Vrskaandrea: You're welcome. It was too good a story not to share! Bobby is pretty good at handling the boys and knew exactly what to do. Dam knew if he tried to remove Kayla from the room he probably would have been shot at! And I think I've made him suffer enough with out having to eat a gross half chewed banana!
Vegas Granny: Bobby is awesome. I miss him.
Franki3Winchester: Sam knew if he tried to remove Kayla from the room he'd probably ended up facing the business end of a knife or gun. Things are still tense between Dean and Caleb but are getting closer to being sorted. And as smart as Bobby is, I plan on keeping him in the dark about Kaylas true paternity for quite some time...
Blondie 20000: Sorry chick, while Dana might disappear eventually, Kayla is here to stay.
CHAPTER 66
Bobby and Caleb installed the gates then Caleb disappeared to his room for a while. Bobby was sitting in the living room when Caleb walked past with a bag.
"Goin' somewhere?" He asked.
"Found a hunt. Thought it might be best if I make myself scarce for a few days." Caleb said.
"Not yet you ain't. Now drop the bag and park your arse. We're going to clear the air before any one else gets hurt."
"You can't stop me."
"No I can't and I'm not going to. Once we've had our little talk you are free to walk out the door. But just remember..."
"I'll be back before you do the ritual." Caleb said dropping into an armchair. "I'm only going for a few days."
Caleb slouched in the chair and sulked. He wanted to be gone before Dean woke up, but Bobby was right. Best to get it all cleared up now instead of letting it fester.
•
Feeling 83% more human, Dean was ready to go down stairs and face the others. With a little more sleep under her belt she was thinking slightly more rationally. She stopped at the top of the stairs and examined the gates that Bobby and Caleb had installed.
"You've got to push the button and lift the lever." Sam said exiting his room.
"When did you put these up?" She asked.
"Caleb and Bobby did it while you were asleep."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Sam chuckled. "This noise you sleep through. I sneak into your room and you're about ready to shoot."
"Okay, so I push this button..."
She struggled with the latch, adjusting Kayla on her hip.
"How the hell am I supposed to do this with one hand. Here hold Kayla."
Dean handed the child to her brother and worked on the latch again.
"You know you could just do this." Sam said as he stepped over the gate.
"Bitch! Just because you have stupid long moose legs." She climbed over the gate and followed Sam down the stairs grumbling. "There's another eight inches I'm missing!"
"Dean, you lost, like, 4 inches!" Sam said.
"Not talking 'bout height." Dean smirked in her brothers direction.
"You're gross." Sam said stepping Over the other gate at the bottom.
"You're just jealous." Dean teased as she climbed over the barrier as well.
"Boys." Bobby said from the doorway. "Go get yourselves a beer or coffee or something then get your butts in here. We got stuff to talk about."
"Okay Bobby." They replied.
"Take Kayla in there and I'll get you something. Beer or coffee?" Dean said.
"Coffee." Sam replied.
•
Caleb couldn't understand what it was about seeing Sam carrying Kayla into the room that made him so furious. Okay, sure, she was his daughter, not that anyone was allowed to find out, as per Deans decree. And what difference did it make that he hadn't even so much as held her once but every time he turned around she was in Sams arms or on his lap? And big deal, so she could managed a garbled, mangled version of Sams name yet had barely acknowledged Caleb's existence. None of that should matter, he didn't want a family any way. He was known to drop a chick the nano second she started hinting at making their casual arrangements any thing more serious.
Caleb leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. He kneaded his hands together as he thought. What if that was just something he told himself. What if he had convinced himself that he didn't want a family, a happily ever after, because anytime he had even the semblance of a normal, happy home it was cruelly ripped away. His whole family, father, mother, unborn brother, were all murdered by demons when he was five. The grandmother that raised him until the age of 13 suddenly taken away by an unexpected heart attack, even Pastor Jim, who cared for him well into his adult years, lost his life at the edge of a demons blade. Maybe he convinced himself not to want it to protect himself.
Caleb watched silently as Dean entered the room with two coffee mugs.
"Move over." Dean said.
Sam slid across the sofa to the end closest to where Caleb was sitting and sat Kayla on the middle cushion. Dean held out the mug.
"Right hand dick!" She said drawing it back again. "If you hold it in your left, Kayla might bump you and get scolded."
Sam looked at Kayla who was looking out the window, holding the back of the sofa and bouncing up and down. He took the mug with his right hand and held it over the arm of the sofa to ensure Kayla didn't get hurt. Dean sat and put her mug on the small end table beside the sofa.
"You going somewhere?" Sam asked noticing Caleb's bag by his chair.
"Found a hunt." Caleb answered.
"You're leaving? I thought you'd made 'big plans' for my birthday?" Sam said.
Caleb shrugged.
"Still got a couple of days, probably will be back."
"Alright, shut your yaps. I got a few things to say then it's your turn Dean."
Dean was sipping from her coffee cup and turned to look at Bobby. Kayla chose that moment to jump on her mom.
"No baby! Mommy's got a hot drink!" Dean said as she moved the mug away, spilling some of the hot liquid over her hand. She hissed and put the mug back on the table.
"You okay?" Caleb asked.
"Fine." Dean answered tersely.
"Okay, first things first. Dean, I want you to know that no one her is going to hurt Kayla, or try to test her. You say she's 100% human then thats good enough for us."
"That and you've been testing her since we got here." Dean said.
"What?" Bobby asked.
"Come on Bobby, purified water? How dumb do you think I am? I know you've been dosing Kayla with holy water since we got here. Oh and the cutlery set?"
"That was..."
"Yours. I know, but it's so handy that it's also sterling silver, isn't it?"
"Dean I just.."
"Yeah Bobby I get it. You just want to know what you're going up against. But I assure you, she's just a little girl. If there was something wrong with her I'm sure Cas would have told me."
"Cas?" Sam asked shocked. "When did you see Cas?"
"When Kayla was six months old."
"And he didn't help you?" Caleb asked, forgetting his anger for the moment.
"He said I was safer this way."
"Why did he even come? We've been praying to him for two years and not a peep." Sam asked.
"I prayed, like really prayed to him. Good thing too, there were demons around looking for Kayla. He saved her."
"What?" The other three all exclaimed together.
"I'd taken Kayla somewhere the night she turned six months, just in case. I'd left instructions with someone that if I didn't make contact by 7am the next day to call you." Dean looked at Sam. "So Cas showed up just around midnight and said that there were two minor demons close by but they'd been taken care of. Probably was just a coincidence but couldn't take any chances. Anyway, to keep her safe, Cas warded her. He put that Enochian mumbo jumbo on her ribs, like we had, and an anti possession tattoo on her stomach."
"Where?" Sam asked.
"He disguised it as a mole."
"Hang on, you said you'd left instructions for Sam to be contacted?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah."
"Where were you?"
"Close by." Dean answered vaguely.
"Alright." Bobby said. "Let's start at the beginning. When you left, where did you go?"
Dean took a deep breath. She looked at Kayla, who was trying to get off the sofa, and helped her down.
"Dean?" Sam prompted.
"Years ago, when Sam was still in college, dad and I did a couple of jobs for a lady that owns a diner in Idaho. I kept in contact with her over the years. I took the long way around, travelled around for a couple of weeks, but I went there."
"So it was you!" Caleb said. "I went there and they couldn't even confirm they had seen you."
"Yeah. She gave me a job and some where to live. I worked there until Joshua turned up one day and recognised me. Birdette looks after her 'girls'. She has escape packages ready to go. She slipped me one and I was dust probably before Josh had even finished his call to you." Dean glanced at Caleb.
She checked on Kayla who was happily sitting on the floor destroying a magazine she had found.
"Then where did you go?" Sam asked.
"I already had a little money saved, with that and what I'd earned at the diner I just kept moving for a while. I'd hunt when I needed to. Eventually I crossed the Canadian border. I got sick and there was some unseasonably cold weather. I took shelter in a church and the Mother Superior found me. They gave me a room and nursed me back to health. When I went into labour they wanted me to go to a hospital but I knew it wouldn't be safe so I insisted I stayed there. They had a little hospice clinic thing set up so that's where I had Kayla. They helped me register her with the consulate so she has a US birth certificate."
"Is that where you've been all this time?" Sam asked.
Dean shook her head and watched Kayla crawl over to Caleb. She tensed slightly as their daughter pulled her self up to standing using Caleb's legs.
"Eh?" She asked her mom, pointing at Caleb.
"Yeah, Caleb." Dean said.
"Dean?" Sam tried to get her attention.
"Yeah?" She asked as she watched Kayla bouncing in front of Caleb. He leaned forward and tickled her cheek. Kayla looked at his face and reached out a hand. She pulled a hissing breath through her four little front teeth just as Dean had done earlier.
"Ssss, Eh, ow?" She reached out to him. Caleb leaned forward so she could touch the large bruise on his jaw. He leaned into her gentle touch and wanted to pick her up but Dean was suddenly there, taking the girl away.
"Why did you leave?" Sam asked.
"Demons. God damn things are everywhere!""
All eyes turned to Dean.
"What?" Bobby asked.
"The priest was almost attacked. I saved him. Before I finished the exorcism the demon said it could sense a new Winchester. I stayed for a month or so but eventually I couldn't stand being on edge all the time so I left."
Dean sat holding a squirming Kayla in her lap.
"Eh?" Kayla asked again.
"No." Dean said.
"Okay. So where did you go after the convent?" Bobby asked feeling the tension in the room rise.
"Umm, we travelled for a bit. Kept along the border. Eventually I caught a hunt in Maine, easy salt and burn. Some guys mechanic had a heart attack on the premises and didn't move on. He was so grateful he offered me a job and when he found out me and Kayla were living in the car he found us a place to stay."
"Fuck!" Caleb cursed.
"What?" Sam asked.
"He lied to us! That old bastard lied to us!"
"What are you talking about?" Sam said.
"The old mechanic. He told us Dean just fixed her car and moved on! The portacot in the office. It was Kaylas wasn't it?" Caleb asked Dean.
"Yeah, and if you'd been there 24 hours later, we'd have been there." She answered.
"So why did he lie to us?" Sam asked.
"Because I told him people might come looking for me and I didn't want to be found. Anyway, we stayed there a few months and then we came back here."
"I know you said you had to leave to protect Kayla but I just wish you had've come to one of us. We would have helped you." Bobby said.
"You say that, but I couldn't be sure." Dean answered.
•
"So you're really taking off for a hunt?" Sam asked Caleb as he put his bag into his truck.
"Yep. Think it's best right now."
"What about your big plans for my birthday?" Sam asked. He really wished that Caleb and Dean would sort out whatever is causing the animosity between them before Caleb left.
"If I don't get this done quickly we'll just have to postpone them until the weekend." Caleb answered, slapping Sam on the back.
"But you'll definitely be back in time for Kaylas birthday, right?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Caleb glanced back at the house. "Day lights burning Sammy-boy. I should go, Neilson's waiting for me."
Caleb gave Sam a brief, manly hug.
"You take care of those girls for me!" He said with a smirk before getting in the truck and driving off.
•
Dean watched Sam and Caleb say goodbye through the window. She knew they had formed a close bond during the year she was gone and now, because of their fight, Caleb was leaving. She watched as Sam waved goodbye when Caleb drove away and saw his shoulders sag when the vehicle turned out of Bobby's property, leaving him standing alone in the yard. Sam got one brother back, just to lose another. It was her fault and just one more burden for Dean to carry but the weight felt justified.
"Eh bye?" Kayla asked as she waved through the window.
"Yeah, Caleb's gone." Dean answered and then walked away from the window.
