Mary, Sam, and Jessica were sitting in the living room when John, Dean, and Carmen arrived.

"Jessica!" Dean gushed and ran forward to hug her.

"Nice to see you, too," Jessica said, confused. She hoped Dean wasn't coming on to her again. He had tried to get her into bed the first time Sam had brought her for a visit three years ago, and she had put him firmly in his place. Since then he had been politely distant.

"Sammy, good to see you," Dean said with a huge smile, when he finally released Jess from his bear hug. Even though he had seen Sam yesterday, it seemed like eons ago.

"Hey," Sam said. He wondered if Dean was drunk again. "So, what's with the late night phone calls?"

"Weird dream," Dean said. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

"I know how that is," Sam admitted.

"What do you mean by that?" Dean asked.

"Nothing," Sam said, shaking his head.

John went upstairs to get ready and the others sat in the living room talking. Mary was asking Sam and Jessica about their second year of law school.

"The second year is actually easier than the first," Jessica was saying. "Everybody tells you that, but I didn't believe it until I was well into this year. I think I was afraid to believe it would get any easier," she laughed.

"Yeah. Last year was so hard I actually thought about throwing in the towel a few time," Sam said.

"Really? You?" Dean was surprised. Sam had never given up on anything in his life. Sam gave him a look. Dean wasn't sure what it meant and that scared him more than anything else. He had always been able to read Sammy's expressions like a book.

"Are we ready?" John asked, walking into the room.

"We'll need to take two cars," Mary pointed out.

"Sam and Jessica can come with us and Dean and Carmen can go in their car, if that's alright with everyone?" He wanted to spend some time with Sam. He saw Dean every day.

It wasn't OK with Dean. He didn't know what to talk about with Carmen and he wanted to spend some time with his newly back to life parents, but obviously he couldn't voice this disappointment, so he just nodded and smiled.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The food was a bit fancy for his taste, but it was the best meal he had ever had. It was the only meal he had had with both his parents and his brother. And what was most amazing was Dad and Sam didn't fight at all. They seemed to get along great.

"We actually have one more surprise for Mom's birthday," Sam said. "Do you want to tell them?" he asked Jessica.

"They're your family," Jessica answered shyly.

"What? Tell me what?" Mary asked excitedly. She thought she already knew and couldn't have asked for a better birthday present.

In answer, Sam displayed Jessica's hand to the table. There was a beautiful diamond ring on it. Mary squealed with delight, and everyone got up to offer their congratulations. Dean had never seen Sam look so happy. He realized he had caught a slight glimpse of it that last weekend of Jess's life, but he hadn't wanted to see it then. He didn't want Sam happy away from him and Dad. He pushed the thoughts from his mind. They were all getting a fresh beginning.

"I'm glad you're happy, Sammy," he said and hugged him.

"What's going on with you?" Sam asked.

"What do you mean?"

Sam pulled him away from the others as they sat back down. "Could you all excuse us for a minute?"

"Sure," John answered for the group. He didn't know what was going on, but anything that could bring his two sons closer together might be good.

"What's with the touchy feely emo thing?" Sam asked.

"We're brothers," Dean answered.

"We're brothers? That's what you said when you skipped my graduation and snaked my ATM card. It's probably what you would have said had I bothered confronting you about hitting on Jess a couple of years back."

Dean was stunned. He could believe the rest, but hitting on Jess, the love of Sam's life, that was low even for him. "Look, Sammy," Dean began.

"That's another thing. Since when do you call me Sammy?"

"Since always," Dean answered. He remembered calling him that before the fire. That shouldn't have changed. Should it?

"You haven't called me that since I was eight, when your friends said I was a geek and you told me to pretend we weren't brothers anymore because I embarrassed you."

Putting his friends above Sam? That had to be wrong. He would never do that.

"Sam, I want to fix this," Dean said.

"It's too late. I'm not asking you to change, but we don't have anything in common. Let's just do what we always do. See each other at holidays and act civil. It's not like we have anything in common anyway."

"Yes, we do," Dean said as he grabbed Sam's arm to stop him from walking away.

Sam looked down at Dean's hand but did nothing to remove it. "What?" he asked.

"Hunting," Dean answered.

"I've never been hunting in my life," Sam responded, wondering who Dean hunted with and when.

"Well, we should go some time. I'd bet you'd be great at it," Dean said.

Now Sam did remove Dean's hand. "No. It's too late for us." Sam walked back to the table and Dean just stared after him, hurt and confused.