Dean watched his wife walk up the front steps of Bobby's place appreciatively. No matter how mad he was at Bobby for not answering, or for knowing the goddamn sheriff, or for any of this shit… Piper's ass was too good to miss.

"Dude, quit staring," Sam said evenly, smirking.

Piper turned around before she knocked. "Staring at what?" When Dean waggled his eyebrows at her, she grinned. "Focus, Winchester, more important things."

"I beg to differ," he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear, as she knocked.

She turned and shot him a wink as the door opened, and like it always did, his heart skipped a beat.

Bobby stared up at them. "The hell do you want?"

When Piper reached to open the door, Bobby didn't get out of the way. She tensed. "Can we talk about it inside, Bobby?" She asked softly.

Bobby grumbled and backed up so they could walk in. Dean could see that Piper was taken aback, so he came to stand next to her, putting a hand on her warm back. "You know how many times we called? Where have you been?" He snapped at Bobby, irritated that Piper was upset.

Bobby shrugged. "Playing murderball."

There was something weird in the air. Dean frowned. "What's that smell? Is that soap?"

Piper looked at Bobby. "Did you clean?"

Bobby glared at both of them. "What are you, my mother? Bite me!"

Piper eyebrows rose, and pain flashed in her hazel eyes. Bobby looked a little ashamed, but Dean didn't care. He wrapped an arm around Piper and tucked her close to him.

Sam also subtly shifted do he was standing almost in front of her. "Bobby, seriously."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "I been working. You know, trying to find a way to stop the devil."

"Find anything?" Piper asked softly.

Bobby's face relaxed a little. "Uh, no. Not yet."

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Bobby, it's just… There's a case less than five miles from your house."

Bobby blinked. "What, the… The Benny Sutton thing? That's what this is about?"

Dean glared. "You knew about this?"

"Hell, yes. I checked into it already. There's nothing here."

Piper snorted, and the show of spirit made Dean feel a little better. "Except a witness who saw a corpse commit murder."

Bobby snorted back. "What witness? Digger Wells?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

"So, he's a drunk."

"Well, what about the lightning storms?" Piper countered. "Those are omens."

"Except in February in South Dakota in storm season. Pi, I thought it was something, too. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

xxxxx

Piper was pushing Bobby's wheelchair back up to the house, all sorts of angry. Bobby knew that dead people were rising, he lied to her, and now he was being all goddamn mysterious about it.

It really left her no other option than to kill him.

Dean must have known what she was thinking, because he was looking at her warily. He looked back at Bobby. "You want to tell us what the hell…"

They had come in the front door, into the kitchen. A pretty older woman wearing an apron turned and smiled at them. "Oh! I didn't realize you were bringing company home."

All of Piper's anger drained away, and she felt her face cool as she paled. Oh, dear, she thought, recognition pouring through her.

"It's four in the morning, babe," Bobby said softly, "You didn't need to cook."

"Oh, please! I'll get some more plates." She hurried into the dining room to set the table, and Piper felt herself start to sway on her feet. She bit her tongue hard to bring her back to herself, then looked down at Bobby, who was looking up at her defiantly.

"How?" she asked faintly.

Dean was looking between the two of them. "Who was that?"

Bobby turned and looked at Dean. "Karen, my wife."

Sam frowned. "Your new wife?"

"His dead wife," Piper said calmly. She took a deep breath. "Well, let's not keep her waiting. To the table, boys."

She led them to the table. She let go of Bobby's wheelchair and circled the table to sit as far away from his as possible. Dean positioned himself between them, and Sam sat on the other side. Under the table, Dean took her hand and squeezed, and she mustered a warm smile for him before she resumed glaring at Bobby.

Karen was lovely, as Piper had suspected she would be. She was warm and considerate and Piper found herself liking the woman more and more as time went on.

She served them a lovely pie, and Piper managed to contain her eye roll when her husband ate enthusiastically. It helped that he was still holding her hand, his big, calloused thumb running across her skin.

"This is incredible, Mrs. Singer," he said fervently, his mouth full. Piper couldn't stop her eyes rolling this time, and he caught it. He turned to look at her. "What? It is!"

Bobby smiled up at his wife, and it broke Piper's heart. "It's great, Karen," he said softly. "Thank you. Could you, um, just give us a minute?" Karen smiled and left the room.

Dean glared at Bobby. "Are you crazy? What the hell?"

Bobby sighed. "Dean, I can explain-"

"Explain what, Bobby?" Piper asked softly. "Lying to us? Or the thing that claims to be your dead wife making cupcakes in the kitchen?"

Bobby glared at her. "Watch it, Pi."

Anger fizzed beneath the surface. "Or what, Singer?"

Sam held his hands up for peace. "Bobby, whatever that thing is in there, it is not your wife."

Bobby glared. "And how do you know that?"

Piper sighed. "Look, this is getting us nowhere." She took a deep breath and looked at her father figure. "I assume you tested her for everything? And she passed it all?"

He nodded, and she tried to think. "Bobby, I thought you cremated Karen?"

He nodded again. "I did. And I buried her ashes."

"Where?"

"In the cemetery. That's where they all rose from."

"How many?" Dean asked, squeezing Piper's hand again.

"Fifteen, twenty. I made a list." He dug into his pocket and handed the list to Sam. "Uh, there's Karen, Clay, Sheriff Mills, her little boy came back."

Sam gazed down at the list. "And there were no signs? No omens?"

Bobby flushed. "Well, there were the lightning storms."

Dean frowned. "That's what we said. What else?"

Bobby sighed. "'And through the fire stood before me a pale horse. And he sat atop him carried a scythe, and I saw since he had risen, they, too, shall rise, and from him and through him.'"

Piper paled. "Revelation." Bobby nodded.

Dean was still frowning. "So, what, Death is behind this?

"Death, Death?" Sam asked. "Like, Grim Reaper death?" Bobby nodded again.

Dean threw his free hand in the air. "Awesome. Another horseman. Must be Thursday." It was Piper's turn to squeeze his hand gently.

Sam leaned forward on his elbows. "Bobby… Why would Death raise fifteen people in a Podunk town like Sioux Falls?"

Bobby shrugged. "I don't know."

Dean sighed. "You know, if Death is behind this, then whatever these things are… It's not good."

Piper put a hand on his arm before he could continue. "Bobby, does she remember rising? Or coming back at all?"

He shook his head.

Dean ran a hand down his face. "Bobby-"

"No, no," Bobby snapped, "Don't 'Bobby' me. Just… Just listen, okay?" In the silence, Piper could hear Karen humming in the kitchen. "She hums when she cooks. She always… Used to hum when she cooked." Piper's eyes filled with tears at the pain in his voice. "Tone deaf as all hell, but… And I never thought I would hear it again." He looked at them earnestly. "Just read Revelation. The dead rise during the apocalypse. There's nothing in there that says that's bad! Hell, maybe it's the one good thing that comes out of this whole bloody mess."

Before the brothers could say anything, Piper was up and around the table, wrapping her arms around Bobby's neck and hugging him tight. "Okay," she said softly. "We'll try to find out what's going on. And you know if there's any way to keep her around, I will find it, okay?"

xxxxx

That night, Dean wouldn't let them stay at Bobby's, so they were in a nearby motel. Piper sat on the bed with her head in her hands, her mind whirling, trying to find some way to keep Karen with Bobby. She wanted so badly to make that happen, but suspected that this was something she wouldn't get out of sheer force of will.

The bed dipped, and she lifted her head to smile at Dean. "Hi, handsome."

He ran a hand through her hair. "How you holdin' up, kitten?"

She leaned into his touch tiredly. "I'm fine. Just hoping there's a way to fix all of this."

He frowned and pressed his lips to her temple. "Piper, you know we'll probably have to kill her."

She leaned into him. "Don't tell Bobby that."

xxxxx

"I know you don't trust me."

Dean's eyebrows went up at Karen's words. Piper and Sam were off investigating the town's recently revived, and he was here, keeping watch on Bobby and his 'wife.' "Why would you say that?"

The pale, kind woman smiled at him. "Come on, Dean. That's why you're here, isn't it? Keeping an eye on me? I know who you are. Just like I know Bobby's not the same mild-mannered scrap dealer I married. You hunt things. I… I'm a thing. I get it."

Dean sighed. "So you know that Piper, Sam, and I would never let anything happen to Bobby. That he's like a father to all three of us."

Karen nodded. "I understand. And he's lucky to have you looking out for him. But you're not the only one."

"Is that so?"

She nodded again, then turned back to her baking. "I remember everything you know. When I died. That demon taking over my body… And the things it made me do. And Bobby having no choice but to… Well, you know what he did. But I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. The guilt. It weighs on him."

Dean shrugged. "So why don't you tell him you remember?"

Karen tilted her head. "I thought you were married, Dean. When you're in love with someone, it's… Different. He's my husband. My job is to bring him peace, not pain."

Dean chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, uh, Pipes doesn't really follow that line of thinking."

Karen tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

Dean smiled fondly, thinking of his firecracker wife. "Piper thinks that if there's pain, we should be in it together. Peace will come after, peace will come from the two of us. But pain needs to be dealt with." He met the woman's eyes. "And lying is just adding pain on top of pain. In Piper's opinion, of course."

xxxxx

When she pulled up in her Jeep, he breathed a sigh of relief. He watched her pull in and park, watched her sling her bag over her shoulder and step out. When she saw him, she grinned, and he held his arms out to her.

She ran up the stairs, slamming into him when she got there. He crushed her to him, the peace he'd been talking to Mrs. Singer about settling over him as he inhaled her scent.

He pulled back and smoothed her hair away from her face. "No more of this being apart shit," he said roughly. "You and me are sticking together until this apocalypse is figured out. Got me?"

She smiled up at him. "Gotcha, Mr. Winchester. You and me."

xxxxx

When Sam got back, he was pissed, and struggling to contain his volume.

"Keep your damn voice down," Bobby snapped. "Karen's upstairs."

Piper held her hand up, trying to organize her thoughts. "Hold on a second, who's old lady Jones?"

"The first one to come up," Bobby snapped again. Piper glared at him.

"The first one to go bad." Sam replied angrily.

Bobby waved a hand. "Ah, she was always a nutty broad."

Dean frowned. "Nutty how? Nutty like the way she ate her husband's stomach? Was that the level of nutty she was in life?"

"No," Bobby muttered reluctantly.

Dean ran a hand through his hair. Piper stood by him and put her hand on his lower back, underneath his flannel, to offer comfort. "Look, Bobby," Dean said softly. "I feel for you. If it was Piper, I don't… But you have got to acknowledge that you're not exactly seeing straight."

"Bobby," Sam said gently, "Whether you admit it or not, these things are turning. We have to stop them. All of them."

Piper frowned and opened her mouth to protest when Bobby pulled a gun out and rested it on his lap. Her mind went completely blank with pain and shock. She covered her mouth with her hand. "Bobby…"

He stared at her with hard eyes. "Time to go."

Dean looked disbelieving. "What?"

"You heard me, off my property."

"Or what?" Sam scoffed. "You'll shoot?"

"You heard him," Piper said softly, her heart aching. She went to the door slowly, so he didn't fucking shoot her, and grabbed her things. She tossed Dean's leather jacket to him. "Let's go. If Bobby doesn't want us here, we won't be."

Sam frowned. "Pipe, I-"

The sound of the gun cocking made Piper flinch. "I'm not telling you twice," Bobby said coldly.

Stonefaced, Dean turned, shrugged his coat on, and wrapped his arm around Piper to lead her out of the house. Furious, she let him.

xxxxx

When it was all over, Dean stood with Bobby at Karen's funeral pyre after Sam and Piper had walked away. Bobby had explained about the message from Death, about the reason it had been sent, and had simply ended with how tired he was of killing the love of his life. The three of them had forgiven him, with Piper leaning down and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Dean sent another quick thanks up that she was in no danger.

"Bobby." Dean said softly.

"I don't want a damn pep talk from you, boy," Bobby snapped.

"Good," Dean said simply. "That's not what I'm gonna say." After taking a quick look to make sure that Piper was out of earshot, Dean looked back at the flames. He couldn't look Bobby in the eye yet. "Bobby, you know you're like a father to me…"

He took a deep breath and looked down to meet his father figure's gaze. "But you ever point a fucking gun at Piper again, I will make sure it's the last damn thing you do."

Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked toward the Impala.

xxxxx

Piper was settled on Dean's bare chest, drawing nonsense on his warm skin with her fingertips. He was threading his fingers through her hair, which was sending her off to sleep.

But before she did… "Dean?"

"Hmm?" Someone else is almost asleep, too.

"Did you threaten Bobby before we left?"

His silence, and the way he tensed beneath her, were all the answers she needed.

Then he shrugged. "Sorry, kitten."

She lay her head on his chest and smiled. "Alpha male bullshit, Dean."

His rumbling chuckle made her toes curl. He wrapped his strong arm around her and turned so she was beneath him, smiling into his handsome face. He smirked. "You like it."

Well, he's certainly awake now. "Maybe."

xxxxx

Hi everyone! Here's my notes:

I own only Piper Finley, the original character. I don't own Supernatural or the characters. (heartbroken)

Reviews and comments give me the warm fuzzies and keep me going.

If there are any mistakes in continuity, canon, or geography, blame me.

**Writer's block is a real, terrible thing.