He shrugged again, as if it wasn't really that big a deal. He would have done the same for anyone, but even more so for someone he loved. "You practically raised us after Mom and Dad died. I owe you a lot more than you owe me," he pointed out, even if this Ayden hadn't been the one who'd raised them. "You and Ares were like parents to us."

"I'd do anything for my family," she agreed softly. "It sounds so strange, though - me, taking on teenagers. I mean, I assume I didn't have any of my own." Yes, she was fishing, but who wouldn't' She wanted to know if they had already changed the future, just by the fact of the little life latching on inside her.

He actually smiled at that, knowing her well enough to know she was fishing. "That's cheating, and you know it. Besides, everything's different now."

"Oh, come on," she whined laughingly, turning the car onto a familiar street with a familiar sign ahead of them. "What harm can it do to tell me if I was a mom before I wrapped you three up in my life as well" I mean, you know, technically I'm a mom already as of now."

More proof that whatever had happened in Sam's past was not going to happen the same way in Ayden's future. "Now, as in now?" Sam asked, arching a brow over at her, his gaze unconsciously drifting downward, though he couldn't yet tell just by looking at her.

"Apparently," she sighed, not entirely sure it had sunk in for her yet. "Gabriel just had to drop it into the conversation when he came to get Ares, and ....Well, Ares confirmed it. As of last night, I'm a mom."

"Gabriel isn't exactly the most reliable of sources," Sam pointed out, though he'd never known the arch-angel to lie. In fact, quite the opposite, though his bedside manner, so to speak, left a lot to be desired. "Should I offer congratulations?" he asked, wondering if Ayden was happy about the news or not.

"I don't know yet," she told him honestly, drawing into the parking lot to the rear of the building they were heading for. "When Ares comes back, I'll know better what I'm feeling about it." If he comes back. Dropping the car into a space, she killed the engine, looking over at her nephew. "Honestly' I was happy about it when Ares was right there. Now he's not, I don't know what I feel about it."

Sam could almost hear that thought as if she'd said it out loud, that "if" clear in her meaning, albeit unspoken. Unexpectedly, Sam felt his heart lurch, pushing his own loneliness and worries aside for a moment when he realized what she must be feeling. "He's coming back, Ayden," he assured her, reaching for her hand to give it a reassuring squeeze, dropping the "Aunt" as it seemed strange to call someone so close in age to himself by that title.

She smiled faintly, covering his hand with hers. "I hope so," she nodded, not prepared to hope too much or despair too much just yet. "But ....this was about us getting away from your parents screwing and Bobby and Ellen doing whatever it is they do. So, out of the car, and let's eat too much fried sugary goodness until we throw up."

He winced at her remark, screwing up his face and looking very much his just over twenty-one years. "I'd rather not puke, if I can help it," he told her, letting go of her hand to push the door open and climb out of the car.

"Spoil sport," she teased, moving to do the same on her own side, turning to lock up the car before heading toward the donut shop. It had been a long time since she'd first been here with her big brother; it seemed fitting that she was bringing Sam here for the first time in this time period for him. Pushing open the door, she scanned the seats out of habit, a little surprised to see a familiar face taking up an entire booth by the window, books and notes spread liberally around a half-eaten donut and what looked like a cold cup of coffee.

Heading to the counter, she grinned at the woman on the other side, who took one look at her, and squealed with delight. "Hey, Sandy, how's things?"

"Guilty as charged," Sam replied as he followed her into the shop, casting a quick glance around, more out of habit than necessity. He wasn't necessarily expecting to find any demons or hybrids in here, but it didn't hurt to check. He wasn't expecting to find any familiar faces either, his gaze lingering on the girl in the corner surrounded by books, if only for a moment. "Hey," he asked Ayden quietly, leaning close. "Isn't that your friend from Stanford" What's she doing here?"

But before he could receive much of an answer, the woman behind the counter was greeting them a little too loudly and enthusiastically. "Ayden, dear! How nice to see you again, and who's that with you? Is that your handsome..." She trailed off when she realized it was not Dean who had accompanied Ayden into the shop, though he could have passed for his double, albeit younger.

"The one you threw up on," Ayden grinned over her shoulder at Sam. "She lives around here, and it is Thanksgiving weekend." Having kept Sandy waiting long enough, she turned her smile back onto the woman who had always made her feel welcome. "This is my cousin, Sam," she introduced him with an easy lie. "Sam, meet Sandy." Despite the fact that he had probably already met her before, at least in his lifetime. "She makes the best coffee."

Sam was still looking at the girl in the booth, as if he was a little puzzled by something. Sure, he remembered her from Stanford, but there was something else about her that seemed oddly familiar and he couldn't quite figure out what it was at the moment. He must have seen her with Ayden at some point in the future, but he couldn't for the life of him remember when. He blinked out of his thoughts as Ayden introduced him to the woman behind the counter, who he had known most of his life. His father had been a regular here, and the women who worked here had always enjoyed spoiling and indulging him during their frequent trips here, but Sam knew that in this time, that hadn't happened yet, since he had yet to be born.

"Homer?" he echoed, finding that a little too ironic, considering who Ayden was engaged to. He wondered what Becky would say if he told her that her dorm-mate was promised to the God of War. She'd probably either laugh in his face or think he was nuts, most likely the latter. he glanced over at Ayden again with a frown. He couldn't very well leave her alone, not when he thought she needed him. "I'd love to, but..." he said, turning back. "It would be kind of rude. Another time maybe?" he asked, hopefully, but not really expecting anything

Becky looked him over, a small smile lighting up her eyes as she took up her pen. "Okay," she agreed easily enough, reaching out to take his hand. "Here's my number." She wrote her phone number carefully on the back of his hand, together with her name, before releasing him. "I'm not back at Stanford until the new year. Give me a call, Sam."

His eyes widened, a little surprised at her willingness to give him her number. He'd have to remember to jot it on paper before washing his hands, though he suspected Ayden knew it well enough. "Okay, sure," he replied, a little too enthusiastically. Despite his good looks and the genes he shared with his father, he was not very confident or comfortable when it came to girls, er, women. "Maybe we could go out for pizza or something sometime," he suggested.

"That sounds like a plan," she nodded warmly, charmed by his enthusiasm. "And I promise I will leave all this at home," she added, gesturing to the masses of paper in front of her with a low laugh. "Very nice to meet you, Sam."

"Nice to meet you, too," Sam replied, though they had technically already met. "I'll, uh..." He lifted his hand to show her the number she had already written there. "I'll call you. Soon," he said, backing away and almost but not quite tripping over his own two feet as he made his way back toward Ayden, wherever she'd gone.

Sandy and Ayden got to watch Becky's eyes follow Sam all the way across the shop to where Ayden had chosen to sit, incidentally at a table that offered Sam a perfect view of the studious girl who had just given him her number as she got back to her note-taking. Ayden smiled at her nephew as he sat down, sipping at her coffee. "Aren't you glad you came out with me now?"

Sam smirked over at his aunt as he took a seat across from her, not missing the fact that he now had a perfect view of the studious young woman. He leaned closed, eyes flashing with amusement. "I'm going to kill you for this later, just so you know." Not literally, of course.

"I love you, too," Ayden answered impishly, glad to see his mood lifted, even if it was only for this short while. He really was too serious, Jo was right about that. "Want me to write that number down somewhere safer for you until you get a phone of your own?"

"Only if you don't mind me calling her," Sam replied, stretching his arm out so that she could get a look at the number Becky had written on the back of his hand.

"Why would I mind?" Ayden asked curiously, taking a look at the number on his hand. She smiled, admiration in her eyes. "She likes you. That's her cell number. Normally she gives guys her home number, so they have to go through her dad."

Sam winced at the thought of having to meet some girl's dad, remembering what his own father had put every guy through who'd come calling on Hope, but that turned his thoughts back to the subject of his missing sister, which soured his mood once again. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Ayden," he started, "but I'm okay. Really, I am."

"Really' I didn't think I was doing anything too weird," she commented, picking at her donut with a finger and thumb. "Seeing as, you know, you need a few friends who aren't related to you to start you off." Her smile widened as she met his eyes. "I'm not pushing you to marry her, Sam. Just remember how to have fun."

"Fun, right," he repeated doubtfully, sounding a little too much like the other Dean she had once known, who had sacrificed his own life so that the world didn't go to hell. "I'll have fun when all this is over, okay?" If it was ever over. That's what he'd stayed back for, after all - so that his future self and his siblings and yes, even, Ayden and Ares, had a future where there was still fun in the world.

"No. No, that's not okay." Ayden shook her head, her expression deathly serious suddenly. "If you keep putting off the lighter side of life, you're going to end up where the first Dean did. He was so dedicated to the serious stuff, so caught up in being the defender, the protector, the one who had everything in hand, that it almost destroyed him. He was seriously thinking about killing himself. And I don't want to see that happen to you. So you grab what fun you can while all this is going on, you hear me" Life isn't worth saving if you're not going to live it."

"Killing himself!" Sam exclaimed a little too loudly, tossing a panicked look around them as he realized it, hoping Becky hadn't overheard. He leaned in again, lowering his voice this time. "I'm not gonna kill myself, Ayden. I promised Hope I'd see her in the future. How am I gonna do that if I become self-destructive?" He leaned back in his chair, looking a little troubled, despite his reassurances otherwise. "You realize how crazy that sounds. The first Dean. And now I'm the first Sam." He considered that a moment before rephrasing his statement. "Or the second, I'm not really sure."

Luckily for Sam, Becky was buried in her research once again, pausing only to sip her coffee and tuck her hair back behind her ear, virtually oblivious to the shop around her. "I know it's confusing," Ayden nodded, her smile a little wry. "I try not to talk about the Dean I first knew, it causes more problems than it solves. But, Sam, you can't hide behind when all this is over. I've seen first hand what happens when people do that - they keep finding more and more excuses not to live their lives, and they end up a shadow of the person they once were. If you really want to be there for Hope, you need to live, Sammy, or she's never going to see you the way you want her to."

Sam glanced down at his coffee, his hands wrapped around his mug. He knew she was right, but he wasn't really sure how to do what she was asking. Maybe he should start with a simple phone call. He sighed a little to himself. "We've had this talk before, you know. In the future. After Mom and Dad..." He trailed off. "Hope and I came here to stop that from happening, but..." Sam looked back up at her, almost afraid to admit what he was about to tell her. It was something he hadn't admitted to anyone before, not even his own mother or father. "I don't know where to go from here. We never planned this far." It was odd how comfortable he felt talking to Ayden. Even though she wasn't the Ayden he'd once known - even though she had lived a different life than that Ayden - deep down she was still the same person who'd become a surrogate mother to him and his sister. There were few he trusted more than Ayden.

She noted how careful he was not to answer her question, nodding slowly in acceptance of that. "All right, I won't push for an answer on that one," she promised him. "I'm just worried about the risk now I'm ....gestating."

"If anyone knows the answer to that question, it's Hebe, not me." His gaze darted to Becky again, remembering her claim to be reading Homer. He leaned in a little, lowering his voice, realizing they were discussing the Ancient Greek Gods like anyone else might discuss Hollywood movie stars. "Should I set her straight on Homer?" he asked, half serious.

Ayden followed his glance, her smile deepening once again. "She's reading the Classics," she told him before he spoke. "If you can get her to believe that you have inside knowledge that is one hundred percent correct, then more power to you. She's a pretty determined girl. She'd have to be, to already be in her second year at Stanford, at eighteen."

"What's she majoring in?" he asked, though he knew this, too, was cheating. These were questions he should be asking Becky over pizza, not asking her dorm-mate over coffee and donuts a mere ten feet or so from the girl in question.

"I'm not supposed to be answering these questions," Ayden chuckled. "You should ask her yourself. What's the point in having her number if you're going to get all the salient details off me before you use it?"

"Fine," Sam replied with a smirk. Two could play at that game. "Then don't ask me questions about you and Ares," he told her, finally picking up his donut and taking a bite, his tongue darting out to lick jelly from his lips.

"Hey, I'm committed to this little venture with Ares now," she laughed in protest. "You're bypassing the fun part of getting to know her!" Her second donut sat untouched on the plate as she glanced over at Becky once again, unsurprised to see the girl rubbing at her temples with a grimace even as she kept reading. "Tell you what, though ....she'll be blind before she hits thirty if someone doesn't distract her soon."

"Soon?" Sam echoed, brows arching. "What do you mean by soon?" he asked, wondering if she meant sooner than a few days from now when he finally gathered enough courage to call her. He tried hard not to glance over at Becky, but couldn't help himself, a frown when he saw her rubbing at her temples. He knew that feeling far too well as he'd often felt it himself, pouring over the ancient tomes in Bobby's study trying to find the answers to all their problems.

"Soon, as in over the next few years," Ayden assured him, not prepared to push him into anything too quickly. He needed to widen his net, yes, but not on the same day he had said goodbye to his sister. That was too soon.

He visibly relaxed, glad she didn't mean too soon. It would probably take him a few days to gather his courage, and then it might take a push or two from Ayden to actually pick up the phone. It wasn't that he'd never been on a date before, but he hadn't really had much time for girls growing up. He had far more important things to worry about - like preventing the End of the World.

She chuckled at his sudden release of tension, wondering if he really had thought she'd meant him to call Becky the moment they got home today. "Do you think your parents are out of bed yet?" she asked, almost teasing. Both of them knew the depth of feeling between Dean and Jo, and at least suspected how the pair comforted each other through the worst when it fell on them.

There was that shrug again, unsure of an answer regarding his parents and not really looking forward to returning home to find everyone paired off. "Maybe I'll borrow Dad's car and go for a ride. I gotta find a job, or I'm gonna go stir crazy."

"There's no rush to make any of these decisions," Ayden gently reminded him. "Take some time for yourself, see out the season. I doubt you'll get a job while the students are back in town anyway. Get Bobby to take you on for a little while so you can earn some money. He wouldn't object to paying you a fair wage for a little help around the yard until you're on your feet."

Sam frowned back at her, as she didn't really seem to get it. Everyone else back at the house had someone - Dean had Jo, and Ellen had Bobby, and even Ayden had Ares. Sam was the odd man out. He was the loner, and there was only so much time he could spend alone before he went stark-raving mad. Or maybe Ayden did understand. She'd been the one to encourage him to call Becky, after all. "I need to get away from the yard a little, Ayden. It's-it's stifling." He hadn't expected to feel this way, but now that Hope was gone, he had no idea what to do with himself, and she hadn't even been gone a day yet.

"I know what you mean," she assured him. "Admittedly, it could be a bit of an overreaction to have decided to make my base of operations a remote villa in Greece, but there is such a thing as being too close to family." She bit her lip, a thought touching her mind. "Do not dismiss this suggestion out of hand," she warned him. "If Ares were to buy you a place on the understanding that you'll pay him back in bits and pieces when you can, would you be open to be that?"

"Buy me a place?" Sam echoed, arching a brow, fingers lingering on the handle of his coffee mug. "Where" In Greece" How would I get back and forth?" He couldn't imagine himself living that far away, but living in the same house as his family offered very little privacy or independence. "I wasn't raised there, you know. Mom and Dad had a house of their own. I guess it hasn't been built yet."

"No, I figured they're gonna move out at some point," Ayden chuckled, shaking her head. "And no, I don't mean in Greece. I mean here. In Sioux Falls, or somewhere a little wider out. Hell, you could probably go and live in Chicago with Brian for a while if you really need space. But you need the independence, too. Believe me, I know that."

"Not too far away," he agreed, but not too close either. He didn't have the luxury of having an Olympian close at hand to teleport him from place to place. He had to do things the hard way. "Do you like it there?" he asked, changing the subject again. "In Greece, I mean," he further explained. He already knew the answer to that question, but he was wondering what this Ayden, who had only just recently met the God of War, was thinking.