The moonlight caresses his skin with a warm reminder. Dean closes the blinds on the ground floor, closes the front door two turns, checks that the demon trap under the mat has retained every line. And when a baby's cry echoes in the darkness of the first floor, he starts up the stairs with resigned habit.

Selfish, irrational. A child raised in a family of two hunters is unlikely to get even a slice of apple pie. But she's here, and Dean balances the two facets of professional desperation-hunting, kid, domesticity; heck, the lawn in the backyard of your house is always green and level. He knows and soulfully anticipates the terrible, pivotal moment when the girl in the cradle will be in danger of the cruelty and consequences of his own life. But for now he only lifts her in his arms, cradling her.

The silence is interrupted by your hurried footsteps. A worried face appears in the nursery in seconds, a silver knife clutched tightly in trembling fingers; Dean has seen how pregnancy has grown your paranoia—it only makes him hurt more. This union isn't the soft glow of family connectedness; it's a stronghold for two drowning people finding themselves at an unexpected turn of events. But he, to his own surprise, holds on to it tightly—despite a life terrible in its unpredictability, he wouldn't give up anything of what you have.

"Hey, baby," he cooed, gently releasing the blade from your hands. When he sets it aside on a small dresser, he pulls you to him, resting his chin on your soft, ruffled hair. "Nothing's wrong. Just a little fussy with crankiness."

The girl in his arms calms down, sleepy eyes catching your face in the darkness. She doesn't yet know how blessed and cursed she is at the same time: hunter parents are broken people, desperately defending their own with tooth and claw.

"Shh," Dean smiles, despite the bleakness of the mental trauma and the painfulness of your sighs. "We're all fine."