This is my take on the episode 'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid'.

"Bobby..." Dean starts to warn to the well dressed and hatless old man he's never seen quite like this before. His house is clean, he's clean, yet for the three younger hunters it's all a mess.

"No, no, don't 'Bobby' me. Just... just listen, okay?" He smiles small as his eyes close, listening to the sounds his suddenly risen wife makes in the kitchen. "She hums when she cooks. She always... used to hum when she cooked. Tone deaf as all hell, but..." He pauses as he recalls her being exactly the same as she is right now. "And I never thought I would hear it again. Look, just read revelation. The dead rise during the Apocalypse. There's nothing in there that says that's bad! Hell, maybe it's the one good thing that comes out of this whole bloody mess."

Lizzy peers into the kitchen and sees the woman milling about, baking away and trying her best to make her man happy. Her heart is breaking for her father-figure through it all.

"And what would you do if you were us?" Dean challenges, his nerves over the situation keeping him on constant edge.

"I know what I'd do," Bobby admits. "And I know what you think you got to do. But... I'm begging you. Please. Please. Leave her be."

Lizzy doesn't need the time to even think about it. She nods her answer. "Ok."

"What!?" Sam asks her with sudden panic. How could she be alright with this?

"I mean look at her," Lizzy tries to explain with how utterly torn she is by this situation. "Right now Karen seems fine, right?"

"Yeah, right now," Dean darkly grumbles.

"I just…" she shakes her head before focusing on Dean. "I know how this is. When you were in hell I would have given anything, anything for a chance like this. With the life he's had Bobby should get his chance to be happy, don't you think?"

"Of course we think that," Sam pipes in with a calmer tone than he knows Dean was about to use. He then turns to Bobby. "We just don't want anything happening to you, Bobby."

Before he can respond Karen walks to the doorway with a smile and looks over the three young adults.

"You kids want to stay for dinner?" she brightly asks. "I'm setting the table and we'd be happy to have you."

They all pause for a moment and think it over.

"No thanks, Mrs. Singer," Sam smiles to her.

"Oh, please. It's no trouble at all," she assures. "Plus, from the way Bobby talks about you three you seem very important to him." She smiles warms to her husband. "I'd like to get to know you all better."

"That's very sweet of you, thank you, but I think we're going to head out for a bit," Lizzy responds before jokingly patting Dean's stomach. "Plus, this one'll eat you right out of house and home if you let him stay."

Smiling at first, Karen gets a good look at Lizzy's left hand when she jokingly touches Dean's middle and she frowns. "Oh, um…" she points to the rings on her finger.

Lizzy looks at her hand and remembers just where her jewelry came from. "Right, shit. Oh, I'm… I'm sorry." She has no idea what to say to the woman whose wedding rings she now wears as her own.

"I'm sorry, baby," Bobby looks up to her as he turns his chair to face her. "You were gone and Lizzy and Dean couldn't afford nothing to mark their own marriage…"

"It's ok," she assures but no one in the room buys it. Her face says it all. Those rings mean so very much to her, just as they do Lizzy, that it hurts to see them displaced.

Looking up to Dean at her side before looking back to her hand, she gets a little shaky with what she knows she has to do. She loves those rings. They represent so much to her. It's her strong bind to Dean, her link into his family, and it's Bobby's love for her. He loves her like the daughter he never had and this gift to her was the biggest gesture he's ever given to anyone. She isn't ready to part with them, not at all, but they don't belong to her.

"No. It's not ok," Lizzy explains as she walks in Karen's direction while pulling the perfectly fitting wedding band and diamond ring off. "These were meant to be on you. Not me." She takes Karen's hand and places them in her palm before closing her fingers around the jewelry for her. She smiles slightly before walking for the door, dropping a hand onto Bobby's shoulder as she does. Once outside she takes a deep breath and runs her thumb over the inside of her left ring finger. She can feel the indent in her skin where the rings should be and sighs. She feels wrong now, like something is way off.

It is.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you like pies," Dean says with a mouthful of spiced apples and crust while sitting at Bobby's kitchen table after Karen caught him milling about the property. "Did you bake all these?" Looking around the kitchen it looks like a bakery. Every kind of pie possible sits around on the countertops and window sills.

"I don't know what it is," Karen says while kneading dough at the counter. "Since I got back, I can't stop baking."

"Yeah, when do you have time to sleep?"

"I don't. Must be the excitement."

Dean pauses for a minute before pressing his luck with the zombie. "Or being dead."

Karen stops her work for a just a second before answering to him. "I know you don't trust me."

"Why would you say that?"

"Come on, Dean. That's why you're here, isn't it? Keeping an eye on me? I know who you are. Just like I know Bobby's not the same mild-mannered scrap dealer I married. You hunt things. I-I'm a thing. I get it."

"So then you know that Sam, Lizzy, and I would never let anything happen to Bobby. That he's like a father to us."

"I understand. And he's lucky to have you looking out for him, Dean. But you're not the only one."

"Is that so?" Dean challenges.

"I-I remember everything, you know," Karen turns to look at him. "When I died. That demon taking over my body... and the things it made me do. And Bobby having no choice but to... well, you know what he did. But I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. The guilt. It weighs on him."

"So why don't you just tell him you remember?"

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you already know exactly why."

Dean looks at her with narrowed eyes and a lack of understanding what she means.

"I see the way you look at her."

"L?"

"Yes," Karen says with a smile. "It's exactly the same way my Bobby looks at me. You love her dearly, don't you?"

"Married her, didn't I?" Dean responds quickly.

"People get married without really being in love all the time, Dean."

"Well, not me," he tells her. "Hell, the word marriage used to make me want to jump outta my own skin before I met L."

"Then you get it," she explains to Dean. "He's my husband. My job is to bring him peace... not pain. Can you honestly say you'd tell Lizzy everything if you were in my shoes? Dredge up the very worst thing that ever happened to her and make it far worse by saying you remember it all?"

Thinking it over, he really does understand Karen's position. His whole life revolves around making sure Lizzy feels the least amount of pain and sadness she possibly can. There really isn't much that could possibly matter more.

"I wouldn't tell her any of it," Dean admits while putting down his fork.

"Then you understand where I am coming from," she smiles before turning back to her work on the counter.

Shit, he actually does.

"You know, for the undead you're making it pretty hard to not like you, Karen," Dean quips quickly now that he knows she understand what she is.

"That's actually very comforting," she says with a small laugh. "Considering you're a hunter."

"Yeah, well, it helps that you make sense. I get you."

"Because you get love," she assures him. "I think this would be a different conversation if you didn't have Lizzy. You love her with all your life."

"Damn it," he complains lightly. "When did I become so freakin' transparent?"

Karen full out laughs. "My guess… when you met that girl of yours. Love seems to be the one thing that can take the hardest, gruffest of men and make then huge softies."

"Hey, wait a minute," Dean stops her while finding himself enjoying talking to the dead wife of Bobby probably too much. "I'm not a softie."

"Don't worry," she promises with a wink. "I won't tell anyone."

Dean smirks at her. "You're alright, Karen."

"You're not too bad yourself, Dean."

"Look, Bobby, I feel for you," Dean says. "I really do. But you have got to acknowledge that you're not exactly seeing this straight!"

"Bobby, whether you admit it or not, these things are turning," Sam adds in a desperate attempt to open his eyes. "We have to stop them. All of them."

Watching the recognition fly across Bobby's face for just a flash breaks Lizzy's heart. She keeps quiet as she doesn't have it in her to say these things to him.

And then the moment passes and the determined old ass returns. He pulls his shotgun into his lap and looks up at the three of them. "Time to go."

"What?" Dean asks with surprise as he, Sam, and Lizzy all stare at Bobby with disbelief.

"You heard me. Off my property." His voice is stern and serious.

"Bobby!?" Lizzy says with shock and fear. He's never do this to them. Never.

"Or what?" Sam asks him as he doesn't quite believe Bobby just yet. "You'll shoot?"

"If Karen turns, I will handle it my way," Bobby ensures the group as his will on this issue is strong. He's not going to have hunters, even the ones he considers family, take this away from him. He missed his wife too damn much.

"This is dangerous," Dean tells him.

"I'm not telling you twice," Bobby promises as he cocks the shotgun.

With Lizzy's eyes wider than they've ever been and her jaw dropped, she's at a loss.

"Fine," she says to him, hands out to show surrender and that they'll follow his wishes. "We'll leave."

"No we won't," Dean determinedly says.

"Yes we will," she rebuts to her husband, making sure he understands that they have to leave, before turning back to Bobby. "I can't imagine being in your shoes right now. This has to be so difficult and none of us are going to pretend to be able to fully sympathize."

Bobby says nothing in return, just grips the gun in his hold so tight his knuckles go white.

"Just please," Lizzy practically begs. "If you can't handle this, just let us stay and help."

"No." It wasn't a point to argue anymore. Bobby wasn't letting them stay. This was his ordeal and he'll handle it how he chooses.

"Ok, let's go," Sam says to Lizzy, a hand on her shoulder to pull her towards the door. She doesn't follow. Instead she walks towards the man with the gun as she's sure he'd never hurt her. Bending down she drops a kiss on his cheek and says her peace quietly to only him.

"I get it," she whispers to him. "I've been there. Even if Dean is here now I remember when he wasn't and when he came back. Just please… be careful."

She smiles to him before turning around and heading outside with her men, leaving the most important person in their lives to his own devices.

Bobby sighs heavily as they go. He made the right decision but it hurt to do it. And why the hell does Lizzy always have to make everything so much harder to deal with by saying emotional shit like that, shit that always hits home? Fucking women.

"She was the love of my life," Bobby tells the three of them as they all stand watching the fire, Karen's wrapped body in the middle of it. "How many times do I got to kill her?"

The statement alone crushes Lizzy. She can physically feel something stab her in the chest with his words. She looks over at Dean's face as he looks into the fire. If she ever had to kill him… she couldn't even get her mind to think about it. It would be impossible. She could never kill him, no matter what or why. Lizzy's never been more impressed with the strength that Bobby exudes than right this second. He's officially her superhero.

"I'm so sorry Bobby," she sadly says as she walks to him and stands behind his chair. She leans down and wraps her arms around his neck, her cheek pressed to his. "I could never… it's so unfair. You don't deserve this."

"Yeah," Bobby sighs out as the tears start to well up.

"I am happy I met her though," she admits through her choked voice. "She was so lovely."

Bobby can't respond. He can't. He doesn't cry in front of his kids. It's not something he does. His strength is all they have most of the time so he bites it all back for their sake.

"Oh, ah," he says and clears his throat to will away the looming breakdown until he's out of their sight. "Here." He reaches into his flannel shirt pocket and pulls out the engagement ring and wedding band of Karen's. He holds them out for Lizzy to take back.

"I can't," she shakes her head. Karen seemed all too happy to get them back from Lizzy and it felt wrong for her to have them now.

"Yes you can." Bobby continues to hold them out.

"She didn't want me to…"

"Yes she did," Bobby says, peering back at the fire. "Before I… before she died she took them off and made me promise to give them back to you."

"Really?" Lizzy questions.

"Yeah," he assures as he drops the rings into Lizzy's hand. "Apparently after talking to Dean she was sure that you deserved them. Said she knew the real deal when she saw it."

Lizzy takes the rings back and puts them on, feeling complete again once in place.

"God, I'm sorry, Bobby," Dean tries to get out, pausing a bit before he can as he drops a heavy hand of sympathy on his father's shoulder. "She was a hell of a woman."

Bobby nods as he watches what's left of his wife burn away for good. "Don't I know it."