"Are you going to tell him?" Sam asked.

I glanced in the rearview at Cas, asleep in the back seat, and said, "Tell him what?"

Even with my eyes on the road I could tell how Sam was looking at me. "For that matter, were you going to tell me?"

"Sam," I started, but she overrode me.

"Dee, come on. Even when you were a teenager we could practically set our watches by you, and you're expecting me to believe you're two and a half months late and puking every morning for no reason?"

"I haven't taken a test or anything," I said. Sam snorted, and she had a point; I didn't need to pee on a stick to know. "And you know, angel. He only hit bottom a few days ago, maybe he knows already." I twisted my hands on the wheel. "The first month, it should've been right after Famine, I didn't even notice. And since then...I don't know, I guess I figured I didn't need to worry about it till we saw if the world ended." I could see her taking a breath and said, "Don't even tell me I should stay away, Sam. Don't even try. If this goes bad it won't matter where I am and you know it. The Devil doesn't give a rat's ass about pregnant chicks."

"Yeah, OK," Sam said, and was quiet for a minute. But when she spoke she sounded thoughtful. "You know if I do this, if I jump Lucifer into the box, I'm not coming back."

"I'm aware," I said, short. Like letting her do this wasn't breaking every promise I'd ever made her.

"So I need you to promise me something."

I glanced at her. Sometimes she knows what I'm thinking as well as I do, and it's creepy. "Anything, Sammy."

"You have to promise," she said slowly. "Promise not to try to bring me back."

I wanted to stop the car right there in the middle of the highway so I could scream at her, but instead I said, "No. Sam, no, I didn't sign up for this."

"Dee—"

"Your Hell is going to make my tour look like Disneyland, and you want me to just leave you? No."

Sam can sound so earnest, it hurts to listen to it. "Once the Cage is shut...Dee, it's too dangerous to go poking at it."

"No," I said, like repetition ever did anything to change her mind when she was in this kind of mood. "No, no, no. I am not going to let you rot in there."

"Yes you are," she said, gently. "You don't have a choice."

"You can't ask me to do this," I said. I stared at the road so I wouldn't have to watch her.

"I'm sorry, Dee. You have to."

I tried to make my voice behave and knew it wasn't working. "So what the hell am I supposed to do?" I am a great actor, always have been, but with Sam there's nothing I can do; my voice always gives me away.

"You go somewhere. Take Cas, get a house, have barbecues and teach him about baseball and pie, about how to be human. Teach the kid enough to be safe, but don't make her be a hunter, Dee. You go and live some normal, apple-pie life. Promise me."

I couldn't answer her for a long time, long enough that she said, "Dina."

"I promise," I said, and didn't cry.

I didn't hear him behind me—couldn't hear anything much over the memory of Sam's voice, Dee, it's OK. It's gonna be OK, I've got him. My right eye was swollen completely shut, my left wasn't much better, and every time I breathed I got that stab that meant my ribs were cracked at least, probably broken. I'd spat out one tooth and there was another that was rocking in its socket and my whole body hurt and none of it mattered because Sam was gone, gone forever, my baby sister, and I'd let her do it. I needed to get away before anyone found me—me, and Bobby's body, and the smear of blood that used to be Cas, and now I had a visual for that little description of Chuck's, which thanks, universe, I really needed to know what an exploding water balloon of chunky soup looked like when it used to be someone I—someone I knew, but I wasn't sure if I could stand up. Sam had made me promise to take Cas somewhere for the life she'd always wanted, and I couldn't even do that. Hell, for all I knew the kid was dead too, or soon would be; beating the shit out of a pregnant woman doesn't tend to go well for the baby, though Lucifer had concentrated on my face so it was possible the kid was OK if I somehow didn't kick off in the next five minutes.

So I didn't hear him. He had to come into my restricted vision before I noticed him. First I registered his shoes, Jimmy's good black leather shoes, and I looked up and he was there.

"Cas," I said, so dumb with shock that I sounded calm. "You're alive?"

"I'm better than that," he said, smiling that tiny little smile. He reached out and touched me, on the forehead like the angels always do, and I gasped in a breath that didn't hurt. All of a sudden I could see through both eyes again.

I wanted to say a hundred things. The one that came out was a question. "Cas, are you God?"

"That's a nice compliment," he said. "But no. Although I do believe he brought me back—new and improved."

I didn't actually manage come up with any reply, and he didn't seem to expect one.

Bobby wanted me to come back to his place, and eventually I agreed. Nothing said I couldn't take a few days before I started house-hunting.

Maybe house-hunting was a bad choice of words.

Cas climbed into the Impala with me with no comment at all. We drove away from the last place I'd ever see my sister in silence that wasn't as heavy as I expected, and soon enough it was dark. And I couldn't come up with a subtle way to ask, a way to tell him, so eventually I just said, "What are you gonna do now?"

"Return to Heaven, I suppose," Cas said, serene like he was the very first time I saw him, when he didn't understand why I couldn't believe it when he told me he was an angel.

"Heaven," I repeated, and blinked. The headlights of the oncoming cars were making my eyes water and I didn't want him to see it.

"With Michael in the Cage, I'm sure it's total anarchy up there," he said, like that explained anything.

"So, what? You're the new sheriff in town?"

I'd have given about anything for him to tilt his head and say he didn't understand that reference, but just my frickin' luck, this one he got, because he said, "I like that. Yeah, I suppose I am."

"Wow," I said. I didn't bother trying not to sound bitter. "God gives you a shiny set of brand new wings, and suddenly you're his bitch again." Cas had plenty of reason to hate his dad and it seemed weird he'd forgive him, just like that.

"I don't know what God wants," Cas said, calm and certain. "I don't know if he'll return. It just...seems like the right thing to do."

"Well if you do see him, tell him I'm coming for him next," I said. He'd saved Cas, so I'd make it quick, but he hadn't saved Sam.

"You're angry," Cas said.

"That's an understatement," I snarled. Cas sighed, that tiny little You don't understand the master plan sigh that I'd just as happily never have heard again. Got enough of that while the seals were breaking.

"He helped," Cas insisted. "Maybe more than we realize."

"That's easy for you to say. He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me? All I got is my sister in a hole."

"Dina," Cas said, and apparently he'd been spending too much time with Sam because he was doing the painfully sincere thing now too. "You got what you asked for—no Paradise, no Hell, no destiny. What you do with your life now is for you to choose." And that word made me realize I had to tell him, before he could flap away. I didn't want to do it now, not this way, still expecting to see Sam asleep in the back every time I looked in the rearview mirror, but I couldn't wait.

"Cas," I said, "there's something I have to tell you. Because choosing, that's a thing I can do, and you need to know first."

Cas didn't say anything, but I could feel him waiting. "A couple months ago, when we...when the condom broke. Cas—"

I couldn't say it. I glanced at him, and it was clear I didn't have to. He knew, one way or another; for all I knew he'd felt it when he healed me in the cemetery.

"Sam made me promise," I said, and once I started talking I couldn't stop. "She made me promise to go and, and find a place, with you, and have the kid and have a life, but you were human, almost. She didn't know you were gonna get all angeled up again. I can't...I'm not going to settle down in the fucking suburbs and try to raise a kid by myself and I can't hunt pushing nine months of belly so if you can do something about this it's time to let me know because otherwise I gotta find myself a clinic before it's too late."

I wound down. I mean, where do you go from I'm pregnant with your kid and I want you to get rid of it for me? Not that I was sure I wanted that, exactly, but it sure would be easier. Without the baby to worry about I could throw myself back into hunting, and see how long I lasted. I was honestly betting on "not long", but did I care?

"Dina," Cas said, slowly, carefully, "do you mean you wish me to kill the child you bear?"

I tried not to sound tired when I answered him. I did a crap job of it. "I don't wish it, Cas, but I'm not exactly soccer mom material here, look what just happened to the first kid I tried to raise. You have bigger stuff to do, you have to go run Heaven, and I can't do this by myself. Bobby couldn't deal with a little kid in his place even if I was planning on raisin' it in the panic room and—shit, I don't know, I just—"

I realized that I was breathing too hard, riding the edge of hyperventilating. I pulled over onto the soft shoulder, stopping faster than I should've and not even wincing at the squeal of the brakes, and I threw my car into Park and put my head down on the steering wheel and didn't say anything else because what else was there?

It seemed like a long time later that Cas put one hand on my shoulder. "Returning to Heaven," he said, sounding as if he was feeling his way through the sentence, "doesn't have to mean I never spend any time on Earth."

I picked my head up so I could see him, because I couldn't read his voice. He had that narrowed-eyes look that usually meant he was trying to figure out the best way to get at a demon. His planning face, which was almost as hot as his smiting face. "If you're gonna be sheriff, you can't be worrying about me," I said, because that was just obvious, wasn't it? "That stuff is way more important than me."

"Nothing is more important than you," Cas said, fierce all of a sudden. "If you don't wish a child, Dina, I will help you, but I'm not going to leave you. I'll go to Heaven, to see what needs to be done there, but I will come back."

I stared at him for a long time, the lights of passing cars sliding over his face so his eyes flashed blue and then dark over and over. Finally he said, "Unless you don't want me to."

I almost laughed, but he looked so worried I managed to swallow it. "I want you to," I said.

Cas smiled, and I smiled back. The expression felt wrong on my face. It wasn't great, wasn't even good; Sam was still gone. I still had to decide what I was going to do about...well, everything. I still wanted to die, or throw myself head-first into finding a way to get Sam out, or both. But for this second, maybe even this minute, it was OK.

"Can you stay until I get back to Bobby's?" I asked.

"Of course," Cas said.

I put the Impala back in gear.

The End

This story was written for the 2012 Dean/Cas Big Bang on LiveJournal-go check it out, posting's just started and will be going on for another month or so. My artist was sharys_aogail, who went above and beyond with three fabulous pics. (You can find links to her art at the DCBB, or at my LJ which is linked in my profile.)

This one got started because of my ongoing fascination with what it looks like if John and Mary's older child is a girl; honestly, Dean doesn't change much just because you make him female...