A/N: It's here, the companion to As Brothers We Will Stand! If you haven't read ABWWS, don't worry, this fic isn't hard to follow; I suppose it could almost work as a standalone. But that wouldn't be as fun, would it? Anyway, some pre-reading necessities to get out of the way:
1. This takes place about five years after the end of As Brothers We Will Stand.
2. It does feature Dean's own family but I get rid of them pretty quick, so just hang in there for the first couple chapters while I set everything up. All three of the boys are coming, I promise.
3. This is a story of Dean and Cas and yes, Sam. I just couldn't write one brother without the other. Kevin also lives in this 'verse. Also Season Nine never happened in this 'verse. For more background on that, I suggest you either read As Brothers We Will Stand or PM me and I can clear things up for you.
4. This is not and will never be a Destiel fic.

Thanks to jojospn for letting me send her numerous emails about this story; y'all will see why I needed someone to bounce some ideas off of as things are about to get a little…mind-blowing…for Dean. Remember I said that.

I hope y'all enjoy and please let me know what you think!

"Daddy!"

The blood-curdling scream woke Dean with the same urgency as a fire alarm. He sat up, rubbing a hand across his face, digging himself out of a shallow sleep. Liz stirred next to him.

"I'll get her," his wife mumbled, rolling over.

"No," Dean said, legs already swinging over the edge of the bed. "I got it. Go back to sleep." She had to be up early for work in the morning and besides, it wasn't her name bouncing off the walls of the house.

"Daddy!"

The eight-year-old was pressed up against the headboard, covers pulled up to her chin, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Hey," Dean said, flipping on the overhead light even though there was a lamp already shining on the bedside table.

"Daddy, you came," the little girl whimpered, reaching out and wrapping her arms around Dean's neck as he sat on the edge of the mattress.

"Of course I did," he said, pulling her into his lap. He had held Sam at this age, had comforted that child as this one, but Kayleigh was all skin and bones, small for her age in a way Sam never was. "I always come, don't I?" She nodded into his collarbone.

"What was it this time?" Dean asked and though another whimper escaped her lips, she pulled away, blinking up at him through wet eyelashes. He used the pad of his thumb to brush away the tears.

"A werewolf." Dean sighed, stroking her hair. It was long and always full of knots but no matter how many times he suggested they get it cut, Kayleigh refused. "Is that bad?" she said a moment later when Dean hadn't say anything.

"No," he said. "Not at all. I'm relieved."

"You are?"

"Yes. Because werewolves are very easy to keep away." Kayleigh looked relieved and loosened her grip a little. She always believed her daddy because he knew everything there was to know, especially about monsters.

"They are?"

"You bet. Here, let go for a minute. Get under the covers, there you go." Dean stood and scanned the room, looking for an object. When he found it lying across the toy shelf, he brought it over, twirling it in his fingers.

"A wand?" Kayleigh asked, confused. It was part of a dress-up costume she had gotten for last year's Halloween and had never seemed particularly useful except for sometimes hitting her older sister with when she was being mean.

"Not just any wand," Dean said. "This one is made out of silver."

"So?"

"Soooo," Dean said dramatically. "Silver is poison to werewolves. That werewolf is going to be so scared of this wand that he won't even come near the house again." He handed it to her and she held it as if it were a diamond ring.

"What about at school?" Dean pretended to think for a moment.

"Well, you can't bring it out in class but I bet if you keep it in your backpack for a couple days, the werewolf will leave you alone."

"That's a good plan," Kayleigh said, snuggling deeper into the blankets. "You're really smart, Daddy."

"Thanks," Dean said. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?" The little girl nodded sleepily, eyes already drifting shut, five fingers clenched around the plastic toy at her side.

"Daddy?" she said as he shut off the light.

"Yeah, honey?"

"How do you know so much about monsters?" Dean's insides froze for a second at the innocent question. Memories flashed in his mind. Blood, broken bones, blackened eyes leering up at him.

"I just do," he said after a pause.

"Did your Daddy teach you like you teach me?" Dean swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. Recently, his youngest daughter had been curious about where her Daddy had come from and it was getting harder to dodge her questions.

"Something like that. Go to sleep."

He left her door open because along with monsters, Kayleigh was afraid of the dark. During the night, the little girl was pretty much frightened of everything. She constantly made up monsters that were coming after her. Real ones like werewolves and vampires and ghosts but sometimes they were just odd figments of her imagination, like the rabid unicorn that had attacked last week. Liz swore she was just going through a phase but it worried Dean. Worried him because he was pretty sure the girl just had an overactive imagination but as with his life, he couldn't count on it one hundred percent. Maybe one night she would wake up and there would be a real live demon standing at the foot of her bed.

And that's why Dean got up every time she called for him

He couldn't get back to sleep and instead of waking Liz up with his restfulness, he headed for the kitchen. Out of habit, he checked the jug of holy water he kept tucked in the back of the liquor cabinet above the fridge. It was still there and still full. There was a bag of salt on the floor of the pantry, along with three more in the garage. Dean's guns were locked in a gun cabinet that was protected by bulletproof glass and a passcode.

Satisfied that the house was well-guarded and quiet, he poured himself a glass of whiskey even though it was two in the morning. He'd cut way down on his drinking since getting together with Liz but it was still alcohol that comforted him when his thoughts drifted toward that dangerous zone. Like the little girl asleep down the hall, his fears often come out with the night, though his weren't the kind that could be slayed with a silver wand.

"Dean?" His wife was standing in the doorway, wearing a tank top and shorts and leaning against the doorframe.

"Yeah," he said, giving her a half smile as she padded into the kitchen.

"What are you still doing up?"

"I was with Kayleigh for a little bit then couldn't get back to sleep. I'm fine."

"It's late," she mumbled, reaching for his hand. His fingers instinctively curled around hers.

"You should go back to bed," he said. "I'll be back in a while."

"Thinking about Sam again?" she murmured, squeezing his hand, eyeing the whiskey glass in front of them. She loved her husband but his nighttime habits were almost as disturbing as their daughter's. This happened at least once a week and that was only the times she woke to an empty bed. Who knew how many times it happened without her knowing.

Dean didn't have say anything; they both knew the answer.

"Do you want to talk?" she asked. They'd been together three years and married for one of those and Liz was still trying to piece together Dean's past. She knew limited details about the hunting and it didn't really bother her that he didn't like to talk about it; She understood that. And sometimes he talked. She knew that he had a little brother who had died a few years before they met, because even though Dean didn't like to bring up Sam, Liz had grown close with his wife, Kat. That's who Dean had been living with when she met him. Kat and Sam had a son, Parker, a little boy about Kayleigh's age.

Liz also knew that Dean had no living blood family, that his mother had died when he was very young and his father when Dean was in his twenties. Dean worshipped his mother but spoke sparingly about his father who had raised Dean and his brother on the road, making Dean and Sam kill monsters with him.

"What was Sam's favorite food when you guys were kids?"

Sometimes questions like these helped. It was a rare occasion that Dean started speaking first but he almost always answered when she asked.

"Lucky Charms," Dean said automatically, rolling the whiskey around in the glass before taking a sip, pursing his lips against the bitter taste. "Sammy really liked Lucky Charms."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Dean smiled at some memory playing in his head. "He would even eat them for dinner."

"And what about you?" Liz asked, sneaking closer to him so that their hips and shoulders were pressed together. "What was your favorite food?" Dean flashed her the grin that made her insides melt every time.

"Hamburgers." She laughed out loud. Of course.

"Nothing's changed, huh?" she said, thinking of the barbeque last weekend where Dean had manned the grill for a good two hours.

"Nope," he answered but he couldn't but think how wrong she was. He was sitting in a house owned by him, with a woman married to him, and he hadn't killed anything in a good three or four years.

Everything had changed.

"Well, I'm going back to bed," she said. "I have to be up in less than four hours."

"Sorry I woke you," Dean said.

"I don't mind," she said and she didn't. It was strange and maybe disturbing but she had come to sort of appreciate the middle of the night rendezvous. It made her feel closer to Dean, like he wasn't trying to shut her out.

"You coming?" she asked and he shook his head.

"Not yet."

"Do you want me to stay?" Dean shook his head and she leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, smelling the whiskey on his lips.

"See you in the morning," he said and she left the kitchen, yawning as she went back to bed.

Dean finished his whiskey and washed the glass, his movements measured and well practiced. He did another walk through of the house but found nothing. When he stopped outside Kayleigh's room, he was pleased to see the little girl was fast asleep, hand still covering the wand. He had almost laughed earlier handing it to her, knowing that John would have – and probably did at some point – given eight-year-old Dean a loaded revolver if he ever claimed to be scared of the dark. Kayleigh didn't even fully understand the concept of a gun and that's the way it was going to stay.

Next he stopped at Rebecca's room and cracked the door. She was thirteen and the opposite of her quiet, reserved sister even though the two of them could have been twins if not for the height difference. Instead of a toy shelf (she had informed Dean last year she was too old for toys) he had built her a set of shelves that now displayed all her trophies. Even at a young age, she was a talented athlete, something Dean was ever proud of.

Neither one of the girls were biologically his, of course. They were Liz's daughters, born in a marriage that Liz said never should have happened in the first place.

"I made a mistake," she had told him on one of their first dates. "And then I thought I fell in love with that mistake and forget to see why it wasn't right in the first place." Dean didn't know anything about her ex-husband except that his name was Matt and Liz had stolen the girls away in the middle of the night, knowing he would never come looking for them. That's when she had passed through Kat's town, where Dean had been staying.

Dean had spent the time in between Sam's death and meeting Liz without much purpose. After a couple months, he had gotten his act together and applied for a job at a local garage, which filled his days but the nights were still difficult. He would sit at the kitchen table or on the living room couch or even on the back steps, Sam's dog, Bullet, at his side. Just sit, not sleep or read or watch TV. If he slept too long – more than an hour or two at a time – the dreams and memories dragged him under and it would take a while to shake off the feeling that his life was over. It wasn't over, he knew. It just felt like it, and sometimes that was even worse.

But now he had his girls, two human beings that relied on him to be there every day, to show up for dinner and family movie night and birthday parties. Looking after the girls wasn't exactly like looking after Sammy but it gave him a purpose again, a reason to do the best he could instead of just sitting in a corner trying not to be noticed.

Dean Winchester had turned into a family man.