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Maybe this time it’ll be a little less permanent.
Dazed, Cassie chuckled drily to herself. The receptionist watched on, mildly confused but not particularly surprised as he handed the appointment card to the woman who exited the office in a blur of curls with a far off look in her eye.
As she left the sterile white lights & nauseating smell of antiseptic behind, she snapped to.
Stupid. Stupid. STUPID.
A little less permanent was the most mind boggling, ironically hilarious understatement, but neither she nor Dean had a clue at the time. He was right, though not in the way they expected. And he had no idea just how right he was.
Cassie considered herself a smart girl. She kept her wits, she considered all possibilities, compartmentalized information, and she always seemed to know what to do with that information. So how had she not considered this?
I’m a realist.
Her own hubris blew her mind. A true realist would’ve seen this coming. How could she have let this slip?
She knew she wasn’t on the pill, and in all the chaos and passion, of course neither was thinking that perhaps they should put a pause on the make-up reunion whatever-it-was sex to go drive to the store for some Trojans after midnight with a racist ghost truck out for blood.
All they could think of was each other.
Wrapped in each other’s arms, completely consumed and enthralled with the love they’d held but couldn’t act on for years.
Naturally, a pregnancy was a possibility! How did she, a self proclaimed realist, completely bypass that wholly realistic consequence?
I don’t see much hope for us.
Oh Cassie, you’ve really done it now.
She slumped, knocking her head on the steering wheel. How did that get there?
Dean. Stoic, emotionally avoidant Dean, practically baring his whole heart for her in his own way, and she shot him down so callously.
She hated herself before she even said it. Why did she say it? Why continue that cycle? After having broken his heart the first time, there he was again. He and Sam, all leather and denim and salt and iron and ghost busting glory - they ran to Cape Girardeau at her behest. To save people and hunt things. To get her father justice, even after she had taken Dean’s heart and beat it Black & blue. He could’ve sent any other hunter and continued to look for his father, but he came on his own dragging Sammy along for the hunt. For her. To help her.
She decided, after all his honesty, his sincerity, his love, to do that again? What was the reason for it?
She sobbed. Her eyes burned with tears that wouldn’t, or couldn’t, come. She breathed through the choked feeling lodged in her throat, knowing that even if she tried, she was barely able to truly cry.
What good was it, to be a realist? To abandon her great love? What, exactly, did it do for her?
Even in her grief for her father, she had to admit that she had a lot to be grateful for. Her degrees, her career, her mother’s safety, a beautiful home in the town she grew up in. So why reject another great thing? A gift.
And now, exactly 8 weeks and 4 days later, she finds herself with another gift.
A gift, from a gift.
And Dean was God knows where, hunting God knows what, probably nonstop with little rest all to avoid the pain she caused. Saving people from his mother’s fate as a distraction.
Nibbling on her lip, she absently realized she was staring at her garage door. Again, how did that get there?
She put her car in park and sat still.
She should call him. She’d hear the purr of Baby’s engine in her driveway within the week if she did. He’d come, and he’d bring Sammy, and they’d be a family. They would bring salt and holy water and iron and remind her to reconnect and make use of her Hoodoo roots.
They would build the nursery, humoring every whim of hers with small smiles on their faces. Stars on the ceiling? No.
Clouds? Maybe.
Animals on the walls? Definitely.
Pink, or blue? Green.
They would chuckle and do as she asked, no matter how many times she changed her mind. Sam would rib on Dean for going soft and spoiling her, and Dean would blush and call him a Jerk while chuckling to himself, because Sam wouldn’t be wrong.
They’d place wards all over the house, carved into the crib, paint hidden on the hood and trunk of her car. Hell, they would place wards all over the whole town if they needed to. Anything to keep their family safe.
In the evenings, they’d cook dinner together, enjoying each other’s presence with Rock and Jazz and everything in between playing in the background. She’d bake him every pie he could dream up, and they’d be a family.
They’d teach her how to make a devils trap, and the proper ways to conduct an exorcism. They’d tell her all of the ways to identify the things that go bump in the night, and all the ways to kill those things.
They’d give her the numbers of every hunter they know. And maybe she would finally get to meet John Winchester, hand him a beer and cook him dinner while she learned about the man who raised the one she grew to cherish so much. And they’d teach her how to protect herself, and they would protect her and her mother again. And her baby. And they’d be a family.
She knew he would come if she called.
As devoted as Dean is to the people he loves, he would come running. He’d put up with her push and pull, and he’d do it with a wry grin, some rock and roll, endless jokes and sass, and a whole lot of love in his pretty green eyes.
And yet-
How could she do that to him again?
How could she wield her love for him, wave it in his face, again? How could she distract him from searching for his dad, who was still alive and breathing? How could she make him come running to her when she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t go running away again?
Quiet as she keeps it, Cassie is a little emotionally avoidant herself. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart. The tenderness she has with Dean. All that love that bubbles up within her at the mere thought of him - she revels in it when they’re apart. When she truly faces it, when she faces the potential they have to act on their love, everything they could be, it paralyzes her. For all the shit she gave Dean, deep down, she knew they were one and the same on that front. Only, he was braver than her.
Cassie is a strong woman. A firecracker. And yet, the softness of her and Dean’s love sends her into a frenzy of fight or flight. And while they have had their share of fights, she predictably settles for flight each time, leaving him with little choice but to get in Baby and just keep driving.
To tell him of the child they made and then hightail it away from him would only cause him more pain, and she couldn’t be sure he’d recover. No. She couldn’t live with herself if she did that. That wouldn’t do.
And realistically, she mused, how much of a family could they actually be? By now, Cassie was no stranger to the life of a hunter. She’d observed Sam and Dean, she’d worked her magic at investigating The Life. She understood it as much as she could, outsider looking in that she was.
She knew, the hunt would keep them away from home. She knew she’d miss them. Her baby would miss their father and uncle. And one day, maybe one or both of them would never come back. Or, one day, a monster would follow them home, and hurt her baby.
No. Now she had to be a realist. There would only be torment and heartbreak there for them. There was no way they could be a happy family with a normal apple pie life AND save people and hunt things. Absolutely no way. It was never meant to be, and Cassie would just have to learn to be okay with that.
Well, I’ve seen stranger things happen…