It amazed Dean how much patience his husband had at times like this, when everyone else would be pulling out their hair and pacing around to relieve nervous energy. Not Cas, though, he was just sitting in the waiting room, a book of baby names opened in his lap with a few sticky notes visible from pages they'd already gone through. Dean knew the contents of those sticky notes well—names they had agreed on, the meanings of those names, and middle names that would sound good with it. Still, their baby was being born and they still hadn't decided on a permanent one. He supposed he should be over their helping Cas out, but he didn't want to think about anything right now other than all the work he still needed to do in order to have the nursery ready.
The walls were a pale yellow since they didn't like the look of pinks or blues in the room, the crib was only half put together and that's only because Sam had come over to help, and the changing table was held together with duct tape until they could find all the screws that had scattered when Gabriel had opened their package. It was the moment of truth and Dean was almost ready to fall apart then and there. How could he take care of a baby when he couldn't even keep a plant alive for more than two weeks—a cactus at that.
Sure, he'd raised his baby brother after their parents had died, but Sam was eight by then and could support his own damn head. Would he even make a good dad or would he be like those ones that you see on the news? Oh God, what if he went postal after three nights with no sleep? He wouldn't do well in jail, he was too pretty! He'd gotten himself so worked up that he hadn't noticed Cas moving until the younger man had a hand on Dean's shoulder, Dean nearly jumping right out of his skin at the unexpected contact.
A hand over his heart, he turns to look at his husband and finds himself lost in those big blue eyes of his. Cas's hand was warm and the man smelled like honey and aftershave, all of that calming Dean somewhat but not stopping his hands from shaking. Now, Dean had expected some sympathy from the man about to be stranded in the same boat as himself, but instead all Dean got was two words he wasn't ready to hear. "She's here."
"What," he asks, hoping he'd heard things wrong.
"The baby's here and we need to go give the nurse her name." But Dean was still working through the whole 'baby's here' part because he knew labor shouldn't have passed that quickly. Hell, it took his mom a God awful long time to push out Sammy, but the surrogate had only been in her room for a few short hours. In a daze, Dean allows Cas to pull him into the private room they'd paid for. The surrogate was already fast asleep in her bed and a nurse, unaware that Dean wasn't able to process simple things yet, settled a squirming pink thing in his arms.
He sits quickly in the only armchair, making sure the thing's head wasn't flopping around as he stared down at it. No, not it, her. He was holding a tiny baby girl that he would get to help raise. He supposed she was a beautiful baby, but she was still a little wrinkly and her nose was all scrunched up. She looked about ready to cry until Dean cradled her closer to his chest, then her eyes drifted closed and he finds himself falling in love.
"Dean," Cas smiles, sitting on the arm of the chair to run his fingers through Dean's dark blonde hair," meet our daughter, Hope Michelle Winchester."