In honor of reaching 500 reviews and a butt load of views, here is an early chapter :) You guys rock!
97: The Test
Dean could only stare at the object in his hand, trying to wrap his head around it. He hadn't meant to see it. Hell, he hadn't even meant to find, he had probably not been meant to find it. It had been wrapped in toilet paper and buried at the bottom of the bathroom trash can. The only reason he knew about it was because Baby had gotten into the trash and scattered it up and down the hall. He had been picking it all up when he spotted it.
It was a pregnancy test, and it had two lines. He was guessing that meant it was positive.
So here he was, a few hours later, perched on the edge of the couch, still staring at this stick in his hand.
"Honey, I'm home and thank God for the weekend."
His heart clenched and Dean swallowed hard, raising his eyes up to his wife. She looked tired but also pleased to be home, she also looked cold. Two weeks into November and the temperature had dropped, there was now some snow on the ground. He had actually gone out and bought a snow shovel and some bag of salt people kept saying was needed. He watched as she tugged of her snow boots, unwrapped her scarf, and began unpacking herself from all her many layers. Jane was not a 'cold and snow' person.
"It's freezing out there." It wasn't, not really, and she knew once winter had truly set it, what was cold now would seem like summer vacation. She put away her things, unaware that Dean was having issues. When Baby came bounding up to her, Jane bent down to pick up the wriggling mutt. "Oh, gross… dog breath." She laughed, tipping her head back to avoid getting her mouth licked. She loved her dog, but anything that ate its own poop wasn't touching her mouth.
"Sweetheart, can you come here please?"
"Sure, give me a second."
He watched her disappear into the kitchen, hearing the cupboards opening. When he heard the microwave, the 'second' became two minutes. Jane made a pot of coffee every few days and tended to just microwave what was left after her fresh morning brew until it was gone. He waited, setting the test on the coffee table, and clasped his hands before him. He had no idea what he was going to say, how he was going to broach this conversation, he hadn't rehearsed a damn thing. All he had been able to focus on was that his wife was apparently pregnant. They were, maybe, might, be having a baby.
"All right," Jane walked back out, her feet encased in a pair of slippers, and sat down in the recliner. She had just raised the mug to her lips when her eyes landed on the pregnancy test. "Oh…" She leaned forward, coffee cup trembling in her hand and set it down before she spilled it.
"Oh." Dean echoed, leaning back in the couch and lay his hands in his lap. "Baby got into the trash." He said by way of explanation, not about to have her thinking he was some sort of garbage picker, or that he didn't trust her bathroom habits. Gross.
"Oh."
She seemed to be retreating into herself, her already pale face draining of what little color it did possess. "Jane?" Dean shifted forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Sweetheart, maybe we should, um, talk about this?" All his years, all his experience, all his accumulated knowledge and there wasn't one damn thing in there that had prepared him for this.
Sure, she had been pregnant before. It didn't really count. That had been his bad when he pissed off a mom in a fairy tale influenced town, and it had lasted less than twenty-four hours. That had been a supernatural issue not an actual, real life problem.
She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Um… well…"
"I'd ask how it happened," He smiled crookedly. "But I already know."
That seemed to relax her and she rolled her eyes, unfolding herself from the chair to retrieve her coffee again. "I'm glad one of us remembers."
"Harsh." He eyeballed the test again. "How far… when did… when did you take this?"
"The other day, Wednesday." She seemed to get what he had been angling for. "I was due for my…"
"Advocating for demons."
"Yeah, that." Jane smiled wanly, wondering if he would ever stop calling her period that. It was juvenile, and amusing. Sam and Bobby had referred to it as advocating as well, she supposed being a Hunter hadn't left much time for learning about the fairer sex's less than fair habits. "Saturday and it never showed up." It still hadn't.
"So… you took a pregnancy test?" Dean remembered a bit from school, and he was pretty sure not everyone advocated regularly, sometimes it could get messed up. Hell, given her former life, with all the stress and shit, he was surprised Jane ever actually got a regular cycle. There, cycle, he had thought it.
"I've never been late before in my life, not since my period few periods." Which was a miracle as far as she was concerned because of their life, she figured normalcy even with her periods would have gone out the window. Nope, one thing she had always been able to count on was the irony that while demons and other shit hadn't been able to kill or seriously injure her, she'd still bleed like a stuck hog for seven days every month. "So.. I took the test."
"And it's positive." He was captain obvious this afternoon.
She nodded.
"What now, sweetheart?"
"I don't know, Dean." She said softly, watching as he pushed himself off the couch and crossed around the small area until he was kneeling down in front of her. "I know our talks… we've always been joking, never anything serious…" And they sure as hell hadn't been actively trying for a baby, they'd done what they always did and relied on birth control, her using the pill. Which was definitely not 100% effective, proof here. "With our lives, the idea of… of bringing a baby into it…" Was fricking stupid.
"With how our lives were." He corrected, taking her hands in his. "Jane… we don't, we're not a part of that anymore. We're retired." They could do this, have and raise a kid. "Yeah, we know what's out there, but that just makes us better prepared."
"Do you… you want…?" Dean liked kids, and he joked about having a few, but liking and joking and then actually having your own were all separate concepts.
"Yeah, sweetheart." He said quietly, after reflecting for a long moment. "Yeah, I do."
