Alternate Ending #2

"Mommy, when is Daddy coming home?" my little girl asked, tugging on my jeans.

"Soon, baby. Why?"

"You always wait until he comes home before you make food." She looked up at me with his eyes, those big hazel eyes. "And I'm hungry."

"Fortunately, you're not a rabbit like your father." I picked her up into my arms. "That's a good thing. If I can train you to be like me, I can convert him too."

It had become a tradition since we moved in together that when he came back from work, we made dinner together. It was bonding time for us, and then we always talked about our day over food. Unlike some couples, we did almost everything together. He didn't come home and become lazy. He wasn't that kind of husband.

"Hey, hey, easy on Mommy's belly," I scolded my little girl as she kicked. "You forget your baby sister is in there."

"Oops, sorry." She reached down to pat my distended belly. "I'm sorry."

I kissed the side of Leah's head, which was a head full of straight, dark brown hair. She really had no say in her looks. Her hair was kind of a given. The eyes had been mine when she was first born, but overtime they changed to his.

I carried Leah outside so we could stand out on the porch and wait for him to come home. He was due any minute.

I had been hesitant to move back into a neighborhood, what with my track record. But he somehow convinced me to give them another shot. He was very persuasive when it came to it. No wonder he went back to college and finished up his major. Now look where he was, an on-the-rise lawyer. He got the job that he'd always wanted in the end. As for me, school was out for a bit. I wasn't due back to teaching until the fall semester. I kept away from teaching in the summer, especially now with Leah, who was almost five years old. Soon, she'd be starting school.

How time flew.

"He's here, he's here!" Leah crowed as the two-door car parked alongside my four door. I shook my head. Though it was a nice car, I still believed he had an early mid-life crisis. I guess one car wasn't good enough. It really wasn't when we both worked.

Leah wriggled in my arms as her father stepped out from his vehicle. He shut the door, his phone pressed to his ear. I sighed. He seemed almost as busy as a real estate agent, always on the phone. That was a consequence of the job, but he made up for it once he got the time.

"Okay, settle down, wiggle worm," I told Leah. "Daddy's on the phone. You don't want to interrupt."

"But—"

"Patience, Leah."

While we waited for him to get off the phone, Leah played with my hair. She'd been a puller around the terrible threes, but she grew out of it pretty quickly. Nowadays she wanted to make my hair look nice and style it. I wasn't sure if this was just a phase or if it was going to be a career path.

"Can I go now? Please?" Leah pleaded the moment he had his phone away from his ear.

"All right, go get him!" I set her down.

"Daddy!" she yelled, barreling towards him.

"Hey, baby girl!" He bent down to scoop her up into his arms. Her tiny arms got around his neck and they exchanged Eskimo kisses. My hands fell to my stomach, feeling my heart grow a size. She was such a Daddy's girl that it almost wasn't funny.

He set her down, and she escorted him to the porch by his hand.

"Welcome back." I smiled as he pulled me in to kiss me. "Rough day at work?"

"No more than usual."

"Don't tell me you have to work for your brother."

"Kota, he's not in trouble."

"I'm only kidding." I hit him lightly on the chest. "I know he's turned around. You both have. Family men, who knew? You know"—my fingers found his tie, pulling him closer—"I kind of miss the stubble."

"It's not growing back, Kota. Sorry." He pressed his forehead against mine.

"Either way, I still love this look."

"Easy there." He laughed a bit nervously.

"I'm in control, Sam," I told him, releasing his tie from my grasp to put my hands back on their perch.

"How's our baby doing?" His hands went to overlap mine on my stomach.

"Quiet. Still hasn't kicked yet." I frowned slightly. "I'm still betting on a girl."

"Dean and I say different."

"You just want to even out the family."

"Being outnumbered by one is enough, Kota."

"Oh, please, you'd learn to love it." I pecked him on the mouth. "I tell you what, if I end up being right, I'll let you get a dog." We would have had a dog, but we didn't really have the time for one right now. Though, I secretly wanted one too, but I couldn't let him know that. I'd never hear the end of it, about how he was right when he said that a family pet would make our lives better. He'd given me a speech trying to sway me his way on the issue.

"Either way, we get a dog," he bargained.

I pursed my lips. "We can discuss that when the baby gets here."

"But it's got to be a big dog. No ankle-biting fluff balls."

"Fine. Any other terms, or are you going to go all lawyer on me and have me sign a contract?" I asked wisely.

"I want a doggie!" Leah crowed. "I want him big enough to ride!"

He smiled. "I don't think a contract will be necessary."

I rolled my eyes. He had converted our daughter to a pet advocate. "Come on, this one here"—I tousled Leah's hair—"hasn't stopped complaining about food."

"I'm hungry!" she repeated.

"Well, then let's go!" Leah squealed as Sam picked her up and put her on his shoulders. I giggled to myself, following my pair of children inside the house.

Sam put Leah down before disappearing to our bedroom. I got out our supplies while he changed. His professional attire needed to be kept clean at all times, no stains. He wouldn't allow it, and neither would I. Once he came back in simple sweats and a baggy shirt, we went to work. It was a little distracting, mainly because I felt more up to cuddling with Sam than making dinner right now, and he didn't help with the neck kisses. Somehow we powered through and got the three of us down for dinner.

Not long after dinner, we all retired to the couch, with Leah snuggled between us, Sam's arm over my shoulders. My head found his shoulder, and I stroked Leah's head. We were watching some movie she was in to, I wasn't really paying too much attention. We were just waiting for her to knock out so she could be put to bed.

As Leah yawned, she crawled onto Sam's lap to cuddle into his other side. She loved to do that whenever she was around him. He usually put her to bed since we didn't want to disturb the peace if I took her. When she was a baby she'd fall asleep in our arms, and we took turns putting her in her crib. But around the time Leah turned six months, Sam insisted that he put her in her crib. I hadn't understood it until I asked him the reason behind it.

The demon that had killed his mother and Jessica had come for him when he was six months old and fed him demon blood. It was a fear in the back of his head, a fear that he almost didn't think about because he never assumed he would get this reality: a loving wife, a home that wasn't the Impala, and a family. So needless to say, that entire month, he took her to bed. He checked on her every time she cried. He eventually got past that phase, but I could still see the worry in his eyes, the worry that his past would come back and tear down his future.

Within minutes, Leah was out peacefully against her father, with him smiling down at our daughter.

To see him so happy, it brought me happiness. Sam had been through Hell and back, literally. He'd told me fragments of what he and Dean went through after the whole apocalypse deal. True, he didn't tell me everything, and he told me that he couldn't tell me everything. Even now, there were some things that he wasn't up to sharing. But I knew they would come in time.

"Oh," I said silently, feeling some movement.

"Kota?"

"Sam." I looked at him with wide, gray eyes. "I—I think I just felt a kick." I had a hand on my stomach. Don't be a fluke. Don't be a fluke.

With bated breath, his hand joined mine. We looked at each other with hopeful eyes. I had been the one to feel Leah's first kick. Afterwards, it seemed it became a pastime of hers until she was born. So maybe if the hair thing didn't work out for her, she could become a professional athlete.

I gasped aloud, and I saw Sam jerk his head in surprise. Tears sprung to my eyes, and he wiped them away before they had a chance to fall. I felt like this was the first time for us all over again. Like we hadn't done this before.

"Sam...y-you felt that, right?" I stammered.

"Yeah," he said breathlessly. "Yeah, I did." He laughed weakly.

I smiled against his mouth as he kissed me lightly. This couldn't have ended any better for us both. Here we were, a professor and a lawyer, with one beautiful baby girl, with another baby on the way. The baby would have the best uncle in the world, too, as Dean had grown attached to Leah upon seeing her for the first time. Beneath all that hard shell that he had shown to me from the moment I met him, I now saw the real Dean Winchester, the man with a big heart, a man who gave so much and received so little. Now, he was receiving as much as he was giving, and he deserved that.

He and Sam both did.

**I couldn't resist writing an apple-pie-life option. If things had truly worked out and Sam and Dean got out of the life, I really think Sam would've tracked her down and kept that promise they made before he went to Hell.

I mean, Cupid told them Heaven wanted them to be together. Yes, Sam can have all those girls, but Kota will always be his soulmate. <3**