Chapter 29: Destiny

**Twenty Years Later**

Destiny is defined as the events that will happen to a person in their future. Some people believe that destiny is fixed. No matter what we do, it will inevitably lead to the same outcome. Every path leads to Rome, to use an old saying. Others believe that we control our own destiny. Our decisions matter, and that we can change our world and ourselves for the better if we try. Some believe something in the middle, that we can make some decisions, but that there are only a select number of outcomes in the end.

Regardless of which you subscribe to, Sam and Dean had managed to luck out with theirs. Normalcy was not something that came easily to the Winchesters. Strangeness was in their blood, but despite the odds and the many machinations of heaven and hell they ended up happy, healthy, and whole.

"Dean, where's the spatula? I need it for the grill and I can't find it." Sam poked his head in from the patio at their childhood home as the smell of barbecue wafted through the door.

"You know, for someone with premonitions you sure suck at remembering things." Dean smirked as he grabbed it off the dining room table.

"Hah-hah." Sam rolled his eyes as he smiled and grabbed the metal spatula.

"So, wanna talk about the weather, sports, or work?" Dean joked, "God, you know, I never even thought about living like this as a kid. It's so… normal." He almost cringed at the word.

"Well, we are pretty normal Dean. I mean, we've lived pretty normal lives for, like, two decades…"

"Sammy, need I remind you, you're a werewolf who's got telekinesis and Criss Angel mindfreak powers. Our cousin is a vampire. Cas used to be an angel. We're not normal."

"Well, we're a lot more normal than we were when our father was raising us…" Sam flipped a burger as the meat sizzled.

"Obviously. He was a nut job." Dean cracked a beer, "But I'm pretty sure normal guys don't have to fight evil every few weeks to keep their hometown safe."

"Well, sometimes it is heaven, which claims to be the forces of good." Sam tried to snatch the can.

"Get your own." Dean slapped his hand.

"Fine." Sam flicked the cooler open and a can flew across the patio into his hand.

"Show off." The older Winchester sulked as Sam smirked.

"When's Ava getting here?" Sam sipped the beer as he shut the grill and sat in a patio chair.

"Should be soon, she was stopping over to pick up Gus and Bobby. They're on the way here from the daycare." Dean lazily picked at a corner of his thumbnail. "What about Carol?"

"You know how hard it is to get a toddler into a car seat? I'd be surprised if she manages to get here in the next hour."

"So little Sammy Jr.'s got a wild streak like his uncle, I approve."

"Wild streak? You drive a Civic. Besides, his name isn't Sammy Jr. It's Will." Sam sighed.

"It gets good gas mileage and spares my baby from excessive road wear and tear. Look, call him what you want, his name is Samuel William Winchester Jr. He's Sammy Jr. to me. It's not my fault you decided to carry on the family tradition of naming your kids after their relatives."

"Says the guy who named his daughter Cassandra and his son Robert." Sam snarked.

"Hey, we're not technically related to either Bobby or Cas. Besides, Ava was the one who suggested Cassie's name." Dean defended.

"Still. In any case, how is work going? To rehash the stereotype."

"As if you didn't know, your wife's our accountant." Dean shook his head, "But in all honestly, things are good. We've gotten a lot more business recently, and because I know computers and Bobby knows the older stuff, we can handle most of the stuff that comes in." He smiled, wiping off the condensation from his beer on his 'Singer-Winchester Automotive' t-shirt. "How's life in the legal world?"

"Not bad. Not great either. Right now Cunningham's on my ass for some class-action suit I refused to touch. There's no evidence to support their claims, but if it was able to go through the firm could make money off it. Hopefully he'll see there's nothing to it and drop it, but if not I've been working on some research to show they're fighting something baseless." Sam shrugged his shoulders as he sighed. Law was usually something he enjoyed, but sometimes his boss was a real dickwad.

The doorbell rang, and Cas ran down from upstairs. He'd been getting dressed, after accidentally ruining his shirt with a particularly volatile bottle of mustard. "Ava! Robbie! Cassie!" He stooped down to pick up the two and four year old. "You know, soon you'll be too heavy for me to do this." He quickly set them down as he cracked his back.

"Hey Cas." Ava greeted him with a quick hug before gesturing back to the car. "Where should we put the sides and desserts? I've got Gus and Bobby carrying them in."

"Anywhere's fine. I'll go help them. Knowing you there's enough to feed a small army in there."

"You try getting these two black holes to stop eating." She gestured toward the kids as they ran through the house to the backyard.

Gus was standing beside the trunk of the minivan as Bobby handed him another Tupperware of food. The child's body containing a thirty-year old grunted under the weight. "Dad, seriously, you're gonna crush me under all of this…"

"Gus, you have superhuman strength. A normal ten-year old could manage this." Bobby rolled his eyes as he grabbed a single dish and shut the van's trunk. "Besides, your old man is old."

"Seriously, you've been using that line since I was in high school."

"And it still works." Bobby smirked.

"I can grab some if you want." Cas volunteered, standing on the curb.

"Thank you." Gus quickly offloaded a few containers of cookies and a tub of potato salad.

The three walked inside where they piled the containers on the kitchen counter. Outside Cassie and Robbie had managed to convince Sam and Dean to have a race with them riding piggy back, Ava was laughing as she recorded everything with her phone.

Gus sighed, "Man, I wish I had that kind of energy."

Bobby and Cas exchanged knowing looks before glancing down at the much younger man, "Gus, you're a thirty year old in a ten year old body. Try being sixty." Bobby shook his head as Gus rolled his eyes and the trio walked out to the patio.

Twenty minutes later Carol arrived with Will, the mischievous toddler immediately trying to stuff his face with cookies as his exhausted mom sat down. "Tag in. You're it." She slapped Sam's ass loudly as he blushed and Dean and Ava broke out laughing. Sam cleared his throat as he willed the blushing to stop and picked up Will from the table and set him in the sandbox next to the play-set.

Following the burgers the adults sat and chatted while Gus was stuck on babysitter duty. "Your turn this time." Dean stated, turning back to the large pile of ribs on his plate.

"What?! Come on, can't someone else do it? Those kids can sense weakness, they smell fear and they always manage to make me look stupid in some way by the end of it."

"That's what we're counting on. You don't have to live with 'em, feel our pain for a few minutes while the rest of us get to actually talk like adults." Carol commented, tossing Gus a diaper bag.

"This isn't fair, this is just because of the whole 'permanent kid' thing."

"You know that isn't true. None of us care about that, aside from the fact that we always know there's someone our age shorter than us. Though that's true for everyone for Sammy." Sam glared at Dean, "Anyway, in order it's been Cas, Bobby, Carol, Ava, me, and then Sam as babysitter for our previous family get-togethers. You're up to bat. Though it is kind of fun to watch them mess with you." Dean admitted.

"Ugh. Fine." Gus huffed of.

Ten minutes later he was tied in a jump rope as Robbie and Cassie took turns pulling him back and forth. Will sat and clapped.

"Fear me! I am a supernatural being of immense power! I could easily break free and destroy you."

"No." Robbie tugged on his end of the jump rope.

"Seriously, come on!"

"No." Cassie tugged on her end.

"Dean! Ava! Control your kids!" Gus shouted toward the other adults seated on the patio.

"Can't hear you, not on babysitting duty!" Ava yelled back.

Gus huffed as he tensed his shoulders and broke free, snapping the thin plastic cord as he severed his bonds.

Cassie glanced down at her Hello Kitty wristwatch. "Six minutes and fourteen seconds. New record!"

"What." Gus stared blankly at the young girl as she pulled out a notebook.

Inside was a list of names and times, Gus noticed that he had the shortest one.

"Wait, how can you write? You're, like, four."

"I'm quite gifted for my age." She stuck her tongue out at him as she wrote down the information.

Will started crying, which caught Sam's attention. He walked over and picked up the tyke. "You know they did that to all of us, apparently Cassie's been trying to figure out which one of us is the fastest." He looked at her notebook. "Not bad, but I think breaking the jump-rope requires a penalty, instead of untying it like the rest of us." Gus blinked in disbelief as the kids followed Sam back to the patio as Cas brought out a tub of icecream. He smiled and shook his head as he walked back.

Things were good. Not perfect, not to plan, but certainly the way they ought to be.

The End

Hello everyone, it's the writer here. I just wanted to thank all of you with sticking with me through this, especially everyone who commented! I plan on releasing a sequel to this that's set a few years in the future during the boys' early teen years. Sorry if the ending is a bit corny, I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Don't worry though, things aren't perfect, and there will be more conflict and drama ahead! (Plus teenage angst and all sorts of other fun high school issues!)