Claire and her grandparents seemed to have reached an unspoken and uneasy agreement. They didn't mention her father and his relationship, and she didn't tell them to go to hell. She waited with them while they checked into the nearest hotel, and then gave them a brief tour of the town, occasionally stopping to say hi to someone from school who suddenly pretended to care. Normally she would have hated those people, but with her grandparents there it only made it easier to sell them the idea that it was better for her in Sioux Falls than it would be in Pontiac.

They ended up stopping in Eileen's diner for lunch. Claire assumed that Dean had passed on the message about what her grandmother and grandfather were like because although Eileen looked happy to see her, she treated her just like any other guest. If her grandparents had anything to say about their waitress being deaf, they didn't share it with Claire, which she was grateful about. It was one thing them blaming her parents divorce on her father and acting like being gay was criminal because of that, it was another thing to realise that two people she did love were completed bigoted.

"You do seem settled here," Gram grudgingly admitted as she got her coffee. Claire drank some of her milkshake.

"Yeah, I like it here okay." Claire shrugged, and dipped her straw in and out of her shake.

"We were worried," her Gampa stuck in. "Castiel hasn't bothered with you for years, you seemed so angry when we last saw you. God knows what you've seen in that tiny apartment."

Claire didn't bother pointing out that she knew everything, had seen every single letter by that point that her father had sent to both her and her mother, and every reply her mother sent.

"The apartment isn't that small. Dean and Dad don't do anything around me. And I lost my Mom, of course I was angry."

"We could have helped you," her Gram said softly. "We have so many pictures of her, you could have watched home movies. She wanted you with us."

"I needed the break," Claire stuck to her guns. "And I needed my dad. There's things I can talk to him about that you just won't get. And Dean lost his mom young too, he gets it. You're not going to convince me to leave."

Her grandfather started trying to argue their point again - a point that seemed based on the past and not having contact with her only remaining parent - but Claire zoned out. Not because it was a pointless argument - though it was - but because Alex had just walked in with Jody and a few other people. She stood up while her grandfather was mid-sentence, and walked over to her girlfriend, tapping her on the shoulder.

"Hey,"

"Hey!" Alex grinned as she turned around. They didn't hug. Claire didn't want more awkward moments with her grandparents, and Alex had some kid hanging off her arm. "Jody got this monkey and her brother last night. Just for a few days, but I've been helping out, and so has Donna and we're all going nuts so Jody's relying on chilli fries to help."

"The shakes are amazing too, kid," Claire told the little girl clinging to Alex's arm. The girl squealed and hid from Claire's sight.

"Hey, I thought you were at the bookstore all day?" Alex asked.

"I was gonna be, but then my Gram and Gampa showed up. Um, they don't know about us. I kinda want it to stay that way."

Alex looked over her shoulder, then nodded.

"It's cool. Their vibe is pretty strong. I'll text you later, okay?"

Alex followed Jody to their table, taking the little girl too, and Claire slipped back into her seat, tucking into her burger like nothing had happened.

"Is that a friend of yours?" Gram asked. Claire nodded.

"My best friend, Alex. That's her foster family. They're kinda busy right now. Alex is really cool though."

She looked back across the restaurant, and caught Alex's eye. Alex grinned and turned back to the little girl, pointing at the menu items and clearly helping her pick her meal. She looked back and saw her Gram's face. She wasn't fooling the old lady one bit, apparently.

"I thought you were just trying to hurt us, when you said you had a … you know."

It seemed the old bird had a problem with the word girlfriend.

"Best friend?" Claire deadpanned, her expression as innocent as possible. She felt a stab of perverse pleasure watching her grandparents struggle with the possibility that Claire might be as queer as her father.

"You've never had a boyfriend before," Gampa pointed out. "Your mom told us."

"Yeah? I think they call that a late bloomer." Claire deflected. She could almost taste it in the air, the way they were hovering over revisiting their prejudices, how they would tear Claire down for defending her father. She was already tired of the argument and couldn't fathom how her father had coped with it all for the last six years. She tried not to snap before they did.

"You are under your father's influence now," Gram began, and Claire lost her self-control.

"Uh, first of all, my dad's pretty chill, he's not constantly forcing his opinions on me. Like whether or not it's a crime to love who you love," she was fighting to keep her voice down, but could feel people watching already. "And so what if I did have a girlfriend? I'm not trying to shoot up my school, I'm not shoplifting, I go to school every day. My homework's all done and I'm getting decent grades at school. None of that depends on if I have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a weird obsession on some musician, does it? I'm still a good person. And if you think that my orientation unbalances the fact that I'm doing okay, that I like my dad and my friends and my job and even Dean then I think we're done."

She stood up, and stormed out of the diner, aware that Eileen was looking at her with a concerned expression, even if she couldn't hear a thing; and that Alex would have seen everything and would be torn between helping with the two temporary foster kids and following her and checking she was okay. She pulled out her phone and sent her girlfriend a reassuring text, and headed back to the book store.

Castiel was wiping down the cappuccino machine when she blew in, and he looked around just as she threw herself at his midriff. He let out a small huff of breath at the impact.

"I thought you were spending time with Franklin and Moira?" he said gently, cupping her head with one hand and wrapping his other arm around her shoulders.

"They were getting on my nerves. I just ditched them in the diner."

"Claire," he sighed, but squeezed her. "They're your mother's parents, whatever their faults, they should still mean a lot to you."

"They keep acting like you're the bad guy. Like I'm an awful person for agreeing with you. Then Alex was there and Gram worked out she was my girlfriend and I lost it with them."

Castiel didn't answer back, he merely dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. She looked up at him with a steely gaze.

"I'm on your side, Dad. And if you having Dean and me maybe having a girlfriend makes them act like that, then we don't need them. It's you and me, right? And Dean?"

Castiel gave a shaky smile.

"Bear, I am very grateful for the support, but-"

"Can you just say what you actually think? Just one time? Don't play it down the middle."

"I think that my life was more pleasant without Moira and Franklin's animosity, yes. And it's definitely a better life with you in it. But I also think that you have an obligation to remain on good terms with them. I'm not going to make you apologise, or go back there, but don't cut them out of your life yet."

"Dad,"

"That's how I feel, Claire. If having you back in my life means dealing with their bigotry, I would take it, every time. I would do a lot of things to keep you now I have you."

Claire leaned back to look at him, and he shrugged.

"Nothing crazy. But if I had to sell this store, break up with Dean, go on welfare - I'd do all of it. If I had to sleep on the floor every night to give you a bed, it would happen without a word. The hardest thing I've ever done is walk away from you."

"You don't have to do any of that."

"And I'm grateful for it."

Claire looked around the store. It seemed empty. She took advantage of the fact it was just her and her father.

"So um, Dean," she began. He merely watched her, but Claire knew she could go on. "I mean, he's pretty gross about how into you he is, and you always seem to hold back with him. Mom didn't put you off commitment, did she?"

"No," Castiel's voice seemed to catch. "I know you don't like seeing it. And Dean might be perfectly content to throw himself into a situation but that's not who I am. It took me months of agonising to leave Amelia, it took me a while to get used to my role as your father again. I would typically go slower than we are, but Dean is like a force of nature. A good one. But it scares me sometimes, the way he is with me, the things I'm feeling … it's overwhelming."

"Oh, like," Claire wasn't sure she wanted to go down this road.

"It feels like my entire chest is imploding," Castiel's voice dropped down. "Like my stomach's turned to liquid. But I can't get enough of that feeling, of just having him near, hearing his laugh, seeing the way you relate to him. I catch myself a lot around him, I need to. Or that first parent teacher meeting I might have told him I loved him."

Claire stepped back, digesting Castiel's words, the strength of the emotion behind him. It was alien to her, but at the same time, she could understand it. She had seen the way they looked at each other, she knew they had something rare that she hadn't ever seen between her Mom and her Dad. Something she didn't have with Alex, but that was okay because she and Alex were a completely different story. And if she did feel like that about Alex one day, and it didn't terrify her? Claire knew how lucky she would be.