Wow, this is taking a while to tell, isn't it? I seriously want to take the time to get this story right so I thank all of you for hanging in there with me. Zat, you are da bomb for all of your late night encouragement. Mai is the beta to end all betas. This takes up with John just a touch out of his element but willing to go there to protect Emily for one more night.

Hope you enjoy. Remember what a review ho Suz is. Please feed her. :-) if you want to contact me directly instead of using the review box, it's

On with the story.....

Firefly 'Verse – Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Chapter 11

By: Suz Mc

The good thing about being in the dream world was you didn't have to worry about fitting in, you just did. John didn't have to plan disguises or making himself look normal in an FBI getup or maintenance man uniform. When Emily landed them on the beach she liked to visit with her mother, all of a sudden he had swimming trunks and a tan and he belonged just like the skinny four-year-old in a ruffled bathing suit running on the sand in front of him. For a few seconds, the black demon smoke had bubbled at the crest of a sand dune and Emily's eyes had gotten wide and scared. The entire skyline had started to rumble with that intense fear she couldn't seem to beat on her own.

Emily had cowered behind his leg and whimpered, "Grandpa, please make it go away," and he'd held up his hand and blocked it behind brick wall like he always did. All he had to do was reassure her that he was stronger than the monster, hug her up close for a bit, and all was right again. She'd faded away, just for a few minutes, when Dean had carried her up to bed, but now she was back.

John lounged back in the hammock Emily had dreamed up for them, strung between a couple of poles underneath a wide striped canopy. This kid had great ideas. He could only remember being on a beach twice. Once, in the service when they had some quick R&R and once when he and Mary had driven to California to visit his cousin. They should have gone more, should have taken the boys and let Dean go nuts in wet sand like Emily.

They'd been all alone at first, nothing but the sound of wind and water, but Emily said there were usually people on the beach, so he'd waved up a few kids for her to play with and a few cute sunbathing girls on towels down the beach a ways. Why shouldn't Grandpa have some scenery, too? Next, he had a cooler and beer and this friggin' dream was in business. Yes, Grandpa John was happy. This Grandpa shit was great. Emily was playing with the two kids that had popped out of his imagination. The seven year old was wiry with a bleached buzz cut and there was a rounder toddler with messy, too long hair who was closer to Emily's size. The resemblances weren't lost on John. Hell, the three kids in front of him were the only ones he'd ever been attached to anyway. It was almost like giving Sam and Dean a day at the beach and Emily was having a ball with the boys, too. She was over at the edge of the water, running in and out of the surf, splashing and laughing with her friends.

"Don't go in past your knees unless I'm over there, kid!" He yelled it across the twenty or so yards that separated them on the Galveston sand.

"I'm no baby! I can swim good!" She waded out into the water, a subtle act of defiance while casting a sassy grin back at her playmates, but stayed where he'd asked, until a wave knocked her flat on her tiny ass.

By the time he got there, she was sputtering up out of the water. "I gotcha!" John grabbed underneath her arms and pulled her out of the water. The boys went on about their business, having fun throwing shells out into the water.

"Sneaky wave!" Emily was pissed, spitting out salt water and trying to shove strings of wet hair out of her face. He thought up a towel right quick and tried to dry off Emily's face in between his own laughter. "Not funny!" she shouted back into his face and it only made him laugh more.

It was too funny. Hilarious, in fact, and he could enjoy it being so freaking funny. To stay in Emily's good graces as he walked them back toward the hammock, he fell into a voice he hadn't used until he'd worn matching eye patches with a toddler for Halloween. "Arrg! The scurvy wave sneaked up on ye,aye? Smacked ye booty, did he?"

When she gave into giggles, she gave in body and all. "You said booty!" By the time they reached the shade, Emily was a wiggling mass of funny. He settled them in the hammock, Emily with a blue popsicle and Grandpa with a Sam Adams and they just hung out for a while.

It was pretty here and he was sure that he and Mary were going to do the beach thing when he got back upstairs. The dream girls down the sand were certainly doing their share to keep the real estate desirable and he'd have to make sure they weren't included on his marital beach.

"You like pretty girls, don't you, Grandpa John?" Emily was slurping the blue popsicle running down her arm.

"I do. Like you, pretty girl."

"My daddy likes pretty girls and they like him a lot. 'Specially restaurant ladies."

"It's always been that way, baby girl. Your daddy likes the ladies." John shot a look down the beach where the future tomcat in question was holding the other little boy's hand and wandering away while deep in conversation. "Bet he's going to get some payback when boys start coming around thinking you're pretty."

"I like boys. They're like puppies, all loud and bouncin' around."

Holy shit for the boy who has to face Dean and the Taurus on date night. "Boys are fine, but you make sure you're in charge, okay? You be the boss and your dad will show you what to do if they don't behave."

"My mama was pretty. Must be why my daddy liked her."

The breeze picked up just a bit and John stayed silent. He felt sorry for Calley and what she'd gone through, her sacrifice. He understood being willing to turn yourself over to flames and pain to save your child whether that child was four or twenty-seven. He also understood the guilt Dean was going to wallow in over that night with Calley and what it cost her psyche in pain and fear. He didn't envy the tightrope his son would have to walk between the gritty, awful truth of the one night he spent with Emily's mother and what to tell his child. The truth was just out of the question until, maybe, never, but lies with too many details could unravel.

John knew his son. John knew Calley. He decided to use that to quench Emily's curiosity. "I think your mom and dad are pretty special and that's how they found each other so they could make someone as fantastic as you."

It wasn't a lie at all, but he didn't want to spark too many more questions. He'd already run his mouth earlier when he'd given Emily a clue about the spirit his sons were chasing. Probably a mistake, but he wanted to throw them a bone. He missed the hunt, the thrill of solving supernatural puzzles. If he played a part this way, he was still in the game.

Now, for the redirection.

Emily was snuggled up close at his side, still sucking on her popsicle. "Did you and your mama hang out here in this hammock?"

"Yeah. We like Galveston. A big storm messed it up once but they fixed it." She crunched on the last pieces of ice. "But you gotta be careful of the jellyfishes. They sting!"

Another chance to be the all powerful Grandpa John. With a sweep of grandeur, John held up his palm toward the ocean and waved. "Jellyfish all gone, kid."

"Good!" Emily sat up, swinging her legs over the canvas. "I'm 'llergic. Last time I got stinged by one it swelled up HUGE and I had to go to the hospital and get a shot. I don't like those."

Carefully, he eased her off the side so that he could get up without tumbling them off onto the sand. "You daddy's allergic to jellyfish, too. Once, he fell off a peer into the ocean and one got in his pants and he had to go to the hospital, too."

Hauling a grown and belligerent Dean, stinging and swollen, to the hospital had been a gargantuan task. Especially, since Dean fought him the entire way as the swelling went from an embarrassing welt on his thigh to bright red tendrils racing up his body and closing his eyes shut. He'd gotten him an epinephrine injection just in time to keep his throat from closing. So many of Dean's escapades had gone from needing a dressing down for his stupidity to a near death experience within minutes. Hopefully, Dean still kept a fresh epi-pen in the first aid kit.

"Be sure to tell your daddy about being allergic to jellyfish so he'll know, okay?" He reached down to take her hand, warming up as she squeezed his fingers.

"I will, Grandpa." Emily plopped down just out of the water's edge, and started piling sand into a bucket for a sandcastle. "You can dig the moat," she said, tossing him a pink shovel.

"Of course."

After dumping a perfect bucket-shaped cone onto the sand, she stopped everything and looked him straight in the eye. "Why don't you pick tomorrow night, Grandpa?"

"Pick what?"

"Where we go."

Night number three. She was expecting it and who the hell was John Winchester to disappoint a little girl, right? He'd disappointed enough kids. This wasn't hurting anyone. Hell, one more night would be good for her. If he came back and didn't have to cage up the subconscious monster then he'd know it was time to leave.

"You ever build a snowman, Emily?" He scooped out more sand to make the moat deeper. Princesses needed deep moats that dragons couldn't cross.

"Like Frosty?! Cool! I never ever touched snow before!"

That was all he needed. That excitement, that complete thrill at what he had to offer, was all he needed to sway him. The boys were coming back toward them now, more cheap labor for castle building.

"Then tomorrow night, snow it is." John waved at the little boys. "Come on over, guys. We've got plenty of work to do."

***

Dean's body was ice cold from the inside out. That little ghost girl. That's what Emily had said. She knew it was a girl, knew it was a ghost. Goddamn it! She'd even said her name, Anna Lee.

His hand felt numb as he used it to balance and pivot quickly from the last stair and all but swing himself into the living room. Something churned in his gut that was part anger and part fear and it kept rolling and folding in on itself over and over. Sam and Bobby both divided like bowling pins when he busted in between them.

"What the hell, Dean?" Sam had spilled the plates he was balancing on an empty pizza box and they landed silently on the floor around their feet.

"Bobby, did you tell Emily what we were doing at Block Party? You tell her about ghosts?" Dean was bowed up and pissed. This was his fucking business and that damn cat was supposed to stay bagged up.

At first, the older man looked amused, like Dean was waiting for him for him to say, "Who's there?" to his "Knock knock." When he saw that there was no punch line on the way, he looked sadly offended.

"Of course not, boy." Yeah, Bobby was offended but he sounded more wounded, his voice gentle and hushed. "I would never step on your toes where that little girl is concerned. What you tell her or don't tell her 'bout what is and what isn't real is your business, son."

That reaction, seeing hurt in Bobby's face where he expected challenge, backed Dean up a few steps in his anger. "Well, how does she know about it then, Bobby? Sam?" He turned toward his other option. "Did you say anything to her about it?"

"No, I didn't and if I was going to do an end run around you about anything with Emily it wouldn't be about this." Sam was looking up at him from the floor, gathering up the trash he's dropped. "What did she say that makes you think she knows anything?"

"Goddamnit!" He'd already paced across the room and was halfway back. "She said that 'Grandpa John' told her to tell us to be careful of the 'little ghost girl' and that her name was Anna Lee. Goddamnit! Who told her about this?"

"I don't know, Dean, but lower your voice or you're going to wake her up. Maybe she heard us talking. Where was she when Ray called this afternoon and you talked to him on the phone?" Sam reached inside the kitchen and tossed the dirty plates into the trash.

"I was in the kitchen and she was…" Dean landed one hand on the sofa where Emily had been hanging out when the phone rang. "She was here." Ten feet away from the kitchen. Goddamnit.

"Unless you lowered the cone of silence over your head, she could hear every word you said, dumbass." Sam was standing beside Bobby, who had remained silent after his moment in the line of fire. "She's smart. She already knows monsters are real because one of them tried to kill her. It's not a big leap for her to maybe hear the word ghost and put it all together, is it?"

He hadn't been careful when he was talking because he was in Bobby's house. Maybe she had heard him. Shit. "But what about the name, Sam? You think the spirit talked to Camden in his dream. Could it have latched onto Emily?" Fuck. This bitch was going to die, kid or no kid, if it was screwing around with Emily's head.

"I don't think it's the ghost and I don't think Emily's 'shining' either." Sam put a sarcastic emphasis on that last point. He'd hated it when Dean had thrown that at him years ago and the barb didn't go unnoticed.

Bobby seemed to shake off his hurt feelings. "I doubt it, too, Dean. I never took her near the closed off section. Camden had been inside there and the spook doesn't seem to be venturing outside of that area." With a wave, Bobby directed them into the kitchen and sat down at the chipped fifties dinette. "More than likely, she heard you talking and she really, really wants to help you and feel close to you so she's dreaming up this stuff while she's asleep. It coming from the mouth of her new nighttime hero makes it real for her." Bobby got a warm smile on his face. "She's trying to protect her Daddy. Makes her feel bigger, stronger, like she's helping you. Kinda like how you tried to look after your dad when you were just a little kid."

He felt the chair grab him hard as he sat down and the lump in his throat settled scratchy and rough there. Looking after Dad. Worrying about Dad. Protecting Dad any way he could think of because he was so fucking desperate not to be alone. Dad and Sammy were all he had and it didn't matter that he was just six or ten or twenty, Dean had to hold onto them with his raw fingernails so he wouldn't be alone. Now his kid was trying to do the same.

He could wrap his head around that feeling because it was imprinted into his being for good and always. But the difference was, he wasn't going anywhere. He just had to make Emily believe it.

Sam was standing behind his chair, talking in a way designed to squelch potential freak outs. "Whatever she's working out in her head, Dean, it seems to be making her feel better. I don't think you have to worry about it. What you're doing with her is helping."

Sammy's hand brushed across his shoulder, just a quick touch in Sammy-fashion to let him know he understood. It was nice that Sammy could forget Dean's flames in a few minutes and be ready to back him up.

"I hope so."

Sammy got up and went back to gather the rest of the trash, leaving him alone with Bobby. The older man fiddled around with a paper towel wadded up on the table. "She was real happy tonight. Got the metabolism of a hummingbird on crack 'cause she can eat like a horse, that kid. We had a lot of fun and I thank you for trusting me with her."

That caught Dean off guard. "Bobby, I can count on one hand the people I'd trust with Emily and you're right up there at the top. I'm sorry I got so pissy with you."

Bobby smiled and shook his head to accept. "You were worried about your little girl. Don't' sweat it, boy."

"Something just feels wrong, though, Bobby. Maybe it's just this shit over at Block Party, but I just feel like I'm letting something get past me here."

"You got a lot plates spinning in the air. Hunting. Fixing that car out front. The Daddy business. It's a lot to keep running at once." Bobby yawned deeply and scrubbed one hand over his beard. "Kid wore me slap out. I'm going to bed." He left, mounting the stairs slowly until he was out of sight.

He sat for a long time in the dim kitchen lighting, thinking about just how much was going right and just how much could go wrong if those plates started crashing down around his family.

TBC