Chapter Text
After having put up all the protection, the bunker was capable of, a quite odd sight greeted Dean as he entered the war room. The big, table, that usually stood right in the middle of the room was pushed aside, in order to make space for all the blankets the others could probably have found in such a short time.
Of course, even though the older hunter had been away for more than ten minutes, nobody had even moved towards the door to close it. Typical.
He went in unnoticed, due to the fact, that his brother and the angel bent over the puddle of blankets, from which soft whimpering was auditable. All right, we got this, Dean thought and took a deep breath before entering the scene before him.
The first one to look up was Cas and a smile displayed itself on his face at the sight of the hunter. Despite the situation, Dean’s heart seemed to pick up a speed twice as fast as before.
“How’s it going?” the older Winchester asked nervously, as he approached and could finally see Glynn, laying on her side on the blankets, panting and sweating. Her huge stomach seemed to look like a warning, probably that time was running out or something.
The first one to answer was the pregnant woman. “Fine,” she laughed weakly and looked up at him as if they shared a joke. She seemed to have picked up a few perks of the Winchesters in the last months and it was funny in a kind of sad way.
“The contractions are getting closer now,” the younger Winchester piped in. “She will soon have to push.”
Dean blinked at that with wide open eyes for a few seconds.
“How did… how did this happen so fast, I mean in, well, movies and series and stuff births normally go on for hours,” the older hunter rambled.
While Sam looked kind of impressed, probably at the knowledge his brother had, Cas jumped in with an explanation. He was half crouched down next to Glynn now and had a hand on her shoulder, as she bit herself through the next wave of pain.
“The Nephilim, or for that matter all born supernatural creatures, can detect the life outside of the womb from a very early stage of the pregnancy on.” He seemed to be taking a bit of pain away from the curled-up woman in front of him, but it seemed to exhaust him if his tired eyes were any indication. Dean frowned.
“Our daughter,” it did a lot of crazy things to the older hunter’s stomach as he heard Cas say it like that, “must have picked up on the dangers, that are outside and probably wanted to do something, anything. I am a seraph still, even with the chaos in heaven, and that means she will be quite strong, being able to speed up a birth is nothing I would not have expected.”
Dean felt a weird wave of proudness sweep into his current emotional, stress-induced state.
It seemed, that Glynn wanted to respond with something like: “That’s nice,” but she ended up screaming in pain instead. The whole bunker shook so hard, that Dean had to join the others in their crouched down position.
“What about outside?” the younger Winchester asked as soon as the pregnant woman was only panting slightly and didn’t look as if she was dying for a second. Sweat was glistening on her forehead and she had her eyes closed.
“Well, it seems as if heaven and hell have finally bound together to defeat the Winchester family,” Dean whispered with a sigh, anxious for Glynn to overhear them and worry her even more in her state. When he checked she didn’t seem to listen at all, though.
The other two, on the other hand, had surprised looks on their faces.
“I saw some black-eyed bastards,” Dean continued as none of them spoke and licked his lips, “and an angel of the Lord told me in my head, that he wants to use our daughter as a weapon.” At this Cas frowned so deeply, that the older hunter would have almost laughed if they weren’t in such a bad situation.
“Their combined energies seem to be very strong,” Sam observed the obvious. “Do you think they have some kind of… aid?”
Before anyone could respond they were interrupted by a cry, even louder than before. In an instant, all three men were bent over the small looking woman with the huge stomach and held her hand as well as rubbed her back.
As the pain seemed to have quieted down a bit the angel answered.
“I don’t know, Sam. Something like that never happened. A Nephilim, angels, and demons in the same placer were the latter combine their forces? I never heard of a case like this.”
“Anyhow they are in front of our only exit,” the younger hunter said with a sigh. “That means we can not escape, so we should probably get ready to fight.”
-
Ten more minutes sitting next to the girl he had knocked up and Dean wished he was outside again with the enemies. If he was a woman, he thought, there was no way, that he would ever want children. Or maybe, he could adopt some, because they were really awesome and cute, but all of this pain couldn’t be worth it.
Feeling, that his legs were falling asleep, the older hunter got up and earned two questionable looks from his brother and his angel, who were comforting Glynn the best they could while she waited for the next contraction.
“Just stretching my legs,” Dean muttered and went over to the first bookshelf in the library. They hadn’t come up with a solution and their time was running out. Maybe he himself could go outside and distract the angels and demons so that the others could flee somehow. It wouldn’t be the first time he had sacrificed his life for the family.
Regarding their situation, he should probably wait until the little girl was born so the others could move easier.
Being completely occupied by his thoughts, Dean only noticed the angel, when he was standing directly behind him. He turned around fast and saw an expression of concern and determination cross the other’s face.
“Hey, buddy,” the older hunter said and smiled a little. On the one hand, because he wanted to hide his facial expressions, showing off his earlier thoughts, on the other hand, because he really, really liked the others face.
“Dean, I don’t think we can fight them,” Cas came straight to the point as usual. “I think we won’t make it if we all stay here.”
“Yeah, I thought, I could…” Dean started but was directly interrupted by the angel. He had an unusually urgent look on his face as if he wanted to make the other agree with him on something, at the best very fast.
“No, Dean, you’ll stay here. You are needed here the most.” Cas sad eyes roamed over the books behind the older Winchester and ended up cast towards his shoes. It almost broke Dean’s heart.
“I will go outside and make it look as if we all left together in a car. They will follow me if I bind a piece of Glynn, preferable her blood to my grace because it will seem as if there was an unprotected Nephilim with me.”
The words rung in Dean’s ears as if somebody had whacked a Chinese gong right next to his ears. Cas wanted to leave. Cas had offered to do the same as Dean had but it seemed so much bigger in the hunter’s eyes. The angel had given enough for the Winchesters, having earned himself a special place in the family, but what was that worth if he wasn’t here to live it.
“No,” Dean stammered after a time that would have seemed inappropriate for a normal human being. The eyes of his opposite turned pleading, almost as if he thought if he stared hard enough like this, the hunter would agree to his plan. But how could he?
Behind the angel Glynn let out an iron cutting cry, making all of the three men aware of the proximity of death.
“I can’t stay,” the angel said, pain written all over his face. “I am no use to you like this. To her. I can help a lot more if I lay a false trail, lend them somewhere else, far away from you.”
“When do you finally understand,” Dean growled pushing himself away from the shelve he had leaned on. Cas looked at him dumbstruck as if he hadn’t expected for the other to throw such a fit when he wanted to be useful.
“I don’t care if you are helpful or not. I want you to be here because it’s you. I would want you if you were a useless potato or even a stone. We are family and I love you. Please stay. Please.”
Guessing from his facial expression, Cas was as taken aback as Dean at the sudden declaration. In all the years of their friendship, the older hunter had never said such a thing as “I love you” to anybody but his brother. It was understandable then, that the angel uttered the following.
“Love me like you love your brother.” It was not a question, just a statement, probably not even meant to be heard.
“No,” Dean said and took a deep breath. This was it. If they were all going to die soon, again, he could at least this time finally let it out. “I love you like I love you. Like my mom loved my dad before he turned to be an abusive bastard probably.”
They were staying together. They needed to stay together, no matter what. No lone sacrifices no more, no stupid suicide missions. No one of them should die for the other but live with them even if this was the way more complicated and terrifying way.
They were staring in silence at each other for some time, only interrupted by cries of pain from the other room and Dean wondered if the voices in his head could overcome them in volume.
“Dean,” Cas whispered the others favorite word out of his mouth.
Whatever he wanted to say next was interrupted by a low rumbling, that was causing cracks in the floor below them. The devil's trap, on which they were standing broke.
Holding onto Dean’s shoulder during the following shake, the angel held him back as he tried to bypass him to get to the others.
“Wait, I need to…” Cas seemed to be at a loss for words, something that was rarely seen in him, even as he became more human. The hunter tried to not look too hopeful but probably failed completely.
“Dean, I, as I tried to tell you before, but utterly failed, love you like your mother probably loved your dad, before he became abusive as well.” The angel looked a little bit confused at his own words. “I think.”
Dean started to smile so wide that his cheeks hurt but they were interrupted again by a shaking.
“She needs to push now,” Sam uttered loudly over the rumbling sound of the earthquake-like movements around them.
“Well, let’s get this show on the road!” Dean said and laughed a little.
-
To get themselves ready, Dean took Glynn’s left hand, while Sam was still rubbing her back on the other side. She only had her shirt on, but none of the men seemed to care. The older hunter noticed, that the blanket beneath the soon-to-be mother of his child was wet and a little red and shot a panicked look at his brother.
“It’s all right, her water broke while you were flirting at the bookshelves,” the younger Winchester uttered with the smuggest smile he could master at that moment. Dean’s eyes went wide, even if he didn’t want them to.
That was the moment they both heard the cracking of the ceiling and, in a simultaneous manner lifted their gazes to the origin of the sound. Large cracks wove their paths through the cement and Dean could feel rather than see, that some of the stone was already trickling down on them like dust.
The light suddenly went out, right when Glynn let out a horrible cry as if something was tearing her apart. Sam was in her face in an instant, both of them lit only by the red emergency light.
“Alright, Glynn, that’s it! Now push! Feel the direction of the pain,” the younger Winchester shouted at her over the loud noises of the bunker breaking apart. His brother looked at him with raised eyebrows, at which the other only shrugged.
Dean felt completely helpless. He didn’t know what to say to the woman who tried to push out his child, he couldn’t stop the angels outside or the stones that would be falling onto them soon. He could only let her squeeze his hand like she did right now, bone crushing but he was used to a lot stronger pain.
When she stopped pushing, Sam removed her sweaty hair from her face and Dean suddenly remembered something.
“Breathe,” he said, thinking back at all the times there had been a birth in Dr. Sexy M.D. “You have to breathe, in and out, that’s right.” Her eyes looked into his, but she seemed to be in a kid of pain-delirium and it seemed as if she couldn’t really focus.
There was a sudden crashing sound, as a large piece of the ceiling crashed into the war room table and broke its glass in a half. That reminded the hunter of the fact, that they should also long been squashed between bunker parts and he looked firstly up and then around to find not only the cement above them relatively intact but also an angel with outstretched hands holding it together with telekinetic force.
Cas face was scrunched up in agony and sweat was glistening on his forehead mixing with the dust of the broken stones. Dean hadn’t known angels could sweat unless they were short of their powers, but he only had time to worry for a second until Glynn gripped his arm tightly again and cried out in exhausted pain.
Five more cycles of Glynn pushing through hell and partly recovering from it and the angel in the room fell to his knees. Dean almost jumped up to help him, but Sam held him back with his eyes, saying that he was needed more here.
Cas whole shirt was soaked wet and his breath was coming in short huffs, as he tried to stay as upright as possible. For some reason, he had a bloody streak on his cheek and as a pipe broke behind him and spilled water all over the area, he didn’t even turn around.
Glynn was at the end of her strengths now Dean noticed as he forced his attention back to her. Her eyes slowly closed and her breath seemed to slow down, even if she needed to push. She really needed to push, or both of them, mother and child would die.
What would he give for a normal birth in a normal hospital, where somebody could make a c-section now and everybody would live. But nothing in his life was ever normal.
Dean hadn’t even noticed, that he had started to plead in the ear of the woman before him.
“Alright, you’re doin’ good, now you need to push again. Please, Glynn, please, push, one more time, please.”
He couldn’t lose them all. He couldn’t lose his daughter that he hadn’t even met yet, he couldn’t lose his brother, he couldn’t lose his… well, his angel. His lover. He really could not not find that out.
He couldn’t lose his family.
Suddenly a surprisingly strong hand, gripped his arm again, holding him in place, where he was bend over this scurrile, alien loving, stoic girl. Her eyes opened and she was searching his face frantically until her gaze calmed down and she only looked sad. He had probably said the last part out loud.
“Dean Winchester,” she whispered and her voice broke as if she didn’t have the strength to continue. But she was too stubborn, too persistent to just give up.
“I need you to keep… our daughter save.” Her voice was hoarse from all the crying and Dean could see pain starting to inflict her facial expression again.
“Skylar,” she said and it wasn’t louder than a whisper anymore. “Tell… Skylar Charlie Winchester, that… her mommy… loves her.”
With that, Glynn set on her face an expression of determination, Dean had only seen on hunters facing their upcoming, incredibly painful death and grit her teeth together.
The older hunter understood immediately. He nodded shortly, send his brother with a move of his hand to kneel between Glynn’s legs and held onto her hand tightly.
And then she pushed. She seemed to put everything he had, every last bit of strength and life force into this one move as he put her chin to her chest and clutched Dean’s hand so hard, it actually hurt a little. No sound came out of her as a wet noise was audible between crashes and cracks of the place they all called home by now.
And then she went limp.
It was as if everything was wrapped in cotton as if honey was floating in every place, that was normally filled by air, as Dean turned his head to look at his brother and the little bright half human being in his arms.
She chose this exact moment to let out a high-pitched cry, as if she knew what happened to her mother and that the world around them was crumbling down.
Dean was at his brethren’s side at an instant, noticing that Cas looked over to them a completely exhausted smile ghosting his face.
“Hey, it’s all right, I’m here,” Dean said in a soothing voice, cutting off her umbilical cord and clamping it like his brother explained to him. Then he was handed his daughter, wrapped her in one of the blankets laying aside and closed his leather jacket over her small form laying at his chest.
She was astoundingly beautiful. The hunter hadn’t noticed, that he was crying until a tear fell on her little face, that was now regarding him with curiosity. As if to ask, what is wrong. As if to ask, how can I help?
With a sob, Dean got to his knees, grinned shortly at his brother who was covering up Glynn’s body and scooted over towards a bloody and completely wet angel.
Cas eyes hadn’t left them since he had heard the cry, but the hand that he was still pointing towards the ceiling trembled as the others approached. As if sensing him, Skylar turned her head as soon as they were right next to him and a hidden conversation seemed to take place between the two not-quite-terrestrial beings.
“Hi, Cas, say hello to Skylar,” Dean whispered and the angel looked up to him as if he had noticed the man just now. The hunter couldn’t blame him, since he couldn’t agree more to the fact that their daughter was the most mesmerizing being in heaven, hell, purgatory, earth and whatever weird place there was in addition.
“Hello, Skylar,” Cas said in his grave voice, seeming less exhausted than just seconds ago.
Then he looked irritated between her and the ceiling back and forth.
“Are you helping me?” he asked the little girl and then said to Dean in the proud wonder only parents could probably muster, “She is helping me, Dean.”
Sam, who had also joined them by now, looked around their heads into Dean’s jacked with this expression he always had when he was examining an especially interesting supernatural object or being.
“What about Glynn,” Dean asked and Sam shook his head, all of them looking down in a way of paying respect.
Suddenly an especially loud rumble shook the bunker making Dean and Sam curl over the baby, while Cas shuddered under the force he was holding back.
“We should try to get out of here,” Sam voiced and one could almost smell the gears rattling in his head. “We just need to get to the Impala, maybe I can-“
“No sacrifices,” Dean interrupted him. “We already lost Sky’s mother tonight, we don’t need to lose anybody else.” The girl wrapped up in the hunters jacked seemed to look up at her new nickname, her expression pleased.
“The Impala is only approximately a hundred feet from here, if we run very fast, we could make it,” Cas voiced and stood up, letting go of the part of the ceiling that was behind him, which came crumbling down in a rush. “But we’ll have to hurry.
In less than ten seconds they were all at the door, not looking back, as their home went into pieces behind them.
Cas went first, leaving Dean and Skylar to be in the middle and Sam behind them. There was a flash of light, like before when the older Winchester had been outside and it lit up hundreds of demons standing still on the field in front of the bunker.
They were only meant to attack if they made it out of the bunker, Dean realized. In front of them, a few feet ahead stood a lone angel, recognizable by his plain suit in dark blue and his stiff posture.
He smiled.
Then suddenly, with a wave of his hand, every demon in sight started to hurl forwards towards the little family, bared teeth and black eyes.
Dean just turned around and ran. He didn’t know how the angel could command so many of the underworld’s children, but it didn’t seem relevant for their escape right now.
After about fifty steps, the hunter got irritated by the fact that no demon seemed to reach them, even if they were supernatural creatures, meant to be faster and stronger than humans, and turned around.
What he saw took the air out of his lungs.
Every single black-eyed bastard, who seemed to come ten feet or less close to them was hurled into the air and send flying out and away from them.
He looked firstly at Cas, who just shrugged and then, as realization drew to him, down at his daughter. She smiled. She was not even half an hour old and smiled up at Dean as if throwing demons through the air was not terrifying and dangerous, but fun.
The older hunter couldn’t help but chuckle and then look over at the rest of the Winchester family, who seemed to have understood as well.
“Our daughter is absolutely awesome,” Dean grinned and headed further towards the Impala. He knew that they should get going. No matter how many demons the little girl could hold of, she was probably getting tired and hungry and they all needed to rest.
Being not able to drive with a baby in his jacket, the older Winchester threw his key at Sam and got into the back seat, followed by Cas.
The angel had a hand on Skylar’s uncovered head and let his thumb brush over it as if he couldn’t quite believe that all of them had actually made it. Sam started the ignition and the familiar rumble of the engine calmed Dean down a little bit already.
As they headed down the road and towards the highway, Cas already starting to enchant everything with every protection spell he knew, Dean thought, that there could be better starts in one's life, but there could also be worse.