A/N: Vivi here! So apparently Sunday is Saturday because I completely forgot to post yesterday. Sorry! Anyway, here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it; let me know if you do or don't!


Previously on Family Practice:

Sleep found me easily; the nightmare featured tonight was nothing compared to the flashback I'd had earlier. I could handle the familiar, made up scene that I saw every so often behind my eyelids. We were in the Impala, just Sam, Dean, and I. Everything was fine until I started bleeding. I was so scared during the dream that I never stopped in the moment to figure out where I was bleeding from; there was just always so much blood. It always ended with me bleeding myself unconscious while Sam yelled at me to stay awake and someone- I didn't know who but it wasn't Dean- cried in the background. This was the most mild of my nightmares recently; it was almost a welcome relief.


"Wake up, Ali." Someone said cheerfully from behind my door. The voice was followed by several firm knocks.

I groaned, afraid to move. The voice pulled me from the nightmare before I'd bled out, but the position I found myself laying in was pain free. Blissfully pain free for the first time in a long time.

"Can I come in?" The voice asked.

"Yeah." I grumbled into my pillow, squeezing my eyes shut in anticipation of the coming hallway light.

Suddenly something landed on either side of me. My eyes flew open as my body bounced between the things and I rolled over in surprise. I came face to face with Sam, who was on his hands and knees overtop of me, smiling like an idiot.

"What is going on?" I snapped, shocked.

"Good morning to you too." Sam said happily, the smile not waning an inch.

I was silent for a few seconds as my brain tried to process the scene before me. Sam was on top of me, making me blush like a schoolgirl. That meant his hips were flexed. He must not have been wearing his brace; his femur could pop out of place again and he'd need another surgery. "Sam, where's your brace? You know you have to wear that for a few more weeks."

"I've resolved the issue." There was another voice at the door.

I'd know that voice anywhere, even though I couldn't see his face through Sam, who still hadn't moved. "Morning, Cas." I said slowly. "What's going on?"

"I've regained enough strength to heal Sam's hip and foot."

"I see that now." I said, looking up at Sam again. My stomach did little flips. Not angry flips like yesterday; these had no nausea in their wake. I felt my face getting hot again. "Please don't bounce me, Sam. You'll hurt my back." Every muscle in my body seemed to be tense as they anticipated the pain of such a sudden movement. Surely when he got off of me and the adrenaline dissipated, the electrical storm would return with a vengeance.

"Cas fixed you too." Sam said, finally moving off of me. I tensed even tighter than before, dreading the coming fire. He went to stand at the foot of my bed.

"Sam insisted I heal you first, actually. You were asleep." Cas said. "I apologize if I invaded your personal space. Dean has been helping me to understand the concept and it's still rather odd to me."

"So… You healed me while I was asleep?" I asked, still not willing to move lest the pain return.

"Yes. You should have no pain now that the muscle fibers have been repaired and the bruised bone solidified." Cas said from the doorway.

Just then, my usual alarm went off. I reached out unconsciously to turn it off and stopped short just after I pushed the button. No pain. There was no pain when I moved. I sat up quickly. No pain in my back or my neck. My tailbone didn't hurt anymore. A huge smile spread across my face. No soreness, no bone pain, no muscle pain, no stomach pain… It was a great feeling. "Welcome back, Cas."

"Thank you, it's good to be back." Cas said with a slight smile on his face.

"Ali, are you good to do another test? It's a quick one, won't take more than ten minutes." Sam asked as I stood and tested out my new back.

"Uh, I guess. Before breakfast, you mean?"

"Yeah. I'll go wake Dean up." Sam rushed from the room. I could hear him running down the hall; he must have gone stir crazy being confined to those crutches for a few weeks.

As I listened to Sam run down the hall, a wave of anxiety rushed over me. This was only the second time I'd been alone with Cas since I fell; the first time I wasn't able to ask him something that has been on my mind since that pile of mud crashed down into my lap. "Cas, was a bruised tailbone and strained muscles really all I got from falling?" I asked quietly, approaching him in the doorway. "My tattoo didn't pull, so I didn't call you right away, but did anything happen?" My voice became barely a whisper as I soothed my hands over my stomach, imagining the life inside. "Is my little champ okay?"

Cas rested a hand on my shoulder and closed his eyes. After a moment, he reopened them. "The child is in perfect health and the sigil is functioning properly." Cas paused for a moment. "Would you like to know the sex of the child?"

I looked at him suspiciously. "You can tell the sex already?" Normally it would take eighteen to twenty weeks or more for modern technology to determine the sex of a fetus noninvasively. I was rather shocked that Cas even offered to tell me. He hadn't exactly been happy with me these past few weeks. I refused to tell the guys about the baby and he promised me that he wouldn't tell them. Of course, he hadn't known at the time that I never planned on telling them; if he'd known that, he probably would have just told them himself as soon as he saw the soul under my heart; right after that book hit my head in the Cas-quake, when he regained complete control of his previously witch-bound grace.

"A Y chromosome looks very different from an X chromosome. I should be able to see if there are any Y chromosomes in your muscle tissue; if the child is male, he will have already been sending cells to repair damage done to your body throughout your training." Seeing the skeptical look in my eyes, he continued. "If a mother is hurt, the fetus will attempt to aid in mending the injury; it is a phenomenon that your scientists have recently documented. If the child is female, she will have been doing the same, but seeing as you are also female, there would be little difference in the appearance of your DNA until the child is larger and the genes are easier to see. It'll be much easier to tell in a few weeks, but I can find out now, if you'd like. I just need a few minutes to concentrate." Cas said calmly. "Then you wouldn't have to guess or say 'it' or 'he' or 'she' without knowing."

For a few seconds, I contemplated his offer. It would be nice not having to guess at the pronoun to use. I hated having to call the kid 'it' in my head or in conversations with Cas. Lately I'd taken to calling the child 'he' or 'champ', but I really had no idea if it was a 'he' or a 'she'. Honestly I couldn't even feel the baby. Had I not missed a period already, I would have no physical evidence of his or her existence.

Then again, what good would knowing the sex do me? It wasn't like I'd have a baby shower with frustrated guests bringing blue and pink outfits and toys. I wouldn't be decorating a fancy nursery; I'd be lucky to have a place big enough for two bedrooms when the baby came. By then, I would have my own job, my own place, a life apart from the Winchesters where they wouldn't have to slow down and take care of me and the kid when they should be out saving lives from the evils of this world. I would work with them until I started to show, then I would leave. No goodbyes, no announcement of where or why I was going. Our lives would be split cleanly; a clean break is easier to heal.

"No." I said after a while. "Let's make it a surprise. I like surprises."

"I understand. Please remember to be careful, Allison. Had a rock fallen in place of the earth, I wouldn't have been able to help either of you." Cas said, his eyes pained. "You need to take precautions if you plan to engage in that sort of activity."

"Got it." I nodded, crossing my arms. I'd been terrifyingly close to losing the baby, then. My stomach fell and I swallowed hard before speaking again. "Thanks, Cas. So… are you back now? For good this time?"

"Yes. I must admit, being able to fly again makes me very happy." Cas said, a small grin on his face. "However, this means that I will be returning to-"

"Demon hunting. I figured. So you're strong enough to jump right back into the frying pan?" I asked.

"No, not quite. Healing you and Sam took a toll; repairing flesh is always more difficult than killing bacteria. Dean's cold shouldn't take much out of me." Cas shrugged. "I'll need a few more days, but after that, I'll be strong enough to leave."

"You don't have to go, Cas." I said quietly. "You could stay with us. The guys like having you here. I like having you here. It's been… nice having you around for the last few weeks."

Cas smiled sadly. "I've been living under the protection of the Winchesters for that long, Allison. I'm an angel, I shouldn't need protection. I should be the one protecting. While you three are here, or out pursuing relatively low risk creatures, I can better protect humanity by hunting down demons like Francesca."

I flinched at the name, even though it came into my head more than once a day. She was the demon who took my body once to kill my whole family and miscarry my first son, then a second time to kill innocent strangers and nearly cost Sam, Dean, and Cas their lives. I could still hear her voice, which was mine but several octaves higher, lulling strangers out of bars or threatening my friends with a gentle purr to her words.

"Test three?" The voice called from down the hall. I peered around Cas and saw Dean, looking grumpy and newly dragged from sleep, shuffling down the hall while rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand. Sam walked in step behind him, seeming to enjoy every moment of pain free movement.

"Guess so." I replied. "So what's this one? Sam said it would be short." As if on cue, my stomach growled. I'd missed dinner last night, after all.

"You've done it before. Dad's shooting test. Ten bottles, ten shots." Dean said, still half asleep.

Dean was right. I had done this one before. And I failed it. I'd wanted to join them on the hunt for a mysterious bear thing with red eyes, but Dean said I had to pass the shooting test to even accompany them. I failed and they left me with Bobby. Shifters and demons came to his house. They kidnapped me and tried to kill the old hunter. Bobby made it out somehow, but I was taken to Francesca. That's when she possessed me the second, and hopefully last, time. I shivered at the memory of two monsters with the faces of my friends telling me to fade away under the demon's control. It was a scene I tried hard to forget; it was a scene that played out behind my eyelids every week or so.

"This time you gotta get all ten bottles though. Eight won't cut it." Dean added before stopping at my room. Cas reached over casually and pressed two fingers to Dean's forehead. Dean flinched away and glared, bewildered, at the angel. Cas dropped his hand.

"The hell was- oh." Dean shook his head quickly and blinked a few times. "No more dizzy spells, no more snot. Thanks, man."

"You are welcome."

"But-" I started to argue with the upped bottle count.

"Ten out of ten, Li. If you can't do it, just let me know." Dean shrugged. "We'll set you up a nice office in the library and you can be our bunker nerd. Just think of it: hours of researching, digging up lore, precious seconds of usable information given over the phone before getting hung up on by busy hunters who even sometimes say thank you."

His face was way too smug. "Why won't eight do it this time? It was fine last time."

"Last time you just wanted to tag along. And we didn't know a demon and her hoard of monsters were after you. Things are different now, like it or not."

"Whose gun am I using?" I asked sharply.

Dean reached behind his back and produced his favorite, white handled handgun. "This should work. Sight's true. Clip's got ten bullets. Unless you'd like to pick over our collection."

I took his gun and looked it over. "No, this'll do. To the range?"

"Come on." Dean grumbled as he turned, nearly bumping sleepily into Sam. The three of us made our way down to the range, which was cooler than the rest of the bunker. I was shivering occasionally. My feet, clad only in thick socks, were icy cold. Hopefully I wouldn't shiver one of my shots away.

"I already set up the bottles." Sam said as we entered. I glanced around at the exercise equipment before we passed into the range area. Dean insisted that no equipment be allowed in the range. Probably so no one would trip. If he'd only put his equipment in the other room away reliably, I may not have had a black eye for a week and a half. At least I had little to no chance of tripping a shot away during my test.

"When you're ready." Dean said, folding his arms and standing a few feet behind me.

"Hang on," Sam interrupted, passing around ear protection.

"Really, dude? They're already shot to hell." Dean protested.

"You can still hear rats in the walls of abandoned buildings, Dean. I know, because you squirm every time. Protect what you have left." Sam said, shoving the bulky earmuffs at him. With a huff, Dean put it on. We followed suit.

I could have sworn he grumbled something like 'nasty ass rats', but I couldn't be sure.

After taking a deep breath, I raised the gun and eyed each bottle over the sight, gaging the distance from where I stood to where they were at the end of the range. It was about the same distance as when I practiced with Bobby after failing the first shooting test way back when. I'd only managed to shoot all ten on one occasion. It was probably like riding a bike… right? I flipped the safety off and took a deep, slow breath.

"Any time now." Dean said loudly, his voice muffled by my earmuffs. I pulled the trigger and stifled the recoil. One brown bottle fell in glistening shards to the concrete below, spreading out like confetti at New Years.

"Already better than last time." I said softly to myself, remembering the hole in the windshield of one of Bobby's junk cars. The hole that should have been in the bottle just to its left.

The second and third bottles added green and clear shards to the menagerie on the floor.

"She got better." I heard Sam say to Dean behind me. He sounded impressed. He should be. I practiced for hours in that old junkyard.

I hit bottle number four dead on, but just clipped the side of five. It broke, but the pieces were larger, telling of my near failure. Swallowing hard, I sighted in the last five bottles carefully.

"One miss and you're done." Dean said from behind me just as I was about to pull the trigger.

"I'm well aware." I said as my stomach growled long and low. Patiently, I waited until my stomach stopped growling and my hands stopped shaking from the chill. Then I took down six and seven in a single exhale.

"This is totally unfair." I grumbled to myself, though I knew it wasn't true. Being cold, groggy, hungry- these were all things I would have to fight through to hunt in the real world. In this moment, however, I could only imagine how much easier this test would have been if I'd done it later in the day. After lunch, perhaps…

"Hurry up, Ali. Could be a demon-werewolf-bottle-monster about to rip your throat out." Sam said, half-jokingly. I rolled my eyes and took another deep breath, sending shards of the last three bottles to the floor with the exhale.

"Pass. Now can we go eat?" Dean said. I could tell he was still pissy about being woken up with no time for coffee or food. I grinned and handed his gun back to him, safety on.

Breakfast was nice this morning. Dean softened up after having his coffee and all the bunker's inhabitants sat at the kitchen table, just chatting for an hour or so. We had nowhere to be, nothing to hunt; Bobby told us the world had been pretty quiet lately. He'd been running his normal operation from the bunker, helping out hunters nationwide with unusual or difficult cases.

"Can't wait 'til I got my place back." Bobby grumbled over his scrambled eggs.

"We'll get it back, Bobby." Sam said as he took his plate to the sink.

"You two been sayin' that for near a month now. Those creeps coulda been burnin' my books and breakin' my stuff for all I know." Bobby frowned.

"We know, Bobby. Today's the first day Sam has his legs back and I don't think just you and me coulda cleared the place." Dean said, getting another cup of coffee. "We'll need all the manpower we can muster to take that fortress back. Give us a week or so."

"Ali could help." Sam said from the sink, where he was busy washing dishes. "She passed three of the four, right? Maybe getting Bobby's house back could be the last test?"

"She's not ready for that yet." Dean said into his coffee mug as he took a sip.

"What makes you think I'm not ready? Bobby wants to go home; I can help make that happen. Just let me prove it." I pleaded, breathing through my mouth to avoid gagging at the scent of coffee, which I was pretty sure had become a trigger of my morning sickness.

"No way. You're gonna pass these tests before you even get close to a demon or shifter again." Dean said, dead serious.

"Stop treating me like a kid, Dean." I said angrily, the emotion bubbling up from its deep dark hiding place. The intensity of it surprised even me. "You're making me do all these tests, openly hoping I fail, and using me as an excuse for not helping people. Why can't we just go get Bobby his house back? It's not like we don't know what we're up against. I don't see why it's such a big deal. I can help. Just let me help."

No one spoke for a few seconds. Cas kept his eyes on the book before him, Bobby seemed to somehow fold into his eggs, shutting us out, and Sam, after a surprised and worried glance in my direction, busied himself with dishes. Slowly, Dean stood and took me by the elbow, guiding me into the library and away from the group.

"And what exactly was the purpose of that little outburst?" He asked, voice as calm and steady as the open road.

I glared at him and jerked my elbow away, folding my arms over my chest. "Why can't we just go help Bobby?"

"You're not ready."

"You've said that. Several times. Why do you think I'm not ready?"

"Is there anything you need to tell me?" Dean asked, bouncing my question off with another. His gaze felt like it penetrated my very soul; surely he'd be able to read my mind and find out about the kid. After a few seconds though, he didn't erupt in anger at the knowledge that I'd kept a pregnancy secret from them. He was no mind reader, but he certainly knew something was going on. That was close enough for me. I felt my palms start to sweat and the back of my neck get hot.

To hide my unease, I let my eyes wander the slits in the wooden floor. Without taking too much time, I tried to think up a lie that he'd believe. "No." Not a good lie, but maybe it would work?

"Don't lie to me, Li. You haven't been yourself since that book hit your head in the Cas-quake like four weeks ago. If you don't tell me what's going on, we're taking you to a doctor as soon as those bruises fade." Dean said with an intensity in his voice that I hadn't heard in a long time. "I'm not gonna have you suffer again, even if you say you're fine."

"Really, I'm fine." I said, meeting his eyes once I knew mine had enough false strength behind them. "I have a stomach thing, but it's not that bad. I take pills for it every morning." Yeah. Pre-natal vitamins.

"Have you always had that?"

"For a while now. It flared up after the demon. She didn't really watch what she was doing." The idea of a baby 'flaring up' didn't really make sense in my head, but if it made sense in the context of the situation, I wouldn't have to outright lie to Dean. We were just talking about two different things: a child and digestion issues.

He looked me up and down, as if he were trying to decide whether or not to believe me. "Anything else I should know?"

I swallowed hard. He wasn't buying it. What to do… What to do…

I'm pregnant. My stomach turns at certain smells. I have trouble sleeping; if it's not the nightmares, it's the hormones. Sometimes all I want is a hug. I'll start crying for no reason, but I blame it on something getting in my eye. I can't believe you can already tell I'm pregnant; you don't know that you know, but you do. All I want to do is help you guys but you won't let me if I'm vulnerable like this. If I hadn't helped out in the past, you'd be dead and Sam would've been killed by Francesca's minions weeks ago. Just let me help you; I can't be left alone again. "No."

"Okay, I don't believe you. But when you're ready, I'm all ears. Now about that outburst." Dean's expression softened considerably. "I'm not treating you like a kid. I wouldn't push a kid to dig a six foot grave or have extensive knowledge of evil. We're preparing you for the real world, Li. You're new at this. You're not ready to go out hunting yet."

"I get that I'm new, but I've been learning so much and I'm a lot better already. And I killed a wendigo and overpowered a demon before, didn't I? Doesn't that count for anything?" I asked, my steam slowly fading. When he pulled me aside, I hadn't been prepared for this kind of conversation. I thought he was going to reprimand me, make me do an additional test or something. I would've never guessed that comforting tone and rational arguments were in store.

"It's good experience, sure. I'll give you that much. But don't go thinkin' that having those experiences under your belt will do you any good in every situation. It takes years to get good at hunting. And honestly, you're right. I have been using you as an excuse not to go out on cases. Sam needed rest, Cas had to recharge, you were recovering from possession- there was no way in hell that I was letting the Three Stooges stay here alone while me and Bobby went out sniffin' for trouble. How could I leave my family unprotected like that while you're as vulnerable as you are?" Dean was making a lot of sense. I'd never viewed it that way. The bunker was supposed to be impenetrable, but if a demon, weak though she was, got in then there were certainly cracks in our wall of protection. The warding couldn't cover all the creatures. Sharp realization sent a shiver down my spine.

I looked away from him, back to the floor, and leaned against a pillar. Suddenly I felt like such an ass for making a scene in front of everyone. Dean had a good reason for his behavior. Well, except… "But why are you hoping I fail these tests? If you want me to be prepared, shouldn't you be helping me pass them?" My voice was quiet; I was trying to hide the emotion that I was pretty sure had been brought on by a wave of hormones.

Dean was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his tone was guarded. "If you fail, you can't get hurt."

"Dean, I'll just find a way to-"

"You know how Dad died, right?" Dean asked, his eyes meeting mine and showing the massive wall he'd built up in his mind to protect himself from the memories I was sure were about to come forth and lash out at him.

"He traded his soul to save yours." I whispered, hating myself for bringing up memories that hurt my friend. "A demon deal."

"You know how Mom died?"

"Uh, fire, I think. Sam told me a couple months ago." I frowned, recalling the long sit-down conversation we'd had when the demon was taken from me the first time. I hadn't been able to get to know the guys for the first five months of my residence in the bunker; the demon prevented me from talking to them for more than a few seconds. Once she was gone though, I savored every detail. We became fast friends and I learned their story. Needless to say, I cried a lot that day.

"Mom, Dad, Bobby's wife, Ash, Pastor Jim- they all died at the hands of demons, Li. All of them. And you have one mother of a boss demon after you. All her devoted followers, too. If I can keep the body count from going up by failing you where you need to be failed, then so be it. If you can't hold your own, there's no way I'm letting you into any kind of action." Dean paused. "When we found out Francesca took over again... Me and Sam didn't sleep for days trying to find you. We put a hunter APB out on you. Sam was so excited when he saw you in that bar, but then at the motel…"

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, sending the bile back to where it belonged. The image of Sam being thrown into a wall and crashing down onto a table filled my mind. The sickening pop of his hip being forced out of place, his cries of pain, cries for his brother when Dean was thrown against another wall and hit his head with enough force to burst a blood vessel. Had Cas not been there with just enough juice to fix the bleed, Dean would've died. Cas passed out after that and didn't wake up for days.

"Even after we caught you for real and took the demon out, you almost died. We almost lost you, Li. We were one outdated syringe of adrenaline away from having to salt and burn you." Dean continued, rubbing his neck. "There's only so much I can handle at a time. I hate to admit it, but Sam and Cas are usually a handful for me. If we throw you into the mix, you need to be able to handle yourself pretty well 'cuz I'm already stretched thin. And if anything happened to you or Sam on my watch…"

"I get it, Dean." I said slowly, softly. The realization that he felt so responsible for Sam and I made me rethink my attitude towards his tests. I already knew Sam had gone through them, though not as regimented as I had. His tests were on the job, in life or death situations. Dean wanted to take that kind of pressure off of me and make sure I wasn't going to get myself or anyone else killed before I went out. "This is rough for you too. I just don't want to be coddled. The way you talk about me makes me feel like a burden. Like you wish I weren't around. Like you wish Cas hadn't brought me here, or healed me after the barn. It would've been so much easier for him to just let me die in there-"

Dean swept me up a strong bear hug. "I'm glad you're here, Li. I just want to keep it that way. I meant it when I called you family."

I hugged him back and felt a few awkward tears slip from my eyes. Stupid hormones. This isn't a Hallmark movie. This was supposed to be an argument. I was furious just a minute ago. Sooner or later I was sure I'd get whiplash from these mood swings.

He let go before I was ready and caught a glimpse of my tears as I wiped them away. "Are you crying?"

"No." I said quickly, forcing a smile. "Got something in my eye."

He gave me the sassiest skeptical look and simply said, "Yeah, okay."

I laughed and punched his shoulder lightly. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and we walked back to the kitchen.

"Who's up for a day at the beach?" Dean asked, going to sit back at the table and finish his coffee.


A/N: Review please! I love to hear from you lovely people!