Cas's Logical Sequel, Chapter 02

By CastielLovesDean

A/N: Sorry this is taking so long. I really meant to get a lot more up before now. I have no excuse. Please don't strangle me with my own entrails. In other news, I hadn't done the calculation earlier, and 3 weeks into Dean's pregnancy is December 29th, four days after Christmas. I really wanted a Christmas chapter, so y'all are gonna have ta wait fer the next chapter fer the pregnancy symptoms ta start. For what it's worth, I promise the next chapter will not take nearly so long as this one. My bad! ^_^ Also, note to self: the due date is around August 30th, 2012.

I hope y'all are familiar with Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

December 25th, 2011

December twenty-fifth was four days before his pregnancy symptoms hit him like a sack of angry cats, but it was Christmas morning when the reality of his supernatural pregnancy first got to him. Castiel woke him up against his will ("Don't you know better than to wake a pregnant man with a gun?" "I wasn't aware there was precedent.") and beamed him upstairs half-conscious. He blinked sleepily at the twinkling lights strewn about the room and the South Dakotan winter sun peeking through the living room windows. After a confused moment, he realized that sometime in the night, his loved ones had decorated the room in celebration of Christmas. The clutter synonymous with Bobby Singer had been cleaned up (or at least hidden elsewhere), a fat evergreen tree had been brought in and festively adorned, and someone had even taken the time to start a cozy fire in the fireplace. Dean wondered how long it had been since it had been used for recreation instead of some counter-apocalyptic life-or-death ritual. "What's going on?" he asked with a yawn.

"It's Christmas, Dean," Sam pointed out condescendingly.

"We haven't celebrated Christmas in years. Not since..." Not since before Dean went to Hell. Damn, but that was a lifetime ago. Sure, it was only four years, but with his memories of Hell firmly intact, it was more like forty-four.

Sam looked just as nostalgic as Dean felt. He cleared his throat and ended the silence, "Yeah. Well, this time next year, our little family will be one bigger-"

"Two if you play your cards right," Gabe predictably interrupted with a crass arm about Sam's massive shoulders.

"As I was saying," Sam continued with a roll of his eyes, "Christmas is a time for family, and since that's what we all are, I thought we should start celebrating it like one."

Dean was truly touched. "Aw... and here I thought I was the only one with ladyparts." Not that he'd admit to having emotions.

Sam sighed.

Suddenly, Dean noticed the presents. Presents just kind of went with Christmas trees, so it hadn't even occurred to him that those presents had to be for someone. Then he felt bad. "I didn't get anything for you guys."

"And we didn't get you anything. Those are for the baby."

Dean did a double-take of the many gifts under the tree. "You guys didn't get anything?"

"Oh, I gave Sammy something. Then he gave me something right back."

"Would you knock it off with the innuendo?" Sam whined with a betraying snicker. "It's Christmas."

"You're really gonna pull the 'blasphemy' card on an Archangel?"

Bobby burst in from the kitchen with a tray of eggnog. "That's enough bickerin', ya idjits! Let's get this over with." He passed out the glasses as everybody took a seat around the tree.

Dean's glass looked different since, of course, since it was alcohol-free, and Bobby didn't want him confusing someone else's glass for his own. Dean and Cas took a swig and grimaced simultaneously, for different reasons. "Wow. Eggnog tastes totally different when it's not mostly rum."

"Bobby makes his eggnog very strong," Cas pointed out matter-of-factly. He looked over at Dean when he realized what he'd just said, then took his eggnog from him. He then proceeded to pour Dean's drink into his own, then vice versa several times.

"Hey!" Dean complained.

"What the Hell're you doin'?" Bobby asked.

"This eggnog is too strong, and this one is too sweet."

"So you're mixing them until they're just right?" Sam giggled.

"Yes."

Dean couldn't help himself. "Smart thinking, Goldilocks."

Cas went cross-eyed. After a confused moment, he pointed out, "My hair isn't golden."

As everyone else snickered at Castiel's classic mistake, Dean patted him on the back and explained, "It's a fairy tale, Cas. A story for kids."

Cas squinted and cocked his head. "I don't understand."

Dean sighed. Not that he'd say it out loud, but he thought Cas was so cute when confronted with pop culture references. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Goldilocks is walking through the forest-"

"What forest?"

"Any forest."

"Well, where does Goldilocks live?"

Sam tried to help by clarifying, "It doesn't matter. It's a generic story, Cas. People tell it to their children all over the world. In America, she's American. In Hungary, she's Hungarian. In China, she's Chinese."

"It's fairly rare for Chinese people to have blond hair."

"Then she's adopted."

"There's a low demand for female children in China, given their patriarchal society. Any Chinese family looking to adopt a healthy girl has many options, and would likely not end up with a blond child."

"Then she's albino, okay?"

Cas thought for a moment. "Very well. Continue."

"So Goldilocks is walking through the forest-"

"Is it Jianfeng Ridge? It's one of China's most beautiful rainforests."

Dean sighed. "Sure. So, she's walking through the forest-"

"With her parents?"

"No, she's alone."

Cas got upset. "Where are her parents?" he demanded righteously. "Why do they let her wander the forest alone?"

Dean held his hands up defensively. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy there, tiger. I don't know. It's not in the story, okay?"

"Now I understand why the Chinese government wouldn't let them adopt a healthy child."

Dean ignored the stifled laughter from Bobby, Sam, and Gabriel. "Anyways, so she comes across this house: the Three Bears' house."

"What kind of bears?"

"Brown bears."

"Brown bears don't live in houses. Or rainforests."

"They have air conditioning. As I was saying, she goes in the house, where she finds-"

"Hold on. She just walked into a strange house?"

"Yeah, and she found three bowls of porridge."

"I thought the bears lived in the house."

"They do; it's their porridge."

"Bears don't eat porridge. They eat fish."

"It's fish porridge. Anyway, she's hungry, so she tries the first porridge, and-"

"She ate a strange bear's fish porridge?"

"Yeah, but it was too hot, so she says, 'This porridge is too hot.'"

"She criticized the bear's cooking to its face? Doesn't she realize it's impressive for a bear to be able to cook at all?"

"The bear wasn't there, Cas; she said it to herself."

"Oh." There was a long pause where Cas seemed to consider something. "I understand now."

Dean arched an eyebrow. "You do?"

"Yes. She's mentally ill."

"No, she just likes to voice her thoughts out loud. Lotsa people do. Look, just save all your comments and questions until the end, okay?"

"As you wish."

Dean rushed through the rest (most) of the story, and Castiel stayed quiet, just as he'd agreed. All Dean had to do was ignore the wide array of looks that flashed across the Angel's face (and the amused ones from everyone else there). "... She screamed, then ran away from the house as fast as she could. The End."

"Can I ask questions now?"

"Shoot."

"Am I to believe that a chronically neglected, legally blind child can outrun three bears?"

"Goldilocks isn't blind! Why do you think she's blind?"

"Albino people generally have vision problems."

"She's one of the lucky few."

"Dean, this story is nonsensical."

"No, it's a fairy tale. It's just a story for kids."

"One that teaches children that they can meander about in the woods by themselves, break into people's homes, eat their food, and destroy their things with little to no consequence, and that bears live in houses and eat porridge and speak English? Dean, our children are never hearing these stories."

Dean was far too exasperated to argue. "Why don't you write one, if you think you can do better?" he challenged jokingly.

"Very well. It shall be done before she is born."

Dean snorted in amusement, wondering how Cas's logical fairy tale was going to work out. He glanced at Bobby, Sam, and Gabriel and was shocked to see them far too engrossed in his and Cas's conversation. "What?"

"Can we always be there for Storytime With Cas?" Gabe joked.

"Only if we can get on with the gift-opening," Dean conceded. He picked up two gifts and handed one to Cas to open. He looked down at the tag before he opened it; he didn't know why he looked at the tag, but the sight of his daughter's full name on the tag made the whole he's-gonna-be-a-daddy(or mommy, according to Gabe) thing completely, totally real.

Two days earlier, Dean found Sam in 'his' room upstairs, sans Gabriel. "Sammy?" he greeted seriously.

Sam looked up from his laptop. "Yeah, what's up?"

Dean sat down on the edge of the bed. "There's something I wanted to tell you. I was gonna wait... but then I decided not to..."

"You can tell me anything," Sam offered emotionally. "Just let it out. You're gay, aren't you?"

Dean scoffed, not expecting a joke from his bro in such a serious situation. "Gabe's really rubbing off on you."

"Rubbing off, rubbing on..."

Dean cringed. "Dude!" he complained.

"I'm completely mostly kidding," he insisted with a grin. "Whaddaya wanna tell me?"

Dean took a deep breath. "We decided on a first name. For our baby. Well, I decided. Like, years and years ago. I mean, I've always wanted a family, and I figured out a long time ago what her name was gonna be."

Sam looked much more interested. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Samantha."

Sam's eyes got big, round, and teary, and his lip quivered. The sentence, 'I lost my shoe' rang inexplicably in Dean's head as he finally recognized the emo brother he'd raised. "Ohhhh, Deeeeeean!" Sam cried out and hugged his big brother.

Dean felt sniffly, too – damn those hormones! He leaned into the first hug they'd shared in a long time where one of them hadn't had to die first and allowed a few happy sniffles.

"Why are we crying?" a jovial voice cried out.

Oh dear God, Dean thought as he untangled himself from Sam.

"Aw, Dean, is this your first pregnancy cry?" Gabe mocked.

"No!" he denied. "I mean, I'm not crying!" he insisted as he wiped a couple errant tears off his face.

"Don't worry about it, all pregnant women are emotionally unstable. It's just the hormones. Ooh, that's anger right there. See how fast that was? Hormones, I'm tellin' ya."

Dean continued to glare at the archangel. "That wasn't the hormones, it was just you. This may come as a shock to you, Gabriel, but you can be a little irritating."

Gabe looked deeply shocked and offended, and he placed his palm flat on his own chest. "Moi?" he asked innocently with one too many bats of his eyelashes.

"Dean and Cas are naming the baby 'Samantha,'" Sam announced happily.

"Big surprise. For a minute, I was worried you'd pick a name from outside the gene pool. Dodged a bullet there, didn't we?"

"Be critical all you want. You haven't heard Cas's top choices for middle names. Seriously, never give him the option to name anything. Not even a Chia pet. It'll grow hands and strangle you in your sleep."

"I'm not that bad."

Dean's head whipped around. Cas was standing near the door. The room was getting crowded. "Yeah, you are. Cas, there are many great things about you, but I swear to God, you suck at picking names. Samantha's middle name is not going to be Ensnorgapuss-"

"Eshargamelat," Cas corrected.

Dean didn't stop. "Or Bafooku-"

"Belessunu."

"Or Magikarp-"

"Malgumliblat."

"Or my personal favorite, Governor Tarkin!"

"It's Takurtum, and you weren't even trying that time!" The house trembled ominously.

For at least a full minute, Dean and Cas obstinately stared each other down in a contest of wills, Gabe pretended there was something fascinating about the back of his hand, and Sam stared at the wall in shock and confusion over what just happened. Finally, Sam broke the silence. "Cas... where did you hear those names?"

"They're Mesopotamian," Gabe explained with a wry smile and a dramatic eye-roll.

"Uh-huh. Well, Cas, that was, what, ten thousand years ago, give or take? Maybe you should try something a little more... contemporary. Here's an idea: I'm going to pull up a list of the top baby girl names from last year, and you can see if there's one you like, okay?"

Castiel scowled, apparently still hopeful that one of his original choices would be accepted. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to look..."

Sam opened his laptop and pulled up the most convenient page. He quickly scanned the page with Castiel, stopping abruptly part way down the page. "There! Number eighteen! It's perfect." Everyone leaned in to check out name number eighteen.

Gabe winced. "I dunno, Sammy... dontcha think that's a little cheesy?"

"I like it," Dean stated decisively. "Cas?"

Everyone seemed to hold their breath while they waited for Cas to figure out how he felt about name eighteen. Finally, after what could have been hours, Cas said, "I like it, too."

"Yes!" Dean shouted triumphantly, raising his arms in victory. "It's done!" They finally had his daughter's full name.

Samantha Grace Winchester. He read the tag two more times for whimsy's sake, then tore open baby Samantha's first present. Given Castiel's reaction to a common fairy tale, the book set inside the snowman wrapping paper made him cringe. It was a compilation of Dr. Seuss's most popular children's books, including The Cat in the Hat, Red Fish Blue Fish, The Lorax, Green Eggs and Ham, and Oh, the Places You'll Go! He just knew he was going to get an earful about the content of those otherwise perfectly harmless books. He attempted to subtly set the books on the floor out of Cas's vision, but Cas, of course, was paying attention.

"May I see those?"

Dean grinned nervously. "Of course, snookums," he offered awkwardly.

Cas frowned at Dean's new pet name for him as he accepted the books. He inspected the collection as if it were a bomb before he opened it and took out Oh, the Places You'll Go! "I'm surprised a doctor had the time to write all these books. He must not have been a very good doctor." He started to silently leaf through the book since no one was stupid enough to correct him about Dr. Seuss's moniker.

Dean continued opening the presents by himself as Cas read Dr. Seuss, preparing himself to ignore the comments guaranteed to follow. His first chance came after he opened the second gift: a set of pink onesies with the Winchester logo on them. "Niiiiice."

"What the Hell is a Hakken-Krak?"

TBC. Like, sooner than later. I'd like to get at least one more chapter up before the season finale.