Seven

Later, the four of them sat down at a bar.

"Four whiskeys," Dean said.

"Cass, don't beat yourself up, man," Sam said, reaching around Brooke and patting the angel on the shoulder. "Claire was…"

"Right," Castiel finished. "She was right. Who am I to tell her how to live her life?"

"Well, somebody needs to," Dean said. "It's not like we're talking about Mother Teresa, here. The girl just about knocked over a Gas n' Sip. She's got issues."

"Because of me," Castiel said.

Dean smiled at him, tight-lipped. "Well, you are wearing her old man's meatsuit. Probably didn't help."

The angel sighed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Yes," he growled. "Brooke said that would be a problem."

Brooke leaned her head on his shoulder.

He rested his head atop hers, murmuring, "I thought I could make it up to her."

"I don't think you can," Sam admitted. "I mean, Jimmy was her father, and to some people that's… that's everything, you know?"

"No," Cass replied. "I don't. I never knew my father. He was distant, to say the least."

Castiel sat up straight again, lifting up from resting his head against the top of Brooke's head, and asked Dean, "What about you? Did you love your father?"

Dean turned to look at him, then looked across Castiel and Brooke, to his brother. He glanced at Cass again. "With everything I had."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Yeah, I mean, it wasn't always easy, but yeah."

The bartender came and dropped off their shots.

"I mean, look," said Dean, "John Winchester's not gonna win any Number One Dad awards, you know, but… You know, damn if he wasn't there when we needed him." He picked up his shot and sipped it.

Sam turned to Brooke, then. "You know, you never talk about your parents, much."

She shrugged. "My mom's… flighty," she explained. "Kinda gave up on me when I left Hunting, before I met any of you. Saw her once since then, but that's it. And my father…" She picked up her whiskey and drank some off the top. "I don't know who he is." She smiled. "No. I do know who he is. My dad, for what it was worth, was Bobby Singer. And that's the end of it."

"Hear, hear," said Dean, raising his glass.

"Hear, hear," Sam echoed.

Castiel reached over and squeezed Brooke's hand, sitting on her lap. Thinking of Bobby always made her sad, and he could feel that sorrow.

A small silence followed, and then Sam kind of laughed and said, "Dean, tell 'em about that time in New York, with Dad."

"Oh yeah," said Dean, nodding a little. "Yeah, okay, so, uh… We were working this haunting in Long Island, and me and Sam begged the old man to let us go to the city for once."

"He had this thing about New York, right?" Sam butt in. "Too big, too loud, too dirty."

"Yeah, and he hated the Yankees."

"Big time."

Brooke chuckled, listening.

"Somehow," Dean continued, "we convinced him to let us go. So, we all go. We all, you know, see all the sights, and, uh, ride the subway, eat too much pizza, the whole nine. Well, by about midnight, Sam and Dad are zonked, and I figure, screw it. I'm going to CBGB."

Sam interrupted, here. "So, CBGB is—

"I know," said Castiel. "It's where the Ramones and Blondie got their start."

Sam and Dean stared at each other; it was easy to forget that clueless Castiel was no longer quite so clueless after Metatron had zapped him full of so much pop-culture information.

"Right," said Dean.

"Anyways," Sam continued, "he was way underage at the time, right?"

"Yeah, so I get there," Dean picked it up, "I sneak in, and it is nuts. I mean, people are drinking and they're smoking and they're—they're snortin' whatever. There's a five-hundred-pound guy on stage with a mohawk, just screamin'. And, uh, my mind is blown. I don't even know what to do. Then, this girl walks up and she says, Hey, why don't you come sit down with me and my friends at our table?" Dean shrugged. "All right."

Yeah," Sam interjected, "and they get him drunk. First time."

"But not fun drunk," Dean clarified. "I'm not quite sure what was in that stuff, but the room starts to spin. And I feel like I'm gonna puke forever. And, right about that time, I hear him. Dean Winchester! My old man. I dunno how, but he found me. And now I'm really freakin' out, 'cos he's just standin' there, not saying anything. I look around—everybody else is freakin' out, too. In fact, nobody's even lookin' him in the eye. And finally, this one guy with, like, a safety pin through his nose and a Kill Everything tattoo, looks up, and he says, Sorry sir. Yeah. Sorry, sir." Dean laughed, and picked up his glass. "To John friggin' Winchester."

All four of them downed their shots. Brooke's eyes watered as hers went down and she coughed—she could barely handle beer. Castiel ineffectively patted her on the back, musing, "He saved you." He turned to Dean.

"Yeah, and you know what he got for that?" Dean asked. "Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hate him. But then he stopped and turned around, he looked at me and he said, Son, you don't like me? That's fine. It's not my job to be liked."

"It's my job to raise you right," Sam finished.

"Yeah," Dean said. "And he did."

Castiel took some time to absorb everything he'd just been told, his mind darting here and there, thinking about fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, God—his own father… Surrogates, like Bobby. "You think Claire is in trouble?" he asked, finally.

"She's hangin' out with a guy named Randy," Dean replied. "She's in trouble." He lifted his hand up for more shots.

But they never drank them.

"We need to find her," Castiel said. "Now." And he got up from the barstool and began to walk out.

Brooke smiled into her empty shot glass, proud of him, of his determination. Proud of the fact that he could get up so quickly after being downed like a kicked puppy. She slid down off of her own stool and followed him out. Sam and Dean were not long in coming.

###

The four of them stood armed and ready outside Randy's house. Castiel was front and center, and he was pissed. He knocked on the door, keeping it light, though he really wanted to pound on the wood and break it open with his fists. A man opened the door, and Castiel shot him back telekinetically. The man went flying halfway across the house, slamming into the glass doors separating the kitchen from the rest of the house. The sound of shattering glass was deafening.

The four of them stepped into the house, Brooke, Sam, and Dean all armed with guns. Castiel did not need a gun. There were more men in the house, and one of them stepped forward to do something.

"Don't," Sam warned, aiming his gun at the man's face. "Back it up." The man did as he was told.

"Where's the girl?" Castiel demanded—right before a scream rent the air. A scream that sounded very much like it came from a teenage girl. Castiel moved past the men who were half-heartedly attempting to block the stairs, and Brooke followed him. He moved down the hallway, following the sounds of Claire's screams, and he was all power and fury. The locked door behind which Claire was screaming was blown up into splinters, and Castiel stepped through the debris to find a man on top of Claire, on the floor.

Brooke rushed forward, awful thoughts running through her brain, but Claire managed to get her feet up and kicked the man as hard as she could in the face. His head snapped back and he crumpled to the floor. Claire scrambled to her feet and began to kick him over and over again in the stomach and crotch. He attempted to protect himself with his hands, which probably resulted in some broken fingers. Claire was still screaming, and would not stop kicking the man.

"Claire," Castiel said.

Claire did not hear him, focused only on doing as much damage to the man who had been trying to rape her as possible.

"Claire… Claire!" Castiel gripped her arm, and she finally seemed to see him. She whipped her head about, panting, staring into his eyes. Her gaze flicked momentarily to Brooke, who had her gun aimed down at the man's head. Finally, she allowed herself to be pulled away.

Brooke waited until they were out the door, watching the man, who did not look like he was going to be getting up any time soon. She had half a mind to shoot him in the head, or the groin, but she turned and followed Castiel and Claire, instead. Castiel half-dragged the girl down the stairs, wanting to get out of that house and away from it as quickly as possible, but Claire stopped when she saw Randy, sitting in a chair in the living room. The man who was supposed to have protected her, the man she claimed was her family. She saw him and pulled out of the angel's grasp for a moment, and stared at the man.

He stared back, silently, looking like he wanted to say something, but could not find the words.

"Randy," she said, close to tears.

"Get her outta here!" Dean snapped. He and Sam stood, aiming their guns at the other men, standing around.

Castiel pulled Claire along by the arm, out the door. Brooke followed. They got her into the back of Impala, Sam in the passenger seat, and waited for Dean.

In the meantime, Castiel turned to Claire, asking, a bit stupidly, "Are you okay?"

Of course she's not, Brooke said, quietly. She was almost raped.

Over Claire's head, Castiel gave her a helpless look. I know it was a stupid question, but I felt I had to ask.

Claire glanced at the angel, panting, close to tears. "Yeah," she said—a lie—and then fell against him, hiding her face in his chest.

Castiel hugged her, a little awkwardly, a multitude of emotions sweeping through him. Relief that she had been relatively unharmed; guilt about all that had transpired regarding Jimmy and his family since he had come down from Heaven all those years ago; a kind of choked happiness that Claire was seeking any kind of comfort from him, now, instead of pushing him further away. He was only sad that it had taken such trauma for her to finally accept him at all.

Brooke sat on Claire's other side, waiting, expecting Dean to come running out at any minute. But he didn't. And after another few seconds, sounds of a struggle could be heard coming from inside the house. Brooke turned and stared at Cass, who stared back at her, even as he continued to hold Claire.

The Mark, she thought.

Sam suddenly charged out of the car, sprinting back towards the house.

Brooke followed, and Castiel was right behind her.

Leave Claire! Brooke thought, but it was too late. Jimmy Novak's daughter was running after the three of them, probably more afraid of being alone than she was of whatever might be happening inside the house.

Sam burst through the door, his gun drawn, and Brooke was right behind him. Castiel stayed a little farther back, with Claire, but they were only a few seconds behind. Bodies littered the floor, covered in knife wounds. Big, bloody gashes through clothing bled pools onto the floor beside their bodies. And in the center of all that blood and death was Dean, kneeling, holding a knife.

Claire screamed, squeezing her face in her hands, almost covering her eyes with her fingers, as she stared down at the bodies. Castiel quickly spun her around, though it was too late to prevent her from seeing what she had seen. He held her, roughly, by the shoulders, turned away from the blood, and she whimpered in his arms.

Brooke stood nearby, a little numb. Truth be told, she didn't much care that Dean had just murdered this particular group of men. Men who would sit idly by while their boss raped a seventeen-year-old girl were worse than monsters, in her book. Yet, she did not think that that had been what had motivated Dean to kill them all. She knew this was directly related to the Mark. And so did Castiel. And so did Sam.

Sam knelt down beside his brother, gun clattering to the floor, and took him by the shoulders. "Dean? Hey!"

Dean did not seem to hear him.

Sam placed a hand on his brother's face, his other hand gripping the back of Dean's neck. "Tell me you had to do this," he said, fiercely.

Dean took a breath, staring at Sam as if his eyes couldn't focus. "I—I didn't—I didn't mean to."

"No," Sam replied, softly, and then his voice rose into a hoarse yell. "Tell me it was them or you!"

Dean said nothing.

Beside her, Brooke could feel Castiel's shock and horror at what had transpired here. He stared around at all the bodies, once more, and then slowly turned and walked Claire out of the house. Brooke watched Sam and Dean, kneeling on the floor together, and then she followed her husband.

###

The next week was incredibly stressful for all of them, but Brooke tried to keep her priorities on Claire, who, compared to the rest of them, was the least prepared to deal with trauma of this sort. She was the youngest among them, and, while she had seen a lot in her seventeen years, she had never seen so much death, and not at the hands of another human being.

They put her in the room in the bunker, the one farthest down the hall, away from as far from everyone else as they could while still in the sleeping quarters. She never left. Over the course of the week, Castiel gave himself the responsibility of bringing her food. He would try to speak to her during these times, but she would only stare at him, saying nothing. Brooke sometimes caught flashes of her running to or from the bathroom, but that was all.

One time, Brooke went in to see her. Claire did not speak then, either, but gave Brooke such a dirty look that it seemed to pierce her soul. Brooke leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest. "Listen, I know you think I'm a whore because I fell in love with Castiel while your father was still alive, and you can call me that name all you want. I don't care. But…" She sighed. "I'm here because you were almost raped back at Randy's house, and that's not something a girl wants to talk about with a man. So, if you want to talk about it, I'm here."

Claire had said nothing. Her dirty look, while not exactly softening, had shifted a little, and she had looked away, seeming to curl into herself as she sat on the bed. Brooke had left her, then, closing the door behind her.

Sam and Dean tiptoed around the sleeping quarters, and mostly tried to pretend that Claire was not there. Brooke did not blame them for that; somehow, she didn't imagine that the Winchester brothers were well-equipped to emotionally connect to a teenage girl.

At night, lying in bed together, Castiel would stare up at the ceiling, his mind in turmoil, thinking of all that had happened, and all that could have been. Brooke listened to those tumultuous thoughts, but most of them whipped past her so fast that she could not understand anything beyond the basic sentiment of them. She would fall asleep to that frantic, overlapping of voices, in both English and Enochian, and when she would wake in the morning, his mind would still be just as frantic. On the third night, he whispered aloud, "I destroyed her life."

Brooke turned to face him in the bed. "You can't think about what you should have done differently," she said. "What's done is done."

If I had only chosen a different vessel, he began to think, going down another rabbit hole.

"Then what?" she asked. "You would have saved Jimmy and his family, but whatever other vessel you chose, instead… you would have ruined their life—their families lives." She scooted closer to him, sitting up on one elbow and touched his face, making him look at her. "The mission isn't always everything, but in your case, I think you deserve at least a little bit of a pass. You were trying to stop the Apocalypse. And you were instrumental in doing so. If you had gone up to Heaven and stayed there so that you would not have ruined anymore human lives… everyone might have died."

Castiel took a deep breath, gazing at Brooke with eyes that looked black in the low light.

"I'm not saying that Jimmy, or Claire, or anyone in this situation deserved what they got," Brooke continued. "I'm saying, in this case, I think it might have been necessary. Because the other option was… utter destruction. Of everyone, everything." She sighed. "So, yes, feel bad. Feel your feelings. But don't be consumed by them. Not about this. Claire may never forgive you, but the only reason she's even alive to hate you right now is because Jimmy sacrificed himself for the cause."

Castiel closed his eyes, nodding silently, and pulled Brooke's head down so that their foreheads touched. Together, they breathed.

Brooke pulled back after a time and rested her head on his chest, and as he began to absentmindedly play with her hair, she said, "Tell me something you like about yourself." Anything to distract him from going down the road of self-hatred, like always.

He responded almost immediately, which she was proud of him for: I like that I'm doing what I can, now. Even if Claire… doesn't forgive me, that's… she's entitled to her opinion about me. I just… I'm glad that I didn't simply let her go after she got so upset in that alleyway. I knew that something had to be going on with her, and I trusted that instinct, and I was right. And I… We all stopped a terrible, terrible thing from happening to her. She certainly doesn't need anymore terrible things in her life. So, I'm glad that I could do, at least, this one thing.

And, though saying this all did not entirely stem the tide of his anxious thoughts, his mind did go quiet, for a little while. And a small, glowing ember of pride lodged itself into his heart.