Sam was worried about Chrys. Again.
They were on their way back to Bobby's after losing Adam. Sam had opted to sit in the back of Baby with Chrys, who was still crying on and off. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her across his lap, tucking her head under his chin, and held her as she wept.
He knew that she probably felt guilty about Adam, but he honestly didn't understand her reaction. She was more upset than he'd ever seen her, and God knew she had had good reasons to be upset before. So why was she reacting like this for someone she'd only met that day?
When they pulled into Singer's Salvage, her cries had trickled down to sniffles. She kept her face pressed into his neck and made no move to get out of the car when they stopped.
He had been running a hand through her hair, and he kept the slow, gentle motion going when he spoke. "Come on, beautiful, let's go to bed."
She sighed deeply, then pressed a soft kiss to his neck. "Okay," she said softly, then gracefully maneuvered herself out of the car.
He guided her toward the house with one hand on the small of her back. They were almost to the door when Castiel appeared in front of them.
Chrys jumped. "God dammit, Cass, quit that!"
The angel grabbed her upper arms, staring at her intently. "Chrysanthemum, are you all right? What happened?"
To Sam's surprise, she didn't yank herself out of Cass's grasp, just looked up at him. "I'm fine, Cass. Adam… Adam said yes to Michael to protect me."
Cass nodded sharply. "And-"
"No," she said, a little quickly. "No, Dean didn't say yes. He saved us."
"Only because you two were stupid enough to bring me along," Dean said easily, standing next to Sam. Sam noticed his brother observing the weird exchange between the angel and Chrys, too, and wondered what Dean made of it.
"Let's go inside, kids," Dean said finally, "It's cold."
Chrys sat at the kitchen table while the men talked around her. She listened, but was too drained to really contribute anything. She just leaned against Sam, absorbing his warmth, absent-mindedly resting her hand on her belly.
"How ya holdin' up, Summers?" Dean's gruff voice had her opening her eyes and sitting up a little.
She shrugged. "I'm all right. Just kind of… Empty. And cold," she added, rubbing her arms.
He nodded and slid a tumbler of whiskey across the table to her. "Here, this will help."
She stared at it for a moment, then shook her head and slid it over to Sam. "Here, Sammy, you take it. I'm not up for liquor."
She felt Sam's eyes boring into the side of her head, and tried to ignore him until he spoke.
"All right, what is going on with you?" he asked. "You aren't drinking, you're suddenly wearing clothes to bed, what's going on? Are you sick?"
Chrys felt a blush warm her face. "Lots of information you're giving out there, Sammy."
Dean nodded. "Yeah, TMI, brother."
Sam wasn't deterred. "Come on, Chrys, please tell me what's going on."
While she appreciated the lack of orders, she was still reluctant to tell him about the baby. So she shook her head. "Nothing, Sam." She turned to Dean. "What do we do next? How do we find Adam?"
Instead of changing the focus of the conversation, as she had hoped to do with her shitty distraction, Chrys watched with dismay as Dean's green eyes lit with interest. "Well that was a misdirect if I've ever heard one," he said softly.
Sam nodded. "Yeah, you're pretty much screwed, Chrys, you'll have to tell us eventually."
Suddenly, she was irritated. Fuck him. Fuck both of them. She stood, pushing her chair back and pushing Sam away at the same time. "Actually, I don't have to tell you jack shit," she said evenly. "I'm going to bed."
"Chrys," Sam said, his voice low. Dread and fury filled her at once, because he really only dropped his voice that low for one reason.
"Sammy, you're gonna want to back the fuck off," she said quietly, before he could demand the truth from her.
"Why won't you tell me what's going on?" He asked, anger and confusion lacing his voice.
Chrys saw Dean slip out of the room out of the corner of her eye, and was relieved. This was not a conversation she wanted to have in front of the eldest Winchester.
She turned to Sam. "Because, Sam, it doesn't matter."
He frowned and put a hand on her hip, guiding her to sit back down next to him. She went hesitantly, bitter about how willing she was to do what he wanted. "It matters to me," he said gently, bringing his other hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "Come on, Chrys, please tell me?"
She looked at him for a long time, examining those warm brown eyes. His handsome face, his strong jaw, those devastating cheekbones. Good grief, I love him.
She sighed. "Sam, you don't want to know. Please let this go."
He shook his head. "Come on, Chrys, please?" He cupped her cheek with his hand, and she leaned into it, craving his touch. "Please, beautiful," he said softly, "I can help."
She opened her mouth to continue her objections when Cass walked in and frowned at her, and the tumbler in front of her. "Chrys, you shouldn't be drinking."
She glared at him while Sam frowned. "Why shouldn't she be drinking?"
Castiel didn't look over at Sam, just stared at Chrys. Blue eyes met blue eyes, and they warred silently for a moment before she gave in. Fucking narc angel.
But… Sam really did deserve to know.
She looked over at him, suddenly extremely nervous. "I, um… I shouldn't be drinking because… Um…" She groaned and ran her hand through her hair. "Fuck, okay. Um." She met his confused brown eyes, and just hoped that he wouldn't be mad. "I shouldn't be drinking because I'm pregnant, Sam."
Sam felt every thought he'd ever had vacate his brain as his world tilted on it's axis.
-because I'm pregnant because I'm pregnant because I'm pregnant-
The words rang in his head, chasing themselves over and over and over. There was a faint buzzing in his ears, and Chrys sounded very far away when she said his name.
"Sam? Sam? Oh, for fuck's sake. Sam! Snap out of it!"
Her soft hand patting him on the cheek brought him back to the present, back to reality. He stared at her for a moment, then, "What did you say?"
She looked sympathetic, and she left her hand on his face. "I'm pregnant, Sammy. About a week and a half along." She looked over at Cass, who nodded.
Sam shook his head, confused, and trying to clear the buzzing in his ears. "Look, I don't… I don't know a lot about this, but how would you already know? I mean… Don't women usually not know for a while?"
Chrys shrugged. "I don't know how I know. I just… Did. The morning of."
"I have a theory about that," Cass said. Sam felt his neck creak a little when he turned to look at the angel. "The baby isn't entirely human."
Sam saw Chrys flinch a little, and he automatically reached forward to pull her close to him, tucking her into his side. "What do you mean?" she asked softly, cuddling close. "Is it… Is it because of me?"
Castiel shook his head. "No. I believe it's a result of the demon blood that runs through Sam's veins. It's not very much, so the baby wouldn't be a full Cambion like Jesse is, but I suspect she will probably have some small amount of power. I think you sense that power."
Reality came crashing down on Sam when he realized they were talking about his baby. His baby with Chrys. His baby with Chrys who was going to be affected by the demon in Sam.
He ran his free hand through his hair, willing his brain to catch up. "Okay, wait, what?" He shook his head. "The baby is…" He frowned. "She? How do you…"
"Um, Cass knew," Chrys said softly. He looked down at her, nestled under his arm. "He told me on the day we killed the Whore of Babylon."
Sam frowned. "Chrys, why didn't you tell me?"
She pressed her face into his shoulder, and he couldn't help the way he hugged her to him tighter. The distress in her face affected him. "Because, honestly? I don't know if it's going to matter." She looked up at him, letting him gaze into those blue eyes that he suddenly hoped fiercely would pass on to their child. "I don't know if I think we're gonna survive this, Sammy."
Later, Chrys sat on the couch and watched with no small amount of amusement as the Winchesters bustled around her, everyone settling in to research.
Sam had started fussing over her the moment he'd found out about the baby. He made her eat a huge supper, nearly twice as much as she normally ate. She wouldn't have done it, and she had actually opened her mouth to tell him to go fuck himself.
As if he had sensed that, he had told Dean and Bobby about the pregnancy. Chrys was strong, usually able to rely on her bitchiness to get her through any sticky situation. But she wasn't strong enough to resist two sets of puppy dog eyes and one set of grumpy old man eyes, all three telling her to sit down and eat. So she had buckled under the feeling of three different people caring about her, and had eaten almost until she'd thrown up.
She was smiling at Sam, whose rueful smile told her that he knew he was being ridiculous as he draped a blanket over her, when Castiel walked in.
The angel frowned. "What's going on?"
Before any of the men could answer, Chrys rolled her eyes. "Everyone is freaking out about the baby, Cass." She smiled. "Twelve days in the womb, and they're already acting like mother hens."
Castiel looks at the three men in the room evenly. "You understand that Chrys is perfectly fine? That there is no reason that she should be restricted from normal activity, aside from drinking and smoking cigarettes?"
Before any of the three men could react, Chrys snorted. "Says the angel that just today didn't want me anywhere near the fight."
Castiel had the good grace to look embarrassed before he let his face settle into a careful mask. But Chrys saw it, and it softened her toward him. Which was probably why when he approached and knelt in front of her, she just smiled.
"May I check on the baby?" he asked in his gravelly, no-nonsense way.
She cocked an eyebrow. "She's a week and a half old, Cass, I doubt anything has changed." Before he could object, she continued quickly. "But yes, go ahead."
He placed his big, cool and on her belly, and she felt warmth pulse through her middle. When he took his hand away and she met those eyes that were so similar to her own, she felt a little wiggle of fear in her heart.
"She's perfectly healthy, Chrys."
Something that had been tight in her chest relaxed at his words, and she smiled. "Good."
Sam came and sat next to her, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. "How do you know she's a she, Cass? I thought that didn't happen until later."
Castiel gazed evenly at them. "Gender is part of the soul, it has already been decided."
Chrys frowned. "What about transgendered people? Or non-gender-binary people?"
At Sam, Dean, and Bobby's looks, Chrys sighed. "Trans and non-binary people can sometimes be… Depressed, scared, alone. They turn toward drugs sometimes. I've known quite a few of them."
Dean frowned. "What the fuck is non-binary?"
Chrys smiled. "Someone who doesn't feel like a man or a woman. They're somewhere in between."
She felt herself get ready to be furious with the elder Winchester, until he shrugged. "Rock on."
She smiled and turned to Sam, who was still looking at the angel. "Can you tell… Can you tell if she's going to be like that, Cass?"
Castiel smiled, and Chrys was comforted. "Gender is part of the soul, not the body. Humans assigned two genders, I have been led to believe that God doesn't care that much." He met Chrys's gaze. "She will be a woman, and she will be lovely."
Chrys felt warmth spread along her cheeks and in her chest when Sam pulled her close to press a kiss to her temple. "Just like her mother."
Later, Chrys watched again with amusement as Sam fussed around her, getting ready for bed.
"Sam," she said softly, taking pity on the poor man, "I'm not an invalid. I'm barely even pregnant. Most women don't even know this early, there is absolutely no reason to be this worried."
He sighed and sat on the bed next to her. "I know," he said with a smile, "I can't seem to help it."
She patted the empty space next to her. "Then come to bed, let's just sleep the day off."
He sighed and obeyed, gathering her up tenderly and pressing a kiss to her forehead. She cuddled into him, warm and very close to being happy, wearing his t-shirt and sleeping in his bed. Oh, Sammy.
"It's kind of surreal," he whispered, his hand stroking her back in an extremely calming gesture.
She nodded against his chest. "You're telling me. I'm the one carrying her."
There was a beat of silence, then, "Her." He took a deep breath, and she could tell he was struggling to contain his emotions. Instead of calling him out, she wrapped an arm around his waist and tangled her legs with his, cuddling as close as physically possible to him.
"I can't… I mean… A baby."
"I know," she said softly, smiling into his warm chest.
"I don't…" He took another deep breath. "I mean… I don't even know how to begin to process this."
She sighed and leaned back to stare into his warm, still shocked brown eyes. "Sam, I don't think there is a way to process this yet. Let's just… Let's just get through this apocalypse, Sammy, and we'll go from there, okay? We'll have a good, long talk about everything."
Sam held her until she slept, running his hand up and down her sleek back, now covered with his t-shirt. He was still in shock, in awe, in any number of completely blindsided states.
But when she had come out of the bathroom in his clothes and sat on his bed and laid her head on his chest to sleep, something fierce swept through him. Possessiveness, protectiveness, neediness, and above all, an absolute and ground shaking adoration for Chrys. It was completely out of his control, it was part of what made him who he was.
He watched her lovely, relaxed face in sleep, and wondered idly if he would be able to convince her to marry him.
After the apocalypse. A good, long talk, after the apocalypse.
**I hope I did this chapter justice.
**Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies and keeps me going.
