AN: I can't promise I will always update this quickly, but I wanted to at least upload Dean's reaction.

Chapter 2

What to Expect When You're Expecting

"It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons."

Friedrich Schiller, German poet and playwright

Well, George Masters' widow turned out to be a big help, given that she had witnessed the attack on her husband, promptly hauled her dog to the vet's and had him put to sleep. Dean suspected that couldn't be the entire story, but the woman certainly seemed sure the dog was dead.

She had lied to the police initially, telling them she didn't know where her dog was. Talking to her today, it was obvious she didn't regret doing that, either. She knew they would put the dog under observation, maybe treat it for whatever disease it had, and perhaps even doubt that the once again docile dog could be capable of the damage that was done to her husband. The damage that was done to George Master's body didn't look like the work of one dog. Dean could only guess that the shapeshifter had been crazed when he'd attacked him.

So, Gretchen Walker had taken her husband's killer to be put down immediately. She hadn't warned the vet's office of the potential for a communicable disease until later that day and God knows how many animals were put into quarantine for a days afterward and how much sterilization had to be done at that poor vet's office under the fear that the animal might have carried rabies. Apparently, to avoid a lawsuit, the wealthy woman had written a large check to the vet's office to buy her way out of trouble.

Oh yeah, the Walker woman was a bitch, but he did owe her.

According to her her, the skinwalker had been cremated immediately, so while the euthanizing drugs wouldn't have been enough to kill him, he never even had a chance to recover from them before being put into the fire. Her ruthlessness after she saw her husband being shredded to pieces by the family pet had made Dean's job a hell of a lot easier.

The problem now was to find out where the rest of this sleeper cell of skinwalkers could possibly be. He pulled the keys to the hotel out of his pocket and opened the door to the intensely turquoise and blue room. He saw Cas in the corner on the other side of the large dresser/TV stand. Dean couldn't see what he was doing, but he was staring at something next to the dresser very intently.

"Hey, Cas. How'd it go with the witness?"

The angel gave Dean only the quickest of looks before shushing him. He considered raising his voice instead—he'd always did the opposite of what he was told—but shushing wasn't really in Cas's normal repertoire.

The hunter raised an eyebrow and approached Cas slowly, now intensely curious about what had the angel's attention. When he spotted a crib, Dean stopped short. "Why is there a baby in the room?" Dean asked. Was it a skinwalker baby? Hopefully it wasn't another shapeshifter kid. The whole random bodily explosion thing was a little freaky, even by his standards.

"His mother was unfit."

"You do recall that I'm a hunter and you're an angel and we don't run an orphanage. You can't just kidnap a woman's child just because she doesn't treat it right."

"I am aware of that," Cas said. "His soul is bright." And then the angel looked at him like that simple statement explained it all.

"Cas..." There were a number of facets of human nature that Dean thought he would need to explain to the angel, but he had assumed the very huge faux pas of taking someone's child was not one of them.

There was a loud, long-suffering sigh. "His soul is very like yours. Bright, pure, warm."

Dean was grateful that the angel's blue eyes were still focused on the child in the crib because he knew he was shifting awkwardly at the mention of his soul. Dean wasn't very fond of hearing people talking about his soul in general. It made him uncomfortable, made him squirm inside. It was worse when it was Cas talking about it, and the angel always looked confused as to why it did. The soul just seemed so private in the first place. Add to that the way Cas tended to talk about Dean's soul and it felt like the angel was talking about his dangling bits.

"She never touched him," Cas said. "Only when necessary. Only enough to get state aid and child support for him. The father abandoned her long before she was aware she was even pregnant." The angel's hand moved down into the crib to run through the tuft of red-blond hair atop the baby's head. "She was giddy to be rid of him. Once I promised her she would be paid handsomely to get rid of her 'cash cow, that is.'"

"You bought this baby?"

"She believed I was going to," he answered. "You told me once that when humans want something, they lie." The damned angel was actually smirking at this. "I was feeling particularly human today."

Dean wondered just how much of a bad influence he had been on his friend over the years. To take a woman's child like this... The act was done out of such blind instinct that it was almost frightening. It was reminiscent of what Cas had done with Purgatory, and Dean's forgiveness for that had not come quickly or easily.

"I adjusted her memories and have asked someone with more skill in these areas to alter the official records. As far as the world is concerned, Meri lost her baby to its father."

"Mary?" Dean repeated, feeling, if it was possible, even worse about this entire situation knowing that the baby's mother had shared a name with his own.

"Meriwether," Cas said, instantly knowing where the hunter's brain had gone because, damn him, he couldn't manage to stay out of his head. "It is spelled differently."

Narrow fingers pulled down the green blanket that covered the baby. "She could not see past this." Dean saw the baby's hand, or rather lack of one, and frowned. Poor kid. That sure as hell wasn't going to make life easy. From the sound of it, it had already made it difficult.

"Can you heal him?"

"I have," Cas said. "I have helped the malnutrition he suffered at her hands, as well a few skin conditions he developed from being left in his crib for many hours of the day. His hand is nothing that can be healed. It is how my Father made him."

"You realize the foster care system is far from perfect, and he might have a hard time getting adopted." Dean didn't like to be the one who took a dump in Cas' little plans for the baby's future, but he hoped the angel was at least being realistic.

"Of course I do," Cas said. "That is why I—" Before he could finish his thought, they were no longer alone in the room, and by that faint noise of fluttering wings, Dean knew it was one of Cas's family paying them a visit.

"All done," said the voice of one of many angels he could have gone a lifetime without having to hear again. Even though the angel had been a large part of why they had been able to knock some sense into Cas last year, his actions hadn't exactly made Dean want to become best buddies. He was still an annoying prick most of the time. "You two are now the proud mommy and daddy of John Gabriel Winchester."

Dean looked up at Balthazar and then back at Cas as his brain tried to catch up. There were so very many things wrong with that statement that he simply didn't know where to begin. "Wait... Winchester?"

"Castiel doesn't exactly have a surname to bestow on your bouncing baby boy," Balthazar said as he swaggered over to the crib. He glanced at the child inside and smirked. Dean may have been confused as hell, but that protective nature of his was daring the angel to make a comment about the baby's arm. In fact, it welcomed the fight that would ensure. "Odd... I thought couples like you usually found some adorable little child from China to adopt." Dean should react to that, to tell him to fuck off at the insinuation that he and Cas were anything but friends, like brothers really, but the obnoxious asshole had been this condescending for years now and getting angry did nothing to stop it.

"Kid has a bit of the ginger genes in him. I'm honestly surprised that you'd take that risk, Cas. You know gingers have no souls."

Before Dean could have even blinked, he witnessed Cas slamming Balthazar into the dresser, which shook violently at the impact. Dean wasn't the most sensitive to the powers angels possessed, but even he had sensed the way Cas's Grace had flared as he snarled at Balthazar, "He has a soul."

Balthazar winced and glared at the other angel. "It is a joke, mama bear." He looked to Dean. "Are you honestly telling me that you have let him watch porn, but you haven't shown him South Park yet?"

"I didn't show him the porn. He found it on his own," he replied before placing a hand on Cas's arm. Cas's grip on Balthazar lessened, but he was still shooting him daggers. "Now, will one of you two featherbrains please explain to me what is going on, and why the kid's name is John Gabriel?"

"His mother named him Jacob Edward, and I thought it wrong for a hunter to raise a child named after a werewolf and a vampire, fictional though they may be. And your family seems to prefer to name children after the deceased, so I chose your father and my brother."

Dean had the sudden feeling of being back in high school biology, with that clinical teacher who answered everything so matter-of-factly that even the idea of cutting into a frog had been boring. (Admittedly, at the time, Dean had cut into much worse than frogs.) Cas's logic was so dry, so straight-forward that Dean wasn't entirely sure how to argue with it to make the angel understand why his reasoning was so completely flawed.

Cas released Balthazar to face Dean fully. He looked almost troubled, and Dean thought perhaps the angel had realized the number of assumptions, almost all incorrect, he had made in taking this baby. "I know that you had your problems with my brother, but I had presumed, perhaps wrongly, that he had redeemed himself in your eyes by standing up to Lucifer."

Yes, Dean was sure his brain was going to lurch to a stop any moment now. The world had gone mad; perhaps he had, too. "Gabriel? You think the problem is because you named the kid Gabriel?"

"And on that lovely domestic note, I am off to spend my night with a very special girl," Balthazar said. "Or rather, ten special girls. Have fun with the joys of parenting, Mummy and Daddy." With that, the angel was gone, leaving Dean with the only one of the heavenly things that he could actually tolerate. Though, at the moment, he wasn't even sure he could do that.

"Cas, look, Gabriel was an ass who redeemed himself, yes. But that isn't the point." He looked down at the sleeping baby in the crib and then back up at Cas's too-blue eyes. "You're expecting me to, what, adopt the kid? Have you forgotten what I do?"

That head immediately tilted to the side and Dean was reminded again of biology class, except this time, he was feeling more like the frog being dissected. "I remember events from hundreds, even thousands of years ago. Why would you assume I have somehow forgotten that you are a hunter?"

"Because you brought home a baby!" Dean hissed in exasperation. "Do I need to remind you how royally I screwed up with Lisa and Ben? How dangerous just being me is, even if I decide to give up my life as a hunter?"

"You would not be without support," Cas said. "I have been given more freedom from Heaven. After the events of last year, many of my brethren do not trust me and would prefer I not be there nearly so much. Apparently, they fear what I might do if I get involved in Heaven again."

"You did pop purgatory and threaten to become God after killing the last of the top archangels," Dean said, wryly. He may have forgiven Cas, but Dean was never one to forget, as nearly anyone in their family could vouch for. There were times he hated how easy it was for him to throw up the mistakes of others when it suited him, especially when his own mind supplied that he had his own sins to bear.

Cas winced at the mention of his own well-intention-paved road to hell—or in this case, purgatory—and sighed before continuing.

"I don't know for certain who has taken over in my absence, but they do not want me in heaven. They feel I am better for being here, and when they need my assistance or opinion, they go through either Balthazar, or perhaps Metatron. My time in heaven has been greatly limited over the last year, and that wasn't entirely my own doing." Dean knew Cas still traveled to heaven but spent more time hanging around than he used to. He had just assumed it had been Cas's choice, not an order from above.

"So you are saying you want to raise the kid, too?" Dean asked, trying to imagine the world where he and Cas raising a child together wasn't weird as hell.

"I am saying that I will be here to help. As will Bobby and Sam." Cas gave him that look, that all knowing one that made Dean usually want to punch him in the nose. "You want a family, Dean, and this child needs one."

Before a retort could come to Dean's lips, he found Cas's hands at either side of his face and an intense wave of loneliness and sorrow engulfing him. He felt an ache in his stomach, an soreness to his body, and a fear of so many intangible things he couldn't place a name on any of them. And yet, underneath it all was a brightness and beauty that Dean had never seen before. Though he was certain that what he was seeing would be beautiful to anyone, he felt as though something inside was reaching out toward that brightness and beauty.

The sensation was all so overwhelming that his knees buckled, and he slid out of the angel's grasp. He very quickly found himself on the floor in a heap, breathing heavily and wide-eyed. He turned his head up to look at his friend to find an unreadable expression on the angel's face. He could feel the same longing for human contact so strongly he could taste it. The emptiness he'd just experienced was enough to bring tears to his eyes. It felt like a torture that could have been used effectively in Hell.

"What was that?"

"What I saw when I looked into that child's soul," Cas said, sadly. The hunter found a hand extended toward him to help him to stand, and despite his usual nature to take care of himself, he took the angel's hand. He was still a little shaky even as he was righted back on his feet, though he wouldn't admit aloud he was grateful as the angel's hand moved to his elbow to support him.

"Is that what you see when you look at him?"

"I can block it out. Some souls' pain makes it more difficult than others." He gave Dean a pointed look that let him clearly know that his was one of those souls. He wasn't the type to apologize, but after what he'd just felt, he had a nearly overwhelming need to tell Cas he was sorry for what his own damaged soul must have put the angel through. Maybe still was.

He stopped himself from saying it when he realized that the angel had been underhanded in showing Dean the baby's soul. There was no way now that Dean could reject the child now. He had already gotten a glimpse of this baby that even biological parents never got. Cas had irrevocably tied him to the boy. The angel could be a manipulative bastard when he wanted to be, and he unfortunately knew every single one of Dean's buttons.

The hunter inched toward the crib and looked down at the child, at the newly-named John Winchester. "What happens when the kid looks nothing like me?"

"He has remarkably green eyes," Cas said before reaching down to brush his hand over John's hair. It was a surprisingly tender action, and it was almost impossible to believe this was the same being that had years ago entered that barn as a warrior, as a creature who threatened to throw Dean back into the pits of hell. It was even more difficult to picture him as the vengeful thing he had become in that lab last year. "I also believe he will have freckles as he grows older and gets more exposure to the sun. These will be enough. People see what they want to see, and whatever lack of resemblance there is, they will assume it comes from his mother."

Dean tried not to dwell on the whole "remarkably green eyes" being a resemblance to himself, and instead focused on the baby in the crib. This was a million ways of fucked up, but Feathers there had made sure he couldn't turn the kid down. Son of a bitch.

The boy's eyes fluttered open, and just as Cas had said, they were an almost emerald green. They weren't the same as Dean's, which had the smallest flecks of brown giving them a color that Lisa had once described as "mossy." The baby instantly recognized the angel and offered him a smile as he leaned toward the hand that was gently playing with his hair. As the sleep faded from the baby's eyes, he finally noticed Dean standing at Cas's side, and he gave him a cautious stare.

Dean reached into the crib and placed his hands beneath each of the baby's arms to pick him up out of the crib. "Hello, Johnny." He had found it difficult holding children in the past, but Johnny instantly snuggled against his chest and actually sighed as Dean tightened his grip and held him close. "You're probably going to regret this, and if you do, make sure you take it up with your Uncle Cas over there, but... I guess I'm your new daddy."

When he darted a glance up at the angel, he was rewarded with an affectionate smile.