Confessions to My Past

“So, you and Sam?” Josie wriggled her eyebrows.
“Me and Sam, what?”
Josie just looked at her friend.
“Yeah. We slept with each other. You happy?”
Josie grinned. “Are you?”
“Shut up.”
“How cute. Amy’s in love.”
“Am not!”
“Are, too!” Josie laughed. “Hey, sweetie, it’s fine. Sam’s a great guy.”
“Can we change topics?”
Josie grinned, but decided to give Amy a little bit of air on this one. “Sure.”
“What exactly did the doctor say, Josie?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on.” Amy leaned over the table and looked at her best friend in concern. “Throwing up is normal, but that whole laying in bed crying from pain?”
Josie sighed. “It will be a complicated pregnancy. The baby’s fine and will grow healthily… but I’m not allowed to strain myself in any way.”
“Sounds like you need some mothering.”
Josie had to smile despite of herself. “Maybe. Amy… it’s not just that I’m worried about.”
“If it’s about Dean being away a lot…”
“No, that’s not what I mean, either. I’m okay with that. My Dad was gone a lot, too, and my Mom managed fine – and I got used to handling myself. No, it’s something else.”
“What is it, sweetie? You can always talk to me, you know that.”
Josie nodded. “And I’m so grateful for that. See… when I still had the Nephilim inside me… it told me something. Something about my children.”
“What did it say?”
“That… Well, it told my bloodline was a powerful one… and that with the right father for my children, they would decide the fate of the world later on, that they were destined to keep the peace.”
Amy looked for the right words. She understood her friend’s worries: Her children were predestined to live in this supernatural world, but they wouldn’t only know about things going bump at night, they would have to keep peace on earth. That was a huge destiny to fill… or to fail. “Well…”
“No point trying to talk it smooth, Amy. With Dean as its father, this child will have one epic fate waiting for it.”

“You’re unusually quiet.” Sam remarked as they got ready to interview the relatives of the latest victim of their mystery killer.
Dean pondered between just ignoring him or telling him what was on his mind. He decided for the latter, since Sam would keep asking anyhow. “What if I can’t do it, Sam?”
“Do what?”
Dean threw up his hands helplessly. “Being… a father.”
“Dean, I’ve seen you killing monsters without weapons, conning feds and stitching up inches-deep flesh wounds. And you’ve been living with Dad for 25 years. How much harder and more challenging than that can it be?”
“Yeah, but all I was risking doing all that was my own life. I never had to take any responsibility for what I was doing… but now I have Josie and our child to look out for and consider when I run into a horde of demons. And… I mean, how am I going to tell my kid that nightmares aren’t real when I hunt them every day?”
Sam had rarely seen his brother like that. Maybe never. Completely at loss. “You’ll know what to do, Dean.”
“Helpful, Sam, thank you.”
“Hey, I’m not exactly an expert. Look, all I’m saying is that Josie and you figured out worse situations.”
Dean nodded slowly, though not really hearing what Sam said. Quietly, he said: “I don’t want to screw up, Sammy. I don’t want my child to reproach me one day about the decisions I’ve made and how I raised it. Because I won’t be able to give him a normal life, and by that, I’ll already mess with his life before he’s even born. I’m already putting Josie and our kid in danger… I don’t want him to have our lives, Sammy.”
“Well, he or she will have one advantage over us.”
“That being?”
“Josie.”
Dean fell silent. Winchester women didn’t live long around them… His mother had died. Jess had died. Jo. Hell, Josie had, too. Sam and he hadn’t been able to save any of them – what if Dean failed again?

*****

I bit my lip, holding a hand to my curving belly. I hoped the pain would pass.
“How’s this going to be when you start kicking, hm?”
“Talking to your baby? Good sign.” Amy danced in, beaming brightly. “Helps the mother-child bonding.”
“I really wish you’d stop reading all those books on maternity, pregnancy and I don’t know what.”
“And I really wish you’d start reading them.”
“I won’t, Amy.”
“Why not?”
“Because they make me nervous. Plus, all of those are written by women who only live for their children and lost touch to their real lives so much that they’re actually not doing their child a favour by all the esoteric yoga, tarot, crystal-to-purify-your-water-crap.”
“Aren’t you a prejudiced one.”
“Shut up. I will raise Dean’s and my child our way, not how those über-mothers tell me to.”
Amy smiled. “That’s the spirit, girl.” She set down the groceries. “Plus, I don’t really think there are parenthood books for hunters.”
“Yeah. I wish there were.” I mumbled.
“Hey, sweetie. You’ll figure it out. Plus, you have me.”
“Now there’s comfort of the year.”
Amy laughed and playfully hit my arm. “Try finding another slave to get your groceries.”
“Impossible. You’re the best. Did you bring pineapples?”
“I gotta tell ya: That’s the weirdest craving I have ever heard of.”
“At least, it’s not fattening. Cause I’m already huge enough.”
Amy looked at me. “Er… honey, you do know that you’re only four months gone, don’t you? And you know that it last nine months, and that you’ll grow bigger every day?”
“Stop reminding me.” I grumbled. “And go house-shopping with me instead.”

*****

Amy looked after her best friend as she went into her bedroom to get dressed. It was unbelievable how tough this girl was.
Dean and Sam had been gone for a month now, and Josie had never complained. If Amy wouldn’t know that Dean was worth it, she’d have given him a piece of her mind already.
Amy’s phone rang. She had to smile widely when she saw who called. “Sam!”
“Hey, Amy.”
“What’s up?”
“We’re on our way back to you. We should get back Monday night.”
“Three days? Where the hell are you?”
“California.”
“Couldn’t have found a place more West, could you?”
Sam chuckled. “We did consider going to Hawaii…but Dean doesn’t feel comfortable flying.”
“Yeah, Josie told me. Though he should prepare for Josie dragging him to Europe one day.”
“I’ll warn him.” Sam laughed, imagining how Josie pushed and pulled Dean onto a plane that would be up in the air for 12 hours with him on board. His brother thought fatherhood would be a challenge? “Hey, Amy, as to why I called… what are you doing Tuesday night?”
Amy let out an inner scream of joy. “Nothing as of now.”
“Would you like to go out for dinner?”
“I’d love to. I know just the perfect place.”
“Great.” Sam sounded genuinely glad, and Amy made a little jump on the couch. “Should we say eight o’clock?”
“Sounds perfect. I’ll see you then. Or maybe even Monday.”
“The sooner the better.”
Amy hung up with a warm feeling in her body.
“You’re grinning like a Cheshire cat, did you just win the lottery?”
“Better.” Amy sighed.
“Oh, geez.”
“I have a date.”
“You always have dates.”
“But now I finally have a date with a great guy.”
Josie let out a laugh as she realized why Amy clung to her phone like a drowning person would cling to a safety vest. “Sam?”
“Yeeeees.” She drawled the word out with a longing sigh.
“You are so in love.” Josie chuckled and threw Amy her bag. “Get moving, lover girl. We have houses to look at.”