Some time had passed since the incident with Clara's birthday and after realizing they couldn't spend all of their time locked away waiting for Lucifer to end the world the hunters had decided to get back into the swing of things. Castiel was often busy in heaven searching the globe for any sign of Lucifer and keeping the Angels in line now that Metatron was locked behind heavens prison. In a way he'd kind of became their leader once again giving them a purpose. As he compared it, they were like a colony of ants without a queen looking for a common goal to achieve. Many were still apprehensive after the Leviathan rise up and the genocide of many angels but Castiel was doing all he could to win back their trust.
Back on Earth Clara was finally out in the field assisting on a few hunts with Sam and Dean. As ordered she stayed back when things got ugly, but her knowledge of computer tech and months studying up on lore had proved quite useful. Not only was she skilled in mapping out stars but she had recently taken to creating an algorithm for tracing demon and monster reports on her computer, with a little help from the boys friend Charlie. Part of the bunker had transformed from office space to a hub of information connecting push pins with red string to important information or theories of possible locations Lucifer could be hiding.
"What the hell am I looking at?" Dean asked with a bit of a sleepy grunt while standing beside Clara, both looking up at the mess of papers and red string plastered against the wall. "I thought you said you were just gonna hang some doodles up on the wall. This looks like the uni-bombers art project."
"I said graphs not doodles, and it's a map...sort of." Simultaneously they both sipped their coffee. "Charlie helped me set up a scanner that reports any demonic signs. Electrical storms, mass animal mutilations, strange or sudden deaths, even hunter reports of ghost sightings and kills." She noted. Dean gave a rather impressed nod.
"Hm..Ya know, you're kinda like that secretary in the Ghostbusters. What was her name? Janine something.." Dean paused trying to think as Clara glanced up at him from her coffee, pleased to see that he was impressed.
"Please, I'm more Bill Murray than the secretary. You're more...who was the nerdy guy with the glasses? He did that movie where he shrunk the kids." She asked with a smirk.
"No way I'm way more Bill Murray than you!" Dean protested. As they continued to argue Sam emerged from his bedroom, hair a mess while his slippers drug along the tile floor.
"Mornin'. What are we arguing about today?" Sam yawned combing the knots out of his hair as he met them at the wall of papers. "Holy crap, Clara. Did that thing get bigger since last night?"
"It's like it's alive. Slowly getting bigger every day until it takes on a life of it's own." Dean added jokingly. Clara stepped to one of the tables setting her mug down as she picked up some papers.
"I was explaining to Dean that this maps demonic patterns. I'm hoping it might help us get an idea of where Lucifer's hiding, but so far it's just the occasional hunter report of demon sightings. Whatever they're up to they're doing a good job keepin' quiet and clean. I've only got three reports of cattle mutilations, and six electrical storms, but the patterns could just be the change in the weather." As she spoke Clara stuck in a few more pages to the wall before stepping back in hopes of seeing some kind of pattern.
"Gee only three mass cow murders." Dean gave her a look wondering how she could be so casual about it. He didn't like the idea that they were rubbing off on her.
"But! Good news!" A page printed out of the printer and she almost danced around the desk before coming to a bouncy stop in front of them. "A body popped up in the Biggerton Mental Institute for the Deranged and Insane! " She said with a bright smile on her face as she handed the papers over. Dean and Sam glanced at the paper before Dean gave her a look. "Oh don't worry, place has been shut down for ages. We'll get in piece of cake."
"Ok we need to talk about presentation." He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow a bit disturbed. "Explain to me how a body showing up is good news. We usually try to catch the bad guy before there's a body." Sam chuckled resulting in an eye roll from Clara.
"It's good news because I found us a new case!" She shuffled the papers around in his hands pulling up the police reports. "See after this place was shut down in '68, every so often a person around or inside the building goes missing. Grounds keepers, real estate ladies, teenagers looking to shag or maybe a good snogging,"
"Looking to what?" Dean gave her a confused look but she kept going.
"Any time a person goes in they vanish. No bodies, no sign they were ever even there in the first place. Until now. A body means whatever or whomever is doing this got sloppy. Something in their pattern has changed, and if so that increases our chances of catching them...'er it...whatever. You get my point." She shrugged before looking up with a proud grin.
"Holy crap..Clara that's...wow..." Sam chuckled at her little grin. He was impressed with how hard she was trying to work along side them and 'fit in' as a hunter, even if it was a bit overboard at times. "Wait...how did you get these police records and photographs? They're classified information. I don't even think I could get into some of these."
"Jealous are you?" She chuckled, but wasn't sure if they were more upset with how illegal the action was. "Try to think less, 'Boo Clara hacked a police record files and is currently monitoring every police report in the United States' and more 'Yay! Found us a case to work. Woo-hoo!'." Her grin grew a little forced while arms cheered in the air trying to get them to follow suit.
"Every police report? All at once?! How did you...? Charlie can't even do that!" Sam's jaw dropped suddenly seeing her in a slightly different light.
"Right. Should probably explain. A while back, the Doctor and I stopped this evil mad lady from downloadin' people's heads with WIFI. Actually...that's how we met..sort of..." She pouted her bottom lip in thought of how complicated their meeting was what with her time echos. "My head got downloaded but the Doctor reversed it and well, some of the internet stuff sorta just..stuck I guess." The girl gave a casual shrug not seeing it as a big deal. "I don't remember all of it but I've got like this...computer stuff in my head." The boys looked back and forth both wondering why she'd taken this long to tell them something so big.
"Okay...good to know." Dean nodded trying not to look a little freaked out at the moment. "That's not freaky at all..."
"So we'll check it out then? Could be a ghost, or a poltergeist, or an honest to goodness Boogie Man, though those tend to hide out in more residential areas. So? What'chya think?! " Clara asked eagerly reaching on her tip toes as her hands folded under her chin in a begging fashion. Dean sighed rolling his eyes. They had better things to be doing with Lucifer out, but it wasn't exactly like they were making any headway. Another little hunt couldn't hurt.
"Fine, we'll go check out the creepy asylum, but maybe take it easy on the homework. You're starting to get a real crazy librarian look about you. " Dean warned with a pointed finger like a father scolding a child.
Clara looked down at her slightly disheveled dress while a hand moved to her tangled mess of hair from falling asleep on a desk. "The entire library is full of folklore and books no one has ever even heard of or know exist. What d'you expect me to do?" She protested playfully, though she realized he had a point.
"I don't know? Watch TV. Play a Nintendo. Go to a bar. Do something normal. " He joked back trying to keep his face as serious as he could.
"...Play Nintendo? You do realize this isn't actually the 80's any more, right?" Clara repeated looking at him making him feel a bit outdated.
"Really, Dean? That's what you're going with? 'Act normal'? Coming from the dude who kills monsters for a living?" Sam added questionably giving Dean a look as he laughed softly. "Name the last time you even read a book start to finish?" Dean looked up in thought making it clear how hard the cogs in his head worked trying to remember.
"Uhhh..." He snapped his finger pointing at Sam. "There was that book about that Alice girl who fell down a well and did a bunch of shrooms with the guy in the big hat! They made that movie about it." Dean defended before Sam gave him another dark look.
"That was Alice in Wonderland. She fell down a rabbit hole, not a well. You were twenty-seven and it was a children's pop-up book." He argued with a sigh placing his hands on his hips as his eyebrows rose and his lips pursed slightly before turning to Clara."Plus the movie freaked him out so he wouldn't watch it."
"Look it didn't freak me out okay." Dean argued back getting a little defensive now. "I just preferred the...Adult interpretation better..." He said casually before clearing his throat.
"You mean the pornographic version?" Clara folded her arms across her chest mimicking Sam's expression. Dean looked between them getting more flustered.
"It sounds so much dirtier when you put it like that. 'Porn-o-graphic'." He mocked her accent and higher pitched voice poorly. "Screw both'a you guys. I'm getting ready for the hunt." Dean said before storming out of the room grumbling to himself.
[a/n: sorry this chapter is so short. The other will be a lot longer. I didn't want to try to fit this in with the other Ch. and have it be a long annoying to scroll through chapter when this wasn't even really the main adventure part with the asylum. If the asylum chapters get long I'll split those up too but I'll try and keep it as together as I can. If you have noticed I'm writing these like episodes which is sorta difficult in chapter form. Ch.10 would kind of be like where the Mid-season or maybe even Season Finale would pick up from after ch.9 (unbirthday pt2). Some time has passed, people bonded, Crowley's still up to evil shenanigans with Ruby and Lucifer is hiding doing God doesn't even know what. So bare with me for this filler chapter. I hope you are enjoying the ride. Thank you so much for the reviews they mean the world to me! I'm really happy people are enjoying the read and I promise more adventure, surprise and characters to come!