Their last moment happens a week before Sam's birthday.

(She didn't know that mattered.)

It rained that day, rained like there was no tomorrow (and there almost wasn't, she supposes.)

He doesn't care – he's never cared about such trivial things as rain (and seeing him like this reminds her of that time he almost died.) He's different, though it takes her a moment to understand this – so happy she is that she to see him again – he's scared of something she does not understand and he's lost, giving up on something (she does not know what.) Perhaps she should have asked – a smarter person might have – but she'd been so happy when she saw him, so relieved he was alright that she'd though, 'later, I'll ask him later.' (But later, later never came, later never would come and he knew but she did not.)

He took her out to dinner and they danced in the rain (why she cannot remember.)

(He'd looked this broken, this shattered, this in need of her to help him carry the weight – carry him through it all – of everything he had gone through, he'd looked like that with Sam last year.)

Maybe he's here because he needs her help again.

(He's not.)

He'd kissed her in the pouring rain, desperately like it was the last time, like there would never be another time.

(There wouldn't be.)

Like this was their last chance.

In the morning he was gone, as suddenly as he came – which surprised her because this was not like Dean at all, at least not with her – with the promise to call later and the message that his brother needed help.

He says "I'm sorry", he promises "I'll call you later," he whispers "I love you."

He doesn't say "I'll see you later," he doesn't whisper "Goodbye."

(She hears it anyway, but that's later once she understands.)

Long ago, and yet not that long ago, she'd sat alone in a small room (cell) and held a pregnancy test and she'd cried.

The world was falling apart then.

Now the world is different, her life has changed, she is different. She's older and wises and she has a guy that loves her and a life to live. And yet, in the end, in the moment, some things don't change, some things stay the same. She's still alone, in a small room that doesn't belong to her, when she finds out she's pregnant.

The first time, years ago, she'd cried because she understood that she had lost, that she could not raise a baby on her own.

This time she smiles.

She thinks of calling Dean then (oh she should have, how she should have) but it's Sam's birthday and this is perhaps not the time. Tomorrow, she thinks, tomorrow I'll tell him and he'll smile (tomorrow won't be there for him but she does not know not yet.)

She'd crawled in bed and imagined the future with Dean and her child and she slept peacefully.

When Emma was a child – back when she was going from one home to another – she'd read every single fairytale there was (or at least a lot of them.) It hadn't been by choice, not really, and it wasn't because she was so in love with fairytales, it was, in the end, simply easy. Because the one book (or books) that every home has is a fairytale book, most were not complete, most were not interesting, but they were always there. (Sometimes whole pages of stories were missing. It took her four books and three foster homes before she managed to read the full tale of Snow White for instance and when that happened, and it happened a lot, she was always slightly disappointed. Because the tale she would make up, when the story was incomplete, was always much more interesting than the actual tale.)

The point is, of course, that she'd never enjoyed fairytales or sought them out; they'd always sort of been there.

She hadn't been like other girls, she hadn't believed in magic or fairy godmothers; she hadn't believed there was a castle out there with a prince waiting just for her. (But sometimes, sometimes, she'd thought it would be nice to find that guy you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with and live happily ever after – or at least as happy as you can get. Sometimes she thinks that's what she found with Dean – but Dean would probably balk at being called prince charming.)

But sometimes it seemed that happy ending was just in reach.

Like now.

And then, at four in the morning, her phone rang.

That alone should have freaked her out because when someone calls in the middle of the night is never with good news. The number that flashes is Dean's – and she thinks, for a second, that something has happened to Sam or that he's hurt or a million other things before she actually answers and finds that it's not Dean at the other side but Bobby.

She knew in that moment what had happened but she did not want to.

"Emma?"

"Bobby? Why are you calling me? Where's Dean?"

"Honey, where are you?"

"Bobby…"

"Just I think it would be best if I came to you."

"No, tell me. Just say it."

(She needed him to say it because if he did not she would never believe it.)

"Dean is dead."

If she'd paid attention she would have noticed how broken he was about, if she had been paying attention she would have heard his soothing words, but of course she wasn't. The phone dropped then and the test, the pregnancy test that had made her so happy just a few hours ago still lay on the bedside table where she'd left it – it was mocking her now, mocking her with the possibility of what could have been.

She screamed.

(At least she thinks she did, she's not sure if she managed to make a sound.)

She'd cried.

She'd curled up in a ball and just laid there.

She doesn't really remember what came after that.

She woke – if that is the word she should be using – three days later at Bobby's, in the room she had resided in when she was healing last year. She doesn't remember him coming for her, doesn't remember coming here, she doesn't remember anything but the pain. (She thinks she saw Sam for a moment but she's not sure.)

Sam was gone, Bobby told her, and he couldn't stop him from leaving.

He'd looked at her like expected her to go too.

She didn't.

She had nowhere to go after all.