The days passed in quiet domesticity. Each day they passed the time with some minuscule task or another. It was always by design. They went out together for groceries. They cooked a meal or several. They made a trip to Cas' office to check in with Zach while Lil and Dean waited in Sam's office. It went well enough, but it wasn't easy. There were hiccups, moments where she just cried and there was nothing to be said. Anna stayed for more than one night. Lil seemed to find her comforting. Anna couldn't keep this up forever though.
After staying for three nights, Anna got Lil to bed and then left. Cas stayed up for a few hours to make sure that she wasn't going to wake up afraid. Eventually, though, he had to give up and crawl into bed. Dean was already there, face pressed down into the pillow, taking up more space than he needed. Cas had to push aside the wayward limbs to make room for himself. "Bed hog." Dean muttered into the pillow.
"Funny. Now move over." Cas continued to gently arrange Dean's limbs on his own side. Dean's limbs however, seemed to be less than cooperative. An arm found its way across Cas' chest and a leg gracelessly moved over his own. "That is not going to be comfortable in a few hours."
"Speak for yourself. I am plenty comfortable." Dean's face turned to him. The half of Dean's mouth that was visible beyond the pillow seemed to be smiling.
"God, you are a moose." Cas squirmed around to find a better position for sleeping. Dean did not help.
"Shh, now. You keep waking me up. You move too much too." Dean was still smiling at him with a fair amount of mirth dancing across his face.
It was then that they heard the scream coming from the darkness beyond their room. It was Lil. Cas bolted from the room toward her. She was no longer in bed. She was standing in the living room, still, screaming out into the dark room. There were no words, just high pitched wails punctuated by sobs. Cas scooped her up and carried her back to her bed. He held her and rocked her in his arms. She did not stop screaming. It was painful and piercing. He kept up a rocking motion. He made soothing circles of comfort on her back. He smoothed down her hair and kept up a steady pace and pattern of rocking.
Dean joined them. With some effort he bent down in front of them both. He reached out to Lil's face. She was between screams now, gulping and choking on air and tears. He held her cheek in his hand and stared steadily into her eyes. "I am so sorry, little one. I know just how you feel." She was breathing now instead of choking. They were fast, shallow breaths, but it was an improvement.
"I want my mom." She seemed to be pleading, as if, they could bring her back if they would only try.
"I know. I want my mom back too. I wish that I could give her back to you. No one should have to lose their mother." Dean kept holding her cheek and Cas kept rocking gently.
"Where is your mom?" She sat up a little and continued to stare at Dean.
"She died a long time ago." Dean readjusted his position, stretching out his leg into a more comfortable angle.
"Was she sick?" Lil sat up the rest of the way.
"No. Someone not nice made her die." Dean seemed to struggle with his words. How does one sugar coat such a story.
"Dean, I…" Cas started to interrupt, but Lil moved off of his lap to the floor and put her hand on Dean's cheek now.
"Like my mom." They had not explained everything to Lil, but she understood much. She saw so much in the hospital that her child's mind was continually piecing together.
"Yes." Dean answered her. "Very much like your mom. Everyday, I try to do just one thing, that I think would make her proud."
"Like what?" She asked.
"Well, I learned how to cook. She loved to cook. She made so many good things. When I cook, it is to be more like her. It lets a little of her stay with me."
"I didn't know about that Dean," Cas said.
"Well, Benny taught me, but I really just wanted to be like my mom. Take-out would have been a way easier way to feed Sammy and I." Dean raised his gaze to Cas then.
"What else do you do?" Lil interrupted.
"She liked to read. I have to admit, I don't do much of that. When she died though, I started reading some of the books on her shelf. I have read about half of them now. She had good taste. She liked adventure stories and mysteries."
"Does that make your mom happy?" Lil tipped her head a little to really look at Dean when he answered.
"I hope so. I think that she would be happy that I took care of Sam. I think that she would be happy that I met Cas, here. I think that she would like the cooking. There are lots of things that I think that she would like. She was a really good woman."
"What could I do for my mom?" She turned back to Cas now in search of an answer.
"What is something that she liked to do?" Cas asked.
"She liked to sing and play the piano."
"Well, then we need to make sure to do that, I think." Cas nodded at her as he spoke and she seemed to accept the assessment. "You need to sleep more though."
Lil tensed up a little then. "I don't want to. I don't want to be by myself."
"I'll stay with you. Dean is a bed hog anyway." Cas smiled at her. He scooted over onto the bed and she slipped in next to him.
"You can stay too, Dean." Lil said to him as he slowly stood up.
"Nah, I really am a bed hog. You two try to get some sleep, but make sure to wake me up in the morning if you get up first. I don't want to miss breakfast." Dean smiled down at her and pressed a kiss into her mess of hair.
"Will you cook breakfast?" Lil yawned out.
"I will. I'll make eggs, french toast, and…" He paused then for effect and looked directly at Cas, "bacon."
"Wow, anticlimactic." Cas laughed a little.
"Do you like bacon, Lil?" Dean asked as he was shuffling to the door.
"It's okay." Her answer sounded more like no.
Dean stopped in mid-shuffle. "Oh, no. Now there are two of you. Two bacon-haters under one roof. I can't believe it." He threw back a final grin at them and then headed out the door, "Goodnight you two."
"Goodnight, Dean." They said in unison. When he was gone, Cas felt the quiet descend on them both.
"Goodnight, Cas." Lil whispered into the dark.
"Goodnight, Lil." Cas whispered back.
He awoke later to an empty bed. It would have alarmed him had he not been greeted by the smells of coffee and breakfast cooking in the next room. He wandered out to see Lil setting the table and Dean working the hot pan full of eggs. He leaned up against the counter and looked down at all of the food, enough for an army rather than just the three of them. "Are we expecting company?"
"I just thought that everybody would be very hungry, especially since we are going to be going to Lil's house later." Dean was adopting a casual tone as he spoke. He picked up a platter of french toast and held it out toward Lil. "Here girly. Come get this for the table."
"Okay." She came over, snatched it up, and brought it over to the table.
"Need any help?" Cas offered.
"No, you slept through all of the work. Now you just get to enjoy the spoils." Dean smirked.
"Did you two talk about the trip today?" Cas wondered how much Lil understood about their plans.
"Only a little." He turned to Lil and said, "We talked about going to your house to pack your stuff, huh?"
"Yes. Dean said that I don't have enough clothes. He said that I need to have more of my stuff here now."
"Oh, did he?" They seemed to be dangerously close to talking about things that would become uncomfortable, like the real reason that they needed to go to the house. They needed to pack up everything, not just Lil's clothes, because Lil would not be living there anymore. They had stopped in once to pick up clothes, and Cas had wandered the rooms. There was a lot to take care of in that place. He went into M's desk and found paperwork on the house. It was a rental. At least there was that. One less thing to worry over. It would be much harder to sell a house than to just walk away. He figured he and Dean could get a moving van and load it up with everything. They could store it all in a rental locker somewhere for when Lil was old enough to claim what she wanted from it. It would be a sizable task, but it needed to be done. He and Dean had decided that today would be the day to start this.
After last night, he had thought that they might postpone it. Then he remembered that they had already reserved the van. No sense in delaying this, I guess. Dean and Lil were moving the last of the food to the table and were already sitting when Cas decided to make his way over to join them. He stopped at the coffee pot first to fill up a mug. The warm earthy smell wafted up to his face. He breathed in deeply and took a seat across from Dean, next to Lil.
Dean was heaping food onto Lil's plate. "You want more french toast?"
"No." She looked up at him as he hovered over her plate with the fourth piece of french toast.
"Really? How about some eggs?" Dean put the french toast back and started to scoop up the eggs.
"I just want the french toast." Cas watched Lil with her pile of food as Dean poured her a glass of orange juice. He felt like, at any moment, things could fall apart, yet, at the same time, everything felt perfect. They ate and Cas occasionally sipped from his coffee and stole glances out at Dean and Lil.
"Cat got your tongue, Cas?" Dean asked over a forkful of eggs.
"You are a miracle Dean Winchester." Cas didn't mean to say that, but it fell out that way just the same.
"You are a weird little dude." Dean responded, but the wry grin that he threw across the table was all affection.
Lil was working her way through her food and was gulping down her orange juice. "When are we going?"
"You in a hurry?" Dean cocked his head to the side and asked.
"Hmm," she mumbled out around her glass.
"I think that we can pick up the moving van in about an hour," Cas supplied. He looked down at his plate and noticed that Dean had slipped a single piece of bacon onto it when he wasn't looking. "What's this?" He asked as he poked at it a little with his fork.
"Try it. I went down to the store before you all woke up and got it. It is black forest bacon. Totally, awesome." Dean used his fork to push at Cas' "Go on, just try it."
"It is only because I find begging cute that I am doing this." Cas raised the bacon to his mouth and took a bite. It was good. "Mmm. Not bad." It was more than, not bad. It was actually earthy and peppery. He took another bite and then looked up at Dean.
Triumph played out on Dean's face as he said, "You have been converted. Now, I just have to fix the little one here." Dean scooped up a single slice of bacon and held it out to Lil. "Okay, Lil, try the awesome bacon."
She squinted at him and pursed her lips. "I don't like bacon."
Dean decided that the bacon needed to do a little dance along the edge of her plate. He sang a little tune as the bacon was made to bounce along. "Tasty, tasty bacon, is so good for me. Tasty, tasty bacon, bacon in my belly." It was ridiculous and Cas snorted out a little laugh at Dean. Lil just looked at him like he was all kinds of crazy. "Oh, I feel a second verse coming on. If only someone, Lil, would take a little bite of the bacon." Dean was taking in a deep breath to begin again, but Lil spared them all by snatching up the bacon.
She took a tiny bite. It was questionable whether or not any meat actually passed into her system. She wrinkled her nose at them both. "Eww. Pepper." Her tongue came out and sat there, hanging with just a minuscule trace of bacon pepper on it.
"Ah, well. It was worth a shot. I view this as a victory. One down, one to go." Dean reached over and stole the remaining bacon from Lil. "No sense wasting good bacon." He popped the strip into his mouth and leaned back in his seat, surveying the table, Cas, and Lil.
The breakfast ended not long after, and Dean and Lil went off to get ready for the trip to the house. Cas was tasked with cleaning up the breakfast remnants since he had not done much to get it ready. He threw himself into the task as he always did when it came to cleaning. Everything in its expected place. It was getting harder and harder for him to maintain his normal order. It seemed like time was always getting away from him. It didn't help much that he now shared his living space with Dean and Lil. Lil wasn't a problem, but Dean wasn't exactly good at cleaning up after himself. Cas spent a fair amount of time scooping up discarded clothes and random cups half full of some drink or another. It wasn't that he was messy, it was that he was just not as neat as Cas.
Cas bustled around the room, semi-moistened rag in hand and began wiping down all of the available places. He had popped on his stereo and the loud melodies of Queen poured through the condo. It was easier to work with a little music to drown out the world. The kitchen was in order and the room was set right when he noticed that he was being watched. Dean and Lil were staring at him from the doorway to the guest room. "Oh, don't mind us." Dean laughed. Cas didn't realize it, but he did look a little like a mad-man swooping around the rooms to the tune of "We Are the Champions."
Cas tossed the rag aside and strode over to Lil with purpose. He gave her a gallant bow and pulled her into a little uncoordinated dance. He held one of her hands in his, extended into a type of waltzing pose. Her other hand he placed on his hip. He paused and directed her to step up onto his feet. She did and then they were off. He swirled her about the room as the song played out. She smiled up at him as he shot across the room with her in a type of gallop. It was all silly and not any kind of organized dance, but it was rollicking and invigorating all the same. The song ended and Cas scooped up Lil into a hug. "Thank you munchkin. It's about time I found a decent dance partner. Dean, here doesn't dance."
"Because he hurt his leg?" Lil asked.
"Nah, I just don't have dancing feet. I tend to just step all over whoever had the misfortune of dancing with me." Dean hobbled over to the counter without his crutches and plucked up Cas' keys. "You ready?"
"As ready as I'm going to be." The three of them headed out. On the way to the parking garage, Cas said. "I forgot that I don't have my bike. I never drove it home from…" He paused and then continued, "the bar."
"Don't worry. I had it impounded. When Jorge, my boss called me in the hospital, I told him the story and got him to send a couple of guys out to take care of our vehicles. This does remind me though, that I will need to get them back. I'll call Jorge later today." Dean shared.
"Does he know the whole story?" Cas asked.
"Well, as much as I could tell without getting pulled from the case. He also doesn't know about us, so there's that." Dean was hobbling faster now as if to avoid eye-contact.
"Are you keeping it from him on purpose?"
"It will be uncomfortable to have that conversation with him. I do not believe that it is important for him to know about my private life."
Lil was watching them talk and seemed to be absorbing what was said. They got to the car and Cas helped her get buckled into the back seat. His car was sensible, like most things in Cas' life pre-Dean. It was an older Toyota Camry. It was comfortable and clean. The metallic blue paint was light and clean. Dean scowled down at it from the passenger's side. "What?" Cas felt defensive.
"I don't know. I just pictured you in a way cooler car." Dean tried to infuse humor into his tone, but Cas was still bristling from the thought that he was part of Dean's secret private life.
"Maybe I left my cool car with my other boyfriend. You know, the one that isn't ashamed of me." It was childish, but Cas didn't care. He tossed himself into the car and reached out for his keys from Dean.
Dean set them in Cas' hand, not gently. They pulled out of the garage and Cas was doing his best to reign in his feelings. Seriously, not the most important issue that we have faced this week. Get over it. He could see Dean looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, but he didn't say anything. Lil broke the silence instead. "Are you guys fighting?"
"No." They both said at once, and a little too roughly. Cas glanced over at Dean at that.
"Why are you guys fighting?" Clearly, Lil did not believe them.
"We aren't fighting. We just disagreed about something and I responded in a childish manner. It isn't a big deal." Cas tried to diffuse the situation for Lil. She didn't need to be exposed to this sort of behavior.
"You have two boyfriends?" Lil asked Cas. "That's a lot of boyfriends."
"I don't have two boyfriends. I have one boyfriend." Cas laughed a little.
"I thought that you said that you had another boyfriend that had your other car." Lil looked confused when he glanced back at her in the rearview mirror.
Dean interrupted, "I'm sorry." He looked at Cas when he said it then he turned back to Lil. He took a deep breath and said, "Cas was just mad because I was keeping him a secret. I am his boyfriend, and I am the only one that he is seeing." He looked back at Cas and added, "Sometimes I say stupid things, or I don't say anything at all when I should speak up. I'm really sorry, Cas."
Cas felt Dean's hand on his shoulder. Cas looked over at him as they stopped at a traffic signal. He smiled. "You are distracting me, Dean Winchester. You wouldn't want me to run into a pedestrian would you?" He glanced down at Dean's hand.
"Forgiven?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Getting the van and making it to the house took a considerable amount of time. When they finally got there, it seemed like most of the day had been wasted. "We might have to make this a multi-day thing." Cas thought out loud.
"Yeah, I was already thinking that." They walked up to the house with Lil in tow. She had some boxes in her hand and Cas had instructed Dean to help her get her room together, while he worked on one of the other spaces. "Aye, aye, captain." He said as he and Lil turned to leave.
He cast his glance around the room, formulating his plan, when he noticed that things were not as they had been when they had last been here. He knew because he had looked over the bookshelf. He had pulled out some copies of the novels and a few CDs from it. He wanted to have these things of M's in his house. One of the books was not pressed back into place all the way. This would not seem like much of anything in normal circumstances, but Cas remembered pressing them back. He remembered running his hand along the even rows of their spines, and he knew that they were all perfectly aligned.
He felt his breath hitch up on the intake. He spun to the stairs and ran up them. Someone had been in the house. Someone is in the house.
Review, Fav., Follow.
Thank you all for reading and sharing your thoughts. Thank you Mummabro, YoungHopeful, taytay127, and Master's daughter for reading and sharing how it all is working for you. I really appreciated this. I am currently only one chapter ahead of you all, and it is freaking me out. I like a little more buffer. Hopefully, I got this chapter right. Plus, this is going to sound so dumb, but, you know the little window that shows how many k of stories there are. The section that places Supernatural at number two to Glee. It is currently at 99.9k and I think that my chapter will put it to an even 100k. Anyway, that isn't important, but...'Till next time...