Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's Note: They grow up so fast...

"Snot," she sings out gleefully, in between ekes and braps. She pats her father's shoulders, playful baby slaps, as he jostles her to the other hip so he can set down the diaper bag and dig through.

"Apricots," he says, tossing a jar of baby food into Sam's hands. "And carrots," so goes another. "One or the other. She only wants orange stuff right now, a phase or something."

Sam smirks, investigating the little jars with the creepy giggling baby on their labels. "You keep feeding her this stuff, she'll look like an Oompa-Loompa."

He responds with a quick glare before returning to the task at hand, emptying the giant black bag's contents onto the kitchen table. "Two extra jumpers," he says, distractedly fake biting at the chubby baby fingers tugging on his lower lip. "Al the Seahorse," shaking the rattle animal at his brother. "Extra socks…"

Sam stares disbelieving. "Extra socks?" Because that's just what every kid who doesn't even yet know how to walk on her own really needs.

Dean only nods. "Socks." Next he pulls out a tiny pink sun hat, says, as though the item requires an explanation, "Hat."

Sam nods slowly, coy smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, I can see that."

"If she goes outside, she has to wear her hat," he responds defensively. "She's fair-skinned."

A rather condescending frown takes the place of his grin. "Fair-skinned?" he questions with mock interest, causing Dean to roll his eyes.

"Dude, don't look at me like that, this is serious."

"I know, I know," he says, hands thrown up in a calm down appeal. "She could break out in unruly freckles."

"For the record, Sam, you got no idea what it's like to be a kid covered in freckles. Other kids laughing and pointing, making fun."

"No one made fun of you for having freckles. They made fun of you because you had shitty taste in clothes, music and …well, everything."

"Dude!" His had instinctively clamps down on Samantha's ear, plastering her tiny dark head to his chest. She lets out a high pitched squeal in protest, sound echoing in unison with Sam's large guffaws.

"You're kidding, right?" he asks, because Dean's never been one to censor himself around anyone, let alone his children. Hell, as of late Michael seemed to curse more often and with more colorful enthusiasm than a shipwrecked sailor.

As if thinking the exact same thing Dean replies, "Ava's kinda pissed about Mike's new vocabulary. It's like he saved all these things up that he heard once, somewhere along the way –"

"Once?" he interrupts incredulously.

"And he's just pulling them out of his…hat, now. Little punk," he mumbles to himself. "Anyway, we're all supposed to watch what we say around them." He grabs another item from the bag, a soft round teething ring, and flings it at Sam. "Here, freeze that," he says, head ducked so that he misses his brother's mad scramble to catch the ring while also juggling two jars of food.

Once recovered, Sam tosses the toy in the freezer, letting it fall on top of two other teething contraptions that had been either in with their frozen peas or in the slobbery little girl's mouth for a couple of weeks now. Sammy had been a calm and quiet baby just a month ago, but as soon as she started cutting teeth the sweet little pumpkin turned into a raucous, red faced, shrieking monster. Hardly her fault, but if anyone in the family, extended or not, wanted to keep their brains from oozing out their ears at the sheer decibel of her voice, teething rings had to be made readily available at all times.

But that's exactly why there were already two in the freezer, preparation for Samantha's fits whenever she was over. Which was all the time. "You know," Sam says plainly, "we already have all this stuff here. Diapers, wipes, extra clothes, toys, porta crib. Hell, she's got more chew toys in the our freezer than the neighbor's dog."

Dean stops his unpacking, looks up and over at his brother. "Why do you have chew toys from your neighbor's dog in your freezer?"

Sam frowns, rolls his eyes. "Ha ha," he deadpans. "You know what I mean."

"Just wanted to be sure," he says in response to Sam's initial declaration. "Want her to have everything she needs."

"Like socks," he mutters under his breath.

Dean, unamused, follows with, "Yeah, Sammy, like socks. She shuffles around all over the place, dirty carpets – "

"Our carpets aren't dirty."

"And she loses them, just peels them off," he stops short, looks up at Sam, a serious and somber light to his face. "She needs them."

Sam sighs, long and meaningful. The only thing needed here was a little perspective. "It's only for a few hours," he says softly. "She'll be fine." And even as he says it, he's not sure if he's referring to Dean's daughter or his own. Because while leaving his baby in the care of a thirteen-year-old may be a bit worrisome for Dean, leaving his thirteen-year-old to care for a baby was pretty nerve wracking for him as well.

"Where's Rachel, anyway?" Dean asks before leaning back and out of the kitchen doorway, bellowing her name up the stairs. "She needs to hear all this."

"Dean, she knows what she's doing," he says, believing it thoroughly as the words form in his mouth.

"Yeah," he responds absently.

"She's done this before. She usually takes over when you guys come by anyway. Only difference now is that we won't be here while she babysits." Dean looks up, horrified, because that's exactly the problem. And truth be told, it scares Sam too. Which is why he quickly adds, to quell his own growing anxiety as much as Dean's, "We'll be five minute away, though. Max." Sad but true, when this whole plan had been hatched, going out for an adult dinner, celebrating Ava's birthday without kids around to cry and scream and get too, too hopped up on cake, they picked the closest restaurant possible.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Dean says, arms wrapping tighter around his baby. "Maybe we should have just hired a sitter."

"You'd trust a stranger to watch her?" he asks, knowing full well what the answer would be. John and Michael are one thing, being old enough to fend for themselves should they have to, old enough to call 911 and blow the 'rape' whistle Ava had given them. But even the boys had only a few select people they were entrusted to: an old lady down the street who'd been there for years, came over and cooked for Dean and Ava when the babies were fresh and new, the Sullivan's, a family with four boys who went to school with John and Michael, and, of course, Sam and Sarah. That's it, no one else.

But, to be fair, that was really just the Winchester way, trust no one.

"Maybe we just shouldn't go," he tries next.

"Yeah, you be sure to run that one past Ava when she gets back," Sam says with wide eyes. Because before leaving to drop the boys off at the Sullivan's for a sleepover just a few minutes ago she'd almost cried with gratitude over being able to have a meal, just a meal, sans children. "Besides," he goes on, voice heavy with sarcasm, "Rache knows not to leave babies in direct sunlight."

"Funny," Dean responds flatly with a glare.

"We almost ready?" chimes Sarah, rushing into the kitchen still working on her earrings. "Reservation's at seven." Rachel clomps in behind her, stopping to smile at the baby from behind Dean's back, mouthing excited words to her.

"Just as soon as Ava gets back," Sam says to her before turning to his daughter. "Rache, your uncle has some very important instructions for you."

Dean turns to deposit the baby in her waiting arms, having no choice but to let her go. The moment Samantha saw her cousin, her face lit up, limbs bobbing and stretching as she reached out and attempted to climb over her father's shoulder to get at her. The baby gurgles gleefully, hazel eyes taking in all of Rachel's face even as "Snot," rolls from her lips amid a stream of drool.

"Did she just say snot?"

"New favorite word," Dean replies, straightening his daughter's T-shirt before leaning away to grab a rag. "Blame Michael."

"Snot?" She shakes her head incredulously, looks down at the baby. "No, no. Say Rachel. Ray-chel."

Dean wipes saliva off the baby's mouth, fingers, face in general, Rachel's arm and his own neck. "Good luck, kid," he says easily. I've been trying to get her to say Daddy, Dada, hell I'd even settle for Duh, since we brought her home from the hospital. Nada. But anything Michael says seems to stick."

"Ah," Sam says knowingly, "so it's only a matter of time before she starts shooting out the dirty words you taught him."

"I didn't teach him…never mind." He shakes his head and grabs a toy from the bag, shoves it his daughter's mouth just as her face begins to twist and curl. He's gotten good lately at sensing when she's about ready to blow, moving quickly to appease her, and him. Because every time she cries out in that special my jaw is splitting wide open and trying to kill me way, it breaks his heart. Better to stop it before it starts.

"Well," Rachel says, taking hold of the toy and ignoring her father and uncle, "we'll just have to do something about that then, won't we?"

"Yeah, well, important as that is," Dean says in a serious tone, "there are some other things we need to go over."

Sarah rolls her eyes at Sam, giving him a knock it off stare as he says through a shit eating grin, "That's right, remember, the teething rings go in the freezer, not the baby."

"Hey, Jokey McJokerson," Dean turns on his brother, "This isn't a freaking joke."

But before Sam can respond, Sarah says, in her absolute mother tone, "No, it's not." She looks down her nose at Rachel. "This is a big responsibility. Your dad and I won't be here to help. It's all on you."

"I know," she says, doing the best she can to keep her teenage cockiness in check. "I've sat for Mrs. Carlson's twins before. And I watch Maya all the time." Then, turning to Dean with an all too coy twinkle in her eye, "It'll be fine, really. Besides, I'm a woman now. Remember?"

Sarah bites her lip to keep from laughing while Sam looks moderately embarrassed, at the very least entirely uncomfortable, this is his little girl after all.

But it's Dean whose face falls into a horrified sort of grimace. Because it is pure evil to bring that up, the most traumatic moment of his life thus far, at least the most traumatic of the past month. And it hadn't exactly been a picnic for her either, so what was she doing joking about it, when it should have just moved back into the inner recesses of their shut-off subconscious minds, never to be spoken of again?

"Rachel," Sam warns weakly from across the room, mostly just because she has that glint in her eye that reminds him a little too much of his brother.

"I'm just saying," she continues in a very adult tone. "My body has changed. I'm now able to carry and give birth to a child." Sarah ducks her head, wracking breaths forcing their way out among the stifled laughter. Rachel looks to her beat red uncle. "That's what you told me, right Uncle Dean?"

He's barely able to clear his throat, let alone his mind, as the events of that horrible day – why had they decided to go a movie just the two of them anyway? Shouldn't they have known, at her age, it was always necessary to have a woman around just in case? – came flooding back to him. The sudden, too long, trip to the bathroom. The awkward, ironically childlike quality to her voice as she said, "I want to go home now. I think we should go home." His idiotic insistence to know what was wrong, pushing, pushing, and pushing. Those most terrible words, "I got my period."

The rest had been an unbearable blur of empty comforts and too precise information. He can still vaguely hear his own voice echoing in his head, "I can get you something, if you need it. I used to buy tampons for your dad all the time. I mean, not for your dad. They were great for bloody noses. Or bloody…other things. Natural things. Because this is totally natural. For you, not, you know for Sammy. Which is fine, because it never happened to him, cause, you know, he's your dad, and so, not a woman. But you are…now. So…natural. And beautiful."

And, yes, though he couldn't recall the exact words he'd painfully hobbled together, there had definitely been some stuff thrown in there about having babies, and uterine lining, and mucous plugs – all the stuff he learned from Ava's OBGYN during her pregnancies. And there may have been a comment or two on breast feeding and how Michael, apparently, latched on like a pit bull, which is why he went to the bottle so young, possibly impacting his hyperactivity. Just a theory.

Rachel had stared blankly at him for the entirety of their conversation, never once stopping him, not even when he began to relay to her the story of Sammy's first wet dream and the inherent awkwardness of it, due primarily to the fact that Dean had been sharing a bed with him at some crappy motel outside Wichita at the time. He thought she had blocked it out, all of it. He only wished that he could.

"That's what you said, right?" Apparently he had been wrong. "And if I can be trusted with the responsibility of taking birth control pills – "

"Wait, what?" Sam shoots out, voice cracking.

In as innocent a tone as she can muster, Rachel replies, "Uncle Dean said that I needed to go on the pill."

"I never," he tries through awkward breaths.

"Because women enjoy sex just as much as the next guy," she goes on, quoting her uncle word for word. "So it's my responsibility to keep it safe."

"What?" Sam repeats, more horrified than before.

Dean, feeling what might actually be a panic attack, barely squeaks out an, "I…"

"Mom," Rachel says, turning to look at a bit more sober Sarah – because while she knew that Dean had panicked and flooded Rache with way too much information, she hadn't been able to get all of what he said out of her traumatized daughter. "Where can I get a dental dam?"

And she knew, the moment she saw her father reach out for the counter to steady himself, all color drained from his face, the minute she heard her mother's voice, "Dean!" screech out, more upset than amused, she knew. Blackmail was a beautiful thing. So was simply being able to embarrass someone to the point of giving in just to make the torture stop.

"The point is," she says clearly and slowly, "if I can handle the responsibility of actually having a baby, I think I can manage taking care of one for a few hours."

"You are not having a baby," Sam grumbles in his most stern voice. "Ever."

It's the voice he uses when she or Maya are really in trouble, grounded for life, you're lucky I don't strangle you right here and now kind of trouble. So she almost thinks twice about offering up the insolent, "Of course not, that's what the pills are for." But not quite.

Sarah twists her daughter around to face her and gives her the look, the one that always manages to elicit the desired response, whether it be a sorry or an, "I'm only kidding. I'm not having sex. I would never have sex." Which is exactly what Rachel says.

She narrows her eyes at the girl, sizing up her response before deciding it's true and it really is all a joke, at Dean's expense. "What in the hell did you say to her?" she asks her brother-in-law.

He tries to smile, though it comes out more as a grimace. "Apparently, too much."

"I told you he lost it," Rachel says, almost conspiratorially.

"I hate you," he whispers to her, scooping his baby back up into his arms.

"No you don't," she singsongs. "You love me. And you trust me." She reaches for Samantha, but he turns his back on her.

"Not anymore."

The front door flies open, Ava hopping through excitedly, practically skipping into the kitchen, as Sarah takes Sammy from Dean's arms, transitioning the baby over to Rachel. "Yes you do," she says. "And just think, Rachel did you a favor. She broke the ice. Now when Samantha gets her period, you'll be prepared."

Ava's smile drops as she enters, quickly figuring out what they're discussing. "Oh, no. He's not allowed to even talk to my daughter after the age of ten. Mister TMI over there, uh-uh," she says shaking her head emphatically.

Dean looks over at Rachel who merely shrugs her shoulders. "I thought Aunt Ava should know, you know, how…helpful you were."

"I used to love you," he says in a wistful sort of tone. "Used to."

She smiles and nods. "I know." Then wrinkles up her face and lifts the baby to sniff her. "My client needs a change, so I've got to go. And I think," she says as she turns to leave the room, "you all have reservations you'd better keep."

"Yeah," Sam mumbles, pushing himself off the counter. "After the two of you," he glares at Dean, "I definitely need a drink."

"Me too," he says, following his brother and the ladies out the door.

And even though he can still feel a bright burning in his cheeks, a sort of embarrassment that won't soon disappear, he can't help but notice that his heart's calmed its rhythm just a bit, fear and anxiety slipping away as he hears his daughter giggle and screech in the next room, safe and happy with her cousin. Realizing what's happened, how she cunningly made him forget about his initial trepidation by, well, humiliating him, Dean shakes his head absently. "You little shit," he mutters with a smile.

Ava slaps him on the arm before grabbing on to pull him out the door. "Watch your mouth," she says, not even realizing that, for once, there aren't any little ears around to hear.