The pain was still there. Constant, lingering in every muscle, muffled by medication – and yet, unmistakably, it was pain.

But it faded into insignificance the moment she opened her eyes.

She lay in their bedroom bed – cocooned tightly in their familiar sheets, so snug she could feel the sweat trailing down her back. She shifted her head on the pillow, inhaling the warm scent of their laundry detergent – a comforting contrast to the sterile roughness of hospital linens.

And she couldn’t stop the tender smile that curled on her lips, because Dean – that Dean Winchester – always angry, guarded, and broken, was lying right beside her, cradling their tiny daughter in his arms, whispering soft, soothing words into her ear.

When they first met, she had never imagined it would lead here. To a small house in the suburbs, with a patch of green out back, a mundane job, and a perfect little baby they had loved from the moment they knew she existed.

Dean was utterly smitten – head over heels in love. He was walking through a dream he never wanted to wake from. Because beside him lay her – the most extraordinary woman he had ever known. The love of his life. The mother of his child.

How could he not love her, when she was every good thing this world had to offer, embodied in one person? How could he not love her, when she had given him a second chance at life – when she had given him this tiny miracle he now held as close as he could, ever since she had been placed in his arms?

He had never dared to hope he'd be a father. But now, as he held the whole of his world in his hands… he knew he was made for this. And she had known it from the very beginning.

Her labor had been long, grueling. He had stayed by her side through every second of it. He wept when she wept, held her hand through the pain, absorbed every curse she threw his way – and he would never hold it against her. Because it had been the most powerful, most beautiful experience of his life.

Since they’d come home, he hadn’t let her lift a finger. He told her to rest, to stay in bed, to simply breathe. He made warm compresses for her, cooked every meal from recipes he’d found on some mom-focused blog, vacuumed and mopped daily because he knew how much she worried the dust might harm their baby. He rose for every sound in the night – every creak, every whimper from the cradle. He changed diapers, lulled the baby to sleep, sang lullabies. He calmed every cry so the mother of his child could steal a few precious hours of sleep between feedings.

And he wouldn’t trade a second of it for the whole world.

“Look,” he murmured to the little bundle in his arms, his voice gentle and reverent. “I think Mommy’s awake.”

He glanced at her, eyes filled with a love so deep it could have broken her heart. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he hadn’t slept a single full night since they left the hospital. But he looked as though he were standing at the gates of his own private heaven – and he never wanted to leave.