AN: And here's the rest ….I'm a little sorry fir the end, but mostly just excited for the next chapter because I think you'll all really like where this is going!(also, reviews make authors happy!)
Dean was smart enough to let it go at that, and turned back to the rest of the table,
"Congratulations," An older woman with short dark hair nodded to Elizabeth and Dean as she took a seat at the table.
"Thank you ma'am," Elizabeth replied with a polite smile.
"I'm Linda Tran, I work in the homeland division in the capital." She explained.
"She's one of the people that keeps our power on and water running." Dean explained while Elizabeth took a second look at Linda,
"Forgive me ma'am, but do you have a son?" She asked.
Linda looked startled but nodded, "Yes, Kevin is working out of the Academy, how did you know that?"
"I've been working with him for the past few weeks," Elizabeth explained diffusing the situation, "sorry if that sounded cryptic."
"Not at all, perhaps you could enlighten me as to what exactly my son does for the North, whenever I ask he says he doesn't want to bore me with the details." Linda looked concerned again. "He always sounds so tired, I hope he's eating well enough."
"I wish I could help you ma'am, but it really is pretty boring, just a lot of paperwork you know." Elizabeth brushed off the question as best she could, knowing without being told that there was a reason Mrs. Tran was being kept in the dark about her son's work.
"Well, I'm glad that someone sweet like you is around to look out for him, he's a bright boy you know."
A slight pressure on her shoulder alerted Elizabeth to the president's return, and the conversation dropped off as he took his seat and the food was brought out.
It really was quite good food all things considered. There were certainly no shortage of spices and butter in the president's mansion. Roman ate quickly and surprisingly neatly, but kept his gaze roaming the room as he wiped the crumbs from his mouth and put his napkin on his plate. A server hovering nearby hurried in to take the finished plate from him and he stood to address the room again.
"I'm afraid I must excuse myself for a bit to attend to some business," He glanced at his guests and continued, "I hope you'll manage to keep the party going in my absence."
Once the president left the room, the atmosphere at the head table relaxed significantly.
"Will there be dancing?" Elizabeth asked after a few minutes, and was met with openmouthed stares from the rest of the table.
Olivia and Sam carefully concealed their faces and Dean chuckled and placed a hand on hers. "Forgive my wife; things are a bit different where she comes from."
"Which is where exactly?" An older man asked curiously. "All we've been hearing is that you're a southern turn coat."
"Harold!" A woman of about the same age scolded the man from her place next to him. "Forgive my husband's language dear, we don't think you're a turn coat."
"Well, I suppose I am, if we want to get technical about it." Elizabeth shrugged. "What it really comes down to is that I couldn't trust the South to have my back when I needed them to."
"What is it like down there?" Harold asked brushing off his wife's tittering disapproval.
"You know that is the single most common question I've gotten while I've been here." Elizabeth chuckled, "But if you must know, it's pretty similar to the North in a lot of ways, but also rather different I guess."
"Different enough to have dancing." Harold muttered. "I've heard there are beaches year round."
"Only at the very southern parts, the rest has a winter much like here, just not quite so much snow. That's the part I come from originally,"
Over the course of the evening, this conversation played out a multitude of times, with little variation. The consensus seemed to be that to Northerner's the South was a country of beach loving, leisurely people who were ruining their own economy through laziness and took the North's offer of assistance as a threat of invasion so retaliated with their armies.
Neither Elizabeth nor Dean responded to such claims, choosing instead to change the subject or end the conversation.
The other main topic of conversation was the impending baby, on which many questions were asked that the couple just didn't have answers to. Was it a boy or a girl? Did they have a name? Should we expect all the fanfare that came with Mandy's birth?
Of course Elizabeth and Dean weren't the only ones being hammered with questions. Everyone wanted their chance to personally meet Olivia and Mandy, who did not seem to be enjoying the attention she was getting in the slightest. There were a few other children at the gala, but they all kept close to their parents and seemed as stoic as the adults. Mandy kept a hand on either Sam or Olivia and the other was constantly threatening to disappear into her mouth.
"She hasn't sucked her thumb in almost a year." Olivia whispered to Elizabeth during one of their short reprieves.
"She's probably nervous and exhausted, I know I am."
A server spied the women taking a rest and came over with a tray of drinks. "Could I offer you ladies some refreshment? It must be tiring being on display all evening."
"Thank you," Elizabeth nodded and selected a crystal glass of water, expecting Olivia to do the same, and was surprised when her friend reached for a Champaign flute instead and downed half the glass in one pull.
"Thirsty?" Elizabeth asked nodding at the now half a glass of Champaign.
"You could say so." Olivia replied, searching out Sam in the crowd, it wasn't hard to spot him, or the tiny figure curled on his hip. From this angle it was impossible to see if she was awake or asleep.
"Congratulations on the baby by the way," The server added shyly, "I remember when Miranda was born, we had the day off school and everything."
"Her birthday is a national holiday," Olivia agreed a bit tight lipped. She downed the rest of the Champaign and placed the flute back on the serving tray, standing a little too quickly, she balanced a hand on the back of her chair. "If you'll excuse me, I need to find my husband and see about getting the little princess to bed at a reasonable hour." She managed a smile and disappeared into the crowd.
"If you don't mind me asking, are you hoping for a boy or a girl?" The server asked, she seemed to have trouble maintaining eye contact, something Elizabeth had noticed in many people tonight.
"I'm not really sure, some days I want a little girl, but others I can imagine Dean chasing a little boy," The server girl laughed and brought a hand up to cover her mouth at Elizabeth's confused look.
"Sorry, it's just hard to imagine Captain Winchester as a father, he seems so, I don't know, kind of scary." She seemed to realize what she'd said and blushed a dark shade of pink "I mean, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that,"
"No, it's alright, he kind of is a little scary at first, but he's also very kind, and loyal and he'll make a great father. I just know it." Elizabeth assured the poor girl, "What's your name honey?" she appraised the girl who was probably about the age she'd been when she joined the army.
"Annie,"
"Nice to meet you Annie," Elizabeth replied with a smile, holding out her hand. As Annie shook it, Dean strode up to the table looking a bit tired, and a bit grouchy, and immediately Annie backed up a step.
"We were just talking about you." Elizabeth greeted as she held out a hand and ran it along Dean's shoulder as he flopped into the chair next to her. "Dean, this is Annie, she's been taking good care of me."
"Hello," Dean looked up and flashed a brilliant grin that Elizabeth knew was entirely for show, but it had the desired effect. Annie blushed again, more from embarrassment than distress, and muttered something about "nice to meet you" before hurrying back toward the kitchen.
"Something I said?" Dean asked watching her go with a raised eyebrow.
Elizabeth giggled. "Probably not, she's just a little skittish; it seems to be a common character trait around here."
"Well I've been sent to collect you; Sam talked President Roman into letting us out early since Mandy's been asleep on his shoulder for an hour. Come on the car is waiting out front."
They passed through the crowd with relative ease, a few calls of "nice to meet you" and "Good night" drifted in over the din of voices, but Elizabeth was relieved to avoid a formal goodbye to the President at least. Sam and Olivia were already situated in the back of the limo when they opened the door and climbed in, careful not to jostle Mandy who was curled up under Sam's suit jacket.
Not much was said on the drive back, everyone was tired and lost in their own thoughts for the time being, Elizabeth let her head rest on Dean's shoulder and found herself blinking back into consciousness as the car slowed to a stop to enter the gates of the Academy compound.
"Hey there," Dean murmured kissing her hair. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't" Elizabeth assured him, Sam had an arm curled around Olivia who must have fallen asleep at some point too, and the other ran softly over Mandy's sleeping frame.
The wheels crunched on the perpetually damp gravel and Elizabeth glanced out the window at the darkened deserted campus as they rolled slowly past the dormitory buildings towards the officers' apartments. A shape by one of the doors caught her attention as she was about to voice a question to the rest of the car, it registered in her head what it was.
A small boy, wearing what looked like pajamas huddled in a ball on the concrete step with one hand extended to the door half-heartedly banging on it.
"Stop the car!" Elizabeth shouted to the driver, jerking Olivia and Mandy both awake as she opened the door and dashed out into the freezing night. Dean was behind her in an instant and caught up by the time she reached the boy. He was tiny, probably less than 10 and had dark hair.
"We need to get him inside," Elizabeth started to unbutton her coat but Dean stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, she swiveled about to go off on him for interrupting, but was met with his held out suit jacket.
"Come on, you'll freeze and we have to hurry." Dean supplied. He bent down to the boy and spoke softly, "Hey there, you're ok, we're going to get you somewhere warm alright?" He reached out and the boy whimpered and shrank away, his short sleeved shirt left a lot of skin exposed to the air and Dean realized that he was probably disoriented from the cold.
He grabbed the jacket from Elizabeth and wrapped the boy in it hauling him into his arms, ignoring the protests and half-hearted thrashing that the boy protested with.
"It's ok sweetheart, its ok," Elizabeth cooed reaching out to brush back his hair, the skin on his forehead was ice cold and he shied away from her touch.
"Inside now," She confirmed. Olivia, Sam and Mandy caught up then and gasped at the sight of the boy. Rather than wait for the car again they crossed the short distance to the apartments on foot, Dean keeping the jacket wrapped tightly around the boy. As soon as they were inside Elizabeth ran into their bedroom grabbing blankets off the bed and Sam built up a fire in the fireplace of the main room.
Olivia slipped off to put Mandy to bed, which by some miracle took all of five minutes, and was back with a large dry t shirt a pair of pants that were in no way going to fit the tiny frame.
The boy was still disoriented and mumbling broken words that came out sounding like "sorry," "accident" "please" and most worryingly, "not again" as the adults rushed around trying to get his temperature back up.
"We need to warm him up," Olivia warned, as Dean unwrapped the jacket and carefully laid the little boy on the couch, his shirt was damp from probably a mix of sweat and snow and wasn't helping the situation she slipped it off over his head and pulled the much larger one on in its place. The boy's eyes snapped open for a second staring at her and she managed a smile, "hey there little guy, don't worry, you'll be fine," the blue irises slipped back beneath their lids as he seemed to pass out, not a good sign,
"His body temperature dropped awfully fast," Elizabeth whispered, "they don't lock those doors until 9 pm right?" She glanced at the clock; it was barely 10:30.
"He's tiny though, and the crap they feed Academy kids doesn't help put any meat on their bones." Dean started working the buttons on his dress shirt open, "Skin to skin will work faster, he explained at Elizabeth's bewildered expression, "turn up the heat too, it'll get warm in here, but he needs it." With that Dean turned and grabbed the comforter from their bed draping it around his shoulders and went to sit next to the kid on the couch, Olivia helped lift him up until he was resting on Dean's chest, and Dean let out a whoosh of breath as the freezing child leached all the heat from him.
For the next hour, he and Sam switched off sharing body heat with the boy until he wasn't icy to touch anymore, and Elizabeth and Olivia made up the spare room for the boy to sleep in. Once he'd warmed back to almost normal they tucked him into the bed with several extra blankets.
"Someone should stay in here, he'll panic if he wakes up somewhere strange all alone." Dean said. He'd been hovering near the boy even when he wasn't the one supplying heat. "You should get some sleep," He nodded to Sam and Olivia, who nodded back wearily and padded out towards their room.
"I'll bring you a blanket," Elizabeth sighed, "How does this happen? I mean there are adults in the dorms right? Someone looking out for the kids?"
Dean shrugged. "They're probably the ones who locked him out." He let out a slow breath thinking about his time at the academy. "Sam was a little older than him when we got here, I was older, so we were put in different buildings. I remember they were worse to the little kids, trying to break them before they turned into me I guess." He stopped speaking, and seemed lost in thought, Elizabeth took the opportunity to bring in one of the blankets from the living room and slid down onto the floor next to him, laying the blanket over both their knees.
"This place, it isn't exactly child friendly is it?" She asked, resting a hand over her stomach.
"Hey, don't think things like that, our baby is going to be great, they're going to be loved, and protected and have a real family alright?"
"And after tonight I can see why Olivia hates being a presidential prop, does it ever end?" Elizabeth sighed. "I mean, we're never going to just be able to live our lives how we want."
"Maybe not out there, but inside these walls, we're going to be alright, and there's a lot of people rooting for us to make it, you know that." Dean replied taking her hand in his.
"I wish we could talk to Ellen, and Adam, and maybe even my parents, they don't know anything about this." Elizabeth sighed.
"I know baby, I know." Dean kissed the hand he held, "Come on now, you two need to sleep," He spoke to her stomach and she let out a small laugh allowing herself to be hauled up and walked across the hall to their bedroom. Someone had thought to throw the comforter back on the bed and she deftly straightened it and crawled between the layers nestling down into the pillow. "I'll see you in the morning." Dean whispered, kissing her forehead before he turned to go.
Back in the guest room he settled on the floor and tried to bunch up the blanket to use as a pillow, but couldn't get comfortable. Instead he settled for leaning against the wall lost in memories until he finally drifted off somewhere around 3 am.