The Angel, The Hunter and The Nephilim (Destiel x Daughter)

25. What About Now

There's a little over four hours left of their long journey when Dean realizes that his daughter has fallen asleep in the backseat. Leah and Sam have periodically changed places every few hours but she eventually got exhausted and now she's asleep and the brothers finally have the time to talk.
"So, no word from Cas yet, then?" Sam asks in the silence. The only sound that can be heard is the car rolling down the highway. It's almost evening, they've been driving for hours, and it's dark and raining like crazy.
"No, and I don't think we'll hear from him either," Dean sighs. "Leah is seriously torn up about it, she had a breakdown in the driveway on our way to pick you up. She misses him so much it hurts. I hate having to see her miss someone like this, especially when it's Cas."
"What about you, how are you holding up?" Sam sends Dean an empathetic look, and Dean shakes his head.
"I've dialed his number until my fingers bled, and I've left him a thousand voice mails since he left, but I don't even know if he's alive anymore. He can't be gone, he just has to come home. If not for me, then for our kid."
"How are you feeling, I meant?"
"Tired. I'm so very, very tired. Between trying to take care of Leah and moving and getting the kid help and Cas leaving, it's just too much. I need a day off. Or a hundred. I just wish at least Leah could be okay. That would make everything okay for me."
"She will be eventually," Sam says and looks down, hoping that he's right. He's been wrong about many things.
Dean replies dryly.
"You know what she did last night?"
"No?"
"She asked me what happened to her mom. I ended up truthfully telling her everything."
"Everything everything?" Sam asks shocked.
"Everything everything," Dean confirms. "From the motel room to the birth certificate and the fact that I have no idea whatsoever who her mom actually is. She was so broken afterwards, man, but she needed to know eventually. I'm just glad it's out there - she knows. It's not a secret anymore."
"So now she knows as much as we do," Sam says and breathes out. "But at least we learned that her mom was not an angel. Cas apparently made that quite clear."
"Yeah, he did," Dean says, he's annoyed. Not only had Cas said all those horrible things, but he had said them in front of Leah, and let it slip that they didn't know where she came from, instead of having a sit-down with her and explaining. But there was never time for that.
"That made it clear to me that Leah is safe and we don't have to have anything to do with those winged douchebags. I'd much rather have a normal human daughter instead of a little girl who can just pop off whenever she's upset or when she just wants to, and who's not hunted. Cas told me when she was little, that nephilims are abominations. I've lived in fear for years that someone would show up and take my kid away, or worse, kill her, thinking she was half angel, half human. We could have lived a whole lot more and not needed to lay low as much as we have, had I known. And now that whole purpose is screwed to Hell, and I'm angry. God, I'm so angry."
"I get that," Sam breathes.
"How about you? What's going on with you and Madison?"
"Well," Sam begins with a deep sigh, "she's stressed. It was a blessing at first and then that miscarriage happened to Leah and we saw what it did to her. Maddy is scared that it's gonna happen to her too. We've talked this over, I'm still trying to convince her that it's not gonna happen just because it happened once before in our family."
"So she doesn't want a baby now, or...?" Dean asks and takes a bite off the now cold bacon cheese burger he got for Leah hours ago. No matter how much he and his brother encouraged her to at least eat some fries, she wouldn't budge. They both eventually accepted it, but Dean had sent Sam another worried look.
"She thinks it's too early and she's pretty sure she wants an abortion, but we're still weighing the possibilities. I should have stayed home with her but she told me that she really needed some time alone to think about this." Sam sighs and looks out the window for a second.
"All I know is, I really want this baby. I'm ready to be a dad."
"That's awesome, Sam, I'm glad to hear you say that. There's nothing like it. I hope it turns out the best way possible." Dean sends his little brother a comforting smile.
"I mean, we've been together for eight years," Sam says, running his fingers through his hair. "I feel like we should have had one already."
"Well, there is a discussion to be had, definitely. You should sit her down and talk about it. I wonder how it's gonna be like for Leah when she's having her first, or if she ever will. And getting back in the love game is also a big question after what Michael did to her." He looks in the rear view mirror at his daughter sleeping soundly in the back seat under a blanket he's kept in the car since she was little. Sam turns around to look at her, and they both sigh.
"Because she's broken. She's as broken as a person can get, and I hate it. She's gonna start pushing people away again, especially boys. I know I should want that because no dad wants to have to let go of his little girl, but I want her to have someone to love. She's doing exactly what I would have done, so I know that's what's gonna happen. And now, with Cas leaving and Leah questioning me about her mom, she assumes I'm just gonna leave too, as if I don't love her. That's why she keeps pushing me away too, because she thinks it's going towards the end. I just want the poor girl to get a break. She's dealt with too much already, and she's fifteen."
"Yeah, she really got dealt a bad card, but she's definitely lucky you're her dad, understanding and patient as you are."
Dean looks over at his little brother, his heart happy for a moment.
"Thank you, Sam, that means so much more to me than you could imagine!"
"Look, I know you've been terrified sometimes and doubted your skills as a dad, but you've done extremely well, considering..."
"Considering what?"
"Well, we didn't exactly have the best upbringing and you didn't know the basics of raising a kid. But I've learned from you... a lot."
"You're my baby brother, you're supposed to learn from me," Dean says and smirks slightly.

There's finally silence between the two brothers, but the quiet doesn't last very long. Soft whimpering can suddenly be heard from the back seat. Sam immediately turns around with a worried frown on his face, then looks towards his brother with a confused look on his face, then back to his niece.
"Here we go again," Dean breathes and looks for a place to pull the car over. Sam can see his niece start twisting and turning and whimpering, her breath unsteady, rapid.
"What's going on, what's wrong with her?"
"It's been happening for about a week, since Cas left. She's been having nightmares," Dean explains as he pulls over at a bus stop and gets out of the car.
"I'll have to wake her so she's not startled when she finds out it's not real. As if she didn't have to deal with enough stuff," he grumbles and slides into the back seat, embracing Leah warmly.
"Leah, honey," he whispers. "Leah, wake up, you're having a nightmare. It's just a nightmare. Wake up," he says, his voice slightly raising and she wakes with a tremble, trying desperately to fight him off.
"Leah, it's okay, it was just a nightmare, it's okay," he says. "You're in the car with me and uncle Sam, we're on our way to Michigan, remember? It's okay, nothing is out to hurt you. I'm right here."
"Daddy," she whimpers and reaches out for him. He pulls her in closer, stroking her hair, which always helped to calm her down.
"Wanna tell me what the nightmare was about?" he asks softly.
She looks up through the veil of tears, pulling away from Dean to see her uncle. Not wanting to make a while thing out of it in front of him, she shakes her head lightly.
"No, I don't wanna talk about it," she mumbles and wipes at her face.
"That's alright. Just stay put, okay? We'll be at the motel in about three hours. You can sleep then. Do you want some music?" he asks as he kisses her forehead and gets out of the car and slides into the front seat again.
"Bon Jovi?" she asks hopefully, and Dean smiles. Sam smiles also, ever so slightly as he looks proudly at his big brother for handling the situation so calmly. It seems like a tactic he's worked out over time.
"Bon Jovi it is. Just don't fall asleep again, promise?" he asks.
"Promise," she swears and wipes away her tears as he puts in the newest album they've actually listened to, What About Now, and the music starts playing.
Leah leans her head against the cold car window and listens to the rain and her favorite songs.
If these nightmares would just end soon...