"And then you called me, and I joined you in the car," Castiel's wide eyes turned toward Dean.

Dean nodded, "You and I kinda had a… a fight."

"A fight?" Sam asked, obviously just as confused as Castiel.

"Yeah," he ran a hand through his hair. "You called and we met up on the side of the highway. It was weird; you opened the door to get in the car. I'd never seen you do that. Anyway, we were fine all the way until we got to Lisa's driveway. We had a heated discussion over whether it was smart or not to leave Sam alone hunting a demon. Especially after round two of demon blood-detox."

Castiel nodded slowly. "I was just thinking that it was very unwise that the two of you split up."

"Awesome," Dean started, tone drenched in sarcasm. "Good to know you and I still see eye to eye."

Castiel felt remorse climb up his throat again, "I'm sorry."

Dean blinked at him, and Castiel just stared back.

"Well," Sam broke the tension, "at least I know why you were so huffy when you popped into the back seat of Liz's truck."

Turning his attention on the taller hunter, "What?"

"Yeah," Sam pulled up a chair. "Liz is pretty cool. I mean, you'll have to get to know her again. But it's nice having another hunter on our side."

"Really?"

"You could call her…" Sam stalled and shared a look with Dean who rolled his eyes and laughed a little before looking back at Castiel. "…you could call her a fan."

Normally, Sam was good with meeting new people, but Liz seemed to be hard to talk to. It wasn't like she was being antisocial or anything – it's just that she seemed to be shy (which was unusual for hunters) and a bit serious (which wasn't so unusual.) Her truck had a back seat and was certainly roomier than most cars Sam had rode in, but the dying conversations were making the cab feel much smaller than it actually was.

"Do you have any family?"

"Nope."

Questions would start and then they would end as suddenly as they began.

"Where are you from?"

"Texas."

"Yeah? What was that like?"

"Like Texas."

Sam just couldn't seem to find a topic that went on to a conversation. And he has learned the hard way that you don't just ask a hunter why they started hunting. It was sore topic for most.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty five."

Not even a joke about asking a lady her age. Sam then tried a new tactic:

"Did you go to college?"

"Yes. A school in Texas."

"State or University of?"

"Neither," she said. "It was a smaller university."

"Why'd you choose that school?"

"I followed my boyfriend there."

Sam smiled, now they were getting somewhere. "Really?"

"Yep."

"What happened to him?"

Her face fell, "He died."

Sam licked his lips a little unsure if he wanted to open up. "My college girlfriend died too."

She adjusted herself in her seat, finding a new grip on the steering wheel, "Really?"

He nodded, "I was going to ask her to marry me. I was looking at rings and everything." He saw her smile, but she didn't take her eyes off the road.

"What was her name?"

Sam smiled. Usually when the topic of Jessica came up, people wanted to know how long it had been since she had died, how she had died, and other painful topics Sam took great strides in avoiding. But Liz seemed to understand. "Jessica."

She stilled for just a moment, nothing for Sam to take notice of. "I've always liked that name," Liz was full on smiling now, and she shot Sam a quick glance, "What was she like?"

Sam felt himself smiling. He let his mind fall back into a time of sugar cookies and honey scented lotion. "Amazing. She made want to be more. Ya' know? More than a hunter following his dad's footsteps. I was a real mess for awhile. Threw myself into hunting after a demon got her."

"Didn't you have a scholarship to law school or something like that?"

"It was an interview and…" Sam paused, "How did you know that?"

She laughed nervously. "You have heard of the "Supernatural" books, right? I mean, you're one of the main characters."

Sam blinked. "What?"

"How did you guys do that? Someone pay you to tell your story? Ellen says they're real." She turned back to the road, suddenly somber. "Said they're real."

"Uh," Sam stuttered, "yeah. They're real. So, you've read them?" Liz nodded, obviously embarrassed. Sam swallowed a gulp in his throat. "Really?"

"Yeah," she answered, "the third volume really got me through a tough time. Tease me if you want, but reading about you in denial about Dean goin' to hell really… helped."

"Helped?"

She looked at him, face red, "It doesn't matter. So how'd they come to be if they are real? Man!" She exclaimed suddenly, smiling. "There is quite the passionate fan base that would be a little ecstatic to find everything in those books was based on reality."

"Let me ask you a question," Sam turned in his seat to face her as best he could with his long legs piled under the dash board.

"Sure," Liz sat up straight and threw a chunk of hair over her the back of her shoulder.

"Did you ever write fanfiction?"

She let out a quick bark of a laugh, "No. Read some, never wrote any. I'm not much of a writer."

"Good."

She laughed, and pushed hair behind her ears. "You gonna answer my question?"

"You might not believe me."

"Three years ago, maybe. Now? I'm open to just about anything."

Sam smirked. She asked for it. "They are the Word of God, sent through the Prophet Chuck. You know him as Carver Edlund. They tell the story of me and my brother and will, supposedly, one day be read like a Gospel to the masses."

They sat in silence for a moment before Liz responded, "The Word of God?"

"Yes."

"A Gospel?"

"Yes."

"Like, The Gospel according to Sam and Dean?"

He smiled awkwardly. "I guess so."

She blinked and then nodded acceptingly. "So if you guys succeed in saving the world, my first additions should be worth something someday."

It became Sam's turn to laugh. She smiled at him and conversation came to a natural lull – each of them much more comfortable than before. Sam sighed as he stretched out over the passenger seat, relaxed as Liz turned on the windshield wipers as the first few flakes melted against the glass.

"I love snow," she said happily. Sam had to agree.

"I find it to be bland and repetitive."

The voice was deep and slow and it scared Liz to the point that she jerked so hard that she jumped lanes, causing a little blue car to honk angrily before she pulled the truck over to the shoulder of the road.

"Holy. Shit." She exclaimed as she rushed to reach in between her seat and the middle glove box for her shot gun. "What the hell are you?"

Sam hurried to push the shot gun down, "Liz! No!" He let out a nervous laugh and eyed Castiel, whose eyes were wide and focused on the shotgun. "Good guy."

She took some steadying breaths and uneasily put the shot gun down, "Well, still. What are you?"

"An Angel."

Her face was still for a moment, "Angel. Right. Of course." She turned back to sit properly in her seat, leaning her head back on the headrest and taking a few more deep breaths. "Why are you here?"

"He's a friend of mine," Sam spoke up.

She turned to him, eyebrow reaching for her hairline, "Friend?" She turned to look back at Castiel who was nodding enthusiastically. "My day just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"Cas," Sam said, adjusting his legs again, "how'd you find us?"

"I felt this woman's soul on Dean and from there I tracked her soul."

"You can track souls?" Liz asked; her eyes were on him through the rear view mirror.

"Yes." Castiel answered.

"Huh!" She exclaimed and tugged on the ends of her hair.

Sam licked his lips, "You were with Dean?"

"Yes." He looked down at his hands, but didn't say anything more. "Now I am here to assist you."

Sam turned away and huffed, "More likely you're here to babysit me."

"That is not the case," his words came out stern and Sam felt shocked at his tone. "If you do not want my help then just say so."

"That's not what I…"

"Dean's case is not as demanding or as dangerous as yours. It is as simple as that."

"Okay Cas. I want your help."

Liz was busy looking back and forth between the two of them, unsure of when to interrupt. When the air started getting thick, she jumped in, "I'm Liz. By the way."

Sam stalled, "Right!" he exclaimed, "Right, Cas, this is Liz. She's a hunter. Liz, this is Cas. He's the Angel that pulled Dean out of Hell. He's kinda gone rogue since."

"I am a renegade," Cas said. Sam's eyebrows met for a moment and then blinked it away.

"He is also trying to learn more about the nuances of slang."

"No, I get it!" Liz said. "Like the song."

Castiel nodded briefly, he sat up and kind of puffed out his chest. Liz smiled at him. It was almost adorable. "I have yet to be caught though. I doubt my brothers will be forgiving when they do find me."

"Then we shouldn't stay in one place." She smirked and turned back to the wheel, pulling it back into drive. Then she caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. "Just don't jump in without warning anymore, okay?"

"Yes ma'm."

"From there we headed back to her hotel to learn more about the demon that kicked her butt."

Castiel nodded, and then took another sip of his water. He turned to Dean, "What was our fight about?"

Dean looked up at him quickly, and then just as quickly ran his eyes over everyone else in the room. He licked his lip, an action that unusually distracted Castiel from the whole world for just a moment (for some reason he had an unusual urge to know what that tongue tasted like and the thought of attacking and sucking on Dean's face scared him) and then the hunter sat back in his chair.

"Nothin' important."

Castiel was brought back at his words and way from thoughts of a tongue and the heat that ran up his thighs and he sipped his water again.

"Right," Bobby said, not convinced.

They all jumped a little when Ben opened a coke can, metal popping with a hiss. "Sorry," he said meekly. "Do you guys want one?"

Dean chuckled, "Nah, Ben. It's okay. Why don't you go check on Claire?"

"Claire?" Castiel snapped to attention, "Jimmy's daughter Claire?" Anxiety ran through him. He did not understand his sudden panic and the confusion ran over into fear. He was scared of what the little girl would think of him now. Memories of a small girl, long yellow hair, and wide blue eyes ran through his mind. Jimmy had given his body so Claire would not have to suffer.

He gave his life for her.

Everyone kind of shuffled for a moment, hesitant of what to say when a small voice popped in the doorframe of room next door.

"Yeah," Claire said. "Jimmy's daughter."

Her eyes were not as wide as they were a year ago.

Castiel did not know how to begin. "Claire…"

"The demons had tracked down vessels." Claire started, unmoving from her spot behind the doorframe. "Relatives of vessels in use were the targets at first. Once an angel wearing a vessel was recognized, the demons searched for the vessel's families."

Ben decided to speak up and help tell the story. "After they had the first dozen or so, they figured out that angels had specific bloodlines. If someone's father was a vessel, they were a vessel."

"It made us targets," Claire said. "After they captured a few vessels, they tore them apart and opened them up and found out what made them tick. After that, anybody that could be a vessel became a target."

"As long as they get a drop of your blood," Bobby spoke up, "they could find you."

"The priests that Liz had been investigating, the ones that went missing," Sam joined in, "they were vessels."

"Of course," Dean groaned, "we didn't realize that until all this was over."

It was a lot of information for Castiel to take in at once.

"So you were kidnapped too, Claire?"

She nodded. "And in case you're wondering, my mother is dead. And I'm now an orphan. And it's because you decided to take my father's skin out for a spin. It's all your fault!" She turned quickly and slammed the door signaling she wanted to be alone.

Castiel didn't know what to say so instead he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

Claire Novak wasn't stupid.

She was young, innocent, naïve – maybe – but not stupid. Many people assumed, because she was a little, twelve year old girl, without a father, with yellow hair, with wide blue eyes, that she would be slower than everyone and that she was somehow less clued into the world around her. The summer she turned thirteen was the first summer her mother was a widow. That summer, she began to see the world differently than she did before. She didn't know if it was because she was getting older (and therefore wiser) or if it was because her father had become a casualty in a war the world didn't know it was fighting.

No, Claire wasn't stupid.

There was a moment, a few hours of her life, where she saw eternity and the cosmos and reveled in knowing everything, every detail of history was clear in her head like a favorite memory. There was a moment when she had overwhelming optimism for the future, so overwhelming – that she remembered crying at the feeling. There was a moment when she felt like she was flying, she was flying and falling and standing still all at the same time.

But that moment had passed. She remembered knowing everything – but she couldn't call upon the memories any longer. She remembered feeling that optimism – but, try as she might, she could not recreate an ounce of it. And she remembered flying, but she could not spread the wings that weren't there.

"Your daughter is showing signs of a post traumatic stress disorder, Ms. Novak. Could there have been a situation which would have caused her to experience some kind of trauma?"

"Um… yes. She witnessed her father dying last spring."

That was the story, at least.

The story of James Novak returning home after a year of being MIA only to rescue his family from the trouble he brought home with him. Well, that much was true – but the details they told everyone were that her father had fallen into drugs and a mafia hit had been placed on his head.

A little much, if you asked Claire.

"I would like very much to continue seeing Claire once a week if that is alright? I believe we can get her back to her smiling, happy self again soon!"

Looking up at the school counselor through heavy blue eyes, Claire could see straight through her. With her stringy red hair and her square glasses hanging achingly close to the tip of her nose. She thought herself important, she thought that she could help Claire be Claire again; to find what was missing and pour it back into her like she was one of the potted plants that were overwhelming the office and watch her grow. But Claire would never be Claire again. Not when there was so much more out there, so much more that she will never know again. Not when she felt what it was like to have the confidence of Heaven flow through her.

Not when her destiny would never be fully realized.

She was a vessel. That was her duty and her reason. A vessel whose Angel would never need her services again. She was walking lost with no idea where to go from that and no amount of "how does that make you feel?"s are going to help; she wasn't stupid.

She was just useless.

So when she walked through the door after school on some random Tuesday afternoon the January after she turned thirteen, she was just a little excited to see that demons had over taken her house. She had a quick thought that maybe the Angel Castiel would come back and save her and she'd at least get to see her father again.

"Claire!" Her mother had screamed. "Run!"

Claire didn't get far before she was grabbed and her mother was killed in front of her.

A few hours later, she was tied to a post stuck onto a concrete floor underground somewhere. There were others, a couple of grey haired men, a black woman with a wild afro, and a boy – maybe ten years old. They were all tied to similar posts, starring at her – wide eyes expectant and worried.

And in the middle of the room, sat a woman with long, dark brown hair and tall high heeled boots fiddling with a knife.

"Hello Claire," the woman said and the other's all turned to look at her. "My name is Meg."

Hey if you liked it, let me know. Hell, if you hated it, let me know. A simple one worded response = love. Seriously. *is a review whore* :)