Author's Note: Like I said before, sorry if the pacing seems too fast at times. If Ember isn't involved and the story stays canon, I try to plow through things and just give a summary of the general story arc. I don't want to skip through too much, though, for people who haven't memorized every bit of Supernatural. Also, I don't own Supernatural. If I did, I'd be RICH!

***Dean POV***

Summer

Dean talked to Ember again exactly eight times after he had attempted to have her memory removed. The first three were initiated by her, when she was less angry, to have what seemed like endless discussions to process through their relationship and the things that had gone wrong. These three ended up in fights. The fourth and the fifth were to talk about whether or not they could still be friends or at least work cooperatively as hunters if the need arose. The fifth conversation ended up in their worst fight yet.

The sixth and seventh conversations were Dean's attempts to update Ember on what was going on in the world of hunting. Castiel, in a last-ditch effort to get Dean and Sam to stand down while he opened Purgatory, had removed the wall blocking Sam from his memories of Hell. Then Castiel had betrayed Crowley, opened Purgatory, and used the souls to declare himself God of the free world.

Overall, the sixth and seventh conversations went fairly well, and so they attempted an eighth conversation, which circled back to their relationship and turned disastrous.

By the middle of June and throughout July, Ember spoke only with Sam and Bobby. Dean knew that one of the two of them spoke to her on an almost daily basis, but fortunately they seemed to do so when he wasn't around. This was fine with him; he was bitter, and angry, and upset. He had lost his best friend and his girlfriend in the same month, and also managed to wreck the Impala in the debacle with Purgatory. Castiel was apparently slaughtering Ministers in the Lord's name, and Ember was back to her "apple pie life", which he would never be a part of. Now, he desired only to fix his beloved Impala and avoid talking to anybody.

Dean was a firm believer in the fact that no matter how bad things are, they could always be worse; yet again, by the end of the summer, the universe had proved him right. At the beginning of August, Castiel sought out the two brothers to assist him in returning the souls he had taken into himself to Purgatory. Though he had secured and stabilized Heaven, it had been at a terrible price.

"Your vessel is melting, you're going to explode," Death said when Dean brought him together with Castiel. It was an unsuccessful but informative attempt to bind Death and make him kill Castiel. Castiel had thwarted this attempt on his life quite easily, but Dean had been shocked to see that Castiel was looking very unhealthy regardless. "There are things much older than souls in Purgatory, and you gulped those in too," Death told Castiel calmly. "Long before God created angel and man, he made the first beasts – the Leviathans."

Death had been right, but fortunately Castiel was able to send all of the souls he had consumed back to Purgatory – all except for the Leviathans, which held on inside his vessel. He could not contain them, and they exploded his vessel as they burst forth from him into the water supply. His trench coat was the only part of Castiel that Dean ever recovered. And so Dean mourned his friend, even as he cursed him.

Shortly after the Leviathans were set free, a few of them came to Sioux Falls. Dean, Sam, and Bobby only barely managed to escape them, Dean with a broken leg and Bobby with a burned down house. They set up shop instead at Rufus' old safe house, where they spent the end of August and September as Dean's leg healed.

Dean's greatest worry, however, was that by mid-summer it became apparent that Sam was having hallucinations of Lucifer. Dean had known it was too much to hope that Sam had returned from his year in Lucifer's cage unscathed, but he was disappointed in Sam for not telling him about the hallucinations when they had first started. Because she was a therapist, Sam spent weeks at a time at Ember's house, which seemed to do him good. Dean wasn't entirely "in the know" about exactly what Sam and Ember discussed regarding Sam's hallucinations, but he was hopeful for a good recovery. He knew Sam had even tried medication, and that it had worked for some time. By September, however, Dean found a bottle of pills in the trash can. When he asked Sam about them, he grumbled something about "side effects" and "not helping enough anyway." Dean knew better than to ask further. He couldn't really think of a response that Ember would not have classified as "not being sensitive to what Sam is going through right now," so he

simply nodded and resolved to watch his brother a bit more closely.

***Ember POV***

Summer

Ember had tried to stay in contact with Dean, but she realized quickly that it just wasn't going to work. Perhaps if they gave it time, she thought, she wouldn't be so ridiculously angry with him. She was angry with him for the obvious reasons – the vampire debacle, and attempting to whitewash her memory. More than anything, however, she was angry with herself that she had wasted nearly three years on a relationship that had been destined to epically explode. She also wondered if perhaps she would always be alone. How many hunters would she find, who knew and understood the lifestyle that she was forced to keep, being half-demon? How many of them would accept her once they found out she was half-demon? How many of them were as good-looking as Dean, and as good at protecting her? Where had this gone so wrong?

The news from Bobby and Sam that Castiel had so utterly betrayed them made things even worse. "Why don't you try to talk to him?" Bobby asked her one evening on the phone. "You know he was attracted to you. You may be best suited out of all of us."

"He wasn't attracted-…"

"Yes he was," said both Bobby and Sam, who was staying at her house at the time. "And Dean would say the same," Bobby added, "If you two idgits could be in the same room for five minutes."

So Ember prayed to Castiel, and asked him to deliver the souls back to Purgatory, but he refused, until long after it was too late. The death of Castiel was a blow to Ember, and she wished she could've been there with him when he died. Bobby and the brothers had been right, Ember knew – Castiel had always been attracted to her.

Overall, the only halfway good thing about the summer was how much time Sam spent at Ember's house. Ember often felt that she and Sam were helping each other heal – Sam from his Lucifer hallucinations, and Ember from her break-up with Dean.

Unfortunately, it occurred to her later that perhaps Sam was able to help her far more than she was able to help him. Ember stole a variety of medications to try with him, but after two months they were forced to conclude that the side effects of such medications were almost as bad as the hallucinations themselves. He did, however, overall, report less hallucinations and generally a better demeanor after than before he spent time with her. Perhaps, for now, that was all either of them could hope for.

***Ember POV***

October 29, Evening

"Dad, thank God!" Ember said, finally hearing her father's voice on the phone. "What the hell is going on? I saw the news-…"

"Yeah, sorry I haven't had time to chat," said Bobby. "I'm up to my arms in Leviathan guts, and I'm pretty sure Dean and Sam are in jail. But I wanted you to know-…"

"What?" said Ember frantically.

"Look, some Leviathans copied them and started robbing banks to try to draw them out into the open, and I'm pretty sure they're having a showdown right now in Iowa. They had to go undercover and switch their phones, but as of an hour ago they were still alive. I'll give you their new numbers, here… you got pen and paper?"

Ember hurried to grab it and took down the new numbers. During this time, Bobby made a series of loud grunting noises, as though he was moving things around and leaning over.

"What are you doing?" Ember said.

"Told you, I finally figured out how to kill them. Chop their heads off, and keep the heads separate from the body, and also burn them with borax. Got it?"

"Borax? Like in soap?"

"Exactlu. Look, I got another call comin' in, I think it might be Dean. Get some borax, girl."

"Will do, Dad."

Click.

***Ember POV***

November 15

The fall passed quickly. The brothers, and Ember by proxy, had found the Leviathans to be extremely difficult to kill, and as hard to track as demons due to their ability to copy and possess others. Ember's connection to the Leviathans through the Winchesters meant that Ember could never stay still for long. Unlike with demons, there was no way to "ward off" Leviathans so that she only need fear them while she was between home and work. Therefore, she reluctantly moved out of the house she had once bought with Dean. She wasn't sure whether or not the Leviathans would be able to see her while she was invisible, but she also didn't want to find out. She moved to a different apartment every few months, and spent quite a bit of time sleeping, invisible, in a variety of vacant hotel rooms. This style of living got old quickly, but it still provided for more stability than hunting.

Near the end of October, Ember took an opportunity to join Sam on a hunting case while he and Dean were in a fight. She rarely got to spend time with Sam the way she used to when she was dating Dean, and relished this experience. It turned out to be a routine ghost hunt – a "milk run", Sam called it – but that was how Ember preferred it.

Ember's 29th birthday came and went. Sam called to wish her happy birthday, and also to explain that he had gotten married to Becky Rosen, his biggest fan. Suspicious, Ember made immediate plans to come "visit" the happy couple at their house in Delaware the following weekend. Before the weekend arrived, however, Sam called back to explain that Becky had made a deal with a demon, and the marriage had been annulled.

***Dean POV***

November 15

"No. I won't work with Ember."

"Okay, okay, fine," said Bobby on the phone. "I'm just saying, she's coming up on the weekend anyway to visit Sam in Delaware. It's been six months since you broke up and five months since you last spoke, and she'd be highly suited for this mission considering-…"

"Yeah, and she'd be highly not suited for this mission considering we don't talk," Dean snapped.

"You never should've let her out of your life, Dean."

"Are we really going to discuss this? I thought you'd be happier with her out of 'the life.'"

"I'd be happier with you both out of the life. Look, whatever, I'll find you another hunter."

"I don't want another hunter, Bobby, why can't you do it?"

"I'm busy. It's not my fault you won't take my other suggestion."

"Ugh," Dean groaned. "Fine. What's his name?"

Anything to think about something other than Ember.

***Ember POV***

December 2, Evening

Ember was working late. She was desperate to get out, and it had been a horrible day. It was days like this, she thought, that almost made her want to go back to hunting. Almost. At least she had a date to look forward to. Although, admittedly, Ember was sorely tempted to simply go home and go to sleep.

She was just finishing up paperwork when the phone rang. It was Sam's ringtone. Ember froze. Sam never called this early in the evening. She knew immediately something was wrong.

"Sam?" she said, picking up the phone with trepidation.

"Ember, Bobby's been shot. He's – it's really bad."

***Dean POV***

December 3, Morning

"Why'd you have to go and call Ember?" Dean snapped at his brother.

Sam gave him a scathing look.

"That was an asshole question, wasn't it?" Dean asked.

"Asshole question, dude."

Sam was right, and he knew it, so Dean chose to sit and sulk instead. Bobby was in a coma. Castiel was dead. He had been living with frozen showers and no real bed for weeks, since Bobby's house burned down. The last thing he wanted, on top of everything else, was to spend however long it took until Bobby got better fighting with his ex-girlfriend.

Bobby's coma gave him time to think, and he definitely didn't like thinking. He hadn't seen Ember in over six months, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. He knew she was seeing a guy, too – it had just started a week ago, apparently. Sam and Bobby didn't know he knew, but he had overheard Sam talking to her about it one time when Sam thought he was asleep. At least, he thought with satisfaction, Sam hadn't seemed very happy about it.

With the extra time he had to think (and the fact that he steadfastly refused to worry about the fact that Bobby might not recover), Dean churned over scenarios in his mind about what might occur when Ember arrived the following morning. Perhaps she would run into Sam's arms and they would embrace as friends, with Dean looking on grouchily. Maybe she would bring her new boyfriend with her. Maybe, he thought, she would fall at his feet and say that her life wasn't the same without him and she desperately wanted him back, hunter or no hunter. He smiled in spite of himself at this thought, though he knew it would never happen.

What he didn't expect was what actually happened. Ember had no tears, but he could tell she'd been crying. She had circles under her eyes, and her hair clearly hadn't been washed in at least a day. She was as beautiful as Dean remembered, in jeans and a new t-shirt, her long hair coming out of its ponytail. And she ran straight into his arms and hugged him.

He hadn't expected it, but he hugged her back, for everything he was worth. It felt good to hold her again, but this was about more than that. When he finally let her go, she stumbled back and looked up at him, embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said finally.

"Ember, it's no problem, I-…"

"This has been stupid," Ember said. "It's stupid to think we wouldn't see each other again-… No, you start."

"Bobby's in a coma," was all Dean could say.

"I know," Ember said. "I… don't know…"

And she looked so lost that Dean reached out to hug her again. This time, he didn't let go for a very long time.

***Bobby POV***

December 4, Early Morning

Bobby knew he was dying. He knew the bullet was slowly killing his brain. Reapers didn't lie – they had no reason to.

He had gotten to give Sam and Dean the message about the Leviathans. That had been the most important thing, he decided. And he had seen Ember one last time, too. All three of them were together when he had awoken, he remembered that. Ember and Dean must've found a way to put their differences aside, at least for his death. Maybe they would get back together. (Probably not, but maybe.) Maybe after they took down the Leviathans, Dean would give up hunting again. (Probably not, but maybe.) Then his death would really be worth something.

Now he had one last memory to experience before he died.

He remembered this night with Sam and Dean vividly. It had been during the Christmas where Lucifer roamed the Earth, and they had taken a break from the lore to simply celebrate all of them still being alive.

"Alright, scoot, Jerkface, show your elders some respect," Dean said, shoving Sam over.

"You scoot, Asshat," Sam said, throwing popcorn at him.

"Dad, seriously, get some new sofas," said Ember, squishing herself in the middle of both of them. Dean looked at her with surprise, and Sam with alarm. Dean shrugged and pulled her onto his lap, and Sam rolled his eyes and threw popcorn at both of them.

"Movie snacks!" Ember exclaimed, grabbing the plastic bag near her as Sam and Dean took a beer from Bobby.

"Did we get licorice?" Dean asked, reaching around Ember to look in the bag.

"No, we did not get licorice," Sam said, his mouth full of popcorn. "We got good snacks. Licorice is disgusting."

"What's wrong with you?" Ember said, directing the question at Dean. "I can't even kiss you after you eat that stuff."

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand that, uh, Mr. Peanut-Butter-and-Banana sandwich," he said to Sam. "And don't even get me started on you," he said to his girlfriend

"You know what? I stand by that sandwich. Nobody likes licorice. It's made of dirt!" shouted Sam.

"There you go, see?" Ember said. "I'll just make out with Sam instead!" And she hopped off of the intimate position she was sitting in on Dean's lap, and got into a significantly less intimate position on Sam's knee.

"Hey!" Dean said, pulling her back. "It is a classic movie food! It's right up there with popcorn! And don't we have a rule about the two of you ganging up on me?"

"Popcorn? Seriously?" Sam asked. "You're out of your mind."

"What do you have against popcorn?" Ember said, giggling.

"Right?!" Dean said. "It's like little chewy pieces of Heaven!"

Bobby smiled as the three of them faded away.