**Author's Note: I know, I know, I have other projects I need to update. I have not been neglecting them to write this. This is a random plot bunny :D that's been sitting on my laptop for a while. I was on a Dark Angel/Supernatural kick (Jensen Ackles is my man!) and stumbled across Supernatural/Dark Angel crossovers, got addicted, and well... here we are. This is my attempt at a Supernatural/Dark Angel crossover. I am still working on my other writing projects, I just have to finish the manuscript for my second novel first. Sigh... When writing becomes a job... it makes me happy :D**

Disclaimer: I do not own nor did I create the shows Supernatural or Dark Angel, and I have no legal rights to their characters. :( :( :( :( :(

PART I

Chapter 1

Sioux Fall, South Dakota 2009

"I believe I've found something that belongs to you."

Dean jumped at the sudden sound of Castiel's voice behind him.

"Jesus, Cas! You gotta stop doing that shit!" Dean shouted, whirling around to glare at the angel, then frowning at the body laid out on the couch. "Who the hell's this?"

Dean crept closer, noting how Castiel stood back, seeming to wait for Dean's reaction. Dean braced himself, never able to predict or sometimes even understand some of Cas's surprises. Something that belonged to Dean and was a person, an obviously unconscious person. Dean touched the guy's shoulder. It was warm. The head lolled to one side so that Dean could get a good look... at his own face, when he was about fourteen or fifteen years old.

His breath caught. "Al-Alec?"

In a split second, he was on his knees next to the couch, shaking the unconscious boy's shoulder. Was it—could it be? No response from the kid. Dean looked up at Castiel in askance. "Cas? Is this...?"

"He shares your DNA," Castiel said, his tone flat. "He resembles you. You had a younger brother who was a genetic clone of you, so I figure this to be him."

Dean narrows his eyes at Castiel's tone. The angel wasn't saying something. "Where'd you find him, Cas? Is he okay?" Dean prodded Alec, checking his vitals, feeling his limbs. He couldn't feel any injuries. Castiel was silent.

"Cas?" Dean turned his full attention on the angel.

Castiel met his eyes. "He was participating in a battle against angels. He fought with other enhanced humans of similar age alongside demons."

Dean felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "Demons?" He glanced at Alec, his lost little brother. Running a thumb along Alec's smooth jawline, he remembered the baby Alec had been when he'd seen him last. Ten years old, four-foot-seven, big green eyes, and nothing but attitude and sass. He'd sat at a motel kitchenette table, checking his sickeningly high balance after another one of his lucrative e-bay sales had gone through. Alec had been a shark at making money and charged interest on all the loans he'd given Dean. Dean had told him to be good and that he and Dad would be back in the morning.

And he hadn't lied. He and Dad had been back in the morning, it had been Alec who wasn't.

Taken.

Stolen.

And now, almost five years later, right here.

"What do you mean he was fighting with demons?" Dean barked. "He possessed? He like... like Sam with Ruby?"

"No, to both of your questions," Castiel said.

"Then what?" Dean asked. He ran a hand through Alec's short, sandy hair, still baby soft.

"In league, a soldier," Castiel said. "Seemed to be following orders, very militant and extremely competent. He must have had superb combat training. From what we know of the projects created by Mephistopheles—"

"By who?" Dean asked. "What the hell are talking about, Cas?" Slow rage seeped in through his pores. "What the hell do you know about my little brother that you didn't tell me?"

Castiel frowned at Dean. "You do know who made your brother, correct?"

"A lab, he was made in a lab, by a cult called Manticore," Dean said.

"Manticore is not a cult," Castiel said, eyes boring into Dean's. "It is an organization that specializes in genetic research in hopes of creating the perfect soldier."

Dean bristled, squeezing Alec's shoulder. "The place we lived in, that compound? That was a cult if I ever knew one."

"Dean, you, Sam and your father lived in a sampling community," Castiel said, voice slow, as if afraid Dean wouldn't be able to follow him. "Manticore had many of those. They created control and experimental groups. They studied your behavior and took DNA samples."

"What are you talking about?" Dean felt hot and cold, like he was running a fever, as memories of that place rushed at him full speed. He'd been little, maybe five, when Dad had moved them into two-bedroom trailer home out somewhere in the middle of nowhere. There'd been people, lots of kids and moms. It'd felt like camping all the time. Fun. Dean had had fun. He'd had two birthday parties there. Cake, presents, Sammy singing. And then, one night, Dad packed them up and they'd driven away to live with Pastor Jim.

"Your father learned about demons and hunting there," Castiel said. "You were in the experimental group, exposed to knowledge about the supernatural. I assume there was a doctor in your... encampment?"

Dean blinked, straining to remember. A man in a white coat, always smelled like yellow gummy bears and peppermint. Nice guy. Dad had said... "He gave us Alec."

"He also may have been a demon," Castiel said. "Dean, Mephistopheles is a high-level demon, and a rival of Azazel. He created Manticore, so that he could create the perfect vessels for demons to inhabit, and an army of cannon fodder super humans to control."

"No." Dean shook his head. "No way that guy was some high-level demon. He was..." As far as Dean could remember, pretty nice. And, "why would he give away one of his super soldier babies and give Dad everything he needed to make Alec part of us? Hell, he came up with a birth certificate and everything!"

Castiel stared, face stoic as ever. "I do not think the man who gave your father Alec was Mephistopheles, but he did work for him at one point. I do not know if he was betraying his master or if it was all part of a plan, but the fact remains that your brother works for demons."

Dean stared down at Alec. His little brother's smooth unlined face showed no signs of stress or evil. It was just Alec. Dean narrowed his eyes at Castiel. "And that's okay with you? You gonna leave him here with us?"

"I wanted to question him," Castiel said. "Many of my brethren fell today, but..."

"But?"

"He is your brother," Castiel said. "And you are my friend. I leave the questioning and decisions to you about what happens to him next."

Dean's breath caught as he gazed at his friend. The angel was truly changing, becoming more... well, more human. Warmth coursed through his veins. "Thanks, Cas."

Castiel nodded and vanished, leaving Dean alone with Alec.

He wondered if he should call Bobby and Sam, and tell them to drop the job and come back. Hell, he'd have been with them if he hadn't hurt his shoulder the other day, but the job was something easy. Sam and Bobby were fine without him. But was he okay without them right now was the question. He stroked Alec's hair again, thinking about what he'd say to his baby brother. Would he be brainwashed? Would he remember? Fuck, would he be dangerous? Maybe Dean should be cuffing him or locking him in the panic room.

Dammit, Cas.

Dean dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed Sam.

"Come on, Sammy, pick up. I need you back here," Dean grumbled, balancing the phone on his uninjured shoulder as he wandered into Bobby's study to get the lock-down chair ready for a guest. He checked that the devil's trap on the floor was still intact while the phone rang, and sighed, thinking about the day Dad had brought Alec home.

Colorado Springs, Colorado 1994

Dean's eyes opened before the door did, his hand brushing the knife under his pillow, before he relaxed. His heart still thudded in his chest, the last organ to get the memo that it was 'Just Dad'—Dad coming back from a hunt he wouldn't take Dean on. Dean scowled. He was fourteen years old, old enough to be back-up. He was good, dammit. But Dad still only took him on easy hunts, leaving Dean behind to play babysitter when the hunts got real. But Sammy was old enough to look after himself for a day or so. When Dean was ten, Dad used to leave for days, trusting Dean to look after not only himself but Sammy too.

Dean sat up in bed, watching as Dad tiptoed in, a bundled blanket in his arms. Stuff he found on the job to analyze? Huh. Dean crawled out of bed, careful not to wake Sammy. The kid slept like the dead. He gazed over at his little brother sprawled over more than his fair share of the bed, arms and legs everywhere. One day, Dean was gonna tell Dad that he needed to sleep with Sam every once and a while, so that Dean could get a chance at waking up without an elbow in his eye.

"What's that?" Dean whispered as he moved closer to Dad.

Dad frowned at Dean, his face seemed older, and gray. The job must have been really bad. "You okay, Dad?" Dean asked. "You hurt?" He started to head for the bathroom, to grab their first aid kid, but Dad spoke.

"Nah, I'm not hurt. Uh... here." Dad held out the blanket and Dean squinted at it. It was a lump wrapped in a blanket that Dad held like there was something breakable inside.

Dean reached out, grabbing the thing and almost gasping and letting it go when he felt something warm, kind of heavy, and pliant, flopping into his arms. The blanket fell back a bit, and Dean stared into wide green baby eyes. A freakin' baby! "Dad! Wh-what's this? Did..." Oh no. Maybe the parents were dead.

"She told me she was on the pill," Dad murmured. "I believed her, but..." He ran a shaky hand through his hair. "She wasn't."

Dean felt his eyes widening, the skin around them stretching, as what Dad was muttering set in. "Dad?"

"This is your little brother, Alec. He's five months."

Dean almost dropped the baby again. The baby. He stared down at the kid—brother, a baby brother. A real baby. Fear hit him. "What are we gonna do with him?" Dean couldn't keep up with a baby and Sammy! He already had to make sure Sammy got to school, Sammy's homework got done and checked, Sammy brushed his teeth, Sammy had breakfast and dinner and some kind of money for lunch. How the hell was Dean gonna watch a baby too? He had to go to school. He couldn't take a baby to school.

"Dad..."

Dad stared at Dean and reached out to take the baby back from him. Dean frowned at the look on Dad's face as he studied the ba—Alec. As he studied Alec. Dad's eyes were deep and sad, his face drawn and pale. He looked lost, and that didn't help Dean feel less afraid.

"What are we gonna do? We can't—I can't..."

"Things're gonna have to change, a lot," Dad said finally, bringing Alec's head up to rest against his shoulder. "We're gonna get the hell out of here first thing in the morning. Then, we're gonna head into New Mexico, rent us a house for a while. I'm gonna get a job or something, so we can stick to one place, get a babysitter. Get you boys in a steady school."

Dean stared at Dad, body starting to shake. Was his dad having some kind of nervous breakdown? He seemed kinda crazy, scared even. Was the baby scaring Dad like it was scaring him?

"Dad, are you sure he's even... ours?" Dean asked. Some random lady called Dad up and dropped a baby on him, and Dad just believed her? But then again, Dad had gone a long way to meet whoever that lady was, and he wouldn't have driven out so far for nothing.

"He's ours, Dean," Dad said. He rubbed Alec's back and cradled his head, rustling blond curls at the nape of the baby's neck. "I'll introduce him to Sammy in the morning." A tight grin cracked Dad's face. "He keeps saying he's tired of being the youngest. He got his wish, huh?"

Dean swallowed, stomach churning as Dad went to the empty second bed and laid Alec down on his back. Dean rubbed at the gooseflesh on his arms and begged his stomach to calm down. Dad was being weird, there was a baby, and... life was going to change. But the things Dad had said didn't sound bad. A house, steady school for Sammy, a babysitter, a normal job. No more stitching his dad up in the middle of night, no more being left alone for days at a time with Sammy asking him if Dad had abandoned them. No more being hungry, because the food had run out before Dad had gotten back.

At least, that was what Dad said. Dean had no way of knowing if that was how it would be. What if he got that house, and they got a steady school, but Dad kept hunting? It'd be Dean, Sammy and a freakin' baby.

Dean felt something hot and warm prickle behind his eyes, but he refused to let the tears see the light of day. Dean Winchester didn't cry. He was a man. But God, he didn't want a baby. He sat down hard on the bed he shared with Sam, ignoring Sammy's moan and rubbing his face with both hands. The baby cooed behind him and Dad murmured something.

Dean felt the walls of the room crushing in on him amiss the soft sound of Sammy's sleepy breathing and Dad humming some slow song to a gurgling infant.

Author's Note: So, what's the verdict? Like it? Hate it? Don't care about it either way? Any way you liked it, let me know. Please review! Take care!