A/N: Just a reminder-this is where the story changes. It's about halfway down, where Sam and Dean are sitting at the kitchen table discussing things after putting Evy to bed. Enjoy!

Chapter Three

Dinner and Bedtime

Though Evy's request for pie earned an eye roll from Sam, they both took her for pie and spent the rest of the day with her. Dean ran around the yard chasing her, grabbing her and flying her through the air. Sam took her to his room, where he sat her on the bed and played Finding Nemo for her. Though he had dreaded watching it when it was her favorite movie growing up, he relished watching her see it for the first time again. Dinner had been an interesting adventure. Evy wanted to help, but Sam couldn't find anything in the bunker other than some junk food, the ingredients for the monkey sandwiches, and some days old leftover pizza. So an impromptu family trip to the grocery store became the bulk of their afternoon. While there, an older woman in her sixties approached Sam.

"Is she your daughter?" she asked.

Sam, who had been looking at some fruit juice for Evy, jumped. "I'm sorry?"

"Is she your daughter?" the woman repeated.

She nodded towards the end of the aisle, where Dean was holding Evy and planning something. What exactly, he couldn't tell, and he was absolutely certain that he didn't want to know. Sam smiled and chuckled, then turned back to the woman.

"Yes. She is." Sam said.

"She's absolutely adorable." The woman said. "She looks just like you. You're a lucky man."

Sam hadn't thought of himself as lucky in a very long time. He smiled and said, "Thank you. I am a lucky man."

Sam finished getting dinner and left, Dean holding the bags and Evy clinging to Sam. Sam had a sudden burst of inspiration, and stopped at Goodwill to get a couple changes of clothes for Evy and a set of PJs. She helped Sam with dinner, more so than Dean, who tried to eat everything before it was ready. A couple hours later, around 8:30pm, as Sam finished with giving Evy a bath and changing her into her PJs, she started to yawn. She leaned into Sam's shoulder heavily.

"Sammy, I'm tired." She whined.

Sam sighed and patted her back. This was the part of the day he had been dreading the most. If he could, he would keep her up the entire four days. He wanted to hold her, talk to her, make her laugh, enjoy as much time with her as she could. But that just wasn't possible. So Sam scratched her back and said softly,

"Let's put you to bed, huh?"

Evy nodded and let Sam pick her up and carry her to bed. You must be exhausted. Sam thought. You stopped letting me carry you to bed when you were three. Sam took her down the hall and into the bedroom right next to his. He showed her where he was sleeping, then went in the room he had briefly set up for her. He wished he could've done more with it, but all he had had time for was making the bed and putting in Beanie, which he had dug out of a box of Evy's stuff that he kept in his bedroom closet. Sam laid Evy down on the bed, and tucked her in.

His heart ached as he tucked her in. He had numbed himself to his grief for Evy. He'd had to in order to halfway function. Sam found it ironic that the person who had caused him the most joy in the world had also caused him the deepest, most profound heartache. When Evy was finally settled in bed, she looked up and smiled at him. Sam took one long moment to take everything in. He brushed her hair away from her face, and wished for a minute he could stop time.

"Good night, Cricket."

Evy yawned. "Good night, Sammy."

"If you need me, call out, okay? I'll be here in two seconds flat." Sam assured her.

Evy nodded. "Will you stay?" she whispered. "Till I go to sleep?"

Sam smiled. Exactly the request he'd been hoping for. "You bet."

Evy smiled. She grabbed Sam's hand and put it on her belly, then turned on her side with her back to Sam. Sam smiled and took the hint, lifting up the back of her pajama shirt and gently scratching her back. Less than five minutes later, her breathing was long and drawn out. Sam stood up, kissed her cheek, and finally left the room. He walked out towards the kitchen, more memories playing in the back of his mind.

Sam was frustrated. They had been at the hospital for a day and a half. The doctors were growing more and more concerned with Evy's condition. It wasn't deteriorating, but it was not improving either. She was just asleep, and refusing to wake up. Her heart rate, temperature, and everything else was completely normal. Her reflexes were good. No one could figure out what was going on.

Sam read to her, sang to her, even tried shaking her awake when the doctors weren't looking. Nothing was working. He was entering his second night in the hospital. Dean, Bobby, and John had come for most of the day. John had repeated his instructions to Sam, then headed out.

The sun had long since gone down. Sam was sitting next to Evy's bed, reading to her again, when he was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. When he looked up, Sam saw one of the nurses with a brown bag in her hand. She was a kind looking woman, with long brown wavy hair. She looked only a few years older than Sam.

"Hey, sweetie, are you okay?" she asked.

"I don't know." Sam said. "Are you taking her for more tests?"

The nurse laughed. "Sweetie, I meant you." She said. "I came to check on you. Are you okay?"

"Oh." Sam was startled. He'd been so wrapped up with Evy that he hadn't expected anyone to ask about him. "I'm okay. Just worried."

"Have you eaten today?" she asked.

"Um…" Sam had eaten, but only bits and pieces.

The nurse smiled. "That's okay. That's what I thought." She handed Sam the brown bag. "My brother fixed this for me for dinner. You take it."

"What…" Sam looked inside. "Is that…?"

"Peanut butter and bananas." She said. "He's been making them for me since I was little."

Sam laughed. "I thought I was the only one." Sam nodded towards Evy. "She loves them."

The nurse smiled. "You eat, sweetie."

"What about you?" Sam said. "I can't take your dinner."

"You can and you will." She said, pushing the bag towards him.

Sam laughed. There was something familiar about the nurse. She felt like a kindred spirit, someone he was connected to in some way that he couldn't explain. He took the bag from her and smiled appreciatively.

"Thank you." Sam said.

"You're welcome." She said. She glanced at Evy then back at Sam. "You are a very good brother. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Sam stopped midbite and looked at the nurse thoughtfully. The truth was, only one person had told him that lately.

"She does." Sam said, pointing at the bed. "All the time."

"She loves you." The nurse said. "She loves you and wants you to know that."

"Yeah." Sam suddenly looked sad. "I used to take it for granted. Now that she hasn't said it in a whole day, I miss it."

"You know," the nurse said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, "I'm not really supposed to say this, but your sister's going to be okay."

Sam looked up at the nurse with unshed tears in his eyes. "How do you know?" he asked.

"Trust me, kiddo." She said. "She'll be back soon. She's just taking an extended nap."

"Sam!"

Sam was startled out of his daydream by Dean's voice. He had made it all the way to the kitchen, and had been so wrapped up in his memories that he had no recollection of making the trip there. Dean was looking at him concerned.

"You okay?" he asked. "I called you like six times."

"Yeah." Sam said. "Sorry."

Sam sat down at the table, running his fingers through his hair. He hadn't realized how tired he actually was until he sat down with nothing else to think about. Dean went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, then set one in front of Sam too. No one said anything, both of them still too flabbergasted to know what to say. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Dean finally asked,

"Sam? You okay?"

Sam took a long, slow drink of his beer before answering, and Dean waited patiently. Was he okay? How was he supposed to answer that question? He'd dreamed every day for Evy to come back. Now she was, in a way, but not permanently. Sam was grateful, but he was also pissed. What kind of cruel twist of fate would do this to him? Bobby's words from years earlier floated to the front of Sam's mind, and made him have to take a deep, ragged breath. She's the love of my life. How many times do I have to kill her? Sam had lost so many people already. He hadn't thought it was possible, but he'd lived through losing Evy. Halfway lived through it, anyway. Every day was a struggle. Fifteen minutes of peace would vanish when he'd suddenly remember something Evy had said or done. Though he relished the fact that he still had clear, vivid memories of her, both as a child and an adult, the memories always caused the constant dull pain he'd become accustomed to to sharpen. Sam began to speak, using the opportunity to sort out his own feelings.

"I lost her once."

Dean narrowed his eyes in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I lost her once." Sam repeated, staring intently at his beer bottle. "She was…two, maybe three, I don't remember exactly. You and Dad were on a hunt, me and Evy were staying at Bobby's. She was really, really hyper." Sam laughed humorlessly. "She needed to run off some energy, so I took her to the park. I had to go to the bathroom about thirty minutes after we got there. I took her to the family one, and I told her to put her hand on the bathroom sink and don't move it until I come out."

"And she did?" Dean guessed.
"Yep." Sam confirmed. "I couldn't have been in there more than, two, three minutes, but she got antsy and left. I found her back on the other side of the park. She'd gotten impatient and gone back to play where we'd been before."

"Wow." Dean said. "What'd you do?"

"Yelled at her. Mostly." Sam said. Dean caught Sam's hidden meaning behind 'mostly' and said nothing. "Anyway, she was crying, so I picked her up and took her to a park bench and just held her for probably ten, fifteen minutes. I didn't want to let her go." A tear escaped down Sam's cheek. He waited another few seconds before speaking again. "The reason I was so crazy when she died, was because my brain kept thinking about that day at the park. And I kept thinking that, maybe, if I just let myself feel the pain, the worry of losing her, that, maybe after a few minutes I'd find her again."

Dean wasn't sure how to respond.

Sam sniffed, and when he spoke again, his voice was breaking. "Dean, I don't know if I can let her go again."

This time Dean did know what to say. "Maybe we shouldn't."

Sam finally looked at Dean. "What do you mean?"

"I'm saying maybe we shouldn't send her back." Dean said. "Maybe we should keep her. Raise her."
"Dean…" Sam said.

"Think about it." Dean said. The idea had been floating in his head all day, but he hadn't wanted to say anything in front of Evy. "Think about all we'd be saving her from. You going to Stanford. Watching Jess die. Watching me and you die. Sam, we'd be saving her from Lillith."

Sam wanted to object, but found that he couldn't. Dean had a point that Sam honestly hadn't thought about. All the bad things Evy had been through in her life would be erased if they didn't send her back to face them. (A/N: the alternate story starts here) Sam knew it was selfish, but he was leaning towards taking Dean's suggestion. He didn't know how it would affect their lives, or even how it would affect history to keep Evy from the time she was supposed to be in and raise her in their timeline. But he also didn't care. The opportunity to give Evy a life, one possibly free of all the pain and suffering she'd been through, was too good to pass up.

"Hi, Sam."

Sam and Dean both jumped. Standing there in the kitchen was Chuck. He looked exactly the same as the last time they'd seen him. The worst day of both their lives. The day that Evy had died. No one said anything for a moment, until Dean found his voice.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Dean asked.

Chuck sighed deeply. He'd expected the hostility from Dean. Chuck noted that Sam looked fearful. Chuck realized that Sam was afraid he had come to take Evy away from him again. He took a long look at Sam. Losing Evy had clearly taken its toll on Sam. He looked twenty years older than the last time Chuck had seen him. Chuck could see it in Sam's face. He had given up. He felt he had no reason to go on. Evy's death had eaten at Chuck ever since it happened. And now, if Sam wanted, Chuck planned to make it right.

"I need to talk to you both." Chuck said. "Can I sit down?"

Dean looked to Sam, who nodded his permission. Sam figured that Chuck had already done the worst thing to him that he could do, so there was nothing else that could happen. Dean reluctantly sat back down, and they both waited tensely to see what Chuch had to say.

"Guys, I'm sorry."

Whatever it was Sam and Dean had been expecting, that certainly wasn't it. Chuck was not known for being apologetic about his decisions. He didn't have a reason to be; he designed it all in the first place. But what Sam and Dean didn't know was that Chuck did feel regret. He was sorry for the pain some of his decisions caused. Evy, like other sensitives, had been very attached to her family, but she was also one of the bravest that Chuck had ever created. It wasn't an easy feat to impress him, as he tended to know everything even before it happened, but she had managed to do it over and over.

"Sorry for what?" Dean asked.

"For taking Evy from you." Chuck said. "I'm not sorry that I made her the way I did, but I am sorry that I caused you guys so much pain by taking her away the way I did."

Both boys said nothing. To Sam, even though it had been three years, the wound was still fresh. He didn't mind talking about it with Dean, as Dean was struggling with it almost as much as Sam. To Dean, the wound was fresh too, but it led him to anger, not hurt. Dean had gotten used to loss before Evy died, but he was proud of the fact that, despite all they'd been through together, Sam and Evy were still with him. He had protected them and kept them safe. But he hadn't been able to protect Evy.

"If that's all you came to say," Dean said, "you can go."

"Dean…" Sam said.

"That's not all I came for, Dean." Chuck said. "I came to offer you and Sam the chance to do what you were just talking about. Raise her. Give her that childhood that she and you two never had."

"You mean…?" Sam said, thinking that it was too good to be true. "You mean we can keep her?"

"Yes." Chuck answered simply.

"But what about…?" Sam asked, not knowing where to start. "Won't keeping her here affect the timeline…?"

"Yes." Chuck said. "But I'll take care of that. As far as the rest of the world, and your father, will be concerned, Evy went missing from her hospital bed and disappeared. Your father will think Azazel did it. Everything else will be basically the same."

Sam couldn't believe it. He wanted to, but he couldn't. As Dean liked to say lately, things never worked out for them. When something good came into their lives, it meant that it was going to be snatched away from them, so it was better to just not get their hopes up.

"Guys, you don't have to do this." Chuck said. "I can send her home and have everything go back to the way it was before."

"Will she remember?" Sam asked. "Will she know that we kept her here?"

"I can't alter her memory." Chuck said. "It could have the same effect on her as healing her. So, if you do decide to do it, you're either going to have to tell her the truth or come up with a story about why she can't go home."

Sam wasn't looking forward to telling Evy she wasn't going home. He didn't want to make her think that he was deliberately braking his promise to her to send her home, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Start over. Give Evy a home, a real home, and maybe, in turn, Sam and Dean would get one too.

"There's no catch?" Dean said.

"No." Chuck answered.

"Why are you doing this?" Dean asked. "Why now?"

Chuck sighed. "Because it's time something went right for the two of you."

Sam and Dean were both silent. Could they really do this? Could they raise a child between them? Would they have to give up their hunting lifestyle? Could they still hunt and give Evy a normal life? All these things weighed on Sam's mind, but they could work through them later.

"We'll do it."