Summary: Claire should be working on schoolwork. She's more interested in studying the hunter that rescued her family and the things he does.

Warnings: I back up the Narrative before moving forward, this is a style experiment as well, please review and critique (preferably constructively) what you think works and what doesn't!

Taking Notes

Claire liked Sam. Liked him the moment he stepped through the door in the old house the scary person looking like her mom left her in, muttered something then dropped his gun and knelt by the chair, gently untying her as he introduced himself, asking what had happened and promising to save her mom. He had reluctantly put her back in the chair when the car had driven up, but gave her some holy water to throw for protection.

She thought he was a hero, then. A guardian angel sent to protect her. He even saved her Mommy from the monster controlling her.

Then he took her home while Daddy took Mommy to the hospital, and tried to stay in the kitchen and living room. Claire was terrified to go upstairs alone, and had convinced him to follow her up the stairs and wait outside her room.

She knew about strangers, and that she was supposed to be wary about men near her while she was changing, but having had a demon use her own mother to kidnap her, she really didn't care (plus he hadn't wanted to be near her while she changed, so wasn't that proof he wasn't a bad stranger?). He scared off the demon, therefore, he was staying as close to her as she could keep him until Daddy got home.

It was late, but Claire couldn't sleep, and Sam had sort of made dinner ('Soup out of a can,' he said, 'I can't really cook, sandwiches and salads are about it for my skill level.') so she got him to sit next to her on the couch while Mary Poppins started, and at one point she had to force him to put his arm around her, because she was finally starting to relax but his arm was in an awkward position.

He smelled like wood, dirt, leather, some sort of oil and smoke, and she found she rather liked how that combination smelled as she finally fell asleep on him.

She sort of woke up once, Mary Poppins was singing 'feed the birds' and Sam had relaxed a bit, one hand gently running through her hair despite the size of his hand. Daddy wasn't home, but she was safe with Sam, so she drifted right back to sleep barely noticing the weight of the afghan on top of her.

Even when Daddy came back, Sam stayed, explaining the symbols he was putting up, either with a sharpie or by carving them into the doorjambs, and the various items that repelled evil spirits and other monsters. She knew Sam was sad, sometimes he'd wipe at his eyes when he thought she wasn't looking, or fiddle with an odd shaped pendant on a string around his neck. Sam also spent a lot of time awake even though he had the guest room, until Daddy confronted him and also got him to start eating with them, instead of just drinking the yucky coffee that Mommy liked, and Daddy only drank before work.

Adults must lose their sense of taste, she had decided when she had tried a sip once. Mommy and Daddy had laughed when she told them that. She burst into tears one morning when she remembered that, and both Sam and Daddy had taken turns holding her.


Claire wanted Mommy back, she wanted Sam to hurt the demon that hurt her family, but most of all, Claire wanted to stop being scared whenever Daddy or Sam left her in a room alone. Even working on her summer book-report hadn't helped. She was almost 11, she should be able to handle being alone for a few minutes!

The people that came didn't help either- she couldn't talk about the demon to anyone, and the counselor lady from her school that came to talk to her didn't like Sam setting up some Cameras (front & back doors, garage and one on the side of the house) while Claire was there. The Counselor didn't like Sam at all, in fact, and Claire reacted to her trying to talk Daddy into making Sam leave by grabbing onto Sam and making him promise not to leave until the house was safe.

The lady stopped trying to get Sam to leave, but Claire caught the words 'regression' and 'delicate handling' when she talked to her Daddy again (she sat too close to Daddy when she did it, too, and Claire didn't like it), and Claire had enough of listening to this woman talk like Claire was a baby and wasn't capable of understanding anything she said, because Claire knew.

Claire knew she was clinging onto Daddy and Sam, knew that sitting on their laps while they were sitting and talking was a little too childish for an almost 11 year old, but she wanted to feel safe and she didn't feel safe with her friends or with the people from church that came over to talk to Daddy and drop off food.

She really didn't feel safe around the school counselor, and told her Daddy so. Claire did it when the lady was there, and she left in a huff when Daddy agreed with Claire, saying they'd find someone else.

"Thank you for your honesty Claire," Dad said, looking a little bemused at Sam who had dialed a number and excused himself for a bit. "I'm sorry, I know this is a really scary time, I thought it would help to talk to someone."

"It doesn't, they don't understand, and we can't tell them mom was possessed." Claire hated not being able to tell her friends why she was staying in her house so much, why she kept running to make sure Dad and Sam were still nearby. It was frustrating and some of them were beginning to stop talking to her, which only made her feel worse.

Dad had looked at her sadly, before pulling her into a hug. "I know, sweetie. You can talk to me or Sam about that."

"Who do you and Sam talk to?" Claire asked, because she couldn't recall either of them talking about it much, actually. Sam had talked to her just after it happened, Dad had talked after he came home from the hospital, but she couldn't remember either of them talking about it to anyone else.

And Sam hunted demons and monsters, so he'd probably need to talk more than anyone.

" ... We haven't. I guess we should, huh?" Dad asked her, and Claire nodded.

"He's fought lots of bad things, if I'm scared after what happened, how does he feel?" She had pointed out, because she can't imagine fighting ghosts or witches to help people and not be scared, and her Daddy had smiled.

"You're right, maybe he needs our help as much as we need his."

"Thanks." Sam came in and hung up the phone. "So, uh, I worked on a violent spirit haunting a couple years back, met a psychologist ... He suggested you just try writing things down, no one else has to read it, or anything, like Ms. Gingham wanted, just write whatever you think of to get it off your mind."


Claire found a faux leather journal with a lock, her mom had given it to her when she turned 10, but she'd still been using her old diary so hadn't used it yet.

She wrote about the demon, about the devil trap and the symbols she had memorized before Sam had rescued her, about the protections Sam was putting around their house and how to make holy water.

She also wrote notes on Sam, on how he had nightmares and didn't sleep or eat enough without her Dad's reminders, about the pendant (amulet) that belonged to his brother who died saving his life, how his older brother must be as cool as him, because Sam still looks up to him. She wrote about the night Sam told them his story, a demon that stalked his family because it was using his blood to change certain children, how Sam no longer had visions or anything after dying and coming back, because his brother sold his soul to save his life only to be killed by a demon a year later; and another demon said there was a way for him to still use those powers, only to get killed by the demon that kidnapped them.

He had even cried a little, and Claire wished she was bigger because she couldn't hug him tight enough.

So after Mommy died and was buried, and Sam was called by the demon with another set of coordinates, Claire had started packing, much to her Dad's surprise.

"We have to help Sam, Daddy, he still needs us." Because the look he had given the phone had been equal part scared and sad, with something else that made her think he was tired, and the only thing she retained from meeting the school counselor was that people could get sick from being scared and sad all the time, and Sam had just been getting better.

Dad had hesitated, before nodding. "I was thinking the same thing. I'll pack, you distract Sam? He might not want us to come."

He hadn't, but Claire curled up in the backseat of the Impala and fell asleep to the noise of the engine and Dad commenting on the old cassettes, she didn't tell them she took Mom's Ipod jack from the minivan until she woke up for lunch, because listening to the radio was boring.

They had to stop once for sleep at a motel, Claire had shared one of the beds with her dad while Sam took the other.

She read and wrote more notes on The Yearling, but she found the idea of a deer hunting other deer (or anything else for that matter) like a dog did, more than a little wrong, so she stopped reading it for a while.

Claire also wrote more notes about Sam, the Impala, how her Dad was doing, where the coordinates were taking them according to the GPS Sam had, and how she hoped Sam might be able to kill the demon with the knife he had.

But the one thing she didn't write about was the weird thing that happened while Sam and her Daddy went to help the people the demon had kidnapped.

Claire had been sitting in the back seat of the impala and praying. "Please, Angels, protect my Daddy and Sam ... Also, I don't know if it's possible, but Sam's older brother Dean is in hell and he's a good person who only got sent there because he offered up his life for his brother's, and I would like it a lot if someone could get him out of there, because he's not a bad person and only bad people go to hell, so please save him ..."

"Part of the Host is going to save Dean Winchester, don't fear for him anymore." A voice said, and Claire had been startled, because she didn't know who had spoken, and then the voice said, "Be careful, Claire Novak."

Claire had tried to get the voice to speak again, but it never replied to her other prayers, and she kept trying until her Daddy came for her and the Impala.


Note: From what I could follow in show, Angelic Vessel bloodlines are specific to certain angels- or angelic types- Winchesters can handle Archangels, Campbells seemed to have been claimed by angels that fell with Lucifer (Azazel is technically a fallen angel, not a human, turned demon ... I think?) Novaks are claimed by Castiel, or angels of his rank ... Even Gadreel had a specific vessel for him, despite being locked up in heaven's jail for eons. (I am ignoring the whole actor paradox thing, just fyi)

Also, Angelic Vessels are capable of talking to angels without having their eardrums burst ... Jimmy apparently talked to Castiel for months before becoming his vessel ... I'm going to be using that idea but taking it in a different direction.

Claire's reaction to the school counselor is actually mine; I had a school counselor at one school that was constantly analyzing me, and then saying awful things to my parents to get me even more isolated than I already was. The school counselor at my previous school had been much better, so I knew the new one was awful at helping me. For Claire, Sam is the better previous school counselor I had, who actually listened to me.