Thank you all for the congratulations!

On with the show!

Jess jumped at the loud thump as he pounded his fist on the bathroom door. She hid the phone behind her on the edge of the bathtub and covered her mouth with her hand, hoping he won't hear her and will think she isn't home.

"I'm trying to track your cell phone location," the 911 operator tells her as the locked doorknob starts to aggressively jiggle.

Now he knows she's here. How does a bathroom door lock from the outside?

"Hang on with me one more minute, honey."

Jess lets out a final scream when he kicks in the door.

THUD!

Sam woke up after body-slamming the floor. He was shaking so much that it took him a while to process where he was. Still shaky, he pushed himself up and sat against the bed. It was like an out-of-body experience. His brain was there screaming at him, telling him what to do, but his body refused to move. In a small attempt to comfort himself, Sam curled up and started rocking back and forth. He focused on a patched spot on the wall next to his bed. He and John got into a really big fight when he was sixteen and Sam threw a soccer trophy, missing John but damaging the drywall. That went about as well as you think it did.

It wasn't until the nerves settled into his stomach and Sam knew something was about to come out of somewhere that he suddenly jumped up and darted into the bathroom.

"I cannot believe you invited him."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "I know you and Dad never liked it, but he is Ben's father," she started to argue.

Ms. Braeden crossed her arms in disapproval. "I just don't see why he had to come today. This is a family matter."

"He's Ben's family!" Lisa had to watch her tone, aware of other family members awaiting down the church hallway in the chapel. "I don't want him to remember this as a day when his father wasn't there. He needs him."

Ms. Braeden stuck up her nose, about to come back with some snotty retort when a red-faced Ben appeared in the doorway with Dean right behind him.

"Sorry," Dean apologized, "he started to worry you weren't coming back."

Lisa walked over to her son and wiped the tears from his face. "What's wrong, baby?"

Great question, Lisa. But Dean still felt warm inside feeling reminded of his own mom.

"Can we sit together?" Ben asked, still crying.

Lisa couldn't help but smile at her son's silly question. "Of course, we can. Did you find a good spot with Dad?"

Ben sniffled and nodded his head. "Right in front of Grandpa's picture."

"Well, that sounds like a very good spot to me." She wiped away more tears and kissed his forehead. "I'll be there in a few minutes, okay?"

Ben nodded again. Dean held his hand out. Ben didn't even hesitate to take it and allowed his dad to lead him back into the chapel.

Ms. Braeden tsked. "Can't even control his own child. He had to bring Benjamin back here for you to cheer him up."

Lisa lost it. "And how many times did Daddy comfort me when I was upset about something?"

Ms. Braeden was at a loss for words.

"Exactly."

Lisa left the suite. It was essentially a closet the church had set up for immediate family members who need privacy. But Lisa was done trying to reason with her mom. She did not think Ben would take his grandfather's death this hard, but the poor thing had basically been clung to her constantly since. Lisa wasn't sure if it was normal childhood anxiety, thinking something would happen to her. No matter how much she tried to assure him that she wasn't going anywhere, he did not seem to accept it. Dean, thank fucking god, had been a complete savior these past couple of days leading up to her father's memorial service. He opened his apartment for refuge and showed up at the house at sunrise to help with Ben.

Her mom didn't know what she was talking about.

Sam aggressively scrubbed the dishes in the sink as he listened to Simple Plan on his iPod. He needed to keep busy today. If he wasn't, the reminder of his recurring nightmare would immediately resurface.

Which brings Sam to now, rising off a spoon and not realizing the angle he was holding it at was about to launch soapy water back onto him. "Gah!" he cried out, immediately dropping the spoon back in the sink. "Fuck you too," he mumbled, mostly directed at the spoon. He shut off the water and grabbed a dishtowel, drying off the other dishes he had previously washed. As he put the dishes away in the cabinets, he just listened to his iPod, focusing on the lyrics. It was oddly comforting him, reminding him of high school, before he knew about college and Jess and death and grief. Back when he only thought the world was ending and his life was over. Now he knows what that was really like.

I'm sorry I can't be p- POP!

Sam reached up and rubbed the pain on the side of his face from the earbud being suddenly ripped out.

"Your mom's calling ya," John said gruffly like he was annoyed that Sam couldn't hear and he had to go around the house and find him.

Sam rolled his eyes and quickly cleaned up the rest of the kitchen. He'll come back for the spoon later.

"Now what does she want?" he whispered to himself as he ran up the stairs. Realizing his iPod was still playing music, Sam turned it off, wrapped the earbuds around it, and shoved it in his back pocket.

He found Mary in the master bedroom, folding laundry all over the bed. "Hi baby," she greeted, reaching over for a stack of towels and handing them to Sam. "Come back, I washed some of your jeans too."

Sam carried the towels down the hall to the bathroom, setting them on the sink. He was the only one here using them anyway. Why put them all the way under the sink if he's just going to take them back out again?

Sam huffed and went back into the master bedroom, where Mary waited for him with a stack of jeans. "Remind me to take you shopping. You've blown out the knees in most of these."

Yeah, I know. I wear them, like, all the time.

"Thanks," he muttered.

"What are you doing today?" she asked, returning back to folding John's undershirts.

"Nothing."

"You were up pretty early this morning. I heard the vacuum going in your room."

Sam shrugged. "I ate breakfast in my room and spilled some cereal on the floor."

Mary sighed. "You know that's why you're not allowed to eat upstairs."

Sam looked down at the floor, running his toe over a worn-down spot in the carpet.

Mary was worried that her son hadn't left the room yet. "Are you okay?"

Sam's head snapped back up. "I'm fine," he said, faking a small smile.

Mary gently smiled back. "Alright. Well, that's all I have for you." She pointed to the jeans Sam still had in his arms. Sam could swear his arms suddenly went completely numb from the weight. He wasn't even sure he would make it down the hall to his room and put them away.

It was a lovely service. Lisa's brother took the lead, telling stories about their dad and childhood growing up. Lisa even joined him for a while, sharing her own memories. She started to tell a story about a day she had to leave him in charge of babysitting Ben. That was when Ben got really upset and Dean had to attempt to gracefully carry him out as family members aww'd at the heartbroken seven-year-old.

Finding a chair in the lobby, Dean sat down and positioned the kid on his lap. Ben ended up keeping his arm deadlocked around Dean's neck and straddled Dean's hips. Keeping one arm under his bottom to stable him, Dean ran his other hand up and down Ben's back. The last time he held his son like this he had dislocated his shoulder trying to jump up on the couch when he was three. It was a long painful night at the emergency room.

"Dad?"

"Yea, bud?"

"Do you think Grandpa's in Heaven?"

Dean panicked. Don't fuck this up, Winchester. "Do you believe in Heaven?"

The kid shrugged his shoulders as he continued crying into Dean's chest. Obviously, it wasn't uncommon for Lisa and her family to attend the occasional church service on Sunday morning, but the Winchesters were far from religious. The most religious they got was Mary telling Dean angels were watching over him. Other than that, Dean joined when he and Lisa were together and he even agreed to Ben being baptized as a baby. But Dean committed a lot of sins growing up so he had his own opinions.

Dean took a deep breath and tried his best. "I think if you believe he's in Heaven, then he's probably in Heaven."

"But do you think he's in Heaven?"

Another deep breath. "I don't believe in Heaven."

"What do you believe in?"

Dean definitely has not clocked enough single-dad hours for this conversation. He tried to think of a way to change the subject but couldn't come up with anything. "I don't really believe in an afterlife, you know. I believe that when you die, nothing happens. You just die and that's it."

Ben didn't like that answer. "But, in Heaven, you get to see everyone again, don't you? When I die, don't I get to see Grandpa again?"

"Maybe. There's not really a way of knowing for sure, kid."

Ben really didn't like that answer. He squirmed in Dean's arms, shoving his face deeper into Dean's suit jacket. Dean realized at some point in this conversation Ben had stopped crying. And he really wasn't looking forward to Ben starting back up again.

"Listen to me," he said, brushing Ben's hair out of his face. "You are allowed to believe in whatever you want to believe in. If you want to believe your grandfather's in Heaven, that's perfectly okay. For all I know, I could be wrong. Maybe something does happen after we die."

Ben didn't respond. Dean continued to run his hand up and down his back and started to gently rock the child.

"Dad?"

"Yea, bud?"

"I believe Grandpa's in Heaven."

Dean smiled and kissed the top of his head.

Sam lay in bed and twirled the ring box in his hand. It had been weeks since it was delivered in Brady's package with the rest of his and Jess' belongings. For all Sam knew, this was the reason he was continuing to have nightmares. Like the ring is burning into his subconscious and causing him to try to make sense of it all. Once or twice was one thing, but Sam could not keep watching every single night.

There was a knock on the door. Sam shoved the ring under his leg to hide it. "Dinner's ready," Mary announced, opening the door and sticking her head in.

"I'm not hungry," Sam answered.

Mary frowned. "Have you had anything to eat today?"

Yeah, I had cereal earlier, remember? The vacuum? "Uh huh," Sam nodded. "I'm just not feeling well today."

Mary didn't appear to be buying it. Sam ran his hand across his stomach trying to convince her otherwise. Luckily, it's not like he had to lie to the woman about a stomachache.

"Okay," Mary said, giving in. "We'll try to keep it down. Lisa and Ben are joining us for dinner."

Sam faked a smile. Mary began to close the door. "Oh!" she said, opening it and sticking her head back in. "There's Pepto in our medicine cabinet."

Sam's face flushed with embarrassment. "Thanks, Mom," he muttered.

"Goodnight!" she said, finally leaving and latching the door behind her.

Hearing her footsteps down the stairs, Sam pulled the ring box back out. He opened it and inspected it. It was a beautiful ring but definitely not something he would have picked out for Jess. Sam looked at rings once for shits and giggles around their second anniversary. Not an engagement ring, but more like a promise ring. Contrary to popular belief, Jess hated flashy jewelry. She preferred smaller, more discreet accessories. The girl behind the jewelry counter showed Sam rings with multiples of small diamonds around the ring, much more suited for Jess' style compared to the single massive fucking rock on a piece of silver metal. Sam didn't even want to think about how much the single diamond cost, but he was sure he could sell it and pay off his student loans.

Sam closed the ring box and tossed it back in the drawer of his bedside table. None of this was making any sense.

coffeeaddict13