This was NOT on the list, brain.

Title: It's a Wonderful Life
Rating: PG
Summary: Dean still has occasional flashes of memory from the life where he grew up with parents and a little sister. Spoilers for 6x17 "My Heart Will Go On".
Pairings: Dean/Jo, Dean/Lisa, unrequited Castiel/Dean.
Warnings: Referenced canonical character death.
Word Count: 350

Dean still has occasional flashes of memory from the life where he grew up with parents and a little sister. He's learned to ignore those moments: they're so different than what he knows that it's easily accomplished. Remembering the difference between the life where the Titanic didn't sink and the life where it did is difficult. The 'sixty-five Mustang has the same home feel as the 'sixty-seven Impala, and Dean's memories of talking John into buying a car other than the Mystery Machine are equally clear. Dean vividly recalls being best man at Ellen and Bobby's wedding and escorting Jo down the aisle (Sam lost rock-paper-scissors), and only vaguely remembers Sammy practicing a presentation for school in which he concluded the Titanic sank due to stupidity and greed. In the 'real' past, Dean never slept with Jo, but his memories of having done so are as frequently gone to for jerk-off material as his memories of Lisa.

One of the fifty thousand people lost when the 'fake' past went away was Ben's father. Not biologically, Dean's all but certain, but Ron was more of a father to Ben than Dean was, and stuck around longer, too. Dean remembers moving into a one-room apartment in Cicero because there was no room for him at Lisa's, remembers Azazel walking into the apartment before Sam drove a needle through Azazel into Dean, remembers fighting djinn in the building's stairwell. These aren't happier memories for Dean, but they're happier for Lisa and Ben, Dean thinks.

Fifty thousand. Best guess. And who knows how many more lives were saved because Ellen and Jo lived? How many died because Ellen and Jo weren't there to save them, because Castiel was there to save Sam and Dean? Hell, even if the only people who would have lived had Castiel let Sam and Dean die were Ellen and Jo, sign Dean up for dying, and he's sure Sam would say the same.

What was Castiel thinking, undoing what Balthazar did?

(It's not actually because Castiel's in love with Dean and knows Dean can't live without Sam, is it?)

Fucking wonderful life.