Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters (except for Claudia, but without the other characters, that really doesn't matter, now does it?).

A/N: I know I'm in the middle of another story, but I'm honestly stuck with that one, so until I have any idea where I'm going with it, I'm gonna work on this one. This fic picks up a little while after my last one, 'Foresight', so you should read the earlier stories first, but it could also be a stand-alone. Trying to build up Claudia's character here a little, so that the next story would be really creepy. To sum up what you need to know from before; Sam and Dean were joined by another hunter, a woman named Claudia. Sam really likes her. Dean's… slowly getting used to the idea. Hope you enjoy it!

CIRCLES OF LIGHT AND FIRE

PART 1

"Hi, pretty-boy, where're my fries?" Claudia demanded as Dean put all their food down on the table. He smirked at her.

"I didn't get you any. And it's handsome, not pretty." Dean corrected her. She gave him an irritated look.

"Oh, don't fool yourself, you're plenty pretty." She spat at him, taking his own fries from him.

"Hi!" Dean cried, making a grab for the fries, but she turned her back to him, facing Sam once more. "You shouldn't have fries anyway. Aren't you supposed to be watching your weight or something?" Dean snapped at her. Truth was he simply forgot she had asked for fries, but everyone said engaging in sports was healthy, and taking shots at Claudia has already become his favorite sport.

"You're way fatter than I am." She gave him an angry glare. "I'd start watching those love-handles if I were you." She smirked at him. He made a face at her.

"I don't have any love-handles!" he said, "This is all pure muscle, sweetheart. And besides, I'm way taller than you, shortie."

"Ouch, that hurt." She said mockingly, pretending to take one to the chest, and then stuffed a French fry in her mouth, enjoying it way too much, and making Dean lose his concentration for a moment. By the time the blood began its way back to his brain, Claudia was already back to her conversation with Sam. Dean had to admit, as annoying as that woman was, Sam was far less whiny when he was with her. And he smiled a hell of a lot more. So Dean just sulked at her and tried to get his fries back without her noticing. He frowned, retrieved his hand quickly, shaking it and rubbing the place where she'd slapped it. Good thing I was using her credit card to buy the damned thing in the first place, Dean thought.

He opened the newspaper, reading the obituaries first, looking for their next gig, but came up empty. He caught a few minutes of Sam and Claudia's conversation and snorted. They were talking enthusiastically about a book. What geeks, he thought, rolling his eyes. And then his cell phone rang. Sam looked questioningly at Dean as he pulled the phone out of his pocket.

"Text message." Dean said, reading it.

"From dad?" Sam asked.

"Looks like." Dean answered. "Coordinates." He added a moment later.


"Here's your key." Dean told Claudia, giving her the key to the motel room he got for her. He had specifically asked for two rooms as farther away from each other as possible. The room he shared with Sam was right at the front. Claudia's, on the other hand, was at the back. On the second floor. "You should get your stuff out of the car. Maybe your boyfriend here could carry them for you." Dean smirked, patting Sam on the back.

"You are such a baby." She said, slapping him on the back of his head when she finally realized where her room was.

"Thanks, I always knew you thought I was cute." Dean grinned, and quickly ducked before she had the chance to slap him again. He wasn't so amused the next morning, when he found out someone had egged his car.

"Oh, would you look at that." Claudia said, walking right past him. "Some kid egged your car." She noted dryly, trying to hide her grin. Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to think of the slowest way to kill her. Probably tie her up, drag her behind the car for a while. That would be sweet. "Hi, Sam, want some breakfast? I think they're serving scrambled eggs and bacon." Claudia added as she kept on walking. Dean shot daggers at her with his look. Sam raised his hands, giving him a look that pleaded Dean to let it go as he followed Claudia to the diner across the street. Dean cursed; loudly, elaborately, and at great length, as he took his jacket off and started to clean his baby up. They still had another day's worth of driving ahead of them before they reached the coordinates his dad had sent him, and Dean doubted Claudia would survive that long. No one hurt his baby and got away with it.


"Oh, come on, Sam!"

"No!" Sam said, pushing him out of the room. "I'm tired of always getting caught in the middle between you two!" he snapped at Dean.

"Fine! So let's just dump her somewhere where no one would ever find her and get on with our lives." Dean said quickly. Sam gave him an angry glare.

"You are going to talk to her, and you're not coming back in this room until you two settle this thing!" he said authoritatively.

"Oh, come on! Why won't you make me do something less painful? You know, like being skinned alive?" Dean demanded. Sam glowered at him.

"Go talk to her!" he insisted. "And be nice, or you're spending the night in the car!"

"But I don't want to!" Dean insisted. Sam crossed his hands over his chest. "Oh, man! Well, if I'm sleeping in the car tonight, you mind giving me my stuff back?"

"Talk to her!" Sam cried, slamming the door in Dean's face before he had the time to answer.

"Hi, Sam, you mind at least to give me my jacket? It's going to be a cold night. And besides, my car keys are in there." Dean called out from outside the door. Sam opened the door a second later, throwing the jacket at Dean and slamming the door in his face again. Oh, it was definitely going to be a cold night. It would take hell freezing over before Dean would actually talk to Claudia. But his little brother could be just as annoying when he really had his heart into it. With a long sigh, Dean reluctantly knocked on Claudia's door.


Dean sat in the car, his hands holding the steering wheel slightly as he stared out at nothing in particular. He had been sitting there for quite a while, but he had no idea how long it was. He was still trying to figure out what the hell happened last night. He couldn't, for the life of him, figure it out. Dean jumped when the Impala door opened and Sam sat down in the passenger seat. Sam laughed at his reaction.

"Man! Don't do that!" Dean said, punching Sam in the shoulder.

"What are you doing out here in the car?" Sam asked.

"I… I just… I was going to get some coffee." He stuttered.

"Uh huh." Sam smiled.

"What? Dude, I just woke up and I needed some coffee. Something wrong with that?" Dean demanded. Sam grinned.

"No, nothing wrong with that." He said, "It's just that I've been up since six thirty, and I didn't see you leaving." He noted. Six thirty? What the hell? Dean looked at his watch. It was twenty past seven in the morning. "You want to try that again?" Sam smiled in satisfaction as he looked at Dean.

"Dude, none of your business." Dean said quickly.

"I also noticed you didn't come back to the room last night." Sam noted.

"Well, yeah. You see, I went to this bar and there was this blonde," he made a little noise, "Ooh, Sammy, she was smoking hot!"

"Uh huh." Sam said again, obviously not buying into Dean's lie. "You were out here talking to her all night, weren't you?" Sam asked knowingly.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Dean said quickly, looking away from Sam, and Sam laughed.

"Yeah, I recognize that look. She certainly has a way, doesn't she?" he asked, folding his hands behind his back and stretching in his seat. "I told you all you needed to do was talk to her."

Dean looked away from Sam, leaning back in his seat. It started normal, he thought. Or, at least, it started like he had expected it.


"You mind telling that boyfriend of yours you and I made up so he'll get off my back and I can get some sleep?" Dean snapped at Claudia as she opened her door. And then she slammed the door in his face. See, that was typical. That was pretty much what he had expected would happen. Dean tried going back to his room, but Sam wouldn't let him in, that little bastard. Really annoyed, Dean knocked on Claudia's door again and offered an awkward apology. She looked irritably at him for a second, but then seemed to lower her guard a little. Dean suggested they went for a ride, figuring this way he could just turn up the volume and drop her off somewhere and be rid of her once and for all.

And then, somehow, it was three in the morning, and she said she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, so she left.

Dean shook his head, still trying to figure out how the hell she made him tell her things an army of well trained torturers would never have gotten out of him. She was just so damn… disarming! She knew exactly when to push, and exactly when to let go, something Sam still needed to master.

They sat there in silence for almost half an hour at some point, with the radio in the background, and it wasn't even awkward. It was… nice. Dean couldn't believe he would ever use the word nice in connection to Claudia. Except maybe nice to see her gone, or possibly, nice ass.

But the things he told her… He swore to himself he'd never tell anyone, and made good on his promise for the better part of 27 years, so why now? And why her? There must be something supernatural about that woman. No way he would have just told her those things about himself without some kind of supernatural intervention. No freaking way.

But at least he finally got to know a little more about her, too. Like that she was a foster kid. Strange, he never thought of her as a foster kid. Sam had said she was a third generation hunter. For some reason, Dean had always imagined Christmas and Thanks-Giving gatherings where everyone shared their favorite hunting stories and everyone would laugh. But her mother had died the day Claudia had been born, and she was less than willing to talk about her dad, save to say she wished it was him who died, and not her mom. She had been on her own since she was sixteen, got herself emancipated, with Jin's help. Dean could have sworn, with the way she kept talking about her boss, that there must have been some sort of office romance there, but she definitely seemed into Sam now.

And the job thing. He finally figured it out, too. It was a large, Washington based, international private investigation corporation, with a nice little sub-division no one ever talked about. The kind that investigated and took care of things no one knew about, things no one wanted to know about. Things that went bump in the night. She barely got paid, just enough to pay her expenses; the motels, the food and some of the traveling. They supplied her with the ammo, though it was obvious her weapon of choice was that knife of hers. So, the pay was pretty much crap, but there were the health benefits. That part sounded sweet.


Sam got out of the car slowly, trying not to spill any of the orange juice he was trying to balance over the takeout breakfast. Dean followed him out of the car, and Sam grinned at the dumbfounded look still on Dean's face. He knew how his brother felt. The first time he had talked, really talked, with Claudia, he had felt the same. It was like she could read his mind, without the actual creepiness of reading his mind. She just… understood. He had never met anyone like that before, at least, no one remotely close to his age, or remotely close to being a female. And she wasn't taking any crap from Dean, that sure would be enough to get his brother thinking there was some supernatural influence around. Sam smiled to himself.

"So, I'm going over to Claudia's." he said, "We should take off after breakfast, get to the bottom of all those disappearances before anyone else goes missing." Sam said.

"Huh?" Dean stared at him, obviously not hearing a word Sam had said. Sam rolled his eyes.

"Get some coffee!" Sam laughed and Dean glowered at him. He nearly dropped the cup of orange juice tripping over the small step just outside Claudia's door and cursed, steadying the cup. Glimpsing back to make sure his brother wasn't going to interfere, Sam knocked on the door. Claudia opened it a moment later. She seemed a little tired. Her hair was wet, dripping over her shirt.

"Hi, Sam. Wanna come in?" she invited him, and he walked in the room.

"I come bearing gifts." Sam said, putting the food on the tiny table where she had her laptop. Claudia quickly cleared the computer away.

"My favorite kind of man." She said, smiling at him. "You got coffee?"

"Orange juice." Sam said, and Claudia's face brightened up.

"My savior!" she kissed his cheek, taking the juice from him. He found it a little funny she preferred orange juice to caffeine, but hey, everyone had their own quirks, right? "Why are you so cheerful this early in the morning?" Claudia asked, eying Sam, and he couldn't help but grin again.

"You finally made friends with Dean." He said, handing her a bagel. She narrowed her eyes, scowling.

"Who told you that?" she said in mock anger, taking the bagel from him, "You know, those kind of vicious rumors are just what a girl can't afford if she's trying to keep her reputation." She added, taking a sip from her juice. Sam's smile widened as he shook his head. Claudia eyed him. "You seem happy." She noted.

"I am." Sam said.

"Good." She smiled at him, and he could feel his heart fluttering. God, he hasn't felt that way since… No, he didn't want to think about that. He wasn't going to think about that. He neared Claudia. "You're up to something." She said, studying him.

"You're good." Sam said.

"Oh, no baby, you're good. I'm awesome!" she boasted, smirking, and Sam just couldn't help it anymore. He leaned over and kissed her.

Nothing. Claudia thought, Damn! After all this time, nothing! She watched the smile creeping onto Sam's lips. He was just so damn cute. He kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to pull her up a little. Nope. Still nothing! She thought, double damn!

Sam put her down, looking into her eyes, and she smiled at him, suddenly feeling very aware of the door and how nicely unlocked it was. Her first instinct was to bolt. Hell, she stayed with those two for this long just because she thought there might be something there. Obviously, there wasn't, because this truly cute guy just kissed her, twice, after all this time, and she didn't feel a thing. Time to hit the road. Only, she didn't really want to, and that was… weird. She liked him. She really liked him. Only, she wasn't interested in him anymore. It was all too damn confusing, and it was too early. She barely slept last night. That must be it. She wasn't thinking straight. She was tired, and she wasn't thinking straight. So instead of just standing there, feeling like a complete moron, she sat down on the bed.

"So, you found anything about those missing people?"

"A couple of things," Sam said, sitting down next to her. And then he kissed her again.

"We should check it out." Claudia said when he backed away.

"Probably." Sam said, taking her hand in his. "Wanna have breakfast first?" Claudia's stomach answered for her, and Sam grinned.

A/N: Okay, so not much action in this one, but hey, did it make you smile? The action and angst is still to come, don't worry, my twisted mind still has a few tricks in its dark corners… Please review!