~ Chapter Six ~

Jo was feeling sleepy – much sleepier than she normally felt after a yummy breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. She was convinced though that it was because she and Zoe had stayed up until midnight! That was way past her regular bedtime! But at least it had been fun, staying up like that. Zoe had a lot of dolls that went to a really big dollhouse that they played with and a huge TV in her family's den that they watched movies on.

On the car ride home, Jo wondered why her own family didn't have a den. They had a living room, which she guessed was about the same thing, but no where near as cool as the den with a big TV and video games and bean bag chairs!

"We're here, Jo." It was Zoe's mom.

"Huh?"

"Your house, kiddie." She said the word kiddie very nicely, but Jo didn't like it. It sounded like a mix of kitty cat and kiddo. Kiddo was what Daddy called her only and she was not a kitty.

"Oh!" Jo rounded up her things from the car floor, "Thank you!"

"You're welcome, kiddie." There was that bad nickname again. Jo winced at it a bit, but was out of the car and running to her front door before Zoe's mom could notice or say it again.

Jo reached for the doorknob and turned it, quickly finding that the door was locked still – silly daddies.

The little girl turned around and spotted the small potted cactus plant that Papa told her not to touch. The cactus was small and light enough that Jo's little hands could pick it up to find the house key that was hidden there.

After unlocking the front door, Jo went to go put the key back where she found it, but as she did so, she noticed another car parked outside their house. It wasn't Daddy or Papa's car; theirs were always in the garage, so who's was it? Maybe someone was visiting, but Jo couldn't think of who as she opened the front door, dragging her things in with her.

The house was quiet right now and once again, Jo found herself being very confused. Where was everybody?

"Daddy?" She called out, leaving her things by the front door.

"Papa?"

No answer… Maybe they were upstairs in their room?

Jo ran up the stairs, almost slipping on the smooth hardwood floor as she rounded the corner to Daddy and Papa's room.

The door was wide open and no one was there. Uh-oh.

Jo began methodically going into every room of the house, repeatedly not finding her parents. The office-storage room? Nope. Bathrooms? Nope. Living room? No. Kitchen? No!

The blue-eyed little girl was on the verge of panicking or bursting into tears, she didn't know which. Nibbling on her nails, Jo tried to remember Daddy or Papa saying anything about what she was supposed to do if she was home alone. She drew a million colorful blanks and was about to shed the first tear when she remembered that Daddy and Papa's phone numbers were on the fridge!

Jo scrambled back into the kitchen, picking up the phone from its low socket on the wall and rushing to the fridge. She had to jump up and down to see the numbers, but she managed to poke in Daddy's number first – it went straight to voicemail.

She tried Papa next, crossing her fingers as she pressed the phone to her ear. "Please pick up…" she softly prayed.

"Hello?"

"Papa!" Jo could hardly contain her happiness at hearing his voice.

"What is it, Jo?" His tone was very calm and soothing. No wonder Daddy liked to listen to him talk.

"I'm home alone!" She was careful to add extra emphasis to the word 'alone', so that Papa would understand the problem at hand.

"What?" There was a pause and she could vaguely hear him ask someone what time it was and the mumble of someone's distant response. "Jo, I'm very sorry, we didn't realize what time it was –"

"Is Daddy with you?"

"What? Oh, yes, he is, dear, don't worry. We'll be home in half an hour."

"Promise?"

"Yes, Jo, I promise." He sounded tired, and Jo sorta felt guilty. Was he tired of talking to her? She hoped not.

"Papa?"

"Yes?"

"What am I supposed to do until you get back?"

Papa didn't respond immediately. "You can turn on the TV if you wish. If not, there is a blank notebook and some markers on the coffee table in the living room."

"Okay, Papa. Thank you!" She was so glad that there was something to do now, and she had meant her thank you when she said it. She was just so happy that he had answered the phone and would be home soon. Daddy, too!

"You're welcome, Jo. We'll see you soon."

"Bye Papa!"

"Goodbye Jo."

There was a click from the other end and Jo went to go hang up the phone and look for the markers.

She had been able to entertain herself in drawing a big picture of their house with all of them standing outside in front of it. Daddy and Papa were drawn standing on opposite sides of Jo. She realized, however, that she had accidentally drawn papa a little bit too far from Daddy and Jo. Papa's hand didn't quite reach Jo's without being too long and she could only think of one way to fix that: she drew in another kid. It was probably a boy, she decided as his curly black hair was scribbled in.

Eventually, this added doodle kid turned out to have green eyes like Daddy's and was even shorter than Jo. Maybe he was a baby and that was why he was so tiny? She didn't know, and her attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere.

They were home!

/

"Daddy, Daddy!" Jo called out the moment Dean had gotten out of the car.

They had gone to Bobby's fairly early that morning, around eight to talk the older man into helping Sam out with the hunt, only to find out that Bobby was out of town, working on something already. So that meant Sam staying on their couch and handling the case by himself, much to his older brother's discontent.

Dean really did not like this plan. Leaving his little brother to do something with the chronic potential of danger all by himself was irritating to say the least. Sam, being the charismatic son of a bitch he was, had reminded him that he could handle an "easy" case like this on his own. He was supposed to go through the normal procedure, finish up the job as cleanly as a hunter could and leave to go do whatever it was the he did nowadays. Dean wanted to whine and point out the possibility that this case might not be as black and white as some previous ones they had done together and that Sam might need at least a little help, but Sam wasn't hearing it, and Cas certainly wasn't, in that quiet, unspoken yet horribly guilt-tripping way of his.

"Hey, kiddo!" Jo had made a running leap and Dean had barely enough time to brace himself to catch her and force down all those dark and muddy thoughts, at least around his baby girl.

Dean glanced over his shoulder, now holding Jo, at Sam and Cas getting out of the car. Rather, Cas was already out of the car while Sam had just managed to bang his head against the roof of it while getting out.

"You okay?" Dean didn't bother to hold back his laugh, especially when he heard Jo's giggles too.

Sam nodded and shot him a warning look, rubbing his fluffy head.

"Hi Sam!" Jo piped up, though Dean couldn't see her face over his shoulder.

"Hey, Jo."

Dean could never tell if Sam liked Jo. He was always nice enough to her, but didn't he have to be? It seemed to be some weird unspoken rule that family members, at least distant ones, had to be nice to each other, or at least not total asses. Still, Dean didn't want Jo to be some annoying baby niece to Sam, that just wouldn't be cool on anyone's part.

Dean put Jo back on the ground once they were all inside, nearly tripping over the bags she had left at the front door. He opened his mouth to remind her what she wasn't supposed to do with that stuff, but Cas beat him to it.

"Jo, could you please take your things upstairs and put them away?"

She nodded, scooped up her things and made her way upstairs, narrowly avoiding dropping a pillow several times on the way up.

"Okay, so tell me again what the plan is?" Dean spoke up, his tone exuding more concern than he meant for it to. Damn.

Sam rolled his eyes a little too dramatically, practically rolling his shaggy head with it, poorly hiding his obvious annoyance. "I'm going to go to the church and investigate."

"And?" Dean countered; he was growing annoyed himself. There was a reason the brothers didn't hunt together anymore.

"And nothing, Dean. I'll let you know what I find out."

"But–" Dean wanted nothing more than to be able to help his not-so-little brother on this one. If he didn't think about all the stupid fights and arguments they had gotten into, he could almost miss the hunting lifestyle, almost. Still, he wasn't totally sure about trusting Sam's current hunting abilities. He could be out of practice too, for all they knew.

"Dean." Cas's voice startled him; he hadn't said two words since they got out of the car. He shook his head at Dean, ever so quietly telling him to drop it.

They all stood in silence for a while, Sam with his hands jammed in his pockets – probably contemplating the meaning of life – Dean with folded arms and Cas leaning against the doorframe of the living room.

"What's that?" Sam pointed at a heavily colored drawing on the coffee table.

"Jo most likely drew it." Cas spoke again, and Dean could see him squinting at the backside of the drawing, probably trying to make sense of the colorful blotches of ink that bled through the thin paper.

Sam sort of smirked at the picture, but looked a little weirded out at the same time; he kept glancing from it, to Dean, to Castiel.

"Huh."

"What?" Dean retorted.

"I didn't know you guys were getting another kid."

"I didn't either." Dean added, glancing suspiciously over at Cas as he walked over to Sam, who handed him Jo's drawing before leaving the room to get something out of his car.

He held it very lightly in his hands, like it was a precious artifact made to go into a museum and as if he was trying not to harm it as he went to stand beside his husband.

"Oh." Dean murmured, taking in the picture. It was cute, really, and the fact that Jo had taken the time to draw giant circular muscles on Dean's arms made him grin. She had also picked just the right blue marker to color in Cas's and her own eyes with. Fighting the urge to start laughing at Jo's fluffy-haired caricature of herself, Dean moved his attention to what he guessed was supposed to be her "little brother".

Cas pointed at the nameless kid and grinned. "Your eyes." His voice was barely above a whisper, even though he had no need to do that, but it was adorable anyways.

Leave it to Jo and Cas to make him enjoy that chick-flick moment.

~ End Chapter ~

Author's Note: Okay, I'm really sorry if this chapter missed the mark, but I just wanted to post something tonight. I wrote this chapter in a notebook at school rather than on my computer first, so if there are little grammatical mistakes that I didn't catch while typing it up, I'm sorry! All in all, the next chapter should prove to be more interesting.

And thank you to everyone who read these chapters and left lovely reviews or did anything else of that nice nature. You all are lovely and I send you internet-hugs! 3