36. WILLOW

My throat aches from screaming for so long and my eyes sting from the tears that are still streaming down my cheeks.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Dean loves me. Why wouldn’t he want to have a family? Surely his obsession can’t be so strong that he can’t bear the thought of my love being split between him and a baby?

It’s night by the time Dean comes back. There’s fresh streaks of blood on his clothes but he seems calmer than when he left. That’s a good sign.

“Where did you go?” I ask, hoping if we avoid the problem for now he’ll take the cuffs off me before he does anything drastic.

“Disposed of Henry. The fucker’s gone for good and so is your old house by the way I should have mentioned that earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bones and I burnt it down. I did save some things from your old bedroom though.” He holds up a bag on one finger and places it next to me on the bed. I vaguely remember him passing it to me earlier, before everything went down with Henry. I’m pretty sure it’s my bag. One left behind in my old room.

I’ve not had much time to process what went down in the basement. My mind’s been occupied with how to keep my baby alive. Now that I think about it, I realize I don’t feel much at all about it. The man I called Dad lied to me about my entire life but I don’t see the point in caring about it when it’s in the past now. It’s truly dead and buried thanks to Dean.

He unzips the rucksack and pulls out a pile of my old sketch pads. I didn’t realize how much they meant to me until now. I spent hours hunched over them drawing out fantasies and imaginary friends when I was younger. When I left home I only took enough things with me to be able to get by with. So of course that meant things like sketch pads had to be left behind.

“That’s really nice of you, Dean. Thank you. Do you think you could let me out of the cuffs and we can look through them together?” I ask, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Sorry, baby. Not until the doctor’s been.”

My blood turns to ice in my veins. He's serious about this? I don’t even know how far I am into the pregnancy. Will an abortion be painful? How does it even work? It hurts already with just the thought of losing my baby. If Dean really goes through with this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive after.

”When is he coming?”

”Not until morning.”

I start to sob again and I notice Dean’s knuckles turn white as his fists clench around the sketch pads. “I don’t understand why you don’t want this?” I ask.

“I already told you! I only want you!”

“That doesn’t make any sense! You’ll still have me.”

I pull at the restraints in frustration and Dean stops me. “You’re going to hurt your wrists if you keep doing that,” he scolds me and I laugh.

“You care about my wrists but not about ripping our child from my womb?”

“Willow, don’t do this. I’ll make sure it’s as painless as possible then we’ll move on and things will go back to normal.” He gets up and starts pacing beside the bed.

“Nothing’s ever going to be normal! I will hate you forever if you do this, Dean.”

“No, you won’t. We’ll come back from this. I’ll make sure we do.”

I choke on a sob. How can he sound so sure of himself? Then again a part of me questions if I’m just so far gone for him that I’ll still love him no matter how far he takes things. He could be burying me alive and I’d probably be so sickeningly needy for him that I’d thank him for it.

“Then kill me.”

He halts in his pacing to look at me. “What? Don’t say that.”

“It’s what you wanted in the first place. So just do it.”

He holds my stare. The dangerous way he looks at me makes my body heat up in a strange mix of need for him and an instinctive fury to protect our child.

I can see the doubt in Dean’s mind and the way his gaze keeps flicking to my stomach every few seconds. He wants this too. I know he does. I just don’t know why he won’t tell me what’s really going on. There must be someway of getting through to him, of making him listen to me.

“Dean, this isn’t something you can control by hurting or killing it.”

“That’s all I’m good at, Willow! You only love me because I’ve fucked you up so bad with all the pain. How can I know what you feel is even real?” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out something small and silver. As he holds it in his palm he presses a small button and a sharp, silver blade pops out. “Once this is done we can start over. If you’re going to get so worked up that you end up hurting yourself before the doctor gets here then I’ll have to do it myself.”

He stalks towards me and I kick my feet out to keep him away but he pins them down as he straddles my thighs.

“What are you going to do with that?” I say quietly. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret, Dean, please.”

He sits back on his heels and lifts his shirt up. “The sooner this is over the better. Don’t worry, I’ll match you for scars. I’ll go first.” He presses the knife to his skin a few inches under his belly button and a drop of blood trails down.

He's completely lost it. If he cuts into me, he's going to end up killing me. That’s if he doesn’t end up killing himself first.

“Stop!” I scream so loud my ears ring and my throat feels like it tears. “You are not hurting yourself or this baby!”

“That thing inside you might be just like me. An unfeeling monster hated by everyone,” Dean says, his voice still full of anger but he moves the blade away from his skin.

“It will never be like that! They’ll have us to love them. So please, please stop. For me, please,” I beg.

“You’re still not getting it.”

“I am! I understand you more than you do yourself! You’re not the monster you think you are,” I say my voice softer now. He needs compassion just as much as anyone else. Maybe even more. Screaming at him to stop isn’t going to help.

“What?” he whispers. Confusion and pain are all over his face.

It doesn’t matter if things can’t physically hurt him. Clearly, it’s all been hurting him mentally. The scars don’t end on his skin, they run so deep that they’re all over his heart and mind as well.

“You say you can’t feel pain? You’re wrong. You feel it every waking moment. Whatever”s happened to you that hasn’t hurt your body has left it’s mark so deep that you can still feel it. But you don’t have to keep hurting anymore.”

As his hand shakes, the switchblade drops to the bed. “You have me now,” I say. It’s like he comes out of a trance when he finally looks at me and then at my wrists and my stomach.

“Fuck, Willow. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He frees my wrists and collapses at the foot of the bed with his forehead pressed to my stomach. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers again and I swear it’s to the baby. They’re probably no more than a few cells right now but I hope they hear in their father”s voice just how wanted they really are.

I sit up, rubbing my wrists and Dean moves back. The switchblade is still on the bed and I grab it.

Dean’s shoulders slump in defeat and he looks so broken as he stares at my hand.

“Just do it. I swear I’ll do better in the next life.”

I sit up on my knees and grab the bottom of his shirt pulling it up until he lifts his arms and lets me pull it over his head. He looks at me, confused as I hold the blade to his stomach. “I know how sorry you are. This makes us even. No more running off or making decisions for me. Everything we do from now on, we do together.”

My hand shakes but I take a breath to steady myself then I drag the blade across his skin. I watch his face closely for any sign of pain. There’s so much there but none of it is from the cut.

Dean may see his condition as a weakness but I can see how strong it makes him.

I cut one more line into his skin before tossing the blade away.

He watches it fly across the room before he looks down at his stomach.

“I swear to you, on all three of our lives, I won’t ever leave you. You’re mine, Dean. You said you’d hunt me down for eternity well you won’t have to because I’m not running. In each life, I’ll be waiting for you and this proves it. I love you. If our baby is like you then I’m going to be so damn proud and they’re going to need their daddy around to teach them how to handle everything.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“But you do. You’ve been handling it by yourself your entire life but you’re not alone anymore. We’ll be the perfect team to give this baby a good life. You’re not a monster, no matter how many people told you that. It doesn’t matter what any of them said, what matters is what I’m telling you right now. I love you, Dean Cross, and we are having this baby. Tell me there isn’t a single part of you that doesn’t want it.”

“I…I thought the only way I could keep you was by hurting you. I still want to hurt you.”

“I know. I still want that too. But, Dean, you already have me, you don’t need to prove anything. I’m right here.”

He places his hand over my stomach and closes his eyes. “I want this.”

The tension in my body all fades away at once and my muscles give out. I fall into Dean’s chest and wrap my arms around him.

“We’ll figure out what works for us. You might not be able to choke me or cut me but I don’t see any reason why you can’t bite me.” I smile up at him and his devilish smirk comes back

He looks down at the new cuts on his stomach. Now we really do match. A red bloody X is now under the WILLOW he cut onto himself before. “You know, you could have just asked? If I knew you wanted to be Willow Cross so bad I would have said yes.”

“You are such an ass!” I laugh and he lies me down onto the bed, his weight bearing down on me, just enough to make me feel comfortably secure.

We spend the night curled up together and Dean tells me everything.

How awfully he was treated at the orphanage by kids and adults alike. The foster parents that abused him and said it was God’s will for him to feel pain so they would beat him to get the devil out of him. How he got the burns on his back by setting the house on fire with them inside, when he was just sixteen.

He says he never felt any of it but I can see that the pain has been festering inside him for so long.

At some point, his mind must have closed off the vulnerable parts of him, to protect him from the mental torture everyone put him through. He must have been so scared and confused not understanding why he was so different. Rather than looking after him everyone hurt him more. My heart breaks for that little boy.

It’s no wonder he’s turned into the cold ruthless killer he is today. I can see that scared young boy breaking out of his mental cages now though. It’s going to be a tough process for him to come to terms with everything but he has me now and I’m not going anywhere.

“Will you?” he asks as he trails kisses down to my stomach and back up to my mouth. “Will you marry me, Willow? Be mine in every way possible.”

“Yes, I’ll marry you, my sweet psycho. I’ll be yours in every way as long as you’re also mine.” I take hold of his hand and lay it flat on my stomach. I can already see and feel his protective instincts, that he’s had only for me, starting to spread to the baby growing inside me.

He smirks and kisses my stomach again. “Willow, you’ve had all of me since the moment I first saw you.”