"Yes, mother," she sighed, tugging the belt about herself to ward off another discussion about road safety. His question made her laugh, though. "Really' We're going to go in-depth on sci-fi now?" Grinning, she considered the question for a moment. "Star Wars is superior, if we're talking just the original trilogy. Star Trek ....is a more complex question."

"I'm not even sure Star Wars would be considered true sci-fi. I mean, it's not hard core. More of an adventure story than anything else. At least the originals. I'm not even sure they compare, but fans compare them all the time. So, favorite characters?" he continued, looking over his shoulder to back out of the parking spot.

"Well, Star Wars is a fantasy, it just happens to be set in space," Becky pointed out. She could be passionately obsessive about any subject, given time to study the relevant material. "Favorite characters from what? Wars or Trek?"

"I thought we were talking Wars, princess," he replied with a smirk. After all, she'd been the one to bring up the metal bikini, and that was a mental image most red-blooded males couldn't help but fantasize about.

She laughed, pushing her hand through her hair as she thought about this one. "That's a tough question," she admitted. "I mean, everyone always says Han, or R2-D2, or 3-PO. They're the obvious ones. I really liked Grand Moff Tarkin, but that was more because he was played by Peter Cushing, and that man was a legend." She laughed. "Oh, wait, I know! Salacious Crumb!"

"Who?" Sam asked with a chuckle, never having heard of anyone by that name before. "That sounds like a cartoon name. Did you just make that up?" he asked, glancing over at her a moment before pulling onto the road.

"I didn't, it's a real character," she defended herself in the midst of her giggles. "You know, the little monkey thing that sits on Jabba's tail in Jedi and has a really dirty laugh' He picks out 3-PO's eye before R2 zaps him onto the ceiling" That's Salacious Crumb!"

"Oh, yeah ....I remember that guy," he said with a chuckle. "I didn't know his name, though," he added with a thoughtful frown. He was usually the one who was full of useless information, but it looked like he might have met his match.

"I ....have no idea how I know his name," she confessed with a quiet snicker. "It's an awesome name, though. What about you, anyway' Who's your favorite character, sexy' And if you say Leia, I will have to seriously rethink my opinion of your visual stimuli."

"Are you kidding" Han Solo is the man, but he always reminded me of my dad somehow," he said, with that thoughtful frown on his face again. He wondered what that said about his relationship with his father. "I mean, if I could be Luke or Han, I'd totally pick Han. A, he gets the girl. B, he's got an awesome ship. C, he's badass, and D, he's secretly Indiana Jones."

"Who is, of course, way cooler than Han will ever be," Becky interjected happily. She'd never quite lost her enthusiasm for Indiana Jones, even after being thoroughly disappointed in the fourth outing. "I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I was a kid. I think I still do, to be honest."

"So, why didn't you major in archaeology then?" he asked curiously as he started toward home, which was a small house Ares and Ayden had bought him not far from the salvage yard. He just hadn't worked out a repayment plan yet.

She shrugged. "Because I'm a legacy," she admitted with a faint sigh. "I didn't want to let my grandpa down, and pretty much all the Men of Letters will ever let me do is research and filing. I mean, they are the Men of Letters still, after all. So I figured I'd study something that'd teach me how to research and follow a fact through to its source, no matter how fanciful it originally presents as. I think I've got that down pat by now."

"Okay, let me put it this way ....If you could do anything you want to do, what would you do?" he asked further. It didn't seem fair that she was relegated to mundane tasks just because she was female, though he understood her grandfather's desire to keep her safe. He hadn't been giving much to do yet either, but he was only an initiate, after all.

"I don't know." Becky chewed her lip for a long moment. "I know what I don't want to be, but ....what I really want to do' Is so out there and preposterous, not even my grandpa will take me seriously. He says it's a silly pipe dream and I shouldn't waste my time thinking about it."

"I'm not your grandfather, Becky. Lay it on me," he said, not just curious but interested in what really interested her. If they were going to be together, it seemed these were things they should know about each other.

Unusually for her, she seemed nervous as she tugged on a hank of her hair, too used to having this particular wish of hers put down or dismissed. "I want to find ....to find Atlantis," she admitted finally, with a quiet laugh added on in case he laughed at her. "The real Atlantis, or what?s left of it. I want to know just why it was destroyed; what did they find or build there that got them not just ended, but annihilated" I mean, Poseidon leveled the place, and if I'm right about it being Santorini, then he exploded it as well, and destroyed the civilization on Crete in the process. What if the Minoans knew what the Therans were doing" What if the reason the island was blasted into almost nothingness was to make sure that both civilizations ceased to be?"

"Whoa, slow down, speedy. I'm not a history major. Crete, Therans" I'm just a computer geek, remember?" And a good one at that, but computers were his specialty, not ancient history. They had brushed on this once before, but hadn't discussed it since.

"Oh." She dissolved into giggles, aware that her somewhat obsessive interest in this particular area of classical history had come bubbling out enthusiastically once again. "Okay, well ....Thera is what Santorini was known as when the Minoans were in charge on Crete," she explained. "Which was toward the end of the Micenean period on the Greek mainland, which is the era that came after the Age of Heroes."

"Right," he said, following as much as he could. He'd studied up on Ancient Greece, but he was nowhere near the expert that she was. "Why do you think Poseidon destroyed them' What did they do to invoke his anger?" he asked further, still curious. He'd read all sorts of theories about Atlantis, but he had no idea which - if any of them - was right. He wasn't even sure if Atlantis had ever really existed. "Maybe we should ask Ares. He should know, shouldn't he?" Or Apollo, for that matter, though he thought Apollo was more likely to rat on them to his father.

"See, that's the thing. Not even the myth is very clear. Plato doesn't give much of a reason for the destruction of an entire island." Becky shrugged once again, tilting her head curiously as he offered a suggestion of his own. "You think he would tell us?" she asked. "I mean, there's so little evidence to follow through on, but do you really think Ares would point us in the right direction, if we asked him to?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Sam countered, with a brief glance her way. "I mean, I don't see why he wouldn't. It has nothing to do with him, and he doesn't seem to have much love for his uncles."

"That would be so cool!" She actually squealed that, thoroughly excited by the idea of being pointed in the right direction by someone who might actually know what she was after. She was rather easily pleased, despite her reputation as a minor genius. "I mean, obviously the whole Hades thing has to come first, because that's gotta be dealt with, but ....man, that would be so awesome. You'd come with me, right?"

There was only one problem, and that was his father. If Dean found out that Sam and Becky were poking their noses around in Poseidon's business, he might not be too happy about it, especially since Poseidon was supposed to be neutral, but could swing either way. It was no secret that both Hades and Poseidon were jealous of Zeus' position as King of the Gods. "Come with you?" he echoed, brows arching upwards. "To Atlantis?" he asked, a little incredulously.

"They want to name him Sam, after my uncle. So, who will I be? Big Sam' Older Sam' Uncle Sam' Sam and Sammy' Gods, those are horrible. You don't name both your sons Sam." Despite his worries, he drew comfort from her touch. His mother had tried to reassure him, to assure him that he was still loved just as much as the baby Sam, even if he was a grown man, but it was Becky who was really getting through to him.

"Which must have occurred to them," she pointed out with a gentle smile. "Your parents aren't idiots, Sam. I would be very surprised if they don't switch his name around. I don't think he's going to be Sam for very long. And I know you will have talked to your mom about this, so the idea's been planted already."

"Yeah, well, I'm kind of screwing up their plans by being here, so who am I to make demands?" he stubbornly pointed out with a sigh. He wasn't sure he wanted to talk about this anymore. It was just something he was going to have to get used to. "I just hope he likes me. I didn't come here to take his place or anything."

Becky eyed him for a long moment, considering as many angles as she could in what was becoming a very circular discussion. "Sam, what?s the real issue here?" she asked him eventually. "It's not that you're having second thoughts, it's not about the fact that you share DNA with a two-day-old baby, it's not even that you're worried about the future. There's something very deeply personal bothering you here, and you need to look at it."

"What do you mean?" he asked again, narrowing his eyes at her, not quite sure what she was trying to get at. Hadn't he explained himself already? What more was there to say' "How am I supposed to feel" They're all ga-ga over a baby that's me when I was little. It's me, Bec. Do you know how weird it is to hold yourself" Am I supposed to get all attached to a kid I know is me" I know I shouldn't think of him like that. I should think of him as a kid brother or something, but I have a kid brother, and it's not him." He sighed again, knowing how foolish and selfish he was sounding. "I don't want to feel this way. I just ....I just want them to ..." To what"

"To love you as much as they love him," she supplied, glad he was finally moving in the right direction. "You're jealous, Sam. You've been the only child for eight months, and now they have a newborn baby who is naturally going to need more of their time and energy for a while, and you're jealous of that attention going to him. But it's not like they're going to suddenly stop loving you, just because they have a dependent little human being to handle. Hell, they'll probably appreciate you even more than they do already, especially if you man up and take on baby duty for them sometimes."

"I know they love me. Or at least, like me. I mean, Hope and I took a big chance in coming here. And God, I miss her, and I miss Johnny, but I made my decision, and I'm not going back. The thing is, that Sam is going to be their big brother. Not me. I'm - I don't know what I am," he blurted, before pausing a moment to actually listen to what she'd said. He turned his head away for a moment, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes. "I know," he said quietly, more to himself than to her, acknowledging his feelings for what they were. "I don't want to be jealous. I just want to be part of the family. That's all."

"Sam ....you've already been through this, twice," she reminded him gently, her fingers combing through his hair as she pressed close. "It's what happens in every family when there's a new baby. You went through it when Hope came along, although you probably don't remember that, and you dealt with it when John was born, too. This isn't any different, and anyone who says adults don't get jealous over new babies is lying through their teeth. What matters is that these are your feelings. You know your parents, better than they know themselves really. Did they ever let you feel unloved when the new baby was new?"

He had to think about that a minute. It had been a few years since Johnny had been born and even more years since Hope's birth. The logic he'd expressed when he'd first made his decision to stay seemed somehow flawed now - that the beauty of his decision was that he'd still be their big brother no matter whether he stayed or left. The same was still true, but he had to admit that he'd have a very different relationship with them now than he'd had before. He wouldn't be growing up with them, like he had before - it would be the two-day-old Sam who would have that role - and yet, he would have the opportunity to fill another role in their lives and one that could be just as important, especially considering his knowledge of the future. "No, of course not. In fact ..." He laughed a little at the memory of it. "Mom used to tell Dad he was going to spoil me."

She smiled, relieved to hear him laugh, even a little bit. "Any reason that should change now?" she asked gently. "Because, you know ....you are in the perfect position. You can volunteer for babysitting and insist that they do something other than sleep - you can take your dad to a bar and make him vent so he doesn't get ass-whipped by your mom for opening his mouth; you can take your mom out for coffee, or whatever, and do the same with her. It's a little adjustment that'll take practice, but there's no way you are ever going to be left out of your family, Sam. You're the one who said your dad is all about family, after all."

"Well, I don't think Dad is gonna take me out for a jumbo ice cream sundae with extra whipped cream anymore," Sam said, with another chuckle, wiping the tears from his eyes as his mood brightened a little. She was right - he was in a perfect position to show them just how valuable he was, how important he was, and how much he loved them. He chuckled again at something she'd said. "I'm not old enough to take Dad out for a beer yet, but I will be soon." Not legally, anyway.

"I know," she teased fondly. "In a couple of weeks, I'm gonna be dating an adult. It's shocking." She grinned, brushing a kiss against his cheek. "I'm supposed to be such a good girl and all, but I kinda wanna do naughty things to you right now. Think you can handle that, big boy?"

He laughed again at the threat that wasn't much of a threat. "I thought you wanted to wait until we were in bed," he pointed out with a smirk, though, like his father, he wouldn't deny her or complain if she wanted to christen the back seat - again.

"Hmm, driveway, or house, there's a conundrum," she laughed with him, brushing another kiss to his lips before making a move to untangle herself from him. "Okay, sex-on-legs, get me into privacy before I embarrass our neighbors with a debauched display."

He grinned back at her, knowing he'd met his match, no matter what anyone else might think. Let Dean and Jo think they might be a flash in the pan, but Sam knew better. This was the girl he was going to marry. He'd known it in his gut almost from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. Okay, it may have taken a little longer than that, but there was no denying that he loved her. "Embarrass the neighbors or embarrass ourselves?" he said with a laugh, before kissing her again.

"Definitely the neighbors," she giggled, stroking her fingers against his cheek. "When I'm with you, I have nothing to be embarrassed about. Not even my ass waving in the breeze." She winked at him, easing back to open the passenger door. "C'mon, hop to it!"

But there was one more thing he needed to say before he let her go. It was not something he said often, but when he did say it, he meant it with all his heart. Reaching over to stop her from going anywhere for just a moment, he smiled a smile that lit up his whole face. "I love you, Becky Hoffman."

Caught from leaving the car, she turned back int time to see that beautiful smile on his face, and knew she'd managed to say and do the right things for once. Her smile softened, the dazzling brilliance fading to something very gentle and very touched, and all for him. "I love you back, Sam Winchester," she promised him fervently.

Just maybe he'd helped her, too, to realize that Sam wasn't unhappy because of Becky - far from it, in fact. Though she wasn't the reason he'd chosen to stay in this time, she was definitely icing on the cake. She had given him something more to live for than just protecting his family and keeping the world safe. She had given him her heart, and that was something not even his family could compete with.

((Hopefully, the waves will settle down for the Winchesters now. We'll just have to see! Huge thanks to Sam's player!))