Chapter Forty-Nine
"We are not spending a lot of time here," Julie informed Dean as they got out of the Impala and headed towards the gas station.
"Oh, come on!" he protested. "Can't we celebrate our victory?"
"You want to celebrate salt-and-burning a ghost by hanging out in a gas station in the middle of Louisiana all night?" Julie asked skeptically, and Dean rolled his eyes.
"Fine. But we're buying a bunch of crap and eating ourselves sick tonight."
"What a great way to celebrate," his girlfriend replied sarcastically as they reached the door.
The bored teenager at the cash register didn't even look up as they came in. It was a little after eleven o'clock at night, and they were the only ones here. Sam was relaxing back at the motel. He would have come on the supply run with them, but while Dean and Julie were salt-and-burning a corpse, the ghost of Jason Roberts, a ghost that had killed his cheating wife and then himself in a jealous rage and then come back to haunt and kill the family of the man his wife cheated with one by one, appeared and threw Sam into a large tombstone. Getting thrown through the air and slammed into a concrete slab was never fun, and Sam had decided he would just rest for tonight.
The hunt had been rather trivial, like all of their jobs since Dean was saved. The big baddies like the Knights had seemed to just vanish when Dean became human. That probably wasn't a good sign, but it meant that the three hunters had a chance to get back into the routine of hunting before any powerful, near-invincible demons attacked.
"Ooh! Oreos!" Dean cried as they wandered through the aisles and stumbled across the junk food. "Have you ever had these things? They're like crack!"
"Every American has had an Oreo," Julie snapped. "And they're about as healthy as crack. Find something that won't come back to bite you in the butt in a few years, when your metabolism suddenly dies on you."
"Like I'll make it that long," Dean shot back, joking, but then regretted it. Jokes like that just weren't as funny now that Julie really had lost him. Feeling a bit guilty, he put the Oreos back, but quickly found the Cheetos, and then the candy bar section.
A couple minutes later, Julie walked towards Dean with some sandwiches in plastic containers, bananas, a bag of oranges, and a pack of waters. "How did you do?" she asked him, afraid of the answer.
Dean held up a large bag of potato chips, another bag of Cheetos, and a handful of candy bars and bags of gummy worms. "How the hell are you in such good shape?" Julie asked in disbelief. "All you do is eat crap and get drunk."
"I stay pretty active," he said suggestively, and Julie rolled her eyes.
"You think you're getting laid tonight, don't you?"
"I get laid pretty much every night anyway."
"Just for that, no sex for you."
"Oh, come on, that's not fair!" Dean complained. "What if I put back the gummy worms?"
"The fact that you got gummy worms in the first place is the reason there's a problem," Julie sighed. "This is our dinner, Dean."
Dean put on a pitiful expression. "I was getting them for Sam. When we were kids, Dad wouldn't leave us with much money, and I was a kid. I didn't know what food was good, so there were a few weeks where Sam and I pretty much lived off of gummy worms and breakfast cereal, and he's liked 'em ever since."
Julie stared at him, unimpressed. "That whole story was crap," she said flatly.
"Damn," Dean swore. "How did you know?"
"Because I've lived with Sam for over a year, and I know for a fact that he doesn't like gummy candy. That would be you, Dean."
He sighed in defeat and put all the candy back. Julie made him put the Cheetos back as well, but she kept the potato chips and even let him get a couple pies at the checkout. The checkout kid watched as Julie smacked Dean's hand as he reached for even more junk food at the register and smirked.
"That guy giving you some trouble?" he asked flirtatiously. He looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, a tall, skinny guy with hipster glasses. Julie didn't miss the way his eyes kept drifting a little lower than her face.
"You have no idea," she smiled at the kid as she handed him their stuff. And then her smile vanished. "But nowhere near as much trouble as he gives guys that mess with me."
The kid blinked and then quickly rang their supplies up in silence. They paid and left, and Dean started laughing when the door closed.
"Did he really think he had a shot?" Dean smirked. "You're ten years older than him."
"You're eight years older than me," she pointed out, stuffing their grocery bags into the backseat.
"Yeah, but see, I actually have a shot at getting you in bed tonight."
"Not with that attitude you don't."
The whole drive back to the motel, they kept up their easy, teasing banter. Julie played hard-to-get the whole time, partly because she enjoyed it, but also because it always made Dean even happier when he actually got her in bed that night. These past two-and-a-half weeks, he really had been getting laid almost every night. Sex had never been a rare occurrence between them, but it was a lot more frequent now. Dean was trying to make up for lost time, and Julie was trying to get as many experiences in that she could as her time quickly ran out.
They quickly reached the motel and entered their room, Julie laughing at some goofy comment Dean had just made. Sam looked up from the table where he had been sitting on his laptop. "Hey, guys. Did you get some food?" he asked, smiling.
"'Did we get some food?'" Dean repeated, scandalized at the thought that they wouldn't have gotten anything to eat.
Julie rolled her eyes and pushed past him, ignoring him. "I got some actual food," she informed Sam. "That idiot got some junk food crap."
"For your information, the food this idiot got is delicious!" Dean replied, mock-hurt.
"And fattening," Sam pointed out as he saw Dean's two creamy pies.
The three of them sat down to sandwiches, waters, potato chips, and bananas (and an entire pie for Dean). They talked about insignificant things and teased each other, and Julie found that she wasn't even thinking about the fact that her time was limited. She was just enjoying the moment, and that was what she had to do for the next five-and-a-half months. She could worry about hell when it came time for that.
After eating a very late dinner, the three of them squeezed together on Sam's bed and watched television. Julie noticed Sam squirming a little uncomfortably and frowned. "You sure you're okay?" she asked her friend. "That couldn't have felt nice, getting thrown into that tombstone."
"I'm fine," Sam assured her. "Just a bit sore."
"Are you sure?" she asked again, concerned. "Because, Sam, if there's anything I can do to help-"
"Calm down," Sam interrupted her, smiling slightly. "It's nothing, really."
Julie knew, in comparison to some of the things he'd gone through, it really was nothing, so she relaxed. Dean found some football game that was in overtime and still going on, and he and Sam settled in to watch it. Neither of them had real time to follow sports, but they did enjoy a close game like this. Julie, on the other hand, had no patience for sports, so she shifted so that her head was resting in Dean's lap and began to drift off.
She was almost asleep when one of the players scored a field goal, and Dean half-got up from his sitting position, cheering since that was the team he had chosen to root for. He jolted Julie awake and she shot him a dirty look.
"Sorry," Dean said quickly, stroking her hair soothingly. She sighed and went back to her old position, and she was nearly asleep once again when one of the players on the team Sam was rooting for performed a pretty dirty foul on another team member. Dean moved again, shouting at the TV, again disturbing her sleep.
Julie propped herself on one elbow and shot Dean a murderous look. "You do that one more time and I'm leaving," she informed him.
"Sorry, Jules, I'll stop," he assured her, and she relented, returning to her comfortable position. But not even two minutes later, Dean moved again as he cheered and laughed at Sam, since his team had won.
"That's it!" Julie snapped, sitting up. "I'm taking a nap on Sam now."
Before Dean could protest, Julie rolled over and put her head in Sam's lap. Dean waited for Sam to look uncomfortable with this, but he didn't at all. With one hand, he brushed some of her hair out of her face, while he surfed channels with the other.
Dean waited for that old rush of jealousy, and he did feel a bit of it. But it wasn't a concern that Julie may love his brother more than him. He just wished that he and Julie were as close as she and Sam seemed to be. Of course, he and Julie were extremely close, and he had no doubt in his mind that she loved him unconditionally, him and no one else. But while he had been a demon, Sam and Julie had lived together for almost five months, and with no one but each other and occasionally Cas, the two had grown very close. They had a bond that Dean would probably never have with Julie, and he wondered if that was starting to bother him.
He decided it didn't. He was glad that Sam and Julie were able to be very close without things getting complicated like they had in the past. He wasn't sure what had changed. Maybe it was losing Dean that had made them realize nothing was ever worth risking losing him again, but he was glad that those days of conflicting emotions and fighting were gone.
After a little while, about one o'clock in the morning, Sam decided it was time for the two brothers to go to bed. He gently shook Julie's shoulder, waking her up, and then Julie and Dean said their goodnights to Sam and went into their adjoining motel room. Julie was still a bit sleepy from her nap, so she settled onto the bed while Dean went into their bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.
Dean stripped down to his underwear and pulled on a pair of sweatpants while Julie changed out of her day clothes into a tank top and shorts. While he was in the bathroom, Dean stopped for a moment to stare at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like the same guy he had a few weeks ago, when he was a demon. For a moment, he was filled with doubt. They had been unable to find any reason why Dean was miraculously cured, and for a second, Dean feared he wasn't, and that the demon in him was just lying dormant.
He reached down to that spot deep inside him where his demonic powers had once lay, and tried to turn his eyes black. It had been such a simple task, and one he enjoyed as a demon, and he would know if his eyes turned black that this was all just a lie and he really was still a demon deep inside.
But nothing happened. Dean's eyes stayed green, and he relaxed slightly. His moment of doubt passed, and he returned to the bedroom, where Julie was waiting on the bed.
Dean sat next to Julie. She noticed that he seemed a little tense, and she moved to sit behind him. She rubbed at the back of his neck and his bare shoulders until Dean's muscles finally relaxed and he sighed. Once he was more relaxed, Julie continued to run her hands over the defined muscles in his back, but that was more for her sake than his. She moved forward and brushed kisses across the light freckles on his shoulders, then kissed his neck.
All of the sudden, Julie found herself lying on her back with Dean crouching over her. He had that dull yet focused look in his eyes that he had when he was getting turned on, and Julie smiled to herself as he bent even lower to kiss her. As she kissed him, she ran one hand through his hair and trailed the other one over his muscular arm until she reached his forearm, the place where the Mark of Cain had once been. It had been there all the time she had known him, twisting him from the inside, and it was gone now, thanks to her.
And it didn't matter what was coming in just a few months. She could make it through hell knowing that Dean was alive and himself. It was worth it.
The moment she woke up, Julie knew something was wrong.
They had been back at the bunker for four days, so this was her fourth morning waking up in their familiar bed next to Dean. She lay there, naked under the sheet, nestled close to Dean. This was the most safe place in the world to Julie, but she could still sense that something was wrong.
Suddenly, she felt the urge to puke. Clutching her stomach, Julie quickly rolled out of bed and rushed to the bathroom. She barely reached the toilet before she began to retch into it. By the time she was done being sick, her skin was slick with a cold sweat, and she felt absolutely miserable.
Julie spared a glance into the bedroom to see that Dean was still unconscious. Good. There was no need to worry him. She probably just had the flu or something.
Julie got into the shower, letting the warm water rinse her clean as her thoughts began to wander. Things had been going really well for the past three weeks since Dean became human, and for that she was grateful. And she was pretty sure neither of the Winchesters had any idea what she had done.
She knew she would have to tell them sooner or later, but she would much rather it be later. Although it would be nice to have the support of others through this, she didn't want to worry them, and Sam and Dean were both so happy right now. It was better that she take this pain alone, until she had no other choice but to tell them and ruin everything.
Then, Julie's thoughts turned to another concern that had been hovering in the back of her mind. And as bad as the thought of returning to hell was, this may actually be worse.
Dean and Julie had been having a lot of sex lately. A lot. And she definitely wasn't complaining. She loved Dean for him, but his good looks and the fact that he was really good in bed were very much appreciated pluses. She would have been happy to just be carrying on like this, having a lot of sex and not really worrying.
But the fact was, now that they were reunited after five months of separation, sometimes Dean and Julie got a little…excited. They would get caught up in the moment, and often they wouldn't be too great about using protection.
Julie had always been very particular about using protection. She had made it almost twenty-nine years in life without an STD or pregnancy scare. And Dean was usually pretty careful too, but they had not been doing so great at using protection these past three weeks.
That wouldn't be too much of a problem, and Julie wouldn't be worried at all, if it weren't for the fact that she was four days late.
Julie's cycle had always been very particular, and now it was four days late. That never happened. And she wasn't exaggerating. She couldn't remember a time in years that she had been more than a day or two late. And now she was puking into the toilet, but she hadn't eaten any bad food, and she hadn't felt sick at all last night.
All the signs were pointing in one direction. One very forbidden direction. One direction that, if it was right, could not have come at a worse time.
Julie pushed those thoughts away, because she was getting increasingly agitated. She stepped out of the shower and pulled on a bathrobe. Trying not to think about what these signs could mean, Julie stepped back into her bedroom, and then stopped to stare at Dean.
He was still asleep, lying on his side to face where she had been sleeping. His arm was sprawled out across her pillow, and his face was peaceful and five years younger in sleep. Julie had to fight the urge to go lie down next to him and stroke his face and kiss him sweetly and tell him she loved him a hundred times.
She did. She loved him so much. And maybe, in another life or at another time, the thought that she might be pregnant with his baby would make her so happy. In fact, Julie would like nothing more than to marry that man and have his children and have a family and a long, happy life with him.
But that couldn't happen. She had a little more than five months left, and then she was going to die and go to hell and leave him alone, heartbroken.
Tears began to sting Julie's eyes as she studied Dean's sleeping form. She didn't want to leave. She couldn't leave him. Why had she done this again?
Dean suddenly sighed and shifted a little, still fast asleep. When he moved, Julie could see the Mark-less skin of his arm.
That was why. She was going to die and suffer an eternity in hell so that Dean could be human. And that was worth dying for.
She just really hoped that an unborn baby wouldn't be dying with her as well…
Sam sighed as he sifted through yet another page of possible cases. Deaths and disappearances and odd behavior in livestock and famines…three women brutally murdered, a man found carved up in the woods, two little children who had been missing for a week…
Ugh. Some days he actually enjoyed hunting, and he would put a bullet through a monster's brain with a smile on his face, and he would feel satisfied with his work. But then there were days like today, when the morbid, dark nature of his work made him feel almost sick. You would think after a lifetime of this, all of these deaths and tragedies wouldn't bother him, but they still did. Even if none of these horrible things that were happening were actually because of monsters, they were still wrong. He still wished he could fix them all.
He needed a break. Sitting in front of his laptop watching pictures of poor, dead victims scroll by was not helping his mood. Sam closed his laptop, right as the door to Dean and Julie's bedroom opened.
"Hey," Sam called as his brother quietly shut the door behind him and walked over. He started to smile at Dean, but then noticed the concern in his brother's eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing," Dean sighed. "Julie's just not feeling well. She says it's probably just some bug or something, but you know…I still worry."
"Of course," Sam said. He couldn't help but be a little worried about his friend himself. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"She's just going to try to sleep it off. I'm going to get her some water and pain meds for her headache. I would stay with her, but she insists that she's fine. Bullshit, of course. She probably just doesn't want me to worry and leave you all by yourself."
Sam smirked. "Right, because as a guy in his thirties, I obviously don't know how to go on if I'm left alone by myself."
Dean rolled his eyes at his little brother and went into the kitchen. He returned a minute later with some pills and a bottle of water. "Do you think she'll mind if I check on her?" Sam asked, starting to follow his brother back to the room where Julie was.
In answer, Dean opened the bedroom door with his elbow and called, "Jules, you care if Sammy checks on you?"
"Of course not," Julie's voice called back. She didn't sound like she had a cold, at least.
Sam followed Dean into the bedroom. Julie was in bed, tucked under the covers and propped up by two or three pillows, Dean's doing for sure. Sam stood near the door, watching with a smile as his brother hurried over to the woman he loved and sat carefully on the edge of the bed. He handed her the water and pills and watched her, concerned, as she took them.
Sam smiled fondly at Dean. He had lost track of the countless times that he had been the one on the bed, being fretted over by Dean. When he was little and he was sick, his big brother had always been there to take care of, playing the roles of mother and father and brother and best friend and teacher and mentor all at the same time, because there was rarely anyone else to do it for him. It had gotten a little more humiliating as Sam got older and Dean had still insisted on taking care of him. When he reached his mid-twenties, Sam had finally told Dean he had to stop being such a mother hen and let his little brother take care of himself like the adult he really was. But watching Dean worry over Julie, Sam was reminded of all the times Dean had taken care of him, and for a second he almost missed them.
"I'm so sorry, Sam," Julie said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He saw that Dean had taken her hand and she was rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb while addressing Sam. "I just feel like crap, and I…I don't want to infect you two if I'm contagious."
"Don't worry about it, Julie," Sam said fondly. "And if you are contagious, you've probably got him sick already, the way he's all over you all the time." He nodded at Dean with a smirk, and earned a dirty look.
Julie smiled weakly. "Don't worry about me, guys. You two go have fun. Do…whatever it is brothers do. I'm just going to be sleeping anyway."
"Are you sure-?" Dean started to ask, concerned.
"Yes, I'm sure!" Julie interrupted him. "Now get him out of here, Sam, before he smothers me!"
Dean and Sam left Julie alone to get some rest. Sam knew he and Dean should probably get to work trying to find a new case, but the last thing he wanted right now was to have to return to looking through murders and disappearances until they found one so weird or gory they would have no choice but to investigate. It had been four days since they had been a hunt, and Sam was surprised by how well Dean was handling being idle, especially he had been a demon only a month ago and had been trying to keep moving so as not to think about what he had done. But Dean had Sam and Julie with him, and he seemed really, truly happy for the first time in a very long time. Maybe things would finally be settling down.
"We should probably look for another case," Dean pointed out as they stood there uncertainly.
"Yeah, probably," Sam sighed.
There was a beat, and then Dean said, "But we've got two cases of beer and that new X-box system, and they aren't going to play and drink themselves."
Sam smiled and rolled his eyes, but he was grateful that Dean was willing to take another day off. They deserved it.
A couple hours later, though, he regretted his decision. Whichever one of them thought it was a good idea to let Dean play a shooting game should feel ashamed of themselves. Dean had just discovered a new passion in life, and it was unlikely they would be able to tear him away from this X-box system ever again. It was really unfair, honestly, how good he was at this game. In two hours, Sam and Dean had advanced insanely far into this dark, bloody, violent game, and Dean was far too into it. As Sam watched his brother blow enemy's heads off with unnerving skill, he was disturbed by these all too realistic graphics. Maybe he would have been better off scrolling through actual corpses.
"You alright there, Sammy?" Dean chuckled. "I think you just lost a head."
Sure enough, while Sam had been watching Dean fire kill shot after kill shot, an enemy had found his player and blown his brains out. Sam sighed and finished off his beer. "Oh, well. I could use a break. My thumbs won't quit twitching."
"Suit yourself," Dean grinned. "I'll let you know when I beat the entire game."
Sam walked away, wondering how he could subtly break that thing before it became Dean's life. He walked back into the main hall of the bunker, considering getting a snack. But right as he reached the hall, the bedroom door opened and Julie stepped out.
"Julie!" Sam cried at the sight of his friend. She didn't look too bad now. Maybe a little paler than normal, but not flushed or clammy like someone with a fever might be.
She looked up, surprised and, for a moment, frightened. "Oh. Hey, Sam. Didn't realize anyone else was in here. Thought you and Dean were off doing something else."
"We were," Sam admitted. "Dean may have discovered a new passion for blowing away pixelated people." Julie frowned. "He finally started using that new X-box."
"Well, we're never getting him away from that thing," Julie said, forcing a smile and trying to make a joke.
"Are you feeling better?" Sam asked, concerned.
"Yeah, a little," she shrugged.
"Good," he smiled. "If something happened to you, the two of us wouldn't be able to make it without you."
He had meant it as a compliment, but Julie visibly flinched at those words, and her eyes looked haunted and guilty. Sam frowned as he studied her, thinking. Then he said slowly, "Julie…something's wrong."
"What? Oh, um…I'm just not feeling that well."
"You don't look very sick, Julie, just…worried." Sam took a deep breath. "Look, Julie, I can tell something's wrong. In fact, I've been getting the feeling that something's been wrong ever since Dean...got back to normal. You can tell me."
"Nothing's wrong, Sam!" Julie insisted. "Really!"
He raised his eyebrows, but didn't speak. Julie sighed. "Okay, fine. You got me. I'm still worried about Dean. I mean, I know he's human now, and I'm so thankful for that, but…I still remember what he was like as a demon. I guess I'm just having a hard time moving on."
And Sam wanted to nod and agree and tell Julie that everything was going to be okay and hug her for a long time. But he knew her too well for that.
"You're right," he said flatly. "Dean was a demon, and that fact is never going to go away. And we've got some tough times ahead, and he may have a hard time moving on, and we should all be a little worried. But that's not what's wrong."
"What? Of course it is!" Julie snapped.
"Come on, Julie," Sam sighed. "I know you better than that. I know you're not worried about Dean becoming a demon again. Somehow, you're not worried at all. But something is definitely wrong with you, and I waited almost a month to see if you would tell me. But it's clear you're not going to talk without some prompting, so I'm prompting." Sam's expression softened. "Julie, please. You can tell me what's wrong. I want to help you."
It looked like Julie was trying not to cry. She looked down at the ground and blinked furiously, and her hands slipped to her belly, although Sam doubted she even noticed.
Sam frowned. Why was she holding her belly like that?
"You're right," Julie whispered. "There's something wrong with…with me. Not with Dean. He's okay now, and he's going to stay that way, and that's all that matters."
Sam frowned. It almost seemed like she was talking to herself more than him, and about something he didn't understand.
"What's wrong?" he asked her gently, stepping closer.
"I'm not sick," she admitted. "At least, I don't think so."
"Then why did you…?"
"Well, when I woke up this morning, I started puking," she said flatly.
"So you are sick?" Sam was confused.
"I don't think so," Julie said carefully.
"Then what…?" All of the sudden, he stopped. Because finally, the way she was holding her belly made sense. The puking made sense, and the weird moods and the secrecy made sense.
"Wait. Are you saying…?" he got out slowly, head spinning.
Julie looked down at the ground, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "I think I might be pregnant, Sam," she said in a tear-choked voice, but there was no joy in her voice, only sorrow.
"Julie, that's…that's amazing!" Sam got out, starting to smile. Then he grinned, and then he was laughing. "Julie, this is wonderful! I mean, we'll have to take care of the Knights before we bring any new Winchesters into the world, but this…this is great." He couldn't stop smiling. "Wow. I'm going to be an uncle."
"I don't know for sure, Sam!" Julie said quickly, and she still didn't look happy.
"Right, but still…" Sam suddenly frowned. "Does Dean know yet?"
"No, and you can't tell him!" Julie cried, worried.
"I won't," Sam promised, but the joy had faded from his voice. He had finally noticed that there was not happiness in her expression: only sorrow and fear and guilt and pain. Something was still very wrong.
"Why are you upset?" he asked, concerned. "Hang on. It is Dean's kid, right?!"
"What?" Julie cried. "Of course! I mean, if there is a kid. Who the hell else's would it be?"
"I don't know!" Sam said defensively. "I was just making sure. I don't understand why you still look so upset! Julie…you could be about to have a baby. Dean's baby. Isn't that a good thing?"
He stepped closer to her and smiled gently down at her. He expected her to smile back, but even more tears welled in her eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asked, confused and very concerned. "Julie, tell me what's wrong!"
"I…" She had to stop because of the huge lump in her throat. She gasped for breath and then continued in a shaky, tear-filled voice, unable to look at Sam, "If I am pregnant, it'll be at least eight or so more months before I can have the baby."
"Well, yeah," Sam shrugged. "Sure. But how is that a problem?"
"Because…" A tear spilled down her cheek and Julie was literally shaking. Sam wanted nothing more than to comfort and hold this poor, crying, distressed woman, but she was about to finally tell him what was really wrong. "Because…in five months, I'll be dead."
Sam's brain just stopped working. He couldn't seem to process those words. "What?" he finally got out, and his voice was surprisingly cold. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, come on, Sam!" Julie cried suddenly, her voice breaking. "You know. You know Dean couldn't just be saved. We're not that lucky. Someone had to make a sacrifice to save him."
And finally the tears streaming down her face made sense. All of the sad looks she had given Dean behind his back made sense. All of the guilty silences when he spoke of the future, Dean's miraculous restoration to humanity…it all finally made sense.
"No," he said, his voice cold. "You didn't."
"I'm sorry," Julie whispered. "I didn't have any other choice."
"No!" Sam snarled. "Tell me you didn't."
Julie lifted her eyes to meet his, even as a silent tear ran down her face. Somehow, she had the strength to make these next words come out in a steady voice. Words that Sam couldn't bear to hear. Words that would change everything and ruin their happiness forever.
"I can't, Sam. Because I did. I sold my soul to save Dean, and in five months, I'm going to die."
