In Need of Looking After

Dean woke up suddenly to the realization of how close he'd come to losing his wife. Cassie was sleeping peacefully, but she was still holding on to him tightly enough that he knew she would wake up if he moved. He closed his eyes and pulled her a little closer against him, pushing the feelings trying to overwhelm him back. She didn't need to wake up to him falling apart.

He changed the direction of his own thoughts to the problem of Alex. Not that she was a problem… telling Cassie about her was. He'd told her about his father, about his and Sam's doubles but not about De's double. De's adult, not really undead one hundred and twenty something year old double. He closed his eyes and sighed. Why couldn't his life ever be simple?

She hummed softly and shifted. The intention last night had been to get his traumatized wife to sleep, but they'd ended up making love. It had been slow and sweet, totally uncharacteristic of them. He closed his eyes at the memory of rocking into her slow and deep. He had read somewhere, and he couldn't for the life of him remember where, that long term sexual relationship evolved. They became more layered and nuanced. They traded in excitement for meaningful. He wondered if he should be frightened that what he originally thought was a pile of horse shit was actually starting to make sense to him.

Cassie hummed again and pulled away a little to look up at him. "How long've you been awake," she mumbled, voice still heavy with sleep.

"Not long. You don't have to get up now. De won't be back for a couple of hours and everybody else can fend for themselves for a little while longer."

She stretched and blinked herself awake. "I know. But I wanted to make breakfast. You know, a nice family meal. Have everyone sit around the table together."

Everyone… "Yeah, about that."

"What?"

"You remember when I told you about the doubles? Well, Dad, Sammy and me weren't the only ones who had doubles come from the other reality."

Her eyes widened a little and she sat up. "Who else?"

"De."

"De? Where is she? Who's taking care of her?"

Dean laughed. "Trust me on this, babe, she doesn't need any looking after. She's… older then our De."

"Older? How much older?"

"Somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty five."

"A hundred and twenty five? She's… she's old?"

"She's…" Dean sighed. "She's not human. She's sort of a vampire."

Cassie blinked at him for a moment, tears appearing in her eyes. "She's evil?"

"No… no. She's not like most vampires. She's special. She's still got her soul, and she's one of the good guys."

"But… I thought you said that all vampires were evil."

"They're supposed to be. But she's not. The Ariel from her reality did something to her, so the ordinary rules didn't apply to her."

Cassie buried her face in her hands. "God… my poor baby. Where is she?"

"She here, somewhere. I think she's up in the room in the attic. There was a little room that Cassie was renovating in the attic. Dean couldn't figure out what it was for, but she'd insisted on the basis that you never know when you might need an extra room. Even though they already had three. "Her name's different. It's Mary Alexandria. Alex for short."

"Alex?" She nodded and looked at her husband, her eyes a little red, but resolved. "Okay. I want to meet her."


Sam slipped his free hand underneath her shirt again. "Don't worry, he whispered, "I'm not going to rape you. Although you may wish I had." A slow smile replaced the concerned look he'd just been wearing like a mask.

Her hands curled into fists and she jerked against the restraining hand wrapped around her wrists. She wanted to smash his face in but it was almost embarrassing how easily he held her down. She could already feel his strength failing. He wouldn't be able to hold her much longer. He started speaking in the language of the Fallen. Suddenly the hand on her stomach began to burn. It was slight at first, just a barely noticeable tingle, but it grew in intensity and area until her whole body was filled with it, her mind shattering with it.

Ariel sat up suddenly, gulping air like she'd been drowning. Enoch had been sitting in a chair by her bed and now he was kneeling next to it, looking worried and frightened. Ariel drew up her legs and pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. "It's okay… I'm alright. It was just a dream. Only a dream…"

"Would you like me to make you some tea?"

She repeated his question in her head a few times, until it finally made sense. "Yeah. Yes, please. Thank you."

"What flavor?"

Ariel shrugged. "Doesn't matter." He got up and moved to the door. "Enoch?" He stopped and looked over at her. "Was Sam… our Sam here last night?"

"Yes. He just left about five minutes ago. He said he wanted to get showered and changed and that he'd be back soon."

She nodded, but said nothing else. Eventually Enoch left, presumably to make her tea. But it didn't matter. She fell back against her pillow and stared at the ceiling. Nothing mattered.


The woman was crouching in the attic apartment, peering out of the little window. She was dressed in a black outfit that reminded her of Ariel's and so motionless that Cassie could have mistaken her for a statue. She stopped in the doorway, feeling Dean's presence at her back. She cleared her throat before she spoke. "Alex?"

The woman turned her head and looked at her over her shoulder. She knew those eyes… Dean's eyes. Knew the look in them too. Fear. "Mom," the woman breathed almost too softly for her to hear.

Cassie was kneeling on the floor next to her before she knew she was moving. "It's okay," she said, smoothing back Alex's already smooth hair.

Alex closed her eyes and leaned into Cassie's touch. "Mom," she repeated a little stronger, tears escaping her eyes.

Cassie pulled her into a hug. "It's going to be alright now."

Grandparent's Prerogative

Sam returned to Dean's house to check on Ruby and the baby to find his father in the kitchen pacing the floor with Michael. It still just weirded him out to see John Winchester soothing a newborn. Not that there had never been times when his father had taken care of him and Dean when one or both of them were sick. It was just that it had been so long ago since he'd seen that side of his father.

"How is he?" Sam asked, feeling a little tentative.

"Good. Had a little gas, but he's feelin' much better now. Ruby's still down for the count, which isn't surprising since she had to wake up every so often to feed the kid. I hope you're not going to ask for him yet, 'cause I'm enjoyin' this. I'll give him back when he starts to fuss again. Grandparent's prerogative."

I snorted softly. "Is that how it works?"

"Yep. I had no one to hand you off to when you fussed, so I'm really lookin' forward to that part. But don't worry. You got a lot to look forward to, son. Viciously sharp little elbows to the 'nads. Arguments about who was looking at whom. Or touching whom. Or breathing too loud. Waking up to find your kid staring at you, face barely six fucking inches away, with no clue as to why in the world you'd find that just a little bit creepy. And then there's my all time favorite… the 'Dad, are we there yet?' chorus." John took a deep breath through his nose and let it out in a sigh. And Damn if Sam couldn't remember doing some of that, a lot of it with the express intention of annoying his father. "Yeah. A lot to look forward to. I can only pray you have more than one. Get the full experience."

"We weren't that bad." He sounded a little too defensive even to his own ears.

John snorted, and looked down at his grandson, snuggled contentedly in his arms. "You'll show 'im, won't you Mike?"

Dean burst into the room. "Hey, Sammy. Where've you been?"

"At Ariel's. I just went home to take a quick shower and change my clothes, then I came here to check on Ruby and Michael."

Dean grunted softly, and Sam knew he was thinking something he wasn't going to say out loud. "Where's Ariel?"

"She was still asleep when I left."

"Really?"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Dean. I just didn't think she should be by herself."

"Hey, dude. You're an adult. You can play hide the salami with whoever you want." He opened the refrigerator and began moving things around

"Dean! I didn't hide my salami anywhere!"

"Whatever." Sam sighed in frustration but let it go. "You got eggs, Sammy?"

He blinked at his brother, a little shocked by his sudden change in subject. At least he hoped it was a change in subject. With Dean you didn't always know for sure. "What?"

"Eggs Sammy. You know, those little white things laid by chickens." He pulled out a clear plastic cartoon and held it up to show off the four eggs in it. "Or in our case brown things. Is that natural? For them to be brown like that?"

Sam snorted. "Dude, almost nothing in nature is really white. The white ones are bleached."

"Really? Huh. So you got any or not, geekazoid?"


Ariel got ready for the day on auto pilot. She needed to pray, to meditate, but she couldn't get her thoughts focused enough. She sat at her breakfast bar staring at the tea Enoch made her until it was ice cold while Enoch hovered, unsure of what to do. It had been centuries since he'd had to deal with people one on one and he seemed to be at a loss as to what to do. Finally, Ariel sent him to duplicate whatever he'd done to get rid of the evil Sam in the other eleven cities. Somebody had to keep an eye on what was going on outside of New Sparta anyway.

Feeling claustrophobic, she finally went outside and sat on her porch swing, bare feet tucked underneath her. Soon, she was lost in the maze of her own mind.

"There you are!" She jumped at the sound of Sam's voice. "I've been everywhere for you," he continued, seemingly completely unaware that he'd just scared her. "I just went next door to take a shower and check on Michael. I came back to see if you were up yet."

"I'm up," she replied distantly as she tried to get her racing pulse to calm down. If that's the effect she had on people because she moved so silently, she was going to have to find a way to make more noise.

"Where's Enoch?"

"I sent him to check on some things.

"Ah. Well, let's go. Dean and Cassie are making a huge breakfast and they promised not to let Dad anywhere near the kitchen."

"No… that's not a good idea, Sam."

"Why not? Dad's a horrible cook. I swear I don't know how we survived before Dean learned to cook."

Ariel sighed. "I don't want to go to Dean's house. Being in a room full of people isn't exactly on the top of my to-do list right now."

You're family, Ariel. We all want to be there for you. Let us do that."

Ariel looked away from Sam's painfully earnest face. For some reason that she couldn't understand she felt like crying. "I just want to be alone."

"And what? Sit here barefoot and coatless on a cold fall day staring at the hills? Have you eaten? Have you even thought about eating?"

"Sam-"

"I just want to make sure you're alright."

"I'm not alright, okay? Why won't you just leave me alone?" She was yelling - Why was she yelling? – and her voice was quivering with the effort to keep the tears stinging her eyes from falling.

"Because I care about you!" He was yelling now too and it took her a second to get past the fact that he was yelling to realize what he had yelled. He blushed and looked away, embarrassed. The two of them avoided looking at each other for a few awkward seconds before Sam finally cleared his throat. "I care about you," he repeated softly, almost like the admission shocked him as much as it shocked her. "We all do."

"I don't want… I don't want people feeling sorry for me."

"You think that's what this is? We're worried about you and we want to help you. None of us feel sorry for you."

"I don't know if I can keep it together, Sam." She looked up at him, feeling lost and adrift as she finally admitted the reason she wanted to be left alone. She didn't think she could survive falling apart in front of a room full of people. She'd never had the experience of falling apart before and she was afraid of what for it would take, but she was terrified that it would be bad.

"You don't have to. That's the really cool thing about family. You're allowed to fall apart sometimes."

Ariel let out a soft bitter laugh. "I don't even know the inside of my own head anymore. I get… I get lost there like it's unfamiliar territory."

Sam knelt beside the swing and looked up at her. "You help us all the time. Let us repay the favor. Besides," he added with a small crooked smile, "Dad's still freaking me out. I could use the backup."


Bobby brought De home shortly after Sam left to get Ariel. He and was shocked to see John again.

"Jeezus! What is it with you Winchesters? Don't any of ya ever stay dead?"

"It's good to see you to, Bobby," John grumbled, sounding a little offended. Dean snorted at his father's reaction and earned a glare from the older man.

De was too busy gawking at the baby in John's arms to pay much attention to her new grandfather or anybody else. "That's what a cousin is?"

"Yep," Dean said. "That's how they start out anyway."

She looked up at him, her face scrunched up in an expression that reminded him of Sam. "How do they end up?"

He laughed. "This one's a boy, so he'll grow up to be a man like me and Uncle Sam."

Her eyes got big. "He'll be bigger than me?"

"Only because boy's usually end up being bigger than girls. But that won't be for a long while yet. You'll always be older though. No matter how big he gets."

"I will?"

"Yeah. Just like I'm older than Uncle Sammy. You can show him how to do all the cool things you know how to do and watch out for him so he stays out of trouble."

She crawled into her father's lap, still staring at the baby. "Okay."

Being a Family

Sam and Ariel arrived to find John and Bobby sitting at the kitchen table, deep in conversation, coffee cups in front of them. Ariel felt like she was an inch away from panicking, from running from the house. Instead, she swallowed it down and refused to give in. Her panic seemed to slowly ease until it was a distant echo by the end of breakfast. Sam sat next to her at breakfast. Dean joked that if the family kept growing he was going to have to get a bigger table and the men had carried the kitchen table into the dining room to have enough space for everyone to sit down. Nine people, not counting De and Michael, all crowded in Dean's dining room. People who weren't all necessarily family by blood but by choice.

It felt familiar. Felt like home to Alex. Reminded her of countless meals spent around her own table or one of her brothers, or one of her friends. Laughing and joking. Just being a family. It made her feel warm and sad all at the same time.

"You okay?" Sam leaned over and kept his voice low enough that only she would hear.

"I'm… better. Thank you, Sam."

"For what?"

"Making me come."

He smiled, his dimples making a brief appearance. "Anytime."


Cassie was holding the baby, thinking that they were probably already spoiling him rotten despite Ruby's efforts to make sure he got put down every so often. Dean was leaning against the wall, watching her with an expression she couldn't decipher. De had turned her laser-like concentration on John after deciding that he was growly and furry like a bear, and De liked bears. John was unbelievably patient as he fielded her multiple questions and rambling stories, many of which were made up. He asked questions, showing he was actually paying attention, and made up his own equally fantastical stories. At least Cassie thought they were made up.

Michael started to fuss, so she bounced him a little until he calmed down. "It's alright."

"Here, let me see the little guy," Dean said, coming over to sit next to her and holding out his arms. She handed him the baby and after a second of awkwardness, he seemed to settle into a hold that looked pretty comfortable.

"You're a natural."

Dean snorted softly. "Last time I held a baby this small, I was four. Sammy definitely didn't seem this tiny, but then I was four." Dean was staring down at his nephew with an expression of awe on his face. Cassie knew he hadn't meant anything by it, but she felt the old guilt anyway. She'd stolen that from him. He should have known about De from the beginning, should have gotten the chance to hold her when she was born. Dean looked up at her like he knew what she was thinking. And of course he did, or at the very least what she was feeling. She looked away. "Cass… don't."

She looked back at him to see he was smiling at her now. "But if-"

"My Dad always said that 'if' is the most dangerous word in the English language. He was right. My family is together under the same roof alive and well. Sam and Dad haven't tried to kill each other. And we got a new Winchester out of the whole deal. I'd put that down as a win in my book."


Sam sat in Dean's living room staring down at his newborn son. It was hard to believe that a person could be so small. The baby was curled up in his lap, looking around curiously, his tiny fingers curled into a tiny little fist, his feet crossed at the ankles. Sam could literally fit him in the palm of his hand.

"Sammy's a Dad," Dean flopped on the couch next to him with a grin. "I can hardly believe it."

"You and me both. It's strange. The night you got married, I freaked out so bad at the idea of being a father that I nearly passed out."

"And now?"

"Now I'm still panicked, but it's… more than that. I never thought it was possible to feel this much of anything."

Dean nodded his understanding. "There's nothin' like it. I thought the way I felt about you and Dad was intense. But De… that's just a whole different story. 'Cause it's not just love. Or even protectiveness. It's this sense that this tiny person's whole existence is somehow dependent on you and fucking up just can't ever be an option. But you know that you're gonna fuck it up at some point, maybe a lot. And that's just the scariest damn feelin' in the world."

"Yeah. Exactly. I kept thinking, people should probably need to get permits or something to have kids. I would probably still be hyperventilating if it hadn't been for all the late night talks I had with Ariel. I think I drove her a little crazy with all my freaking out."

"Ariel? Not Ruby?"

Sam didn't answer right away. He knew what his brother was driving at. "Yeah. I probably called her at least a dozen times in the middle of the night when I'd wake up in a cold sweat, or couldn't sleep at all."

"Look, Sammy, I know why you're hesitating. You feel like only a total douche would move on to a new relationship that quick especially if they never even tried to patch things up with their baby's mama. But, dude! You're not even trying to make things right. You've just got everybody stuck in limbo and that's not fair to anybody."

"I know, Dean. How do I know if Arial wants anything to do with me? I mean, I wasn't sure before, but after what the Evil Sam did to her…"

"You can't stay in this rut just 'cause you're afraid of rejection. If not Ariel, then somebody else. But you can't keep pretending like there's something between you and Ruby when you're not feelin' it."


A/N: I can't believe I finally got finished with this! Now I just have to work on my other stuff. It's been so hard for me to just sit and write this past week… Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

Thanks, lemonwedges4! Hope you like this one too.

-Angie