bakerstreet | Family business

Entry tags:

Family business

the "WE'RE HAVING A BABY" meme

Nature is no respecter of persons, my friends. Whether it be childhood friends, newlyweds, or one-night stands, a single decision or accident can change everything, and there will be three people instead of just two.

Congratulations! The characters in these threads and those who reply to them are now expecting babies, no matter what their unique situation may be. Of course, depending on the characters, this might go over like a lead balloon. But wait! Even if the decision to have a baby was made and was consensual, the process is no walk in the park. There is lots to do...and only nine months to do it. Nine potentially drama-filled months.

HOW TO PLAY

Comment with your character, preferences, etc.
Not all options here are fluffy and happy. Some are potentially angsty or possibly triggering. Tread lightly. Be sure to mention what you want and what you don't want.
Reply to others.
For this, male characters can get pregnant because why not.

PROMPTS

How'd It Happen: What led up to this event? How are you in this situation?

Realization: There's a wrench in the works...or maybe it was expected, but you're just realizing you're pregnant.

Positive Reaction: Yes, after all this time and planning! You're finally ready for a family.

Negative Reaction: Oh, no. This is terrible. You're in no position to take care of a child!

Freak Outs: But...how? You're a human, she's an alien, how -

Deciding What to Do: If this wasn't planned, there needs to be a plan of action now.

Keep it Secret: You're attempting to keep your pregnancy a secret from your partner. This is only a bandaid for the bigger problem.

Telling Others: The other people in you two's life have to know at some point.

Drama: No one wanted you to have a kid and the anger is palpable.

Morning Sickness and More: Everything hurts and the mornings are hell.

Learning: If you're in a technologically advanced society, you may get to see an ultrasound. Otherwise, there are folk remedies that can be tried.

Manipulation: One of you is using the prospect of a child to bend the other to their will and make them stay.

My Body is a Cage: The person carrying the baby is having a decent amount of discomfort, mentally and physically.

Showing: It's a secret no longer with an expanding stomach.

Support: The partner who isn't carrying the child should do their best to be there and help out...

Overprotective: ...but to a degree. Don't act like the partner carrying the child is made of paper.

Getting Ready: The house or apartment or castle has to be babyproof.

Heart to Heart: It's time to talk about the big changes before the happen. Where do the two of you stand?

It's Happening: THE BABY IS COMING.

Rough Going: Childbirth is still a dangerous affair and there's no smooth sailing for you. So pace if you're lucky, scream in the bed if you're not.

Bad End: Not all new beginnings last. Sometimes, they become unhappy endings.

Coming Home: Finally, parents and baby get to settle down.

Getting Used to This: Well, maybe settle down. There's still crying in the night, feedings to do, diapers to change...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It wasn't the first time Dean had ended up looking after an infant. It was, however, the first time one had been left at his doorstep like Three Men and a Baby. On the up side, this one hadn't come with a note declaring him to be the father. On the down side, this one hadn't come with a note at all. Just a little girl in a pink blanket, fast asleep in a tiny bassinet.

Of course, he'd tried to track down her birth family the next morning--right after he'd acquired a car load of baby things--but so far he hadn't turned up any leads. He was starting to wonder if the stork had brought her. After all, it wouldn't have been the strangest mythological being to manifest itself in Dean's life. Just one of the most unexpected.

[Not sure if you have a canon-point preference but I'm assuming bunker time period here. I can change it if you'd rather go earlier.]

When Castiel returned to the bunker on an early morning, the last thing he expected was for anyone to be awake. Except that, he realized once he found the source of the light and noise he could hear, that it was, in fact, not the last thing he could expect. The actual least expected scenario was to find Dean awake at 4am with a crying infant in his arms.

Dean was too engrossed in trying to appease the tiny human to notice Castiel at first, so he simply observed for a moment.

"I do not think your choice is music is being very effective," he said finally, announcing his presence. A small smirk of amusement on his lips but a look of confusion on his face.

[bunker time is kinda what I was thinking, yeah.]

Dean paused his anxious pacing of the floor and turned toward the sound of Castiel's voice. No doubt his own expression was just as confused, if a bit exasperated as well. "What do you suggest, then? She isn't hungry, or wet. I already took care of that."

The evidence of Dean's shopping trip was scattered around the room, some of it still in bags from the nearest convenience store. "This worked the last time I took care of a baby."

Castiel walked over, around the various bags of what he assumed are baby-related merchandise and he stooped a little to peer at the child, head tilting a little. Her big eyes blinked at him for a moment in surprise at the new face and her cries taper off. A quiet that lasted barely a second before a new round began.

He reached out and laid two fingers gently on her head and the cries ceased again with a few final whimpers. She blinked at him again and her eyes started to droop almost immediately.

"She's getting her teeth," Castiel said as he straightened up and looked at Dean. "It's very painful."

"Already? But she just got here." Dean wrinkled his forehead, rubbing the baby's back as her tiny head began to nod. Truth be told, he hadn't had a clue how old she was, except somewhere between newborn and toddler. He still didn't have a clue what age babies started teething, but at least now he knew what to Google.

Thank God for Castiel.

"I don't suppose you know where she came from, do you?"

The little human's eyes were closed now and she pressed her face into Dean's shoulder, clearly exhausted from all the crying. Castiel couldn't help but feel sympathy for the tiny thing. What he had learned from his brief time as a human, is that it was not for the faint of heart.

Castiel's brows wrinkled at Dean's question.

"You don't know where she came from?" he asked with a frown wondering how someone ended up with a baby without knowing its origin. Or, more pointedly, how Dean Winchester ended up with a baby without knowing where it came from. Unless...

"This isn't a product of one of your drunken bar unions is it?"

"What? No! I haven't--" Had he? So much had happened, it was hard to keep track. "Not recently, anyway." But had he hooked up with someone an appropriate length of time ago to have a baby who was teething now? He couldn't be sure. "And if I did, she probably went to a lot of trouble to find me here."

In that case, kudos to her. Whoever she was.

"I suppose I had it coming. But it would have been nice if there was a birth certificate. Or a name tag. I can't keep calling her 'Kiddo' for the rest of her life."

"Yes, it does seem unlikely she would be able to locate you considering the amount of talking you generally do with them," Castiel said in his usual matter-of-fact way. He narrowed his eyes at the child again.

"Since I am familiar with your body on a subatomic level I might be able to detect whether her cells share common building blocks to yours."

He reached his hand out again and this time curled it around the crown of the sleeping child's head. Closing his eyes he let his Grace reach further into her being to detect things beyond physical abnormalities.

A moment later he opened his eyes.

"She's not yours. And it's possible she will be a powerful psychic someday."

Dean opened his mouth to object to Castiel's statement of what Dean felt was uncomfortably intimate knowledge, but thought better of it. For one thing, Case had just baby to sleep, and Dean didn't want to wake her? For another, he supposed it was better to know.

He was almost disappointed when Cas determined he was not the father.

"Well, that sort of answers the question of why she was left here. And maybe how her mother, or whoever was taking care of her, knew to bring here here." But that answer only raised more questions in Dean's mind. Like, what exactly had led to that moment? Was the child or her former guardian in danger? And how was he supposed to raise a baby psychic?

But when he opened his mouth again, the first question that came out was, "Can we keep her?"

Castiel continued to observe the child who seemed perfectly content now that she was no longer in any pain. His eyes moved back up to Dean at the question though, an eyebrow raising.

"I don't see why not," he said with a shrug after a brief moment of observing Dean. Although Castiel was definitely not someone who should be making that kind of decision, considering he wasn't very aware of things like legal custody and adoption procedures. To him it seemed that if someone left the child here then they were assuming that the child would stay with the people who lived at the location. And who better to raise a supernaturally-inclined child than the Winchesters. Seemed logical to him.

"Although I'm not sure that bringing a baby to hunt vampires would necessarily be a good idea."

It occurred to Dean that he could probably put the baby back in her bassinet without waking her at this point, but he just kept rocking her. He didn't know what she'd been through in the first several months of her life, and he wanted her to feel secure. Or maybe he just liked the gentle weight of a sleeping baby in his arms. Of being needed.

"I know. Raising a baby is going to complicate things. But she needs...someone." Maybe he wasn't the right man for the job. Maybe he was. Either way, he felt responsible for her now.

Castiel gave Dean a small, understanding smile. Family was everything to Dean and he wanted one of his own. Not just the one he had with Sam and himself. He still wanted that "apple pie" life even though his last try didn't work out.

The look of Dean with a baby suited him. He looked comfortable and it made Castiel feel a great deal of fondness for the man. He remembered his own trial and error in caring for an infant and how awkward and confused it made him. Dean, however, looked made for it.

"I think she has come to the right place."

Castiel didn't know a more fiercely caring and protective family than theirs. He knew Dean would do everything to care for this child that wasn't even biologically his, just because she was alone and needed help. He knew that because that was what he felt as well.

Dean nodded, sighing contentedly as he finally lowered the baby into her bassinet. There was still a part of him that was afraid if he put her down, if he let go of her for even an instant, she would disappear as suddenly as she'd arrived. But he knew he'd have to get past that eventually. He couldn't be a stay at home dad forever.

Unless..

He let that 'unless' percolate as he watched the baby sleep. "She's going to need a name."

"She is."

Castiel nodded as he walked over to look down on the tiny form. Humans in general were a vulnerable species. And never as much as when they were brand new. The fondness he felt for Dean while he was holding her, transferred to a feeling of protectiveness as he watched her sleep all alone.

"Do you have one in mind?"

"I don't know..."

Dean scarcely looked up when Cas drew nearer, but he could sense the angel's closeness all the same. He had been thinking about names since he brought the baby into the bunker and realized that she didn't have one, though he was a little embarrassed to admit he'd grown attached to her so quickly. Ever since Cas' prediction that the little girl might be a powerful psychic, Dean's thoughts had turned toward oracles and telepathic superheroes in comic books. Cassandra was much too obvious, of course. And Barbara was a little too old-fashioned for a baby girl.

"Maybe Rachel?"

He considered the name and then nodded.

"Rachel is a very nice name."

He looked up at Dean.

"You're serious about keeping her, aren't you? Does Sam know?"

Dean nodded, gesturing vaguely around the room. "Hard to keep a teething baby a secret." Not that Dean would have tried to hide her from Sam. But as for keeping her...

"I haven't told him in so many words. But I'm sure she'll win him over in no time."

"I do not doubt that."

He gave Dean a small smile.

"You're going to be a good father, Dean. And I hope you'll let me help, as much as I can."

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