Chapter One: Hunters Don't Settle Down
"Dean. Call me when you can. We need to talk." Grady said into the cell phone. Dean Winchester was famous for not answering his phone. She should be used to it by now. Every missed phone call felt like rejection. Every time he didn't answer his phone it was like he was leaving all over again. She ended the call and tossed her phone onto the passenger seat of the car.
Grady Thomas was always independent. She worked independently, she lived by herself in a modest 2-bedroom home on the outskirts of town. She was raised to be strong, independent and really had no use for many men. For a long time that included Dean, but he slowly wore her down. He got under her skin in some of the worst and some of the best ways.
As she started to drive away from the curb, she realized that she had one hand resting across her stomach. Quickly, she put both hands on the steering wheel, gripping it so tight that her knuckles turned white.
"Damn you Dean Winchester." She muttered under her breath. As if she summoned him, her phone began to ring. "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC filled the car. It was Dean's ringtone. She pulled over a block from where she pulled away and reached for her phone.
"Hi."
"What?" Dean's gravelly voice came through the speaker.
"We need to talk." She said. She still wasn't sure how she was going to tell him. She thought she'd have time to figure that out. It usually took Dean a few days to get back to her after she called him.
"Yeah, you said that in your message. What do you want? I'm kind of busy." He said. She couldn't tell if he was annoyed, or trying to be coy.
"Ok, well, um, I, uh…can we talk in person? Where are you? I can meet you somewhere." She suggested.
"We're in New York." Dean said.
"The city?" Grady tried to recall any weird news from the city but couldn't.
"No. This small town near the Canadian border. There've been werewolf signs, so we're investigating."
"Okay. I'm just outside of Philly in Pennsylvania. Do you want to meet in Cortland, or I can just come there if you tell me where you are?" She said.
"Grady, just tell me what's going on." Dean half-barked at her. He was annoyed now.
"Alright fine, but just remember, I wanted to tell you in person." She said, as if she were reading a disclaimer. "Remember the last time we met up?" She asked. She heard Dean snicker. He remembered, just as well as she did.
"How could I forget. I'm still wearing the scars." He laughed.
"Yeah well, doing what we did that night is going to be a bit trickier next time."
"Why, afraid you'll pull a muscle?" He laughed.
"Well I won't be drunk next time." She laughed.
"That shouldn't stop us." Dean joked.
"The baby bump might." Grady finally said. She felt like a stone fell to the bottom of her stomach. Dean didn't respond. The line went completely dead.
Dean dropped his phone to the ground and swallowed hard. Processing what Grady just told him was like swallowing a potato chip whole. He bent down to pick the phone up but the call had ended, he threw it through the open window of his 1967 Chevy Impala. He fondly called the car Baby. For a brief, terrifying second he imagined trading Baby in for a minivan. Shaking the thought off, he got in the car.
Dean was only 26, surely that was too young to consider settling down and starting a family. Grady was younger that. He tried to remember how old she was, but could only come up with a rough estimate between 18 and 25.
"What's wrong?" Dean's little brother, Sam, asked.
"That was Grady Thomas. I have to go to Cortlan." Dean explained.
"Grady? Is everything okay?" Sam asked. Sam didn't know about Dean and Grady's occasional hook ups. The last time he saw her, they were 6 or 7 years old.
"I don't know. I'm dropping you off at the motel. Rent a car if you have to and keep looking for the clan. I'll be back by tomorrow morning." Dean revved the engine and pulled away from the side of the road. He talked all the way back to the motel, filling Sam in on the small details that he gathered from the clan. When Sam was out of the car, Dean picked up his phone and called Grady again. She answered on the second ring.
"Meet me in Cortland in 3 hours, at that truck stop with the McDonalds inside." He said. He hung up before she got a chance to answer him. Peeling out of the motel parking lot, he headed straight for the highway.
A 2001 Ford Focus pulled up across from Dean's car and a petite brunette slid out of the driver's side. Dean watched as she walked toward his door. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans that hugged all of her curves and highlighted the best ones. A pair of black combat boots made her appear just a little taller, and a little tougher than she really was and a black AC/DC shirt poked out from a grey zip-up. He understood at that moment why he had so much fun with her.
Before she reached the door, he popped it open and stepped out of his car. He was almost a foot taller than she was. He liked that. She was the perfect height for… she was a mom now. Having thoughts like that about a mother just seemed weird and wrong.
Dean stared at Grady. She was a Mom now. Disbelief, awe, anger, and something that might have resembled happiness, in a normal person, flashed across his face. Grady took a step back.
"Dean," She said softly. She took another step back, unable to gear his thoughts. "Let's talk about it." She suggested. She took another step backward placing her hands on Baby's hood to steady herself. Dean didn't say anything but he walked over and sat on the hood of the car.
"Let's talk." He finally said. Grady joined him on the hood, where they sat in silence for a long time before either of them spoke.
"So…when…" Dean started. His voice made Grady jump.
"April 4th." She answered.
"Oh. Are you sure it's mine?" He asked. To Grady it was an insult to be asked but she understood why Dean wanted to be sure.
"Yeah, I'm sure." Grady said. There was no point in telling him, but he had been the only guy she'd ever slept with. He'd be in her area, or she'd be in his and they'd hook up. It was just something they did. She almost convinced herself that she loved him once, but it was only for a fleeting few days.
"Well, what are…uh…are you keeping it?" Dean stammered.
"I don't know." Grady said. "What do you think I should do?"
"Hunting is no way for a kid to grow up." Dean spoke almost absently. Grady put her arm around him.
"Hey, we turned out alright." She smiled at him. He moved so that his arm was around her instead and she rested her head on his shoulder.
"Well if I had to fuck up, I'm glad I fucked up with you." Grady laughed. Dean shook his head. Grady sat with Dean for a long time in complete silence. It wasn't until the sun was beginning to set over the small gas station that Grady finally turned to Dean.
"What the fuck are we going to do?" Grady asked, half laughing.
"I don't know." Dean shook his head again. Neither of them had a clue, but they had to deal with the situation the best way that they knew how. After all, Dean was 26. "How old are you Grady?" He asked.
"I'm 24, Dean."
"We're adults. We have to handle this like, adults." Dean concluded. Grady shrugged. She agreed with him, but she wasn't sure what to do. Dean was right. Hunting was no way to raise a kid, but it's all she knew, it was all he knew.
"We could keep it." He suggested. The very idea sounded ludicrous to Grady. Dean wasn't the Dad type, and she certainly wasn't the Mom type.
"Or we could put it up for adoption. Or you could abort it. I mean, it's, early right? We have options." Dean added. He was right, they did have options, it was choosing one that they could live with that would be the issue. When they were pondering over what to say to each other, Dean's phone rang. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out.
"It's Sam. I've been gone a lot longer than we were expecting." Dean explained. He answered the phone call and Grady sat quietly as he spoke to his brother. The conversation was short. They exchanged very few words before Dean dropped the phone back in his pocket.
"Let's go. Sam needs me." He said.
"You want me to come with you?" She asked. Dean nodded.
"You're not leaving my sight until we figure out what we're going do to about our situation," He gestured toward her abdomen. "Go grab your stuff." He ordered. Grady slid off the roof of the car and walked over to hers.
"What are we going to tell Sam?" She asked. Dean didn't answer her. He was holding the passenger side door of the Impala open waiting for her to put her things in the backseat.
On the way to meet Sam, Dean drove and Grady dozed off in the passenger seat. She dreamt of what keeping the baby with Dean might be like…
"Where are you?" Grady asked. She was speaking into a cell phone. There was a small boy hanging onto her leg. "It's bedtime, Dean and your son wants to say good night." There was an unhappy, fed up tone to her voice.
"I'm in middle of tracking a vampire through Detroit. Put him on the phone, I'll make it quick." Dean responded in a hushed tone that told Grady that he was hiding from or stalking something. She handed the phone to the boy.
"Daddy." The boy said excitedly.
"Hey, buddy. Daddy's working, remember Bud. I'll be home soon, but until then, can you make me a promise?" Dean asked. Dean's soothing, sweet voice made Grady's stomach turn in a knot. She had spent so much time pretending not to love him that now she hated it when he was away from her and their son.
"What, Daddy?"
"Be a very good boy and go to bed without fighting Mommy, okay? And I'll be there in the morning to wake you up." Dean said, there was a promise in his voice that Grady knew he couldn't keep. "I love you, Buddy." Dean said. "Give Mom the phone." His son handed the phone back to Grady.
"Stop lying to our son." Grady scoffed.
"What are you talking about?" Dean hissed in defense.
"You told him you'd be there to wake him up in the morning." Grady rolled her eyes.
"I'll try to be." Dean tried to sound convincing.
Dean slammed on the brakes and Grady woke up. She looked around and re-acclimated herself with Dean's car and the highway that they were traveling on.
"Sorry. Fuckin' tractor trailer." Dean cursed as he weaved in and out of traffic.
"I don't think we should keep the baby." Grady blurted out. Dean glanced at her quickly before returning his eyes to the road. "Dean, you would be miserable. You're not meant to stay in one place and raise a family, you're meant to wander. You're meant to be this great Hunter that everyone knows and depends on. I can't make you settle down and have a kid." Grady explained. She felt bad for feeling that way, but she just couldn't see Dean as a father. It wasn't in his genes to be a Dad. She didn't want to point it out, but Dean's father wasn't the best, and her father was pretty much absent from her life until she was a teenager. Hunters just weren't supposed to have kids.
"Well, hey, if you feel that way, it's your choice, right?" Dean spoke coolly.
"I'm sorry, Dean, I just think it's best." Grady added. Dean nodded.
"Can we table this discussion for a little while?" Dean asked.
"Yeah, sure." Grady said. She was going to say something else but she didn't get a chance to. In the instant, it took Dean to look away from the road and make eye contact with her, three things happened. A motorcycle came out of nowhere and cut in front of Dean. Dean didn't see the bike and plowed right into him. The car behind Dean slammed into the rear end of Baby and all three vehicles merged together in a twisted heap of metal. Everything happened so fast. One second Grady was staring into Dean's eyes, wondering if she could fall in love with a guy like him, and the next, everything was black.
She woke up a little while later, cold and sore. She was lying on pavement, or maybe it was gravel. It was honestly hard to tel. Her head was killing her. She reached up and gingerly touched her temple. It was wet and sticky with blood. She winced and tried to move but every muscle in her body hurt. She didn't know where Dean was, or what happened.
"Dean," She tried to whisper. She could taste blood in her mouth. The sweet, irony taste covered her tongue. She swept her tongue over her teeth. None were missing, she wasn't sure where the blood was coming from.
"Hey, hun. My name is Tab, just lay still, okay? Your boyfriend is over there. He's gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine, but don't move." The sweet voice of a female EMT came over her. Grady looked up and around and saw where the voice was coming from. A woman in her late 30's was crouched nearby.
"You took quite a hit, but I think you'll be okay. You don't have any major injuries that I can see. You're a lucky girl."
"The baby," Grady groaned, half conscious. "What about the baby?" She managed to get out the vaguely cryptic question before passing out. Tab checked her pulse then stood up.
"Hey, Kal, the girl was talking about a baby just now before she passed out. Was there a baby in the car with her?" Tab asked. She stepped around Grady, closer to the wreck that was left of the Impala.
"There's no car seat in here." Another EMT confirmed, leaning down to look through the back window of the car.
"How's the guy?" Tab asked. The one she called Kal glanced down at the ground near his feet where Dean was lying. He was lying perfectly still but his eyes were open.
"Hey, Buddy, did you have a baby in the car with you?" Kal asked. He knelt down next to Dean. Ten or so yards separated Kal and Tab but she heard Dean's response as clear as day. The answer she was secretly dreading made her blood run cold.
"She's pregnant." Dean moaned. Kal and Tab locked eyes over the distance and immediately rushed back to Grady's side.
"She's pregnant." Tab shouted. Grady went from low to high priority in seconds. At least six other EMTs swarmed her and in no time at all had her loaded into an ambulance.
When Grady woke up again she was lying in a hospital bed. She knew it was a hospital bed because it smelled like a hospital and she could feel the pull of an IV in her arm. There was a nurse looking at her chart.
"What happened?" Grady asked. The nurse jumped, not expecting her to speak.
"You were in a terrible accident, Dear. You're lucky to be alive. They thought you were fine at first, but when they found out you were pregnant, they realized that there was a lot more wrong with you. I'll get the doctor, he can explain everything to you." The Nurse said. Without another word, she left the room. While she was gone Grady struggled to piece things together. She couldn't remember the crash, she couldn't remember anything. A few minutes later, a doctor came in. He was in his late 30's and wearing a lab coat.
"Hi. I'm Doctor Stevens. You can call me Tim. You're Grady, right?" He asked. She nodded. "Okay, so there's a lot we need to talk about. First, you had a few internal injuries. Your spleen was ruptured, a few of your ribs are broken. Your kidneys are severely bruised. It's going to take you a while to recover from all that." He explained. Grady nodded along. "You were in surgery for a long time. There were some minor complications with the anesthetic. You're allergic to Propofol, so when we used it on you, you went into cardiac arrest." The Doctor continue to talk as Grady listened intently.
"The most important thing here is that you survived, but you were pregnant, and the trauma of the car accident made you miscarry." The Doctor said. He paused to wait for her reaction. When she didn't react, he looked at her quizzically.
"You did know you were pregnant, didn't you?" He asked. All Grady could do was nod. She was numb. The trauma of the accident, the complications in the operating room, it made everything clear to her.
"I was going to get an abortion anyway," Grady admitted. There was a relief in her voice. "How's Dean?" She managed to ask.
"That's the kid who was in the car with you. He's doing well. His brother is on his way here." The Doctor said. Grady assumed that he couldn't say much more than that. She half-sat up in her bed, wondering how to tell Dean about the miscarriage. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, after all, hunters don't settle down.