Dean isn't sure what wakes him, but either way, he's awake. When he glances at the clock and notes the time – 4:30 AM – he buries his head in his pillow with a groan. Despite his early morning misery, he can't help smiling when he hears the soft snuffling beside him. He peeks one eye out to watch Cas nuzzling into his pillow, brow cutely pinched together in some sort of mid-sleep frustration. With a huff, Cas seems to get comfortable again and fall back into a calm slumber, face smoothed out. Dean presses a soft kiss to the fluff of bedhead beside him before slowly and quietly extracting himself from the blankets. If he's going to be up this early, coffee is in order.

He takes a short detour on the way to the kitchen, cracking open the door to their guest room to spy in. Ben is sleeping peacefully, sprawled out across the twin bed that they got for him to use until the nicer one is ready. He silently shuts the door back and pads down the plushly carpeted hallway until he reaches the linoleum. He winces when the first toe touches the cold floor.

He hop-jump-runs across the kitchen until he reaches the rug in front of the sink. He immediately sets about getting the coffee started, listening to the twittering of that obnoxious bird that lives outside the window and obviously believes far too much in the saying "the early bird gets the worm."

His smile feels primed to split his face, while his heart feels three sizes too big as he takes in the kitchen table, their kitchen table – his and Cas's – that he picked out the wood for and Cas built. It sits in their kitchen which is part of their house, and it still gives Dean a thrill when he thinks on that even a little. He never thought he'd get this life, and he thanks his lucky stars every day that he did. Though if he's honest, he should probably be thanking Meg Novak (though he supposes he really should probably start calling her Meg Masters at some point, since she was so adamant about going back to her maiden name). After all, she's the one that brought him and Cas together time and time again. She's even the one who sat down with Lisa and helped to start building the bridge between her and Dean. Without that, he probably would have never seen Ben again, or at least not anytime quite as soon as he did. He won't thank Meg, though, at least not explicitly, because he knows she would just become insufferable.

"I smelled coffee," Castiel grumbles from the doorway, and Dean almost laughs at how cranky he looks. Cas Novak is by no means a morning person.

Dean is a such a wonderful boyfriend that he gives the first cup of coffee to Cas, who shuffles miserably over to him.

As Cas sips his coffee with such complete disregard for the temperature that it makes Dean cringe, he shoots Dean a dirty look over the edge of the mug.

"You're thinking too hard for so early in the morning," he accuses.

Dean chuckles and wraps his arm around Cas, pulling him in close and pressing a kiss to the mess of bedhead. "Just thinking about how lucky I am."

Cas groans. "Too chipper for so early in the morning, too." It doesn't stop him from snuggling into Dean's side, though.

Dean loses track of how long they stand like that in the kitchen, but it's enough time that the sky is starting to lighten and Cas has absorbed enough caffeine to become pleasant.

"Want to wake Ben up to watch the sunrise?" Cas asks, face pressed against Dean's neck and wrapping both arms around him.

Dean pulls Cas closer, turning his face into Cas's hair while keeping an eye on the early morning light outside. "Nah, let him sleep. He's gonna want to stay up late tonight anyway, what with Sammy, Jess, and Emma coming in."

"Lisa's still coming tonight, right?" Cas asks, voice still just the right side of sleep-roughened.

"Yeah, so long as that's okay. She hasn't gotten to meet the baby yet."

He can feel Cas's smile against his skin. "Of course it's alright, Dean. She's family."

"Yeah," Dean responds, nuzzling into dark hair, "I guess she is."

A year and a half ago, Dean Winchester's life was in shambles. He was living in some shitty rat hole above a bowling alley after his wife kicked him out for cheating with a guy who was pretty much emotionally unavailable. Somehow, it turned back around, even better than it was before. Dean got the guy, he got shared custody of his step-son, he gets along with his ex-wife better than he ever could have expected, and he's weirdly good friend's with the ex-wife of his boyfriend. He has a cozy home that they're slowly filling up with pieces of himself. And tonight? Tonight he'll finally have the most family he's ever had under one roof, and the best part? Every last bit of it will be there.

So you guys can thank the beta for this epilogue. She complained about the story not feeling complete, so I redid some stuff in the last chapter and then pumped this out.

I want to thank everyone who has supported this fic, whether you reviewed, favorited, followed, and even just read silently. This somehow became my baby, and it wouldn't have happened without all of you. This started as a random one shot from a prompt, and while I had that niggling feeling that it could be more, I never would have done it without the insistence from you guys that I should. So thank you for giving me this fic, and I hope the ending was at least a little worth the wait.