A/N: Okay, thanks for the wait! This is Cassen and I'm posting this so Connie doesn't have to worry about it, what with the new baby and all. :) Gonna give you a warning now: this deals with the discussion of abortion, beware. And this is also where we say: BARE WITH US! Trust us, give us a chance and don't get upset just yet. We promise, we like happy endings, we just love angst in between. oh, and trust Gabriel. please! And you're reviews are greatly appreciated! I know Connie reads them over and over again during her 2am feedings! They make my day as well! You guys are so awesome!

The Cradle Will Fall

Part Eight

The next time Sam woke, it was to intense cramping and another pounding headache. He carefully stretched out his legs and fought against the nausea that rushed through him. Maybe a shower would help. Deciding that was his best option, he carefully pulled himself up to a sitting position.

Pain erupted through his abdomen and he cried out. He pulled up his shirt and glanced down at his stomach. On his lower abdomen, almost even with his hipbones, was a smattering of angry looking bruises. He knew Eve hadn't hit him; she'd touched him once, on his chest, so he had no idea where the discolored blemishes had come from.

"Sam?"

Sam looked up to find his brother and Cas standing in the door of his room, both wearing wary, worried looks.

"Dean…" Sam started but the pain flared again, stopping him mid thought.

His brother strode into the room, Cas hot on his heels, and knelt by his bed, hands hovering over the bruised area of his stomach.

"What the hell, Sam? I didn't think she hit you?"

"She didn't," Sam muttered as the rush of nausea hit him again. He groaned and let his shirt fall to cover the bruising.

"Sam?" Cas asked, worry evident in his tone as he came to stand on the other side of the bed. The angel reached out and let his hand hover over Sam's abdomen. After a few seconds, Dean pulled up the shirt and shot Cas a confused look. Sam glanced down and was shocked himself to see the bruises still there.

"That looks like internal bleeding. Fuck, Sam, that bitch did something to you and mojo'd it so Cas couldn't fix you," Dean said, his words barely penetrating the pain filled haze that had taken up residence in Sam's mind.

"Guess she wanted me to suffer," he mumbled, praying he wouldn't puke all over his brother.

"We've got to get you some help. If you're bleeding inside, we need to stop it," Dean said in a worried tone.

"Where would we take him? And how would we explain this?" Cas asked, the voice of reason.

"We'll take him to the hospital, tell them he got into a bar fight or something," Dean muttered.

"Take him to University. Vicki, Alan's daughter, works in the ER, she's an intern, but she knows hunters, she won't ask questions," Bobby spoke up from the doorway. Sam glanced up at him. The older hunter was holding a very squirmy Daniel and watching them with worried eyes.

"Alan Dickens?" Dean asked.

Bobby nodded. Sam vaguely remembered the hunter they were talking about. He had no idea Alan's daughter had gone into medicine rather than following her father into the "business".

"Guess that's our best bet," Dean said, glancing up at Cas. "You're not getting anything off him?"

"No. I can see something is wrong… but I can't… it is like he is a blank slate. I sense nothing."

"Hospital it is then. Bobby, can you call Alan's girl and let her know we're on our way? And, are you okay with Danny?"

"Sure. I'll let her know, and stop worrying. We'll be fine," the older hunter told them gruffly as he turned away from the room.

"Let's get you up and dressed," Dean told him, helping to heft him up on the bed. Cas handed him his discarded jean and with his brother's help, he quickly had them back on. He put on his boots and let Dean tie them before Cas gently touched his forehead and he found himself sitting in the Impala, Dean in the driver's seat and Cas in the back.

"That beats walking down the stairs," he told them, head throbbing with each word.

"Yup, angel express comes in handy sometimes," Dean said with a small smirk.

Sam leaned his head back against the headrest and dozed off as the car pulled out of Bobby's salvage yard.

The burning ache in his stomach had dissipated by the time they reached the hospital. Sam wished the same could be said about the rolling nausea and throbbing in his head. A short, brunette woman had ushered them into an empty room in a very deserted hallway. She explained that they had just finished remodeling that wing and that it hadn't been opened to the public yet so they should be safe from discovery.

Vicki Dickens had a no-nonsense way about her and her words were blunt and to the point. Sam could see how she could easily deal with the hunters that must move in and out of her life. She reminded him a little of a young Ellen. She poked and prodded him, taking blood samples and checking his blood pressure, his temp, all of the standard practices before pulling up his shirt to look at the bruising on his abdomen. He was shocked to see the bruises were a dull green with yellow circling them. They looked days old when only hours before they had looked fresh and dangerous.

"Ok, that is not how they looked half an hour ago," Dean spoke up, saying what he had been thinking.

"Well, you say some psycho supernatural thing did this to him, so, not really surprised that they wouldn't behave like you'd think," Vicki said with a shrug before leaving them to run the blood to the lab herself. It seemed a safer bet than sending something that could be rather incriminating in the hands of a nameless orderly.

"How ya' feeling?" Dean asked.

"Well, it doesn't feel like something is trying to tear my stomach out anymore," Sam answered, trying to find something optimistic to say. The bruising had faded; the pain must have gone with them.

"I guess that's good."

Sam gave his brother a small smile. He glanced over at Cas. The angel stood at the window, a dark scowl graced his face as he let his eyes roam over the quiet room. Sam could tell that his friend was upset about his inability to help, to do anything for him. He didn't blame Cas, wasn't mad, Eve must have known they had two angels at their disposal so it would make sense that what ever punishment she was handing out for his defiance, it would be something that neither Cas nor Gabriel would be able to fix. Sam tried to think of something to say to let the other man know that he wasn't upset with him when Vicki returned. She entered the room pulling a machine behind her.

"Okay, this is an ultrasound machine. I want to get a look inside, see if we can see what damage was done, pinpoint the bleeding," she told them. Her motions were edgy and she refused to meet their eyes. Her mouth was pinched and it immediately put Sam on edge. There was something she wasn't telling them.

"What's going on?" Dean asked immediately. His brother had obviously picked up on the same things he had.

"I'm not sure, that's why I want to get a look inside," she answered, tone clipped. "Unfasten your pants and pull your shirt up."

Sam glanced at his brother and felt his face heat up at the thought of partially stripping in front of Dean. Vicki rolled her eyes.

"Oh for Christ's sake, I'm not gonna take your pants off, here," she said, handing him a thin sheet, "this will cover anything that might show, now, hurry."

Sam took the sheet and sat it down next to him before unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans.

"Lay back," she told him, taking the sheet and draping it over his hips as she rucked up his shirt. "This is going to be cold, sorry," she muttered as she squirted cold gel on his lower stomach. She picked up a small wand and smeared the gel around his abdomen. He watched the screen but couldn't tell anything in the mess of black, white and gray.

"What the…" she trailed off, freezing the screen. "Is that…?" she trailed off. Cas came closer, eyes glued to the screen.

"It's Enochian," he announced, brow furrowed in confusion. "Warding against angels. That would explain why I couldn't sense anything, and why I couldn't heal you."

"So she carved him up inside? Stuck a bunch of Enochian inside so… what? So she could hurt him and we couldn't fix him? Is that what caused the bruising?" Dean asked. Vicki started moving the wand around again.

"Possibly… Holy fucking hell…" Vicki muttered, freezing the wand once more. "No way…"

"What?" Sam asked, worry eating away inside of him. Vicki tapped a few buttons on the machine, moved the wand a couple times but didn't answer him or let him in on what she could see. Finally she removed the wand, setting it back in its holder. She took a deep breath and turned to face them.

"What the fuck is going on?" Dean asked.

"Could I talk to Sam alone for a minute?" she asked, eyes never straying from Sam's.

"Just say it," Sam croaked before his brother could start a riot. He knew Dean wouldn't leave this room without answers and Sam honestly felt a little bit better with his brother there.

"You sure?" she asked. Sam nodded. "Okay," she said as she picked the wand back up. "First, I ran your blood work and I noticed… some weird things. For one, your hormone levels are all over the grid. You have a heightened level of progesterone, higher than I've seen in a man ever. Second… um, I don't really know how to say this without sounding like I'm crazy. Sam, I have seen a lot of shit over the years. I have seen some pretty damn impossible things but I have never seen anything like this."

"What is it?" he asked, worried beyond belief now.

"Okay, bare with me here, but… I… here," she told them, zooming in on… something on the screen. "Do you see that?" Sam nodded. He saw it, but had no idea what it was. The blob on the screen was… pulsing. It kinda looked like a… "It's alive." Sam looked at her. Did she just say…?

"Alive? There's something alive inside of him?" Dean bit out. "How do we get it out? Can we get it out without hurting him? She put one of her monsters in him."

Vicki shifted on the stool she was sitting on. Cas seemed to be staring intently at the screen.

"What is that around it?" the angel asked.

"Well, I can tell you what it looks like, what I think it's supposed to be."

"And that is?"

"I think… I think it's a uterus, or something that's acting like a uterus. It doesn't look like a normal one… and it's marked like the other organs, those same Enochian sigils."

"What the fuck?" Dean asked.

"Dean… I don't think that's a monster… I think it's a baby," Vicki told his brother. A baby? That would mean he was… he couldn't say it. Sam stared at the screen, trying to see what she did. The blob on the monitor moved, twisted and… he could see it, clear as day. A little, human shaped… thing. His breathing picked up and his heart raced. His chest started to hurt, oxygen struggling to make it from lungs to brain.

"Sam. Breath," Cas spoke quietly right next to him. "You're going to hyperventilate."

"That bitch. She turned him into some kind of human incubator! Okay, again, my question, how the hell do we get it out?" Dean asked.

"It won't be easy. Based on this scan, I'd say the… I guess it's a fetus, is around twelve weeks old and-"

"Wait, twelve weeks? This just happened yesterday," Dean interrupted.

"Well, you said she was some supernatural being you've never dealt with but was intensely powerful, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that she could accelerate the growth. Either way, if you're going to do it, we need to do it now. I'm amazed that he was able to walk in here, honestly. The human male body isn't made to sustain life, not in this way; he doesn't have the fat stores to nourish it, he doesn't have the muscle structure to carry it. The longer it stays in, the more danger your brother is in. I'll need a few more scans to know for sure what I'm dealing with before I can tell you the safest way to get it out."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Dean demanded.

Sam listened to everything in a distracted way. He heard what they were saying, but the words weren't penetrating the haze that had settled on his brain.

"Sam? Are you okay?" Cas asked quietly from where he still stood next to him. Sam continued to stare at the screen, at the… he couldn't think of it as a baby, but he couldn't really bring himself to call it a monster either.

"May I speak to Sam alone?" Cas spoke up, cutting off both Vicki and Dean mid-discussion.

"Why?" Dean asked, finally turning to look at his brother.

"I would like to speak to your brother alone. Perhaps you and Vicki could continue your discussion in the hall," Cas told Dean, words slightly clipped.

"Dude, what could you say to him that you can't say around me?" Dean asked, sounding a little angry and a little hurt.

"Dean. Please leave."

Dean opened his mouth to argue but Cas cut him off, turning to face Sam.

"Sam, I don't think this is what everyone seems to think it is. Can I please speak to you alone?" Sam met the angel's eyes and could see the earnestness of his request.

"Okay," he answered.

"What?" Dean asked, looking betrayed.

"Dean, just… give us a sec, okay?" Sam asked, finally finding his voice.

Dean just shook his head and stomped out of the room, followed by a quiet Vicki. Sam looked back up at Cas.

"Okay, what is it?"

"Sam, the sigils on this… what she called a uterus? They are slightly different from the other sigils we found burnt into your organs."

"Okay?"

"They aren't just to keep angelic power out, but also to keep something angelic in." Sam thought about that for a minute. What exactly was Cas trying to say?

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… Sam, I don't think that this is some monster that Eve has created. I think she merely created the means to carry it, but… I think the… baby itself is of your own making. Yours and Gabriel's."

Sam's body tensed. He thought they'd been careful, thought no one knew.

"You think… you think this is…" Sam swallowed.

"I think this child is yours and Gabriel's. Otherwise, why would the sigils be specific protection symbols, designed to protect you from the power within? Eve was upset that you refused to agree to her designs, so she obviously took the choice from you. Sam, we can't know for sure what it is, not until it's born. In the end, this is your choice to make. Don't let your brother take that from you. What do you feel is the right thing to do? Perhaps you should speak with Gabriel."

Sam glanced over at the screen, at the blob. His mind drifted off to brown hair and playful hazel eyes, to the daughter he'd been dreaming about for months… was that what this was? How did he know? Was it a monster or was it an innocent baby who just happened to be caught up in the middle of this mess?

His head started to pound again. Wasn't he enough of a freak of nature with his demon blood and his whole Lucifer's Vessel shit without adding pregnant man to the list? He swallowed and raised his eyes to meet his friend's.

"Can you send me home?" he asked. Cas nodded and placed two fingers on his forehead. Sam blinked and found himself back in his room at Bobby's. He crawled into his bed and pulled the covers up over him.

Gabriel… where are you? I really need you.

Gabriel stood before his fallen brother. A part of him screamed that this was a bad idea, but he was desperate. He was careful though, he wasn't stupid, and there were stipulations and precautions.

"Do you agree?"

"I want your word, Gabriel. Swear to me. If I help you, you will release me." Gabriel grit his teeth.

"Yes, you have my word. If you tell us how to banish Eve, I will free you."