Author's Note: Two updates in one day. Mostly because it's been AGES since I've updated at all! I promise to do better with this. Hopefully. LOL Thank you again for reading. I appreciate it more than I can say!

Emerson sighed as she heard Sam's phone go to voice mail after several rings. She'd gotten every one of his messages but she hadn't had the time or the energy to answer the phone at the time. Now that she had a minute, she had wanted to check on him, see how Sam was doing and let him know that she was okay. Mostly Emerson just wanted to hear his voice. The closest that she got was his voice mail message so it kind of 'had to do'. She seemed to smile a little and sighed just before the beep.

"Hey, Sam. It's just me. I'm, uh, I'm calling you back, hoping everything's okay. I'd love to hear how the case went," she said, feeling like she was fumbling for words. Emerson just didn't seem to know what to say right now, which was probably why she hadn't called him sooner. It was probably why she hadn't bothered to call Sam at all before this actually. "Uh, just wanted to let you know that I'm okay actually." She took a deep breath and sighed. "Things are ... Well, they are what they are but I'll be all right. Take care of yourself, okay? I hope to hear from you soon, Sam. Bye."

Emerson nodded to the Fed Ex delivery guy, gesturing for him to go to the back room as she hung up her phone and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. The store was empty now. Even the shelves had been sold and were gone and the delivery guy was there to pick up the last of her inventory, which was being shipped to some New Age store in Pennsylvania. She wasn't sure where it was and didn't much care at this point. The store had become a distraction and Emerson couldn't afford any distractions right now. It was also the reason she kept her phone turned off so often the last few days. A call from Sam would be too much of a distraction.

"Emmy, are you sure you packed away everything?"

Emerson shot a dirty look over her shoulder and sighed. "Yes, mother. And don't call me Emmy," she said, almost growling. She spoke through gritted teeth and made a bit of a face at Grace. She didn't want her mother around but right now Grace was the only backup she could trust and Emerson knew that she needed backup. Perhaps she could have called to ask for Sam and Dean's help on this but she didn't want to endanger Sam so she was taking the 'lesser of two evils' approach and she was working with her mother now, not that it seemed to be a good idea at the moment.

"Can you stop being a spoiled brat for five minutes?"

Emerson spun around on her heels and faced her mother now, arms crossed across her chest. It was a constant contest of wills between the two of them, always butting heads over the littlest things. They didn't get along well even under the best of circumstances but Emerson was doing her best to be as personable as possible. The bad news was that her mother didn't seem to care. Some things never changed she supposed. "What?"

"You kept what we'd need, right?" Grace asked, looking around the now empty store and trying not to sigh. She'd worked so hard to create this business so seeing her daughter selling the place and the entire inventory felt like a personal blow. But still she bit her tongue and didn't say those words out loud. She, too, was doing her level best not to cause too many waves. She and Emerson were too much alike and yet too different to really get along so she was doing her best to keep the discussions to the job at hand instead of fighting about every little thing.

Emerson sighed and rolled her eyes, her stance relaxing to some degree now. Somehow her mother could make her revert to behaving like a moody teenager every time. Being around her mother made Emerson want to sulk around and act a little 'whiny' but she was trying to keep those responses in check. Still those responses occasionally got through and moments like the last one happened between the two of them even if Emerson didn't want them to happen. "Yes. Don't worry about it, all right?" she said, sighing and walking towards the front door.

"Where are you going, Emerson?"

Emerson rolled her eyes at the tone of her mother's voice and pushed open the door without bothering to look back, even when she spoke. "For a walk," she said, through gritted teeth. "I'll be back."