The old Impala-class ship doesn't look like much, but she's a home. There's lots of things that make her so. Scrawled across the hull, in English and Chinese in messy grey spray paint, is her name. Baby. 宝宝.
The black metal and silver detailing are faded and worn by now, but she's still shiny as the day she was made thanks to the captain's loving care. She's a one series, rolled off the line way back in 2467 and she's circled the 'verse twice since. She's got too many lightyears on her and her engine makes a thunking noise every now and then despite Charlie's best efforts, but she's home.
There's two sets of initials carved into her dashboard: DW and SW.
Once, she was just a home to two boys and their dad, an Independence vet who'd found a different war to fight, one fought in the shadows by rebels and pirates and smugglers. Then one of the boys left, ran off to a fancy Alliance school on Osiris and his daddy told him to stay gone and his brother managed to get him back but not quite fast enough.
Their dad is gone. Just dropped dead one day. Happens to the best of us, but it's okay because they found a better one in an old spaceship junker by the name of Bobby Singer on Dakota, out on the rim. And then Baby was just home to two boys, alone in the 'verse, for a mighty long time, until a former Alliance operative on the run came on as a passenger and never really left.
His name was Castiel then. Now it's Cas, and he's the pilot. He's pretty good at flying, and Baby is his wings.
On Nebraska, there's a rundown old saloon called Harvelle's, and they've become family too.
Next, a brown-haired mercenary all big guns and sharp edges and a smile like a knife took the better offer and emptied her gun into her partner's skull and climbed aboard. Her name is Meg, and she stayed for a money for a long time until all of a sudden she was staying because it was home.
Dean's pretty sure she's got something with Cas, too.
There's a smarmy little gangster named Crowley who runs everything from a base on Persephone, the planet named for the queen of the Underworld. Dean finds it fitting. Crowley's their enemy twice as often as he's their friend, but sometimes he tosses them jobs when it suits him.
Then there was the most undignified Companion Dean had ever had the displeasure to meet, who rented out a shuttle and quickly become the obnoxious big brother to everyone on board and flirted with everyone. Gabriel had been threatened more then anyone with immediate departure via the airlock, but he paid well and gave them credibility so they were kinda stuck with him until they found out he was running just like the rest of them and Dean found that he didn't really mind anymore.
And then there was a weird little guy named Garth on a weird little ship called Fizzles' Folly for some fucking reason, and he became family too, somehow.
Next there was the smiling red-headed mechanic who was always spattered in engine grease and hugged you and then you were dirty too and you didn't even mind. She was a hostage, held by human monsters and forced to hunt down the Winchesters who hunted them first and when all was said and done she came aboard and shénshèng de gǒu shǐ that is a cool ship.
And then Charlie had nowhere to go back to so she just sort of stayed and besides, the fuel rotor had been making funny noises lately and she got it up and running in ten minutes flat and okay, she can stay.
And then there was a little Asian genius kid who'd had secrets coded into his brain and the Alliance wanted them back and he stayed for protection until he wasn't wanted anymore, wasn't needed anymore, not as much and not as bad, but they took his mom and killed his girl and now Kevin's staying because it's home.
Then Dean was lost, spent months on a primitive jungle planet and fought every waking moment side by side with an old convict, a former addict, damned for life for what he'd done. And when Dean finally found the way off the godforsaken rock, Benny came with him.
Baby may not look like much, but she gave a home and a family to two boys who never thought they'd have either, and they've lost so much but they've still got what matters.
They're still flying.