The author would like to thank Jared Padelecki, who recently tweeted about the event in which he, Jensen Ackles, (and, I believe, Misha Collins) along with their lovely wives, took their children to a restaurant which doesn't appear to be the kind of place to happily (if at all) feature dinosaur-shaped nuggets and fries on its menu. Your attempt to re-establish your adult lives with your babies in tow has given my Muse (the bitch) a kick in her lazy Muse butt. Because though I do, in fact, respect you all, I can't help thinking: Are you out of your effin' minds?

I'd also like to apologize to readers for the deluge of expository prose. What can I say…I'm not planning a scene where information can come up later on in more active and exciting way, so here it is…sitting, thinking and expository-ing. (We're not going to talk about the heavy-handed dialogue, either, thank you very much.) I invite you to think of this as a self-tour in a minimally staffed museum. Get the information you need and move along, move along…

And so with no further explanation or apologies, I present to fanfic readers everywhere (or at least, here)—

CHAPTER TEN: In which Sam, Dean, Cas, Bobby and a hapless cast of OC's try to eat a nice meal in a fancy restaurant in which there is, perhaps, a case…

"So, there's a case here?" Bobby tugged on the lapels of his suit jacket. "Marchetti's seems like a kinda nice restaurant for a ghost."

"What? Ghosts can't have standards?" Annie reached out to fix the older man's collar. "There. Stop fiddling with yourself. You look fine."

"I don't know. There's a certain feeling that you get when you've been hunting long enough. It's a sense of something off. And right now, I'm not having it." He harrumphed and rolled his shoulders. "The only henky thing going on is this damned suit. It used to fit fine, but now it's snug. I think it shrank."

Annie raised an eyebrow and avoided a pointed stare at Bobby's burgeoning beer belly. "Well…I don't believe in ghosts. But then again, I shouldn't be believing in the Winchesters, either, and here they are, hex and all." She bent and picked up Amelia before she could trip one of the elderly people following Greg, the restaurant's suited host and owner, to their table.

"I'm not saying there are no ghosts. I'm just saying, this doesn't feel like that kind of a place. The atmosphere seems too...comfortable. Or something." Bobby scanned the rest of the patrons waiting to be seated. "Hell's bells, this place packs 'em in."

"And thank God for that. If it didn't, I wouldn't be able to afford child care. A few seats opened up on the bench if you want to sit down." Annie gestured to the seats along the lobby wall. "Which is rather silly, if you think about it—paying for child care so I can work to pay for child care." Annie couldn't stop babbling. And she really couldn't believe she was here with Bobby Singer, of all people, a man many in Sioux Falls considered a troublesome old drunk. It was all an act, she knew, but still. A few days ago, she was just a single mom working for a living, and now she was hanging out with the characters populating some of her favorite books.

A thought struck her. If Bobby was a character from a book and yet, he was an irascible old grump that she'd known about since childhood, did that mean she was a character in a story, too?

If she was a character in a story, she thought, it would have been nice if her author had given her bigger boobs.

"Where the hell are Sam and Cas?" Bobby let her sit first and get her daughter settled on her lap, then sat beside her.

"Cas had a bubble gum malfunction in the parking lot, so they ducked into the men's room."

"He didn't get gum stuck in his hair again, did he? The winged idjit."

"Aw, Bobby. Be nice. They don't have gum in heaven. Besides, this time he was trying to blow a bubble for the kids."

"What the hell. Seriously?"

"He's not used to having a vessel." Annie shrugged. "Besides, it's Dean's fault. He popped the thing. You should have seen it. It was huge. Castiel must have shoved a whole pack of Hubba Bubba into his mouth to do it. It was heroic, actually—"

"I'm not buying what you're selling, missy." Bobby frowned down at her. "You're too nice, you know that?"

"Thank you." She smiled. "And you're a miserable old coot, just like everyone says."

"Thank you." He rolled his eyes. "You only say that because I told you you're too nice. You realize that your one fresh comment doesn't negate my original opinion of your overly nice-ness?"

She smiled and nodded, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Bobby scoped out the photos on the walls—family portraits, mostly, of the matriarch and patriarch of the Marchetti family, their children, and their grand and great-granchildren.

Annie had seen all the photos many times before, of course. She waited tables at the restaurant, and she knew the Marchetti family probably better than her own family. So instead of gawping at the portraits, she fixed the barrette holding Melia's wispy hair into something other than a static-electricity styled shock 'do.

It was odd, sitting here waiting for a table instead of waiting on one, but when she'd mentioned that some of the staff were worried about what they thought of as paranormal activity to Sam, he'd been excited about it. Mostly, he was excited about the thought of eating at a nice restaurant instead of his usual greasy spoon, and she didn't have the heart to refuse him even though being seen with the handsome hunter wasn't going make her life any easier.

Bringing the kids had also been his idea…some nonsense about being a better hunter with Dean around. She had a feeling he just didn't want to ask Bobby to babysit, and she didn't blame him. Dean was a handful and Bobby wasn't young anymore. He wasn't Methuselah, either, but—well, Dean was Sam's responsibility just as Sam had always been Dean's; the Winchester brothers took care of one another, and she could respect that.

Sam's commitment to his brother was even more endearing because Amelia's dad stood at a podium less than ten feet away from them, and he didn't even appear to notice she existed. It would be easy to say that was because his wife was also working at the restaurant, but since absolutely no one knew about his and Annie's one-night—make it more like ten minutes—stand, she doubted it. Nope. Greg was just an asshole who happened to have contributed part of her daughter's DNA and then married someone else shortly thereafter.

A sudden and huge cold draft wafted over her. Annie looked up at the air vent overhead. "Oh my gosh. I can't believe they put the air on. It's almost Halloween!" She shivered.

Seconds later, Bobby's coat pocket made an electronic squeal. "That's no a/c," he said, reaching into his pocket to show her the EMF meter he'd stashed there. "That's a cold spot and, if I'm right, there's a ghost standing right near you."

"Feels like it's standing right on top of me." Annie shivered again, this time not from a chill but because of the goosebumps crawling over her skin. A ghost? Seriously? "You're kidding, right? You really think Marchetti's is haunted?"

"Could be," he said, as his pocket squealed in complaint. He looked over at a nearby patron, who was staring at him, and he nodded. "Toy. In the pocket." He smiled at Melia. "Hers. You know."

Annie would have worried about the cold spot situation, except she noticed something far more dismaying. "Um...Bobby? There's water seeping from under the men's room door."

"Aw, balls," he said, and stood. "I'll go check it out." He got up and went into the men's room; Annie was relieved that his far more obscene exclamation was muffled as the door swung shut behind him.

"Wheah'd da man go?" Melia asked.

"To look for Dean," Annie answered.

"Dean do poop?"

"Maybe." Melia was the same age as Dean—well, sort of, if you didn't get too technical—but her language skills were more advanced. As was her understanding of toileting. Sam had done research, of course, and determined that the female brain was more adept at learning language, adapting to social demands and making connections. The male brain, he said, was mostly wired to hit things with sticks and make things blow up.

Sam's brain, obviously, was more female than male—and he'd asked her to please keep that information to herself when Dean was restored to his original adult form. She was pretty sure—from the books, anyway—that his brother had long ago figured that out Sam had kind of a girl brain by himself, but she didn't bother to point it out. She'd rather just enjoy his company without worry as long as she could…which was, in fact, worrisome.

Because she was afraid she was falling in love with Sam Winchester. And didn't that suck?

The cold draft/ghost swept over her again, then seemed to take up residence in Bobby's vacated seat—which was weird. Even weirder was the way Melia suddenly sat up and started chatting to empty air.

"Hewwow," she said cheerfully to the unoccupied seat.

Holy shit. "Sam! Bobby! Get out here!" She stood up, Melia riding her hip, and stared at the empty chair. Her skin prickled.

"My name Me-la," Melia said.

The men's room door banged open. "Oumph!" Bobby and Sam wedged in the doorway, shoulder-to-shoulder before Sam gave an extra pull, shoving Bobby into the wall. Behind them, came Cas—looking sheepish and still somewhat sticky—and Dean, who ran around Sam's long legs to hug Annie's.

"Hi, Fanny," he huffed, and reached around her legs to place his hands on the back of her thighs. She could feel him lifting the hem of her skirt, but she ignored this in light of the fact that Amelia was talking to invisible people. Invisible dead people.

Holy shit. She sees dead people. Annie's knees turned jello-y. "Sam. Melia's talking to someone who isn't there."

Behind her, Bobby's EMF-filled pocket squealed again.

"Well, that's interesting. And the EMF is ruling out imaginary friend...we'll have to check to see if there's another reason for it to go off." Sam frowned. "But it feels henky, too. What do you think, Bobby?"

"Henky. Though not as much as my suit. Or, what's going on in men's room. What the hell did Dean flush down the toilet? And why weren't you watching him?"

"I was working on getting the gum out of Cas' eyebrows." Sam shrugged. He turned to look down at Annie. "You don't suppose she is just talking to an imaginary friend?"

"She's never done it before." Annie felt Dean's hands moving up the back of her thighs to her ass. She reached to push them away, drawing Sam's attention to his big little brother.

"Dean! Stop that!" He frowned at his brother. "That's rude!"

"Sir, your table is ready." Greg appeared next to them. He spoke to Sam, completely ignoring Annie and Amelia.

Annie wanted to scream at him. Here's your daughter, you piece of crap. Can you even pretend to look at her?

But no, Greg barely flickered a gaze in his daughter's direction; he smiled as if Annie didn't work for him, as if he hadn't boned her once and then pretended he never did such a thing and then spread rumors about how he'd seen her with a truck driver passing through town when she'd turned up pregnant later.

If this wasn't the only job available to her, she'd tell Greg Marchetti to stick it. But it was, and she'd deal with it.

"This way, please," he said, then turned to lead them through the crowded restaurant. Annie followed behind Sam, Bobby and Cas, as far from Greg as possible. Her progress was further slowed by Dean's insistence on touching her pantyhosed legs all the way. When she finally pulled him up to ride her other hip he grinned, and immediately stuck his hand in her blouse. And grinned. Wider.

"So help me, Dean Winchester. When you grow back up, if I find out you've been playing us all along, I'm going to kick you where it counts." She couldn't even pull his hand away because she had an arm around each child to keep them in place. Then again, if Dean fell on his head he wouldn't be feeling her up in front of a room full of people. "You're a perv, and it's sickening."

He smiled and rested his head on her shoulder, blinking in a way which would have been innocent and extraordinarily cute if she could be sure he wasn't working his toddlerhood for all it was worth. "Wuv oo, Fanny."

"My Mommy," Melia frowned.

"Oh dear God."

"No. My Fanny!" Dean lifted his head.

"No. My Annie," Sam purred, and she realized he was standing attentively behind the chair he'd pulled out for her. Aw, hell. She sped up to reach their table, and when he smiled at her with his eyes soft and warm, she realized she was right back to that falling in love thing.

Gosh, her emotions were bouncing from hatred for Greg to love for Sam. What the heck? She'd managed to work with Greg since she'd discovered she was pregnant and worse, learned he didn't care—and she'd managed to keep herself under control around him. But tonight, as she, her daughter and her current—whatever Sam was—were patrons at the restaurant, all the detritus inside her was flowing fast, free, and loose. She shook her head. Focus, Annie. Just…focus.

She shivered as the draft wafted over her again, chilling her down to the bones and making her nipples tighten against her blouse. Wonderful. All this and headlights, too. And then she felt a small, warm, creepy hand making its way along her skin…

"Dean! No!" Sam rescued her from his brother, lifting him off her hip and onto his. "I'm sorry, Annie. I think it's because you look so...I mean, you're...um...and you smell nice and...your hair..." The handsome man turned as red as a schoolboy.

"Thank you, Sam." She smiled at him, feeling her own face turn red. She helped him strap Dean into a toddler-sized seat, then did the same for Melia, and together—finally—they sat down.

"I'll keep Mr. Hands on this side, far away from you."

He sounded so jealous of his little big brother and when he made one of his squishy-worried faces, Annie laughed. Their odd, temporary relationship made the normal, sweet, new-relationship things hard to say and, ill advised. They'd already talked about making sure they didn't get too comfortable—or gushy—with each other. Which made it hard to talk, sometimes.

Annie's coworker, Darla, arrived with bread baskets and menus. Her gaze went immediately to Sam and her eyes widened; when she plopped the breadbasket on the table next to Annie's elbow, she summed it all up with a meaningful look and warning. "Be careful. That's hot!"

"I know," Annie answered, feeling glum. Too hot. Too good. Too bad.

Bobby cracked open his menu. "Dean's like Velcro when it comes to pretty girls. He's always been that way."

"Perverted, you mean?" Sam moved the bread basket out of Amelia's reach, but handed her a roll just the same. "Here, honey. You heard the nice lady. Hot! Ouch! Be careful."

"Cawful," she agreed, and took the roll. It filled her little fist. She nibbled at it. "Mmm."

"Me! Me!" Dean squealed, and Sam handed him one, too. Seconds later, Dean let it fly; it landed in the floral centerpiece at the neighboring table.

"Dean!" Sam rose to pluck the offending bread from the neighbors' flowers. "I'm so sorry." He gave them an apologetic smile.

"More!" Dean demanded.

"No," Sam answered. "Wow, Annie. This menu's pretty extensive." He kept his eyes glued to it even when Dean kicked the table hard enough to make the serving ware jangle and the water glasses wobble.

"You mean, expensive." Bobby grouched.

"I would like a roll, Sam," Cas said, from the other side of Dean.

Sam handed down the basket. "So…what was going on when we came out of the men's room?"

"Melia was talking to an empty chair."

"That's unusual." Bobby noted, and closed the menu. "Are we getting appetizers? I hear the calamari's excellent here."

"It is. Nonna's recipe. Like every other. The best." Annie nodded. "You can order the pepperoncini peppers on the side."

"Isn't calamari fried squid?" Sam frowned. "And who's Nonna? The chef?"

"I remember when my Father invented squid," Cas mused around a mouthful of bread. "He added the ink as an afterthought, at my brother Gabriel's suggestion. That big squirt of ink to the face is the perfect defense. Unless you're the one getting inked, of course. Then it's just messy and very confusing." The angel gazed off into space with a wistful expression. "But the squid...they're such delicate little creatures, so defenseless in so many ways..."

"And so delicious," Bobby added. "Let's get two orders. Sasquatch might eat one all by himself, once he gets over the battered and fried in hot oil part."

Annie's head spun from trying to follow all the variants in the conversation. She took a roll from the basket just to give herself something to focus on. "Nonna Marchetti's portrait is hanging in the lobby. You saw her, Bobby."

He looked over the top of the menu at her. "Nonna? That's right, Nonna is what some Italians call their grandmas." He paused. "Is she alive?"

"Nonna died a few years ago, and her grandchildren took over," Annie supplied, and noticed the way Bobby and Sam's eyes met. "What? You think she's the one haunting the restaurant?" The thought was unsettling. Nonna had treated Annie like one of her own grandchildren and the restaurant didn't feel the same without her. Or anything, for that matter. Annie missed Nonna terribly. But that didn't mean she wanted the old woman to be restless in death. "Shouldn't she be in heaven?"

"Heaven isn't prison," Cas noted. "Though it can be, for some, especially if they've been placed in Heaven's prison. But souls can come and go, if they choose. It's just unusual for them to want to leave. Because Heaven is heavenly, after all. Still, there's no reason for Nonna not to be able to drop into her family's establishment and visit."

"There is if she's scaring the willies out of the staff," Bobby answered. "Isn't that what you said, Annie?"

"Sort of. She's not—I mean—it's not, whatever it is. Whoever. Whatev—aw, hell. I don't know, Bobby. It's just the cold draft thing—which I didn't really notice until today. And other stuff, like the specials board getting erased with no one around, or menu cards disappearing, or..." She trailed off. "Funny. Now that I think of it that only happens when Greg and his wife introduce new items on the menu."

"Maybe she doesn't like the way her grandson is running the place." Sam closed his menu. "What are some other things experienced?"

"The stoves going on and off by themselves. Dishes just taken out of the dishwasher put back in to re-wash. Spices added to sauces. Empty wine carafes suddenly refilled. Bread dough that's risen one second is flattened as if punched down the next...and..." She trailed off as a dozen odd, myriad things occurred to her, things her coworkers had talked about and she'd dismissed as something explainable. But then, here was Sam Winchester sitting beside her. There was no denying it. "Oh my God. Nonna is haunting the restaurant!" Annie turned to Sam, her heart in her throat. "What do we do?"

Indeed. What can they do? I, for one, think they should place an order. How long do you think Dean will sit there quietly? How long will Cas sit there quietly? I hope my Muse doesn't sit here, quietly. The witch. My goal is to post the rest of the chapter on Monday, so check in again.

Special thanks to Marlee James (who is writing a story which breaks my heart and makes it thump with every chapter. It's that good. If you haven't read it, check it out—it will suck you in and never let you go...) Marlee, I promise, there will be a nice, quiet moment with Dean and Sam soon. If I ever finish this chapter, that is. Flutterby Cupcake, you know the one I mean. ;)