Thanks for all the wonderful comments on the last chapter! I am bad with ending things, so it means a lot.
I'm not really sure what this is. The closest thing I can describe it as is a fanfiction of my fanfiction. Which is just confusing. But this is how things would have gone in an entirely perfect world. Not fanfic-canon even, just dreaming.
Different tense, totally different writing style. Unadulterated 'awww''s. :)
Amelia gets pregnant first, and in the beginning she freaks out because both her and Sam have demon blood, so what if it's going to get passed to their kid, and they can't even find anything in the archives about it. But Sam calms her down and says it's going to be ok, their kid is going to be beautiful. And she is. Blonde hair, green eyes, so of course they have to name her Mary Deanne. Dean is mostly proud, but still a little rankled, so when two years later Jo has a little girl with black hair and eyes that never seem to make up their mind what color they are, they name her Haley Samantha. And Mary always goes by Dani, and Haley always goes by Sami, which is a little confusing but Dean never gives up calling his brother Sammy when it suits him. Dani is a looker, of course, cocky even as a four year old. Sami is quieter, always getting dragged into things by her older cousin, but they're inseparable. Dean jokes every now and then that they should trade kids, since Dani always ends up in the garage or armory, and Sami gets lost in the archives. Bobby and Ellen come down a couple times a month to spoil the kids and run around after them. Amelia names their son Paul, and he looks like Sam; tall, dark hair. About that time Sam finally finishes his online classes and gets his degree. Dean and Jo's second is named William James, but his nickname is Murph and he never quite figures out why. Dean finally swears off hunting entirely, and goes to work as a mechanic. He loves it. One time when Dean, Jo, and their kids leave for a weekend, eleven year old Dani shows up at their motel room the second night, three states over, because she missed Sami so damn much. Dean says hell with it, and lets the kid come along with them. He makes her wash and wax the Impala with him when they get back, but it's not really a punishment because little Dani loves the car almost as much as he does.
At thirteen, Dani finds out she's telekinetic, and Amelia has her first panic attack in years. The girl is smart for all her smart-assery, though, and in a year she has it mastered. There's more children. Pamela. Robert (Bobby was so proud he growled at everyone for days). John. The kids can drive nails with their rifles, swim, run, drive a manual at ten (complements of Dean), and read Latin fluently. They never go anywhere without their charm bracelets, holy water, and salt. They're the weird kids who live outside of town and always go places in clumps. But they never switch schools. They go to birthday parties, and even have birthday parties themselves at the local pool, or the park. Anywhere but the bunker. Some of the ones with obscenely long legs run track (doing Amelia proud), some play soccer, or basketball. Pretty much the whole family is at every game or meet, a cheering section unto themselves. Some of them hole up in the library every free period and make it a contest to see who can skip the most grades. There's a Winchester or two in every other grade, a table full of them at lunch. Dani flirts with cute guys and breaks their hearts. Sami buries her nose in a book and ignores the baby carrots thrown her direction when Dani wants attention. Paul and Murph, two months apart, research particle physics for shits and giggles when they're not reading each other's mind on the soccer field and demolishing the opposing team. When he's seven, little John gets detention for kissing a cute second grader. Dean gets a tear in his eye.
When Dani graduates, Sam wants her to go to college, but she just shrugs. He doesn't press her, he would never press her in that matter, and she happily goes to work with her uncle in the autobody shop. She thinks leather jackets and flannel are the only word in clothing. Only Sami knows that on her eighteenth birthday she had an anti-possession tattoo inked on her shoulder.
When Sami graduates, she gets a full ride scholarship to the university of her choice.
In Sami's summer breaks, Dani lifts the keys to the Impala (Dean secretly isn't mad, he's glad his baby is out on the road again, but he has to keep up appearances so he yells at her) and they hunt, blasting Metallica at full volume, chasing down monsters.
They kidnap the other kids, sometimes. Paul and Murph work together like a well-oiled machine, whether in research or blasting away a witch. Dani tunes them all out when they start debating the physiological ramifications of werewolves. Weird geeks, she's a hunter.
The information from the archives makes it a little easier for the parents to let their children go. They're better protected, better prepared. But there are still sleepless nights when Amelia can't help but worry and pace, and Jo's already in the kitchen making tea for a midnight chat.
Some of their kids grow up to be hunters, and some are Men of Letters. There's really not a sharp definition any more, the hunters all spend their time in the archives, and the Men of Letters get a little more sunshine and excitement then the past few generations. The Firebird is out on the roads now, too, filled with guns and salt and eager young hunters. Paul is a surgeon who takes vacation to go salt and burn bones with his siblings and cousins. Bobby is a cop who always carries silver bullets and turns a blind eye to certain people with fake FBI badges. Sami is a lawyer, part-time (Dani is persuasive and she has the rest of her life to sit in an office listening to divorcees squabble).
They're a family, which means they sometimes throw furniture at each other, and Amelia can't even count all the times she's walked into a room and found one Winchester trying to strangle another, both of them yelling at the top of their lungs. But when Pamela had a hard break up, all six young Winchesters (and a couple older ones) fought with each other for a chance to beat the guy up. Each Christmas there's a hundred strings of lights strung up around the bunker, and the whole place smells like pine trees and pecan pie and snow that some of the kids snuck in to toss at siblings and family members.
The Men of Letters would probably roll over in their graves at the sight of their hallowed fortress overrun with laughing, squabbling Winchesters, the children touching walls with grubby little hands, the older ones drinking and playing pool at the table Dean finally installed.
No one gives a shit.
Thanks for coming along on this sometimes crazy ride, guys! I appreciate everyone who's read this story, nothing I've written has ever gotten this much exposure and it has honestly blown me away. :) I'm going to take a break from writing for a while, but I'm sure I'll be back at some point. Thank you again, see you around!