Author's Note: Enjoy the flashback...and review!

Disclaimer: NOT. MINE.

--

"He should be here," Lou fretted, gnawing on her bottom lip and still managing to look gorgeous in her floor-length white gown.

"It's better if he's not," Sam assured her for the millionth time since he'd proposed and informed her that his brother would not be invited to the ceremony. "He doesn't get it."

"I think he does," Lou replied gently, settling beside him on the uncomfortable wooden bench. "Please, Sam, it's bad enough I'm getting between you guys and your…job." They shared a secret smile, and she laid a hand on his knee. "I don't want to ruin what you and your brother have, too. You don't see it, maybe, because you're on the inside, but to an outsider, it's obvious how much you guys love each other. He's your big brother, Sam; he should be here for this." She looked down the hall to a pay phone on the wall, and Sam followed her gaze reluctantly. "Call him. Please?"

"He shouldn't be here," Sam repeated stubbornly. Lou sighed.

An older man poked his bald, bespectacled head out of an office door. "Is there a Samuel Winchester here?"

Lou's breath caught, and Sam grinned like an idiot at her, clutching her hand. "Guess this is it," he said, and turned to the justice of the peace. "That's me."

The man smiled. "All right, come on in, sir, and let's get you and the pretty lady married."

Lou giggled, a noise Sam had never heard his otherwise-serious fiancée make, and they rose together to follow the man inside.

"Hold on!"

The happy couple and the justice of the peace all turned to see Dean Winchester running down the hall of Moscow, Idaho's town hall, wearing his normal baggy jeans and T-shirt, with his signature jacket over it all. He didn't quite mesh with Lou's gown or Sam's suit, but he would do. Taking a deep breath, he huffed, "Didn't think you'd get married without me, didja?"

"Dean, what the hell are you doing here?" Sam asked, then turned his gaze on Lou, who hid a smile. "You called him," he accused, and she shrugged.

"Guilty as charged," she admitted, grinning at Dean and then at Sam. "I knew you wanted him here, no matter what you said."

"I like this girl," Dean said, slinging an arm around Lou's shoulders. "She's a keeper, Sammy."

"Are we to expect any more witnesses?" the justice of the peace cut in, good humored, and when the answer was negative, he beckoned them all inside his wood-paneled office to get down to business.

By no means had Sam and Lou's courtship been normal, but it hadn't been too odd. Sam and Dean had rolled into Moscow, Idaho in search of a banshee about four months back, and had ended up checking out the nightlife (at Dean's insistence). For once, the object of Sam's affections had had nothing to do with the case: she had simply been a second-year law student at the University of Idaho, out for a drink with friends when she spotted Sammy across a crowded barroom. They had talked all night, becoming fast friends as they shared their respective, convoluted histories, but Sam, ever the gentleman, had walked her home to her off-campus apartment and expected to never see her again.

The next day, Lou went looking for Sam. She stumbled upon the boys talking to an ex-professor of hers on the University of Idaho campus, and invited Sam out for a drink. Later that night, they kissed outside her apartment building, and then she invited him up. He agreed. By the next morning, Lou was sure she was in love.

After a week of alternating his time between hunting with his brother and spending all his other free time with Lou (when she wasn't in class or at work, of course), the truth came spilling out. Sam had told her about his failed law school attempt, but he explained in detail what he and his brother had really been up to in the years since. She didn't run screaming from him, which had been promising, and then admitted to her own, sordid past, including a mentally ill mother and a father who died over the grief of his wife's death. Lou survived off her work ethic and their estate.

A few more days passed, all loose ends were tied up in the banshee case, and Sam prepared himself to say goodbye to Lou. But, to his surprise, Dean had allowed them another week's reprieve, saying he hadn't heard of anything strange nearby and that they deserved a vacation. The spring semester was wrapping up, and Sam spent all his time with Lou. It was hard to admit to her, let alone to himself, but he was falling in love with her, too.

When the week was up, Dean told Sam he was taking off for an easy job in Colorado, and that Sam was free to stay behind in Moscow. It took some convincing on Dean's part, but Sam eventually agreed, spending a romantic weekend in Boise while Dean took on the vengeful spirit of a murdered hiker in the Rockies. Dean returned two weeks later, meeting his brother and his girl at a restaurant back in Moscow for dinner, where Dean pulled Sam aside and asked if Lou made him happy. Sam said she did, and Dean left the next day for another case, all the way down in Texas. He popped up in Idaho a month and a half later, only to leave after a few days' respite to "talk to Bobby" over in South Dakota. While he was gone, Sam contemplated his brother's constant absences for the first time since Dean had first abandoned him in Moscow, and he could only come to one, subconscious conclusion: Dean wanted what was best for his little brother, and what was best for him right now was Lou.

While Dean was God-knew-where, Sam used his newly-formed conclusion to justify leaving the hunting business. He could go back to law school, right here in Idaho, maybe, and he could move in with Lou. He could marry Lou, and they could get jobs and buy a house. Maybe they could have a few kids to fill the rooms. It all seemed so fast, but Sam had learned that waiting never did anyone any good, and it was much better to live in the moment. So, the night before Dean returned from his latest trip, Sam bought a secondhand gold band with a tiny diamond, and he got down on one knee (like he should have all those years ago for Jessica) and asked Louise Walker to become his wife. She accepted.

Since then, Sam had been set against Dean coming to their simple wedding ceremony at the town hall. He was sure Dean would never understand how quickly he had fallen for Lou, and how irrevocably in love with her he was. Sure, Dean had let him stay behind, had let him miss hunts he may have been needed on, all to hang out with his girlfriend, but Dean hadn't seen a relationship as anything more than a couple of cheap beers in a crap bar and a one-night fling in the back of the Impala in a long time. He could come back any day now, disgusted with Sam's lovesick behavior, and drag his little brother, kicking and screaming, out of Idaho for good. Sam didn't want to tempt fate, so he begged Lou to leave well enough alone, which meant leaving his brother out of it.

But Lou had come to like her future brother-in-law, noticing his charm and his humor, of course, but also how he acted around Sam, like his little brother was the most important guy in the world. He seemed a bit dazed at times, like he was lost in the past, and she just knew there was a girl (or three) out there that he missed desperately, and that girl (or trio) probably wanted him back as badly as he wanted to be with her (them?) again. So whenever Sam insisted Dean would never understand true love, she begged to differ. And, on the eve of their wedding day, she had called Dean's cell, in between choosing a hairstyle and trying on her dress for the umpteenth time, and told him to get his ass up to town hall at one o'clock sharp the following afternoon.

So, here they were, Sam and Lou situated before the kindly justice of the peace, the couple clasping hands and stealing glances at each other throughout the ceremony, suddenly shy as two strangers who had been pushed into an arranged marriage by overbearing parents, and Dean looking on in smug satisfaction, as he had predicted this outcome from the get-go. The ceremony was relatively short, but there had still been plenty of time for Dean to let his mind wander out over his life, setting himself in the same situation with only a handful of the girls he'd met over the years. The closest he'd ever come to a real relationship had been Cassie, a helluva long time back, though Lisa and Ben had presented a nice little packaged family a few years back. But the one who preyed most on his mind, who stubbornly set herself in a long, white gown with a bouquet of calla lilies and a sheer veil, was the one he least expected to see there. Perhaps it was simply because he'd seen her only six months or so ago, and they had succumbed to their mutual feelings and let take place something that should never have been, or perhaps—hardly likely—he was a little bit taken with her, if not outright head-over-heels for her. Whatever the case, whenever he looked up at his brother and his bride and caught them gazing at each other with passionate fire lighting their eyes, he could only ever see himself standing in Sam's gargantuan shoes with Bela on his arm.

Dean shook his head, getting back to reality, and tried to catch up with the ceremony. The justice of the peace was smiling at Sam as he said, "Now, repeat after me: Louise, I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife…"

Sam repeated after everything the man said, continuing with, "Before these witnesses, I vow to love you and care for you, as long as we both shall live. I take you, with all your faults and strengths, as I offer myself to you with all my faults and strengths. I will help you when you need help, and turn to you when I need help. I choose you as the person with whom I will spend my life."

There was a moment, after the justice of the peace has asked Lou to repeat after him, when Lou was choking on her own tears, unable to speak, and Dean didn't think she'd be able to make it through the end of the ceremony. But Sam had smiled at her, a winning grin, and she had managed to laugh and smile back, and Dean swelled with pride as his brother bent to rest his forehead against Lou's, and she managed to finish her vows because of his strength.

"And now, for as much as you have made your vows, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving your rings, I pronounce that you are husband and wife." The justice snapped his book shut with a tidy crack, and beamed at the couple. "You may kiss the bride…and fill out some more paperwork."

Laughing, the newlyweds brought their lips together, Dean half-smiling in his spot in the corner of the room. Afterward, they all signed a legal document or six, then went out to dinner at a nice restaurant in town, and Dean dropped Mr. and Mrs. Winchester at a nicer hotel for their wedding night. There wasn't to be a true honeymoon, maybe just a few days in Boise or some other larger city, but it was enough for them.

--

Reviews make me warm and fuzzy on the inside : ]