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Sam sat at his desk at work searching for the ghost girl they had seen while on vacation. He knew he should have been working but he needed to solve the mystery of the baby and the girl. He looked up in time to see his boss was coming toward his desk. He switched screens just in time for it to seem as though he was working on his caseload.
“Hey,” he said to Mr. Thompson as he came in the door.
“Hey Sam, you look like you got plenty sun while you were gone.”
“Yeah there was a bit of sun involved, but mostly we got us a new little sweetie,” Sam confessed as he showed his boss a picture of Marianne with their family he had on his desk.
Sam had decided it was best to not hide the fact that they had adopted a baby. His boss smiled once he passed the picture back to him.
“She is cute, you are a lucky man. I know you have thought about adopting for a while.”
“Yeah we have. Hey I am almost done with this could I leave early today I have some stops before I have to meet my family at the school for Mackey’s recital tonight.”
“No problem it’s always good to have kids involved in the arts.”
Sam nodded as Mr. Thompson left the office.
----
Sam knew MacKenzie hated band but she was good on the clarinet and had won several music awards. She seemed to enjoy the attention if not the instrument so Sam and Lydia figured they would go with the flow on the matter. Sam bit his lip as he went back to work on his search though he knew he should be working, the mystery of the baby gnawed at his brain.
----
He tried two more search strings before he found something. The odd thing was that he would have sworn he had done the same search before but he considered it could have been a different search engine. He chewed on the end of the pen that he had in his mouth before he put it down to pull up the web site. Sam read that Joanna Wilson of Burlington, Vermont had gone missing in her ninth month while out with her boyfriend. The young man had returned from a movie bloody and battered and insisted that Joanna had been taken. The young man had been hysterical he swore that he had not seen anyone but that whomever took the girl hit him in the head, first. The article was dated six months before. The picture was the spitting image of the girl they had seen with the baby. Marianne was just the right age to be the child.
----
Sam sighed, he didn’t want to give up the baby, he knew that. He also knew it was wrong to feel that way if Marianne had relatives that wanted her back safe. He was torn, now that he had found what he needed he did not want to know the information. That little girl had already brought new life at his house. The teenagers, as he called them, were attentive to the child and Lydia was ecstatic with taking care of her.
---
He turned off the computer as he prepared to leave for his errands. His mind was in turmoil, what should I do? Can I pretend I did not find the information? Would that be right to her real family? Now I opened my mouth and told my boss about her how would I explain that we didn’t get to keep her after my being gone a week. He rummaged through his desk drawer to find the list of things he needed to get from the store for his house, before he got up to shut off the lights and lock the door on his way out. He was so distracted he ran into one of the temps in the office.
---
“Sorry, Lacey,” he apologized to the young redhead.
“No problem, Mr. Reese,” she said with a smile.
Sam smiled as he walked toward the elevator bank. He was glad the elevator was empty when he got in because he almost didn’t make it before the tears flowed. He reached up to wipe them away as the elevator raced down to the first floor. What have I done? On the way to his Navy Blue Toyota Camry that was parked in the garage, he phoned Dean on his cell.
“Sorry to bother you at work, but we need to talk,” Sam said.
“And how was your day?” Dean asked with a smile in his voice.
“I found Marianne’s mother,” Sam replied with no hint of playfulness.
“Oh.”
“Yeah come by early before we leave tonight, okay.”
“No problem, see you then,” Dean said as he hung up the phone with a sigh.
---
He knew Sam was upset. His brother always did the right thing as far as Dean was concerned. On the other hand, Sam had seen the baby as a blessing for his family and Dean knew it was going to eat him up if he chose to take a path that was against the way he normally behaved. Damn it. Why couldn’t his brother just have dropped the baby off at the local hospital like Dean had suggested? But no Sam thought it was a gift from God, Dean still wasn’t on the closest terms with what most believed to be the creator of the universe. On the other hand there were times he allowed himself to be persuaded to attend church with the ladies and the teens. He would not deny Cassie the chance to have their kids in that environment as long as the kids themselves did not protest and he thought they enjoyed it. Well there was nothing Dean could do until Sam decided on a plan of action, he sighed again as he went back to work.
----
When Sam walked in Logan was at the kitchen table with his girlfriend, Linda, as they studied. Linda was a cute little blue eyed Blonde that seemed to have fallen for the eldest Winchester teen, very quickly. Logan’s wavy dark hair and light eyes drew quite a bit of attention at his high school but Linda had insisted she loved his dimples. He smiled over at her with a raised eyebrow, a trick Sam insisted Dean had taught his nephew, as they worked in companionable silence on their homework.
----
“Hey,” Sam said as he walked in the door, he figured it was best they knew he was behind them.
“Hey Dad.”
“Hey Mister …”
“Don’t forget I told you to just call me Sam, okay?” Sam said to the girl as she blushed.
Logan laughed, “Can I call you Sam too?”
“Not a chance,” Sam said with a smile as he headed through the kitchen, pass the living room and up the stairs where he found Lydia playing with Marianne on the floor in the nursery.
“She still okay?”
Lydia smiled as she turned around to face the door, she could tell just by looking at her husband something was wrong.
“Sam, what is it?” she asked she picked up the baby and went to him.
Sam was quiet as he touched the baby’s hair with his fingers. He felt he was too blame for what he was about to do. Marianne smiled up at him as she reached out to him. He held her close to his chest as Lydia waited for an answer.
----
That is when he saw the girl, who he believed was the mother, across the room. She sat in the rocker with a smile on her face. This time she was dressed all in white and the material shimmered as she faded in and out like a flickering light.
“It’s okay you can keep her,” she said to his heart because he never saw her lips move.
“Sam?”
Sam was stunned even with all he had seen in his life, he had never had any real life Supernatural encounters except the time with his mother. He realized then that Lydia had no idea what was going on as she reached up to touch his face. He looked at his wife.
“I…uh…Lydia do you see her?”
“Who?” she asked as she looked around the room.
Sam felt a sense of peace suddenly as Lydia tried to figure out who he meant. Marianne was still in his arms though it seemed time had shifted, the little girl smiled again as though she knew her mother had given her life over to Sam and his family.
“Dada,” she said before she put her finger in her mouth.
“What’s going on?” Lydia asked curious now.
----
Lydia felt lost she knew something was going on but had no idea what though her first instinct was it was something to do with the baby. After a moment of reflection Sam explained after he apologized for dazing out on her. He told her what he had seen in the room and about what he found online. Lydia understood that Sam’s tender heart would have been broken. She loved him for his sensitivity but she wondered if maybe he wasn’t seeing things.
“You certain you saw her again?”
Sam nodded as he sat down on the floor to play with the little girl.
“Well, I would think this means that no matter what you found then the ghost person must know that even if there is someone looking for the baby and her that we will get to keep the baby.”
“Apparently,” Sam said absentmindedly now that his attention was soley on the baby girl.
Lydia smiled, having been a hunter herself she could believe just about anything She was concerned about how it would play out, though.
----
“Hey,” MacKenzie said when she stopped by the nursery.
“Hey you, how was rehearsals?” Lydia asked as she smiled at her daughter.
“Um good, they let us go early so we could relax before we had to get back to the school.”
“Good idea, why don’t you go lay down for a nap until I’m done with dinner.”
“Oh so you and Dad can do it?” she asked with a grin as she left the room.
Lydia laughed, “Uh, no, so you can do well tonight.”
Sam rolled his eyes at his daughter’s direction, they were learning to take the kids teasing in stride, that was the only way they were going to survive the teenage years. So far they had learned that even though the parents having sex was taboo, the teens spent most of their time talking about or trying to have it. It was a good thing they covered sex education with Logan in his home schooling years. MacKenzie still attended home school for most of her classes though Lydia had given in on the music front as well as math. Logan had begun private school when he turned fifteen.
----
Sam had insisted the best way to know if the kids had learned any thing was to put them in situations that tested them. Lydia agreed but only if they did not go to public school, though Sam said she was a snob for it, he eventually had given in. Lydia’s reasoning was that if they could afford than it was an experience their kids could have that they had missed. Sam had laughed since he had gotten a full ride to Stanford living from state to state and school to school. He figured if you were determined you could make it in school, it was a matter of wanting to do well. That was the point when Lydia had called him an intellectual snob, then they laughed together.
----
They were eating their early dinner when Dean showed up with Cory and Allysa. He grinned while he reached in the cabinet for a plate while Cory sat down with a smile at his cousins. Logan had been roped into going to the recital though he was unhappy about it but he was upstairs on the phone while he waited for them all to leave.
“Didn’t Cassie feed you at home?” Sam asked as he brother piled the food up on his plate before he sat down.
“Um, we had a snack. Cassie was at the beauty shop all afternoon she’s meeting us at the school.”
Sam looked at his niece and nephew who didn’t seem interested in food they only looked at their father like he was an alien. Surely, they are used to Dean’s appetite.
“Hey you two feel free to grab something too,” Lydia said as she got up to put her plate in the sink so she could clean up Marianne’s hands.
The little girl had made quite a mess but had been fairly quiet the whole time she had been eating.
“Dada da dada,” she began as Lydia wiped her down.
Sam smiled at the baby’s noises though he knew it was only sounds. Though for a moment he remembered his dilemma but decided this wasn’t the time to think of it.
Allysa reached for the baby once she was cleaned up and Lydia passed her over.
----
Cory decided he would take a bit of sloppy joe as he filled a bun with the messy mixture. Dean reminded him to be careful and the boy held back an eye roll. Sam smiled to himself. His brother walked in and ate like a tornado but had the nerve to make sure his kids are careful and calm when they ate. He shook his head as Dean sighed after he was done with his meal.
“So Mackey, are you nervous,” Dean inquired of the girl as she got up to put her plate away.
“No Uncle Dean but no one calls me Mackey any more,” she said as she left the room.
Sam and Lydia laughed out loud.
“Oops,” Dean said with a grin.
Allysa laughed at her father as she held the baby to her chest the teen could only shake her head. She loved her father, Dean was just one big bundle of tightly wound energy. She admired the man more than she could explain. It wasn’t just that he never allowed her to want for anything, but he seemed genuinely interested in her and her brother’s lives.
----
{Flashback – two nights before}
Dean woke up at two in the morning to see Allysa sneaking out the back door. He was quiet as he watched her go out the gate and down the block to the next house. She tapped on the door then went inside. He furrowed his brow as he thought of what he should do. What he knew he wouldn’t do was tell Cassie. He waited in the kitchen for a few minutes then decided it was best if he laid down on the sofa. It wasn’t that Allysa wasn’t in big trouble but he needed to approach the situation logically. First off he knew where she was, so she wasn’t technically missing. Of course, sneaking out was forbidden, in every household he had ever heard of so that applied to his house too. Then he decided he would be there when she came home and if things went well he wouldn’t have to scream or threaten like John Winchester would have done.
It was four thirty in the morning when Allysa came in the back door. She had a smile on her face until she saw her dad stood in front of her.
“I hope you can explain to me why I shouldn’t ground you for being gone for the last two and half hours in the middle of the night.”
“Uh.”
“Not a good start, Alli, I need more,” Dean said dryly.
“Dad, I, uh needed to get some help on my homework…”
“Not working. Can you at least tell me no boys weren’t involved?”
“No boys, Dad, I promise.”
“You are grounded for the next month…”
“But Dad?”
----
She knew what she had done was stupid it was also unnecessary. It had been done on a dare, a stupid bet that she could get away with it. Just because she was trained to face the dark things in the night didn’t mean she was not prone to being hurt. She bit her lip as she faced her father.
“No but Dad, you don’t leave the house in the middle of the night, anything could have happened to you.”
“Great I thought you were the cool one…”
“I am, your mother is going to be really angry,” he said with a heavy sigh.
Dean turned to go up stairs, it hurt his heart to have to punish his little princess. Allysa had always been a good kid, then she became a teenager. Well she still had a few weeks but she was close to being a teenager.
“Dad?”
He turned around to face her again.
“It was stupid, I mean I could have asked to spend the night with Vanessa instead of sneaking out.”
“You’re right, that would have been the better thing to do,” he said as he gave her a small smile.
{End Flashback}
----
Cassie met them at the school that night with her hair in waves down her back. Dean smiled at the sight of her, he still hadn’t told her about Allysa being out late. He felt a twinge of guilt and he wandered if his daughter thought that it was their little secret.
“Hey you,” he said as he kissed her cheek as she got out of the car.
“Hey, where is everyone?”
“Inside they have our seats.”
Cassie looked at him, “What’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing your hair looks great, so shiny and long.”
She laughed she knew he was hiding something and had been for days.
“Spill it, Dean. You know you can’t lie to me.”
Dean had the nerve to blush before he told her about the situation with their daughter.
“What?”
“Yeah, but I grounded her for a month.”
“But you didn’t tell me I told her she could go to the movies this weekend with Vanessa.”
Dean sighed, yes that was the reason they needed to tell each other everything when it came to the children. He had screwed up again. Cassie frowned at him as they went inside together.
TBC