The plot bunny pen is empty.

Seriously. I've been plot bunnyless for weeks now.

I've seen two, maybe three, lurking, but as soon as I look too hard, they disappear. You know how it is with plot bunnies - try to grab them too early and they just evaporate in a puff of inarticulate truncated dialogue... however, I managed to get this little bugger by the scruff, and wring an intro out if it. Sometimes, that's enough to get it started. As usual, no promises, but with a bit of prodding, we may just get a story out of this one. I petition the Denizens, Visitors, Lurkers and Droppers-In of the Jimiverse to be patient, and encourage the bunny. I'm going to be hellishly busy for the next couple of months - Real Life sucks the fat one - but maybe that will just prompt it to pester me while I'm trying to get some actual work done.

Disclaimer: They're not mine, or I'd cut Sam's hair, nail down Dean's collar, and throw them to the Denizens.

Working Title: Nun Of That

Rating: T. Medical authorities warn that Dean Winchester is a swearing hazard. And he fornicates.

Summary: Somebody - or something - is terrorising convents. Is it a religious loony, or a job for the Winchesters? Worse (according to him), Dean is convinced that somebody has put a chastity curse on him. And who is this mysterious woman who can bitchface (TM) Sam into silence, or throw Dean across a desk? Not that the Living Sex God *minds* being thrown across the desk, but only if there's mutually consenting beautiful natural acts involved, and the abstinence curse is really cramping his style...

Blame: Lies with the Denizens who have been pestering me to give a particularly vexing fanfic trope the Lampito treatment. I think you'll figure out which one I mean pretty quickly...

Prologue

Topeka, Kansas 1974

"My dear..."

Sister Agnes gazed down at what should have been a happy sight – a young mother cradling her baby close. But under these circumstances, it was never happy. And there was no easy way to do what had to be done here, so she went with straightforward.

"My dear, it is time."

"She's mine." The voice was soft, but full of steel, as the young mother held her gurgling infant close.

"We must deal in realities, my dear," the nun reminded her. "She will be raised by a young couple who cannot have children of their own. She will have a home, and love, and two parents who care deeply for her..."

"She's mine," the young mother repeated.

"You cannot raise a child properly, alone," the nun reminded her. "How will you live?"

"I'm not..." the woman stumbled into silence, twisting the ring on her left hand. Her parents were dead, and the child's father would be gone for another several months... "He promised me that after this deployment, he'd leave. He'll come back, he won't die over there, he won't, he'll come back, I'm not..."

"Married," the nun finished for her. "In this, you are alone." She put a reassuring hand on the young woman's arm. "Although you are certainly not the only one who finds herself in this position."

"I thought we weren't supposed to discuss it," the younger woman snapped, "We're so disgustingly sinful, we're supposed to hide away, and not horrify polite society with the evidence of our wanton and filthy behaviour."

She was surprised to hear the nun laugh, and looked up.

Sister Agnes's face wore an expression of compassion not often found in the other members of her order. Maybe it was because, unlike so many of her fellow sisters, she had not entered the convent immediately after school; she had lived in the world for many years before she had been called to take the veil, and no child of the 60s could help but have some sympathy for the situation in which the young unwed mothers in her order's care found themselves.

"She's not a result of sin, you know," Sister Agnes remarked, gesturing at the baby, "Despite what Mother Superior likes to say – at some length – on the topic. I do hope you realise that."

The young woman regarded her suspiciously.

"Oh. I know," smiled Sister Agnes, "I'm supposed to toe the party line with all of you. We all are. But you've heard it before – born out of wedlock, born of sin, disgrace, sin, guilt, repent, sin, unclean, ruined, guilt, sin, just stop me if you've heard this one before..."

"You'll get yourself thrown out talking like that," remarked the new mother.

"They can't afford to lose me," the middle-aged nun confided, with a touch of unnunly smugness. "Young women are discovering that they can have lives beyond the traditional handmaiden to God, or to man, or to somebody else, and the Mother House knows it." She smiled at the child. "She is clearly a child born of love. Who knows what this little one will do, what she will achieve?"

"She's mine," the woman said again.

"And there will be more," Sister Agnes told her. "Your young man, when he comes home, he will marry you, and you will have a family together as husband and wife. You will be in a position to raise children in a proper, loving home, with a mother and father to care for them. You will be in a position to do what is best for them. Isn't that what every parent wants, what is best for their child?"

"What would you know about it?" snapped the young mother.

"More than you might think," replied Sister Agnes quietly. "This is for the best, my dear, as hard as it is. It is what's best for her."

There was silence briefly. "Can I name her?" the younger woman asked, tears filling her eyes, "Can I at least name her? I was going to name my firstborn for my mother..."

"Her adopting parents will give her a name," the nun explained, "It's for the best, this way."

"Will they tell her?" The question was one that she'd heard so many times, and there was no soothing answer. "Will they tell her that she was adopted? Will they tell her that her mother loved her?"

"It will be up to the adoptive couple," Sister Agnes could never bring herself to tell the reassuring lies that some of her sisters used, "But if they do, she will know that you loved her so much, you gave her up so that she could have the best possible life."

"Five more minutes," pleaded the mother, holding her child close.

"Of course," smiled Sister Agnes sadly. "I will tell the office that she is ready."

The baby began to fuss, perhaps picking up on her mother's agitation. "I can't tell your father," she whispered, "It would upset him so much... and I know I'm supposed to forget you, but I won't. I'll just pretend you don't exist, but I won't forget you, Deanna."

The infant's face screwed up in the prelude to a wail, so her mother fought down her own tears, and rocked the baby, singing to her.

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad,
Take a sad song, and make it better..."

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