The teenager stood in the middle of the dusty hallway, her blonde hair contrasting with the darkness around her as she breathed in the musky yet familiar scent of the old house. Through the dusty smells of neglect Claire Novak could still imagine the smell of roast diner floating in through the kitchen as Amelia Novak hurried to finish diner before Jimmy's arrival. She could clearly picture her father's face in her mind as Jimmy Novak came through the door after a long day at work, hanging his trench coat over the banister and smiling at his family as though he was the luckiest man alive.
Taking in a deep breath, Claire opened her eyes to pull herself away from the pain that the memories had triggered. It wasn't as though the memories themselves were awful, in fact they were the happiest she had ever been, it was what had followed them that had caused the heartbreak that Claire had felt for seven years. Deep down she knew that it wasn't Castiel's fault that her father had died or that her mother had abandoned her but that didn't mean she was ever going to admit that to him. Truth be told since Castiel had saved her from Salinger she had started to think him as family, even giving his name and number as her emergency contract in school. Still sometimes she needed to get away from her hunter family and the angel/demon craziness and try to remember her life before the angels, her life as a Novak.
That was when she heard it.
The knocking at the door started softly but soon grew into loud pounding. This was quickly followed by a soft voice, "Claire? Claire, honey, please open up." Claire froze. She recognised that voice even though she had not heard it since she was eleven years old. "Claire, please, I saw you go in. Trust me, Claire, it's me. Please Claire let me in."
Claire shuffled over to the door and peaked out of the small glass window what Claire saw outside caused her eyes to widen and her to yank open the door. Amelia Novak - her dark blonde hair, so much like Claire's, framed her face in tangles – was leaning against the wall, both pale hands gripping at her abdomen as blood flowed between her fingers.
"Mom?" Amelia managed a small smile before her eyes rolled back and she promptly collapsed into the old house.
Claire was sat on an old dusty chair watching as her mother started to fidget in her sleep, on the verge of consciousness. Amelia Novak had been passed out for an hour and in that time Claire had managed to clean the stab wound to her mother's stomach and managed to dress it as Dean had taught her to. Claire had also had time to perform checks to make sure the woman in front of her was not a shifter, demon or in any other way possessed. It was really her mother.
Claire couldn't decide if she was relieved to see her mom alive or beyond pissed off that she had obviously been following Claire after she had dumped her off at her grandmother's.
When Amelia's eyelids slowly fluttered open, Claire held her breath, "Claire? Honey, please say that's you?" Amelia slowly slid herself into a sitting position, her hand still gripping the wound, as she stared at Claire, her eyes wide in relief.
Claire took a look at the mother who abandoned her and nodded towards her injury, "You need to keep pressure on that, I've cleaned the wound but it was still bleeding the last time I checked." With that Claire, much to her mother's attempts at protest, stood up and swept towards the staircase.
Amelia stared after her daughter in shock before standing up to follow her, "Claire, honey, wait!" Claire carried on walking up the stairs, her feet automatically taking her towards her old bedroom. "Claire I am so sorry. You don't understand," Her mother gasped as she came up behind her, reaching out to grab Claire's arm," I needed to sort myself out before I found you again and then once I had I saw you hanging around that angel so naturally I didn't want to approach and-" To be honest Claire couldn't care less but instead of voicing this view she instead tried to shake her mom's hand off her arm. This came to no avail as Amelia instead just griped on tighter. "-besides Claire you have no idea what I've been through the last few years and by ignoring me you are being incredibly selfish."
That was the final straw. Within a heartbeat Claire yanked her arm out of her mother's grasp. "Selfish? You think I'm being selfish? You think your life's been hard?" Claire raised an eyebrow before backing up another step so she was looking down at her mother, "Let's see shall we...My father had to leave me because he came possessed by an angel, my mother abandoned me, due to having to live in a different state I lost all my friends, on top of that none of my remaining good little Christian family want anything to do with me after thanksgiving 2010 when I started to go off on a tangent about angels and demons... Trust me, if you think your lives been hard, try living mine."
Claire spun around and started to climb the remaining steps as Amelia stared after her daughter, her mouth hanging open before she stumbled out yet another apology, "Claire try to understand," holding her hands up in surrender she climbed up yet another step, "I've been keeping an eye on you, believe me when I say I left you for your best interests-"
Claire spun around in rage, her blonde hair whipping the air before falling in waves down her back. Claire shut her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, "You're right Mom, I don't understand," even though she spoke calmly, Amelia could see the anger in her eyes, "I don't get how you could drive your only daughter up to her grandmother's house and just abandon her there with no word of warning." Amelia backed up as Claire climbed down a step, "I don't get how you could just leave your daughter with no way of contacting you as though she was yesterday's trash." Once again Claire came down another step, "How could any mother even think of doing that?" she spat at Amelia before turning to head up towards her room.
"Claire-" Just as she was about to make it to the top of the landing, Amelia grabbed hold of her arm yet again causing her to snatch her hand back and before any of them could stop it Amelia lost her balance and fell backwards down the stairs.
Claire stood frozen on the landing looking down at her mother's still body. "Mom?" the word sounded childish and pathetic as it squeaked out of Claire's mouth but for once she didn't care. Seeing the pool of blood start to leak from not only Amelia's abdomen but also her head caused Claire to stumble down the stairs to kneel next to her mom. "Mom, I am so sorry, please, please wake up." She sobbed.
Meg was bored. She had been stood in the same place in the bunker for over an hour watching as dumb and dumber shuffled about trying to scrape up as much lore as possible for their newest case. Usually when the boys were this boring she would go off to have a little alone time with her favourite tree-topper but times were tough in heaven as it was on Earth and he had flown off a day ago to sort out some problems for the rest of the God Squad. So when her phone started vibrating she was thankful, that was until she read the caller ID.
"Look Kindergarten" Meg sighed into the receiver as she picked up, "I'm really not in the mood for an argument with you 'cause, as you've screamed at me a thousand times, I am so not your mother." Seriously the kid had made it very clear to her that she wanted nothing to do with Meg. Hell, if it wasn't for Clarence and the Brothers Grimm she would have crushed the brat's bones up for a spell long ago. Yet as things were she wasn't the demon she used to be so she has to put up with the whining daughter of her favourite angel.
It was only then she noticed the sniffles sounding from the other end of the phone.
"Meg?" Meg's eyebrows furrowed as she heard the pure pain in Claire's barely audible whisper. "Could you please come over and help. You know I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't an emergency."
Meg's own blood ran cold as she heard the girl's broken voice, a foreign feeling ran through her at the thought of Claire in pain. "Kindergarten where are you?" She spoke softly hoping that the girl would not come to her senses and hang up on her. "Are you hurt?"
The sniffling coming through the phone quieted down to soft breathing as Claire got her emotions under control. "I'm at my old house, please come as fast as possible." Then the call ended and Claire's voice was gone. Although Meg should have hated the girl she would have been lying if she said she wasn't concerned for her and obviously that was unconsciously written across her face.
As Meg lowered the phone from her ear she could see Sam out of the corner of her eye glance over with concern written across his face. "Meg are you alright?" Meg's eyes flashed to him to properly look at his worried face. "Was that Claire on the phone? What's going on? Does it involve Cas?"
Of course the Moose had overheard some of her conversation, was anything private in this place?
Meg blinked and quickly moulded her face into a smirk, "Aw is Ickle Sammy worried about his brother's pet angel?" At Sam's annoyed frown she dropped the act and sighed, "Okay I've got something that I need to clear up if I'm not back in twenty minutes then come look for me, if things get hairy I'll turn on the GPS on my phone." And with that she was gone.
Dean watched as the petite demon turned to black smoke before his very eyes and vanished out of the room. He was never going to get used to having Meg around no matter how many times she helped or how much everyone else in their band of misfits seemed to love her. Hell, even freaking Chuck seemed to have a thing for her and he had seen firsthand what she'd done in the past thanks to the prophecies he'd had about the Winchesters lives.
No matter who she killed to help them or how much she means to Cas, Dean was sure he'd never forgive her for possessing Sammy or setting those hellhounds on Ellen and Jo.
"I wonder what bothered her." Sam's voice shocked Dean out of his thoughts as he turned to stare at his brother, his eyebrows raised in questioning. "I mean," Sam continued obviously picking up on Dean's confusion, his own eyebrows furrowed. "I could have sworn that I heard Claire on the phone and everyone, including Meg herself, knows that if there's one person who hates Meg more than you, it's Claire."
Dean opened his mouth to protest that statement before quickly closing it. Well it was true. Although he tolerated Meg he hadn't yet warmed up to her as much as the rest had. Instead Dean just nodded his head in agreement. Sam narrowed his eyes at him.
Dean raised his hands in defence, "Hey, hey, it was you who brought it up. I just don't trust her a hundred percent yet..." Seeing Sam's mouth opening to argue, Dean quickly continued. "Right I get it, she's held off hellhounds, looked after Cas, helped us get into SucroCorp, even showed us where Lucifer's Crypt was, hell she could shower us in gold coins and fairy dust but it will never erase any of the things she has done to us in the past." Once again Dean carried on talking before Sam could interrupt resulting in the younger man to roll his eyes at his brother. "In case you forgot she tried to kill Dad and us with a freaking Daevas, she killed Caleb and Jim Murphy to get her hands on Dad and the Colt, hell Sammy she possessed you or have you forgotten her nearly killing me and Jo using your body-"
This time Sam managed to cut off Dean mid rant.
Dean saw the flash of the usually hidden pain in his brother's eyes before Sam started to talk, "Of course I remember being possessed and it's not one of the things I'm ever going to forget. Purgatory, Hell, being possessed is right up there with those and trust me I don't see what people like Jeffrey get out of it." Dean felt momentarily ashamed for having brought it up but kept his mouth shut because he knew Sam wasn't finished. "But if I could go through that and manage to forgive Meg, even going as far as to say that she is one of the closest friends we've got left, then you should be able to as well." Sam stared at his older brother hopefully like when they were kids and he wanted the last bowl of cereal.
Dean rolled his eyes, "Fine, I've already told you and Cas that I'd give her a shot, alright? And don't worry I won't shoot her with the Colt unless she starts to severely piss me off. Anyway what were we talking about before The Great Meg Debate?" Dean asked as he got up to retrieve a beer from the mini fridge, "Sequel, by the way," he added as he spun back around gesturing to Sam with his bottle, "to Ruby? Seriously? She's A Demon Sam!"
The younger Winchester leaned back in his chair rolling his eyes, completely ignoring Dean's jibe about Ruby, "Claire Novak and what seemed to be a 911 from her to Meg." Sam reached out and took a sip of his beer as Dean backtracked in his head.
As soon as it came back to him, Dean turned to his brother, his eyebrows in concern. "Right, so what can we do? We're gonna have to wait-" Dean glanced over to the clock on the far wall of the library "- ten more minutes until Little Miss Darkness turns on her GPS."
Sam leaned forward pulling his laptop across the table towards him, "Yeah we have to wait on Meg's GPS, it's lucky that I was worried enough about Claire that I turned on her tracker when she was last here."
Dean watched as his brother typed, Sammy's eyes glued on the laptop screen. "Well Sam, I congratulate you for following in the paranoid footsteps of our Uncle Bobby, but seriously dude? Turning on a tracker in a eighteen year olds cell? Isn't that a bit on the pervy side to you?"
"Jerk, she's practically Cas's kid, I was concerned." Sam said as he finished up, Dean watched as his brother's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Well I've found where Claire's phone is, Pontiac, Illinios."
Dean scooted his chair so that he could stare at Sam's laptop, "Well there isn't much difference between concerned and, well, concerned." Dean took in the information on the screen, "Wait Illinios? Isn't that where the Novak's live? Well lived until the whole Cas and demon thing?"
Sam looked across at Dean, "Well it seems natural that Claire would want to go home."
It had been five minutes since her mom fell and two minutes since she had got off the phone with Meg and Claire was still panicking. She was now sat beside her mom's head tenderly stroking the woman's waving blonde hair away from her pale face. Up close Claire could see time's affect on her mother since they had last spoke, her face seemed gaunt and the skin around her eyes seemed bruised as though she hadn't been to sleep in a long time. Claire was torn between hate for the woman who abandoned her and fear that her mom's eyes would never open.
Claire had forgotten that she had left the door open, everything since opening the door had happened to fast and Claire was having a hard time trying to catalogue everything in her mind, that was until she heard it creak wider. Her heart pounding she pulled the angel blade that she had 'borrowed' from Castiel out of her jeans and whirled round with it pointing out in front. The sight that greeted her filled her with amazing relief.
"Whoa, watch it Kindergarten you could have taken someone's eye out!" Meg exclaimed as she ducked the blow. Claire quickly dropped the blade and practically jumped at the blonde demon, he arms reaching around the woman to pull her into a hug.
Meg froze. She couldn't decide if the kid was attacking her or genuinely pleased to see her. Slowly Meg's arms raised up to awkwardly pat the girl on the back, besides Clarence, Meg hadn't been hugged in... forever. Meg was even more surprised when the girl clutched onto her even more tightly and started sobbing into the black leather of Meg's jacket. She was about to ask the girl what the hell she had been taking before her eyes landed on the woman spread out on the floor, her face turned away from them.
Meg eyes felt her eyes widen as she placed the pieces together in her mind and pulled out of the arms of the crying teen. "Whoa, Kid, what the hell?" She gripped onto Claire's shoulders and saw the girl wince in pain. "What on Earth did you do Claire?" She looked into the girl's bloodshot eyes and saw more pain in there than she had ever seen in the Winchesters.
Claire gulped a few times before she could actually start talking to the demon, "I didn't mean to, I never would have even after everything." Meg watched as the girl closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, "I hadn't seen Mom since the whole thing with Dad and Cas so when she said she left me for my own good I got angry." Claire's blue eyes blinked open to stare straight into Meg's hazel ones, "I was so angry with her that when she went to grab me I pulled out of her grasp, she must of lost her balance because the next minute she was at the bottom of the stairs, unconscious."
Meg had the urge to reach out and pull her angel's almost daughter back into a hug but thought that if she tried Claire would probably stab her. Wow, where are all these feelings coming from? Instead she just dropped her hands from the Claire's shoulders and walked over to the girl's mother. "How long has she been out?" She questioned, her eyes flicking over to Claire.
The girl, now back to her old annoying self, shrugged, "I'm not sure." She said before coming to kneel next to Amelia Novak's still body. "About eight or ten minutes? All I know is I called you a few minutes after it happened."
Meg raised an eyebrow and knelt down on the woman's other side, "Yeah, about that, Kindergarten, why would you call me? I mean I'm assuming you're old enough to dial 911? A relative? The Chuckle Brothers? I know you have Clarence on speed dial, so why me huh?"
Claire stared down in what seemed like shame, "You wanna know why I called you? I didn't want Cas, Sam or Dean to know I possibly killed my own mother, if I called 911 it would have somehow got back to them, I just knew it. Besides," Claire continued her eyes flicking to Meg's, "I thought maybe you could help."
Meg raised an eyebrow at the girl, "And why on Earth would I do that?"
"Because," Claire said staring straight into the demon's eyes, "you are technically sleeping with my dad so it would be common courtesy as my almost-stepmom to help me, as your almost-stepdaughter, to fix my mom."
To say Meg was shocked was an understatement. After several attempts, during which she repeatedly opened and closed her mouth, Meg was able to form words. "Seriously?" She asked, "I thought we both agreed that neither of us wanted to play the mother-daughter card, especially seeing that Cas isn't your daddy."
"He's as good as." Claire shrugged looking up at Meg with wide eyes, "Please Meg, I just have to know for my own sanity that my mom is alright even if I don't want anything to do with her."
After a minute of staring Meg finally caved and stood up, "Right Kiddo, I'm happy to tell you that your mom is in fact alive, though barely. I could temporarily heal her from the inside if I was to possess her, though that would only give us enough time to get us from here to the hospital where the medicine man, doctor, whatever can properly fix her up, you got it?"
Claire nodded.
Meg continued talking, "Seeing as I am a born again demon it's going to take me a while to get sorted whilst I'm inside your mom, so whatever you do, don't panic. Now I've only recently been able to turn my sexy piece of ass into smoke so don't smite me if the possession doesn't go to plan, then again if I end up getting stuck inside your mom, you better run kid."
Meg rubbed tiredly at her own face before staring down at Amelia's body and allowing her eyes to switch to black. Shrugging off her leather jacket, Meg concentrated on allowing her form to drift into smoke and direct herself at Amelia Novak. Once inside Meg felt her own mind drift into unconsciousness.
Meg had said not to worry but screw that. Claire had been staring down at her mother/Meg for about five minutes and the only difference caused by Meg moving into her mother was that some part of her felt as though she had been abandoned by yet another person. Yes it was only Meg, but since being with her actual mother Claire had realised just how much of a mother figure Meg had become to her during her time in the bunker. Who cares what Meg said about waiting and not panicking anyway? It was pretty obvious that Claire was going to do both of those things.
"Meg?" she asked hesitantly. No way was she going to lose Mom and Meg in one night, Dad or Cas would never forgive her. "Come on Meg, you've done possession before, hell my Mom's even been possessed before." She knew she was starting to ramble but she was freaking out, clearly she had earned the right to.
That was when she saw her mom's/Meg's head roll to the side, Claire let out a sigh of release as her mom's eyes flicked open but internally cringed when she saw Meg's black eyes staring up at her. Meg coughed before sitting up, "Wow Kindergarten you really know how to push," Shame flared up yet again through Claire, no matter what her mother had done, she should never have been pushed down the stairs. Meg's face scrunched up in pain as she made a move to stand up, "Possession really does feel weird when you no longer need to do it," Meg winced as she reached down to grab her leather jacket and pull it securely over her shoulders, stretching her arms and clicking broken bones back into place. "Right we haven't got long until we need to reach the hospital; the longer I'm in here the more likely it's going to be that I'll be stuck in here."
Meg walked over to the door and turning back to face Claire, "You coming Kindergarten or do you wanna be left behind?"
Right now this is my first time writing a oneshot based on Supernatural so sorry if the characterisation is off. Now this is kind of a tester chapter to see if anyone would be interested in reading a multi chapter fanfic carrying on/leading up to this part of the story of course the real story would include the appearence of more characters, most notably Castiel, Chuck, Gabriel, ect...
DayBreak x