Harvey felt my first real shiver from the cold, and helped me onto the porch. He pushed me toward the front door and promised that he'd be right behind me. I didn't want to leave him alone with this John person, but Harvey knew guns and standing near one another, they were well matched physically.

I watched from behind the closed door, catching a word here and there, both men gesturing toward me and glares being tossed in both directions. Harvey was clearly telling the other man to go, that he wasn't welcome, but I heard the stranger say Abi's name and my blood ran cold.

Opening the door, I stepped back out, still in my winter coat and gloves. "Did you say 'Abigail'?" I asked, staring down at the man who still hadn't taken a step onto the porch. "How do you know my daughter's name?"

"You mean OUR daughter, Tali," and as I stared in horror at this man making such a completely ridiculous claim, he didn't see Harvey's fist coming until it made contact with the side of his face. Before he could retaliate, I yelled for the both of them to stop.

"I don't know who you are, or why you'd make something so completely horrible up, but you need to leave. Now." He stood his ground and I did something I hadn't allowed myself to do for a long time. I prayed for Cas.

He was beside me in a flash of light, eyes only on me, so he missed the two men staring one another down with clenched fists. "Tali?" Cas' voice held concern and confusion. "What's wrong?"

"You knew where she was?" It was the strange John that growled at my guardian angel. "You knew she was here, alive and well, raising MY fucking daughter?"

He didn't take the first menacing step toward Castiel because Harvey blocked his path. "Think of that first punch as a warning," he glared down at his doppelganger. "The next is gonna hurt a shit ton worse."

Castiel was trying to keep my attention focused on him. "Tali, you need to calm down," easier said than done, my stomach was in knots. "Think of-" his hand touched my coat where it covered the tiny one growing inside of me. "Please?"

I could feel his angelic power giving me a tiny shred of peace, but I was still worried that Harvey would be hurt. "Harvey? Come in the house with me, babe, please?" I wanted to lock this stranger and his anger out. I wanted to have my future husband holding me as we watched his truck drive away.

"Let me see our 'guest' out, sweetheart, and I'll be right behind you." Harvey promised, but John looked like it would take a LOT to 'see' him out. "Go, Tali, I'll be right in."

I watched him give Castiel a sidelong look, and the angel was helping me back over the threshold, shutting the door behind us. "We need to call Rowena, Tali, now."

I called the witch, Harvey was still outside when I heard her Scottish lilt added to the noise of their voices outside. Sighing, but knowing that Cas would probably restrain me to keep me calm if I tried to join them, I tried to make myself busy with making tea.

"Tali?" I didn't turn toward the voice, afraid that it didn't belong to Harvey. Then his arms wrapped around me and his lips were on my ear. "We're at a stalemate, honey." I sighed, wondering what the hell we were going to do, other than call the police and have this weird man removed. "Rowena has an idea."

I turned in his arms and buried my face in his shirt covered chest, letting the beating of his heart and the scent of him calm me. "What's the idea?"

Rowena, it seemed, wanted to give me back a part of my life that I asked to be removed. At least temporarily. Just long enough for me and John to sit down and talk. Well, that's what I agreed to, anyway. Anything to get him out of my hair and my life back to normal.

She touched my forehead, whispered words that I didn't catch, and stared into my eyes to watch for the dawning of my memories to return. I felt every single piercing pain of loving John Winchester come rushing back in a flood. The first kiss, the last goodbye, every speck of any moment that we'd ever had all returned in living color. I felt like the air had been knocked out of me, and that I was dying all over again.

Tears streaming down my face, I watched as Harvey called for my first real love to walk back into my life. And I knew, it changed nothing. Not how I felt for Harvey, not how he felt for Mary, but definitely how Abi's life may change from this moment on.

Harvey refused to leave me, and for that I was more grateful than I could say. Holding my hand, he gestured for John to take a chair close, but not near enough to touch. Harvey's thumbs brushed my tears away and he gave me a soft reassuring kiss, and when I turned back to John i noticed his fists were still clenched.

"How's Mary?" I asked, thinking that reminding him of his wife and her return to the land of the living was worth the dig and would cool his irritation off. It didn't have any effect on him, but I didn't really care.

John didn't look comfortable. He looked like a caged animal who wanted to pace and growl, but he managed to hold it in. Thinking about Harvey's reaction on the porch, I thought it was a good idea myself.

"She's fine." He was glaring at Harvey's hand curled protectively around my stomach, and he didn't look all that happy about the way I was curved into his body. "Why did you purge-"

I gave a harsh chuckle that stopped him. "Why did I get rid of my memories of you and your family?" I wanted him to understand that to me, HIS family and MY family were completely opposite. "It made coming back more bearable. I wanted a fresh start, or fresher start." I bit my lip. "And I have one, John, I have a new lease on life. A peaceful life."

He sat back as if I'd punched him, as though my words hit harder than Harvey's fist. "With him?" He gestured at Harvey with a just of his chin. I nodded as I felt Harvey's grip tighten on me. John gave a soft snort. "He could BE me, Tali."

I raised an eyebrow. "No, he couldn't." I knew that John was basing his belief on the way they looked, but that wasn't the only thing I saw in Harvey. "Harvey loves me completely, John, not because I sacrificed anything for him. Not because he watched me grow up and saw my crush grow. Harvey loves me. He loves Abi. But the real difference between you and Harvey?" He was staring at me like he was seeing me for the very first time. "I'm Harvey's Mary."

I saw John's Adam's apple bob from the hard swallow he had to take. "That's not fair, Tali." I had trouble hearing him, he was so quiet. "I told you that-"

"That you loved me just as much as her?" I offered, fully capable of remembering every word he'd ever said to me now. "That you'd love me until I took my final breath? That I would be your ruin?" I nodded. "But you didn't, John, not really. You didn't want to see that I wasn't even there those nine years you had me. That I wasn't even THERE when you helped create Abi. You didn't fight Castiel, did you? When I had him tell you not to come, not to visit, not to try to see her?" I shook my head and squeezed Harvey's hand for strength. "You have Mary, John. You have Dean and Sam. You have the life you always wanted, the life that you saw when the djinn took you. Let me have Abi and Harvey. Let me have the life I want. I never asked you for anything, not really, but I am now. Leave us alone, let her have a father that has loved her since the first moment he laid eyes on her."

His eyes were tight and I felt a tug of my own pain at hurting him. I just couldn't let him back in. I couldn't. "She's my blood, Tali." I huffed out a tiny breath of disbelief. "She is, and you-" he closed his eyes to gather his words. "You meant more to me than you think."

"If I did?" His eyes met mine. "If you're telling the truth and I meant so much, John, then let me and Abi go." It hurt me more than I wanted to admit to, to push him away, but I had to. For my own sanity and his. "Let us have our new life, please?" I was begging, and I knew he could hear it in my voice.

"Can I see her?" Bargaining, John Winchester was trying to bargain. "Just once, Tali? Let me see my little girl and say goodbye?"

I agreed, but told him that it would have to wait until the next day. She was with her grandparents and I didn't want John to have a punch to the other side of his face courtesy of my dad. Agreeing to meet the next day, in a neutral spot, John left even as I watched him struggle not to reach for me.