(A/N- OMG, I feel the love. Y'all make it all worthwhile, and for that, you all get… M&M's!

My younger brother brought up an interesting point the other day, while I was in the process of making him watch my taped episodes of Supernatural. Quoth Mark, "Imagine how much Dean would be able to curse if this was a late night show!" Yeah, I have the feeling we would be hearing much more obscene words dropping from those lovely, pillowy lips. Funny how he can make it… y'know, funny, rather than offensive. Okay, I'm finished with the thought of the day.)

"This doesn't feel right," Sam said, as he and Dean headed upstairs to their respective guest rooms. "Staying in their house, I mean. It feels like we're… I don't know, conning them, or something."

"Hey, you heard David; it takes thirty minutes to get here from town. Besides, how often do we get room and board in this line of work?"

"Well… never."

"And do we ever ask for charity?"

"No."

"Then why should we be ashamed to accept it when it's offered freely?" Dean grinned. "And don't even try to tell me Sabine's cooking isn't the second best thing to having sex, 'cause you know it is. I swear, when that cornbread hit my tongue, I had to keep myself from –"

"Dean!"

"– Moaning. What? What did you think I was gonna say?"

"…You're a jerk," Sam muttered, blushing furiously.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean cooed, overjoyed at the chance to embarrass his little brother, "what did you think I was gonna say?"

"I hate you, and I'm going to bed," Sam informed, ducking into his room and shutting the door. He heard Dean chuckling on the other side.

"You prude," he said. Sam was tempted to fling open the door and insist that he was not a prude; that he and Jess had, in fact, made beautiful love every night; that Dean could never appreciate such a thing because he was incapable of seeing women as something other than receptacles for his own sick, twisted, kinky pleasures…

But thinking about Jessica made him sad – and thinking about what Dean did with women made him cringe with horror – so Sam said nothing, which was probably to his benefit in the long run, because getting Dean started on a conversation about their respective sex lives would undoubtedly end with Dean's recitation of his tryst with that girl in Georgia who had a thing for handcuffs and chocolate syrup.

Sam shuddered violently. That was one he never wanted to hear again. Granted, it wasn't quite as disturbing as the story about the girl in Minnesota with the fetish for frigid mountain streams… but it was a close second. Sam dearly wished his brother could just gloat silently about having had sex in every state in the union.

"Honestly, Sam, are you going to sleep all day?" The familiar voice startled him, and his eyes snapped open.

"Jess?" he breathed, not quite believing what he was seeing. But there she was: alive, healthy, and looking like she was trying not to break into giggles at the confusion on his face as she pulled open the lacy curtains at the window.

"What?"

"You're…but you… you're dead."

"You just had a bad dream," she said, sitting down next to him on the bed. "I'm fine, Sam. See?" She held up both hands, as if proving herself corporeal. The sunlight glinted off her wedding ring. Sam glanced down at the matching ring on his left hand. They were married? But Jessica had died before he'd even had the chance to…

"Daddy!"

A three-, maybe four-year-old girl appeared at Jessica's side. She cocked her head.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Jessica ran her hand over the child's dark hair.

"Daddy had a bad dream, Julia," she said, and Sam's heart nearly broke. Jess had always loved the name 'Julia'.

Julia – beautiful, angel-faced Julia – climbed into Sam's lap, and he hugged her tightly, burying his face in her soft hair.

So this was it? This is what he might have, could have, should have had? This was his life without ghosts and demons and monsters? Or was there still evil to fight, and he had just warned Jessica this time; kept her safe?

He pulled Jessica to him, not really caring how bizarre she and Julia thought he was acting.

God, they felt so solid and real in his arms. He never wanted to let them go, never wanted to wake up if this was what could be his in his sleep.

But slowly, surely, Jessica and the daughter she would never have began to fade into nothing.

And as he lay in the Harveys' guest room with the morning sun streaming in through wooden blinds, Sam Winchester didn't know whether to smile or cry.

(A/N- Words of wisdom: hearing Elvis's "Burning Love" on the radio should not make one think of Jessica. And if it does, the irony is cruel, not funny, and one should not start to giggle, for Sam would be sad, and shoot the giggler. Thus, HealerAriel should be dead now.

Sorry, short chapter. I just… needed this.)