A/n: Hey everyone! So I know I said every other Wednesday I would post, but I have up to chapter 10 ready to go, so I'm changing it up a bit. FROM NOW ON UNTIL FURTHER NOTICED, I WILL BE POSTING EVERY WEDNESDAY. I will be sure to let you know if and when that changes as I have just now. I'm sorry for the jump around, but hopefully this is at least better for most if not all of you. I'm sorry if it seems like a slow start, I promise there will be action eventually.

Thank you so much for all you read, review, follow, and/or favorite this. Special thank you to miXiZ, Souless666, Guest, mckydstarlight, LilyBolt, and SparksFlyAngel for all your recent reviews, I'm glad you all find this intriguing. And LilyBolt and miXiZ, thank you for the encouragement to get me to post this story.

Chapter 2

Five months ago (Palo Alto CA)

"...Sam?"

The young man shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. Jessica was stretched out on their couch with her long thin legs draped across his lap while she held a magazine that contained various floral arrangements. Her blue eyes, which had previously been glued to a page that displayed an assortment of carnations, were now on her fiance.

"Huh? I'm listening, what?"

"I said how about red and white?" She repeated.

"Red and white?"

"Our colors...for the wedding." Realization flashed in Sam's eyes and spread to his face.

"Oh yeah yeah of course. Yeah that sounds good," he quickly agreed, pulling a laugh from Jessica.

"Do you mean it or are you just saying that?"

"No I do. It's perfect," he nodded with a grin.

"What's wrong?" She asked, Sam sighed.

"How about we just elope?" He suggested.

"Sam stop being such a baby," she teased her defeated fiance. "Besides," Jessica set the magazine on the arm of the couch and scooted over until she was sitting on his lap. Gently she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and began running her fingers through his hair rhythmically. "We both know my mom and dad would be heartbroken if I did that, I'm their only child. Mom's dream of this day, I'm sure your mom would be upset too," she said. Sam rubbed her leg lovingly.

"I guess. I mean, it's not like Mom has a real chance on Dean," Sam replied. Jessica's eyes lowered to study his hand still slowly moving up and down her thigh.

"It's your family, I don't want to step on any toes, but are you sure you don't want to-"

"I'm positive," Sam answered quickly. Noticing the slight frown that now touched the corners of his fiance's mouth, he leaned over and kissed her lips. "So with that being said..." he started, pulling her away from her thoughts and moving away from the topic and conversation they had addressed many times before, "carnations?"

"Yeah, roses aren't the only flower that are a symbol of love you know. I'm thinking..." she reached over and grabbed the magazine, pointing at a collection of red and white carnations. "We can do a mixture of light and dark red with some white. Light red represents admiration and dark shows deep love and affection. The white of course represents pure love and also good luck." The young woman turned to face her fiance who was staring back at her with a look of admiration on his face. "What?"

"Nothing it's just, how did I get so lucky?" Her smile brightened and she kissed him.

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for tall, smart, and handsome," she answered with a mock shrug. Sam laughed.

"So red and white carnations? Sounds good to me."

"Alright, I'll put my girls in red as well and you can just have the guys in black. I would say white, but then they would look like waiters and having them in all white would just make them look like douchebags. Oh, maybe black slacks and a dark red button up or tie? That should work right?" She turned to Sam for approval, he nodded. "So check and check. Color scheme and flower choice, check. I think carnations are going to look so much better and less cliche than roses. They're so overrated and unoriginal, not to mention lame," she assured him.

Jessica had never liked roses. Sam had learned this the hard way back when they first met. Their first date at the coffee shop, which he now worked part time at, went really wrong really fast. He had apologized to her, bringing her a rose as a way to show her he wanted to give things another chance.

"Roses are lame," she had responded. Sam had thought for sure that he had blown any chance of fixing his mistake, but Jessica surprised him, as well as herself, by not only accepting the rose but kissing Sam. With that first disastrous date behind them, things between the two only improved. Like any couple, they had their disagreements or arguments, but they always came back later and worked it out.

"See, we can do this," Jessica encouraged him. "No one said it would be easy, but that doesn't mean it isn't do-able."

"What would I do without you?" Sam asked with a small smile.

"Crash and burn," she responded automatically. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her softly, which she returned. "Now, how does red velvet sound for the cake?"

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Now

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"Mr. Winchester?" Liz said. The young man looked up meeting her dark eyes with his watery hazel again. "What happened the night your wife died?"

There was a moment of silence as he worked on forming words, opening and closing his mouth a few times where only a squeak came out.

"There was a fire," he reported finally.

"A fire?"

He nodded.

"Anything else?" Involuntary tears leaked from his eyes as the horrific image of his wife burning flooded his thoughts.

"Sh-she had a-a c-cut across h-her s-stomach and..." Sam buried his head in his hands and sobbed deeply into them. His body began to visibly shake as he lost what little composure he had been maintaining.

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you Mr. Winchester. Why don't I give you some time to grieve and collect yourself and we'll go from there?" Sobs had been her only answer accompanied by a head nod. Liz got up from her desk, collected her notepad, and left the distraught young man to his sorrows.

As she closed the door behind her, she let out a breath. Normally she wasn't affected so easily by her job. She had seen so many cases where someone had lost their loved one: wife, husband, fiance, child, parent, sibling, but something about this young man's case was different to her. Maybe it was because they were a recently married couple at the prime of their lives and just starting a brand new exciting chapter. So many possibilities, now gone. She hadn't been lying when she said that she had no control over whether or not the boy was found guilty, but for the first time in a long time, she wished she had. It just didn't seem likely that Sam was Jessica's killer.

She collected herself, then marched through the hall towards another room that contained another suspect that she personally thought may be more likely their guy.