Song Remains the Same

Chapter 102: Behind Enemy Lines

"Life is like a steering wheel, it only takes one small move to change your entire direction."
- Kellie Elmore

Outside of a nondescript gas station in Hoople, North Dakota, a man stood near his car with a dumstruck look on his face and a cell phone pressed to his ear.

I think I might be pregnant.

I think I might be pregnant.

I think I might be pregnant.

Those six words echoed in his mind and were absolutely incompatible with his ears and brain which both struggled to comprehend—he kept repeating her words to himself in his head, trying to find the meaning. Pregnant? Pregnant? No. That wasn't possible. Right? For a minute, nothing made sense to Dean—he thought he must have misheard her or that she was trying to pull his leg, or maybe 'pregnant' was a new slang term for something he didn't know about yet. He fumbled royally to respond as his thunderstruck silence stretched out, but English had become the biggest struggle he'd ever known. "P-pregnant?" he managed to repeat in a winded voice, the word like thick, chunky molasses in his mouth. How? When? Surely she didn't mean pregnant pregnant. "W-with... with a baby?"

His dumbfounded question got a pretty disgruntled answer. "No, with a burrito," she retorted in frustration, quickly becoming exasperated. "Yes with a baby!"

A baby? Like, a little human being? Like, a kid?! Dean was beside himself. "With me?" he faltered. "I mean, mine?"

Wrong question to ask. "I haven't been with anyone besides you in like six months!" She'd told him as much, too.

Shaking his head and squeezing his eyes closed, Dean rubbed his forehead. "No, yeah, no, I knew that, right, um—" he opened his eyes back up, his face wrinkled in anxiety as he blinked over and over again fast, staring into space as everything in his mind and body went haywire at what he'd just been told. "I'm not... I don't..." he stuttered, stumbling around and around internally, a million questions filling his mind past capacity. He'd seen her just yesterday and everything had seemed fine and now she was freaking out and saying she might be pregnant? Dean was pretty sure she wouldn't get symptoms overnight and dude they'd used protection and just what the hell was actually going on here? Dean was overwhelmed and shut his eyes again. This could be nothing, it could be a false alarm. He needed some facts before he went full freakout. "Okay, can you just explain how come you think... why you might be..." it was really tough to use the 'P' word. So he didn't use it at all. "Like, help me understand what's going on here." He put a nervous little breathy laugh at the end of that sentence in an attempt to sound less petrified than he actually was.

There was a deep breath on the other end of the line and Jamie began to explain in a voice that sounded forcibly brave and yet scared shitless at the same time. "Okay, so, so Owen..." she started shakily, "he and the crew, we were all going to breakfast at some diner this morning and like the smell in there was so horrible that I got sick... I thought I was just like, I dunno, getting the flu or something. But then Owen pointed out how I felt sick a couple other times recently and he... he asked if maybe I was... if I might be pregnant." She paused and breathed out shakily. "I hadn't even—I hadn't even thought about that being a possibility, and then he says that and suddenly, you know, it kind of makes sense. Like I have been feeling bad like for a couple weeks now and getting tired a lot easier and nauseated for no reason. I just thought it was road food catching up with me and old age and stress, you know?" She tried a laugh, but it was feeble and faltering. Her voice was getting weaker and more and more upset even as Dean felt himself getting more and more stunned as what she said pointed one direction. "Also I think my period might be late but I can't even remember at this point and I'm just... I'm just freaking out." She was quiet as Dean slowly sank down on weak legs to sit on the curb adjacent to his stolen car. Could this seriously be happening? His biggest problem in the world a minute ago had been no more pie for the foreseeable future. And now... he might be responsible for creating a new little life. Now, he might be a dad. "Dean?" Jamie asked nervously, worry making her tone tense. "You still there?"