justprompts--Surprise
The way Grace broke the news to Chuck was in typical Grace fashion-no frills, and straight to the point. She dropped the pregnancy test in his lap while he was having his morning coffee, said “surprise,” and ate a banana.
Chuck choked on his coffee.
Grace grabbed another banana and sat on the counter. “That prophecy thing had better not be genetic. My kid is going to be normal.” She took a bite of banana and chewed it with a thoughtful look on her face. “…well, about as normal as possible, anyway.”
“….so you’re not kidding?” Chuck was still in shock. After all, his semi-kind of-sort of girlfriend/ex-wife telling him she was pregnant was not an everyday thing for him. And it was safe to say that this wasn’t one of the things he’d dreamed about.
She shook her head. “Nope. I even did three of those things, just to make sure. I can show you the box, if you want to double check and make sure I didn’t read them wrong.” She laughed at the look on his face. “You’re gonna be a daddy.”
It took Chuck a few more minutes to process that little piece of information; seeing the little plastic stick was one thing, but her saying that out loud was another. Grace laughed at the deer-in-the -headlights look on his face, and laughed even harder when he scowled at her. When he’d finally finished putting his thoughts in order, he put his coffee down and turned in his chair to face her. “Does this mean I get another shot at trying to convince you to live with me?”
“If you don’t give it your best shot, your kid might be born at Singer Auto Salvage.” She was exaggerating, of course; she doubted Bobby would let her give birth anywhere but a hospital. Even though Grace had been sleeping at Chuck’s house whenever she was anywhere even remotely close to town for a few years, and her stuff had been taking up his space since then, she still refused to say she lived there. She was still hunting, and spent most of her time of the road-she didn’t really live anywhere, or so she said, anyway. That was also a big part of the reason why she wouldn’t call herself his girlfriend, even though she didn’t even look at other men anymore and Chuck, in theory, anyway, didn’t bother with other women. And how she had ended up being what she was to him was a mystery to everyone involved.
Chuck had to think about what he was going to say. “If you stay….” He paused both for thought and dramatic emphasis, “I’ll make sure that all of the weird pregnancy cravings you’re going to get are satisfied.”
“Throw in daily showers and a promise to clean up around here, and you’ve got yourself a deal.” Grace the the banana peel into the trash and jumped off of the counter, then waited for his answer.
Chuck grinned. He’d only been asking her to move in for three years, but it felt like it had been longer. Much longer. “I guess I can manage that much for you.”
“Deal.” Grace kissed his cheek, and then started to leave the kitchen. “Take a shower, Chuck. We have to go see my brothers.”
*****
The way Grace broke the news to her brothers was as indirectly as possible, despite the fact that Chuck just wanted to out and say it. Instead, she told Dean’s son, when she was helping Dean put him down for a nap. She actually thought it was pretty clever, how she had managed to slip it in between the coos and the nonsense talk while she had been changing the kid’s diaper. Dean didn’t exactly register it until they were finished and walking back to the living room.
“Did you just tell my kid he’s going to have a cousin in nine months?” He stopped her, and turned her to face him.
Grace rolled her eyes. “Those were my exact words.” She pried his hands off of her shoulders and kept walking. “Surprise.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He followed her into the room, and looked at Chuck, who had that deer-in -the-headlights look again. “She’s kidding, right?”
“Kidding about what?” Sam looked at all three of them. He had no clue what was going on.
“Chuck got our sister pregnant.” Dean was staring at her, and Grace found herself completely unable to read his mood. “And she didn’t even tell me. She told my kid. I just happened to overhear.”
“What was I supposed to do? Say ‘Hi, brother dear, guess what? Everyone’s favorite prophet knocked me up! Congratulations, you’re going to be an uncle.” Nobody would be able to get her to admit it, but Grace was cranky. Chuck had hidden the coffee while she was in the shower, so for the first time in almost 20 years, she had to rely on orange juice to wake her up. It was not a pretty sight.
“If it gets me any bonus points, I told her that she should tell you.” Chuck wasn’t nearly as scared of Dean and Sam as he had been a few years ago, but they were still bigger than him and could probably kill him with their pinkies (He knew for a fact that Grace could kill him and make it seem effortless, because he had seen her kill a demon that he would later swear was three times bigger than she was without breaking a sweat; he shuddered to think of what Dean and Sam could do.). He’d take the bonus points if he could. “You know, instead of going about it the way she did.”
Grace crossed her arms and gave Chuck a small glare. “Thanks for the support.” Then she looked at Sam and Dean, who were still staring. “It was bound to happen eventually, you know. And at least I told you at all. I could have just fallen off of your radar for nine months-“
“Oh, you could not fall off of our radar for nine months.” Dean rolled his eyes. “You can’t even fall off of our radar for a week.”
“I did, once. Remember?” She had, too. Of course, that was the week she had married and divorced Chuck, and since then, it had been much harder to duck out of the radar for more than a day or two.
It was Dean’s turn to roll his eyes. “That was when this whole thing with you two started, too. Speaking of. You’re having a baby.”
“I didn’t notice.” Chuck deadpanned, and then a thoughtful look crossed his face. “I bet it was the night that we played the Star Wars drinking game.”
Grace thought about that for a minute. “You might be on to something. Why is it always the tequila?”
Dean cleared his throat, and they both looked at him. “So does that mean you two are finally going to get serious, or what?”
They looked at each other, then looked at Sam and Dean, and shrugged.
*****
The way Grace broke the news to Bobby was probably one of the most inappropriate ways she possibly could, and, because of that, it was just another typical Grace way of giving someone some news.
She went to the Hallmark store, bought a card that said “Congratulations,” and had glittery balloons on it, wrote “Surprise, Grandpa!” in big letters on the inside, and mailed it to him.
Later that night, Chuck had a talk with her about how to talk to people.