Final chapter, kittens. F.A.Q. to follow, for those interested.

March 23, 2002

"Dammit, Gabriel!" Dean squawked in annoyance. He took the squalling baby from the angel despite the complaint and went to find a fresh diaper. "You don't just get to do the fun parts!"

"What? You're his daddy – it's your job to do all the gross stuff."

Sam piped up from the kitchen where Cas was teaching him how to heat formula to the right temperature. "Language, Dean! Gotta build the good habits before he starts being able to understand you."

"You're all fired. Every one of you," Dean growled, even though he'd already promised Sammy he'd clean up his language. Didn't mean Sam had to badger him about it incessantly.

"Even me?" Cas poked his head around the corner from the kitchen, looking perturbed.

Dean sighed and rolled his eyes. "No, not you, but only because you change diapers."

Smiling smugly, Cas ducked back into the kitchen to his supervisory duties.

As much as Dean might complain, it'd been awesome having Sam and Gabriel around to help out. After some initial shock, they'd taken the news of a surprise nephew quite well and had been excited to come meet him. They would only be here for the duration of spring break, but Dean was extremely grateful for the extra sleep he'd gotten. He had no fucki- no flipping idea how single parents survived.

He snapped up Ben's onesie – a yellow one with Marmaduke on the front given to him by Garth – and handed the baby off to Gabriel. "Next time, you have to do it," he warned.

Gabriel made an over-exaggerated face of consideration before declaring, "Mmmmmmm, no, thank you." Then as Dean made to take Ben back from him, he yelped, "Okay, okay! I'll do the diaper next time, sheesh!"

Sam brought him the bottle, and Gabriel happily fed the baby, making ridiculous babbling noises at him and giving him the googly eye. Dean shook his head. The angel was positively baby crazy.

Flopping down on the couch next to Dean, Sam asked, "So Garth said he'd cover you for a while?"

Dean nodded and grinned thinking of the gawky weirdo's excitement when he'd told him about Ben. "Yeah, he said he'll cover me all next week. I'm thinking I might hire someone else part time, too, so he doesn't get burned out. I'd be screwed if he quit on me. Scrap yard's good, but the restorations are going to get way behind in a big hurry. Gonna have to make some calls and hope nobody's in too big a rush."

Sam smiled softly. "I'm really proud of you, Dean."

Dean looked at his brother in surprise. "What for?"

"For being awesome. And being a kickass dad. You didn't even consider not taking Ben in, did you?"

"Of course not." Dean frowned. "He's my kid."

Sam tipped his head in a sideways nod. "My point."

Dean scoffed, but fell quiet after that, thinking. Yeah, this had all come as one hel- heck of a surprise, and he still had a lot to wrap his head around, but in just the few days since he'd met Ben, that baby had become his whole world. He wouldn't change it for anything.

Deflecting the subject back to Sam, Dean asked, "So, when do we get to meet this Jess girl? Sounds like you two are getting kinda serious."

As always when Jess came up, Sam couldn't stop the goofy smile spreading across his face. "I don't know. We were talking about maybe visiting each others' families this summer."

"Awesome!" Lowering his voice, Dean added, "Does that mean Ben's gonna get a cousin sometime in the next couple years?"

Sam blushed a hilarious shade of fuschia, making Dean laugh harder than he had in ages. "Dude! We've been dating less than six months! Not exactly on the day planner."

Dean's laughter dwindled to an amused chuckle. "Yeah, yeah. So you say."

"Besides," Sam blustered, "us being pre-law and pre-med? We wouldn't have time or money for that."

"Oh, so you have thought about it, then," Dean teased.

"Shut up, jerk!"

"Sure, sure. Edu-ma-cation is important. I get it," Dean barely managed to keep a straight face. "I won't mention the idea to Gabriel, then."

Sam's eyes got huge. After a horrified glance at the baby-obsessed angel, who was still totally absorbed in crooning baby talk at Ben, he nailed Dean with his best murder-glare and hissed, "Dude. If you even think about it, I will shank you."

Dean burst out in a full belly laugh. When Gabriel looked over and asked what was so funny, Sam got flustered and ran away to the kitchen, which only made Dean laugh harder still.

Wiping tears from his eyes, he eventually got up and went to go start yet another load of laundry. How such a tiny creature could generate so much laundry, he couldn't understand. It had to defy all laws of physics. As he was pulling the clean stuff from the dryer, Cas appeared beside him and started plucking things from the pile to sort.

"It's good to hear you laugh like that," he said softly.

Dean smiled back at him. "Feels good to do it, too."

For a few minutes, they sorted clothes in a little tableau of quiet domesticity, and Dean slowly realized how completely right it felt – how much he liked this feeling of home and family. How much he wanted it. Needed it. Even as exhausted as he was, as worried about everything he might do wrong to screw up this baby's life, he realized he was happy.

He dropped his handful of tiny socks and turned to catch a startled Cas in a massive hug.

"Dean?" Cas asked as he brought his arms up to return it. "Are you all right?"

Without easing up on the pressure even a little bit, Dean mumbled into his shoulder, "It's nothing, Cas. Just...thanks. I couldn't do any of this without you."

The great, black wings swept forward to wrap around them both, warm and comforting.

"I'm grateful to have you in my life as well." Cas pulled back just far enough to meet Dean's eyes. It should have been awkward and weird, but like most things with Cas, it wasn't. "With you, I finally feel like I belong. I have a home."

"Damn ri-" Dean stopped and made a face. "Darn right, you do."

Gabriel's voice rang out from the living room. "Deeeeeeeeeeeeean! Your son puked on me!"

Rolling his eyes so hard he was kind of surprised they didn't fall right out of his head, Dean gave a long-suffering sigh. "Be there in a sec!" he hollered. Pulling away from Cas right then was even harder than getting out of bed for 3 a.m. feedings.

He paused in the doorway on his way out. "I'll be right back."

"Gabriel needs rescuing. I understand," Cas told him, totally straight-faced. Sometimes it was tricky as heck to read Cas's dry sense of humor.

"Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean!"

"Oh, for pete's sake, I'm coming!"

As he stomped down the hall to the living room, Dean could hear Cas chuckling softly from the utility room. It was awfully good to hear him laugh, too.

Final A/N: Thank you for taking this journey with me! I appreciate every single one of you more than I can say, especially those of you who left reviews – your feedback and encouragement means the world. A lot of love went into this story, and I couldn't have done it without tons of support and mad beta skillz from Mr. Cinch, Mama Cinch, vickih, Kiraboo, and Steve-O the Arsonist. Thanks so much, guys!