SUMMARY: Becka Fraser and Sam Winchester were friends while attending Stanford. She had a fling with his brother Dean. Four years later, she is raising their daughter on her own. When Dean tells her that they may be in danger, Becka and her daughter leave their lives and go with the Winchester brothers, and they all have to adjust to being together and their changing relationships.
Some AU, some canon
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I walked up to the front desk at the preschool and said, "Hi, Patti. How are you today?"
"Hey, Becka." she looked down at the clipboard on the counter. "Emily's father already picked her up."
"What?!" I said. "When?"
"Umm...about 2 hours ago."
I felt angry. He didn't tell me he was coming into town. We had an agreement that he would let me know beforehand and I would have everything packed up and ready to go so he could take Emily and there would be as little interaction between us as possible. And he had never picked her up from school before. The nerve of this guy!
I took a deep breath. "Thanks, have a good weekend."
There was no reason to get mad at Patti, the school had no idea of the history between me and Emily's father.
I walked back out to my car and got in, slamming the door.
I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled through to find the phone number that I rarely called.
It rang a couple times and then was picked up. "Yeah?"
"Dean Winchester, where did you take my daughter and what the hell are you doing?" I yelled.
"Whoa, easy." he said, and I could imagine him holding the phone away from his ear.
"Where are you, Becka?"
I could hear Emily's high-pitched voice talking in the background.
"You answer my questions first!" I snapped.
"Okay, look...we need to talk." he said hesitantly.
"Oh God, not the 'we need to talk' speech." I ran my hand through my hair and rolled my eyes. "What now?"
"Look, this is important." His voice got quieter and I heard sounds like he was walking. It got quiet in the background.
"You and Em need to come with us for a while, lay low."
"Dean, what the hell?" He was the last person I wanted to see, let alone "lay low" with.
"Come over to the hotel and I'll explain." he said.
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Fifteen minutes later I was pulling into the parking lot of a seedy motel on the edge of town. I got out of the car, walking past Dean's black Impala, and knocked on the door of room 15. It opened and there he stood, still tall, with the same short brown hair and clear green eyes, except now there was no flirtatious smirk on his face like he used to get when he saw me.
"Hey." he stepped back and opened the door wide to let me in. I walked into the room.
Emily was sitting next to her uncle, Sam Winchester, who is one of the tallest men I've ever met. They were on the sofa, leaning over the coffee table, coloring with crayons together.
Emily looked up. "Mommy!" She called, and smiled at me. "Daddy an' Unca Sam bwinged me some colowing books!" She held up a coloring book with brightly colored ponies in the front cover.
I walked over to her and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "That's great, honey. How was school today?" I asked her.
"Good." she said. "I painted today!"
"Awesome, I can't wait to see it." I told her.
Sam looked up at me. "Hey, Becka." He smiled warmly at me.
"Hey, Sam." I said back.
I looked around and saw the McDonald's bags on the small table across the room.
"A Happy Meal? Really, Dean?" I asked tightly. I tried really hard to feed Emily healthy food.
He flushed a little bit. "I think it's okay to get my kid a treat every once in a while." he said in a defensive tone.
"Fine." I said curtly. "What's this about, anyway?"
He motioned me to follow him and led me across the room to the small kitchen area. "There are some...people that I've pissed off, and they may be looking for Emily and by extension, you, to use against me." He told me in a low voice.
"You've pissed people off? I can't imagine." I said sarcastically. Dean was not known for his people skills unless it was a hot girls' pants that he wanted to get into.
"Well, not people. Demons." he said uneasily, glancing at me.
"Demons?" I said, louder than I intended. Emily and Sam stopped talking across the room and looked at us for a moment.
"What in the world have you been getting into?" I asked him.
"It's a case that I'm...helping someone with." he said slowly. "I want you and Emily to come with me and Sam, we've got a place where you can stay for a while, until we get things dealt with."
"Wait, what? I'm supposed to just pick up and leave and go with you somewhere? What about my job? What about Emily's school?"
"You can find another job and put her in another school." he said seriously.
"That's not going to be easy, I can't just hustle pool games like you!" I snapped.
"We can figure that out later. Right now my main priority is getting you two to a safe place."
I sighed. "Fine. Where and when are we going?"
He raised his eyebrows. "What? That's it? You're not going to fight me more?"
"Well, if you say that we're in danger, I believe you. I don't want to risk putting my daughter in harm's way."
Relief flooded his face, and he put his hand on my shoulder for a moment. "Becka, that's great. I'm so relieved."
"Okay, let's not get all emotional." I said. "What's the game plan?"
Dean looked across the room at his brother. "Sam, it's a go." he said, giving a thumbs up.
Sam smiled. "Oh good. I'm glad you didn't have a hard time convincing her."
I scoffed.
Sam raised his eyebrow at me. "I know how you are, Becka Fraser. You are notorious for giving people a hard time!" He grinned at me, and I couldn't help but grin back.
Sam and I have a history together. I met him when he was at Stanford- I was going there too, and I was friends with his girlfriend, Jess. Then I met his brother, Dean, and we got into a relationship. I ended up pregnant. I knew just from the short amount of time that I was with Dean that he wasn't the committment type of guy, so I absolved him of any responsibility. He tried to be there for me, as much as I let him, but I was pretty prickly during the pregnancy. I didn't want to come to rely on him when I knew I'd probably end up alone after the baby was born.
Dean wasn't around much during Emily's first year. I think babies scare him. When she got to be about one year old, he started to come around and visit, and then he started taking her on overnights and finally on weekend visits. Last summer she had spent a week with him. Now that she's four, she finally gets it that she has a father, and he calls her once a week or so and they talk for a few minutes.
Sam stood up and walked over to us. "Do you want to take Becka to her place to pack up some stuff?"
"Uh-" Dean looked uncomfortable. "Sure, I guess."
"Stuff? How much stuff?" I looked back and forth at them.
"Like, clothing and toys and important papers. You may not be able to come back." Sam said.
"Oh God." I felt nervous for the first time, realizing that this was a big change.
I sighed. "Okay, we might as well get this show on the road."
I walked over to Emily and leaned down and hugged her. "I have to go somewhere with your Dad for a little bit, so you're going to stay here with your Uncle Sam for now."
"Okay!" She said happily. I'm lucky that I have such a happy, easy going kid.
I turned to Dean, who had come over to stand near me.
"Okay, let's go." I said. Dean walked around me and leaned down to hug Emily. "I'll be back in a little while, Emmy-pie." he said.
She giggled." 'Kay Daddy. See you soon!"
I gave Dean a funny look as he straightened up. "Emmy-pie?" I asked.
He looked a little embarassed. "It makes her laugh. We both like pie, you know?"
"Yes, I know." I said, giving him another look. I still remembered that day he had brought her back to me, with blueberry pie filling smeared all over her shirt and face, and her babbling excitedly about pie. It was one of her first words, and Dean taught it to her.
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I followed him outside. He took out his keys.
"Oh, are we going in your car?" I asked.
"Might as well, I've got more room." he said. He opened the passenger door for me and I got in. The car still made the same squeaks and groans that it had always made, and it still smelled the same- like leather, and a faint scent of pine trees, and Old Spice.
"You still in the same place?" he glanced at me as he pulled into traffic.
"Yep." I said.
We were silent for a few minutes.
"Emily can write her name now." Dean said with pride in his voice.
"Yeah, and she's starting to learn to read too."
He glanced at me. "She's a smart kid."
"Yes, she is." I agreed.
"She reminds me a lot of Sam when he was her age."
I laughed. "I can't imagine him as a little kid."
"Yeah, he was little once. Used to be shorter than me and everything." We both laughed at that.
He pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex where I lived and followed me to the door. As I was getting out my keys, Mr. Townsend, the manager, came up to me.
"That fella of yours was hangin round again, lookin for you, what's his name?"
"Roger?" I said with annoyance.
"Yeah, that's him." he looked at me.
"He's not my fella." I told him. "I hope you told him to get lost."
"Well, I did tell him there's no loiterin here."
"Good."
I opened my door and Dean followed me in.
"Roger?" he asked curiously.
"Yeah, this guy I was seeing. Not for too long, he was a jerk. He thinks we still have something." I put my keys and purse down and walked over to the closet.
"I'll pack Emily's stuff up first." I said. I got out the suitcases and Dean took two of them from me.
"Can I do something to help?" he asked.
"Um, you can take all the paperwork out of the safe and pack it up. And those photo albums on the shelf there." I walked over to the kitchen. "There's a couple cardboard boxes over there." I pointed to the corner.
I carried a suitcase into Emily's bedroom and started to sort and pack her clothing. In a few minutes, Dean walked in and stood just inside the door. He glanced around the room and walked over to her dresser. There were some framed photographs on the dresser. He picked up one of Emily and him from her second birthday party.
"I didn't know you did this." he said, holding up the frame. He put it down and picked up another frame that had a photo of him, Emily, and Sam, that I had taken when we had met at a park for an afternoon last summer.
"I wanted her to have some pictures of you guys." I said.
"That was nice of you." he smiled briefly. Then he looked around. "Anything I can do here?"
"Um, I was going to say, pack some toys and books, but I know the stuff she's been playing with right now. I'll get to it in a minute."
He walked over and sat down on her bed. "Whoa, this is low to the ground."
"Yeah, it's a toddler bed, I haven't been able to buy her a twin bed yet."
He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees."You can always ask me for help if you need something."
"I told you before that I wasn't going to expect child support or anything. I'm fine." I said stiffly.
"Well, if you need something, ask me. If I can help you out, I will. I'd be more than happy to buy Emily a bed."
I stood up. "Fine."
He sat up and looked up at me. "What? Why are you all offended now?"
"Dean, don't start acting like you care all of a sudden, okay?" I glared at him. "Your contact with Emily has been minimal at best and it's probably for the best that we keep it that way. I don't, and won't, need any help from you!"
He stood up, his green eyes flashing angrily. "Jesus, are you pregnant again? You haven't been this bitchy since you were in the third trimester!"
"Go to hell, Dean Winchester!" I stormed out of the bedroom and went into my own room. I started to go through my drawers and take clothing out that I was going to pack.
I walked back out to the living room to get another suitcase. Dean was in the kitchen, leaning down and looking into the refrigerator.
"Got any beer?"
"You know I don't drink that stuff. There might be some hard cider on the bottom shelf."
"Hard cider?" he reached in and took something out, then stood up and held up a bottle of Hornsby's Green Apple cider. He raised his eyebrow.
"Yeah, I like it." I said defensively.
"Well aren't you all grown up now." It had been a joke between him and me and Sam about how young I looked and how I didn't like to drink beer. I had never liked the taste.
"Shut up, Winchester."
He opened the bottle and took a swig, raising his eyebrows. "Mm, it's okay." He said uncertainly. He sighed and looked at me. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you before."
"Don't worry about it-"
"Well, we're going to be staying in close quarters for a while, the last thing I want to do it piss you off." he said. "Really, I'm sorry. I won't bring it up again, okay?"
"Okay." I turned and took the suitcase into my bedroom. I packed up my clothes and jewelry, and then went into the bathroom to pack our toothbrushes and other toiletries. I carried the suitcases out to the livingroom. Dean stood up and hurried over to take the big one from me.
"Are there any more?"
"Not yet. I'm going to pack some of Emily's toys and books now."
He followed me back into her bedroom and leaned on the door jamb, drinking the bottle of cider. I sat down on the floor in front of her shelf and started to pick through the books. I made a pile of her current favorites.
"Can you bring in another cardboard box for me?" I turned to Dean and asked him.
"Sure." he left the room for a minute.
He brought the other box in and set it down next to me. I put the stack of books in it and then started to put some toys in.
"She still enjoying going to school?" he asked.
"Yeah, she loves it. She's made some friends, and she loves the teachers."
"Good."
I stood up and leaned back, stretching my back. I walked over to her closet. "Should I bring her sleeping bag or anything?"
"No, I bought her one a few months ago." he said.
"You did?" I looked at him.
"Yeah, she asked me for one, so I got her one."
"She already has one here." I frowned.
"She specifically wanted a Hello Kitty one."
"Oh, that little booger. Was this back in February?"
He looked up, counting back the months. "Yeah, I think so. Why?"
"She went to a slumber party and couldn't stop talking about the birthday girls' Hello Kitty sleeping bag. I had just bought her this one, and she didn't want to use it after that!"
He grinned at me. "Four years old, and our daughter is already playing us!"
"Well, look who her father is." I said. "World's biggest player."
"Hey, I behave myself when I'm with her." he told me, standing up straight.
"Good, you'd better. Because if she learns any bad behaviors from you, you're going to answer to me, Winchester."
"Ooh, I'm scared." he said jokingly. For a second, it felt like old times, when we were together and would fall into the easy banter of two people who knew each other well and were comfortable with each other.
I closed the closet door and turned around. He was staring at me.
"What?" I asked.
He looked down at the floor, blushing a little bit. "Nothing." he shook his head.
"Can you get the box of her stuff?" I asked, and walked out of the room.
I walked through the apartment, looking around for anything else I thought we might need. I grabbed a couple of her blankets and pillow, and stuffed animals. Dean got a plastic bag and loaded it up with DVDs.
"Why?"
"So that Emily will have something to watch."
"Okay, fine."
I packed a bunch of snacks from the kitchen and a bag full of craft supplies.
"I think that's it." I said. I looked around, not able to believe that I was leaving everything.
Dean's phone rang. He looked at it. "It's Sam."
"Hey," he answered. "Yeah, we're about to leave. Okay, get her ready, and we'll go as soon as we get there. Yeah, bye." he hung up and looked at me. "Emily's hungry, and getting cranky."
"Let's go then." I said. We carried the rest of the stuff out to the car, and got in.