A story that came to me and wouldn't go away and is slightly AU although Dean still hunts, Bobby is still his same grouchy self and Cas is once again taking the role of Dean's crutch, it's mainly for the time line's purpose. Lately I've had a weird obsession with Dean unexpectedly becoming a dad but this one is a little different and sad so feedback would be amazing. Appearances by Bobby and Cas but no ships this time around.

Warnings for language, angst and more angst.

Under a Paper Moon

It is mid-October when he gets the call, sometime in the middle of the night when he should have been asleep but he decides that another beer and a little more research won't hurt. His phone is loud, Smoke on the Water playing out into the room and he grunts into the receiver when he fails to recognize the number and an authoritative voice is suddenly asking him if he knows a Sam Winchester before he chest tightens and he can't breathe.

He recovers quickly and closes the laptop.

"Yeah, he's my brother. Did something happen?" He is trying to keep himself stoic, he is not one to panic but this is Sammy they're talking about and there are an endless amount of possibilities for this man to be calling him and not his brother himself.

There is a pregnant pause and then the words accident and killed on impact and eventually followed by I'm sorry for your loss are washing over him like a tidal wave and he wants to smash this guy's fucking face in because he has fed that exact line to more people than he can count and he knows what it sounds like when your job revolves around this godforsaken phrase but it's begun to lose its meaning. He is ready to hang up the phone, drive over to Sam's house even if it is a good three hour drive and knock on the door until the bastard answers and his wife starts complaining (she has not exactly warmed up to his antics but she keeps quiet for Sam's sake so he really can't complain) but the detective is not done speaking and his next words knock the wind out of him.

"You are aware that you are listed as the legal guardian of your niece, correct Mr. Winchester?"

Yes, he knows. Sam told him the day the kid was born that if anything happened to him or Emily that he take care of her but the conversation didn't go much farther because Dean had gruffly grabbed him by the shoulder and told him not to think like that.

"I'm only being careful." he had said.

Dean responds with a strained yes as he pinches the bridge of his nose, wondering what the hell that has to do with anything when it suddenly hits him and the man begins feeding him information and decides to now mention the fact that the little girl was in the car and apparently unharmed. He gives Dean the name of the hospital and how soon he needs to be there and he wishes this guy would just shut up and let him think because his brother is dead and he's finding out in the middle of some cheap hotel room in some shithole town while trying to swallow the fact that there is a little girl with no parents that he is now in charge of.

Finally, after what seems like a lifetime later, he is hanging up the phone and packing all his things in a haze before stepping outside and letting the cold fall air bite at his face and fingers. He should not be driving, he should call Bobby and have him drive but he can't wait any longer and he grips the Impala's steering wheel with surprising strength. The hospital is a decent two hour drive but he manages to make it one and a half, disheveled, panting and red eyed. There's a woman waiting for him in the hall, outside a room in the children's wing, wearing a suit and her hair is greying but her eyes hold sympathy he is actually able to decipher as real. She tells him there is paperwork, does little talking and makes sure everything is done relatively quickly before she takes him inside the room and over to the plastic crib.

His niece- Nora he corrects himself, is a carbon copy of Sam when he was a baby. Soft blonde hair and dark lashes, pink lips and a scrunched nose. She seems relatively fine, a few pink scratches marring her porcelain cheeks, but she is otherwise healthy looking. For a moment he stands over the crib, watching her chest rise and fall as he gnaws his bottom lip until he tastes blood. He has not stopped for breath since answering the phone, not stopped to think about how he has now lost the last thing he has been clinging to since he was a child.

Apparently hours pass as he watches Nora sleep, alternating between standing over the crib to sitting in a rocking chair close by. He is tired and his muscles ache, his head is pounding and his chest feels hollow with loss but he is keeping it together until he can get out of here. The last thing he needs is for these doctors and nurses to think he has more screws loose than he already does.

He signs the discharge papers that morning after picking up a car seat he really couldn't afford (thank you credit card fraud) and he makes the drive to Sam's house to salvage some of Nora's things. His plan is to head to Bobby's, not because he needs the presence of someone else should he actually lose his mind, but because it is the safest place in his mind for the little girl currently sleeping in the back seat and he is reminding himself of a zombie.

Dead on his feet and in over his head.

Sam's house is small, settled in a nice neighborhood with enough space between houses to not seem like one of those creepy suburbs he's seen in the movies. He has only been here once, after the wedding but before Nora was born when he had hunted a werewolf in the neighboring city, and he has a vague blueprint of the place burnt into his brain. The nursery is pink and makes Dean grimace as he lugs the car seat inside and sets it in the middle of the floor while wide blue eyes watch him gather things like diapers and the tiniest shoes and socks and dresses he has ever seen. He grabs some blankets and a few toys because the last child to step foot in Bobby's house was himself and that was more than a decade ago. He finishes in the early afternoon, packs everything in the trunk on top of his arsenal and heads toward Sioux Falls with a crying baby in the back seat and no plans for the future.

Bobby is in the yard when he gets there, shirt covered in grease and up to his elbows in car parts while the phone sits on a cooler next to him. His brow is crinkled at the sight of the Impala but he looks generally pleased to see Dean and wipes his hands on an old rag. He is ready to voice his greeting but the sight of the pink bundle that is pulled the back seat (she is screaming and screaming and Dean cannot get her to stop for anything) makes him freeze and his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest.

"What the hell is going on?" he asks and all Dean can do is shrug as he holds the baby close and finally, the tears form and press against the backs of his eyes; a burning sensation that moves through his body twists in the pit of his stomach until they are rolling down his cheeks and Bobby has to pry Nora from his arms before he can fall to his knees and sob.

…

Bobby clears the upstairs room immediately, baby proofing as much as he can although Nora is only six months old and has yet to crawl ("she will soon enough," he tells Dean when the oldest Winchester finally speaks up). Dean throws the bag with her stuff onto the tiny bed slowly collecting dust and walks downstairs to the kitchen because he needs a beer (he needs his brother but that is a lost cause so he settles for alcohol). Between the two men in the house the experience level involving babies is at a minimum. After their mother died Dean barely spoke and it wasn't until Sam was almost a year old that he took much interest in his brother at all and he knows Bobby never had children of his own.

It doesn't mean the older man is completely in the dark though because a few hours later Dean watches him move around the kitchen with Nora in the crook of one arm as he heats a bottle and settles into a kitchen chair and looking so fucking in control that Dean wants to throttle him. Dean is staring at him, this big grouch of a man who spends his time ganking demons and calling him an idjit, is cooing at a baby and looks completely content doing it. Apparently, after snapping out of his trance, he can sense he is being watched because his face hardens when he looks up and sees Dean is watching him and he grunts before telling Dean to go get some sleep while he takes first watch on the baby.

…

On day two after they've settled in as best they can, Bobby calls in one of his thousands of favors and sends Garth, who has just wrapped up a case not too far away, to check on the wreckage from the accident (when Garth asks him what he's checking for the older man replies with a grave sounding "everything" and hangs up the phone with a bang). He knows Dean wanted to go check it out himself, in fact he knows he will be livid when Bobby tells him he's already put somebody on it but the last thing he needs is to bail Dean out of jail for losing his already nonexistent temper while lugging a baby around town with him.

Dean comes downstairs earlier than Bobby anticipated; looking worse for wear although he cannot fault the kid even if he wanted to. He goes straight for the coffee that had been brewed when Nora began to stir around six and pours a large cup, drinks it straight and leans against the counter as he stares out the window. Bobby decides now is as good of a time as ever to tell him about sending Garth out and casually clears his throat as he lays Nora down on a blanket.

"I know you wanted to be the one to take a look at the wreckage but I think we both know that ain't such a good idea."

He is waiting for the argument, the yelling and the slamming of the screen door as Dean goes out and does it anyway but all he does is nod slowly and ask, "Who?"

Bobby blinks a few times, softly says "Garth," and then looks at the floor.

There is no conversation after that, just a darkness that overtakes Dean's normally bright eyes before he leaves the kitchen with his coffee, steps past Nora who is happy and oblivious and so innocent that it makes his chest ache and disappears for the rest of the day.

…

There are no demon signs, no sulfur or EMF, the highway was not haunted as far as Bobby or any of the hunters he's called in other favors for can tell and for some reason Dean is anything but relieved. Sam was a hunter, Sam has died; he has taken down more evil and suffered more than any one person Dean knows but at the end of the day he managed to shed that skin, push back all the memories that have threatened to destroy him and get out. He had the apple pie life Dean has always dreamed of but pushed away since Lisa and Ben and in the end it all comes crumbling down because of an accident.

Garth talks to cops, firemen and paramedics, everyone he can track down that had even the smallest to do with the case and everything comes back clean. There was no faulty wiring; no sabotage to the breaks or the steering wheel. There wasn't even a drunk driver Dean could beat the shit out of to make himself feel better because in the end it was all an accident. The road was dark, Sam misjudged the turn and everything is history after that. The car is almost totaled, front end smashed and the windshield cracked and covered in blood. It is a miracle one fireman said, that Nora had managed to get away with the few scrapes she had but Dean pushes that fact aside with an ice covered heart.

…

Garth texts him before he leaves South Dakota.

Dean sees his name flash across his screen and expects some over the top, quirky, half-drunk text that will make him shake his head at the younger man's antics and forget about things even if just for a few seconds but when he opens the message there are only two words.

A solemn I'm sorry is staring at him and he is suddenly pissed because even good natured, quirky and crazy Garth is under the influence of pity and it makes Dean's skin crawl. So in response he takes his phone outside, drops it on the ground behind the Impala and promptly backs over it twice for good measure.

…

He has Sam cremated but for the sake of Emily's family (there is one elderly aunt and a few cousins) he gets his brother a headstone next to his wife in a small cemetery near their house and they bury them four days after the accident. He dresses in his suit, sits in the front row next to Bobby and holds Nora tightly in his lap as the pastor speaks and prays and Dean holds back the urge to scream.

…

It becomes a proven fact a few months after the funeral that Dean is not fatherly material nor is he particularly good at grieving. He drinks more than he should, only holds Nora when it is late at night and he knows Bobby has spent all day heating bottles and changing diapers and wrestling with a now nine month old wiggling baby and is beyond exhausted. Most days he is hung over (he doesn't think it's possible but apparently he is wrong), he is moody and distant and barely eats unless Bobby places food in front of him and threatens him with the shot gun.

It is not because he feels burdened, it is not because he has some wild bachelor life he should be living and knows a baby would ruin it all, and in the end he realizes it isn't even because looking at Nora is like looking at Sam and that hurts more than anything. It is because he is a broken man, ruined by years of wars that were not even his to fight, by the people he has lost and the ones he has driven away and he can't stand the thought of tainting such a perfect human being with his burdens. So in a hazy attempt to salvage the last thing he has left, he creates distance.

This is not something he is proud of.

…

The ultimatum comes after a night of drinking and a worse than normal hang over complete with cotton mouth and the skull piercing headache behind his eyes when he emerges from the bedroom at dinner time. Bobby is in the kitchen with Nora who is wailing loudly. She started teething last week, is constantly miserable and for Dean it is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Turning on his heels with his lip curled back he points an accusatory finger at Bobby and yells.

"Goddammit Bobby, can't you shut the kid up?"

A silence falls (apart from the screaming) and Bobby purses his lips before putting the baby in the high chair and grabbing Dean by the collar of his shirt and dragging him to the living room. He jerks out of the clutch, turning like a caged animal with a challenge posed in his eyes. Bobby leans in, so close his beard is nearly scratching Dean's chin.

"Boy, you have ten seconds to tell me what the hell your problem is before I string you up and whack you like a piñata."

Dean chuckles but it's cold and robotic. "You really gonna sit there and ask what's wrong with me Bobby? Have you been on the back burner for the last six months? I've lost my brother; the only thing I had left to hold on to in this world is dead and gone so excuse me for drinking a few more beers and taking a few more cases lately but please don't stand here and question me when I have lost everything!"

"Everything?" Bobby splutters, face red as a tomato and the veins in his neck bulging. "I don't know if you've forgotten but there is a little girl in there that has lost her parents; she is damn lucky to be alive. Your brother asked you to be the one that takes care of her, who watches her grow and pushes her in the direction she needs to go in. No one is doubting that you've lost things, cause boy I know you've lost more than anyone I've ever seen, but that is not the point this time around. You are the one who needs to be strong and you are the one who needs to pull their head out of their ass and look at the bigger picture here!"

He shoves Dean back onto the couch, storms out of the room and back towards the sound of crying and doesn't even turn around when he hears the front door slam.

…

"Cas!"

Nothing.

"Castiel! Dammit I know you can hear me!"

Silence.

Dean curses and kicks the Impala's rear tire, running his hands through his hair and tugging sharply at the ends. Sucking in a sharp breath he looks up at the sky and closes his eyes.

"Cas, I need you. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know where I'm going but it ain't anywhere good and please just tell me what to do."

There is an almost silent whoosh and when he turns his head there is Castiel, stoic, beautiful and quiet Castiel who is looking at him with such worry.

"You rang?" he says, trying to sound good natured but his gravelly voice is betraying him.

"I am sorry about Sam," he finally says and Dean just shakes his head.

"Don't… just don't Cas."

There are a few minutes of silence where Cas toys with the sleeve of his trench coat and Dean stares at his reflection in the black paint of his car. Dean is conflicted and confused; he is scared and wants to fall to pieces right here because Castiel will not judge him but he cannot seem to bring himself to cry because all his tears have long since dried out.

"You should not blame yourself," Cas suddenly announces.

Dean looks up and blinks. "What?"

"It was an accident; you are at no fault here and I don't see why you are subjecting yourself to this psychological torture."

He steps closer and puts a hand on Dean's shoulder.

"You have a duty to fulfill, one Sam would want you to go to the ends of the Earth to finish for him. That child in there is a blessing. Sam would have given up anything for her and it is only fair that you do the same. Sam was a good man Dean but you are a great one and I put all my faith in you."

Dean looks at him with wide green eyes and chews his lip. "I'm scared Cas. I'm fucking terrified and I don't know what to do."

Cas cocks his head to one side, corner of his lip tipping upwards slightly. "Just do what you've always done, Dean. Protect her, love her, do everything you used to do for Sam and don't think for one second that you can't. I believe in you."

There's another rustle of invisible wings and Dean is alone once again with all the words from Cas, Bobby and even Sam himself swirling in his head. He looks towards the house and sees most of the lights are off and more than likely Bobby has gone to sleep and Nora has stopped crying.

As he suspects Bobby is snoring on the couch, head on the floor and one forearm draped over his face. Dean creeps past the couch, up the stairs and makes the right towards the cracked door where a trickle of light is streaming into the hallway. Nora sleeps is a crib Bobby built himself, her old one is still in Sam's house because Dean refuses to go back right now and Bobby is not opening that can of worms.

Approaching the crib he sees the soft eyelids fluttering as Nora breathes, hair now long blonde ringlets that reach her tiny shoulders. He reaches in, scoops her up and lets her bury her face in the crook of his neck as she stirs slightly before settling again. Rocking her back and forth he breathes in the sweet smell of baby powder and soap and murmurs over and over.

"We're gonna be okay. I promise you we will be okay."