32

Media lies. Movies, shows, books, games, anything that portrays the loss of a child in late-stage pregnancy, all lie. The lie about how long it takes. They lie about how agonizing it is on the body. They lie about how much blood and loss there really is. Because at five months along, a miscarriage is just like having an early pregnancy. And that's exactly what it felt like. 

The hours of screaming bloody murder. The way the pain tore through my burning hot body as it tried to destroy the child inside of me. The endless amounts of blood seemed to come from between my legs as Dean sped down the road faster than he had ever gone before. The fear I saw in Sam's eyes as he tried to keep me conscious. Little did he know it wasn't his soft words of comfort and reassurance that kept me in reality. No, it was the hungry pangs of loss and death that swept through me that had me still tethered to this world.

"Drive faster!" Sam hissed out over my cries.

"Why the fuck would she come out if she knew she was pregnant!?" Dean asked.

"That doesn't matter right now!" Sam yelled harshly at our brother.

But I barely registered their squabble as another pain tore through me, cutting my abdomen in half from the inside out. I looked down at myself, convinced I was in several pieces. But all I found was the pool of life-giving blood between my legs.

This was not how it was supposed to go. This was not the way any of this was supposed to happen. If I was being honest with myself though, I hadn't thought of a perfect way for this to happen. There had been no planning when it had come to this. The babe itself wasn't even planned and now it seemed that the world was righting itself by taking it from me.

Karma was taking my unborn child from me.

A being I had barely begun to know. A thing that started as a bad omen that had grown into something I could dream of having. A child I had somehow started to really want. A family I had been silently praying for. It would all be torn from me now in the blink of an eye. There was nothing I could do to stop this. Nothing I could do to keep my shaking power from going out of control as the pain ripped through me. 

I knew I had already hurt Sam once with the claws that had appeared on my fingers, but he was hiding his face from me now. And the screams and cries that came from me more and more now, were no more human than they were beastial. Some were so demonic that I swore you could feel the ground shake beneath the car as Dean flew her across the land.

"We need to stop somewhere!" Sam finally suggested.

"Where the fuck are we going to go?!" Dean asked, barrelling through a red light in a sleepy town. A town that had no idea what was going on. A town we would most likely never see again.

"I don't fucking know just find something and call Cas!" Sam snapped. "We're not going to make it otherwise."

Right. It wasn't just the child that was dying. I may have lost control of my abilities, but that didn't mean I wasn't bleeding out in the back seat. My fists were full of unknown claws, parts of my skin had turned to charcoal, and I was sure there were horns atop my head. But my healing ability, the ability that could save me and the child, had not returned to me. And now, I faced Death as she came for me again.

"There's an unfinished housing development up there!" Sam said, his phone in his hand, illuminating his face. There was an angry red slice that went down his cheek. I had done that.

Dean swerved through the other cars that dared to be on the road so late at night and kicked Baby into another gear, sending us somehow faster.

I wasn't sure when we finally reached somewhere else. Or when they pulled me from the backseat and through the brand-new door. There was no time to know when they were laying me gently onto a plastic-covered couch. No. There wasn't even time to realize that I was being stripped and my youngest brother was fearlessly trying to talk me through this. Trying to bring me through to pain of this death and destruction.

"I…" I broke off as another scream tore through my body.

"He's calling Cas now, Alex," Sam said, his soft voice barely a raindrop to my fire.

Time slipped away again as my blood flowed from me. As Sam tried to coach me through the pain. Even as the cool rush of wing beats barely brushed my heated skin. The only help was his hands on my face. Those smokey gray eyes, the fear laced through them like lightning through rain clouds as he spoke to me. But I wasn't sure what he was saying. Just that he was there. And that was all that mattered to me as I closed my eyes and drifted.

"No, Alex." But that was sharp and clear. His plead for me to stay. It was enough to bring me back. To open my eyes, even if briefly.

I pulled my face from his palms as another wave of pain came. My body clamped around whatever it was trying so desperately to expel. When I screamed this time, I was sure the ground shook in protest. As if something deep below its surface did not want to give up its rights to the earth and its faults. But the monster within wanted to rip the ground from its grasp and tear it as this thing tore me.

I screamed again, this time my body pushing out whatever had been growing deep inside of me. But just the start. The pattern of pain and demonic screams kept going until there was nothing left of it. Until I was exhausted enough that I didn't register the thick sweat that coated my body or the silence that filled the room. There was nothing but leftover pain now and a deep emptiness I knew nothing would ever replace.

Even when Sam gently placed a tiny bundle into my arms. The half-formed child was no larger than the width of my hand and felt as though it weighed nothing. But no noise came from it. It didn't blink, cry, breath. It wasn't breathing. Its pale skin didn't even seem to hold blood. It was almost as if there had never been any life in this child to begin with. I held it close to my chest as the tears started to fall and my heart shattered into a million pieces.

Even as my strength returned to me and I could feel my body finally healing itself, whisking away any weakness left behind, I did not let go of the unborn child. Even when someone helped me redress and into a sitting position, I did not look away from him. I couldn't even bring myself to look at any of them. There was nothing I wanted more than to die with my child. So I wailed. I cried over the thing in my arms. The thing that had never had a chance to breathe the air around us. The thing that would never know a life. The thing that would never know its parents or how much we had loved it. The thing that had never even received a name.

'Kore.' I thought then. The only clear thought in a mind full of turbulent pain and grief. 'I would have named them Kore.'

It must have been hours before any of them tried to touch me again. Or dared to approach me without fear of the overwhelming grief I couldn't control just yet. But when one did, it was Arthur. His warm hands were gentle on my shoulders, with no rush or bad intent behind them.

"Love…" There was grief thick in his voice, as if he too had been sobbing. "You need to let her go."

"No." A voice barely my own croaked.

"Alex…" Arthur tried again, kneeling beside me. "There is nothing to save. It's…she's gone, love."

"I said, no." I hissed.

"We…we can try again." He suggested as if that was what I wanted.

I looked up at him then, those steel gray eyes tired with misery. I knew he meant well. Knew he was just trying to help us both begin to move on. To take the first step of accepting that our child had not been meant to be. To admit that I had been reckless and that this was all my fault. But I would not allow that. Not yet.

"What if he inherited my regeneration ability?" I tried to be hopeful. "And it's just taking a bit to set in…"

"Love…I don't think…"

"Or what if this is just some cruel joke?" A delusional laugh bubbled in my throat. "That's it right? Crowley had him somewhere else. Snuck in during all of the chaos and has him hid…"

"Alex…There is no child to…"

"You're not listening to me." My voice broke. "This can't be it. They can't just be dead. They can't just be gone before I even get to love them. They can't…"

I almost hadn't noticed it. But there it had been in the silence between words. A small cry. My breath caught in my throat as quiet thickened around us again, and the sound came once again. Something small enough for a mouse to have made. I pulled my arms back from my chest and looked down into the blankets that now weighed more than they had only moments ago.

And there they were. A fully formed child with flushed pink skin and a beautifully soft heartbeat. I choked back more tears as they opened their eyes. They were brown. As new as polished bronze yet as dark as an oak tree's bark. I stared down at them, shocked as their eyes shifted to Arthur, and turned a beautiful shade of graphite. The small body changed with them, becoming a tiny boy where there had just been a small girl. We both held our breath then as the tiny child looked between us both and settled on one eye of each color.

"I…she's…he's…" Arthur tried.

"Kore's alive," I mumbled.

The small child smiled, then giggled a laugh that sparked a new life within me. A new overwhelming emotion that threatened to knock me over. The only thing I could think to do was clutch them tightly to my chest again and cry once more. But this time with joy. I did not stop Arthur as he snuck to his knees and wrapped his arms around us. I welcomed the words of love and adoration as we sat there. Our new family was finally whole.

"Well now." A voice I had not heard in seven years spoke. "Isn't this a beautiful sight?"

My eyes shot over Arthur's shoulder and met those eyes of diamonds. The ones so unnatural yet undoubtedly made of nature itself, that there was no mistaking who stood there. His dark brown hair was combed back. And the messy scruff that had been on his face the last I had seen him, was trimmed neatly. He still wore simple clothing for the creator of everything, jeans, a baby blue button-up, and a maroon overcoat. The room had stilled unnaturally around God himself as if he had asked time itself to stand still. Which I had no doubt he could do, and if it wasn't for the others around the room blinking at him, I would've sworn he had.

"What do you want?" I glared at him. Nothing good would come from this.

"Oh, nothing." God pulled a hand from his pocket and looked at his pristine nails. "Just came by to congratulate you."

"Bullshit." Dean hissed. "You've been gone far too long just to pop up out of nowhere."

"How kind of you to notice!" God scoffed. "I was starting to think my favorite toys had forgotten about me."

"Like we could forget the man who tried to kill us all, more than once." Sam took a step toward him.

"I wouldn't do that Samuel." God looked right at him and Sam froze. "You do not want that fight."

"Why are you really here?" I asked, not letting my eyes drift from his face.

When he met mine again. They were nothing but ice. "You can't really expect me to let that thing live."

And there it was. Of course that was his real reason for appearing out of nowhere. He had barely allowed Jack to live. There was no way he would allow two Nephilim and now a Cambion to exist in the same world. Not all at once. The last Cambion had been thousands of years ago, this had to be the reason there hadn't been any since.

"And you can't expect me to let you take them." Arthur stood then, guarding me and our child.

God laughed. "You think you can stop me?"

"No," Arthur said, his voice unwavering. "At least not for long. But we're sure as Hell going to try."

It was barely a move, barely a flap of wings, when Kore was taken from my arms, placed into Cas', and vanished from sight. God roared, undoubtedly using his abilities to search for the angel and child. But Cas had always been good at wards and hiding. He wouldn't allow himself or Kore to be found, not until it was safe again. So then it was just us. Three mortals, one created demon, and the most unstable immortal man I had ever met.

"You have no idea what you've just started!" God yelled. "You have no idea of the power that thing will have!"

"Let me guess," I said from behind Arthur. "Enough to wipe you from all of existence?"

His eyes smoldered with white-hot power, turning diamonds into crackling howlite. Dean and Sam lunged for him, weapons in hand, but they stopped in midair. God barely flexed as he held them at bay. He took a step towards us. Then another. Arthur stood fast in between us, a thin wall of cardboard standing up against a hurricane. And that was how he crumbled when God threw him across the room with little more than a blink.

"I will find that abomination." He hissed at me. "And I will destroy it."

I held my chin up, the power within me showing itself for the first time in weeks. "I will not let you take them from me."

"Then you won't be here to stop me." God reached for me, and I was not fast enough to dodge his hand.

But I tried. I tried to leap out of the way of him. Tried to miss his fingertips as they brushed against my collarbone. But there was no way to outrun God. There never really had been. So when I tumbled onto the empty white floor and looked around to find nothing but blank white walls and a seemingly eternal white ceiling, I knew I hadn't been fast enough. I picked myself up off the floor and ran to my right, throwing myself at the near-invisible wall there.

"You will not keep me here!" I screamed.

I pounded my fists against the smooth walls, calling upon my abilities more and more as I crashed against them. But they didn't budge. And when I dared to move away, it was as if I had never hit them to begin with.

"Kore!" I screamed again before falling to my knees.

I had had them. They had been in my arms, smiling and alive. But now. Now they were out into a dangerous world they knew nothing of and there was no telling if I could get back to them. And I had no idea how long Cas could outrun God himself. There was nothing more I could do than cradle my knees ot my chest and silently beg them to be alright. To stay alive until I could get home. Until…

"Who are you?" A voice too much like my own asked, "And how did you get here?"