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

34. Fear Of The Unknown

Leah is quiet the whole car ride home. Dean and Cas are, too, nobody's barely even looking at each other. They haven't known what words to say lately, and then now, after all of this has happened, their situation has become even more difficult to deal with than they'd ever anticipated.
Their daughter is sitting in the backseat, curled up in an old blanket Dean wrapped around her for comfort, staring emptily at the ultrasound picture of the boy and the girl she's carrying. She's six months along, they'll be here in three months, and everything just feels wrong. Her life just seems to be ending at this point.
She falls back on the car seat and looks out at the world outside the car as Dean pulls up to the house. Cas opens the door for her and helps his heartbroken child out of the car while Dean gets her things. And Leah, knowing she'll inevitably have to talk about it, loses hold of her shaky legs once they're inside and slides down with her back against the wall in the hallway. Dean and Cas crouch down to her eye level and stare at her in worry.
"Leah, it's gonna be okay," Dean promises, like the obstetrician did earlier, but his daughter shakes her head, burying her face in her hands.
"Not this time," she sobs. "I can't be a mom, I'm too young! It's fucking twins, what the hell am I gonna do?"
Cas pipes up. "We get it, honey, we do. And we'll help you, of course. But why couldn't you just tell us?"
She shakes her head and looks down at the floor. "I was afraid," she says emptily and strokes her stomach again before reluctantly looking back up at her dads. They exchange concerned glances.
"Why were you afraid?" Dean asks softly and strokes a stray hair out of her face. Leah breathes in deeply and tries to wipe the tears off her face.
"I was scared of how you were going to react when you found out," she whispers.
Dean shakes his head at his daughter before he grabs her hands carefully and helps her back up, pulling her into his arms.
"You don't have to be afraid of us, Leah," he whispers and hugs her close. "I know we haven't made that clear enough lately. I'm sorry about how things have been these past weeks. I can't begin to understand half of what you've been feeling."
"How long have you known about this?" Cas asks, knowing that his sudden return to the Winchester household threw a wrench into an already bad situation. Of course she's been on edge and not told them vital things, she's been completely mistrustful of them ever since the debacle with her mom that Dean told him about.
"You know what, let's go sit down," Dean says and kisses the top of her head before he leads her into the kitchen and sits her down on a chair. He sits down next to her and looks at her as she wipes her face with the sleeve of his old plaid shirt that she's wearing while they're joined by Cas.
"Talk to us, Leah," Cas says calmly.They settle down, waiting for her reply. She sniffles and then takes a deep breath.
"Last week when I got the cold and had a fever and we had to go to the hospital," Leah says and looks at Dean, then away because she can't look at either of them when she says the next thing. "They asked you to wait outside when I had the blood samples taken because the doctor who examined me noticed my stomach and she was wondering if I was being abused."
"Abused?" Dean exclaims and jumps up. He looks from Leah to Cas and back to his daughter in bewilderment. "Why did she think you were being abused?"
Leah breathes in and starts sobbing softly at Dean's unprecedented reaction. He quietly sits back down in reply and folds his hands, knowing that now is not the moment to upset his child even more. When Leah takes a moment to answer she notices that he's suddenly tense and making a fist.
"Don't tell me this boy is hurting you too," he says, his voice darker than usual, hoping with his whole being that it isn't happening to her again.
Cas looks at her in horror. "Did she think we were abusing you?" he asks and his daughter can feel his piercing blue eyes on her.
"No," Leah cries. "No, Lucas would never hurt me. Neither would you, and I know that! It's just, when I fell to the ground the night before, I got some bruises, and she was wondering where they came from." She strokes her stomach. "There were some bruises on my stomach too and I've been freaking out about it since the day I found out that I'm, well..." she looks down at her growing stomach actually carrying two children inside, and continues. "It's just, last night I just couldn't think about it and be alone about it anymore. And the only ones I thought would understand were uncle Sam and aunt Madison, because of their pregnancy and everything. And I was mad at you two so I asked him to pick me up. I just needed to talk to someone."
"I'm happy you did," Dean says and gives her a half smile, "I just wished that you had talked to us about that so we wouldn't have gotten police involved when you didn't come home."
Leah looks down in an instant. Cas frowns at his husband.
"Dean. There's a time and a place."
Dean reaches over the table and grabs her hand, turning her towards him.
"Hey, look at me," he says. Leah looks slowly from the floor and back up at him.
"I'm sorry, but you need to know this. You can't do things like that anymore, running away. We've had enough of that. What if you got hurt?"
"Uncle Sam picked me up in the driveway, there's no way I will get hurt when I'm with him," Leah argues and pulls her hand back, looking teary-eyed at Cas for support.
"Well," Cas starts and sighs, looking from one to the other. "Leah, we didn't know that Sam was the one who picked you up. To us, it could have been anyone. We didn't know you knew anyone with a car, it's only Lucas we've actually met and he has a motorbike."
"That you're never going on, by the way," Dean adds and glares at his daughter. She looks away and wipes her face.
"You think I would have called my boyfriend to come pick me up on his motorbike late at night to talk to him about the fact that I'm pregnant? I can't! I can't tell him at all."
"We didn't know, or think about what your plan last night was. We're not worried about what friends you hang out with, or if you're hanging with your boyfriend. Usually. It's the fact that you couldn't come to us and tell us yourself, and I had to find out from my brother about what you're going through," Dean says and drives his fingers through his hair,
"I know," Leah exclaims and then sobs. "And I wish I felt like I could tell you about it, but I didn't wanna make you angrier about something you were already furious about. And I was trying to get used to what it's like now, but everything just got so weird and I needed to talk to someone else."
"Angry?" Cas asks and looks at his husband, who's looking puzzled.
"Yeah, angry. You think I don't notice you're still angry and still blame yourself for what happened to me?" Leah says directly to Dean. "And I was scared. I didn't want that to blow up. So yeah, I didn't tell you. I was going to do it today after the ultrasound, but uncle Sam went to call you instead because he knew I wouldn't be able to. I was just vulnerable and stressed out, and I had no idea how you were going to react, so yes, I was scared," she finishes and covers her mouth with a sleeve, trying to keep from breaking down.
The two men exchange glances and Cas reaches for Leah's hand while Dean rubs his eyes in frustration.
"Leah, you have to understand that we were worried last night. And yes, I'm very angry, but not at you. Never at you. I get the need for running away, I really do, and I know it's hard, but at least tell us about it. Tell us where you're going so we don't have to be so worried next time."
"It doesn't matter anymore anyways, there won't be a 'next time' to be worried about," Leah says emptily. "I can't step outside the door anymore. I have to quit school. I need to break up with Lucas."
Dean shakes his head. "What? Why?"
His daughter reaches for the ultrasound picture in her pocket and slams it in front of him before she rests her head in her hand, exhausted from the long day. Dean picks it up, looks at it briefly then passes it to Cas who gives it a glance before he shoves it back to Leah.
"And why would you have to quit school or break up with your boyfriend?" Cas asks. "I mean, you can't go to school right before you're due, of course, but why now?"
"Don't you think I know what they're gonna say about me once this comes out?" Leah cries. "I'm fifteen, I can't be pregnant. I've been to this school for three months, and I'm gonna give birth in three months! Do you know what the other kids are gonna say? They're gonna call me a slut. And what about Lucas? He can't know that I'm pregnant, because then I'll have to tell him who the father is and I'm scared to admit that because that just makes it real. I can't tell him about this. He'll just think I'm a whore and crazy and that I probably wanted it and that I brought this on myself." Leah bangs her head against the wall behind her, and Dean gets up.
"Okay, that's enough. You are not gonna talk about yourself like that," he says and crouches down by her chair, putting his hands firmly on her shoulders.
"If you feel so strongly about quitting school, then fine, but we're not gonna let you shut yourself down and push everyone else away. That's not how this family works. And I know Lucas won't let you shut him out either, because I know that boy, he cares for you. We all do. Are people really saying things like that to you?"
Leah shakes her head into his shoulder. "No, but there was a girl like that not long after I started at school here in Sioux Falls, she got pregnant and she had to drop out after people said all those horrible things about her. I can't take anything like that. I'm not one month along, I'm six months, with twins. And I didn't think I had to worry about that anymore when they said that I'd had a miscarriage, but now that I know, I can't go back there."
Dean asks permission to touch her stomach and when she nods, he places his hand on top of her sweater.
"We didn't know you were pregnant because it's barely visible, we just realized because you told us. How are those kids gonna think that you're pregnant when you're barely showing?" he asks and sits back down on his chair. Cas is sitting beside him looking at the picture from the ultrasound again.
Leah sighs. "Because I've been throwing up a lot at school. A girl in my math class found me in the bathroom and joked about me being pregnant. What if people start talking about it and rumor spreads? I wish we'd never left Kansas."
"You threw up at school and you didn't think to tell us?" Dean exclaims, raising his voice again. Leah looks down and tries to hide the tears. Cas asks him to settle down.
"I thought I just had food poisoning or something and that it wasn't serious. It was just a couple of times."
Dean grumbles under his breath for a while, still confused about why his daughter couldn't just confide in him, and Cas just sits there, he doesn't know what to say.
"I can't go back there, dad," their daughter whispers and looks from Dean to Cas.
"Well, we're only a handful of people who know," Cas starts at last. "The three of us, Sam, Madison, a couple of doctors and the deputy."
Leah feels all the blood in her face fade away. "What? But Lucas' dad is the deputy," she sobs, realizing that his father might have already told him and that the cat's out of the bag.
"Yes, and he was here when Sam called and told us where you had been all night," Dean replies and looks at his daughter. "He was the first responder when we called the police last night, and yes, Lucas knows about this. Not that you're pregnant, probably, but he knows that we reported you as missing."
Leah quickly gets up and shakes her head. "I don't wanna deal with this too," she cries and walks out of the kitchen on shaky legs. Cas tries to stop her in the doorway by grabbing her hand, but she rips it back and runs up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her.