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Not yet opening his eyes, Dean pleasantly drifted in the space between asleep and awake. He stretched and shifted, running his hand over his swollen belly feeling life stir inside. In shock, he opened his eyes and looked around. He was in his bed in the bunker, sleeping naked. Sure enough, a very pregnant belly swelled where he’d only known slight softness masking muscle.
Surely, this was some kind of a nightmare. This made no sense. It couldn’t be happening. But, Dean could feel the truth of it in his body, and a cold inevitability of the situation hit him. Baby. Delivery. What?.
Searching for answers he rolled over and found the source of the warmth next to him was Cas.
“Cas,” he cried, “Cas, wake up! What’s happening to me?”
Cas stirred comfortably and wrapped his arms around Dean. Without opening his eyes he said, “shhh. You’re freaking out again.”
“Cas?” Dean heard the panic in his own voice and Cas opened his eyes and stroked Dean’s hair.
“What is it, love?” he asked.
“What am I…what are we doing?” Dean felt the tension increasing in his body, making the little bundle he was carrying start to squirm. He felt anxious beyond what he’d ever felt before and was, he realized grateful for Cas’s presence, and his arms around him. How awkward he hadn’t thought it awkward.
“What is happening?” he asked.
Cas continued to stroke his hair lightly and said, “Do you want to go over the plan, again?” The tired in his voice let him know this had happened before, but there was such patience in Cas’s voice, Dean could tell he wasn’t bothered at all.
“Yes,” Dean whispered, surprised at the vulnerability he felt.
Cas shifted to better be able to look Dean in the face, though his arm still reached under the pillow and wrapped around Dean’s shoulder.
“You’ll let me know when it is time for the delivery. I will “zap” you unconscious, as you say. Then I will untie the thread that closes your navel, where your umbilical cord once was. You don’t really need to know the other details, Dean. Just think of yourself as a ball of yarn with a marble in the center. I will perform the unraveling with utmost care. I have been gaining power reserves from your soul and Sam’s for months. And when you awaken you will be wholly restored, and our child will be here.”
“How will I know when it’s time?” Dean asked.
“Dean, you’ll know.” Cas said calmly. “She’ll let you know. Don’t worry. It won’t be painful.”
“She? A girl? I…We have a daughter?” Dean asked, stunned. This was difficult to take in. His head was swimming. Unconsciously, he closed his eyes, and nuzzled his face into Cas’s shoulder. Cas’s arms went back around him and Dean felt himself relax a little.
“Are you feeling feverish, honey?” Cas asked, a slight laugh in his voice disguised a tone of concern as he brought a hand to the side of Dean’s face. “You know all about our daughter. You’ve told me about her so many times.” Dean didn’t open his eyes, but said.
“You tell me about her, again.”
Cas started to absently stroke Dean’s back and said softly, “I know that you already love her. You tell me about her.”
“Like what?” Dean opened his eyes and shifted to look into Cas’s face.
“Say her name.” Cas whispered.
Dean paused for a moment, and then without conscious thought he and Cas spoke at the same time.
“Mary”
“Mary Ellen,” Cas said.
Dean shifted on the bed which squeaked and Cas let his hand drift down Dean’s body to rest on his hip.
“Cas, how can we raise a child here? Here in the bunker? With all this information about monsters? It’s no place for a little girl.”
Cas grinned slightly, “We’ve been talking about buying a house in town. We’d never be far from the bunker for safety or the library for research.”
“But Cas, buying a house…”
“Well, we’re just thinking about it,” Cas assured him. “We could sell a couple the vehicles from the garage, but Sam said we could make a lot more selling one of the volumes from the library. Although, he doesn’t want to part with any of them.”
Cas started to trail his hand up Dean’s back again and revisit his shoulder with a soft, gentle trace with his fingertips. “You said you could already see her riding her tricycle through these hallway, laying on the floor coloring in the library, while you and I do research. I’ll teach her the names of the constellations, and you’ll make sure she has the safest weapons training possible.”
A tiny grin crept on to Dean’s face for a moment, but then he lowered his eyes from Cas. “I don’t want her to grow up to be a hunter,” he mumbled, and nervousness rippled through his body again.
“You wanted her to have a godmother that is a Woman of Letters, so she’d know she could be anything she wants to be.”
“Charlie,” he said.
“And I picked Sam, of course. He’ll be her godfather.”
Dean sighed. He had been picturing little Mary in Cas’s descriptions, and now he was starting to feel less afraid. It still bothered him though, his and Cas’s daughter; their creation. As he reached out to trace his fingers down Cas’s shoulder and pull the angel into his arms he whispered cautiously, “But Cas, what will she be? Not human, not angel. How will she fit in, and have a life?”
Cas sighed, and rolled onto his back, pulling Dean in close. Dean sensed Cas had a lot to say, so he tucked his head under Cas’s chin, closed his eyes to listen peacefully.
“It’s true, she will be Nephilim, and her kind hasn’t existed on earth for many thousands of years. The last living Nephilim,….Metatron tricked me into murdering her for the spell.”
Cas went silent and Dean squeezed him closer. He realized how close he felt to Cas; not just lying in bed naked together, but more intimately. He really felt like they were a couple and for the first time it occurred to him how much they trusted each other. He thought about all they had been through together, and though, he suddenly couldn’t remember how this situation had come about, when he searched honestly through the deepest part of himself where he kept his feelings he never talked about, he realized, he wasn’t even surprised.
“Shhh, I know, baby” he whispered. “You thought you were doing the right thing.”
Cas continued, “Our daughter, there have not been other Nephilim like her, for, maybe forever. I can’t be certain.
Long ago, some angels left heaven and disobeyed their superiors. They were anarchists who felt our father preferred his newer projects to those of us in heaven and they came to earth to act spitefully out of their jealousy. They didn’t cast out their grace or become human. They didn’t take vessels either. They projected images upon themselves, images they knew to be beautiful to the humans of that time, and they went among the humans hoping to seduce and mate with them.
Angels, can mate with other angels, Dean. But we cannot reproduce. Only God can create new angels and there haven’t been any new angels created…since creation. He finished working on us, and moved on to the earth. But for some reason, he made it possible for an angel to reproduce with a human. To create Nephilim.”
“Wait? Angels mate with other angels? But aren’t you all brothers and sisters?” Dean opened his eyes and asked.
“Techincally yes, we have the same Creator. But many think ourselves as more distant cousins. However we’re encouraged to use the sibling terms, and think of each other that way to remind us of our duty to heaven,” Cas explained. He continued his story.
“The angels who remained in heaven were angry at this disobedience and came to earth to slaughter the Nephilim, believing our father never meant them to exist; that the possibility of angel, and human reproduction was God’s mistake. The angels who had rebelled projected images of themselves that were not fully human, and they were tall. Very tall. Some humans called them giants and among the humans Nephilim were sometimes confused with giants as well. Some Nephilim escaped and bred among the humans and their line was lost. But in heaven the idea persisted that Nephilim were abominations and outside God’s original intention for creation. Other angels in heaven believed it couldn’t have been a mistake, but that God didn’t intend for the Nephilim to be the products of human and angel lust. We believed that God would have supported existence of Nephilim on earth, if their parents had been brought together in love, and not in lust.”
Once again, Dean tensed with worry, “She’ll be in danger, always” he breathed. “She’ll be hunted.”
“No, Dean, we’ve been over this.” Cas sighed stroking Dean’s back. “There are not many left in heaven who have that view. If anyone in heaven is a threat to her, she’ll know well before, because she’ll likely be able to hear angel radio. She cannot be summoned to heaven like an angel, but she’ll be able to hear them. Since I left the other angels for earth, I doubt any will even know of her existence. And, heaven and I agreed my parting was for the best,” he paused, “I don’t think many there will have much interest in my actions on earth. Even if they are starting family with a human man.”
Dean sensed that Cas was using euphemisms, and that his angel was saddened over his departure from the other angels, but when he mentioned starting a family with Dean, he could hear a smile in his voice and Dean gave him a little squeeze.
“What if other humans don’t want her here on earth?” Dean asked, bringing the conversation back to their daughter’s safety.
“Dean, I think you and Sam have personal relationships with all the hunters there are, in this country. I don’t think there are any that don’t support you, or want you as an enemy.” Cas sighed, “but not to worry. Sam has been doing a lot of research for us, on what to expect. There is not a lot of information out there for the parents-to-be of a Nephilim, especially a rare Nephilim like our daughter will be.
But going on the information available about the Nephilim of the old days, by all outside appearances our daughter will seem fully human. Except…she’ll have wings.”
“Wings?” Dean was alarmed. He started to pull away from Cas, to sit up in bed, but Cas pulled him back down.
“No, I’m just kidding. No wings.
Whatever is odd or different about her externally, she’ll learn to project a fully human appearance, the way a human baby learns to walk. We won’t have to teach her that. She’ll be able to go to school, to go to the human doctor, and no one will be aware that she’s any different from them.”
“What will she look like?” Cas returned the squeeze Dean gave him and went back to lightly stroking his back.
“She’ll be beautiful,” he said. “She’ll look like you, and like me. She may grow to be above average height.”
Dean snorted a laugh. “Sam will like that.”
“She may have other senses or abilities humans don’t have. She may be able to see demon’s true faces.”
“Cas, what…what will I look like to her. Will she be able to see, any mark on me? From….” Dean paused, unwilling to think much about that time in recent past. The time when even Cas had been in danger from Dean, and if it hadn’t been for Sam and Cas working together, he might still be a lost soul; a demon. He suddenly felt a warm pinching feeling in his chest and his throat was tight, and he realized that he knew he loved Castiel very much. He’d known for a while, but this time he was able to put that word to the feeling.
“No, Dean,” Cas comforted him. “She won’t be afraid of you.”
“What about you? Will she be able to see your true form?”
“Not all of it. She may be able to see certain shadows. My wings. A halo. But I have to shut off my true form to fit inside a human vessel, like turning off the light in room. A light cannot be on and off at the same time. She’ll simply see that the light is there and as she grows older she may learn not to see it, as children do with many things not generally accepted. As to other abilities and senses, we won’t know. She may have an abnormally long natural lifespan…that wouldn’t be unusual for a Nephilim, but we have a hard time knowing their traits as we’re not sure how many of the original group born of lust survived.”
An easy silence fell over them and Dean processed what he had learned and the long road he’d already traveled coming to accept that he was pregnant with their daughter. Still an unusually strange pill to swallow – even in the life of a hunter, of a Winchester, and that was saying a lot. One thing kept puzzling him. It seemed trivial, silly even, to mention it, but after several attempts to push the thought from his head, he knew he wasn’t going to be able forget it until he understood.
“Cas…?” He said softly, his voice sounding loud in the quiet room.
“yeah,” he replied, sounding alert not as though he’d been near sleep, or even relaxed. Angels didn’t sleep. He must be thinking about their future as parents too, Dean thought.
“How did I…? I mean, did we…Did I…” he searched for the right way to phrase the question without embarrassing himself.
“Why are you the mother?” Cas said, finishing Dean’s thought, mostly accurately.
Dean sighed in embarrassment anyway. “Yeah.”
Cas rolled onto his side to face Dean. He slightly bumped Dean’s pregnant belly when he did so, and Dean felt something inside bump back. He jerked and made a pained sound, even though it was more shocking than painful. Cas’s hands immediately went to the belly, stroking and soothing, and he reached his neck forward to kiss Dean’s shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“It’s ok,” he whispered. He realized he was slightly upset that his big swollen body kept him from being closer to Cas; from fitting snuggly into his arms, but Cas was peacefully soothing his belly, running his hands over the firm roundness there with such tender affection, that Dean settled into his pillow and waited for Cas to look up at him.
When he did he said, “It doesn’t work like that, Dean. Or at least, it’s not working like that now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Humans, and I mean no disrespect, Dean, but humans can breed like animals, because you are part of the animal kingdom. Two partners don’t need to be in love to produce offspring; they just need to commit the act of lovemaking. With angels, mating can only take place when two waves of celestial intent are in syncretic harmony. It’s difficult to explain, but I think the idea of two songs making love comes close.”
“Ok?” Dean said, wondering when Cas was getting to the point.
“But as I said, two angels can’t reproduce. For Nephilim to be born the angel and human parents can either be in a loving relationship or in lust with each other. Theoretically either way has the potential to produce a Nephilim of equal strength and power.”
“What do you mean, theoretically?” Dean was struggling to follow this line of thinking back to his original question. Unfortunately, restating the question was a little too humiliating to be his top priority, so he decided to wait and see where Cas was going with this.
“There may have been other Nephilim conceived in love before. It’s statistically probable. We just don’t have any evidence of them. So we can’t know for sure if they are any different from the ones that were a product of lust. But either way, our daughter could be different than both specimens.”
“You keep saying that she’ll be special. Like X-Men special? Is she going to get a Hogwarts letter? How do you know that?”
Cas grinned for a moment at the question before responding, “Because you’re having her Dean. Even our union,” he paused and ran his hand through Dean’s hair gently, “our loving union, of angel and man shouldn’t be able to produce Nephilim. Nothing like it has been recorded in history. A male angel in a male vessel, and a human man? She is a product of your soul and my grace in a way that may never have happened before. She wants to be born. Perhaps she needs to come to earth, for some reason we don’t know yet.”
Dean took this in for half a moment. It seemed to make…a kind of sense?
“You told me when we were in Purgatory that when you rescued me from hell, you didn’t have a vessel yet, and I didn’t have my body. That we were grace and soul and when we touched we left a mark on each other. So this is…like that?”
“I think so, Dean,” Cas let his hand that had stroked Dean’s hair wander down his neck and to his shoulder. “but this is so much more powerful.”
“So…how did it happen?” he bit the bullet and finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Cas answered bluntly.
“You don’t know?” Dean hadn’t been prepared for that. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“If you’re asking how, and when…I can’t tell you Dean. I don’t know that part. You’re asking did we…well, yeah, we did. Everything. You ever wanted to do. You know much more than I do about what the human physiology is capable of, but all of it was…quite lovely.”
Cas paused, and Dean gulped taking in this new information with everything else. His brain was starting to feel worn out. Cas’s hand had made his way back up and was stroking his hair again. He looked into Dean’s eyes with such love, and said, “I really enjoy making you happy, Dean.”
Dean couldn’t help but snort out a laugh and smile. Cas could be so tender and sweet. Dean wondered what had kept him from acknowledging he wanted this angel in his arms forever a long time ago.
“Cas, I…”
“I know,” he said. He entwined his fingers in Dean’s and bringing Dean’s hand to his face, Cas kissed his hand. Some part of Dean melted inside, but he tried not show it.
“Some time during our…coupling…or perhaps some other exchange of love between us…soul and grace joined forcefully again…even though we now both have bodies to separate us, and creation occurred. Somewhere in space, I think, and now it ripens inside you Dean, waiting to be born. Born to us.”
Cas leaned in and kissed Dean on the lips. Not a long sloppy open mouth kiss, but a sweet kiss, longer than he expected, but leaving him wanting more.
“She could have come to you in a dream, or something explaining more, but the important thing is she is on her way, and will be with us soon.”
Dean was surprisingly fine with all of this. Except one thing still weighed on his mind.
“But why am I the one carrying her? …I mean, not…that you shouldn’t get to be the dad…too. You know…oh, you know what I mean..?” Dean stammered.
Cas paused and Dean thought he was going to start stroking his hair again, but instead he put his hand up and cupped the side of Dean’s face.
“I think it’s because, she chose you Dean,” he said solemnly. “I think she sensed what a good caretaker you are. How protective you’ve been of Sam,…and me. How responsible you are, and I know you don’t want to admit it, caring and …nurturing you can be.”
In the dark of the room he could see Cas’s genuine expression as he looked into his eyes and Dean felt himself blushing.
“You’re going to be a great daddy,” he said to Dean and kissed his cheek. Dean reached for Cas and tried to pull him in closer but the great belly got in the way of them embracing chest to chest. Cas laughed and kissed his way down Dean’s chest, and kissed the belly several times too. Dean couldn’t help it, but he yawned.
“You’re tired,” concerned showed in his voice. “Get some rest Dean. We don’t know when she’ll be ready. Could be any time.”
Dean’s vision was starting to blur with exhaustion. He nodded and sighed, and rolled over, his back to Cas who wound his arms around him, tucking his face into the crook of Dean’s neck. Cas sighed too, and like that, Dean drifted back to sleep.
When he woke up, he didn’t feel Cas beside him and he reached down to run his hands over the pregnant belly. Instead he felt only muscle and a little softness. He turned and looked around the room. Empty.
It had been a dream?
Dean sighed. He hated how he was feeling, because it seemed silly, over a dream but it was genuine loss. He felt about as bad as he did when his dad told him his mom died. Or all the times he thought he might not be able to save Sam.
He missed her. He felt he had seen her... seen her riding her tricycle through the halls, and now his body and heart ached with the disappointment that he wouldn't get to meet her. Pressure was building in the cavity below his eye sockets. His breath became ragged. He knew he was alone but he couldn't let himself cry. He fought it. This pain was a whole mess of feelings he didn't want to unravel. Did he want to be a father? Hadn't he failed at that experiment once? And with Cas? Cas had been so sweet and loving in the dream. What would the real Cas think, he he'd known Dean had such a dream? What did it say about him that, now that he was awake he felt a little loss thinking of no longer having the angels arms around him, not being able to reach for the other man and bury his face between his shoulder and neck. Dean couldn't go there in his thoughts. He breathed through it, deep breaths until the urge to cry passed. The dream faded a little, and that brought sadness too, but he was also a little bit grateful for that. Finally, he felt he could get out of bed. He put on some underwear and the men of letters robe and headed to the bathroom.
By the time he got out of the shower, he had almost convinced himself he'd had a really intense dream, and the emotions from the dream still hung on to him, and he was going to have to ride it out. As he dried, and dressed himself he found himself unwillingly replaying those intimate details with Cas in his mind, even as the details about Nephilim slipped away, his mind on autopilot, filled with Cas’s voice and his sweet touch. Dean shivered to remember it in his body. The dream had been so vivid. Suddenly, one part stood out to him in sharp contrast to everything else around him.
“She could have come to you in a dream, or something explaining more… She wants to be born. Perhaps she needs to come to earth, for some reason we don’t know yet.”
It couldn’t be real? Could it?
Dean ran from the bathroom in his socks and found Sam drinking his coffee when he got to the kitchen.
“Sam? Where’s Cas?”
Sam looked up, confused, “Uh, he’s in his room. Why?”
“Nothing. I just gotta talk to him,” Dean said, and he took off again. He remembered now, Cas’s exile from heaven. Their agreement he live with them in the bunker as a hunter in training and he rebuilt his grace…
When he reached the Men of Letters dorm room Cas had chosen for his own, Dean stopped. He stood facing the door without knocking and for a quiet moment, he asked himself, what was he going to do? The feelings, he had in the dream, were they real? Yeah, probably he knew. He knew for a long time that he’d been trying to tell himself he didn’t feel that way about Cas.
What was he going to say? How was he going to…? He interrupted himself with a deep breath. The dream. Just ask him about the dream. That’s all. He told himself. He lifted his arm to knock on Cas’s door, but just as he did, it opened. Right? Cas knew he’d been standing there.
“What is it, Dean?” he asked. “You appear distressed.”
“No, I’m not. I just had a…I need to ask you something…” Dean stammered.
Cas said nothing but stood in the doorway staring at him. Dean lifted his head and saw for the first time as he looked into those blue eyes how eager and willing Cas was to do anything to help him. He remembered how much they trusted each other, after all they’d been through. He admitted to himself, finally, he did want this.
“Do you know what I mean when I say I need you?” Dean blurted out.
Cas nodded. “I do know what you mean. I love you too, Dean. You don’t have to say it.”
Dean gasped in response, but he didn’t say it. Not right then. He took in Cas’s words, and almost automatically he threw his arms around the angel and brought their mouths together in a hard kiss. A kiss that left him wanting more.