Author's Note: Some ideas come while I'm writing, and some come before. Ironically the therapy for survivors idea and the proposal in this and the next chapter came while I was writing. Also, not much changes in this and the next chapter from what is in the TV Show… the Fanfiction episode was just simply too good not to include.

I do not own Supernatural.

***Dean POV***

September 16, Afternoon

Somehow, by some miracle, Dean and Ember were back together. He wasn't entirely sure which cosmic diety to send his gift basket to for that one, though he was pretty sure it was Castiel. He had a good idea that his best friend had passed on the opportunity to be with her again, mostly due to his impending death.

Dean knew the angel had been her first choice, even before her time as a demon. He also knew, instinctively, that she still loved Castiel, probably more than she loved him. He could see it in the way that her head jerked up whenever the angel was mentioned, and in the way she stared into space for minutes at a time.

If it had been any girl but Ember, Dean would have talked Castiel into being with her anyway. The fact was, however, that the girl in question was Ember, and Dean was more than happy to pick up where Castiel left off. The rest, he hoped, would come with time, and the angel was keeping his distance.

Their life was quiet, with both of them still reeling from the demon experience, and finding solace in each other. Josephine, Ember's oldest, was at away college, and her other three children attended high school once more. They were back living in their old house in Conway Springs. Dean visited at least once a week, often with Sam in tow, and Ember visited almost every weekend with one or more of the children.

There were difficult elements to this life he had chosen, with Ember. He was making a big effort to communicate, to see her as often as he could, and to bond with her children. He liked the three children very much, and they seemed to like him as well, but he knew they were all wary of his Mark of Cain, and of his budding relationship with Ember. Most of all, he was making a significant effort to drink less than he had since he got out of Purgatory.

Ember seemed happy overall – though he suspected she still thought often of Castiel, she never openly discussed it. Dean did know, however, that she was worried about her job, and about money. He knew she hated stealing from ATMs to provide, and he knew she was only working part-time. Overall, there was a sort of quiet acceptance and synchronicity to this relationship that Dean hadn't felt since they had settled down after the Apocalypse.

Still, Dean knew that hunting wouldn't be off the table forever. Finally, a month after being cured, he decided to bring up the topic of a new case. He waited until he was together with Ember and Sam, in front of a lake, relaxing and drinking beers. All three had sunglasses, and Ember had sat her lawn chair close to his, her knees curled up to her chin and her hair blowing in the wind. He started the conversation off slowly. "See that thing in the paper this morning?"

Sam sighed, and he could see his brother shoot a wary look at Ember. "Maybe it was an animal kill," he said.

"It was three kills, and it was in the same town, all within the last month," he replied.

Ember looked at the two brothers curiously, a frown lining her face.

"Yeah, you're right," Sam said. "We should call some guys. Have them fix it."

"Good," said Dean. "Smart."

Ember looked at Dean, a small smile playing on her face.

"Done," said Sam.

"Or," said Dean, "We could be in and out. It's a milk run."

Ember smiled at this, and Dean was surprised. She wanted to go hunting?

"Right," said Sam, "Because that happens never."

Dean watched Ember frown again, and pushed the subject farther than he had at first intended. "Look, Sam, what we're doing here, it's good, okay? All of us, hanging out… but I need to work… I need this."

Sam and Ember were both giving him wary looks now.

"If things go sideways," Sam said, "I mean, like, an inch… you gotta give me the heads up."

"Done," Dean said. "You got my word." And he walked away, taking the lawn chair with him.

"What do you think about this?" he heard Sam asking Ember as Dean walked away.

"I can't stay dormant any longer either," Ember said. "It's… I have to do good again. You know? After all the bad we did…"

Dean smiled to himself. He felt the same way.

***Ember POV***

September 19, Night

It hadn't been a milk run. At first, the Winchesters and Ember had thought that the werewolf responsible for the murders had been Kate, a werewolf that the brothers had interacted with before. Kate had been clean, and had never eaten a human heart before, so they had let her go.

As it turned out, the culprit had been Kate's sister Tasha. Kate had turned her younger sister when Tasha had been comatose from a nearly fatal car accident. Tasha hadn't been willing to stay clean of human hearts like Kate had been, however. In fact, she had turned two older teenage boys, and created her own "pack."

Ember and the brothers had easily gotten the jump on the two teenage boys and killed them, thanks to Ember's invisibility and force powers. Sam and Dean had insisted on killing Tasha, but Ember had been sympathetic to another idea. She could sense from Kate that Kate was willing to take responsibility for her sister. If this meant using silver to lock her in a basement with only animal hearts until she could be trusted, this is what had to be done. Ember knew all too well the importance of hanging on to family.

"Just hear me out, okay?" Ember insisted to Dean. "They've got this cabin. We've got manacles. I can check on them every so often, make sure she's still-..."

"That's a ridiculous idea," Dean was saying. "You don't have time to-…"

"Please, it's my sister, I'll do whatever I have to do!" said Kate.

"That's the choice?!" yelled Tasha suddenly, from where she was handcuffed with one hand to the bed. "Get killed, or stay chained in this damn house and eat chickens for the rest of my life?!"

"Tasha, please, you can control it, and we'll be together, it won't be that-…" said Kate.

"Fuck that!" Tasha yelled. "I'm tired of getting bossed around! By Mom and Dad, by friends and boyfriends… by you!" And without warning, she had grabbed the knife out of Dean's hand and plunged it into her own heart.

"We failed that girl," Ember said to Dean later in the car.

"Tasha?" he said with derision. "Ember, you offered her more than any sane-…"

"Not Tasha," Ember said, rolling her eyes. "Kate."

"How do you figure?" Dean asked.

"I mean, the kids, and the adults, and even the monsters, that we save, it's not like we leave them with an instruction manual, is it? I mean, even the ones that go on to lead normal lives… have years of therapy, don't they? And what therapist is going to actually listen to them? I mean, normal therapists don't know anything about demons… And speaking of demons, how many demon-possessed humans have we let walk away, with no answers, and no resources. It's lucky Kate did as well as she did, honestly. We tell these people, 'Don't break bad,' but it's not like they have any support half the time, and-…"

Ember drifted off, realizing that Sam and Dean were both looking at her with shock.

"So you do it, then," said Dean.

"Do what?" Ember asked.

"Ember, that would be perfect," said Sam in a low voice.

"What?" Ember asked. "Offering… therapy services for… survivors?"

Sam and Dean looked at her carefully. "Yeah," they both said at once, as though it were obvious.

So that was exactly what Ember did.

***Ember POV***

October 21, Afternoon

ONE MONTH LATER

Ember was shocked at how quickly her new business took off. In all honesty, Ember had gotten lucky. One of her first clients was a computer hacker, who knew some algorithms for finding clients online who had had supernatural experiences. By the middle of October, Ember was so busy with her new business that she had had to put in her two weeks' notice with the one client she saw for her other job.

The best part about this newer business was that it could all be done online and over the phone. Ember saw about 6-8 clients per day, all for $25 a session up front. She didn't worry about insurance, seeing as the supernatural wasn't supposed to exist in the first place. She was free to come and go between Conway Springs and the bunker whenever she pleased, which was even easier with her teleportation abilities. She was making more money than she'd ever made at her other jobs, and was much happier as well.

Ember occasionally went hunting with the brothers as well, when she heard about a case that she really wanted to take. Her job gave her the flexibility to do so, for the most part, which she loved. The first case she accompanied the brothers on since the werewolf case was one about a missing drama teacher in Flint, Michigan.

When Ember teleported to Maine to meet the brothers, however, she was accompanied by the strangest sight.

"You idgits!" one girl was shouting. "You idgits! You are idgits." She was dressed in a beard and flannel, and reminded Ember quite a bit of Bobby.

Ember's first thought was that perhaps they were doing a play about the "Supernatural" books, written by "Carver Edlund." She knew Chuck had published up through the Apocalypse before his disappearance. She had read everything he had published, being that much of it included her. Still, to have a play about Supernatural performed at a drama school would be very coincidental.

The next thing Ember saw was a girl dressed as an angel. "Hey, ass-butt ! Hey ! Ass-butt!"

Coincidental it was, then.

Suddenly, Ember heard notes on a piano; a musical number was beginning.

John and Mary, husband and wife

Bringing home a brand new life

His name is Sammy,

I'm big brother, Dean.

The perfect family, or so it seems.

The demon's visits had begun

He believed Sam was the chosen one

It burned my mother,

And it cursed my brother

Leaving us in tears

On the road so far,

Yeah, the road so far!

We are in Dad's car-

"Cut!" yelled a younger girl, who was obviously the student director.

Ember turned to Sam and Dean with a wide grin. She took in their faces, which were a mixture of shock and horror. Her grin got wider. "This is the best day of my life!" she exclaimed.

Eventually, the student director approached them. "Hi! Oh my gosh... Are you guys from the publisher? I'm Marie, writer slash director. This is Maeve, my stage manager, and I was just, uh, dir-…"

Sam had flashed his FBI badge, and Marie had stopped her monologue. Dean had begun to flash his badge as well, but Sam had stopped him. Ember followed Sam's eyes, and realized that he was watching the two actresses who played Dean and Sam onstage. They were also both flashing FBI badges.

"I'm special agent Smith," said Sam. "This is my partner, special agent -…"

"Smith," Dean said. "And our, uh, Supervisor, Special Agent-…"

"Carver," Ember finished, remembering her lines at the last second. "Nice to meet you."

"We're here to look into the disappearance-…"

"There is no singing in Supernatural!" said Dean, cutting off his brother. Sam gave an embarrassed look to the young girls, who simply looked confused.

"Well, this is Marie's interpretation...," said the Stage Manager, Maeve.

"Hah!" said Dean. "Well... I mean, if there was singing, you know... And that's a big if… If there was singing, it would be classic rock. Not this Andrew Floyd Webber crap-…"

"Andrew Lloyd Webber," Sam and Ember both whispered at the same time.

"Well," said Marie, "You know, we do sing a cover of Carry On Wayward Son, in the second act."

"Oh!" said Dean.

"Really?" asked Sam.

"It's a classic!" said Dean and Marie together. Ember giggled.

"Right," said Sam. "Anyways. We're here to talk about the disappearance of Ms. Chandler. Any chance you two saw her, before she vanished?"

And off they went. Sam decided to go with Maeve and check for EMF around the stage, while Ember and Dean accompanied Marie to look backstage for cursed objects and gain more information about the teacher who had disappeared. During their tour, Ember, Dean, and Marie passed the actresses who played Sam and Dean, rehearsing a scene in front of the Impala. Ember noticed that the two girls were standing awfully close to each other.

She knew Dean had noticed it, too. "What are they doing?" he asked Marie.

"Oh!" she said. "They're rehearsing the B.M. scene."

"The bowel movement scene?" Dean asked.

"No!" she exclaimed. "The boy melodrama scene!" Dean looked confused, which made Ember giggle. This whole situation was so surreal, and it got more hysterical by the minute.

"I am never going to let you live this down," Ember whispered at Dean. "This is awesome!"

"This is the scene where the boys get together, and they're-they're driving, or leaning against Baby. Drinking a beer, sharing their feelings. The two of them. Alone. But together. Bonded. United. The power of the brotherly-…"

"Why are they standing so close together?" asked Dean.

"Hum... Reasons," said Marie mysteriously.

"You know they're brothers, right?" asked Dean.

"Well, duh!" answered Marie. "But... Subtext."

"Why don't you take some substeps back there, ladies?" yelled Dean at the two actresses, and Ember had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

"You know, I read those stories when I was younger, and a little bit of the fanfiction too," Ember said when she finally had control of her laughter. "And I was never able to get on board with Wincest."

"Wincest?" said Dean, his voice sounding slightly higher than usual.

"Fair enough," said Marie. "Destiel is better anyway. You've read "Supernatural?"

"What's Destiel?" asked Dean, but both girls ignored him.

"Mmm," said Ember, determined to nettle Dean further, simply for the fun of it. "I really liked the character of Ember in the later online books."

"I go back and forth about Ember," confessed Marie. "I really like the character, but I don't think she'd stay with Dean. I think she might fit better with Castiel. I'm pretty sure the author was alluding to that."

Ember looked at the floor, determinedly avoiding Dean's probing eyes.

Finally, the three of them reached Mrs. Chandler's office. Dean looked around the room at the empty bottles, then stumbled on a robot's head. "Is this hers?" Dean asked.

"No!" said Marie. "That's a prop from Act Two! I've been looking for that, actually."

"There's no space in Supernatural," Dean pointed out.

Ember raised her hand to point out their UFO abduction, though that was technically fairies, but thought better of it at the last second.

"Well, not canonically, no," said Marie. "But this is transformative fiction."

Dean smirked. "You mean fan fiction."

"Call it whatever you like, ok?" said Marie. "It's inspired by Carver Edlund's books. With a few embellishments. But, as you know, Chuck stopped writing after Swan Song. I just- I couldn't leave it the way that it was! I mean, Dean not hunting anymore, living with Ember?! Sam, somehow back from Hell, but not with Dean?! So, I wrote my own ending."

"You wrote your own ending," Dean clarified. "With spaceships?"

"And robots. And some ninjas," Marie said. "And then, Dean becomes a woman." At that, Ember spit out a drink of water she had just taken from a water filter. Dean didn't look at her, but she could see him grinding his teeth. Marie must have seen it to, because she said, "It's just for a few scenes!"

"That's totally believable," Ember commented, and Dean shot her a look of spite.

Finally, they walked back to the main auditorium. "Alright, Shakespeare," Dean said. "You know that I can actually tell you what really happened with the-the Sam and Dean?"

Marie and Ember looked at him curiously. "A friend of mine hooked me up with the, uh, unpublished unpublished books," he said by way of explanation. "So, Sam came back from Hell. But without a soul. Then, Cas brought in a bunch of Leviathans from Purgatory. They lost Bobby. And then, Cas and Dean got stuck in Purgatory. Sam hit a dog. They met a prophet named Kevin. They lost him too. Then Sam endured a series of trials, in an attempt to close the gates of Hell, which nearly cost him his life. Then Dean? Dean became a demon. Knight of Hell, actually."

"And Ember broke up with Dean, just like you said," filled in Ember. "Then she got back together with him, and they broke up again. She had the children she always wanted. They were orphaned by vampires. And, like you said, Ember got together with Cas, but that didn't work out. And, now she's back with Dean."

Dean and Ember looked at Marie expectantly. "Wow," she said.

"Yep," said Dean.

"That is some of the worst fan fiction that I've ever heard!" Marie exclaimed, laughing. "I mean, seriously, I don't know where your friend found this garbage! I am not saying that ours is a masterpiece, or anything, but geez! Ha! I'll have to send you some fic links later."

Dean and Ember's attention had been caught by something else, however. "What are they doing?" asked Dean. He was pointing at the actresses for Dean and Castiel, who were kissing near the front of the auditorium.

"Kids these days, call it hugging," Marie said casually.

"Is that in the show?" Dean said, as Ember once more held back a snigger.

"Oh, no," said Marie. "Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in real life. Although, we do explore the nature of Destiel in act two."

"Sorry, what?" Dean asked.

"Oh, it's just subtext!" Marie exclaimed. "But, then again, you know, you can't spell subtext without... s-e-x.."

-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-SPN-

"I don't understand," said Sam, back in the parking lot.

"Me neither," said Dean.

"I mean, shouldn't it be... Deastiel?"

Ember smirked. "Really?" Dean asked. "That's your issue with this?"

Sam smirked back at his brother. "No, of course it's not my issue. You know... How about Sastiel? Samstiel?"

"Ok, alright. You know what?" asked Dean. "You're gonna do that thing, where you just shut the hell up. Forever."

Sam and Ember both laughed.