when it came to Ruby. Sam was happy that she had turned her back on Hell, he was grateful that she regretted all of those things that she had done before she'd understood what it was like to be on the other side, but he still couldn't stand to see Ruby beat herself up over it. That quiet look she'd get on her face sometimes, suggesting that she was okay with being put down or kicked to the curb, always reaching the worst possible conclusion when it came down to what she did and didn't deserve - it killed him. Sam wanted Ruby to be able to believe that she was allowed to have more. That she didn't need to be punished every second of every single day because of that life she had lived before, because she was changing everything just by standing tall and proud with the people fighting against Heaven and Hell and everything else that decided that it wanted to bring on the bad. She deserved happiness. She deserved more. Ruby was allowed to want things. She was allowed to hope and dream and wish for something better and Sam would never rest until he truly believed that she understood and accepted that.
He only hoped that day would come soon. It killed him every time he had to watch her tear herself apart.
"First and foremost, I want you to stop putting yourself down," Sam pointed out, "you're a demon, but you're reformed and you're making one hell of a difference out here, fighting with us." Sam pulled some of her hair out of her face and squeezed Ruby gently, letting her lean into him as much as she needed to. "You're just as deserving as anyone else. More so, if you ask me. If I could give you the world, I'd set out and start setting it up for you in a heartbeat." But Ruby didn't want the world. She wanted to be able to carry a child, something that they now knew would never be able to happen.
"When I was younger and still going to school - pre-Stanford, I mean - I was running around, being trained up to be Dad's perfect soldier, moving from place to place with the knowledge that I was never going to be anything more or less than a hunter." Sam paused, a sad, faint smile crossing his battered features for a flicker of a moment. "That was until some teacher put this idea that I could be more into my head. He told me I was smart. Said I could really get into a good school if I wanted to, which was kind of surprising to me, you know? I'd never really thought about school before. It was the family business for me, werewolves and vampires and ghosts and all that crap, right up to the very day I died and that was it. But as soon as he put that idea in my head, everything changed. I figured, hey, what if? What if I did go to school? What if I majored in something, got a real job, settled down, got married, did all that crap that normal people did, because it was a hell of a lot more appealing than living the way I had been then."