Disclaimer This is a story about wrestling characters. These characters are not mine. They aren't yours either. "Oh?" you say, "How do you know I'm not Vince McMahone?" to which I respond with, "Because Vince McMahone is too busy being rich and successful to worry about my story. And, before you say it, you're not Stephanie or Paul either. No, you're not. You are no one that works for WWE or is a major shareholder in the WWE." So, neither of us owns the characters. I am borrowing them. I only borrow characters, because when I thought about trying to borrow the actual people who play these characters and making them perform my stories as plays? I realized I can't put a live play on FFnet, and I think I'd get in a lot of trouble if I attempted to kidnap WWE superstars, just for my own amusement. So, I am borrowing the characters instead. The superstars that play them are enjoying their lives, blissfully unaware of my existence. Which, I'm rather glad for, because if they saw what I do to their characters, they might want to hit me.

Original characters are the property of me, and the children of my own imagination. Any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Author's Note: This is kind of a break in the story. I realized that the version of Seth that lives in my head had some things he had to deal with. So, for those of you who are more fans of my emotional stuff? This chapter should be right up your alley. For those who are enjoying the action of this story? We'll be back to that in the next chapter.

United We Stand
Interlude

July 12, 2016 3:25 AM

They were in the hall and while the fire hadn't gotten this far yet, the smoke had. It was making Seth feel dizzy and hazy and it was making his body want to shut down. He wanted to fall on the floor, he wanted to leave, but most of all his brain just wanted to shut down and stop working. This is too hard! he thought, I can't do it!

There were four doors, three shut one semi open. Dean looked into the open door. "It's the bathroom, guys!" he shouted. "I'll take the door at the end of the hall, you guys take the other two!"

Roman ran to the door closest to him. Seth ran to the other one, the one closer to the door Dean was going into. He opened it up and rushed inside.

The shades were open, so the moonlight and maybe even some of the glow from the fire flooded the tiny room. There was a crib and Seth was horrified. A baby! his mind screamed, a baby, a baby, oh crap, it's just a baby! He tried to hurry over to the crib, but suddenly the floor turned into something like tar, something thick and heavy that slowed down his every move, making every inch he walked seem to take forever. But he finally got there. He reached into the crib, realizing that this wasn't quite a baby, but not yet a true child. A toddler. Impossible to know if this toddler were male or female, it was too dark. But he scooped them up, thinking that it would be no more effort than picking up a pillow. But instead, this child appeared to be made of lead, no something heavier than lead, something that weighed him down. But he forced himself to gather the child up and they woke up and began screaming. Seth wanted to sooth this toddler,, wanted to comfort them, but he knew that with the tar like goo on the floor, he didn't have time. So he held the child as close to him as he could and ran to the door. He had at least been smart enough to shut it, keep some of the smoke out, but as he grabbed the knob, it was burning hot, he could feel the blisters starting to form, but he knew he had to get it open, so he twisted the knob and balancing the screaming child with one arm around them, resting their body on his shoulder, he kicked the door open.

Orange flame rushed in the door, so bright and hot that Seth literally felt his skin melting from his bones. Unable to think, he found himself letting go of the toddler, who he somehow knew, without knowing, was a little girl, and to his horror, he didn't just drop her, he threw her into the fire, and he saw her burst into flames, her hair and nightgown go up as if it were soaked in kerosine. He wanted to scream, but it was stuck in his throat and he realized that his skin was still melting. He turned to run back into the room and realized the whole room had somehow become nothing but a giant room of fire.

I'm going to die! Seth thought, as the flames danced around him, getting closer, spreading to his body, starting at his feet and moving up his legs. I failed at everything. I couldn't save the girl, now Kayla will be a widow and Payton will lose another father. I failed, I failed, I failed!

Seth woke up with a start. He was wrapped up in his sheets and for a moment, he thought it was the fire wrapped around his legs and he almost screamed as he grabbed for them, trying to pull them off of him, falling into a panic. Handfuls of cool-

Cool! his brain screamed. They're cool! it isn't fire, it's cloth, you had a bad dream!

He reached beside him and fumbled for the light by the bed, and twisted the knob in his fingers. A dim yellow light weakly fell across the room, that instead of bringing comfort, the light reminded him of the fire. He found himself almost leaping out of bed, afraid to be in it anymore.

His heart was pounding in his chest, making him feel as if he'd swallowed an angry lizard that kept thrashing his tail from side to side, crashing against his rib cage. His breath came in ragged gasps and there were tears running down his face, but he didn't know if they were because of the imagined death of Elizabeth at his hands, or the imaginary smoke of his dreams.

He couldn't stay in this room, not now, not with the yellow too-much-like-flame glow, not with his breath hitching in his chest, not with the dream still so close in his head that part of him was afraid this might be the dream, his brain's last attempt to hide the horror of what was happening to him, that he was burning alive instead, dying a painful death and all that was happening, the two weeks of good will touring the last week of Raw, SmackDown, and the house shows, it was all a fantastic lie his brain had fed him to distract him from his own death.

He found himself fumbling into some clothes, a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. He grabbed the key card that was on the dresser and left the room, stumbled out of there and into the hall way.

The hallway was much brighter, but still dimmed to the "night time" lighting, the carpeted floors soft under his bare feet. The gold and white damask wall paper was understated, designed to sooth and comfort the eyes. Seth found himself leaning against the wall, then sliding down so he was sitting on the floor, head hung low between his knees.

C'mon, he told himself, you have to stop this! It's over, the kid is alive, the fire isn't real, it's a stupid memory! Roman and Dean don't seem to be having this problem, hell, the Millers don't seem to be having this problem, so what is wrong with you? Why are you such a wuss? Well, he couldn't be completely sure about the Miller family, while he Roman and Dean kept in touch with them, and had gotten fairly friendly with them, but not friendly enough so that Seth felt he could ask them if they had nightmares, no, night terrors about that night, terrorizing dreams where the ending was never like the reality, instead it was a worst case scenario. He was never able to save Elizabeth, never able to save himself.

I'm pathetic, he told himself. It's like my mind is telling me I shouldn't have been able to do it, that I'm no hero and it's showing me in my dreams what should have happened. Like it was some miracle, some case of divine intervention that I was able to save that little girl.

He could hear the elevator door ding open at the end of the hall, and hung his head lower. Part of him knew he should stand up, go to his door and mess with the lock a bit. This floor was pretty much nothing but WWE Superstars and Divas, so it was likely whoever had just gotten off the elevator was someone he knew and he didn't want to talk to right now, not even a passing nod and hello. If he messed with the door, whoever this was might just think he had been out partying and was a little drunk and do nothing more than say, "hey," and keep going.

But the energy to stand just wasn't in him. He heard the person grunt to the security guards who stood by the doors of the elevator, but no words were exchanged. Seth closed his eyes, as if refusing to look would make the person disappear. Don't see me, he begged in silent prayer. I don't know who you are, but don't see me. I don't want you or anyone else to see me like this.

He could hear the muffled steps coming down the hall. Be drunk, he mentally commanded. Whoever you are, be drunk as shit and don't notice me.

The steps got closer and closer, and for a moment, Seth was sure he had managed to do it, make himself invisible and the person was walking by him, going to their room. He almost breathed a sigh of relief, then he heard the soft thud of someone else leaning against the same wall he had, heard the muffled sound of cloth sliding along thick, expensive wallpaper. He could feel the air move around him as it was suddenly taken up by someone who had decided to sit next to him. "Hey."

Dean. Of course it was Dean. It had to be Dean. The last person in the world Seth wanted to see, so of course it was Dean. There was no deity up there, willing to cut Seth some slack, not Seth Rollins. Not the man who was obviously meant to fail at the mission of saving a toddler's life. Seth felt like a trapped animal. If he ignored Dean, pretended that maybe he'd fallen asleep, Dean would feel obligated to wake him up and get him back into his room. If he ignored Dean by not talking to him, Dean would pester him until he got an answer, because Dean would be worried about him. Can't you be an asshole? he found himself silently asking Dean. Can't you be an asshole who doesn't give a crap? Of course not, because an asshole who didn't give a crap would not rush in to save that family. And let's face it, Deanie, old buddy, old pal, the only hero in this whole thing was you. I was willing to wait for the fire department, but you insisted we go in there. Roman was hesitating too, but then Roman's damned legs caught on fire so he managed to pull it off. Me? I just followed orders. I did what you guys asked me, but I didn't want to. I was too friggin' scared.

But he knew he had to do something, say something, or Dean would start to take action. That was the problem with heroes. They always took action. "Hey," Seth finally managed to whisper, hoping his voice sounded normal, but knowing what it must have looked like to Dean, him huddled in the hallway, arms around his knees, head low, body shaking. Even if his voice was perfectly normal, it wouldn't take anyone more than two seconds to realize that Seth was not a very happy man right now. He cringed, waiting for the, "are you okay?" that would come from Dean.

"I like the carpet in this hotel," Dean said. "They use a really good padding underneath it, so when I walk on it, it feels like I'm wearing new insoles in my shoes. It bounces back and I like that. But the wallpaper? Man, it looks like wallpaper you expect to see in a funeral home."

Seth blinked and before he even realized it, he had pulled his head up and turned it to look at Dean. He was holding two bottles of Pepsi, one of which he handed to Seth, who took it slowly, staring at him.

"They've got this whole little room, well, more of an alcove with vending machines," Dean continued. "And they sell everything. Not just sodas and junk food. They've got one that sells fruit, Apples, oranges, things like that. And yoghurt." He chuckled softly. "Big businessman has no excuse now for eating junk food. It doesn't matter how late the meeting goes, he can still get a healthy snack. They even had celery and apples with peanut butter dip." He reached into his pocket and pulled out two packages of the items he was speaking of. He handed one to Seth, who took it slowly, as if Dean might be offering him a dead kitten.

"Thanks?" Seth mumbled, the first words he had been able to say since his weak "hey" moments earlier.

"They don't just sell food either," Dean continued, "They've got a machine that sells toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors and that type of stuff, too. And socks! Do you believe it, a vending machine that sells socks?"

Dean pulled a package containing a pair of black socks and Seth half expected Dean would hand them to him, but he merely held them up for Seth's inspection. "I bought these for Neil. Just so I can say, 'these are socks, I got them from a vending machine.' He'll get a kick out of that. I took a picture of the machine and sent it too him too, just to prove it." He chuckled again. "I'm father of the year, right? I travel all over the world, all sorts of exciting places, and what do I bring my kid? Socks I bought him in a vending machine." He put the package back in his pocket, and cracked open his soda, taking a long swallow. Then, he carefully busied himself with opening up his package of apple and celery slices, opening the tiny container of Jiff peanut butter. With an almost thoughtful deliberation, he selected an apple slice, dipped it into the peanut butter, and put it in his mouth.

"Not bad," he mused, chewing thoughtfully, then swallowing. "These are the kind of snacks Cinnamon makes for Neil when he's complaining that he's hungry, but it's a little too close to meal time for sweets, like cookies. Of course, she had a food processor and makes small batches of peanut butter, It's pretty awesome, but this Jiff isn't so bad. Don't tell her I said that though."

Cinnamon makes her own peanut butter? Seth found himself thinking, I wonder if it's hard? I'll bet it's healthier than the store bought peanut butter. Maybe I should ask Kayla about that, if we could make peanut butter for Payton. Then, another shiver went through him, reminding him of his nightmare, reminding him of why he was in this hall instead of getting the few hours of sleep he'd be allowed before another day of being a WWE Superstar. "Why are we talking about peanut butter and vending machines?" he finally asked.

"We aren't really talking about them," Dean said, selecting a celery stick and scooping it through the peanut butter. "I was telling you about them. You didn't really have much to say, which is okay. I mean, it's vending machines. And even though they're vending machines that sell some interesting stuff, like socks, it's still just a vending machine. On the Highway, they have ones that sell IPads and tablets."

"Okay," Seth said slowly. "Why are you telling me about vending machines?"

"Because that seemed better than asking you how bad the nightmares are," Dean said simply, then bit into his peanut butter covered celery stick with a resounding crunch.

Seth stared at him, his first reaction to deny he was having nightmares, but realizing that would be stupid. Dean knew he didn't drink to excess on the road, so what other reason would he have for sitting in the hallway? If it was just insomnia, he'd have stayed in his room and watched terrible TV or read a book. Although maybe, just maybe, he wasn't the only one having a problem. "Do you have nightmares?" he finally said, ashamed at how shaky his voice sounded.

"Sometimes," Dean admitted. "But not over the fire, like you're having."

Seth's stare didn't stop, only got more intense. Dean's a mind reader, his brain first told him, then followed it up with, No, don't be silly. But, "how did you know I was having nightmares about the fire?" Seth found himself asking out loud.

"I didn't," Dean admitted cheerfully, selecting another apple slice to dip into peanut butter. "I took a guess. And, I was right." He put down the container of peanut butter and instead took a sip of his Pepsi, then put it down next to him. "Of course," he added, "It wasn't hard to put it together. We went through this inferno, and now you're having bad dreams. You don't have to be a telepath to figure that one out."

Okay, score one for Dean, Seth guessed that would be pretty easy to figure out. "They won't stop, Dean," he found himself whispering. "Almost every night for the last week, I get them. Over and over again, the same thing. It starts with us in the hall, you're telling us that one door is the bathroom, but that you'll take the door at the end of the hall. Then we head to the rooms. That part is always the same and it's just like it happened."

"Uh-huh," Dean said, nodding as he picked up his peanut butter dip cup and ate the apple slice he'd been swirling in the peanut butter moments before. "Let me guess, after that the dream varies?"

"Yeah," Seth said, hearing the shaking coming back to his voice and hating it. "But it's never good, it's never what happened. It's always bad and terrible. Like tonight, I ended up throwing Elizabeth into the fire, because when I opened the door, the hallway was burning, the fire was raging and it was like this automatic reaction, push the kid away. It's like I hurled her into that fire and I watched her burn. Then I burned, I could feel the skin melting from my bones, even the muscles melting." He looked away from Dean, putting down the soda and the snack and resting his head on his knees."

"Take a few deep breaths," Dean suggested, his mouth full of apple and peanut butter. When Seth did this, Dean nodded his approval. "Take a sip of the Pepsi too, it's got sugar in it and that can help with the shock."

"R-really?" Seth asked, not looking, but feeling for the bottle with his hands. When he found it, he cracked it open and took a large swallow.

"Sure," Dean said confidently, scooping out the last of the peanut butter with the last celery stick in the package. "That's why people love to give you tea when something bad has happened and you're in shock. Tea with lots of honey or sugar in it, because sugar helps the shock. Something about being in shock pushes sugar through your system, or something like that. Either way, the soda is cold, and it sure can't hurt, can it?" His lecture about shock finished, he popped the peanut butter laden celery stick into his mouth, the entire thing, and crunched it down.

When Dean exhaled, Seth could smell peanut butter coming from his breath and it didn't make his stomach want to partake in his own snack, so he silently handed it back to Dean, who accepted it, no questions asked and started opening it. The soda, however, while a little too sweet, wasn't bad so he found himself taking another sip.

"That fire was a pretty traumatic experience," Dean said, as he started busying himself with the other snack, opening up the tiny container of peanut butter, peeling off the foil top and then licking it to get the bits of peanut butter stuck to it. "I'm glad you're getting over it."

Seth was about to take another sip of Pepsi, but his hand froze with the bottle almost to his lips. "Over it?" he said, then repeated it, "Over it? Dean, I'm having these dreams almost every night. And they never end with the real life happy ending, they always end with that little girl dying, and usually with me about to die too!"

"Yep," Dean said, nodding as he started eating this second snack, enjoying it as much as the first. "You're doing great."

"How is that great?" Seth found his voice raising and he put the bottle of Pepsi back on the floor. "Dean, these nightmares are awful! I never save the girl never get outside. How can you sit there and tell me that I'm getting over it, because from where I stand, I'm not getting over it, I'm knee deep in the shit of it and I don't know how to get out of it! It's like my brain is telling me that the girl should have died, that if it were up to me, she would have died!"

"Yep, it sounds like it is," Dean said, through a mouthful of apples and peanut butter. He chewed a few times, then swallowed and took another sip of Pepsi before speaking. "Seth, what we went through, that fire? It was a horrible thing. Yeah, we did it, we're heroes, everyone loves us. And, if I had to do it all over again, I would, and so would you. But the facts are still that we risked our lives. We could have died just as easily as we saved that family. And your brain knows that. Knows that you risked your own life to save Elizabeth. And your brain is angry. See, your brain and body? They have one function, to make you survive. It tells you what risks you can take and what to avoid. And when it comes to a burning building? It does not want you to go there, no how, no way. But you did it anyway. And you got hurt. Not as bad as Roman, but all three of us had lung damage. All three of us were coughing for days it seemed and our lungs didn't seem to want to get the hang of breathing normally. And the entire time we were in that fire? Our bodies were pissed off at us, furious at us, for risking ourselves. Our bodies wanted us to let that family burn, as long as we saved ourselves. And our brains were in total agreement."

Seth frowned. "Okay, I get that," And he did, kind-of. Mother nature did give all her creations a self preservation instinct that needed to be overridden in situations like this, "But again, it's over, it's done. It was awful, but it wasn't the most horrible thing, right?"

"Maybe it was for you," Dean said.

"Great," Seth snorted, unable to stop himself. "So, I'm the wuss."

"Well, yeah, I could have told you that," Dean said. When Seth glared at him, looking as if he wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry, Dean laughed instead. "Aw, c'mon, dude, I'm joking. You're not a wuss. But look at the circumstances. I was going to go in there no matter what, I had completely convinced myself that I had no choice. Roman was going to wait and see what we thought was best. You, on the other hand, brought up the one sound and unselfish argument against it. You brought up that we all had families and kids and that if we did screw up, which was a real possibility, that we would leave our wives without husbands and our kids without fathers. We're not normal fathers as it is, we're on the road more than we're home. And you just became the father of a girl who's biological parents were pretty awful. The three of you fought the legal system to become a family, and you were risking tearing that away from her for the Millers, who as we've found out, are pretty nice people, but still, that would have been cold comfort to Payton. Especially considering Payton grew up always being overlooked for another kid, her brother. How would she have felt, knowing her beloved new da died trying to save another child?"

Seth felt a shiver go through him as he pictured Kayla explaining to Payton that her da would never come home because he went to save a strange child instead. Payton had been through so much in a short time, losing her brother and her parents, and part of how Kayla and Seth had been helping get her through it was to assure her they would never leave her. That they loved her and would be there for her. If Seth had been killed in that fire, Payton would likely have cracked in a million pieces, because she would have known, Seth had a choice. He didn't have to go into that fire and save that child, he, of his own free will, decided to do it. He, of his own free will, picked another child over his daughter, the little girl he had promised he would never leave. "Is this supposed to make me feel better?" he snapped, before he could stop himself, and he felt the beginning of tears behind his eyes, that prickling feeling.

"No," Dean admitted, "At least not right this second. We're not on the part where we make you feel better, yet, we're on the part where we define what's wrong." He took a celery stalk out of the snack package and started eating it without peanut butter. "Celery is mostly water. You could eat celery all day and not dehydrate, cool, huh?"

Seth barely heard the part about celery. He was too busy thinking about Payton being left fatherless because Seth decided to go along with Dean and save the Millers. "But," he finally said, then paused to swallow, forcing that prickly feeling of tears in his eyes back, "but it turned out okay," he finally managed to say. "I'm fine, Pay's fine, Kayla's fine, you're fine, we're all fine. Yeah, Roman's legs are still a bit of a mess, but he's fine. So why the nightmares?"

"Because you are fine," Dean said. "You're great! You're back at work, this whole thing took us from being popular, to being off the charts. I know it sounds weird, but apparently, by saving the Millers, we've brought new people to wrestling, people who want to see those three good looking idiots who plunged into a fire to save a family. And the WWE is raking in money on it. So, your job is safe, your family is safe. You've healed the physical damage, everything is fine." He paused to take the last of the apple slices and scoop out the rest of the peanut butter he could with it. "But your subconscious? It's still dealing with what you went through. Your subconscious takes a long time to process something like this. But, you have to live your life, right? Gotta go out there and please those fans, you've gotta assure your wife and daughter that you're okay. So, it keeps getting neglected. But at night? When you're sleeping? Then it can come out and play. Then it can be the boogie man and keep showing you over and over what risks you took, how terrible it could have been. And it's going to keep doing that until it realizes, just like your body and your conscious does, that everything is okay. The fire happened and yeah, you took risks, but you're okay. Your whole and you're safe. The subconscious is like this box in your head, where your mind throws everything it doesn't want to deal with right now. It throws it into that box so you can function. But the box gets too full and eventually the lid pops off and whatever is inside comes slithering out. Your box is too full, so some nights when you lay down, things come slithering out. And they will for a bit."

"How long?" Seth said, hating the weak sound to his voice. He took another swallow of Pepsi. He wasn't sure if it was a cure for what ailed him, but it wasn't hurting him either.

"I can't say," Dean said with a shrug. "It depends on your mind. But the fact that you are having these nightmares tells me that your mind and body feel strong enough to deal with it. So you are getting over it, you're just at this suck fest stage where the subconscious has to have its turn to deal. And yeah, its pretty awful, but at least you know whats happening and that you're dealing. And while that's cold comfort, it is comfort."

Seth frowned, thinking about what Dean had said, letting it run over in his mind. It made sense, more sense than he might have wanted to admit, but the truth was the truth. He was fine, at least physically. The actual rescue had taken minutes, to be honest, but in his brain it had seemed like hours. And even though everyone asked about it, asked what it was like, he had always fluffed it off, saying things like, "Really hot!" when the truth was that it had been a terror that was impossible to put into words. Unlike most kids, Seth had never at any point as a kid, wanted to be a fireman. A policeman, sure. An undercover agent for the FBI? Perhaps. A wrestler? Of course, but never a fireman. But this whole thing had taught him to have the utmost respect for firemen. They did this shit every day, they ran into those buildings and saved those people.

Since this had begun, especially in the two weeks following, when the three of them had done a mini good will publicity tour, since they couldn't wrestle, they had gone to countless schools, charity events, etc. And at all of them they were marched out and the MC always announced them as heroes. The word hero wasn't new to Seth, it was a word bandied around a lot. The Make-A-Wish kids were heroes, the WWE superstars were heroes. Hero was a popular buzz word. But every time they used that word to describe him about the fire? Part of Seth had wanted to scream. "I'm not a hero! I was piss-my-pants scared and I'm still scared! Why am I standing out here being honored when there are people who do this every day? Who make it their lives work to run into those buildings? Who do it day after day, knowing that it will never stop? There is no down time for fires. Fires happen all the time. And these men and women go to work every day and do it over and over again. Bring them out on this stage, give them the accolades, not me. I'm just a guy who wears spandex and pretends to beat the crap out of guys or get the crap beaten out of me for the amusement of others. I love my job, I love what I do, but I'm not a hero. You all mob me in public, want to get my autograph, want to take selfies with me. Do you want to get a picture of a real hero? Drive yourself down to your local fire department and take a picture with any one of those folks. They're the heroes, not me."

"How do you know so much about this?" Seth finally asked Dean.

Dean shrugged. "Been there, done that, own the T-shirt, all of that." He drained the last of his bottle of Pepsi and crushed the bottle in his fingers, the cheap plastic making loud and oddly satisfying crackling noises. "Just not about the fire, other things."

"What other things?" Seth asked, curious. Were there other times Dean had done heroic rescues and not told anyone?

"My childhood," Dean said, shrugging. "You know it was crap. I've told you guys it was crap. Not all of it, but I've told you enough of it. Some of it I don't talk about because I don't want everyone to feel sorry for me. And if I told you, you would feel sorry for me, it's human nature. Cinnamon knows more than most, but even she doesn't know all of it. She knows there's more to my childhood than I've told her, and chances are I will tell her more, but in my own time." He looked at Seth, his gaze fixed on him steadily. "I rarely had nightmares as a kid. Sure, sometimes I did, all kids do, but not very often. And if you knew what it was like for me growing up, you'd have understood why I didn't have them. But when I got out of there? When I finally felt like I never had to go home again? The nightmares started. Something always dragged me back home. I'd start out the dreams as a man, and end them as a scared little boy."

Seth stared back at his friend. Dean had always been honest about his terrible childhood, but he had always made light of it too. Making jokes about having to climb over sleeping bodies to get to his kitchen because his mother pretty much ran a flop house for junkies to help support her own habit. Mentioning that he had an Aunt Kelly who used to say and do some nasty things to him. But being Dean, he often found a way to make these things seem funny. Sure, when Seth thought about it later, he realized that to be constantly told how useless you were, or to have someone always trying to grab your balls and pinch them, or hit them, none of that was fun, but one of Dean's gifts was that he could make jokes about that type of thing, make you see the humor of it. And even though it was wrong, you found yourself laughing. And he realized Dean wanted you to laugh, because he had to talk about it sometimes and he didn't want you to just look at him and start screaming. "So, when did the nightmares start?" he finally asked, even though he was pretty sure of the answer. "When you moved out?"

"Nope," Dean said.

"No?" Seth was surprised. "When you met Cinnamon, then?"

"Nope."

Now Seth was shocked. He would have figured if anyone had first made Dean realize that he was safe from the past, it would have been Cinnamon. "Really?"

"I think if I hadn't shot the dog, if we'd stayed together much longer, they would have started," Dean admitted. "Cin and I were on our way to being a family, but my brain wasn't convinced of it yet. I think part of me kept waiting for her to see the real me and reject me, but that's on my shoulder's not hers. I should have realized that if she could still love that pain in the ass dog like she did, of course she was going to still love me."

"So when did they start?" Seth asked, and he really did want to know.

Dean grinned and looked away for a moment, studying the wallpaper again, which since he had mentioned it, did remind Seth as well of a funeral parlor. "When I met you guys," he said. "You and Roman. When we started working together, that's when the nightmares started."

Seth almost gasped, but managed to stop himself. "That long?" he finally asked, hoping he didn't sound as shocked as he felt. "That long?"

Dean smiled, one of those quirky smiles he was so famous for. "Yeah, That long. And I wondered about that, but I gave it some thought and I think I understand why it took that long."

"Why?"

Dean's grin never left his face. "Because when I met you and Roman, I found a family. And I knew that no matter what happened, I'd always have a family."

End of Chapter Five

Special Thanks To:

Jade: Thank you. You're making me blush, and thank you so much!

Emilee J: Aw, yes, more Christmas presents in the middle of summer and I love it. Thank you for both of those reviews, I really appreciate it.

Parvati: I'm doing good, how about you? Thanks for your review. They aren't together quite yet, but it's getting close. They saved Seth, but... Seth was in serious trouble. We'll see what happens. I know this chapter didn't continue the ring action, but I just figured we needed some fallout from the fire.

To Everyone who F/F and/or Reviewed: Thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart. I really appreciate it.