Emerson was softly chewing on her lower lip as she listened to the phone ring, trying not to think the worst right away. She wasn't sure if Sam was going to answer his phone and she knew there was still time for his voice mail to pick up instead of him. She looked across the kitchen table at her mother and tried to keep from sighing out loud. Grace was going over some notes while Emerson tapped her fingers in a random rhythm on the table while the phone on the other end of the line rang.

Emerson took the ringing of the phone as a good sign though. At least Sam's phone wasn't turned off right now and at least he hadn't hung up on her yet, although she knew that he could hang up once he actually answered the phone. Emerson had to hope that he would answer his phone at all. Of course, she started to go through every possible reason why Sam hadn't picked up yet and only a handful of those reasons were good ones.

Finally she heard the 'hello' on the end other of the line that let her know that Sam was actually answering his phone right now. Emerson's heart actually felt like it stopped for a moment at the sound of his voice. Emerson let out a breath, softly sighing and smiled at the sound of his voice. "Sam … hi," she said, not sure what else to say right now.

Sam softly chuckled and she figured he might even have a soft smile on his face at the moment as well. It was a nice mental image to have right now. With everything that was going on in her head, Emerson liked the thought of Sam smiling right now.

"Where have you been? You haven't been answering your phone," he said, sounding like he was joking with her.

"Yeah, about that …" Emerson sighed softly and closed her eyes. She rubbed one of her temples softly and then got out of her chair to wander out of the kitchen. She felt her mother's eyes on her and didn't want to deal with that right now. Emerson had to 'get away' so she was moving to some place where she could talk to Sam without feeling Grace staring at her through the entire conversation. "I've been busy."

"That's to say the least," Sam said with a chuckle. "I take it that you're okay."

Emerson nodded, leaning against the wall and kind of sliding down it. She sat there on the floor, staring at the wall across from her now. "I'm okay, Sam. Things are a little crazy here right now but I'm okay," she said with a soft sigh. Emerson softly rested her forehead against her knees and took a deep breath. She needed a moment to wrap her head around everything, sighing, before lifting her head again and resting it against the wall, her eyes softly closed at the moment. "My, uh, my mother's here actually. To help. With things."

"With things?"

She cracked a smile then and shook her head at herself, softly laughing. Emerson opened her eyes now and just kind of stared at her feet as she talked to Sam. "You know what I mean, Sam," she said with another shake of her head. "What about you? What have you been up to?"

"Dean and I have been working a couple of cases. Seems like as soon as I'm ready to suggest heading out by you, we find another case that needs our immediate attention. Not that I like that but I guess it's okay." There was a soft chuckle at that although it was perhaps a humorless chuckle.

Thank goodness for small favors, she thought with a soft sigh. Emerson licked her lips softly before saying anything though. "At least you're keeping busy," she said with a shrug, immediately aware of how lame that sounded. "I'll let you know if anything big happens here."

"Okay," Sam said. There was a soft sigh on his end of the line. He seemed to hesitate before speaking again actually. "Look, I've got to go. Dean needs help with something. Just … promise to call me, Emmy."

She smiled softly, almost laughing when she heard Sam call her 'Emmy'. It was cute but not something that he'd really done before. It caused some serious butterflies in her stomach to hear it now. "I promise, Sam. Take care of yourself and let Dean know that I'm okay. I'll just … I'll talk to you soon."

"Bye."

Emerson sighed softly, her eyes closed. She almost made a 'kiss' sound before saying anything but knew that would be awkward. "Yeah, bye, Sam." She waited a moment before hanging up, and then stared at her phone before pushing up off of the floor. She tucked her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans and headed into the kitchen where her mother was waiting. Emerson placed her hands on the nearest chair and leaned in to see what Grace was working on. Taking care of this was definitely more important than dwelling on how short the conversation with Sam had been. This was something that needed to be taken care of before she could even think about anything 'more' with Sam than these phone calls anyway.

A/N: Thank you SO much for reading this story. I know it's a little unconventional and a little scattered at times but that's kind of the point. I hope you're enjoying it and that you'll stick around to read more stories featuring Emerson!