I just had a random urge to write Claire's story :) disclaimer: I don't own

Claire Novak. You remember her, don't you? She's the daughter – the one who got left behind. She was only twelve when they came for her – the people with the black eyes. They came for her and her mother, and she was so scared, but they said they knew where her father was, and if she went with them, she would see him again. That was before, though. Before they told her that her father had chosen God over his family. That he'd chosen to leave them, to leave her, because he believed that God had chosen him. She'd stopped waiting for him to come home a long time ago, but she'd never lost her faith in him. Not until that moment.

And then he came, and he wasn't the same. It wasn't even that he'd changed – he was a completely different person. And it hurt her in strange ways that his eyes didn't sparkle, that he didn't smile, that he didn't love her. He knew her, though – he knew who she was, this Castiel. This angel. And he said that her daddy was still there, inside him. He told her that he loved her, and that he was sorry. But he still had to go, and no, she would never see him again.

And then he really came – really him. He was different, but she wasn't stupid – she'd expected that. But he was there and he loved her. And that was all that mattered. It didn't matter that mummy kept giving him funny looks, like he would disappear if she stopped looking hard enough, and it didn't matter that he couldn't say Grace, or that he looked so sad. Because things would work out. Things would be better now.

Then everything went wrong. They killed her mother. They filled her with black smoke and her eyes went black too. And he wasn't there, the angel, her daddy. He was gone and she was so scared. They came back, though, those pretty men and her dad. They came back and they tried to save her. They couldn't though – only the angel could. And he did. She welcomed him into her and he saved them all.

He was inside her, and he was beautiful. And then she knew why her daddy had left them – she would have left her family for such beauty. And she fully intended to, but he wouldn't let her. Stupid daddy, didn't he know she wanted this? She'd been chosen by an angel. But he wouldn't let her. Stupid daddy, so selfish. And it hurt when he left her – when the light left her, she felt so black.

Then he left, the angel in her daddy's body. He'd left without a backwards glance. And she was left there, twelve years old, surrounded by bodies and blood, left with no parents, no angel, nothing. So she did the only thing she could – she grew up too fast.

None of that matters now, though, even though it was those events which shaped her, which led her on this path. Which are the reason that she's eighteen and she's standing on a stool, tying a belt around the rafters. Because she grew up too fast, and now she's old. So she positions the belt around her neck. Because that void left by an angel was too big to ever be filled. So she closes her eyes, and she kicks out.

I'm sorry – it wasn't meant to go that way … I guess I couldn't help it.
thoughts?
xx