Sam smiled when twenty minutes or so later, Dean drove into the empty parking lot of a bar. Even without the shadows and the rather unsavoury crowd that would descend on it in the evening, the place looked like the dive it was, but it was here that Dean had taught Sam how to play pool. Sam had been the impressionable age of thirteen, Dean had been seventeen, and already a notorious pool hustler. During the day, the place was quiet, and the owners, a married couple, were extremely nice, and didn't object to a couple of boys coming in to use the tables, sometimes even letting them play for free, but in the evening, there were two huge, surly bouncers who were a necessary addition due to the fights that inevitably broke out in the place.

"Charming!" Emily looked the place over disparagingly.

"Don't knock it. The tables in this place are well kept. And the jukebox is to die for!" Dean playfully cuffed her on the head, and she growled in semi mock protest.

They entered in the usual order, Dean first, Sam last, Emily sandwiched between them.

A middle aged woman sat in the back wiping glasses. The man behind the bar was taking inventory of his drinks. Both looked up at the new arrivals, their faces quickly becoming wary as they took in the trio. The man's hand slowly strayed below the counter. "We don't keep no money on the premises!" he warned.

"We don't want any trouble," Dean spoke evenly, watching the man's hand with narrowed eyes. He knew the man was reaching for a shotgun. Every self respecting bar owner in these neck of the world kept one on hand.

Sam could understand the man's suspicion. At first sight, the three of them were intimidating; Sam because of his sheer size, Dean because he carried himself with that easy cocky self assuredness that suggested he could take on a hundred men and win, and Emily by proxy to them.

"We just want to use one of your pool tables. We'll pay for the games, okay?" Sam placated the man, puppy eyes out in full force.

"They're gonna teach me how to play! About damn time too!" Emily beamed. She had learnt to use her smile the way Sam used his puppy eyes.

Her huge, open smile and Sam's soft eyes put the man at ease.

"I won't serve any of youse any liquor. Third table is the best." The man stopped reaching for his gun, and relaxed, but only marginally.

None of the siblings objected. It was too early to be drinking and it wasn't what they'd come for anyway.

"Obviously the management has changed!" Dean commented as they walked to the tables. He kept a wary look on the man.

Sam grabbed the triangle and began to set up the table. "So, pool is basically math. It's about angles, speed and projectiles,"

"Yeah, well, it's also about you; your eyes, how you position the cue and how you hold your body." Dean interjected as he selected the cue sticks.

"It's about good decisions."

"It's about good aim."

"Skill."

"Confidence."

"Like shooting?" Emily cut in quickly, before the brothers could turn it into a pissing contest.

"Eeer!" Sam began.

"Kinda!" Dean shrugged.

"Awesome. Well, can we start now?" she said a little peevishly.

"I'll break!" Dean smiled, picked up his cue, exaggeratedly examined the tip, and chalked it. Then he got into position and took the break shot. The next half hour went quickly with explanations, and demonstrations from both brothers, and banter from all three. Then Dean set Emily up against Sam while he went to check out the jukebox.

"What is it? Cancer?" the woman who had been polishing glasses spoke when Dean was close enough.

Wondering whether she was talking to him, he turned to her curiously. He frowned in surprise and confusion when he realised she was. "What is what cancer?"

The woman looked thoughtfully at Sam and Emily before speaking. "She's dying, isn't she?"

Dean stiffened when he noticed she was looking at his siblings. "Why the hell would you say that?" his frown gave way to a dangerous scowl.

As if sensing their brother's distress, Sam and Emily paused their game and looked his way.

"I'm sorry!" the woman held up her hands. "I just thought … well, the way you and the other guy look at her, I just thought she was you know … dying or something."

"She's not …" Dean broke off and reconsidered his words. He did not want to tempt fate with one of those statements, especially now. "We're waiting on the results of ummm … a test."

"Oh. I hope you get good news." The empathy in the woman's voice sounded genuine.

Now Dean felt like a heel. He sighed deeply. "Thank you." He made a random selection on the jukebox so he could get away quickly from the woman. He waved awkwardly at her and raced back to his siblings.

"You were in an awful hurry to get away from there, uh!" Sam snickered.

"What makes you think that?" Dean said defensively.

"Well, since when do you willingly select Morrissey?" Sam's grin was huge.

"Maybe that's all the box had! Doesn't matter anyway. Pack it in, let's go!"

"But I'm winning!" Emily exclaimed. She had a rather unhealthy competitive streak that made her loathe to leave any contest however small, especially when she was winning.

"By only one shot, Ruth McGinnis!" Sam pointed out, quickly remedying that by sinking his next two shots. "And not anymore!" he crowed as he prepared for a third.

"It's not a tournament, you idiots!" Dean barked. "I don't like the way she's looking at us." he added. That was technically a lie as it was the way the woman had analysed them that had made him wary.

Both Sam and Emily turned and unabashedly stared at the woman. Dean was right. She was indeed looking at them, but there was a faraway look in her eyes, and a sad smile on her face, like she was looking at them but not really seeing them.

"She looks harmless!" Emily commented mildly.

"So does jellyfish! Now, let's go." Dean stalked to the exit. His siblings had no choice but to abandon their game and follow him, both glowering heavily.

"Come on Dean, so maybe you're right and she was looking at us funny, but since this might be our last …" Emily broke off in the middle of her rant when both her brothers stiffened. "Never mind," she mumbled and climbed into the back of the car.

The unnecessary force with which he banged his car door was evidence of just how upset Dean was. The Metallica tape he chose to play was proof of his distress. Sam and Emily practically held their breaths for the twenty minute drive, not even daring to ask where they were going even when it became apparent they were not headed back to the yard.

"Hey, I used to work here!" surprise loosened Emily's tongue when Dean pulled up to a diner in Brandon.

"What? When?" Sam frowned.

Emily scooted forward, "Back when I was looking for John. Bobby used to come in, and when I'd get off, we'd hang out and talk."

Well, that certainly explained how the relationship between Bobby and Emily had grown to the point he and Dean had found it. "No wonder you two were buddy-buddy!"

"Bobby's nice," she smiled, "and he's interesting and knows a lot of stuff and I like knowing stuff."

"You two stay here, I'll get the food!" Dean ordered. After meeting Becky and Zach Warren in St. Louis for the shapeshifter case, Dean didn't like running into people his siblings had known away from him. Though Becky and Zach had been nice people, Dean hadn't been quite comfortable with them. It hadn't helped that the Sam they knew was world's away from the Sam he knew, and he had felt disjointed and disconnected during that whole hunt. Also, meeting them had made him feel guilty for having dragged Sam away from college and back into the family business. And he knew it had been just as awkward for Sam, even though he had pretended otherwise. So Dean didn't want a repeat, unless it was completely unavoidable. Also, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, he was a tad possessive of his siblings.

"I'll have …" Emily began.

"I'm not taking requests! You'll eat what I get." Dean growled and slammed the door shut.

"Jesus, he's testy!" Emily settled back.

"That's because he's worried, and scared," Sam explained softly, his eyes on his brother's retreating form.

"I know," Emily spoke just as softly. She also knew that his turmoil was her fault. She watched him walk away, and it suddenly sparked a memory, that pulled her out of her temporary melancholy. "Wait! It was you guys, wasn't it?" she cried, almost bouncing on the seat.

"It was us who did what?" Sam frowned at the weird change in topic.

"I can't believe it! On my very first day here, I think I saw you, well the back of your heads! The two of you were leaving the diner as I started my shift. I remember you left behind a newspaper with an obit circled. Umm, a swimming accident victim …Sophie something."

Sam scrunched his forehead as he thought back. "Carlton! Sophie Carlton! Whoa! Yeah, it was us! Imagine that!"

"Kismet!"

"Well, that doesn't quite qualify as kismet!" Sam corrected, turning his long frame to peer at his sister over the car seat. "We didn't even meet until much later!"

"You're so technical! I mean, think about it, if you'd stayed a couple of minutes more, we would have met. It would have been kismet! Hehe, I bet Dean loved Wendy!"

"The one with the boobs, right? I believe he described her as fun!"

"Definitely not how I would have described her!" Emily snorted uncharitably, remembering the duty shirking waitress. "So, was it?"

"Was it what?" Sam was sure Emily was trying to give him brain whiplash.

"Your kind of case?"

"Oh! Yeah. It was a water spirit."

"Is that like a ghost that lives in water? How did you get rid of it?"

"We didn't."

"What?"

"A man sacrificed himself to appease it. There was nothing we could do." Sam's voice was low.

That was the kind of statement that was normally followed by a guilt trip of epic proportions by either one of her brothers, so Emily scrambled for a change of topic, but her usually quick firing brain was frozen. She instead settled for a feeble placation. "I'm sure you did all you could." Even she could hear how lame that sounded, but to her great surprise, Sam agreed.

"Yes, we did. You just have to convince Dean of that."

Emily almost found it funny that Sam was saying that about Dean as if Sam himself did not have the exact same flaw of unnecessary self-blame! She supposed it was a case of being unable to see the speck in one's own eyes.

Dean returned balancing five takeout containers. Sam got out to help even though Dean was waving him away.

"You can start eating if you want," he waved at the containers in Sam's lap.

"We can wait."

Another twenty minutes of driving got them to Dell Rapids. Another ten got them to a spot by the river that would have been completely theirs if not for a young couple a few metres away.

"Bet they thought they were the only ones who knew about this place!" Sam snickered when the pair glared in their direction. "They've obviously watched too many romance movies!"

"We ruined their moment!" Emily sang gleefully. She stepped out of the car and waved happily at the couple. They turned away and migrated further down the river. She laughed.

"Hey, don't be mean!" Sam admonished even though there was a slight smile in his voice.

Emily said an automatic, almost contrite 'sorry' as she spun around slowly taking in her surroundings. "This is beautiful," she finally whispered in awe. "How did you guys find it? I thought you hated nature!"

"We hate camping, not nature, there's a huge difference! Dad brought us here once." Sam answered looking discreetly at his brother. He wondered whether Dean remembered that day. They'd been six and ten respectively, and Sam hadn't yet cottoned on to what his father really did. They'd fished without permits, and hadn't been caught, but neither had they caught anything. Dean had teased Sam saying his endless chatter had chased away the fish. Sam had insisted that Dean had touched the bait with his stinky hands. John had assured them that they were both to blame because they were impatient and couldn't stay still. So instead of the promised smoked fish, they'd had sandwiches for lunch and a chocolate bar each for desert, which was unprecedented.

After the meal, John had watched with an unreadable look on his face as his sons had played with the intensity and imagination that is unique to children. Of course Sam had later learnt that for Dean, slaying monsters was not a pretend game with sticks for swords, but a terrifying reality with shotguns filled with salt. When they'd tired out, they'd flopped onto the ground next to their father, and to their disbelief and utter delight, John had told them about the first and only time he and his father had gone fishing. The disastrous event made for a hilarious story, and the two boys had laughed till they'd cried, and John had pretended to be affronted by their amusement. The story had also made them curious about their grandfather, a man they'd heard nothing about till then, but John had suddenly clammed up. Sam, who even as a child was doggedly persistent, had been ready to hound his father until he got answers, but Dean with just a slight head shake had made him reconsider. Dean had always been an insightful liaison between his brother and father, a gift which both Sam and John usually took for granted.

Not long after that, they'd packed up and left. They hadn't been back here until now. Sam was willing to bet that John hadn't visited in the last sixteen years either.

Emily knew this place was special to her brothers, and not just because it was beautiful. She turned back to them, "Thanks for bringing me," she spoke with reverent gratitude.

"Cola or water?" Dean asked gruffly.

"Uh?" she looked at Sam. He shrugged. She turned back to Dean and took the water.

They ate in silence, enjoying the breeze off the river, and the warmth of the sun, while the shelter of the tree branches kept the direct glare from them.

"So what did you and John do when you came out here?" Emily's words were slightly slurred. The silence had stretched on long after the food was gone, and the quietude and contentedness was making her sleepy.

"Nothing … well, we fished." Sam answered, his voice just as sleepy sounding.

"Really?" Emily sat up in her surprise.

Sam laughed heartily. "I know, it's hard to believe those two could stay still long enough to fish!"

"Please!" Emily snorted, "You don't have the right disposition for fishing either!"

"Well, none of us caught anything" he confessed with a sheepish grin.

"Now that I believe!" she laughed.

"Think you'd do any better, smart ass?"

"As a matter of fact …" she stopped for effect, "no! But me and my dad always took home a fish each time we went fishing. Only we bought them at the fish market. I have a feeling mom knew. We never could successfully pull one over her! She …" Emily broke off suddenly, turning anxious eyes onto her brothers. For their sakes, she always strived to stay away from the topic of her parents, especially her mother.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool Mom!" Sam smiled. "You can talk about her, you know," he added gently.

"But …"

"We don't mind," he interrupted. In fact, Sam loved hearing about his mother and Emily's, but unfortunately his siblings rarely talked about either woman. Mary was an enigma, her absence and nature of death making her more of a legend and a martyr than anything else to Sam, who having no real memory of her, relied on his brother's memories which were rose coloured because Dean had only been four years old. On the other hand, Laura though not his mother, felt more real. Of course when Emily talked about her parents, rare as that was, she tended to speak of the positives more. Still, she spoke enough of the mundane and the not so good, to make them real people. They both sounded like they'd been wonderful, but Laura particularly fascinated him.

"Your mother was awesome, your father was oh so wonderful! We get it, okay? No need to rub it in our faces!" Dean growled.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Emily, and Sam barked Dean's name in a shocked reprimand.

Emily turned to Dean, tears of hurt and anger gleaming in her eyes. "I would never do such a thing and you know it!" her voice shook with emotion.

Dean felt contrite at the pain he'd caused his sister, but he was so angry, he couldn't stop lashing out. "Then stop talking about them every freakin' second!" he snapped.

"What the hell is your problem?"

"Nothing!" he yelled.

"Whatever I did to piss you off, I'm sorry, okay?" she spat out.

"I'm not angry with you!" he replied, but there was still a hard edge to his voice and his face looked like storm clouds.

"But you've been acting like a porcupine, all puffed up and bristly, and you're making this whole day impossible when it should be fun!"

Puffed up and bristly like a porcupine? Now that was an image! Sam struggled to hold in his laughter because the last thing he needed was for his currently emotionally overwrought siblings to turn on him.

Dean took a couple of deep calming breaths before turning to face Emily. "Yes! Yes I'm pissed, god damn it, but not at you! Okay? See, I'd finally managed to convince myself that things would be fine, then that woman at the bar asked me if you were dying!"

"Oh!" Both Sam and Emily exclaimed in understanding. No wonder Dean's emotions had taken a nosedive after talking to the woman.

"She thought you have cancer!" Dean continued, laughing bitterly, "Cancer! Can you believe that? And you know what's worse? I almost wish you had cancer, because at least then I wouldn't be thinking about whether I'll have to shoot you tonight or not!"

"Dean, you don't …" Sam began.

"I'm sorry," Emily interrupted Sam with a whisper. There was no need for any of them to pretend that Dean's fears weren't founded.

"Sorry? Sorry for what? It's not your fault! It's mine! I should have looked out for you. It's my duty to watch over you and I failed!"

"I'm a big girl, Dean. I'm responsible for myself."

"You may be eighteen, but you've been hunting less than a year. That makes you more or less a baby! I should never have let you into this life."

Now was not the time to rage about being called a baby, even though she really wanted to. "Look, Dean, when that reaver got inside me and made me slit my wrists, I got sucked into this life. You had absolutely no control over that, and it wasn't your fault anymore than the verumnat attack was. I don't blame you, or Sam or even myself. We were at the yard, during our downtime, there wasn't a full moon, and we were ambushed." She looked at him and then at Sam and smiled slightly, " We still kicked ass though!"

"And took names!" Sam added.

"And right now, in this very moment, we're all here, and we're fine. None of us knows what will happen tonight. But at least we've got this time, and we should make the most out of it, and be thankful for it. Being angry at ourselves or God, or whatever, is only ruining what might possibly be our last time together, and frankly that blows!"

Silence met her words. She sighed after a moment. "I love you guys, and I really couldn't have asked for better brothers." She stood up and walked to sit by the water edge, and began throwing stones in.

"You know, I never, ever asked for a sister, but I'm glad I got one anyway!" Sam sat by her side and gave her a one armed hug.

"God, the cheese that oozed off that line is giving me heartburn!" Dean teased his brother. He sat on the other side of Emily and gave her a slight shoulder bump. "But Sam's right, you're an awesome sister."

Emily smiled.

"Now, please, let us teach you the art of stone skipping because you absolutely suck!"

Emily laughed. "What makes you think I don't just want to chuck the stones into the water?"

"Come on, no one wants to do something that lame!" Dean laughed.

"It's simply a matter of angles," Sam began.

"And how you flick your wrist." Dean added.

"Guys, just show me!" Emily cut in before they got carried away with the instructions again.

She didn't quite get the hang of it, but it was good fun. The brothers finally gave up the lesson and the three siblings sat in rare silence, which was subsequently broken when Dean farted.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed with a grunted laugh. "This is why I don't take you anywhere!"

"Sweet Pythagoras, that is rank!" Emily held her nose.

"Thank you!" Dean smirked wiggling his eyebrows.

Both Emily and Sam punched him. It turned into an impromptu sparring match that left them sweaty, and dirty, but breathless with laughter. They snacked on chips and M&Ms, then lay back and cloud watched, talking inconsequentially about a scattering of topics, but mostly just enjoying each other's company. They did not notice the time until Emily suddenly popped up.

"We've got to go!" she spoke urgently.

"What's the rush?" Dean spoke languidly.

Emily turned to glare at him, and for a split moment, her eyes glowed like the raging sunset they'd been admiring earlier.

"Shit! Dad is going to kill me!" Dean thought as he sprang up.

Sam was close behind him.