xxxxXxxx

"Once I was seven years old, my mama told me, go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely."

~Lukas Graham "Seven Years"

xxxxXxxx

Claire rested her arms against the metal edge of the hood of the Impala, leaning down to look inside the engine. "So you just do this for hours and it's a form of entertainment?"

"No, it's a form of satisfaction."

Dean watched as the girl rolled her eyes from under the glow of the shop light clipped under the hood. "You were the one who snuck out here past your bedtime, don't roll your eyes at me."

"I'm eighteen," Claire insisted. "I don't have a bedtime."

Dean stuck his head out from under the hood, an oil slicked socket wrench in his hand. "You want me to tell Jody you said that?"

Claire shrugged in the indifferent way only an 18-year-old could pull off. "Like I care what she thinks."

"Well that sounded convincing," Dean ducked back under the hood. "Especially given all you went through to save her tonight."

"I saved your asses too," Claire watched Dean remove the brace on the hood and stood back up as he lowered it back down to the body of the car with a quiet slam of the black steel. "If it wasn't for me, you and Sam would be dead right now."

"Kid, if it wasn't for you, me and Sam's asses wouldn't have been in that mess in the first place – not that it was your fault, can the look," Dean said after Claire's expression had flared into hostility. "I'm just saying, I've done the whole: I 'don't give a shit about people' teenage thing, and it makes you look ungrateful, not cool. Especially because I know you care about Jody, and Alex."

Claire looked at him in a dare. "So what if I do?"

Dean pulled a blue bandana out of his pocket and wiped the oil off of his hands, leaning against the side of his car. "It'd be one of the smartest things you ever did."

Claire fell silent. She walked around the back of the car and around to the other side, half vanishing into the darkness that existed at the end of the driveway. But she appeared a moment later and leant on the Impala a few inches away from Dean. "It's just – everyone I cared about before this has ended up dead, or taken and juiced dry by some angel. How do I know that's not gonna happen this time?"

"Those are a million-to-one odds Claire," Dean said.

"So were they when they happened the first time," Claire returned in a voice that was too weary to match up with her age. "So what else do you have? Because I've heard it all before."

"Not from me you haven't," Dean told her. "I can't erase what happened in your past, but it's past. Don't be so angry about what happened before that you don't live now, because now what's always gonna count most. And, right now, you have a home, and someone who cares enough about you to stick by you through all the mess and crap that may come next."

Claire studied Dean across the night. "Is that why you do this with Sam?"

Dean studied Claire right back. "It's one of the reasons." He walked to the passenger side door and opened the green cooler lying across the backseat, pulling out a brown bottle of beer.

"So family first huh?" Claire said.

"Always." Dean twisted the cap of the bottle, tossing it somewhere into the grass, and took a drink.

"Even when it's not your real family?"

Dean turned to her. "You really think they're not your real family?"

Claire didn't say anything for a long moment. "Can I bum one of those? For pulling your ass out of the fire?" she eyed the beer in Dean's hand.

"Nice try," Dean returned. "But I'm not about to get my arm twisted by the sheriff."

"I told you – Jody doesn't scare me."

"Hey-"

Claire jerked away from Dean like she'd been burned.

"Hey," Dean responded to Sam.

Claire let out a breath when she saw Sam walk over to them from across the yard, hands inside the pocket of his blue canvas jacket.

"Claire thought you were Jody," Dean said with an amused voice at the teen's reaction before looting back inside the cooler, pulling out a second beer bottle that he held out to Sam.

"Shut up." Claire elbowed Dean.

"Yeah, well if you see her don't rat me out," Sam took the bottle from his brother. "I kind of snuck out from upstairs after she ordered me not to."

"Sneaking out for a piece, Sammy?" Dean said with a grin. "You dog."

"Yeah I wish," Sam returned, then looked guilty when he remembered Claire was standing there and he and Dean were having the banter that they were. "Sorry – I mean," he cleared his throat. "I guess I just got hit harder on the head than I thought. Jody was just concerned."

Dean eyed his brother. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam returned. "I mean, I am now."

Dean's look went sideways. "What do you mean now?" Sam didn't respond, opening his beer bottle and not looking at his brother. "Sammy?" The teasing tone of his voice was completely gone.

"I-uh-" Claire broke the silence, sensing she was in an awkward place right now. "I better get inside before Jody tracks me down. Don't worry Sam, I got you covered on this." She gave Sam a kind of solidary pat on the shoulder and walked across the driveway that had collected a light layer of frost since she had come out there.

Dean watched the girl disappear down the driveway and back into the garage.

"She's a good kid," Sam said hearing the door that led in to the house from the garage close. "Even after everything she's been through she's hanging tough-

"What do you mean you feel okay now Sam?"

When Sam looked away from the garage, Dean's eyes were dead set on him.

"I haven't told you everything- about Lucifer," Sam watched Dean's look melt down from confusion to a 'what?' look at his words. "Those visions I told you about- I'm still having them, except," his breath hitched like it had gotten caught on a nail going down his throat. "Except now they're more like nightmares, like a repeated loop of what he did to me."

"And why didn't you tell me this?" Dean's voice was more disbelief than accusatory.

"Because we have enough to deal with already with the Darkness," The night air wasn't cold enough to smoke Sam's breath into the air, but it was cold enough to sting sliding down his throat. "I just didn't want to add to it with something that was my fault. It was my idea to go down to hell in the first place, so whatever the consequences are-"

"Getting waylaid by the devil isn't a consequence, it's torture-plain and simple." Dean said. "When that smarmy dick Crowley told me where you were- I found that cell because I heard you screaming-" His expression became like thick paper being balled up slowly, his hand tightened around the beer bottle going just one strength level below crushing it. "If I had gone down with you this never would've happened," He couldn't look Sam in the eye for a long moment. "You needed me, and I let you get dragged back there – Sammy I'm sorry."

Sam's eyes searched for his brother's "When I was trapped in the Cage, I used to pray that you'd come and get me. Dean I prayed, every day for one hundred and eighty years. Even when I couldn't walk anymore, or see, or when Lucifer ripped my heart out of my chest and I was still alive-" Sam's next breath trembled out of him and the quickest of tears escaped his eyes and dropped to the concrete. "You came back for me – you got me out, and you did the same now. Don't ever apologize for that."

"Okay," Dean's grip on the beer bottle slackened, and he reached out with his free hand to thump Sam on the back with a touch that lingered.

Sam took another breath like he had just swallowed burning whiskey. He twisted the cap off his own beer and swallowed some down, brown foam spilling out onto his fingertips.

Dean glanced over the stains of redness dotting the ends of Sam's fingers, and did a double take. "That blood?"

Sam looked down at the drying redness thickening on the ends of his fingers. "Yeah. Two-by-fours man," he took another pull of beer.

"Well next time remember to duck," Dean swallowed mouthful of his own beer.

Sam snorted a laugh that shot foam up his nose, the noise managing to echo into the night. "You're an idiot."

"Hey-"

The sound of a female voice emerged from behind a banging screen door. Jody limped out across the grass on her crutch in a pair of flannel pajamas and long sleeved shirt and her canvas jacket, a pair of running shoes on her feet. She walked a fairly good clip for someone with a broken leg. Her eyes were locked on Sam.

"I thought I told you to park it, Sam Winchester! Do I handcuff you down too?"

Dean looked amused at the way Sam squirmed under Jody's double name reprimand.

"I was just getting some air," Sam said quickly, shooting Dean a look at the way his brother was looking at him in amusement.

Jody eyed the beer bottle in Sam's hand, her eyebrows. "Got an extra bottle of air back there?"

"Should you be mixing opiates with alcohol?" Dean asked her, but still got out another bottle of beer from the cooler in the backseat.

"I had the same leg broken three times by something supernatural, I can handle passing out from tag teaming drugs." Jody twisted the lid off her bottle and took a swig. "Plus I didn't take any. I used to snort shirt as a kid, the taste of those pills always brings me back."

Dean looked at Jody. "Really?"

"Don't act so shocked," Jody returned. "The closest I got to being demur was learning how to spell it in high school."

"No arguments there." Sam took another swallow of beer.

Jody smiled at him in the dark like she was proud of that fact. "You and Dean get everything squared away?"

Sam looked at the woman, then over her head at Dean. "Yeah we did."

"Good." Jody swallowed more beer blowing out an audible breath.

"So how's Alex holding up?" Dean asked.

"She's tough," Jody turned to him, a bruise leaking in a dark purple stain under her eye. "Tougher than I actually ever was at that age. I just wish she didn't have to be."

"You're doing the best you can." Dean told her. "In the end it's all you can do."

Jody swallowed a mouthful of the night air. "Yeah," she took another drink, eyeing the stars that had come out overhead, shining through the clouds. "Think I'm ready to turn in." she looked over at Sam. "You're not planning on trying to pass out again?"

"I'll be okay." Sam reassured.

Jody looked over to Dean. "You making sure of that?"

"Yes ma'am," Dean answered. "I always do."

Jody smiled, taking one last drink of beer, and patting Sam on the shoulder. "Goodnight guys." She turned and limped back through the grass and into the house.

xxxxXxxx

It was three am when Alex came awake from a dead sleep having to use the bathroom. Her cheek stung with a burning stung pain she raised it off the pillow. She climbed out of the bed slowly, hoping not to wake up Jody. She had mom instinct like bat sonar, once she heard when Alex accidentally dropped a bag of tampons on the floor of the bathroom when she was outside in the garage.

Alex set her feet gingerly on the floor and did her best to walk on tip toes out of the bedroom to not make the boards creak. She stepped over the pile of clothes that smelled like blood, moving out into the hallway, the wood cold on her feet.

Jody's house was almost pitch black at night because it was out in the country enough that there were barely any streetlights to shine in through the window. This was something that she had to take time to adjust to. She had lived with a constant light supply on so the nest would know if she tried to run. She walked past Jody's bedroom, the door halfway open. Jody lay asleep on her side in a queen sized bed under a gray down comforter.

The bathroom was across the other end of the living room. She crept through it in almost total darkness save for the blue glow of the clock light on the stove. She stepped through the opened bathroom door and flipped the light on, the brightness of the vanity bulbs reaching out into the hallway, illuminating something at the top of the stairs. Claire was standing at the landing of the second floor, looking into the spare bedroom.

From where Claire stood, she saw both Dean and Sam crashed out onto the old cot like beds Jody kept in there. They were both still in their clothes. Dean's hand was under his pillow, and Claire knew he was holding onto a gun. He slept turned towards Sam, who was doing the same thing, one of his long arms hanging off the bed in the empty space next to his brother. She held her breath the entire time she watched them, afraid that they would catch her, knowing that their instincts were wired to every little noise. But the night's events must have hit them both hard too, because neither of them so much as twitched.

Claire turned away from the room and spotted Alex watching her from the hallway on the first floor. She walked down the steps slowly in socked feet, meeting Alex at the bottom of the landing.

"They look so different when they're asleep," Claire said. "almost – normal."

"It's hard to believe they even sleep." Alex returned.

"I know," Claire agreed in low voice. "Is Jody out?"

"Yeah, I just walked by her room," Alex whispered. "Why are you awake anyway?"

"I never really went to sleep yet," Claire confessed. "Guess it's just all the adrenaline," she studied Alex, taking in all her bruises. "How are you? I never really asked after we got back."

"Alive," Alex said honestly, staring at the bruise under Claire's eye. "What about you? I mean, it was my fault you and Jody got taken in the first place."

"It's not like you knew that was going down like that."

"I probably should have," Alex reasoned. "Why else would the most popular guy in the school be interested in me?"

"That guy was a little bitch," Claire returned. "You deserved way better than some sicko who pimps himself out to vampires."

"Yeah, well after today I'm swearing off guys for a while."

"C'mon don't say that," Claire said. "Not every guy is some blood sucking freak- and if they are, I still have my sword, I'll have your back."

"That's oddly comforting." Alex said.

"That's what family does- or so I hear."

Alex smiled, then turned back to Jody's room that she could see somewhat from across the living room.

"We really need to do something," Claire looked over at Jody's room too, seeing Jody dead asleep from obvious exhaustion. "We kind of owe her major after this."

"What about making breakfast in the morning?" Alex suggested.

"If she likes burned bacon, I'm in," Claire agreed.

"She should, I've made it enough times for her." Alex said.

Claire gave Alex a half-smile. "Deal."