Hey there guys :) Wow, what a quick update. I would like to thank everyone for supporting this story so far, for all your lovely comments and for following this so far. I have started to reply to the newest reviews, but there was one or two people I couldn`t respond to, but wanted to. Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful week. If anyone would like to contact me via my writing email please feel free. It is in my profile.

Kate was shocked, but to her credit she hid it rather well after the initial few seconds. Her eyes widen briefly. Actually her entire face seemed to widen with surprise. Her jaw dropped wide open, pink lips separating as she gawps at me like a dump goldfish. She swiftly gets a hold on her emotions though and promptly slams shut her mouth and tells Sam and Adam to go into the living room and watch cartoons. My stomach sinks as it fills with despair. My heart wasn`t jumping around inside my throat with dreaded anticipation, instead it lay dead in my chest as I try and swallow around the newfound lump in my throat.

This was it. She was definitely going to want rid of me now. What an idiot. Why did I have to be cursed with such an abnormally large pie hole that never knew when to can it? What if she told John? He was such a traditional sort of man (adultery and abandonment aside) with traditional values. What was he going to say? Shit. One moment of stupid honestly and everything I had been working my ass of at rebuilding these past months and BAM. Gone. Destroyed. Over. Well shit.

"Honey?"

John pokes his head around from where he was still washing the dishes. The kitchen had a weird layout with the heavy oak dining table sat up against the wall and the sink right under the window, hidden to us by the tall fridge freezer and cupboards. "What`s wrong?" he asks, frayed old dish rag still in hand as he dries off a large white plate with daises on.

I hold my breath, trying to mentally prepare myself for the uproar, despite knowing that no amount of preparation would be enough to deal with the inevitable fallout that was to come in five, four three two-

"Nothing is wrong. I was just talking to Dean and he said he needed to go to the shops to get some bits. Do you need anything?"

What the hell? I frown at the woman from behind eyes that were narrowed in confusion. Was she going to dump me in the middle of nowhere? I look at her smiling face. That hardly seemed likely. So what the hell was this about? Did she want privacy so she would really tear into me? Did she not want to cause a scene in front of the kids?

"Come on sweetie," she pats me on the back as she walks by to get her handbag.

I get to my feet and follow her uncertainly out into her car that was parked on the road. The impala almost always got pride of place in the driveway because it was John`s pride and joy, unless Kate was crafty and got home a few minutes before him. I reluctantly get into the car, trying to figure out what it was exactly that she had planned. We drive a few miles down the road into the town centre, past the large Asda supermarket with its brightly lit sign proudly boasting about its new twenty four hour opening times and overflowing carpark. We drive for a few miles more until we reach a quiet little pub that was situated in the middle of a pleasant little village covered in flowers.

"I didn`t think you would want to talk in the house," Kate explains when she sees how baffled I look. "I thought you might like to have a chat in the car and then go in here and get a drink. I won`t tell John," she grins at me and reaches out and flattens down a tuft of my hair that had been dislodged by the wind that had come in through the open windows. Her face falls upon seeing my face. "We don`t have to I just thought…" she trails off with a sigh. "I didn`t think it was a good idea to brush over this. I thought you might like to talk to someone about it?"

I nod slowly, though I have no idea where to start.

"Why don`t I start then?" she offers after a couple of minutes of silence. She obviously twigged that I either was too tense to speak or didn`t know what to say. Both would be a fairly accurate description of how I felt.

"Darling, I am so touched that you felt you could confide in me." She places a hand on my knee and squeezes gently. I struggle to remember the last time of own mother had done something so loving, so motherly, but come up short.

Unsure how to reply, I simply nod.

"Adam was out of line in what he said, and I don`t worry I will be having words with him later, but he didn`t mean it sweetie. He`s too young to understand what he meant and wasn`t aware of how big a thing it was that he just blurted out."

Again I nod. I was seriously starting to feel like one of those nodding dogs you see in the backs of cars. Kate had three nodding animals in hers-a dalmatian, golden retriever and a lion with a fluffy mane from the zoo. I was furious with Adam, he had no right to say what he did. What happened to keeping it a secret? However pissed off I was, there was nothing I could do to take it back now and he was just a kid. He didn`t mean to and had no way of comprehending just how big a deal this was. The old Dean would have gone off on one and stormed out, gotten pissed and fell back in a few days later, still in a foul mood. The new Dean could react in whatever way he wanted.

"Dean?" She looks worried.

"I know. Adam is just a kid. He didn`t mean to."

Silence again. We watch as another car pulls up into the pub`s small gravel carpark. A young couple with a new-born baby get out. The girl was still carrying some of her excess baby weight, but pushed the red stroller with a gleeful smile as her boyfriend locked up the car. They looked so happy. That would be Kate and John again in a while, pushing their new bundle of joy. Despite what anyone said I did still have my doubts about how long this arrangement could continue once Baby Winchester bounced into our lives. He or she would have two older brothers who would adore him. There hardly seemed any need for me to stick around.

"I hope you didn`t feel as though I would be mad at you, Dean," Kate says in a tone that makes it obvious she already knew that yes, I did think exactly that. She sighs. "I`m so incredibly sorry. I had no idea."

I try to shrug it off, but I am afraid I came across as a scared little boy who needed a hug rather than an almost grown man who couldn't care less. "It`s fine," I insist even though it wasn`t. So Kate had zero issues with me liking Cas, what about John?

"I love you Dean, as though you were my own son. Surely you must know that by now?" she asks, but receives no answer. I sit there, silenced by my shock. "I know this isn`t how you wanted things to be, I know you must have thought of me as the vicious step mum from Cinderella, but I adore you, Dean. You are such a good boy, so kind to Sam and Adam and I am so proud of you for giving this a chance. You can tell me anything and nothing will make me love you any less."

I`m horrified to discover that there are tears in her eyes and possibly even my own. I blink them back rapidly to banish them. She giggles and wipes them away carefully with a hand that was so different to my mothers, not professionally manicured or well cared for at all. I let her. It was almost as though she was my real mom, not Mary. Then she wipes her own away.

"Look at me getting all weepy," she laughs through the last of her tears. "Damn hormones. I swear, after this pregnancy your dad is going to be on the receiving end of a very unwilling, very painful vasectomy. Screw getting a doctor to do it."

"It doesn`t bother you?"

She looks stunned for a moment. "That your friend is a boy instead of a girl? Why the hell would it?"

This was not the reaction I had been expecting. In my head I had imagined it going one of two ways: either she would scream at me and call John who would also scream at me, or I would be booted out. No explanations, no excuses. Not this happy, calm acceptance. This was a new one. After The Incident with Luke (how odd how quickly I had stopped thinking of him as Lucifer) Mary had been not angry exactly, but disappointed and told me in no uncertain terms she wanted to hear nothing about it. Kate with the exact opposite. Kind and accepting and curious, but not nosy. She let me know that if I wanted to talk about him then I was free too, but if not then that was also fine. Just as long as I was safe, being treated well and happy.

We leave the car about forty minutes after first pulling up and enter The Bridge Inn pub and restaurant. She orders a lemonade for herself, but not before staring wistfully at the wine menu sat taunting her on the top of the counter. She sighs longingly and orders a glass of lemonade and allows me to have one small beer telling me that I deserved a treat for being so open with her. She also gets a can of diet coke to share and some chips.

"Not long now," she smiles patting her growing bump as a waitress swishes past with a tray of empty wine glasses. "I swear John had better bring me a bottle of wine as a gift after this baby is born." When she had gone to her check-up the day before last she had been surprised to hear that she was in fact nearly six months along. John had apparently nearly fainted, much to Kate`s embarrassment. "I couldn`t believe it," Kate had spent the afternoon telling her mother on the phone. I knew I was putting on a bit of weight, but I just put that down to eating too much, my age and never really working off all the Adam`s baby weight."

We take out drinks and freshly cooked chips outside and sit at one of the picnic tables by the water's edge. Although we hadn`t long eaten Kate said that the salty fries had been calling her name. Lies, considering her usual health freakiness, but I didn`t want to argue with a pregnant woman, especially not after she had been so lovely to me. We were among the only people outside and the quiet was relaxing. A few children were on the other side of the garden playing on an old see-saw, but they didn`t bother us.

We talk about all sorts of things, but nothing in particular. We throw the last few chips to the patiently waiting swans that had swam over sometime during our conversation about a barbeque. The weather was supposed to be nice on Saturday and she thought it would be a nice idea to invite a few people over and have a barbeque.

"Of course you friend is more than welcome if he likes," she tells me happily. I can tell she is curious and eager to meet him, but I also know that she won`t push it.

"I`ll ask." It wasn`t a lie. Truthfully, it had started out as one, but it would be nice if Cas came. Not that he would, if his previous odd behaviour was any indication. The offer would be there all the same. "His name is Castiel by the way." It felt strange to refer to him by that name anymore, my mouth shaping the alien letters I had long ago dropped. It seemed wrong to call him his nickname though in front of her, too personal. Sam and Adam were different, we were friends and back then I had been trying to hide him from them, keep him to myself because I was scared.

"Weird name," she comments, but not nastily.

"He is a weird guy."

"You seem to like him an awful lot," Kate observes, taking a small sip of her juice and quietly placing the glass down on the wooden table.

I chuckle uncomfortably, fiddling with the sleeve of my jacket to distract myself and draw attention away from my flushed face. "I guess," I admit in a small voice. She smiles knowingly. "Not like that! Well, I mean maybe a little bit like that, but it isn`t serious. I don`t think." But I want it to be. "Like we haven`t known each other than long so…" Even though it feels like years. "And I don`t know him that well and…" This was fucking pitiful. Way to go, Romeo. I groan and put my head in my hands.

Kate giggles and shakes her head before putting a hand on my shoulder. "I`m happy for you, darling. I`m sure this Castiel boy is wonderful."

I nod sharply. "Yeah."