This prompt is for Aini NuFire who wanted a scenario where Charlie joins TFW for Christmas and they end up getting caught in a snow globe. She always gives me the weirdest prompts like last year's with Santa being killed LOL :P But they are fun to write ;) I hope you guys enjoy this one. I kind of feel like I really failed at writing Charlie, but I hope it's not too terrible overall.

Also thanks to my guest reviewer scootersmon for your review!

Trapped in a Winter Wonderland

For Aini NuFire

"Okay, guys, I am determined to make this the bestest Christmas ever!"

Sam, Dean and Castiel stared at the vivacious redhead as she was practically bounding off the walls of the bunker. They had been surprised when Charlie had shown up only a couple days before Christmas with a box of presents and Christmas lights, asking them to go Christmas tree shopping with her because "they would have a Christmas tree in the bunker or she wasn't staying". They hadn't been planning on doing much for Christmas that year at all besides trying to relax, but now that Charlie was there, they couldn't help but feel a little of the holiday spirit that she was practically exuding.

"I'm so glad you guys were here and not off hunting something across the country, I haven't had anyone to celebrate Christmas with in…forever," Charlie said, finally coming to a stop in front of them with her hands on her hips. "This is going to be awesome."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean said uncertainly. "But what exactly do you have planned?"

Charlie huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Duh, Christmas stuff! A tree for starters, and lights and Christmas cookies, and presents!"

"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve," Sam said slowly.

"Yeah, so let's get to work!" Charlie insisted. "Come on, I saw a Christmas tree stand on the way here, can't we go get one?"

Even though Charlie had never had siblings, she certainly had perfected the puppy eyes, and Dean groaned. "Fine, let's go. But we're taking your car because I ain't putting a tree on top of Baby."

"Whatever, let's just go before they sell out!" Charlie insisted, already running out the door.

Dean glanced back at Sam and Cas. "I'll go with her to get the tree, you two run to the store to pick up the other stuff on her list," he said.

They nodded and they all went to get their respective Christmas things, reconvening back at the bunker with lightened spirits. Even Dean had to admit that having Charlie around for the holidays would probably make it the happiest Christmas they'd had—ever.

Of course, he started to rethink that when he and Sam had to wrestle the tree into place in one corner of the library while Cas smartly stayed out of the way and Charlie gave them directions.

"A little more to the right, no, my right! Okay, that's perfect!"

Dean groaned as he straightened, brushing needles out of his hair and inspecting the scratches on his hands. "Well, whether it is or not, it's staying there now."

"Okay, decorating time!" Charlie said. "Did you get some?"

Cas pointed to a bag on the table. "Sam and I got some lights and a few ball ornaments."

Charlie's face fell as she examined the contents of the bag. "Guys, this will hardly cover half the tree!"

"Well we didn't think you'd get a giant," Sam told her.

"You know, I bet the Men of Letters have some Christmas decorations tucked away in one of these storage rooms," Charlie mused.

"Uh, that may not be such a good idea," Sam said.

"Why not? They must have had Christmas too," Charlie insisted. "Come on, Castiel, we'll go check it out."

Cas hurried after her as Dean watched them go, opening his mouth to protest, but they were already gone. The tree picked that moment to fall into his back and nearly knock him to his hands and knees. He straightened, cursing, as he and Sam wrestled it back into place.

"See if you can figure this out. I'm going to go make sure they don't open any of the curse boxes," Dean said.

"Thanks," Sam grunted as he continued to wrestle with the tree.

Dean hurried deeper into the bunker toward the storage rooms and found Charlie and Cas in one of the rooms, already going through boxes.

"Find anything?" he asked.

"Not yet," Charlie replied, peeking into another one. "Most of this stuff is just full of old paperwork."

"Hold on, I think I found a box of ornaments," Cas said, pulling the box he found down for closer inspection. Charlie hurried over and opened it, revealing some ancient strings of lights and glass balls and ugly old garlands with tinsel still stuck to them. Dean wrinkled his nose.

"Yes! Lots of old stuff in here, these should work great," she said, and stood on tiptoe to see onto the shelf Cas had found the box on. "Hey, there's something else up there, pull that down, too Castiel."

The angel did so and Dean just barely saw the smaller box before it was knocked off the shelf with the other box and tumbled down, crashing to the floor, almost on Charlie's foot. She yelped and jumped back as Dean hurried forward too late to catch it.

"Sorry," Cas said. "I didn't see it, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Charlie assured him with a smile before crouching to inspect the box that had fallen. "I wonder what this is?"

"Hold on, you may not want to open that," Dean warned, leaning over to see the box Charlie was now picking up.

"It's already open," she said, opening the lid that must have popped in the fall. She gasped. "Oh! This is awesome!" She pulled out a very elaborate snow globe with an ornate, gold base, and a very detailed winter village inside, nestled in the snow. "It's beautiful!" she exclaimed as she shook it to make it snow on the village.

"It must have belonged to one of the Men of Letters," Cas commented as he set the box of ornaments aside to give the globe a closer look. "It is very detailed."

"I wonder what it was doing up there," Charlie mused, turning it over to look at the bottom. She smiled as she found a little crank. "Hey, I think it's a music box!"

Before any of them could think about possible side effects, Charlie turned the crank. But instead of a tinkling tune starting as they expected, the snow globe started to glow.

"Um…" Charlie started. "Is it supposed to do that?"

"Guys, I think we should get out of here," Dean said quickly.

Charlie hurriedly put the snow globe down and stood up, but the glow was getting brighter by the second and they had to cover their eyes as it encompassed them in a blinding flash. Charlie shrieked and Dean reached out to her before he felt something tug on him and he felt a sudden weightless sensation before complete disorientation took over.

He thought he might have blacked out after that, for the next thing he was aware of was that the weightlessness was gone and he was slamming into something slightly padded and very cold. He groaned, blinking something from his eyes, and struggling to sit upright to take stock of what had happened.

His eyes popped open.

He was no longer in the closet in the bunker, in fact he was no longer inside at all. He was lying somewhere in the snow outside of some quaint little village.

"What the hell?" he mumbled.

He heard groans to his left and turned to see Cas and Charlie sitting up too, likewise befuddled. He might have thought Cas had zapped them somewhere to avoid injury, but he couldn't fly anymore.

"What happened?" Cas asked, looking around with confusion.

"I have no freakin' clue," Dean muttered, trying to force himself to his feet.

"Um, guys," Charlie spoke up tentatively as she scrambled to her feet with Cas giving her a hand. She pointed to the village. "Does that look familiar to you?"

"No, why would…" Dean squinted at the village and then suddenly turned around to see what was behind them. He saw mostly darkness, but there was a sort of shimmery dome barrier as well. He struggled through the snow toward it and walked right into it with an impact that made him sit down hard in the snow.

"Dean!" Charlie called as she and Cas hurried over and helped him to his feet. He stood and slammed a hand into the solid barrier several times before he could convince himself of what he was seeing.

"This is very strange," Cas said.

"Are we…" Charlie started and then gulped. "Um, are we stuck in the…snow globe?"

Dean slammed his fist against the glass one last time. "Yeah. It looks like it." Now how the hell were they going to get out of there? "Crap."

Sam heard a muffled crash from deeper in the bunker and shook his head, still trying to get the tree to stand upright. He finally managed to by making an impromptu base around the bottom, and he stepped back carefully, hoping it would hold this time. It did and he smiled in satisfaction. Now he should probably go help the others.

As he was making his way back toward the storage closets though, he heard more noise accompanied by Charlie shrieking and he frowned and hurried down the hall, hoping nothing was wrong.

"Guys?" he called, looking into the rooms as he passed them but frowning when he saw that none of them were occupied. One of the rooms did have an open box of ornaments though and Sam went inside to pick it up, wondering if they had already gone to look in another part of the bunker. But something seemed off. "Dean, Cas, Charlie?" he called again, but there were still no replies.

He frowned deeper and then nudged something with his toe. He looked down and saw a snow globe sitting on the floor.

"Weird," he muttered to himself and bent to pick it up as he went back out to the library to see if the others had ended up out there again. "Guys?"

"Let's go to the village," Charlie suggested. "Maybe there's a way to get out of here there."

Dean muttered under his breath. "I don't know why there would be. It's not a real village, it's made of plaster or something."

"But the snow is real," Charlie said, reaching down and scooping up a handful of it before forming s snowball. "Or at least it feels real." She tossed it at Cas and it splattered on his coat.

The angel frowned, brushing the snow from himself. "It does seem to be enchanted, so perhaps when you're inside it does feel real. Besides, a typical snow globe has water in it, and we're not submerged while we're inside, so it would only stand to reason there is some kind of spell surrounding it."

"Ya think?" Dean quipped.

"And I'm cold," Charlie said, hugging herself and shivering. None of them were dressed warmly since they had just been in the bunker previously, certainly not prepared for cold weather. "Maybe there's a fire in one of the houses."

Dean sighed, but had to admit they didn't really have any better options. "Alright, we may as well try to get warm while we figure out how to get out of here. This is exactly what I was afraid of."

"Sorry," Charlie said quietly. "I didn't exactly expect a snow globe to be a dangerous cursed object."

"Well, thankfully it doesn't seem to be too dangerous. Yet," Dean muttered, trying not to make Charlie feel too bad. It wasn't like he and Sam hadn't made a million mistakes like that in the past. He still remembered Sam's adventure with the cursed rabbit's foot.

Cas was shrugging out of his coat. "Here, this will keep you warm for now," he said, wrapping it around Charlie's shoulders.

"But you'll get cold too!" she protested.

Cas smiled. "I don't get cold like humans do. I'll be fine."

"Oh, then thanks," Charlie smiled and put her arms through the sleeves, the coat dwarfing her.

"Alright, let's go," Dean said, trying to ignore his own chill skin. He rolled the sleeves of his flannel shirt down but it didn't do much.

They had only taken a few steps toward the village when the ground started rumbling. They stopped, looking around in alarm, before Dean looked beyond the glass and spotted a huge figure looming over them.

"Guys?" a muffled giant voice called.

"It's Sam," Cas supplied.

"Hey, maybe he'll be able to get us out of here!" Charlie said and started jumping up and down, waving. "Sam! Hey, Sam!"

"I don't think he can hear us. As small as we are, the sounds we are making would be imperceptible to human ears," Cas said. "Perhaps if we go back toward the glass he will be able to see us."

"Yeah, because we're the size of crumbs," Dean scoffed. "We are screwed, admit it."

And then Sam reached down and grabbed the snow globe. They all fell to their knees, unable to keep their feet at the movement as Sam walked out of the storage room and finally settled them onto the library table with the box of decorations and the world finally stopped moving.

"Ugh," Dean grunted as he hauled himself to his feet again. "That was annoying. Come on Sammy, look at it!"

Sam came back over to the table and poked around the box before turning his attention to the snow globe again. The three of them all stood up and waved their arms, hoping he would see them and for a minute they thought they would get lucky.

"Sam!" they called.

Sam seemed to be inspecting the snow globe, but then he simply tipped it over to make it snow.

Chaos ensued.

"Sam, no!" Dean screamed as he saw what his brother was about to do, but it was too late. Cas had been right, there was no way they could be heard, especially not when they were being tipped on their heads.

The three of them yelped as they lost their footing, flying up into nothing along with the snow. Dean quickly lost track of what was up and what was down, as he went spinning one way and then the other, until he finally fell with a crash, and this time he really did black out.

Sam frowned as he set the snow globe back down again, watching the snow rain down onto the very detailed little village in it, before he went to look again for the others. Where could they have gotten? Were they playing a trick on him, or were they actually in trouble, and if it were the latter, then what could possibly have happened to them?

"Guys, come, on, this isn't funny!" he said, as he once again took to the halls. Any number of things could have come about from poking through the Men of Letters' storage rooms. He and Dean still hadn't gone through everything. He was getting more and more worried by the second, because if they had upset something they shouldn't have, then who knew what would come of it.

Dean felt suffocated, and freezing. He struggled to move, fighting against whatever it was holding him, and with a growing panic, could only recall waking up in that coffin when he had gotten back form Hell. He tried to calm his breathing however, and something cold and wet fell into his mouth. He spit it out before he realized it was snow and then he remembered where he was. Trapped in a snow globe.

Yeah, their lives just got weirder and weirder.

He started clawing his way out of the snow and finally surfaced, gasping for breath. His whole body hurt, and he remembered the tumble through the tiny world induced by his idiot brother who had thought it would be fun to shake the snow globe. He just hoped Sam wouldn't touch the crank at the bottom and get stuck in here too, otherwise they may never get out.

Dean groaned as he hauled himself to his feet and looked around for Charlie and Cas. "Charlie? Cas? Hey!"

He had no idea where they could be, with the impromptu snowstorm they could have ended up anywhere in the village. He just hoped neither of them had gotten impaled on a rooftop somewhere. He realized he had been lucky to land in a snow bank.

He started trudging off toward the village, having landed right by one of the houses on the outskirts, and kept calling for the others.

"Charlie, Cas! Answer me if you can!" he shouted.

He then saw a bit of tan fabric peeking out from a snow drift and ran toward it, scraping snow away hastily until he revealed most of Charlie. She was pale and seemingly unconscious and he pulled her out of the snow, patting her cheeks in an attempt to rouse her.

"Charlie, hey, wake up, come on," he pleaded, hoping she hadn't been injured. He looked her over, and didn't see any drastic broken bones or anything. Hopefully she hadn't hit her head too badly.

She suddenly gasped and coughed, her eyes fluttering open in a panic as she flailed in the snow. "Wha-what happened?" she cried.

"My brother's an idiot," Dean grumbled, helping her to her feet. "But no news there. Can you stand?"

"Yeah," she said a bit uncertainly, then brushed herself off. "That was ridiculous! Who knew being in a snow globe could be so horrifying!" She looked around with a frown. "Where's Castiel?"

"I don't know, I haven't found him yet," Dean replied worriedly, hoping the angel might just pop up somewhere.

"Well, we need to find him, he might have been hurt in the fall," Charlie said worriedly as she pulled Cas' coat snugger around herself and looked around the village. "Let's go look around."

They trudged through the snow and Dean glanced at the small houses and shops they passed. Several of them looked like they had fires burning in them, and Dean found himself longing for some heat to his chilled skin.

"This place is kind of freaky," he muttered.

Charlie looked at him incredulously. "Freaky? It's adorable and full of Christmas feels! What's freaky about it?"

"You know, it's like this perfect little village, but it's completely deserted."

Charlie quirked an eyebrow at him. "So, wait, you're telling me it would be less freaky if there was a colony of teeny tiny people living here?"

Dean considered it and gave a conceding shrug. "Yeah, I guess you have a point."

"Hey, I think I see something!" Charlie cried and hurried forward. Dean followed her swiftly, trying to keep from tripping in the snow and falling on his face.

They had made it to the town square which had a giant Christmas tree in the middle of it. Though now the tree was looking a little lopsided, some branches broken off and scattered around its base, along with a figure sprawled in the snow.

"Castiel!" Charlie gasped and took off toward the figure, tripping once before she regained her footing, reaching the angel a few seconds before Dean did.

"Cas?" he called, as he crouched next to Charlie as she was bending over Cas, a hand on his cheek. He was unconscious and there was blood matting one side of his hair.

"It looks like he hit his head in the fall," Charlie said.

Dean reached down and grabbed Cas' shoulder, shaking him slightly. The angel's eyes fluttered open and he groaned, flinching away from Dean. Charlie put a hand on his chest to steady him.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked worriedly.

Castiel blinked up at them, and then at his surroundings before he frowned. "I—what happened?"

"Sam shook the snow globe and we all went flying. Charlie and I just found you here making snow angels," Dean informed him.

"Oh, that must be why I feel like I tried to fly through gale force wind, and hit a mountain instead," Cas said and he attempted to sit up but gasped and settled back down, gripping his left arm. "I—I think I may have injured myself."

Dean gently inspected his arm, and realized his shoulder was dislocated. "Looks like your shoulder got popped out of joint. Let's get you up and then we'll try to find someplace warm and get you fixed up."

"I'll heal myself," Cas protested and closed his eyes, looking like he was concentrating hard, but he opened them again with a heavy breath, a confused look on his face. "It seems that whatever spell this place is under is interfering with my grace."

"Alright, well, that means we need to figure out how to get out of here as soon as possible," Dean said and reached down to help Cas to his feet, Charlie getting on his other side to help support him as he wobbled, likely concussed. "Come on."

They made their way to the nearest house with a glowing window and stepped inside. A wave of warmth washed over them and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, at least the fire isn't an illusion," Dean said as he settled Cas into a chair by the hearth.

"Look, hot chocolate!" Charlie exclaimed, pointing to several steaming mugs set on the hearth.

"This place really does come fully equipped," Dean said, looking around the cabin that looked like something out of a cheesy Hallmark movie, complete with fully decorated Christmas tree and presents underneath.

But they had other things to worry about. He turned back to Cas. "Alright, I'll pop your shoulder back in and it will feel better after that. Unfortunately we can't really do anything about your head unless there's some aspirin running around."

Cas nodded, grimacing. "It's alright. I'll live."

"On three," Dean said as he got into position. "One—" He snapped it back in and Cas curled forward with a yelp. Dean rested a hand on his good shoulder to keep him from falling out of the chair.

"You didn't count to three," the angel accused.

Dean smiled. "Nope. It never does any good to know it's coming."

Charlie came to sit at Cas' feet and handed him a mug of hot cocoa. "Here, this will warm you up."

Castiel accepted the cocoa with his good hand and sipped it. Dean took another mug and settled by the fire, feeling his appendages finally start to thaw. He hadn't realized how cold he had been until now as his skin started to prickle painfully as the fire seeped warmth into his body again. He rubbed his hands together briskly as he turned to the others.

"So, any brilliant ideas on how to get out of here?"

"I suppose we could look around and see if there's some failsafe," Castiel said. "We had to turn the crank on the bottom of the snow globe to get inside here, perhaps there's a similar way to get out."

"Or not," Dean muttered. "And then we'll be permanently stuck in Christmasville forever."

"At least it's not the worst thing that could happen," Charlie said, trying to offer an optimistic smile. "I mean, perpetual Christmas? Not too bad, right? And there is warmth and food. Or, hot chocolate at least."

"I'm sure Sam will eventually figure out what happened," Cas offered. "And he may be able to find a way to help us on the outside."

"Yeah, but first we need to make sure he knows where we are," Dean grunted, looking around the cabin as if an idea would come to him.

"Oh!" Charlie suddenly said. "I think I have an idea! What if we wrote a message in the snow, like an SOS?"

Dean mulled the idea over in his mind. "Yeah, that could work. But we'd need to make it visible to Sam and big enough that he'll be able to read it."

Charlie pointed to the presents under the tree. "We can make it out of all the stuff in the cabin. It should be bright enough and I bet we'll have enough of it to make a big enough message!"

"It is the best plan we have," Cas admitted.

Dean agreed. "Sounds good. First, let's see if we can find something warm to wear."

Pretty soon, they had found several parkas in the cabin closet and the three of them set to work dragging piles of presents, and even the Christmas trees outside the village where they began to lay out a huge HELP that hopefully Sam would be able to see. It was hard, tiring work, especially since Cas was injured, and it took a long time dragging everything back and forth, but eventually they finished it and stood, panting in the snow, to view their handiwork.

"Great, now all we have to do is wait for Sasquatch to look at us again," Dean muttered.

Sam was growing more and more desperate by the minute. It had been over an hour since Dean, Cas and Charlie had disappeared and he knew now that something had to be wrong. But he couldn't find them anywhere. He even checked all the warding in the bunker to make sure that something hadn't come in and dragged them off, although he didn't know how that would have happened without his knowing. But there was simply no trace of them.

He finally returned to the library to stare at the Christmas things. Without any other leads, he had to come to the conclusion that something among those items was to blame for their disappearance. He just had to figure out what.

He sorted through the box, and found the other small wooden box that he had picked up off the floor, lying by itself. He frowned as he studied it and then saw several sigils carved into it.

"Great, that can't be good," he muttered to himself and set it down. Then he turned his attention back to the snow globe he had found. It didn't look like anything really special, even though it was a nice snow globe and didn't seem like it was just a cheep souvenir. Sam slid it closer to peer into it.

Something instantly seemed off. He looked closer and then reached for a magnifying glass on a nearby bookshelf and looked closer.

The first thing he saw was the tiny HELP laid out in the snow outside the tiny village, and then upon closer inspection he caught sight of three figures moving around. Jumping, actually, and waving their arms.

"Oh, oh crap!" Sam cried, leaning closer to the snow globe. "Dean? Are you guys actually in there?"

They gave exaggerated nods and more waving ensued. Sam swallowed hard, wondering why he hadn't though of that possibility before.

Well, in his defense it was pretty ridiculous.

"Okay, hold on, I'm going to see if I can figure out how to get you out of there."

He got up and picked up the box the snow globe had been in for further inspection. If the snow globe had been processed by the Men of Letters, then there would most likely be a file for it. By some miracle, he found a small number inscribed on the bottom of the box and hurried to find the right file, breathing a sigh of relief as he opened it and saw it contained exactly what he was looking for.

"'Cursed Nantucket Snow Globe 1899'," he read from the file. It was apparently something a witch had created to capture people she wanted out of her way. The Men of Letters hadn't been able to deactivate it completely, but they had found a counter spell to release the trapped souls and that was all Sam needed to know.

Sam hurried back to the table and leaned over again to speak to the snow globe's prisoners. "Okay, guys, I think I found out how to get you out of there. Just hold on!"

He quickly gathered the ingredients for the spell and came back, carefully picking the snow globe up and settling it into the bowl. He blanched then at the thought of how he had shaken it earlier. Yeah, Dean was probably going to tear him a new one for that.

He said the words of the spell and lit a match, dropping it into the bowl. There was a flash, and then suddenly, Dean, Cas and Charlie were standing behind him.

"Thank god," Dean muttered, stomping snow from his boots.

"Are you guys okay?" Sam asked, looking them over and noticing the cut on Cas' forehead. "I'm sorry it took me so long. And…I'm so sorry I shook up the snow globe…"

"You know what, I don't even want to talk about it," Dean said, holding up his hand as he shed the parka he was wearing. "All I know is that that thing is going far away and no one is going to open it up again."

"Already done," Sam said, carefully easing the snow globe out of the bowl and putting it back into its box. He closed it up and added a lock to it. "I'll just take this back to the filing room."

When he left, Charlie turned to Dean. "So, uh, does this mean we can't have Christmas?"

She looked so dejected that Dean had to sigh. "Alright, we can still have Christmas."

"Yay!" Charlie exclaimed. "So, come on, let's decorate the tree! Looks like Sam finally got it to stand upright. Come on, Castiel!"

Cas' injuries were already healing and he smiled as he went to join Charlie around the tree, watching as she instructed him in how best to lay lights on it. Sam returned and stood with Dean as they watched.

"Thanks for the quick thinking, bro," Dean admitted to him. Somewhat grudgingly. He wasn't going to forget the snowstorm.

Sam smiled. "Just another day at the office."

"Ugh," Dean groaned. "One of these days I would just love something to go normally."

"Guys, come on!" Charlie called to them. "It's not gonna decorate itself!"

"Alright!" Dean groused good-naturedly and nudged Sam. "Come on, Sammy, let's enjoy what's left of Christmas."

"Agreed," Sam smiled and they joined the fun as Charlie put them to work, glad that they had the opportunity to enjoy this Christmas together.