Title: Consequences of Action

Chapter: 8

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo had been feeling weird for days, ever since that day she’d gone to that private beach with Castiel. Out of sorts. Not quite right. She woke with the feeling and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and because it was chilly, pulled on the jacket Cas had left in her cabin and not picked up yet. It was warm and smelled faintly of the aftershave he sometimes used when he bothered to shave. There were a few bullets in one pocket, a lighter in another, and a book shoved in the inside pocket. Jo didn’t bother to look at the book. He was always reading something or other.

As she headed down the path, her stomach growled and stirred in queasy circles at the same time. Jo took a shallow breath and gulped, concentrating on not throwing up on the path. Maybe eating wasn’t such a good idea. She decided to skip breakfast, heading instead to the office by the shooting range. Risa would be there by this time, trying to figure out if the latest supposedly good intel from their demon prisoners was anything to get excited about. It usually wasn’t.

Risa was nursing a cup of coffee when she got there, flipping through an old magazine with a bored air. She glanced up when Jo came through the door. “Morning. You seen Castiel anywhere out there? He was supposed to be here an hour ago to go over the maps with me again.”

“No, we didn’t do the stay-over thing last night. I had to get some kind of sleep.”

Her lips twitched about the rim of her cup as she took a sip. “Help yourself to coffee. I made a fresh pot. Dean left the pot on from yesterday and it wasn’t drinkable. I could smell it before I even got the door open.”

Jo took a cup from the stack and poured some, then took it to the calendar sitting on one table. It was a homemade one, made from large sheets of paper that some artistic soul had made an effort at decorating with snarky cartoons along the sides. She glanced at it, wondering why they bothered with calendars when the days were pretty much the same. An attempt to stay sane maybe? To keep the days in some sort of order? To pretend there was something more coming than the same thing they faced every day?

“What day is it,” Jo asked Risa, studying the previous months, smiling a little at the cartoons. She hadn’t actually kept track in weeks.

“The fourteenth, I think. There should be a little blue dot on the days that have passed. Chuck marks them off, like a little ritual after dinner every night. He comes down here, stares at the calendar, then puts a dot on the day.”

“Huh.” She carefully thought back, forcing herself to think about how many days had passed since she’d brought her people into the camp, and back from that date how many days had passed between that and her last period. She flipped between calendar months, then tapped her finger on the page. It’s only a few days, she told herself. Nothing to be concerned about. Stress sometimes did that, right?

“Why?”

“Curious.”

Two days turned into more, stretching out into over a week, and Jo had no sign of her period. No cramps, no backache, no craving for sweets. On the other hand, she’d been nauseas and a little more tired than usual. While she’d initially chalked up the nausea to a patch of bad food or illness, no one else was sick. The extra sleepiness she’d thought was from her tromping through the woods for hours with Castiel and sometimes Risa. With the non-arrival, her slight suspicion grew into the full-blown, nagging idea that she was pregnant.

“Oh boy.” She muttered and put a hand on her stomach. Perhaps she should see if Chuck had any pregnancy tests squirreled away somewhere. Surely he would. He had a little bit of everything else over in the supply area.

~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s gone. It’s gone, it’s gone, oh my God, it’s gone!” Chuck tossed the covers off his bed in a desperate attempt to find his missing notebook. Where had he put it? He’d searched his cabin, torn it apart, without finding it. Panic was setting in. If he couldn’t find it, he was going to have to rewrite all of it.

“No, no, I can’t rewrite it all.”

He half-groaned, half-laughed, aware in the vaguest sense that he sounded hysterical. It had to be here somewhere -- in theory at least. It wasn’t like he’d been carrying it outside the camp. It was here, but where? Where had he set it down last?

Standing straight, he slid his hands through his hair over and over, trying to think, to retrace his steps. He’d had it before going to work, but on what day? He didn’t remember going over for a few days now, which had to be making Dean suspicious -- the last thing he wanted to do. Dean suspicious wasn’t a good thing, not with the secret he was trying to keep.

Maybe Dean wouldn’t find out? Chuck hadn’t seen Dean finding out, so maybe it wouldn’t happen?

He groaned and started to curse. What the hell was he thinking? Of course Dean was going to find out. Dean found out about everything. Chuck took a long pull off the whiskey bottle on the table, then kicked the table leg, wincing only a little when the lamp fell off and landed on the rug with a thud.

It took him a moment to realize the noises he heard were knocks on his door. Opening it, he found Dean.

And his lost notebook.

Oh, crap.

~~~~~~~~~~

Chuck had been getting odder and odder as the days passed. His formerly neat work area was showing signs of neglect and more often than not, he’d not even shown up for his shift. It wouldn’t be so bad, but it was Chuck himself who’d done the schedule. He was ignoring his own plans, a thing he didn’t do.

Dean strode to the table Chuck normally sat at and began looking at the items strewn across the surface and then the things in the plastic drawers beneath it and off to the side. Something wasn’t quite right with Chuck lately and Dean thought maybe there’d be an answer here. He flipped through books and binders (all neatly labeled and only in white, blue, and black) and was growing irritable by the time he reached the bottom of one large tilting stack. On the very bottom was yet another three-ring binder, this one colored red.

How many damn three ring binders did one man need, he thought with a disgusted snort.

Thinking it was another supply list, Dean flipped it open.

It wasn’t a supply list. It was fiction, written in tiny cramped script on lined notebook paper. Dean half laughed. Chuck was trying to write again. He remembered Chuck once saying his works aside from the ‘Winchester Gospels’ sucked and that writing was hard. Interesting that he’d choose to try writing again, though Dean couldn’t blame him. The days could get awfully boring at times.

He was about to close it and put it back, but then he actually read the first few sentences. And read them again. And when he couldn’t believe what he was reading, he read them a final time.

‘The air was hot and muggy, the sort of day more appropriate to late summer in the deep south than anywhere else in the United States. The weather had been weird for months, going to extremes in little more than hours. It was bad, but then everything now was bad. With the forming of the refugee camp behind them, Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, and the now human Castiel….’

“Hell, no!”

After swearing a blue streak, Dean flipped through the pages, skimming the pages. He found a detailed account of the various happenings in the camp in those early days of camp life. Chuck’s writing was rather poetic and polished at times, though a large chunk of pages had passages crossed out, paragraphs written in the margins and letters of the alphabet or Roman numerals directing to pages added into the notebook.

Perhaps it was time to take a closer look at Chuck’s increased alcohol consumption and erratic behavior. He slammed the binder shut and left the lodge, binder tucked under one arm. Dean made his way to Chuck’s cabin and knocked. From inside, he heard swearing and the loud thud of something falling to the floor. The door opened.

“Uh…Dean.” Chuck ran a hand over his face and then through his hair as though to wake himself up. The smell of fresh whiskey emanated from him. “Hi.”

“Afternoon, Chuck. You been lying to me this entire time?” Holding up the binder, he waggled it in the air.

“Oh, man!” Chuck’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve been looking everywhere for that. I thought I’d lost it and that wouldn’t be good.”

Dean brushed passed him, surveying the room. It was in the same condition Chuck’s house had usually been in, only without the takeout boxes all over. His lips tightened with annoyance, anger simmering inside him. He’d thought this was over, that heaven had bugged out, leaving Chuck headache and vision-free, no longer a prophet. Words could barely express the emotions he was feeling, an odd mix of ire, relief, joy, and apprehension. If Chuck still had visions, maybe there really was a continuing road for mankind instead of the lights being snuffed out forever. Having a record meant people could, in theory, be around much later to read it. However, he had a helluva lot of apprehension, since heaven’s plans usually featured a Winchester in prominent position. “Answer the question. Did you lie to me about your visions being gone?”

With a groan, Chuck closed the door and shuffled over to one chair, dropping into it, legs stretched out. “No, no lie. They were really gone until Risa showed up. Then it all came back, like she was some catalyst, and it’s been a real pain in the ass because I was liking not seeing things that made me uncomfortable, you know? First you and Risa and now I’ve got Castiel and Jo naked everywhere.”

“Everywhere?”

“Yeah.” Chuck sighed, staring at the toes of his shoes. “Everywhere. It’s like…clothing optional in his cabin. They go skinny dipping in the lake, too, something about the cold water being good for the circulation. That’s what Cas told Jo and I’m assuming it’s true, because he usually doesn’t lie about things like that. I don’t think that’s the real reason they go swimming though. Not to mention the trysts in the woods. They have a lot of those. Between the four of you, I feel like I’ve got a nearly constant porn film going on in my head some days. I mean, I don’t mind seeing Jo or Risa naked, because they’re both really beautiful women, but you and Cas? Oh, man.” He winced.

“That’s…that’s just really uncomfortable, Chuck.”

“Tell me about it. No cracks about being a Peeping Tom, okay? I feel bad enough about it already. Private means private and there’s nothing private. I’ve seen everything there is to see.”

Dean took it with a grain of salt, however. He recalled Chuck the writer/prophet as prone to exaggeration at times. “And you write all that? The sex stuff?”

“Not like I can refuse. I have to get it on paper or my head never stops hurting. I mean, I can tone it down and sort of gloss over the details, but it has to be documented, Dean. You’re all like bunnies. If you and Risa aren’t doing it, Cas and Jo are. Oh, and Risa. Risa hates me. Did you know that? I don’t know why. It’s like she knows I’ve had those visions of you two. And now Jo’s pregnant, so when she finds out she’s going to be --”

“Whoa, did you just say Jo’s pregnant?” A pregnancy. That was something they hadn’t seen in a long time. Did it mean something? He had a hundred questions on that, but if Chuck hadn’t seen it, he didn’t have answers.

“Yeah. Don’t say anything, though. She won’t take the tests until tomorrow and I really like her, so I’d rather she didn’t freak out.”

“Does Cas know?”

“He’s known since Jo got here.”

Dean blinked, then realized that Chuck thought he was talking about the visions. “Right.” He held out a hand, motioned with his fingers. “Hand them over. All of them.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dean. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He dropped his hand back to his side.

“Because the voice says not to. Besides, if you destroy them, I’ll have to write it all again and my head really hurts, so just…don’t, okay?”

“Can I read them then?” He wanted to know what Chuck had seen. If he could know as soon as Chuck knew, then maybe he could do something. Maybe he could change things.

“I suppose. If you want. Start with that one and when you bring it back I’ll give you the next one in the sequence.”

“How many do you have?”

“Three binders so far.”

“Only three?”

“They’re really big binders.”

Chuck was right. They were big binders.

“The second one is where Jo shows up again. Jo and Ellen.”

Dean nodded, and left with the first binder.

~~~~~~~~~

There was no one looking. Not that anyone would care if they saw them. Everyone in camp knew about them anyway. Castiel stopped in the middle of a sentence and caught Jo to him, lips finding hers. Far from protesting, Jo slid eagerly against him, arms going about his shoulders, her hands in his hair.

They were getting worse at the whole playacting thing instead of better. Half the time they couldn’t keep it going past a few minutes, mostly because they’d already gotten physical. While Cas didn’t see the point in it anymore, Jo hadn’t yet said that stopping word, so he attempted to keep the scenario going.

He drew back, but didn’t release her, hands caressing along her hips. “Where are you headed?”

“Over to supplies.”

He could feel her fingers in his hair. “Important errand?”

Her shoulders lifted a little in a shrug. “One I’ve been putting off the past few days.”

Though he waited, she didn’t explain. “Slip away and meet me by the dock about three?”

Jo’s gaze lowered, then turned to the path leading to the main lodge. “Maybe.” Her body tensed against him.

“Is something wrong,” he asked, only to receive one of those too bright smiles that he’d learned indicated she was lying. Why she thought she had to lie to him puzzled him a bit. What on earth could she have to do that she didn’t want him to know about?

“No, nothing. I just have an errand to take care of.”

Castiel released her, his good mood fading. “Well…. I’ll find you later then.” The words came out snippy and stilted.

She caught his hand before he could walk away. “Cas, it’s nothing bad, okay? Don’t get mad. I just need to do this before we talk about it.”

Talk about what? He wanted to ask, except he knew she wouldn’t tell him what was going on until she was good and ready. “We will talk?”

She drew in a deep breath and didn’t smile again like she had. “Yes.”

“While I don’t understand why you won’t tell me….” He nodded. “Find me when you’re ready.”

“I will.”

Cas stepped onto the path and began to walk towards the shooting range.

This is it, came Jimmy’s voice, excited in tone.

This is what, he snapped.

She’s got that look, Castiel.

What look? He had an idea what Jimmy was heading towards, only because Jimmy had been going on about Jo and pregnancy for days. Making plans. Reminiscing about Amelia’s pregnancy and speculating on Jo. He’d been awake and wouldn’t shut up, yammering on over and over.

The ‘I’ve skipped and I’ve got to know for sure before I say anything’ look. Amelia had it, though I knew she’d skipped. Any man paying attention would know when his wife or girlfriend skips.

Skips what, he couldn’t resist asking, but Jimmy wasn’t listening.

I wonder how she’ll tell us. It’s got to be that. What else wouldn’t she want us to know? It’s not like we don’t know everything about her.

After several attempts to interject, Castiel sighed and abandoned the effort. There was no talking to Jimmy. He was too deep into his wonderings. Castiel wasn’t an idiot. He knew Jimmy was lonely and he’d figured out that Jimmy was desperate for something more, whether it was conversation with Jo or something else. He didn’t try to discourage Jimmy’s speculation. If Jimmy thought Jo was pregnant and it gave him hope, then all the better for it he supposed.

He just wished there was some outlet for Jimmy that didn’t include him.

~~~~~~~~~~

She’d hoped she wouldn’t have to pretend nothing was wrong with Castiel, praying she’d make it to supplies without running into him. Jo hated having to lie to him, but she wasn’t ready to tell him her suspicion she was pregnant.

Once Cas was out of sight, she hurried to supplies, walking up to Chuck. “Chuck, hi, I need --”

“Here.” Chuck held out two boxes.

“Uh…what’s this?” She pointed at them, noting the pastel colors.

“Pregnancy tests. That was what you needed right?”

Creepy. It was very creepy when he did that and all Dean would say about it was that it was something that happened on occasion and no, Chuck wasn’t psychic. If he’d bothered to ask her, she’d tell him the frequency was far beyond ‘on occasion’ and more like ‘every day, all day’. She blinked. “Yeah, but I only need one.”

“No, you need two,” he assured her. “One for certainty and the second one because you’re going to swear the first has to be defective.”

Jo snagged one box from his hands. “Chuck, one is fine.”

“No, it isn’t. Trust me. You’ll want that second one in about five minutes.”

In a defiant huff, Jo swept past him and into the tiny bathroom. She read the directions, followed them, and when the results were exactly what she’d thought they’d be, she cocked her head. “No. No, no, no, no, no. It has to be defec --” She stopped, realizing she was saying what Chuck had told her she’d say. Defective. Had to be defective. Jo smacked her forehead with her palm and made an annoyed face to herself in the mirror.

There was a knock on the door, Chuck’s voice ringing out loud and clear. “You ready for the second one yet?”

Opening the door, Jo snatched the box from him and informed him, “It’s beyond creepy when you do that. Just so you know.”

The second test yielded the same results and Jo sighed. Pregnant, she thought, trying out the sound of it in her mind. I’m pregnant. I’m a statistical anomaly. I would have to be that two percent or whatever that still gets knocked up, even with a condom.

She blinked as a something about the timing hit her and counted backwards. No, wait. Jo pursed her lips. Not two percent. It was probably that jelly stuff that night in the back of Castiel’s truck which, if she remembered correctly, was only like eighty percent effective.

Oh crap.

She should have known better than to have sex with anything less than a condom. Was temporary stupidity a valid excuse for her behavior?

I am so knocked up.

Which meant that the time for games was over. She needed to accept the responsibility and have a long, honest talk with Castiel.

Jo took a deep breath, tossed both tests in the trashcan, and stepped from the bathroom.

Chuck gave her an encouraging, if somewhat tremulous, smile. “You’re going to be a great mom,” he told her, like it was a certainty.

“Right. Thanks. Is…is Cas…. Never mind, I’ll go look for him.”

He wasn’t in his cabin. Jo, however, felt comfortable enough to wait inside for his return. She laid in the center of his wide bed and thought about her condition. After talking with him, she was going to have to talk to Dean about it, too. There were a ton of preparations they were going to have to make. Birthing procedure outside a hospital was the main one, since hospitals had been some of the first places hit by the virus. There were other things to consider, too, like taking care of a baby and what if something went wrong?

The thought of giving birth the old fashioned way, frankly, terrified her. Jo wanted painkillers just to think about pushing a baby out without painkillers. She knew enough about having babies to know it usually hurt and that it was, generally, gross.

She’d made a long mental list by the time Castiel came through the bead door. He paused in the center of the room, delight in his eyes and a tiny grin curling his lips. “You’re here in the daytime by yourself. That’s progress.” The annoyance he’d had earlier appeared to be gone completely.

Sitting up, she said that word she’d given him weeks earlier, followed quickly up with, “Cas…. I’m pregnant.”

He came forward, that grin fading in degrees. In his eyes, she thought she saw a glimmer of satisfaction before his gaze lowered to focus on her stomach.

“Say something. Please.” Her palms were damp with perspiration and yet at the same time, her mouth was terribly dry.

After a moment, he quirked a brow. “Apparently spermicidal jelly doesn’t work?”

The comment and the way he’d said it eased a bit of her tension and she dipped her head in a slow nod. “Apparently. Anything else?”

“You’re certain?” He rested his hands at his hips.

“I have two pregnancy tests and a skipped period that says I am. Then there’s the nausea and I’ve been…really sleepy. Those are signs, I think.”

He joined her one the bed, moving carefully, as though she’d suddenly become delicate. “I….” One hand stretched out, paused at her belly, then pressed against her. “It never occurred to me that I could ever be a father.” The delight grew bright in his eyes again. “This pleases me.”

She’d been half afraid he’d be upset. “You don’t mind?”

“Should I?”

“It’s the end of the world, Cas.”

He was slow to reply and all he said was, “Yeah. Is it?”

“What do you mean, is it? Look outside. Lucifer’s having one helluva shindig out there, unless I’ve imagined all of that.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He laid down on his side, urging her to lie back as well. Jo laid on her back, head turned to face him. His hand slid under her shirt to rest on her stomach, warm and comforting. “Haven’t you noticed there have been no pregnancies for a year or more?”

“No, I didn’t. It wasn’t something I thought about.” He was right though. She couldn’t recall seeing any pregnant women or even babies in a very long time.

“We’ve kept track. The last pregnant woman we saw was fifteen months ago and the last live birth was before that. That’s a long time, Jo.”

“Maybe people were being careful.”

“What, like we were?”

She looked away, cheeks warming. Jo took his hand in hers.

“Accidents still happen and there weren’t any, not that we observed, not until…now. Why? Why us? Why now? Is it the end of everything?”

She twined her fingers with his. “I don’t know. I don’t have that answer and I don’t know that reading anything into this is a good idea. I mean, it’s not like I’m a Winchester, Cas. I’m me, I’m Jo Harvelle. Daughter of Bill and Ellen. I grew up in a bar. I was conning hunters out of their money in poker and video games by the time I was fourteen and fending them off by sixteen. While I clean up nice, I’m not what some would call a classy dame. Believe me Cas, I’m not of cosmic importance.”

“Why couldn’t you be? You’re important to me. Why couldn’t you be important to heaven in some way as well? Besides, would you call Dean even at his best ‘classy’?”

“Dean classy?” She laughed. “Um…no, not the word I’d use. He can fake class when he has to, but it’s not him.”

“And yet heaven pinned all their hopes on him.”

She studied him a moment, seeing hope grow in his eyes. “Let’s say you’re right. This baby means something to the world, to heaven. What’s that something? It’s a part of you, a part of me. What else is there?”

“Destiny.”

Loosing her hand from his, she reached up to touch his face, cupping his cheek. “Let’s not pin some super-special destiny on our baby before it’s even born, okay? I’m still trying to get used to the idea of pushing it out in a few months. Destiny is another matter.” She pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss. “I can’t think of worldwide ramifications right now. I’m going to assume some women out there somewhere are also in varying stages of pregnancy and treat this like the average pregnancy. Can we do that, please?”

“Of course.”

Instead of continuing in that vein, he told her how pleased he was and when the dinner hour arrived, they brought a meal back to his cabin and celebrated alone.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’d like that hamburger medium-well, please.

Castiel couldn’t miss the smugness in Jimmy’s voice as they stood in line with Jo for dinner. Fine. You were right. I’ll get you one the next time we have the meat for burgers.

Of course I was. I did tell you I’d felt that before. And that she had that look.

I don’t understand. How did she get pregnant?

Jimmy snorted. You never connected sex with babies? Geez, Castiel, that’s basic stuff.

I mean I never thought I could father one. He took a plate, indicated what he wanted, and smiled at Jo. She returned it. A father. I’m going to be a father.

You can do everything else. Why not that too?

There’ve been no pregnant women, Jimmy. Not anywhere that we’ve seen and not for months. Jo shouldn’t be pregnant at all. The same conversation he and Jo had had.

Jimmy was quiet a moment. Maybe this signals an end to that? Change in how things are?

It’s the end.

You and I both have our doubts at this point and now Jo might too. I don’t know, Castiel. Maybe heaven changed it’s mind about letting humanity get snuffed out forever. Right now? I don’t give a damn. Jo’s pregnant and I want to celebrate. We are celebrating, right?

Of course we’re celebrating. They reached the bottleneck at the condiments section and stood off to the side with their trays. Castiel set his down while they waited and wrapped an arm about Jo, holding her against him, his hand on her stomach, fingers splayed. He decided he was even happier than Jimmy about Jo’s pregnancy. A baby was a special thing he’d never thought he’d ever have a part in creating, yet here he was. He planned to experience every part of the process to the best of his abilities.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Something’s up.” Vanessa nudged Kylie so hard in the ribs that it hurt.

Kylie glanced up from her plate, turning her attention to where Van was pointing and rubbing the offended spot. Vanessa had the boniest elbows she’d ever felt jab her ribs. All she saw were Jo and Castiel in line, smiling and making goo-goo eyes at each other, like they did all the time. “Nothing’s up. They look like they always do.”

She was sorry she’d pushed Van into thinking Jo wouldn’t last, because he was all Van talked about. Day-in, day-out it was ‘Cas this’ and ‘Cas that’, when he hadn’t so much as talked to any of them since he’d told them he wouldn’t see them anymore. Even the most obtuse girl had to realize he wasn’t going to come back to her.

“No, look.”

Kylie groaned. “I’m looking. What am I seeing?”

“He’s got his hand on her stomach.”

“He usually has his hands all over her. What else is new?”

“No, look at how he’s standing. It’s all protective.”

Kylie rolled her eyes, but took another look. She was right. Castiel had his arm about Jo’s waist, his hand resting on her stomach, and an almost proud expression on his face. He looked excited about something, too, like he had news he was dying to share with people. Come to think of it, Jo had that look too. While she had to admit it was different, she didn’t see anything unusual about it. “So what if it is?”

“It’s just weird, Ky. Cas isn’t protective like that. He’s cool and calm and there’s never strings.”

There were now. Jo was the only woman who existed for him. Heaven help the person who got in his way with her.

Kylie looked back down at her plate. She wondered if Jay would like some company. He had the watch point over along the lake side of the perimeter and while she knew he was good about doing whatever duty he’d been assigned, sometimes he’d let her stay and would talk to her if she didn’t distract him too much.

It was better to be out there, than with Vanessa, who spent all of her time trying to dissect how Jo Harvelle had managed to catch the uncatchable Castiel.

~~~~~~~~~

Dean wasn’t a fast reader, but he did work his way through the binder in steady chunks, evading Risa’s questions on what it was by simply saying it was something Chuck was working on. It took him three days to go through one binder with steady reading breaks and he had to admit the story was compelling. Some of the events portrayed on the pages Dean had completely forgotten about.

He skipped over the middle binder, deciding to go back to it, and asked for the in-progress one.

“Maybe not a good idea,” Chuck countered.

“Why not? Rate I’m reading, I’d be up to it in a week anyway.”

“Jo would be embarrassed to know you know some of those things.”

“So I won’t tell her.”

“Lotta sex, Dean. Unedited and perhaps not my best work --”

“Give it. Don’t make me punch you and grab it.”

Chuck held it out. “Please don’t let on some of it to her, okay? She’s feeling very vulnerable where she and Cas are at in their relationship and --”

“You got sympathy PMS with her or something?”

“She’s pregnant, Dean, remember?”

He shrugged. “Sympathy pregnancy hormonal emotional things then.”

“She and Cas had this long talk and they’re trying out not doing the whole playacting thing….” He cleared his throat. “You don’t know about that.”

“No, I know about that. Cas told me.”

“Weird. I didn’t see that conversation. Must not be important.”

“Right. Like all the sex is important? Maybe you haven’t seen it yet.”

“Could be, but I’d think…. Wait. Did you ask Cas something about group action and four girlfriends?”

Dean thought back. “Could be.”

“Because I finished a scene earlier like that, but was in a bit of an alcoholic haze when I got done, so maybe I do have that conversation.”

“This is seriously creeping me out.”

“I know. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not as creepy as it’s going to get.”

“I’m comforted. Really.” Dean was far from comforted.

After a moment, Chuck reached out and grabbed the middle binder, holding it out as well. “Take this, too. In case you have questions about things that happened before.”

He took it as well. “That should keep me busy awhile.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let Risa read it, okay?”

“What happens if she does?”

Chuck frowned. “I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure nothing good. She’s scary when she’s not angry, I’d hate to be really on her bad side.”

Dean would be the first to admit that Risa could be something of a spitfire. “I’ll try to keep her from looking at them. Anything else?”

Chuck paused, then glanced at the door. “Things are going to get weird soon. Very soon.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Hey…. When aren’t they weird, right? Weird is normal for us.”

Dean didn’t know just how right Chuck was.