Author's note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICOLENE B! Hope this is about what you wanted! ;-)
Special thanks to Treeni for beta-reading and for the title suggestion!
Seven days. It had been seven days, nine hours and approximately twenty minutes and Sam was in over his head. Not that it had actually taken Sam so long to realize just how screwed he was. That realization set in after the first thirty seconds tops.
Actually, Sam should –and could- count himself lucky to have a boss who grudgingly, but easily enough, agreed to accommodate the changed circumstances as long as none of the other employees were complaining. It was for the most part easy enough to circumvent anyone feeling bothered by just changing Sam's working hours to the times when barely anyone was still working. It wasn't ideal by a long stretch, but it had worked well enough so far.
Only another five days until Dean could temporarily move from Kansas to California to help Sam out. What they would do after, that only God knew, but Sam found it hard to think that far ahead when he hadn't had a proper night's sleep or a moment to relax in a week. The knowledge that he wouldn't be alone in this in five days was the one thing that kept him from losing his mind.
The moment Sam felt eyes on him he knew he was once more screwed.
"It's only been an hour," Sam sighed, though he tried his best to keep a –forced- smile on his face, "Don't you want to sleep some more?"
The answer that came was both unsurprising and immediate, "No."
Sam really wasn't someone who didn't believe that no meant no, but in this case no could mean just about anything. He had the sinking feeling that this no was a definite no though.
Honestly, Sam didn't think that Ruby had bothered to teach the kid anything much, but the toddler sure knew how to say no to everything. It might have been mean and Sam would definitely blame his sleep deprivation and frayed nerves for it, but he wished to God Ruby had said no three years ago. They wouldn't be in this situation.
Then again, looking into big, hazel eyes, Sam couldn't bring himself to really wish the kid didn't exist.
"I've got a Teddy Bear," Sam offered, holding the toy out to his daughter, which was met with a firm 'no' once more. One of the first things Sam learned about toddlers was that his former assumption of just bringing her favorite toy would be enough –hey, it was her favorite after all!- was plain stupid. There had to be options, even if in nine out of ten cases the favorite would do, you bet your ass that the tenth case would happen the moment you didn't bring anything else, because the last nine times it worked. At least, that was the observation Sam had made over the past seven days.
"Building blocks?" Sam suggested next, holding the bag so the toddler could inspect the content, wrinkle her nose in apparent disgust and yell, "No!"
"What do you want, Emmy?" Sam groaned as he lifted the toddler up to let her sit on his knees and take a look at the toys he had brought to work that day. Sam would have liked to just put everything on the floor and let her go nuts, but he had to make sure to take every last toy back home with them when the day was finally over. It was too easy to lose track of the one toy or another if Emmy had all of them at her disposal and if any of Sam's colleagues tripped over a building block the next day that would add a whole new level of problems to the already existing ones.
"Ball," the toddler decided and made grabbing motions for the blue plastic ball until Sam gave it to her. At least, Emmy could say a few words other than 'no'… now and then.
"Okay, awesome, great," Sam nodded to himself, as if to convince himself that things would be okay from here on out, not that it ever worked, "You go play with the ball, I'll finish this as quickly as possible."
However, even if Sam was extremely lucky and the juristic problems he still had to look through and write a short statement for were not overly convoluted, it was impossible that they would be home before midnight… again. It also was very unlikely that Emmy would decide to give her father a break and just go to sleep at a more or less appropriate hour for a toddler… again.
In the end, Sam made it as far as to read the first page of a complaint against the company on grounds of discrimination before Emmy, in pursuit of her ball, ran forehead first into a wooden desk.
There was dead silence for a moment after Emmy fell back on her butt. Then the waterworks and the screaming started.
"Okay, okay, no panic," Sam mumbled, more to remind himself than for his daughter's benefit. The kid tended not to believe and/or understand a word he was saying anyway. Gathering his daughter in his arms, Sam sat back in his desk chair and pulled the desk lamp a little closer to get a better look.
"I don't see anything," Sam explained in what he hoped was a reassuring and soothing tone, "You look fine."
Apparently, Emmy had a completely different idea about what being fine should be like, as she kept crying and screaming so much Sam feared she might suffocate on top of everything. Her face was a very worrying shade of reddish purple –not from banging her head against the desk, but from screaming- that was deepening by the second.
If only Dean had been around. Dean knew how to handle little kids! Dean knew how to handle tantrums! If this was even a tantrum, after all Emmy had hurt herself before she started crying and she was so damn little. Who knew just how fragile the kid was? She could have seriously hurt herself! And of course Sam, the lousy excuse for a father he was, was sitting here doing nothing…
"That's it, we're going to the hospital!" Sam announced, shutting his laptop with definitely too much force and only grabbing the bag with Emmy's necessities and his car keys before he swiftly walked to the door. Screw the stray toys cluttering his desk! This was about the health of his daughter!
Sam only barely acknowledged the janitor who must have been sweeping the office floor by the door in his haste, until the man reached out and tapped Emmy's nose, "Boop!"
Both Sam and Emmy were visibly perplexed. Silence fell over the office.
When Emmy finally remembered that she had hurt her head a second later and opened her mouth for another round of screaming, the janitor quickly put something Sam couldn't see into her mouth.
"The hell was that?" Sam demanded to know, fighting his urge to pry Emmy's mouth open to make sure his daughter wasn't munching on something seriously bad for her.
"They all love Extasy at that age, keeps 'em quiet all night long," the janitor commented with a shrug. Under different circumstances he might have just walked away and left it for the father to figure out that his daughter had just been given a cherry flavored bonbon, but this one looked so stressed out he might actually have an aneurism before he got the joke, "Chill, big guy, it's a bonbon."
Sam deflated a little. It helped that Emmy was mercifully quiet and apparently highly content with her sweet treat, still something had to be said here, "You can't just put stuff into a stranger's kid's mouth!"
"Can and did," the janitor replied without missing a beat, casually leaning against his broom, "I probably shouldn't, I'll give you that, but it worked. Besides, I've seen you two every night in the past seven days. We're hardly strangers."
Sam frowned deeply. Actually, it was quite likely that the janitor had come by the office every night and Sam simply hadn't paid attention. There was only so much he could deal with at once and taking care for his daughter while trying to get the workload to at least not back up too far was about as much as he could handle. Honestly, it was more than he could handle given the pile of papers still stacked on his desk.
"Alright, little Miss, what's your problem?" the janitor asked, completely ignoring Sam and focusing on Emmy instead, "Fell over? Hurt your knee?"
In all honesty, Sam couldn't say how long the janitor had been around the office without Sam realizing he was there. He might have seen exactly what happened, or maybe he was seriously guessing. If the man thought that Emmy was going to give him any kind of elaborate answer, he was seriously mistaken and not only because of her age. It appeared Emmy only knew and used very few words, even for her age. Half of the time Sam wasn't even sure, if she knew what the words she used meant.
"No," Emmy stated with a small pout.
"No?" the janitor repeated, shaking his head for emphasis before he smiled again and asked, "Okay. Is it really bad?"
"No," Emmy replied, looking a little thoughtful, but that might have been Sam imagining things. Whatever it was, Emmy looked content enough and nobody was crying or screaming, so Sam was willing to count this entire fiasco as a win, even if the encounter with the janitor was strange.
"That's the spirit kiddo," the janitor praised Emmy as he carefully patted her head, "How about daddy goes back to his desk where all your toys are? 'Cause you've got some awesome toys there, I can tell you that. Yes?"
For a moment, Sam had believed that the janitor understood that Emmy would say no to just about anything she was asked and was using the fact to keep the 'conversation' going. It looked like Sam had misjudged the situation, because the man would have his newest request for which he clearly wanted a positive answer shot down in less than a…
"Yes," Emmy stated, nodding her head like the janitor had done a moment earlier.
Sam wasn't ashamed to admit that his jaw dropped just then. He didn't put up any resistance as the janitor put a hand on his arm and more or less led them back to Sam's desk. There were much more important things to clear up than asking an essential stranger to stop touching him, "How…? How did you do that?"
"I've got a lot of siblings, younger and older, and an unholy amount of nieces and nephews," the janitor answered with a casual shrug and a light smirk, "So sit down, chill and let her feel that daddy believes everything is good."
Sam nodded dumbly and sat down like the janitor suggested. The man hadn't led him wrong this far and it wasn't like Sam had a better idea of what to do. Emmy was apparently fine, so the hospital was out, but Sam didn't think he could bring himself to focus on his work again after everything.
Unsurprisingly Emmy started to squirm soon thereafter, so Sam put her down on the floor, praying to God she wouldn't run into anything again. Then again, what Emmy seemed most interested in was to stare at the janitor, who had unceremoniously grabbed a nearby chair and had plopped down just a foot or two from Sam.
"I don't think she cares much about… we don't have that kind of connection," Sam finally admitted, though he wasn't exactly sure why he was telling a nearly complete stranger that. Maybe because it hurt a little to know that his daughter viewed him as about as much of a stranger as Sam did the janitor.
"I've only known her for a minute, believe me, she cares," the janitor replied confidently, though Sam had absolutely no idea where he took that confidence from. Then again, Emmy seemed really fascinated by the man and was leaning into his touch when he reached out to tousle her hair. One of these days Sam would have to talk to Emmy about stranger danger, not that she was likely to understand or care about what he had to say.
"Are you more of a mommy's girl, Missy? Mommy didn't make those pigtails, I can tell you that. Though, daddy really should use his own hair for his unholy hairstyle experiments," the janitor asked in an upbeat tone, grinning at Emmy, before he directed a just as cheerful grin at Sam.
"Hey," Sam exclaimed automatically, fighting his own slight pout and frown combination. He was one of the adults here after all, no matter how little he felt like it lately. Still, something about the janitor's comment just rubbed him the wrong way, "I… uh… It's not my fault I've never…! I didn't even know… Ruby never told me and then she just hands Emmy and the custody papers over. I'm doing what I can! You can't judge me for…!"
Who did the guy think he was anyway? He just came in, got Emmy hyped up on sugar, did a couple of tricks that worked for a minute or two, re-did her pigtails after implying...
"Sam, chill," the janitor interjected, raising his hands defensively, "I'm only judging your qualities as a hair stylist, everything else came from you."
Once more Sam deflated faster than a balloon hit by an arrow. Right, he only sucked at making pigtails, which was definitely true now that Sam saw how neat and symmetric Emmy's brown hair could be when someone actually skilled got involved.
"How do you even know my name?" Sam asked after a moment of silence. The only answer he got was a nod towards the name plate on his desk. Right. That only left one question that was answered before Sam could say anything out loud when the janitor tapped on the name tag on his chest. Sam felt a little stupid reading it out loud, "Gabriel."
"Yup," Gabriel replied, popping the p for all it was worth which seemed to fascinate Emmy again. Sam thought he would have to try some of the -admittedly- easy things that he had only just learned worked on her. Hopefully, she could be convinced that her father was just as interesting as Gabriel.
"Hello, Miss Emmy, say is that short for something?" Gabriel asked the toddler, though he didn't expect an answer given what little speech he had heard from the kid so far. So he made his own suggestions, "Emma? Okay, it wouldn't really be a short form, but… Emily? Emmeline?"
The toddler didn't look like any of the names sounded familiar to her, but that didn't have to mean anything. If she was so used to the nickname she might just not really know her full name at her age. At least, Gabriel figured that might be the case. His nephew Alfie had taken until the age of around four before he could remember that his name was actually Samandriel.
"Emerald," Sam replied with a slightly annoyed, but mostly resigned sigh. It wasn't so much about the name his daughter had been given -though that sure was worthy of a sigh as well- but about the fact that once more he hadn't even been involved in the decision. Dammit, Sam currently really wasn't sure he would have been all too good of a father, but he could have been a father if Ruby had let him know she was pregnant at least.
"Seriously?" Gabriel asked, clearly trying not to just laugh at that revelation. Not that Gabriel was one to talk, some of his nieces and nephews were... blessed with... unusual names, but in this case it had come too surprising not to laugh at it. Instead, Gabriel added, "I take it, you weren't asked."
"Ruby said, and I quote, 'I kinda remembered your eyes as being emerald'," Sam deadpanned. At least that was what Ruby said when Sam expressed about the same kind of confusion about the name of his daughter as Gabriel just had.
"That's wrong on so many levels," Gabriel laughed, which seemed to fascinate Emmy to no end. The little girl made grabbing motions toward Gabriel until he gave in and lifted her up to sit on his knees. Emmy proceeded to poke the still upturned corners of Gabriel's mouth and then pulled on the sides of his 'Eh-I-Didn't-Feel-Like-Shaving-My-Whole-Face-And-It-Looks-Cool-Anyway' mustache.
Sam nodded and huffed out a humorless chuckle. Having a kid he had no idea existed eight days ago named after the supposed eye-color of her father was screwed up, especially since Dean was the one with the basically emerald eyes.
"It was the last year of college, I was stupid. Trying things, not thinking about consequences…" Sam explained, sounding more defensively than he meant to once more.
"What makes you think you have to justify any of your actions to me?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow at Sam and unflinchingly took a near hit of a toddler's fingers to the eyes when Emmy reached out to grab his eyebrow. That kid sure was handsy. Maybe, if it wasn't glaringly obvious that this whole situation was completely new to Sam, Gabriel might have judged him more harshly, but as things were they were a father-daughter team with issues that most likely neither one of them was really responsible for. Besides, Sam shouldn't let himself be judged by stranger this easily anyway, which was something Gabriel thought he should tell him, "Seriously, I could have five kids with four women I don't pay child support for, for all you know."
Sam frowned deeply at that. It was true, for all he knew Gabriel was a far bigger screw up in the parental department. Still, Sam's feelings of guilt over the situation made him feel like he had to at least offer some justification. The point Gabriel brought up was too interesting not to question it further though, "Do you?"
"Nope," Gabriel replied, popping the p loudly once more, "But I have a dog who thinks I severely mistreat him when he doesn't get the whole bag of treats at once. We all have skeletons in our closets. Even those of us who've left the closet behind years ago."
Even Sam had to laugh at that, because it did apply to him as well, except for the episode with Ruby that was, which might suggest bi-sexual tendencies. Maybe it was Sam's sleep deprived brain reading too much into things, but he couldn't help wondering if Gabriel had just tried to flirt with him a little, or at least let him know that flirting was in the books. Not that that was something Sam should have concerned himself with under the circumstances. He had enough on his plate as it was.
"Hey kiddo, wanna be as tall as your daddy?" Gabriel suddenly suggested before he, much to Emmy's amusement, lifted the little girl over his head and let her sit on his shoulders.
"I don't think she even knows what that word means," Sam commented, with a light shrug. To be fair though, Emmy also didn't seem to know the word mommy. At least Sam had never heard her say that either. This far he had heard 'no' more than anything else, 'ball' every now and then and sometimes some babbling that might contain words he just couldn't make out. All in all Emmy just wasn't talking much and one of these days Sam would get that checked out, but he first had to have the time and the nerves to take on the next problem.
"Doesn't mean she can't learn it. Right, Missy?" Gabriel replied and shook his shoulders a bit which made the little girl squeak in surprise and then hold on to his head tightly. As things were Gabriel had a headband consisting of Emmy's arms, while Sam and Emmy were on one eye-level, looking at each other.
"This big guy over here is a daddy," Gabriel explained, stressing the word 'daddy' and tapping Sam's forehead, before he pointed at himself and added, "This little guy down here is something called an Uncle Gabriel."
That description made Emmy look between them curiously and startled Sam a little. Uncle Gabriel implied that Gabriel expected to see Emmy more often. Actually, that wouldn't be half-bad given how obviously into her new friend Emmy already was, but it was definitely weird. Too weird. Or was it?
"All this is just temporary, I mean… not like… she's not temporary, but…" Sam stammered, before he took a moment to breathe and actually think things through, "My brother will be here in five days and things will settle down then."
Sam hoped that things would be about as quiet and downright harmonic as they were that moment, once Dean arrived anyway. Dean was good with kids and he could probably show Sam some essential stuff. Until then Gabriel had already given Sam some ideas about how to keep Emmy happier than she had been in the past days. They could just do that for five more days...
"Why wait five days?" Gabriel asked with a raised eyebrow, "Look, you usually work days, I always work evenings and nights. You drop little Miss Emmy off when you go to work, we have dinner after your work ends, I go to my job and you take the kiddo home at a less ungodly hour."
Gabriel didn't need much sleep and he was home from work around midnight most days anyway. A couple hours of sleep were enough to babysit. Besides, Emmy was definitely at an age where she needed midday naps and Gabriel could just nap for a while then too. Other than that there was nothing much in his life he would have to change to accommodate a little girl. Gabriel had one of his nieces or nephews with him spontaneously often enough to know how to integrate a kid into his daily routines without much trouble. Hell, he probably had a bigger Disney collection than any of his parental siblings.
"I don't know," Sam replied in all too honest doubt. On one hand, the suggestion sounded too good to be true, which was a warning sign in itself. On the other, the suggestion sounded just like what he desperately needed, which actually was another warning sign. Then again, Gabriel seemed like a genuinely nice guy who liked Emmy... and possibly liked Sam a bit, if his suggestion for shared dinners was anything to go by.
"You know where I work, you'll know where I live, I can give you the numbers of some of my siblings, if you need babysitter references," Gabriel suggested, before he shrugged and added, "Not like you'd know any babysitter you'd pay good money for any better than you know me."
Sam had to admit that Gabriel was definitely right and the offer was all too tempting. Still, temptation was what brought Sam into this situation in the first place and by Murphy's law, he had firmly screwed everything up as much as had been in his power so far. He couldn't go on screwing things up and just hoping Emmy would somehow bounce back.
"Your daddy," Gabriel started, stressing the word daddy once more as he clearly pointed Sam out for Emmy's benefit before he finished his statement, "Is a worry wart."
"Yes," Emmy agreed without missing a beat, nodding along with Gabriel.
"See? The kiddo and I have a deeper understanding already," Gabriel grinned, obviously very pleased with himself, as he reached into the pocket of his dark-blue jumpsuit and handed Emmy another bonbon.
"Okay, yes, okay, we can try that," Sam shrugged, defeated. Things couldn't go wrong any more than they already had, right?
"The first words I'm going to teach you are worry wart," Gabriel announced, turning his eyes upward to see Emmy watching him, "Looks to me like you're going to need them."
"I'm going to regret this," Sam mumbled.
When Dean arrived five days later he was greeted by a little girl with a big grin and perfectly symmetrical pig tails, sitting on her 'daddy's' shoulders and calling him 'Unky De'.