Title: Lost and Found

Chapter: 30

Notes: I made up the town and hospital in MN.

~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time 2013 came, Ellen had tired of that task she’d assigned for herself. While the information was useful and bountiful, even fascinating at times, she could understand why previous attempts at this had stalled. It was boring putting it all in the computer, though she supposed it’d be more fun once she began adding cross-reference information and such.

She’d given Gwen a few things she’d found already, mostly diaries like the one Sam had found, and the folder with Aaron’s note in it. Gwen was almost giddy with each piece of information, excitedly sharing it all with Sam first, then with Jo and Dean. It was nice to see something a bit deeper between Gwen and Sam forming and Sam even seemed to be losing some of that reserve he had. He was quicker to smile and laugh and it seemed to Ellen that the shadow of pain in his eyes was beginning to lighten. In her opinion, it’d be a good day when both those boys lost that shadow completely. They’d both been through far too much in their young lives.

She surveyed the boxes and decided to take one of the heavier ones that was practically waterproof due to the many layers of tape holding it closed. A bleeding gash and two broken nails later, and Ellen realized she’d stumbled onto a jackpot. She began to take items out, laying them carefully around her in a semi-circle. A few envelopes of pictures and a large manila envelope. A pretty pink child’s jacket, baby shoes and more. The things parents saved from their child’s first years.

Ellen opened the manila envelope. It was labeled ‘GC 1-10’. Inside were papers and right on top was the very thing Gwen had been hoping they’d find. Her birth certificate, clipped to another birth certificate.

Gwen Alyssa Carys had been born to Aaron Jeffrey Carys and Mia Alexandra Carys on June 2, 1981 at exactly five in the morning at Mercy Hospital in Princeville, Minnesota.

So their assumption was right. Aaron was her father, Mia her mother, and they were married.

The certificate clipped to it was a fake and a very good one. Ellen had seen enough fakes to recognize the career hunter’s attention to detail. The original document had been altered to reflect Neal and Patricia Campbell as the parents and the time of birth, location, and hour were different. It was a good fake. Most people would never know the difference and Ellen knew the location would have been carefully picked. There would have been a tragic fire or something so original documents couldn’t be found for that year and month, at least not without considerable difficulty.

She found immunization records, medical and dental records, and all those things that were necessary when raising a child. There were report cards that mentioned what a bright, intelligent, and imaginative child Gwen was and pictures drawn by Gwen that were reminiscent of the ones Jo had once given to Ellen and Bill: stick drawings with the phrases ‘I love mommy’ and ‘I love daddy’ with backdrops that belonged in nightmares. Nowadays, schools would call child services and recommend extensive counseling for the child, but back then, it only meant the child had a good imagination.

The items that had been stashed away told Ellen that Patricia and Neal had loved Gwen very much and any secrets they’d kept from her had likely been an attempt to protect her. The pictures, all neatly labeled, were the most telling.

Pretty blond Patricia smiling tenderly as she fed Gwen from a bottle. Neal grinning while holding toddler Gwen in his arms. That same toddler on a tricycle with her tongue sticking out as she concentrated. Both Neal and Patricia with Gwen before a succession of birthday cakes. The expression in their eyes was love and pride and Ellen thumbed through the pictures, half tempted to get supplies and make them into an album for Gwen.

There were also pictures of Gwen with other children and a succession of pictures of her and Christian that told Ellen that perhaps Christian had had a soft spot for Gwen. They were standing together in them, Gwen holding a bow in her hands. She appeared to be right at ten years of age. It looked like Christian had been correcting her hold on the bow, his expression one of pleasure. In one picture his eyes seemed to twinkle even. Had Gwen listened to his instructions? Had she given back teasing words as well as he’d tossed them at her? Whatever the scene, he’d been proud of her then and very different from the man Dean and Sam had known and Gwen had told her about.

Ellen smiled as she went through the pictures. She’d found Gwen’s first ten years, all catalogued. How nice it’d be if somewhere here was the information on her parents. They had names now, and a basic location. It was a place to start.

She snapped a picture of the birth certificate and emailed it to Gwen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Throughout Gwen’s childhood, there’d been things she hadn’t understood, rules she’d had to follow that it seemed like no one else did. She had to be with someone else at all times when out of the compound -- family if possible. Patricia grew worried if Gwen was by herself. She could only go on the easy hunts and jobs to learn and never anything that might mean her death. She needed to train harder and longer than anyone else.

A lot had been expected from her. Patricia had tried to raise her as an ‘everywoman’ -- girly but not too girly, a tomboy, but not too much so, good at every aspect of hunting, and very aware of those things that were out there. She’d wanted Gwen capable of protecting herself against anything that could come after her, desperate at times for her to learn, pushing her in almost manic bursts.

At the time, she’d thought it was just her mother being unfair. Now, she was grateful for those times Patricia had pushed her.

As she read through her mother’s diaries, Gwen began to remember things that had been consigned to the attic of memory and forgotten.

For a full month after her birthday, until July 2 was over, she’d been forbidden to leave the compound at all and especially not on July 2. She was supposed to help Patricia with the summer cleaning and other chores. Funny how that rule had never tipped her off that something larger was happening around her. She’d merely thought they were being arbitrary and unfair. When she was twelve, she’d rebelled, snuck out with Christian’s help, then when she’d gotten in trouble, Christian had abandoned her, denying he’d helped her. He’d told her later that he was sorry, that he’d known she could handle the heat by herself. Her mother had behaved as though Gwen had personally betrayed her and stabbed her in the heart. How could Gwen do that? How could she be so cruel as to worry her poor mother that way? They’d thought she’d been abducted by a demon….

The guilt they’d laid on her over that! She’d sworn she’d never do it again just to make it stop.

After Patricia’s death, all of those rules had lifted, as though her father had suddenly given up. Maybe he had. He’d stopped talking about witches and demons and it hadn’t been until after his death that the Campbell clan had returned to hunting witches and demons knowingly. Sure they’d taken care of a few they hadn’t realized were either until most of the way through the job, yet during the last years of Neal’s life, he’d wanted the focus elsewhere.

She thought about her mother’s final days.

Gwen remembered Patricia telling her to always check for hex bags, because otherwise you’d never know there was a witch in your midst until it was too late. She’d looked like she was going to say more then, her thin bony fingers held in Gwen’s hand and her cancer riddled body attempting to move closer and failing because of the tubes and cords anchoring her to the hospital bed. Her bloodless lips had parted, an urgent light in her eyes, but then Neal had come in and Gwen’s mother seemed to close in on herself.

That had been the last conversation she’d had with her mother. Patricia had died that night and Gwen had been freed from the rules that had restricted her.

Setting the diary aside, she drew her legs up and clasped her arms around them. She was crying but didn’t attempt to stem the flood of tears. Sam had been right about the emotional aspect of reading the diaries, just not in regards to that first one. It was this one, the last one Patricia had written that drew long forgotten grief and pain from her.

The door to the small cabin opened, Sam coming in. Jo and Dean were out seeing a horror movie that, in Gwen’s opinion, looked too much like the last job they’d all worked together. It had Tara Benchley in it though, and both Jo and Dean were fans of hers. Sam had told Gwen they’d met Tara once and worked a job on the set of Hell Hazers II: The Reckoning. He’d told her the entire story over dinner, clearing up for her how a Hollywood writer had managed to get any details right. They usually messed up badly.

He stomped his boots free of snow and set the bags he was carrying down before removing his coat. “Man, is it cold out there! Cars in the ditch everywhere. The place on the edge of town was having a special….” He studied her, slowly hanging his coat up on the hooks beside the door. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Uh-oh.” Sam set the food in the fridge and crossed to her, joining her on the couch and sitting close. An arm slid along the couch behind her shoulders, his other arm encircling her legs, hand resting on her thigh -- a sort of hug. The pleasant scent of his aftershave teased at her nostrils. “Talk to me.”

The difference between Sam with a soul and Sam without was never more pronounced than in moments like this. He really was a gentle caring man, genuinely concerned about how others felt.

“I think my mother was going to tell me I was adopted before she died and I think she was going to tell me all of it. She had this look in her eyes….”

“What happened?” His hand chafed her leg in slow strokes.

She leaned in towards the warmth of his body. “I told you she died of cancer?”

Sam nodded. His hair slipped down over his brow. “I remember.”

“Well, it was sudden and aggressive and it about tore my dad apart emotionally. See, they’d gone out on a job, leaving the rest of us back at the compound, and she was fine. Healthy. When they returned a week later, she was sick. The others, they didn’t know how to act around her. Cancer, you know? The word still gets people today. I think the hospital may have freaked them out though. We tend to avoid those as much as possible. I almost lived at the hospital those weeks. Lost my first real boyfriend because he thought going out with him was more important than my mom dying.”

“Jerk,” he said softly, hand curving on her leg and arm squeezing, drawing her closer.

“Oh, he was,” she agreed. “Big jerk. He was what mom called a bad boy and she hated him on sight. Anyway, the night she died, Christian and Arlene took dad down to get a coffee, leaving me alone with mom. That was when she made me promise to always look for hex bags. She had witches on the brain a lot those last days, though I guess she’d had them in her mind most of my life. Hated witches. Called them skeevy liars.”

“Dean agrees with her. He’s used some strong language to describe them.”

“I can imagine.” Gwen tucked her hair behind her ears. “She told me that you never knew there was a witch among you until it was too late. So many things go through my head now about that. Was she talking about my birth parents? Was a witch the reason they raised me? Maybe someone they didn’t know was a witch did something to my birth parents? Or maybe…she was referring to her sickness. Maybe the cancer wasn’t a natural switch that turned on in her body. Maybe it was a curse. Was there a hex bag hidden among her things when they got back from that trip and we never found it? Why say that specifically? Why make me promise that and say that? What was she going to tell me that she didn’t when my dad came back in?”

It could have been the drugs in Patricia’s system, Gwen knew that. Patricia had been drugged to the gills for the pain those days, but Gwen knew, she just knew, that whatever she’d wanted to tell Gwen was important.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, an understanding kind expression in his eyes. Here was comfort if she wanted it. He’d hold her and it’d be okay to feel vulnerable. She could let her guard down completely.

Gwen wanted that; to let herself wallow a bit in vulnerability, and right then, she wanted him to make her forget the pain of remembering and make it all periphery, if only for a few hours. In a quick movement, she leaned closer, pressing her lips to his, tasting a hint of coffee. He seemed surprised, but didn’t pull away, letting her keep control of the moment, that very thing she needed.

She threaded her fingers through his hair. It was soft and silky to touch. “I want you,” she murmured. “Now.” She shook her head. “And I don’t want the gentleman.”

Sam didn’t say anything, he merely nodded and stood, helping her to her feet and over to the bed. He spread his arms as if to say ‘whatever you want, however you want’.

She took him up on that silent offer.

Their first coming together was passionate and fast, over before Gwen registered it had happened. The second time was slow, yet no less intense, Gwen exploring him and guiding his hands on her. He let her set the pace, being so sweet in giving her what she wanted and needed that her tears returned in a quieter moment. Sam kissed those tears away and held her as they both fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sam woke to the sounds of Gwen moving about the cabin and the smell of reheated food. He opened his eyes and sat up, watching Gwen dish up two paper plates with the food. She was wearing his shirt, the tails of it long on her thighs, the sleeves rolled up. He liked how the hem brushed her legs.

“You want to sit at the table or eat in bed,” she asked, picking up the plates and turning to face him. She’d only buttoned two buttons on the shirt, a decision that gave him enticing glimpses of bare skin as she took a couple steps forward. He knew just how soft her skin felt beneath his hands, how warm her body was, and how well she’d fit with him.

“Table.” It was still night. A glance at his watch showed that they’d slept for a little over five hours.

“Good choice. Come and get it.”

He pulled the sheet free from the bed and wrapped it around him rather than get dressed, then joined her. As he added sweet and sour sauce to an egg roll, he thought about how between him and Dean, Dean had always seemed the impatient one, yet he’d waited months for Jo. Longer if Sam counted the time from when they’d first met. Sam however, had folded quickly beneath the weight of anticipation and longing for Gwen. He hoped he’d made the right decision.

Slow had it’s advantages and so did impatience. He no longer had to wonder if she’d be wild in bed or if she’d show a softer side (yes to both). Nor did he need to guess in fantasies as to how she’d kiss and touch him. The initial wondering was over and he could begin settling in to that sort of intimacy lovers shared.

“Five for your thoughts,” Gwen said, glancing at him while she opened a packet of hot mustard.

“A five?”

“Inflation.”

“No kidding.” He reached for the sweet and sour packets. “I was just thinking how on the outside Dean looks impatient, but he has such patience when he needs it. Like with Jo. Man, I thought he was nuts for not pushing Jo’s boundaries a little. I don’t mean pushing her before she was ready, just --”

“Seeing if she’d fold quicker?”

“Exactly. Me though, I’m the opposite. I look patient, but I can get in the ‘now, now’ mindset easily.”

“I kind of liked that mindset earlier.” Her glance was flirtatious. “Now isn’t always a bad thing. I don’t think you’re that cut and dried, Sam. You’re both patient and impatient about different things, different priorities. You’re different people. So what if you’re opposite on some things? You complement each other as a whole. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Jo calls it a special bond and she’s right. It is special.” Her brows rose, a teasing grin forming on her lips. “You’re soul mates.”

“Soul mates.” He laughed and cut a piece of the beef.

“Yup. Most people think it refers only to a romantic couple, but I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. I don’t think it matters. I think a person’s soul mate can totally be his own brother. It doesn’t mean anything sexual. I think the ‘mate’ part of the word confuses people. It just means your souls are in perfect accord, opposite sides of one coin and that sort of thing.”

“You don’t think Jo and Dean are soul mates?”

“I think they’re as close as they can be. She is his wife after all, but he already has his soul mate: you. You have yours: him.”

“What does Jo think?”

“She gave me the idea and I think she’s right.”

He propped a foot on the chair across from him. “Why is it we always have these sort of conversations at two-thirty in the morning?”

“It’s how we’re wired.” She ate a few bites, then leaned over and flipped open the lid of his laptop, booting it up. “I want to show you something.”

“You know when Dean says those words like that he ends up freezing the screen with porn.”

Gwen snickered. “I’m hardly going to show you porn, Sam…unless you want me to?”

“Pass.”

She brought up the web browser and signed in to email. “Ellen sent me an email earlier. I was going to share it then, but I…. I don’t know why I didn’t to be honest.” She downloaded a picture of a document. “Take a look.” She moved the laptop to set between them.

It was a birth certificate.

“She found it.” He read the information. “Gwen Alyssa Carys. Doesn’t quite trip off the tongue like Gwen Campbell.”

She bumped her shoulder against his. “We have information to dig with now. Actual information that could lead to my birth family’s past.”

And possibly to the reason why the Campbell’s had tried to hide it from her. This was good news, Sam knew that, yet inside him was a tiny sliver of misgiving. The Campbell’s had had many reasons for hiding things, some of them not very good ones. What if their reasons for hiding this had been one of the good ones and digging at it busted open something very bad?

Whatever happened, this time he was going to protect the woman he cared about. This time he’d anticipate trouble and this time, no one was going to hurt her without getting through him first.

~~~~~~~~~

Jo wasn’t about to admit to anyone that she liked looking at properties and assessing them with an eye towards their collective needs. Nor would she admit that she was starting to feel a little excited about it. Instead, she pushed all of them to be out working cases as much as possible instead of being in Sioux Falls.

It wasn’t that she thought a home base was a bad idea. It wasn’t. It was a very good idea and made perfect sense. She knew many hunters who had one. The lifestyle she, Gwen, Sam, and Dean had wasn’t the usual method. Most hunters Jo had known had had some sort of home that wasn’t their car. Jo’s only problem with it was the fear that she’d be pushed into the traditional female role of keeping the home fire burning. She wasn’t ready to settle down into that role. Maybe she never would be.

And maybe Sam and Gwen were right. Maybe it wouldn’t be like that. With luck, they could create the sort of vibe Bobby’s place had.

Bobby and Ellen supported the decision, as long as it meant their base was open whenever Ellen and Bobby wanted to visit. In fact, both had looked for properties for them, together and separately. Jo wondered what the realtors of Sioux Falls thought.

She sighed and reached for the folder Gwen had started a few days earlier, intending on starting the case wall so they could get to work seriously. She opened the folder. Right on top of the clippings and slips of paper, was a picture of a gut wound. A nasty, ugly wound, intestines spilling from the opening. It looked like there were maggots as well.

Her stomach lurched, an insistent rolling sensation that made her fairly certain within ten seconds that lunch was on it’s way back up. Jo made a dash into the bathroom and was still there, riding a teetering seesaw of nausea that never fully ended in throwing up, when Gwen returned with dinner. The smell of the food made the queasiness worse and Jo moaned, hoping she’d either throw up already or it’d go away.

“So….” Gwen stepped into the bathroom doorway, watching her a minute. “You don’t want dinner then?”

“It was all of a sudden.” She took several slow deep breaths, swallowed hard, and the urge was gone as quickly as it had manifested. Slowly, Jo sat back, her back against the wall. “I think I’m okay. I think I can eat,” she said, getting up.

Gwen looked at her like she was nuts and stepped back into the room. “Sure it’s a good idea?”

Jo followed her. “I feel okay now.”

“Right.” Gwen’s glance slid down her, paused a second on her stomach, and then turned to the food. “Your call.”

She did feel fine. Even the picture that appeared to have been the catalyst didn’t bother her again and Jo forgot the strange incident until it happened again a few days later. Dinnertime again and she seemed to have developed an aversion to blood and gore, which made their current job a test of mind over matter: Jo’s will that she not throw up and her body’s insistence that she was going to.

“I’ve got the flu,” she told Gwen, who nodded and replied ‘sure’, but didn’t point out that she didn’t have flu symptoms.

Her ‘flu’ ended up lasting six weeks and by that point, Jo was fairly certain it wasn’t the flu. Nor was it food poisoning, or the other excuses she tried out.

She put forth her best efforts to disguise how wretched she felt the first time they met up with Dean and Sam, yet by the second, it was impossible. The sight of blood and gore made her feel faint and the smell of garlic and beer, either singly or together, made her want to puke. There was no hiding that from them, especially with beer being a drink of preference and pizza a favorite food.

Jo crawled back onto the bed and laid her head on Dean’s chest. He wrapped an arm around her, hand stroking her back. “I think it’s food poisoning,” she said, curling up against him. She felt shaky and feverish this time. Maybe it really was food poisoning, but she didn’t think so.

He closed the magazine he was looking at, set it aside, and pressed a hand to her forehead, then cheek, and finally neck. “You do feel warm. Got a thermometer in your bag?”

“It’s out in the first aid kit.”

“Which is in the car, Gwen has the keys, and she’s out with Sam checking out the haunting rumor.”

“Yeah.” They’d gone to the site not because it was haunted but because it was supposed to be according to rumor and only rumor. There wasn’t any hard evidence, it was simply something to do instead of seeing a movie they’d already seen. A busman’s holiday.

“Okay. If I leave you to go across the street to Walgreen’s, are you going to be okay?”

“Sure.” She lay back so he could get up and promptly rolled onto her side when her stomach lurched. “Oh…..”

He came around the bed and crouched down, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

The entire night was more of the same and as soon as Dean headed out for breakfast, Jo weighed the pros and cons of calling Castiel. She’d been waiting with a sinking feeling these weeks for her period to arrive, giving a lame excuse to Gwen about it. She wasn’t sure why she’d even said anything to begin with. She’d prayed her excuse was true until the nausea hit full force and she had to admit, at least to herself, that the thing she and Dean both feared would happen had happened.

She was pregnant.

“Castiel,” she whispered, feeling a bit foolish for even attempting to call for him. Jo bit her lip a moment and tried again, this time in a normal voice. “Castiel, hey, it’s Jo. Could you come down and see me for a minute? If you have the time I mean. Don’t come down if you’re busy, I just --”

“Jo. What do you need?”

She turned. He didn’t look angry, merely curious. “You came.”

“You asked me to.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to answer me.”

“Why not? You’re Dean’s wife and a friend.”

“Thank you.”

His head inclined in a nod. “You have a matter to discuss with me?”

Jo picked up the paper sack she had ready and took a deep breath.

~~~~~~~~~~

The call from Jo came in while Castiel was searching heaven for Uzziel. He had a matter to discuss with him and neither he nor Jael could find him. Castiel didn’t think Uzziel had left heaven. Uzziel had made the decision to stay away from his temptation, balking only a little at the list Castiel had handed him -- a scene reminiscent of one earlier where Uzziel had given Cas a list to follow. Jael was frantic however. He feared the worst. Castiel was trying for a more positive attitude this time and after he’d found Uzziel, he had to meet Joshua in the garden.

“Castiel, I don’t ever ask you for anything --”

“Ask. If I can help, I will.” He meant it.

She looked away and held out a small paper sack. “Would you please see if there’s someone who can tell if these are defective?”

Curious, Castiel opened the sack. Inside were pink oval packets and smaller plastic squares. “Your birth control methods.”

“Yeah. We, uh, we stopped using the condoms months ago, so it’s really just the pills I want to know about.”

He studied her, noting a slight change in her appearance. There was an inner radiance to her that had not previously been present. “Jo, are you with child?”

She swallowed hard, a shadow of fear in her eyes. “Would you look into those please?”

Perhaps Ariel or Jael would know of someone. Cas rolled the top of the bag back down. “How urgent is this matter?”

“I can wait a week or two at most and then I have to…. I have to…. Dean…. Not long.”

She was frightened deeply by this event, in a near panic even. He wanted to reassure her and didn’t know how. “I’ll return as quickly as I can,” he promised.

Taking the bag to heaven, he approached Ariel first, who announced that she could look at the pills for him. She chatted as she worked, running some sort of test with beakers and liquids that he wasn’t certain was really needed. Finally, she dumped it all back in the bag.

“Whoever she is she’s been taking sugar pills and all of those condoms have holes poked in them. The pills aren’t even real birth control pills. They’re candy altered to look like them. Fruit flavored Mentos I think, though I could be wrong. Might be Skittles instead.”

“Candy?” He felt a tiny chill on his spine. Who did he know, or rather what, that liked candy? Tricksters. Dean and Jo had recently tangled with one.

“And a good copy.” She took one packet back out. “I’m assuming it’s a bad and tasteless human practical joke. Look at the company name.”

On the foil ring holding the pills in place was small writing. Trxter Enterprises.

Castiel closed his eyes a moment. So the Trickster’s agenda had gone beyond the first few days. He’d replaced the birth control pills and poked holes in the condoms, making it fairly certain that Jo would become pregnant.

He’d claimed to be doing a favor for someone higher up, but who? God? Or someone on the other side of things? The Trickster had proven himself fairly neutral, never helping either side more than the others, thus ticking off each side equally. But who was he serving in the trick? And to what purpose?

With a nod, he thanked her, put the packet back in the bag and returned to Jo. She was pacing, arms about herself. “Jo.”

She looked up. “That was quick. What’s the verdict?”

“They were all defective.”

She gasped, hand covering her mouth. Tears appeared, sobs shaking her body. “I can’t do this,” she said between sobs.

Cas was at a loss as to what to do. He put the bag on the dresser. What did one do when confronted with a crying woman? What would Dean or Sam do? He raced to think of some action to help her and stepped forward, putting his arms awkwardly about her, pressing her head to his chest, patting her back. She clutched at him, fingers twisting in the fabric of his coat. “I believe you’ll be a good mother.”

The words only made her cry harder. Why? What had he said wrong? It was the truth. He honestly did believe she would be a good mother to whatever children she had.

“I’m not ready for this!”

He opened his mouth to reply and thought that perhaps the best action was not to say anything.

“I don’t want to be knocked up!”

Castiel let Jo soak the front of his shirt with her tears and when she finally drew back, he refrained from saying anything then as well.

Jo sniffled. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Are you able to be alone? If not, I’ll stay until Dean returns.”

“I’ll be okay. Thank you, Castiel.”

With a nod, he left her.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean was in the restaurant already, Sam’s laptop on the table, a notepad and pencil to one side and a plate of sausage, eggs, and biscuits and gravy half eaten in front of him. He was in deep concentration on whatever was on the computer screen.

As Gwen and Sam approached, Gwen realized he wasn’t working on a case. He was looking at a medical site.

“WebMedDoc,” Sam asked, sliding into the booth across from Dean. “What’s up?”

“Where’s Jo?” Gwen followed Sam into the booth. She could guess where Jo was. The same place she’d been about every morning for breakfast for three weeks now and where she’d been at dinnertime for six weeks: in the bathroom with dry heaves claiming she had either the flu or food poisoning. Gwen thought differently. She also thought Jo knew what was ‘wrong’. She was just trying to deny it until she could figure out how to tell Dean in a way that wouldn’t freak him out.

Dean tapped a button, closed the lid on the laptop and looked over at them. “Jo thought she had food poisoning last night, but she’s still feeling off this morning. Think she might have the flu. You feeling okay, Gwen?”

“Never better. Not even a sniffle.”

“Huh. Well, I’m going to buy her some sick food. Jell-O cups, instant oatmeal --”

“Lemon-lime soda and orange juice,” Sam added.

“And saltines,” Gwen said with a smile. “Buy lots of saltines.”

Dean scribbled the suggestions on the pad of paper.

Sam put his hand on her thigh and squeezed. She’d shared her suspicions about Jo’s state with him earlier. He gave her a warning glance and she mouthed ‘what’ at him. He cleared his throat. “Crackers are really good for nausea. Jo might be able to keep those down.” He plucked the menu from behind the salt and pepper shakers by the wall and laid it flat on the table between them so she could see it too. His arm went around her.

“You know, I think she’ll be fine, Dean,” Gwen told him, relaxing back against Sam.

“I hope so. Hate seeing her sick.” Dean tucked into the rest of his breakfast and when he’d gone and it was only Sam and Gwen, Sam gave her a chiding glance.

“Don’t even hint that to him, Gwen.”

“She’ll have to tell him soon.”

“In her own time. It’s Jo’s news to tell.”

“I know that.” She ate a piece of pineapple from the fruit cup she’d ordered.

“Do you? This is going to freak him out. And I’m betting Jo’s pretty freaked herself. This is like the worst thing that could happen, especially right now when we’re trying to find a place to start a home base.” Sam shook his head. “Man, she tells him and she really is going to be stuck at home. No way Dean’s going to let her run around hunting if there’s a chance she could get hurt.”

“Let her?” Gwen’s brows rose. “That’s saying she has no choice. She has a choice, Sam. Being pregnant isn’t going to erase her hunting skills.”

“It’ll make her more delicate.”

She laughed. “Really? You believe that?”

“She can’t get thrown against a wall and expect to keep the baby,” he pointed out.

“You can’t get thrown against a wall and expect to come out of it okay anyway. Expecting her to stay home is unreasonable and frankly, I find it offensive to suggest it. My mother hunted when she was pregnant and she never lost a baby. Maybe she’ll have to take different cases --”

“And how often do our mild cases end up being the really dangerous ones?”

“So you want to put her on bed rest for nine months?”

“No, Dean will.”

“And what would you do in his place?”

“I’m not in his place, unless there’s something you’re not telling me?” He put his arm along the back of the booth and half turned to face her.

“I’m not knocked up. But hypothetically, if I was, what would you do?”

His answer was instantaneous. “Retire immediately, create new identities, and move away from everyone. Make a new life elsewhere, like Witness Protection. Hide myself, you, and the baby as well as I could under a fake family line so that neither angels nor demons would know who we were and what the baby was. It’d hurt to leave, but to protect everyone, I would.”

“What the baby was?” She shook her head. “What would the baby be?”

“Tainted by my blood, doomed to carry the genes for a line of archangel vessels destined to end the world someday. A bit of monster, a bit of vessel.”

“Geez, Sam. A baby is a baby. Babies of monsters, babies of vessels, and maybe just plain old human babies from human parents, but still a baby. Tiny, helpless…a person until it’s told it has to be something else. You can raise a child to be anything and any way. Even monster babies can be raised to be something else if you know what you’re getting yourself into. You may be a vessel, but you’re not a monster, and I don’t believe any children you’d have would be evil, not with you raising them to be otherwise.”

He looked away. “We were talking about Dean and Jo.”

He was pulling back from the conversation and she let him. “What do you think Dean will do?”

“Freak out first. Have a long fight with Jo over it. Get shit-faced, which’ll take a lot. Go back, either start another fight or reconcile with her or….”

“Or,” she prodded.

“Run away into the first dangerous case he can find, get himself injured, then go back and announce he’s retiring and do all those steps I listed that I’d do.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

“You think Jo’ll let him drag her off into retirement, because I don’t. I think if he tries that he’ll have a fight.”

“And we’ll have a Mexican stand-off.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Operation ‘tell Dean about her pregnancy’ was carefully planned by Jo. She waited until they were back at Bobby’s and both of them had had a good night’s sleep. Her mother and Bobby were out running errands, and Sam and Gwen were viewing a couple properties. They had privacy. She wanted Dean in a good mood.

After a leisured breakfast, Jo sat down in the chair across from him.

He patted the couch cushion beside him, voice coaxing. “Come here.”

“I come over there we won’t talk and we need to talk.”

“Sounds serious. What about?”

She meant to slide into it slowly, but in the end, she just blurted out the words. “I’m pregnant.”

His amiable grin faded and for a second, it seemed he thought she was joking. “You….” He blinked. “You’re…you’re what?”

“Pregnant.” She could barely whisper the word this time.

“How?”

The terror that appeared on his face was the mirror of her own. “You want me to draw you a diagram?”

“No, I know how it happens, but how did it happen?” He sat forward.

“The usual way.”

“You’re taking the…we used…the odds!”

“You think you’re surprised? Try being me. I took a test and the line was really solid.”

“No. No. We can’t do that.” The terror in his eyes seemed to increase. “Jo, I can’t be a dad. It’s not something I can do.”

“Of course you can. You practically raised Sam. He’s alive and well.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not ready for this.”

“You think I am? I don’t know anything about babies!”

“Then why’d you get pregnant?” He stood.

It felt as though all of her blood was draining away from her body and since Jo’d actually gone through that once she knew what it felt like. A coldness stole over her as all warmth seemed to flee. “You think I did this on purpose?” When Dean only looked at her, his lips tightening, Jo’s stomach seemed to flip inside her. “Do you?”

“Did you?”

“God, no!” She pushed to a standing position. “I’m not ready for a baby! You have to ask?”

“We were using protection, or at least I thought we were. Did you stop taking your pills?”

“No! You were right there with me, bucko. Takes two, you know. I didn’t get this way by myself.”

The argument escalated, Dean’s calm increasing as the emotions in his eyes blazed.

The door opened, her mother and Bobby stepping in. Had it been three hours already? Dean stopped mid-sentence, whirled and stormed out.

“Dean. Dean!” The door slammed and Jo closed her eyes, a hot rush of tears slipping down her cheeks. She wiped at them with her hands but more came. From outside came the sound of the Impala sliding on gravel and dirt.

“Jo?” Her mother’s voice was calm, low, and curious. “What’s wrong?”

She opened her eyes and crossed her arms, abandoning efforts to clear her tears. “I’m pregnant,” she spat out. Sobs came on the heel of the word and she ran for the stairs, going up and to that bedroom she and Dean were using. She lay on the bed, crying, wanting Dean back with her holding her.

Afternoon came, then evening, and Dean didn’t return.