Alright here it is: the final chapter. It's been a long, rough road for the boys so if you've made it this far, good for you (and thanks)!

Dean POV

It's like the rumbling of a train, but so much louder. It's like you've laid your head against the tracks and the train is just seconds away, moving faster than the racing of your heart as you wait for impact.

For some reason that's the image that pops into my head. The garage is erupting in a brilliant cloud of demon guts that none of us can really see from our positions at the front of the bunker, and all I can picture is a damn freight train coming towards me.

We stand silently as the sun sets behind us, illuminating our bloody faces and causing our shadows to shift and waver against the gravel. My Baby sits behind us as well, her black paint glistening, unscathed and waiting patiently, just like always. But it doesn't feel just like always.

We listen to the sounds of a dying war as the explosion annihilates our biggest, oldest enemy, the one my brother and I have been set on defeating since the day our mother died. This moment is indescribable, unimaginable. I can't speak, and apparently, neither can anyone else. The four of us wait for the last remnants of the explosion to die down, straining to hear as the remainder of the walls of the garage crumble into nothing, the earth still rumbling beneath our feet.

"Wow." Kevin breaks the silence first, still leaning heavily against Cas.

"Tell me about it," I breathe, my soft chuckle wafting out into the chilly night air. Sam's laugh follows mine, louder and booming and unbelieving. He shakes his head at me, a broad grin stretching across his face.

"We did it Dean. We seriously did it," he laughs, tears threatening at the corners of his eyes as he runs a hand through his hair, ignoring the blood caked there. He lets out a long breath and leans into me, knocking his left shoulder against my side. I grin back at him, still not fully comprehending what any of this means.

"You think there were any demons who weren't part of this fight? I mean do you think...do you think there are more out there?" I ask, hating to spoil this moment, but I need to be sure.

"Most likely yes," Cas answers before Sam can, shifting to take more of Kevin's weight as the young man's eyes flutter and he struggles to stay awake. "But we have done a lot of good here today. If there are demons left, they will be few in numbers, and they have no one left to lead them. In every sense of the word Dean, we have won."

I nod, biting my lip and thinking of Adriella's haunted dead eyes. "Not in every sense Cas," I reply. "But pretty damn close."

I lean back into my little brother, my mouth automatically twitching into a small smile when he sags more heavily against me, squeezing my shoulder just once before straightening up again, his boots scuffing against the gravel.

"So..we should probably go make sure it's really done. I mean there could be stragglers..." Sam hints, tilting his head back towards the bunker.

"Uh, guys?" Cas asks, worry seeping into his voice. I tense automatically, tightening my grip on the angel blade still held in my hand.

"What?" I whisper, trying to find the source of his anxiety.

"Kevin is down for the count," he says, shrugging his shoulders and drawing my attention to Kevin's gangly form, now slumped completely against Cas's right side. I huff out a sigh of relief, straightening back up and letting out another small laugh.

"Alright, get him to the car and settle him into the backseat for now. Me and Sam will scope out the garage. Then we'll clean this whole mess up."

Hours later and the mess is far from cleaned. The bunker is a disaster, several rooms completely ripped to shreds. Luckily my bedroom is mostly intact, aside from the splintered door and a few dents in the walls. Come to think of it, "lucky" is the word to describe everything that's happened. I sincerely can't believe we're all still alive after a fight like that.

And I can't believe Crowley and Abaddon are really gone.

Crawling over splintered pieces of concrete and tattered remnants of things now unrecognizable, we scoured the garage for a long time, searching for any sign of life, any demon that might not have been completely destroyed in the blast. And we found nothing.

I tried not to look to long at the pieces of things that were clearly not metal or concrete. I tried not to think about the fact that despite taking out an enormous amount of evil, we had also taken out the innocent hosts that that evil had possessed.

I wonder how many had still been alive, screaming inside their own bodies as their limbs moved without their consent. I wonder how many of them could've been saved if we had found another way, if we had...

"Dean? You okay?" Sam asks suddenly, pulling me away from the darkest corner of my mind and back to the present. We've made our way back from the garage by now. Me, Sam and Cas are all keeping watch over Kevin's prone form, lying in one of the few beds still intact. He has yet to wake, but his injuries proved manageable and he should be back on his feet within a few weeks.

"Yeah," I reply, clearing my throat when the word doesn't quite come out as sure as I'd wanted it to. Sam stares at me for an extra second and seems like he's about to push it, but thankfully Kevin chooses that exact moment to grace us with his presence, flying back into consciousness with the suddenness of a cartoon character. He gasps awake and lunges immediately up into a sitting position, his eyes wild.

"Hey!" Sam exclaims, patting the prophet's shoulder and trying to keep him calm. "it's okay Kevin, you're safe. We're all safe."

"Guhh," is Kevin's garbled reply. He rubs a hand across his face and shakes his head, then lets both hands fall into his lap. We all wait, giving him a moment to completely come back to us.

"Kevin?" I ask finally, watching his face carefully. "You okay buddy?"

He brings his eyes up to meet mine. And smiles. "Seriously Dean? We just annihilated the majority of demons on this earth and you're asking me if I'm okay? I'm...I'm...so good right now I can't even tell you. I mean we just...do you realize what we just...did? I just...man...I just can't believe it."

I shake my head and smile back at him. I still can't find the right words either, so I don't say anything. I just let that feeling fill me again, the one I thought I'd long since forgotten how to feel.

Joy.

I stare at the faces around me, noticing the way Kevin's shoulders slump and relax, as if shedding the heaviest of burdens. I watch the way Cas's bottom lip quivers ever so slightly as he nods in my direction. And finally, I drink in the crinkle of my little brother's nose as he grins back at me, his eyes holding a light I haven't seen there in a long, long time.

And I know it's still not over.

I know it never ends and there's still so much to sift through. Like what we're supposed to do about the angels still roaming this earth and how Cas is supposed to live as a human and what the hell all of Sam's new "angelic" abilities mean. The list goes on. But for right now, I'm not worrying about any of it. I'm content to stay here in this moment for just a little bit longer, to remember what it feels like to be happy and safe.

To be surrounded by family.

The End.

Hey guys, thank you so much for sticking with me until the end. As Dean said though, it's never REALLY over, so obviously there are some loose ends here. At the moment I'm not planning to expand any more, but you never know, my muse might slap me across the face one day with a "part 2" or something. For now I'll stick mostly to the one-shots I think. I really appreciate all your reviews and feedback- it really did help motivate me. Hope everyone had a happy new year, and thanks again! =)