Prolog – 1989
John Winchester had just finished exorcising a demon possessing a man named Andrew Richards. Unfortunately before John was able to get there and stop the demon it had killed both Andrew and his wife of 7 years Sarah.
On his way out of the house John heard a tiny whimpering noise coming from the closet by the door. There was a key lock that had been placed on the door to keep whatever was held in there from getting out.
He broke broke the lock and pulled the door opened to find a little girl who was around four years old sitting inside. Huddled up in the corner holding her legs to her chest.
"Hi sweetie, my name is John. I'm here to help you, can you tell me your name." John asked as sweetly as he could so he wouldn't scare the girl more then she already must have been at that point.
"Claire Victoria Richards" She replied in a meek voice not moving from the position she was sitting in.
"Ok Claire, I'm gonna get you out of here. We're gonna go somewhere safe." John told her in the same tone slowly starting to move towards her.
"What about mommy?" She asked finally looking up at John.
"I'm really sorry sweetie but your mom and dad are gone." John told her not going into details with the young girl.
John decided to bring her back to the motel with him for at least the night. In the morning he would look into what family the girl had and find someone who could look after her. He hoped that it would at least make her feel a little better being around the boys since she was around Sams age.
As it turned out her grandparents we're ether in sick and in nursing homes or had passed away and couldn't take her and both of her parents had been only children. John ended up taking the girl in and raising her along with the boys.
Over time Claire had warmed up to all of them. Sam was only one year older then her and they became the best of friends. He was the one she could always go to and talk to whenever she had a problem and didn't know how to handle it. Dean was always there to protect her, he was always looking out for her even into her teens when it came to boys which always seemed to get on her nerves. John became the father figure in her life, after what she had scene Claire could never think of her father the same way. John became a replacement father who kept them safe and taught them to look after themselves.
Once she hit her teens things became more difficult with not having a mother figure around. She had to learn all by herself about things like make up or fixing her hair. But it was part of who she was and helped her to remind her self that she was a girl adn it was ok to be a little more feminine sometimes. When she was around 15 Claire realised that she had a crush on Dean but always kept it her dirty little secret. He was already 20 and would never be interested in her.
When she was 17 Sam left for stanford, it hurt her a lot loosing her best friend. But it also brought her and Dean closer together since it was only the two of them with John. At that point she didn't realise it would be four more years before she would see Sam again.