The chapter in which things change. Don't hate me! :)

Nowadays, Audrey lived for mailman. He brought envelopes, and envelopes occasionally held treasures like the one in her hands. She had a whole stack of them now, one for every month. Her favorite thus far had been the one where Jordan, Sam, and Dean were all in the kitchen, covered in flour and pie filling, after Jordan had tried (and failed) to teach the boys how to make their own pie.

The one she was holding topped that one without even trying.

Jordan was standing in front of the finished GTO, arms spread proudly out, and leaning against the car were Sam and Dean, wearing jeans and nothing else. They were trying to scowl, but there were smiling hovering around the edges of their lips and at the corner of their eyes. Audrey spent a full minute staring at the photo (those abs) before she realized she'd been holding her breath, and flipped the picture over.

Audrey! It's finished! We're throwing a party :) I wish you could come! It's going to be fabulous, even if it's going to be a party of four. I told the boys to invite everyone they knew, but wouldn't you know it, pretty much everyone they know is dead. Bummer! But Dean said he'd figure something out, which I guess means he's going to invite a lot of hunters. That's my boys for you—they play where they work. Or work where they play, I guess. Sam and Dean send hugs and kisses!

Love, Jordan

P.S. They're shirtless just for you, sweetie! I bribed them with pie :)

Audrey had never loved Jordan more.

Jordan knew that Sam and Dean weren't the party type—the partying type, maybe, but they were definitely not born-and-bred hosts. Not to mention that their idea of a party was a bar, a keg, and a pool table. Even Sam, who liked to pretend he was a little more high-brow, looked baffled when she suggested something more.

More? their expressions had said. What more do you do at a party?

Instead of stressing them out with details, Jordan made them lists. She called them Honey-Do lists and laughed whenever they grumbled about it, because she knew as well as they did that they were loving every minute of it. Honey-Do lists, unlike most things in their life, were normal.

The party itself wasn't hard at all to think up, but throwing it all together proved a little more difficult. Kegs had to be bought, plus a wide selection of the best hard liquor Bart's Quikie-Mart had to offer, and playlists had to be made. She used Sam's laptop for the last, and spent an entire afternoon using up all his CDs on a mullet-man's fantasy mix of classic rock. Then, because she did not consider liquor the first and last word in partying, she drew up a menu and set to work making the decorations.

The food was to be as follows: steak, chicken, baked beans, mini sandwiches, salad, veggie platters, bread baskets, chips, salsa, and jalapeno poppers. It would be distributed at regular intervals throughout the night so that no one would be hungry—ever—and it'd end with pie and ice cream.

The decorations, on the other hand, were balloons to be tied to the GTO's side mirrors, a handwritten banner that said "HELL YEAH I DID IT", and a party dress. For her, of course. Jordan's long legs and narrow waist made a fabulous frame for party dresses. Going shopping wasn't really an option, because the credit cards would eventually be shut down, and the longer they used them, the faster that day would come. It would be frivolous to use them on clothes, and besides, the places Jordan shopped at—or used to—always asked for ID. So Jordan made her own.

She stole one of Sam's shirts (she liked Dean's colors better, but Sam was taller, and therefore his shirts gave her more fabric to work with) and took the sewing kit from Bobby's closet, and went to town. The waist was short, and then flared out at the hips; she didn't have to worry about a neckline, either, just made it a sweetheart, and put her leather puff-sleeve jacket over it. A spit shine and some handy repair work made her Norkus heels new again, and her outfit was complete—almost.

"Dean?" Jordan whispered, peeking round the doorway at him. He looked up from the newspaper he was reading and squinted at her. "Do you think I could borrow your ring for tonight?"

He looked baffled. "Why?"

"Because I need it for my outfit, that's why." She held out a hand. "Gimme."

Sam's response, when she asked for his leather bracelet, was pretty much the same—but they both forked over the requested items without a fuss, and Jordan's outfit was perfect.

"Wow," said Dean, when she came out to show him her handiwork. "Not too shabby, Delaine."

Jordan's lips, shined with a little chapstick, smiled. "Thanks, Winchester."

She took a peek at herself in the hall mirror as she passed to check on the food, just to check on her make up. It wasn't much—just eyeliner and mascara—but she'd managed to make herself look pretty damn good anyhow, and she'd twisted her hair back into the classier version of her usual ponytail, letting it poof a little on top and leaving the rest to drape down her back in a smooth line. Audrey would be proud of her for making do with so little.

There were things to do, though, and so Jordan moved on, and eventually forgot to be proud of her outfit at all.

Her stab at catering was going well, mostly because Sam was the grillmeister and Bobby, as it turned out, mixed a mean salad. She had Dean on chop duty, since he seemed to be unable to do anything that didn't involve a weapon, and with all the guys busy with their chores, it gave her enough time to get the pie started.

It was all very domestic and un-Winchester, right up until Jordan saw, with her own two eyes, a man in a trench coat appear out of thin air.

She nearly dropped the pie, she was so startled. She looked at him, and he looked at her, the both of them wearing the same mildly puzzle, generally intrigued expression. "Did you just—" Jordan began uncertainly.

"—appear out of thin air?" the man finished. "Indeed."

Dean turned to look. "Cas! Yo! You're early, pal."

"On the contrary," was the reply. "This was the designated time. If there was a deviation, it was a matter of seconds."

"Is that your name?" Jordan asked. "Cas?"

"I am Castiel," he answered. "Dean thinks it is amusing to nickname me."

"Oh, you're a party animal, I can tell," Jordan told him, grinning, to which Castiel cocked his head to the side. The movement was very precise, as if he had measured the degree exactly.

"Sarcasm?" he inquired.

"Never," said Jordan. She gave his tie a tug. "It's always the stiff ones who really let loose after a few drinks."

"Mm, no," said Dean, intently chopping tomatoes for the salad. "Castiel is an angel. Booze doesn't work the same."

"No, it does," Castiel disputed, with a neat shake of the head. "It is a question of—quantity."

"So how much we talking?" asked Jordan.

Dean glanced up from his tomatoes. "A lot."

"Like ten shots too many, or the whole bottle?"

"Like the whole inventory."

"Oh," Jordan said, and then gave Castiel's cheek a gentle pat. "Well then. That just means you're a challenge, doesn't it? We'll talk more about this angel business later, sweetheart. In the meantime, give this to Sam." She handed him a bottle of barbeque sauce, to be dumped over the chicken, which he then dutifully took outside, though it looked a little like he was marching. Jordan watched him go with a smile that crinkled the edges of her dark eyes.

"He's like a toy soldier," she commented.

"Except that Castiel's guns are real." But Dean was smiling anyway.

"Sure," said Jordan, conceding that point, "but look at him. He's adorable. Perfect snuggle material, without a doubt."

"Geeze, Jordan."

"Sorry," she said, but her smile was unrepentant. "Anyone else coming to our soirée?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. Cas was the only one on my list who could make it. Ask Sam."

Ask Sam it is, thought Jordan, and she went out to where the barbeque was set up. Sam had taken off his over-shirt in deference to the heat, leaving only his T-shirt behind, and with the barbequing fork in one hand and a sauce brush in the other, he looked a Food Network version of Sylvester Stallone.

"Hey there, hottie," said Jordan, chuckling over the image in her head. Sam flashed her a smile and reached out an arm, and Jordan obligingly came to his side and put her arms around his middle. Dean was her go-to guy for dirty jokes and hard-nosed advice, and Sam was her guy for hugs and deep conversation.

"Like the dress," Sam commented. "That shirt never looked so good."

Jordan's eyebrows rose. "Take it easy, Tex. You're starting to sound like your brother."

"I believe he was serious," Castiel supplied helpfully from Sam's other side, a safe distance from the barbeque.

"Sorry," said Sam, opting to ignore Castiel. "Are you out here for my sterling company, or did I forget to do something on my list?"

"Neither. I was wondering if you'd invited anybody."

"Oh, that."

She pulled away a little, just enough so that she could look up at his face, which he was trying to arrange into a semblance of normality—but there was a smile in his eyes and his eyebrows kept twitching up like he was going to laugh. "Sam. Who'd you invite?"

"Who says I invited anyone?" Now he really was smiling.

"Sammy," Jordan whined, and dug her fingers into his waist until he had to drop his tools and try to drag them away. (Sam was ticklish. Slightly. Or at least, he'd used to be slightly ticklish, until Jordan of the Tickle Fingers came along, and showed him how real tickling was done—in a non-dirty, strictly platonic way, of course.)

"Go tickle Dean," Sam gasped at her, trying to get away, but Jordan wasn't having any of it.

"Dean would punch me. His reflexes aren't exactly tickle-friendly. Tell me what I want to know, comrade, or I'll bring out the big guns."

By "big guns," of course, Jordan meant that she'd sit on him, and tickle him until he cried. The fact that she could do it at all had nothing to do with Jordan's prowess, but rather that Sam, who was the Hulk, never tried to throw her off. Dean had no problems whatsoever putting her back in her place, but there seemed to be a disconnect somewhere in Sammy, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to judo her.

"If you could be patient, you'd see," Sam said, and her fingers stopped. He let out a relieved sigh.

"How many?"

"One."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die, Jory."

Good enough. She stepped away, intending to go back into the house, but up the road a car was coming, a silver car—a Toyota—a Camry, with a dent in the left front bumper, where Audrey had driven it into a pole. (She'd been aiming for her boyfriend.) Jordan let out a sound like she'd been smacked, and then lurched into a run. The Camry slid to a dusty halt, and then Audrey was out of her car and running too, and they collided so hard that they fell, hard, against one of Bobby's junkers.

Jordan found she was crying, but then, so was Audrey, and neither of them were big on the waterworks. They'd only been apart what, four months? but it was long enough. Audrey had cut her brown hair short, so that they no longer looked like twins, with long luxuriant waves down their backs. That was probably because while Jordan's waves were real, Audrey's was not; it'd taken a lot of work to keep that hairstyle up.

"I love your hair," Jordan babbled, and did not care that she was babbling. "Your shoes! Ohmygod. Is that the new Coach bag? I love it. God. It's gorgeous. You're gorgeous. Sam called you, didn't he? He did. God!"

Audrey was laughing at her. It wasn't often her best friend got so flustered, and it seemed to validate—at least for Audrey—that Jordan had really missed her after all, even with hunks for company. "You're ruining your makeup, sweetheart," Audrey said kindly, wiping away the leaking mascara.

"I don't care," cried Jordan, and hugged her again. Before she'd met Sam and Dean, Audrey had been the only family Jordan had.

"What's all the ruckus?" Bobby asked. "We could hear someone screaming from inside the house."

"I may or may not have called her friend Audrey," said Sam, and Jordan abruptly stopped hugging Audrey, turned, and ran back. She grabbed Sam's face and kissed him, hard, on the mouth. Then she ran back to Audrey, leaving a stunned silence in her wake, and totally oblivious to it.

"You should have called Audrey sooner," said Dean, and Sam turned scarlet.

Jordan had taken Audrey's hand and was dragging her towards the GTO, freshly painted a hot rod red, and was gleefully prattling on about what she'd done about it, even though Audrey knew precisely nothing about the way cars worked.

After Jordan had had a chance to work through her excitement (these things took time) Audrey looped her arm through hers, and said, "You want to give me the juicy details now, babe?"

Jordan's brown eyes blinked a few times, rapidly, as she tried to remember what exactly Audrey was referring to. She came up empty, and looked to her friend for help, which was when she caught sight of the elaborate kissy face Audrey was making. She grinned. "Oh, that?"

"Oh, that. Like you didn't just kiss one of the hottest men on the planet."

"It was a thank you kiss. It wasn't like I made out with him. Besides, it's just Sam."

As soon as Jordan said it, she knew she was in trouble. Audrey's eyebrows rose—and rose—and her lips pursed in the too familiar oh-really-now position. Clamping down on Jordan's arm, Audrey spun her neatly to the left, facing her towards the brothers. They were talking together by the barbeque, drinking beers. Audrey pointed. "They're so gorgeous I'm having difficulty breathing at thirty paces, Jordan!"

"I'm aware that they're pretty," said Jordan, sulking.

"So you're telling me that you live with this godlike creatures, occasionally kiss them, and think nothing of it?"

"I've slept in the same bed as them a couple times too. Nothing ever happened, and nothing will. That's just how it is, sissy."

"Don't 'sissy' me," Audrey snapped. She pulled Jordan's face around so that they were staring eye-to-eye. "Don't lie to me, Jordan. You've been out here in the middle of nowhere—with them—for months. I know they weren't keeping you captive, either, and you're too independent not to have struck out on your own unless you wanted to stay."

Jordan's expression was childlike. "They're family," she said, in a tiny voice.

"I'm family. They're man candy."

"So what are you saying, things can't be platonic?" Jordan demanded.

"Jesus, Jordan. Listen to yourself. You can't be platonic with a guy unless he's gay. That's the first rule of being a woman, and you know it better than anyone." Jordan flinched—it was a low blow, bringing that up. Jordan had been friends with a guy named Gregory for nearly a year before finding out he was in love with her, and when she'd rejected him on the spot, he'd spent the next month calling at three AM and stalking her house.

"It's not the same," said Jordan.

"So you don't feel anything for them? Nothing at all?"

"Don't, Audrey," Jordan said. She was staring at the GTO with a wild look in her eyes, something scared and very different from anything Audrey had ever seen in her friend before. "I need them, I can't—"

"Hey," Audrey said, and put an arm around her shoulders. "It's okay. I'm just being nosy. Maybe you're the exception to the rule and you guys can all stay platonic forever. I watch too many soap operas."

Jordan looked at the boys, her boys, and felt like she was going to be sick. Audrey was right about one thing: relationships never stayed the same. They changed, they mutated, they became something else. Whatever Jordan and the boys were today, that wasn't what they were going to be tomorrow.

And for a reason she couldn't name, it scared the hell out of her.