A/N: Vivi here! Hope you're ready for some awkward conversations about bodily functions and needs!
Same warnings apply. Enjoy!
Previously on Enter the World:
Sam took me by the hand and led me to the spot behind the house where we'd parked the Impala for the big event. He tugged the blanket out of the trunk and we snuggled down, the two of us barely managing to spoon in the backseat, me using his arm as a pillow. It was the best night's sleep I'd gotten since we arrived.
It wasn't until the next day that we saw a snapshot from the bridesmaid's video. Sam and I had gotten up early to fix breakfast for our little family. We figured Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and Cas wouldn't be up to making their own food that morning. So, we were stepping over sleeping bodies and mysterious puddles in the house to get to the kitchen. There were only four people asleep in there. Three on the floor and one at the table with empty beer bottles around him. Someone had turned the TV on during the night and, once breakfast was well on its way, I walked in to see one man awake and watching it with drooping eyes as six or seven other men and women snoozed on the floor in various positions. The news was on.
Apparently the bride from last night was some CEO's daughter and her wedding merited a few seconds coverage on the local station. Only, it wasn't just her face. Sam, the drunk guy I spilled water on, and I made the news, too.
Sam and I rushed out to the barn, breakfast forgotten, to where a few people were still partying. We had to find Dean and Bobby and Ellen. I was panicking something fierce.
Dean wasn't okay with what we told him about the news.
Bobby was less okay with it.
"Can't stay here no more."
"Dammit." Ellen paced back and forth in her kitchen after having woken and shooed the hungover sleepers. She was making me feel tremendously guilty as Dean, Sam, and I leaned against her beautiful cupboards, eyes downcast like scolded children.
"I never meant to make a scene, Ellen. I'm so sorry." I said softly, unable to look her in the eye. I'd been silently bawling my eyes out since almost right after the news story came on, so I knew the puffy, hot feeling in my face wasn't just my imagination. I don't wanna go. Never meant for this to happen. Why now? Why us?
"I know, hun, but now the world knows where you are and that spells trouble." Ellen stopped pacing and crossed her arms.
"Both worlds." Dean said with a sigh. "Tristram will be showin' up any time now and with our luck, the feds will have ID-ed you and Sam. They'll be on the way, too. And soon, if they haven't already dispatched."
"Whatcha gonna do?" Bobby asked from his place at the kitchen table with Jo.
"Got no choice. We have to move. Sell the barn and the house and find a new place." Ellen was visibly upset, her face flushed, body language screaming anxiety and frustration, a hint of healthy fear in her eyes. "Start over all over again. New town, new identities."
"Better than losing someone." Jo grumbled soberly as she fiddled with a small knife, giving it most of her attention.
"Damn straight." Dean said quietly. "We'll relocate, too. Somewhere far away from you guys. We'll leave you alone from now on. Scouts honor."
Ellen rolled her eyes. "Don't be dramatic, Dean. It's not like we're starting from scratch. I don't hold grudges with friends."
"We're still friends?" Sam asked hesitantly, the signature puppy dog eyes making an appearance.
"A' course, Sam. You've gotta do somethin' really bad to get on this ol' girl's bad side."
"I hate to break up this heartfelt talk, but need to get moving. It's been an hour since that clip first aired and we don't have that kind of time with our clientele." Bobby said, standing and adjusting his hat.
"I'll go wake Cas up." Sam said, pushing away from the cabinets and heading for the stairs. The angel, still early in his recovery, hadn't yet woken for the morning, unlike the rest of us.
"Alright, everybody. Pack your bags. Outside in ten."
"What about all the hunters?" I asked nervously. "They're literally everywhere."
"Jo, get to it." Ellen barked. "I'll get the barn, you get the house."
Jo stood and put her hands on either side of her mouth to shout. "Rise n' shine!"
"Where are we going now?" I asked from the backseat of the Impala as we pulled out of Ellen's driveway. Unwilling to look back at the now mostly empty house – stripped of valuables and memories with a now empty parking lot – I slumped into my seat, allowing my hands to fall over my belly as the trees flew by outside. On the road again… I can't wait to be on the road again… Not. What the hell have I gotten us into? This is all my fault. I ruined our stability and now-
"Away." Dean said, not bothering to look at me in the mirror. "Might as well settle in. We'll be on the road for a couple hours, at least."
"Where's Bobby going?"
"East."
"Where are Ellen and Jo going?" The only females in my life and I'll probably never see them again. Cas' wing twitched beside me, nudging my arm ever so lightly as he slept in the seat beside me. Turns out he wasn't quite awake when Dean dragged him down the stairs just minutes ago.
"The other way." Sam said, glancing at me over the back of his seat. He sent me a sympathetic, reassuring half-grin. "They'll be okay. And so will we."
"I don't know if you realize this, but I'm almost fourteen weeks pregnant. Pregnant women aren't supposed to be in cars for longer than two hours at a time and I- I'm kinda freaking out here." What if I give birth in the car? What if we never find a place to settle and we just-
"Why?" Dean asked curiously, taking a second to look me up and down in the mirror.
"The two hour thing or the freaking out thing?" I asked quietly, trying to slow my pounding heart and quiet my racing mind.
The look I received in the mirror was the equivalent of rolling eyes and the bitch face all in one from my dearest adopted brother.
"So, uh, blood clots happen. And what if we can't find a safe place to stay until I pop?" My voice wavered, try as I might to control it. Traitor.
"We'll find a place. You and the baby will be just fine, Ali. Don't worry about it too much, okay?" Sam said, giving me a calculating and endearingly intense once-over before returning his attention to the road. "We'll keep you safe."
"I don't doubt that." I said quietly, my hands wringing in my lap. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong." Dean didn't see the tear of frustration and fear slide down my cheek.
"Where are we?" I snapped awake at the sound of a door slamming. It'd been a long day of travel and after lunch, I'd eventually fallen asleep against Cas' soft feathers. He was awake then. He didn't seem to mind. And I no longer cared if the boys took embarrassing pictures of us. Sleep seemed much more important than my dignity at that point.
"Away." Dean said before shutting his door and following Sam towards what I quickly recognized as a motel office.
"Motel sweet motel." Grumbling, I stretched and let a yawn slip free.
Beside me, Cas sighed and scratched his fingers through his hair. "I am… tired."
"Same here, buddy." I said as I pushed open my car door and stepped out to finish stretching.
"Be careful, Allison. We don't know what's out there." Cas said, mimicking me and leaving the vehicle. His wings stretched out behind him, unconsciously.
I looked around quickly and discretely before motioning for Cas to get back in the car. "You're one to talk, fly-boy. How are we going to explain those wings away, huh?"
Cas returned to the car with a deep red on his cheeks.
I opened my door again, but didn't get in. I just leaned against the door frame and watched Dean through the office window as he laughed and joked with the manager while Sam rolled his eyes. "You have to be more careful, Cas. I can say I just look like the woman on the news, but you would have a lot of trouble explaining those black beauties."
"You… you think my wings are beautiful?"
I shrugged and looked up at the stars, or the patch visible through the clouds glowing with light from a nearby city. "Yeah."
I like to imagine that Cas smiled, but I couldn't tell.
Sam and Dean returned a few minutes later, Sam seeming to be rushing Dean down the sidewalk. They opened a door just a few doors down from the car and I shuffled over with my things while Dean passed me with a disapproving gaze.
"What?" I mumbled tiredly, halfway through the door.
"I saw you standing out in the open. Rebel."
I rolled my eyes and flopped down on my back on one of the beds, not even bothering to close the door.
It was an uneventful night. Cas knocked over a lamp with his wing, Dean drank like a fish, Sam was glued to his laptop and I watched I Love Lucy reruns on a snowy television.
Motel sweet motel.
For the next six weeks, we lived on the road. We never stayed for more than three nights in the same motel or the same town. After the first week of doing that, I'd gotten used to it. The four of us spent five days trying to locate Tristram and Francesca, trying to figure out how to get the upper hand in our battle. Unfortunately, there were no omens to be found, no demonic occurrences reported, no mass faintings in the news. They were covering their tracks well.
Dean called Bobby and Ellen, who agreed to help out with finding the demons. Bobby settled somewhere in Montana and Ellen and Jo ended up in Tennessee, using all their spare time to do exactly what we were trying to do.
When five days passed with nothing to show for it, we lost our steam. The guys summoned, interrogated, and exorcised at least ten demons, none of whom knew where Tristram or Francesca were, or who their lackies were. Of course they did the summoning a few hours away from where Cas and I stayed pent up in a motel, but even so, Sam put his foot down on not summoning one or both of the big bads for fear of putting me in greater danger, since it would give away our location and put all of us at risk of being taken and held for ransom, like I was.
With no leads to go on we resolved to only work on finding the demons a few hours out of every day instead of all day and night. There were still monsters in the world that needed ganking.
So the guys found a case and worked it, leaving Cas and me to research and provide support from our dingy motel room. That one was a poltergeist in a nursing home. Wrapped up in two days. I felt left out, but they said it was easy and they didn't need any help with this one.
After the second week, we still had no demon leads and the guys found another case a few states over. A werewolf was targeting game hunters, leaving the bodies hanging from their lookouts in the trees with no hearts. That case closed in three days. Dean only needed four stitches to a gash in his arm. I felt terrible for not being there to help, but Sam pointed out that if anything had happened to me, it would've been two hours to the nearest hospital. With Cas still out of commission in the healing and flying departments, that may have proved fatal for the baby, if not both of us. Sam made a good point, but I still didn't like it.
The third week held no eventful happenings for us. We just sat around, looking for demons and cases and watching TV in the great state of Arizona. Every other day, the guys would leave me with Cas and drive a few hours out to some inconspicuous place, different every time, and summon a few demons to interrogate and exorcise. Again, none of them could provide any helpful information.
Bored with watching television, I poked at my belly, trying to will my baby into moving, but it was still a little early to be feeling anything kick in there. Anything to break up the dullness of our days would've been a welcome change. No such luck.
Week four and five led us to northern California, where we worked a case involving changelings. I wasn't allowed out of Cas' sight or the motel room those whole two weeks; even though the baby hadn't been born yet and therefore couldn't be swapped for a changeling creature, Sam and Dean didn't want to take any chances with the case involving children. I was miserable. They were gone most of the time, having left us a few hours outside the town for safety. My heart desperately missed the guys and the rest of my body desperately missed Sam and his body. I was hornier than I'd ever been and had no source of release. I couldn't do anything with Cas watching me like a hawk all the time. Even though his angel eyes were starting to see little specks of my soul again, he still couldn't fly or heal anyone, let alone take away nausea or… other feelings. So I toughed it out and tried to resist telling Sam about my woes when we spoke each night on the phone, worried that it might distract him from the case. And… maybe I didn't want Dean or Cas to overhear any possibly blackmail worthy statements when Sam and I spoke on the phone, since I knew they were always nearby.
When the guys came back at the end of the fifth week, it was in the middle of the night. They didn't even bed down until morning. They stopped just long enough to pack us up and head to the next motel, several hours away. I cried quietly in the backseat, hating our new life and feeling terribly lonely as Sam and Cas slept in the rumbling vehicle. Cas' wings took up most of the backseat, leaving me leaning on the side door, feeling the soft, stiff flight feathers brush up against me whenever the car took a turn. From all the research we'd done on corporeal angel wings, we still had no idea when Cas would be strong enough to put them away again. Sure, he was eating less and sleeping less, but he was still eating and sleeping. That alone was a testament to just how far he remained from normalcy.
The radio was playing quietly while Dean drove in the seat in front of me. After a few long hours of driving, he glanced at me in the rearview mirror and did a double take. "Li, what's wrong? Why're you crying? It's late, you should be asleep." His voice was quiet, concerned. "Everything okay? You in pain?"
I just shook my head and looked out the window, embarrassed at having been found in that state. Miserable though I was, it took everything in me to try and keep that misery to myself. I didn't want them to feel bad for me. Really, I appreciated all they were doing to keep us safe. Keep me safe. But I was reaching my breaking point and the closer I got, the harder it was to hide that fact.
"Is it about the case? All the kids made it back to their moms and dads, Li. It worked out perfect this time. No one died, thanks to you and Cas. If you hadn't found that changeling's cave behind the clinic on the map, it wouldn't turned out very different." Dean kept his voice soft, constantly looking between the road and the mirror to gauge my reaction. His words didn't change anything.
"That's great, Dean. Really, I'm glad everyone is okay. I'm just tired." I wiped my eyes and tried to send him a convincing smile.
"Bullshit." His tone was blunt, making me feel a little guilty.
I huffed and rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands. "I missed you guys."
"We know. You told us every week."
"Like a lot."
Dean looked at me again. "Is there somethin' you're not telling us? No more secrets, Li. I know it's been a while since we've just sat and talked, but that's still no excuse."
I shrugged and let my hands fall into my lap. "Fine. I… I hate all this moving around. You probably knew that, though. I feel like- y'know, I need to nest. I need to get ready to have this baby and I can't do that when we keep moving around like this. I'm getting bigger and things are getting harder to do. I'm not nauseous all the time anymore, but I'm hungry all the time and I have weird cravings and I'm hornier than hell and-" My eyes blew wide and I blushed like a school girl. "I wasn't- I didn't mean to tell you that last one."
Dean shifted awkwardly in his seat. "No, no, I get it, it's a hormone thing. Read all about it already. I just didn't think you had it. You've never said anything before, so I just assumed. Sorry for, uh, for keeping Sam away from you for so long."
I sighed and shrugged, not knowing what else to do. "S'okay. You're busy. I get it."
"If you don't mind my asking, when's the last time you two… uh, got together? I mean, it's supposed to release oxytocin, right? That's good for the baby. Bonding and all that shit, right? There's a reason for it."
My blush deepened as I struggled to remember the last time we were intimate. "Yeah, yeah, it's good for his development, good for me, too. So… Uh…"
"Been a while, huh?"
"Y-yeah. It was right before we had the baby talk in the kitchen. When, uh…" I wasn't sure why I was telling Dean all this. He'd already made it known that love-making in the bunker was not okay with him. "When Sam finally got up and ate after the siren attack."
"TMI, Li. So it's been like…"
"I was eleven or twelve weeks pregnant. I'm nineteen weeks now. Will be twenty tomorrow."
Dean's eyes looked back at me in the mirror, shock written all over his face. "Damn, Li. That's some dry spell. Is he gonna be okay, er…?"
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Baby will be fine, it's not absolutely necessary for it to happen during pregnancy. And you guys are always around. Can't really get down to it if we are all in the same room. What, did you think we just had constant quickies when your back was turned?"
Dean chuckled. "Think I pissed the princess off a little bit. I guess I never really paid any attention to your sex life."
"Except when it makes you uncomfortable." I winked at him in the mirror.
He scoffed lightly and rolled his eyes. "Can't a man just live in his own home without having to think about what his brother is doing in the next room?"
I laughed, the sound filling my chest and lifting some of the weight from where I hadn't realized it had settled. "Absolutely not."
"At least the walls are thick. So, just out of curiosity, you can't… uh…" A thick blush that I could see even from just the glow of the radio filled Dean's cheeks. "You can't, I don't know… help yourself? Like- like you might hurt the baby or something? Sticking something up there?"
"Did you really just ask me if it's safe to masturbate during pregnancy?" My blush lit up to match his. I cannot believe he just brought this up. Oh my gosh…
"No! Yes- I don't know. Is it?" I could tell how uncomfortable he was talking about this. But then again, the man had gotten me tampons from the store more than a few times, so he was already used to some slightly less comfortable topics. It touched my heart a little that he was really trying to understand my problem. It was more than I expected of him, certainly.
"That didn't come up in all the research you did?"
"Obviously not."
"Huh. Well I… I mean, it's okay, as long as I don't do anything too rough. But I don't have any, uh, products to help with that. And it's not the same release as I get with Sam. Oxytocin is a bonding hormone, remember?"
"Oh. Right. Well, do you… do you want to go shopping for products? I'll take you, no questions asked. I just want you to be as comfortable as you can while we're doing our thing elsewhere, y'know?"
"I could come with you on hunts. That would make me very comfortable."
I earned a glare in the mirror. "No. Not with cops and demons on your tail and belly out to there. It's just not safe for you to hunt anymore, Li. We talked about this."
"Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I agree with you, though. I'm just as capable as ever, Dean. I can still run and swing a blade and fire a gun and-"
"Get hurt and miscarry and die."
"C'mon, Dean."
"No. The answer is still no."
I huffed and sat back in my seat, glaring out the window at the stars and dark trees as they swept by. We didn't speak for a few minutes. Only the sound of the radio playing Dean's classic rock cassette collection touched my ears. Well, that and a few squeaky car noises as we hit bumps or potholes.
"Would you really take me shopping for that sort of thing?" I asked out of the blue, not looking away from the stars.
"I said I would, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did."
"Look, Li. I know this is hard on you. Moving all the time and being pregnant and not being able to do what you want, but that baby needs you more than we do right now. When you decided to keep him, you made your bed. Now you gotta sleep in it. We all gotta sleep in it."
"I'm sorry I dragged you into this-"
"Shut up, Li. I want this just as much as you do." In the rearview mirror, I saw Dean's eyes soften. "And you know it."
"Are you sure? Are you sure being just an uncle is really what you want? It's okay if you change your mind. You have every right." I breathed, my nerves suddenly getting the better of me. Anxiety squeezed hard in my chest and I looked to Dean like a lost child. How could I take his baby away from him and give it Sam when Dean was proving to be such a family man? "Because there are tests to tell who the father is."
"Sam's the father."
"But what if he isn't?"
"Li, leave it alone. This is what I want, okay?" His voice was gentle but rock steady, leaving no room for doubt. Not that I didn't have any, but still. "I'll still be there the whole time, I'll still love the little guy with everything I got, I'm not going anywhere. But I don't want him to grow up being confused because his Dad and Mom aren't together and his Mom and Uncle are. You understand what I'm saying, right?"
"Yeah. Okay." I whispered, eyes downcast and stinging a bit with some kind of unfounded rejection.
"It's just better this way."
I didn't answer because I didn't necessarily agree that it was better. Easier, yes. But better?
"Now, about those products. How soon you need 'em?"
I sighed again and looked over at Sam, then to Cas to make sure they were still sleeping. And they were. "Well, I'm hangin' on. I mean, it would be nice to have something, but…"
"But what?"
"I miss Sam."
"Not the same with a toy, huh?"
"Not even close."
"I'll see what I can do."
I sighed, letting my arms fall back to my sides as I pulled the trunk blanket up a little more on my lap. "Please don't try to get too involved, Dean. I don't want to mess anything up here."
"Hey, wanting to be with your man while in the family way is normal, from what I read. I've been keeping that from you. Haven't I?"
I shrugged and looked out the window again. "It's a group effort."
"Well, then getting you together will be a group effort, too."
"That just sounds wrong."
Dean chuckled softly and looked at me in the mirror with mischievous eyes. "We're gonna get you laid, sweetheart, if it's the last thing we do."
"Seriously, Dean? You had to put it like that?"
"What are brothers for?"
A/N: Toldja it was gonna be awkward...
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