38. Plan B

"I know, I know," I say as the baby bumps against my hands. "Don't worry, your daddy will know when he comes back."

I'm back in my room, wanting Cas back from his beer run with Dean already. There's so much I need to say to him. I just need to be with him.

I'm lying on my bed, hands on my stomach. Even though Cas healed me, my heart still pounds fiercely at remembering the pain Amara delivered me. How she just nearly slaughtered me, and therefore almost killed my unborn daughter. I can't do that again. If we make a charge against her, I can't be there. I need to be sidelined.

This has been a battle in my brain for some time now: Where do I go? How am I gonna build up a new life as a single mother? I assume I'll be taking care of her most of the time, as Cas will still be hunting with my brothers.

A knock on the wall has me sitting up. Sam looks as exhausted as I feel.

"You got something?" I ask.

"Nothing yet." He sighs. "How do you feel?"

"Okay. She's fine too."

"Think up names yet?"

"Kind of haven't had the pleasure of time to do so." I slide off the bed and walk to him. "Once we figure out a new tactic against Amara, I'll steer clear of it."

"You did the last time and she pulled you in anyway."

"Well...this time might require me to leave the bunker and go someplace else." I bite down on my lip. "Here isn't even safe anymore." I chuckle. "Imagine that."

"I'm glad you're thinking that way, but, if Amara wins, it won't matter where you go..."

"Yeah, I-I know." And that's what scares me more than anything. If Amara wins, and I run and try to start over, I won't be able to for very long. If the sun dies, all of us will eventually waste away. "I—I had the life we should've had, Sam, just before Cas pulled me back into this. Now, I have that chance again. I—I just didn't think this would be how."

"Take it," Sam says immediately. "Take it. Raise her."

"Oh, I plan to, believe me." I rub the back of my head. "If things work in our favor, I will." I look away. "But I don't know a damn thing about being a parent."

"It'll be a hands-on experience."

"Yeah." I sniff. "Kind of wish Mom was here, you know? She'd know what to say. She'd assure me that I'd be okay, that motherhood will come as instinct." I feel the tears drop. "God, I miss her, Sam."

"So do I. Every day. Hey, come here." Sam pulls me to his chest, smoothing down my hair. "You're gonna be a great mother, I just know it."

I laugh against his chest. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sammy."

"I mean it, Jo. I do. I mean, you've got experience."

"You're not my kid, Sam. You're my brother. There's a difference."

"Think of watching over me as prep for this."

"I'll try. It's gonna suck, no matter the outcome."

"Why?"

"Well...if we win, I won't see you and Dean much. If we lose, well...you know that outcome." I pull way, shrugging.

"We'll worry about that when this is all over, okay?"

"You got it."

Sam and I leave my room, heading into the library to find Rowena, Crowley, and Chuck.

"Samantha!" Crowley greets. "Josie!"

"W-what are we doing?" Sam asks.

"Nothing," says Rowena.

"Exactly. Amara's out there eating the freaking sun, and—and we're doing nothing."

"And you have a better idea?" asks Crowley.

"Yes. Anything. That's my better idea, because anything is better than this."

"Sam," Chuck cuts in. "I get it. Even if we could lock Amara away, it wouldn't do any good now. I'm dying. And when I'm gone, a cosmic balance between light and dark—it's over."

"All right." Sam slams the table. "Then if we can't cage her, we have to kill her."

"Bingo," says Crowley.

"Well, we gotta get Dean and Cas in on this discussion," I say. "Let them know." Sam goes off to make the call. Meanwhile, I feel uneasy as Crowley stares at me. "You got a problem there, chief?"

"I never properly gave you my congratulations, Josie."

"On what? Oh, wait, never mind. Let me guess: you can sense the magic in my belly too?" I glare at Rowena, who smirks.

"That, and Mother told me." He nods towards my growing belly. "Josette Winchester is about to be Mummy Winchester. How cute."

"You're not getting this baby."

"Hold on there, mother hen. What makes you think that's what I want? I can't just offer congratulations to you?"

"Nothing's ever straight to the point with you." I cross my arms. "Besides, you would've said something before, because I'm sure you've known before now. This baby doesn't deserve to be involved in this."

"And why ever not? This life is the reason it was conceived, Josie." He smirks. "You and Castiel continue to surprise me."

"You stay away from me and the baby. No murder, no harm."

"And what makes you think I'll agree to that?"

"She's my ticket out of this supernatural shit my family's been dealing with." I snort.

"You're not putting Cas under that protection?"

"He's capable of handling his own. But since you reminded me, no killing him either. You don't get my soul, but you get one less hunter off your ass for the future."

"All right. If you don't hold up your end, though, treaty's dead. You and your little one are fair game."

Wow, that was easy. And fast. "And if you break your end, I'll find a way to make sure you pay for it."

"I think this is the first deal I've done without receiving a soul as payment." He frowns. "Times, they are a-changing."

"Deal or no deal, Crowley?"

"If it keeps one less Winchester off me, deal. You uphold your end, I uphold mine, we all ride off into the sunset with our happily ever afters."

"All right, so what do we got?" is Dean's greeting to us all as he and Cas come back to the bunker. Cas automatically goes to my side, pressing a kiss to my temple.

"We've got a new plan," I say.

"Okay, what is it?"

"We got to kill Amara," says Sam.

Dean looks at us like we've lost our minds. "Wait, so now you want to kill the Darkness?" he asks us. "You're cool with this? 'Cause, you know, last time..."

"Look, Chuck's dying," I tell Dean. I look sideways at Chuck. "Uh, no offense, God."

"Yeah, no, I—I'm dying," Chuck agrees. "So, we really don't have a choice. I mean, look. Y-you've got darkness and light. Y-you take one side away a-and—"

"It upsets the scales—the whole balance of the universe," says Cas.

"Exactly," says Sam. "But you take both away, and now both sides of the scale are empty, so..."

"Of course. It's balanced."

"Huh. Clever," I note under my breath.

"Right," says Dean. "Yes. Okay. Uh, and look. Hey, I'm game, but how exactly are we gonna do this? I mean, Lucifer hit her with a-a Hand of God, and, well, we saw how that turned out."

"She does seem impossible to destroy," says Cas.

"Is she, Chuck?" I ask.

He sighs. "Well, I...I mean, well...I...I-I—"

"Chuck!" I find myself saying this along with Dean and Cas.

"Charles!" Rowena scolds him.

Chuck sighs. "All right. Fine. The Darkness might—might have a weakness." He walks over to Crowley, taking the bottle from the King of Hell's hand. "Light."

"He tells us now," says Crowley sarcastically.

"What? I-I just wanted to trap her. I didn't want to murder her."

"Okay, but now that we're trying to end her, how much light are we talking about?" I ask curiously.

"I don't know. Ten-thousand suns set to supernova."

"Well, y-you're God," says Dean. "So, just God them up."

"Look at me. I'm...not in the best shape right now."

"Okay," says Sam. "Uh, that's all right. Uh, we just need other ideas. Um...Rowena. What about the Book of the Damned?"

Rowena scoffs. "This is beyond..."

"Okay. Crowley?"

"Oh, I got nothing," he says.

"Well, what about souls?" Cas proposes. "They fuel your demon deals. Souls are living batteries. They're full of energy. They're full of light. Each one is as powerful as...one-hundred suns?"

"H-he's not wrong," Rowena says.

"Okay, so if we got this kind of juice, then what?" asks Dean.

"You get me enough souls...I can build a bomb."

"Would that do the trick?" I ask Chuck.

"Uh...maybe."

"All right." I look at Sam. "Plan B."

"Okay. How many souls are we talking here?" says Dean.

"The more the better," says Rowena.

"Even if you could get that kind of firepower...you really think it would work?" asks Crowley.

"I can ask the angels. Heaven is full of souls," says Cas.

"Okay," I say. "What else we got?"

"Ghosts," Dean says. "Well, they're just souls with baggage, right?"

"Yeah, but we would need a whole lot of them," Sam says.

"Waverly Hills."

Sam chuckles. "Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Of course. Thousands died there."

"Ton of ghosts."

"This is desperate...and stupid," Crowley comments.

"Well, desperate and stupid's pretty much all we got right now, so..."

"Fine." Crowley sits back in a chair and puts his feet up on the table. "I'll go raid Hell and see what's left."

"All right," says Sam, clapping his hands. "Let's get to work."

"You're going to need something to collect all the ghosts," says Rowena. "There's a spell in the Book of the Damned that I'll need to find and give to you."

"Well, I know what I'll be doing, then," I say. "Just hanging out here while everyone else collects souls."

"Good thing we don't need to fight you on it," Dean tells me. "We were prepping for it."

I roll my eyes. "You guys go get those souls and ghosts."

**Well, I don't know about y'all, but I'm glad Jo's seeing real reason. Not that she didn't before, but still...

And that deal with Crowley, am I right?**