Chapter Text
FOUR MONTHS LATER
Four more months go by, and the pain begins to numb from something like a raw, festering wound to a half-healed broken limb. Claire’s heart still clenches every time she thinks about him, but those moments are becoming fewer.
She has Fletcher to keep her mind off of it, who she thinks she might love. Or will love, in the future, when enough time has passed that she can move on. She can tell she’s on the precipice, like she was that one time, before-
She pushes away such foolish thoughts. She tries to forget how quickly she reached that point with Dean, and how much slower it seems to be happening with Fletcher. She tries not to think about what that means. She tries, but she doesn’t always succeed.
So, although she has faint doubts swirling in the back of her mind, she decides it’s time for him to meet her family. It’s overdue, really, since she’s long since met his parents, older sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew.
Fletcher Gordon is from an ultra wealthy family in Santa Barbara. His parents live in a mansion near the beach, and when she first saw it, she was completely awestruck. It was a beautiful, Spanish style house with a pool and mature olive trees on the property. She grew up around McMansions, but this was unlike anything she had ever seen before. It reminded her of what she imagines European estates are like, though she wouldn’t know because she’s never been to Europe.
Fletcher’s parents are ten years older than her own and already retired, which means they have tons of time for their children and grandchildren. They like her, or at least Fletcher tells her they do. She knows they think she’s young – maybe too young, given their poorly cloaked desire to have more grandchildren.
Part of why she’s put off introducing Fletcher to her family is because she worries it’s only going to complicate things between them. She is from much more modest means than he is. Her parents’ house, though she loves it, is not nearly as comfortable and well-appointed as his.
These feelings of insufficiency have haunted her since she was a freshman at Stanford. She is no stranger to rubbing shoulders with children of billionaires and celebrities, but the issue is much closer to home, now – literally and figuratively. She doesn’t want him to think that she’s with him for the wrong reasons because she truly isn’t.
He has never made her feel inadequate. Quite the opposite, in fact. He often comments on how impressed he is with her success and laments how easy everything was for him due to his upbringing. He has long been asking to take a trip to her childhood home to meet her family, and finally, during the long weekend, she obliges him.
They’re walking through the Seattle airport as she briefs him on what to expect. “My parents are probably going to make you stay in my brothers’ room,” she tells him. “They’re kind of old school with that stuff.”
“Okay, that’s fine. But where are they going to sleep?”
“Ryan’s at college so you won’t meet him, and they’ll probably have Charlie sleep on the couch.”
“That seems kind of silly, no? Why would I take over his room when I could just stay with you?”
She shrugs. “Some of the stuff they do makes no sense.”
The flight is around four and a half hours. Now that she has an actual salary, she can’t remember why she ever decided to drive this route instead of flying. For the most part, it’s pretty uneventful; she watches a movie on the tiny screen in front of her and tries to take a nap.
That is, it’s uneventful until she feels another vision coming on when they are thirty minutes from landing. Thus far, Claire has been fortunate with the timing of her visions. They’ve only struck when she was in the safety of her own apartment. She realizes now how grateful she should have been for that fact.
Her nails dig into the armrest as she grips it as though her life depends on it. Fletcher notices that her eyes are screwed shut and immediately asks what’s wrong.
“I’m just… getting a headache,” she manages. She folds at the waist, reaching for her backpack under the seat.
“What are you doing?” he asks, trying to figure out a way to help her.
“I’m just… trying to… get my laptop.”
“Why?”
Words burst forth from her mouth before she has the chance to consider them, some sort of self-preservation instinct kicking in. “I need something to take my mind off of it,” she says.
He helps her unzip the backpack and hands her the laptop. She opens it and angles her body away from him so that he can’t see what she’s typing.
“You don’t want me to see?” he asks, his thick brows knit in confusion.
“I’m working on a new product launch. It’s not public knowledge yet and if people find out it could impact the stock price.”
“You know I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he says with a little laugh.
“I know. Just being extra careful with all these people on this flight.”
“They really scared you with that insider trading training, huh?” he comments lightly.
Through the mindbending pain, she’s barely able to spare him a fatigued smile. Thankfully, it subsides before the stewardess comes to ask her to put her computer away. She has to close her laptop before reading back what she’s written.
“Do you usually get headaches like that?” Fletcher asks her after a moment.
“Sometimes. This one probably had something to do with the altitude,” she fibs.
The chaotic shuffle of landing, piling into her mom’s minivan, and driving almost two hours from Chicago to Pontiac allows Claire to nearly forget about the vision by the time they get to her parents’ house. She’ll check back on it when she has a private moment later that night, resolving to give her full attention to ensuring a smooth meeting between Fletcher and her family.
It goes well, of course. Fletcher has that Southern California easygoing way about him that seems to make everyone like him. She’s pretty sure he could make conversation with a mailbox, if he needed to. Plus, her parents are on their best behavior, their midwestern hospitality on full display. The house is spotless when they walk in and warm chocolate chip cookies are on the counter.
“I like him,” her mother tells her when they have a moment alone together while prepping dinner. “He seems very calm.”
This causes Claire to laugh, though she supposes calm is an apt way to describe him.
Later, while getting ready for bed, she and Fletcher stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the double vanity of the shared bathroom as they brush their teeth. Through the foamy toothpaste, he gives her a wide, dimpled grin and mumbles, “I think that went well.”
That’s another thing she likes about him – his positivity.
“Yeah, it did,” she agrees with a smile of her own.
When they’re done, she gives him a soft kiss on the lips before retreating to her bedroom. By now, it’s after midnight, but she’s still wide awake on West Coast time. She opens her laptop and pulls up the document she wrote on the plane.
What she reads nearly causes her heart to stop beating in her ribcage. A molten heat of fear and disbelief pours into her body like lava, all the way to her shaking, tingling fingertips.
Tomorrow, Dean will be saved. Dean will be alive. Right here in Pontiac.
It’s just a coincidence, surely, she tries to convince herself. But what if it isn’t? What are the odds? It’s too much to ignore.
Words like fate and destiny never meant much to her. But what else do you call it when you’re shown an immutable future?
She calls Sam, keeping her voice low so that she doesn’t wake the rest of the house. He doesn’t answer, so she leaves a voicemail:
“Sam, it’s Claire. You won’t believe what I just saw. Dean – he’s going to be resurrected tomorrow. Saved, it says. I don’t know how, but it’s happening in Pontiac. I’m in Pontiac at my family’s house right now. I-I can go pick him up.”
She stops herself there. But how? How can she go pick him up? She has several hours to think through a plan. Tomorrow is Saturday. That works in her favor since she can probably borrow one of her parents’ cars. Where will she bring him? Maybe to a motel or something to get cleaned up? He will be covered in dirt. He’ll need a new set of clothes. Ryan’s clothes would probably fit him. She just needs to sneak in there when Fletcher and Charlie aren’t around.
Fletcher. That presents a wrinkle in her plan. What’s he going to do while she’s gone? She can’t just ditch him all day. He barely knows her family. She’ll have to be quick, she decides. She’ll have to make it seem like she’s just running an errand.
It doesn’t take long for Claire to form these plans, and when she tries to fall asleep, she can’t. Laying her childhood bed, staring at the white ceiling of her salmon-colored room – it feels akin to the urgency of waiting for Christmas morning. There is a fluttering in the hollow of her stomach that can only be described as excitement. And that’s normal, isn’t it? To be excited to see a friend you haven’t seen in years, who you thought was dead? It’s normal, even though everything else about this situation is definitely not.
The next morning when Claire descends the stairs, she sees the back of her dad’s salt-and-pepper head hunched over the kitchen island with a cup of coffee and the newspaper.
“Hey, Dad,” she says. “Is it okay if I borrow your truck? I need to run an errand.”
“Sure, what do you need it for?”
“I just need to run to Walgreens to get some girl stuff,” she says cryptically.
“Oh, okay. The keys are by the door.”
“Thanks. I’m gonna let Fletcher know.”
“Don’t be long. Your mom’s at the store. She wanted to make a whole pancake breakfast for you guys.”
“I won’t,” she says sweetly. She sprints back up the stairs and knocks on the door to her brothers’ room, where Fletcher is sleeping.
“Mornin’,” he greets with a groggy smile. He’s in Ryan’s twin bed, and Charlie’s sits empty about seven feet away from him in the navy blue room. He stretches his arms and scratches the back of his wild, curly head. She spots the thin, leather bracelet she gave him as a Christmas gift – the one that she carved an anti-possession symbol into with a steak knife – around his left wrist.
“Good morning,” she says fondly. “Sorry to wake you. I’m going to go run a quick errand at Walgreens, do you mind?”
“No, ‘course not. You want me to come?”
“No, no need. Why don’t you go back to sleep for a little bit? I’m not sure why I’m up so early with the time difference and everything.”
She starts towards the dresser near the door, which has a massive array of sports trophies on it. “Charlie asked me to grab some clothes for him,” she lies, rifling through the drawers. She grabs a few of Ryan’s things and holds them in a neatly folded pile as she walks back downstairs. No one notices as she walks straight out the front door and into her dad’s red pickup truck.
Claire’s heart feels like it’s trying to thump into the steering wheel as she drives across town. The fright of her phone ringing almost sends her over the edge into full cardiac arrest.
“Hello?”
“Claire, it’s Sam. I got your voicemail-”
“I’m on my way to get him now,” she says.
“I’m on my way too, but I started all the way in Texas. It will still be a few hours before I get there.”
“All good. I’m going to drop him off at a motel. I’ll let you know where exactly later.”
“Thanks. This is just… insane.”
“I know,” she agrees.
“I can’t believe you’re already there.”
Claire pauses and chews her lip, not knowing quite what the implications of this are. She knows Sam well enough to know that he’s also not going to believe that it’s just some random coincidence.
“Yeah, it’s strange,” she says weakly. “I’ll give you an update in a little bit. Bye.”
She hangs up and throws the phone into the cupholder. She hates driving her dad’s truck; she feels like she’s in some sort of a cruise ship. It’s a stark contrast to her beloved Jetta. She has to pitch forward over the steering wheel just to properly see where she’s going, let alone be able to spot Dean walking around in her periphery.
She gets to the outskirts of town, near a gas station, when she finally spots him. There aren’t any other cars nearby and she’s able to pull up alongside him easily. She can see him squinting against the glare and through the windshield, and she rolls the passenger’s side window down.
“Dean!” she calls.
His squint deepens into more of a scowl. “Claire?” comes his gruff voice, even hoarser than usual. She wishes she’d had the foresight to bring a water bottle.
“Get in,” she orders.
Dean looks like he’d have been less shocked if aliens flew up to beam him into a UFO. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demands, nevertheless opening the passenger’s side door and climbing in.
Once he’s inside, she studies him closely, trying to discern differences between now and the last time she saw him. There’s a thin layer of dirt and sweat smeared on his face that makes his eyes look unnaturally green, especially against the tree line behind him. She’d forgotten how strikingly handsome he is.
He seems to be studying her just as intently, his eyes darting back and forth as they search hers. “How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I had a vision,” she explains. “I was home visiting my family.”
“I have no clue what happened,” he offers. “The last thing I remember was being a hellhound’s chew-toy. Then, I woke up in a pine box, and now I’m here.”
“In the vision, it said that you were saved.”
His eyebrows bend together again. “I don’t understand…”
“I’m going to take you to a motel to get cleaned up,” she interrupts, pulling away from the curb and making a U-turn. “There’s one not too far from here that charges by the hour. I also brought you a change of clothes in the back.”
“When did you get the vision about this?” he asks, clearly confused by how she had so much time to prepare.
“Last night.”
When they reach the motel, Claire drops the steep distance between the driver’s seat and the ground, the soles of her sneakers crunching into the gravel parking lot as they make contact.
He asks, “Whose car is this?”
“My dad’s.”
She walks into the front desk area to pay the sweaty, balding clerk while Dean holds the bundle of clothes under his arm and waits. There’s a small concession stand and she also buys a couple of bottles of water and some granola bars. She then ventures back towards Dean with the keys to room 7. As she walks towards him, the sunlight catches the top of her red-gold hair and makes it look like she has a halo. Once she reaches him, he follows behind closely, and she can feel the presence of his body trailing her like a dull heat. There is some tension between them, and she doesn’t know why or what to say to break it.
“He probably thinks we’re gearing up for some sort of sex marathon,” he comments with a snort.
“Well, he’d be sorely mistaken. This place is disgusting. How much you wanna bet there are hidden cameras in the rooms?”
Dean makes a grossed-out expression, but he’s still behind her, so she doesn’t see it. Once they’re inside the room, she twists the dial on the window AC unit to full blast. He goes to set the clothes she gave him on the bed, but she stops him.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere near that thing, if I were you. God knows what kind of STDs are on that thing. Let alone bedbugs…” She shudders theatrically at the thought.
“Y’know, I don’t remember you bein’ such a priss,” he gibes with a smirk.
He walks in her direction and sets the bundle of clothing down on the table next to her. He’s very close now, and she can smell a salty, mineral scent coming off of him in the heat. She sets the granola bars and water bottles down, too. He picks one up and chugs it, drinking the entire thing before crunching the plastic in his fist and tossing it in the trash can. When he’s finished, he continues to stare at her in a way that’s starting to become unnerving, like his eyes are boring into her soul. Without thinking, she takes her thumb and rubs a clean streak along his left cheekbone.
“You need a shower,” she remarks, wondering to herself what possessed her to touch him like that.
In the blink of an eye, his hands find their way to her face, too, and he’s drawing her into a passionate kiss. His lips are still wet from the water and taste earthy and chalky, like soil and dust. Claire feels a surprising stab of desire in her gut, but quickly jerks away.
“I can’t,” she says breathlessly, casting her gaze to the rust-colored carpet.
Dean lets his hands drop from her face and scratches the back of his head awkwardly. The heat of embarrassment crawls up his neck. “Oh, uh, sorry… I thought-”
“I’m seeing someone,” she blurts out.
“Oh. Sorry,” he repeats. “I guess I’m just happy to see a friendly face.”
She finally gathers the courage to meet his eyes again to see that he’s smiling sheepishly at her.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” she allows. “I already called Sam. He should be here in a few hours.”
“Great. I’m gonna take a shower.”
Dean disappears into the bathroom and while he does, she takes the opportunity to call Sam again and let him know exactly where they are. There is an elephant in the room: how the hell did this happen? She imagines that will be the next order of business to figure out once he gets here.
But Claire does not have hours to spare.
Dean eventually emerges from the bathroom wearing a bath towel around his waist and drying his hair with a hand towel. The sight of him without a shirt sends a blush creeping up Claire’s face. His toned torso isn’t anything new, but it’s been a while since she’s seen it.
“Check this out,” he says. He turns so that she can see his left shoulder. There’s a massive, puckered scar – as if from a burn or brand – in the shape of a handprint.
“What the hell is that?”
He shrugs. “Must be from whatever jail-broke me outta Hell,” he reasons. “Everything else is… healed.”
She allows herself to actually look at his body in earnest to see that he’s right.
“Those hellhounds made a meal outta me,” he goes on, swallowing heavily at the memory. “And even scars I had before that. All of ‘em are gone.”
He’s walking toward her, and she realizes it’s because the clothes are right next to her. She quickly steps out of the way. For some unknown reason, she has the overwhelming urge to feel the handprint mark, but she ignores it.
“Do you remember it?” she asks carefully.
“Remember what?”
“Hell.”
He sets his jaw and looks out the window as his mind works. “No,” he says eventually. “I must have blocked it out.”
All of a sudden, her phone rings. It’s Fletcher.
“Hey, Fletch. Yeah, I’m sorry this is taking longer than I expected. The Walgreens I went to first didn’t have the brand of tampons that I like, so I had to go somewhere else. I should be back in like thirty minutes.”
“No worries, take your time,” he replies.
She flips the phone closed to see that Dean is looking at her with both eyebrows raised in vague amusement.
“That the boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“You told him you were out getting tampons?”
“You’d be amazed how quickly men stop asking questions the minute the word tampon is thrown around.”
A bark of laughter erupts from his throat, and she lets herself smile back at him. He pulls the shirt over his head and slips the pants on from under his towel as she averts her eyes.
“Ain’t anything you haven’t already seen.” He scrunches his nose as though he’s just had a sudden realization. “These aren’t his clothes, are they?”
“They’re my brother’s.”
“They fit pretty well,” he comments in surprise.
“Maybe a little loose, but yeah, I thought you guys would be around the same size.”
The handprint scar is now hidden beneath the sleeve of his navy blue Chicago Bears t-shirt.
“Does it hurt?”
“Does what hurt?”
“The mark.”
“Oh. No, it doesn’t.” He lifts the sleeve up so she can get a better look, and she cautiously brushes her fingertips over it. The flesh is hard and swollen.
“I wonder what type of thing could have done this…”
Suddenly, the TV turns on by itself, the bathroom mirror cracks, and the window is blown out. Dean puts himself between Claire and the flying glass, shielding her. All the while, his hands are clamped over his ears as though his ear drums are about to explode.
Claire experiences the sound differently. To her, the noise sounds like a clear, beautiful voice. It says, “It was I, the angel Castiel, who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition.”
When it’s over, Dean stays hunched for a few moments. He takes his hands away from his ears to see blood. He straightens and looks at Claire, who is staring blankly at the TV as though she’s in a trance.
“What the fuck was that?” he shouts.
She snaps her gaze to his. “You didn’t hear that?”
“All I heard was this awful, buzzing static sound,” he says, still yelling. She hopes he didn’t suffer permanent hearing loss.
“It was a voice,” she says in wonder. “An angel.”
Dean’s brows gather in a look of disbelief. “What?”
“Castiel,” she continues. “It said its name was Castiel. You couldn’t hear it?”
“No,” he reiterates harshly.
“It sounded… beautiful,” she continues, still sounding eerily calm.
“There’s no such thing as angels,” he snaps.
“If there’s no such thing as angels, then what was that?”
This, Dean can’t answer. She can see his masseter muscles flex as he grinds his teeth in frustration.
All of a sudden, something on the TV catches her attention. A local news anchor says, “Breaking news. We just got word of a devastating explosion on Glendale Ave. Firefighters suspect a gas leak, but this is still a developing story.”
“Glendale Ave,” Claire repeats softly to herself, a stricken look unfurling across her face. “That’s… that’s where my parents live.”