When he hung up with Sam many hours later, he felt better. He didn't feel the need to drive off to the nearest liquor store or Walmart. He was grounded again and capable of plodding through the day to day routines. He dreamed that night of stars and whirls of celestial lights. They were all shades of deepest cerulean blue. They were Cas' eyes watching over him from far away.

The cool night breeze flowed past his open window, and the night sounds set up a soothing backdrop for his sleep. The light of the moon seemed to dance past the curtains over his bed. He opened his eyes, the dream still clouding everything. It was late, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't alone. He had a salt line permanently present at the doors and windows. He wasn't afraid. He was wary.

The light over his bed seemed to shimmer a little. He chalked it up to the curtains and the breeze at first. Yet, upon further scrutiny, he saw that the curtains were still. Something is here. He sat up. He held his hand out into the light. He felt something now too. It felt like something had enveloped his hand in warmth. It was soothing and soft.

He jumped up out of the bed and grabbed the iron rod that he had next to the nightstand. He swung it through the light, but nothing happened. "What do you want?" Still, he wasn't afraid.

No response came to him. Nothing fell to the floor in a startling heap. There was just light and Dean standing in his underwear, wielding an iron rod in front of him. He edged back over to the bed and lowered the weapon. He reached into the light slowly. It felt warm. Dean considered calling Sam again, but it was just past 3:00 AM now, and Sam had done enough.

He had managed to not deal with the supernatural since taking the new job. There had been some little hiccups while he was earning his degrees, but for the most part, he had cut that out of his life. Leave that to the young ones. Claire kept in touch. She was fighting the good fight, and she was strong with good instincts. Cas would be proud. He shook his head to clear the thought. His hand was still stretched out in front of him. The light still wrapped around his hand like it was holding it. He was not afraid. So now I have a ghost. Great. The apartment wasn't old. He had checked the history. It hadn't experienced any great tragedies.

I should really call Sam about this. But he couldn't. Instead, he just crawled back into the bed and settled his back against the headboard. He stared at the light and willed himself into staying awake. "You better not try anything." The light did not shift or give off any bit of communication. It just was, and Dean could only sit there and look at it until sleep overtook him.

When Dean awoke in the morning, his whole room was bright with the sunshine blasting in past his curtain. He startled awake and looked at the clock. "Shit, shit, shit." He was late. He must have turned off the alarm. He stumbled out of the bed and tried putting on his pants as he was running to the next room. He wondered if he could pull himself together fast enough. The students would wait for the 15 minute grace period that all students believed was all that was required. He couldn't blame them. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on his way out and he looked like a mess. He ran his hands through his hair and dashed out the door anyway.

He was parked and out of his car in almost an instant. He was dashing across campus. Five minutes late at this point, and he was certain that he'd already lost some of them. He got to the class and saw Charlotte out there talking to some of them. She saw him as he entered the courtyard sprinting. "Nice of you to join us Mr. Winchester." She waved at him and smiled.

"Damn alarm clock didn't go off." He looked down at himself and added, "Am I wearing all of my clothes?" He smiled back at her and the students laughed at him.

"Your tie is missing."

"Haven't worn one once this whole year. Today was not going to be the first time." He unlocked the door and ushered them in. Charlotte lingered until the last student entered. "Thanks for entertaining them."

"I tried messaging you." Dean pulled out his phone and saw that she had messaged him. "I noticed that you weren't here about a half hour ago. You're a creature of habit. When you're not an hour early, I view that a Winchester late."

"I really don't know what happened. Had a horrible night's sleep. I must have turned off the alarm without waking up."

"Done that before. Well, no harm done. Go teach your class so we can get lunch later." She gave him a little punch in the shoulder and walked off. She had a short class in the morning that overlapped with his long class. Sometimes she sat in the back and graded papers, claiming that his lectures were enjoyable. She wanted to do a collaborative lecture, something about the marriage of philosophy and astronomy. He told her that it might be amusing and then went back to his own lectures.

He got through the lecture, and felt like it went well despite the messy start. The morning class was always harder for him. He liked teaching the same class at night, when he could take them out to the courtyard to illustrate his points with the vast array of stars overhead. In the morning it all felt too bright, the sunlight calling the students from him with promises of beaches and other outdoor temptations.

He left his bag and locked up. Charlotte was already sitting out on the bench. He use to worry that she wanted something more from him, but he got over himself pretty quick. She was ten years younger than him and was happy with friendship. She had told him that she really did not want him thinking that dating was going to be a thing for them. At first he was offended, then he remembered that he didn't want to date her or anyone else for that matter. So a comfortable friendship grew between them.

"So, we gonna teach that philosophy/astronomy lecture soon? We could even combine my class with your class for an hour. Might be fun." She got up and slipped an arm in his as they walked to the cafeteria.

"I'm not sure I see it working. What would we even talk about?"

"I'd tell them the myths, and you'd show them where the heroes lie. They'll remember the constellations if we give them a story."

"I don't make them memorize the constellations."

"Well, what kind of card carrying astronomer are you, Dean Winchester? Seriously, memorization is half the fun. It gives you something to test them on at the end of the term." Dean just shrugged. She continued, "I really want to do this. I think it would be fun. I even have some of it mapped out already." She reached down and tapped her bag with her long, red-painted nails.

"If I say yes, will you be happy?"

"Exceedingly." She practically skipped the last couple of steps to the cafeteria, and he was happy to be responsible for that.

The week passed and he was not revisited by any weird patches of light. He had decided that he had gone temporarily mad. Sam called him, and he didn't even bother mentioning it. He fell back into his routine until Friday night. He was sitting in front of his TV, watching some dumb movie on IFC. He even laughed at himself when he had first lingered on the channel, wondering out loud, when his taste in movies had gotten so old.

The knock at the door startled him. He never had visitors. He carefully set the bowl of popcorn down on the table and hesitantly walked to the door. Just as he was reaching for it, the person knocked again, much louder this time.

"Who are you?" He called out without opening the door.

"Open the door grandpa," Claire's voice carried past the door. He quickly opened it. "'Bout time. Finding it hard to move with your old speed?" She smirked.

He dropped to the ground and swept her legs out from under her. She fell back, but bounced back up immediately with a knife drawn and at his throat. "Okay, truce." Dean laughed.

"You give up too easy." She got up and reached down for him. He took her hand and got back up.

"Not that I'm complaining at all, but what are you doing here?" Dean took her bag and tossed it onto the couch.

"You aren't even gonna offer me something to eat or drink first? Geesh, Dean." She practically fell into the couch and kicked her feet up onto the coffee table.

"I've got stew and cola. Sound good?" He was already heading toward the kitchen.

"Perfect. Give me a full bowl. Don't skimp." She had shown up at Dean's door a few times before. It was always like this, banter and feeding and camaraderie. She still called Jody's place home, and she and Alex ran around the country in an old pickup killing monsters and saving the world. Usually, she called first though before turning up.

He brought the bowl of stew out and set it on the table. The steam from it curled up in little wisps before disappearing. He popped the cap off the colas and handed her one. He sat down next to her and waited for her to shovel the food down her throat. She leaned back when she finished less than a minute later. She tipped back the cola and stared at him past the bottle. "So?"

"What, I can't just visit you?" Claire gave him an incredulous look. Dean just waited. "Fine." She set down the bottle and looked around like she thought that someone else was in the room with them. "Something weird happened, then something else weird happened after that."

"Be specific."

She wiped her hands on her pants and looked around again. "I was sleeping in this stupid motel just off the 40. Alex didn't go with me on this trip, so I had to deal with too much time on my own. Well, ya start imagining things when you don't have someone with you."

"Claire, are you okay?" Dean reached out to her and gave her arm a little squeeze.

"Something was in my room." Her voice shook a little and then she pulled it together. "Normally, I don't let anything get to me, but this was different. I didn't feel like it wanted to hurt me." She looked at Dean and bit her bottom lip a little.

"Was it light?"

She flinched and answered, "Yes, how'd you know?"

"Happened here too." He pointed off toward his room. "It was warm and, I think, friendly.

"Yeah, it didn't hurt me. I treated it like a ghost. It wasn't affected. It was gone by morning."

'Same here. What else happened to you? You said that something else weird happened after that."

"I saw someone. I think he's been following me."

"What did he look like?"

"'Bout your age, maybe a little older. He had a fluffy head of light brown hair. He was short." Claire fidgeted a bit and Dean wondered why this had her rattled. She'd seen worse.

"Did he say anything to you?"

"No, he was just there."

"So, was he following you around town or something? What was he doing?"

"First time I saw him, he was in Sioux Falls at a coffee shop. I noticed him, because he looked familiar. I couldn't place him though. Then I saw him again in Wisconsin Dells, when Alex and I went there to look into a low-key haunting that wasn't." Dean looked at her with concern. "Water wraith," she added. "We dealt with it."

Dean asked, "So you saw this mystery guy in Wisconsin and in South Dakota?" She nodded. "What was he doing in Wisconsin?"

"Same thing he was doing in South Dakota, typing on his laptop and drinking coffee."

"You try talking to him?"

"No, I didn't feel like I could."

That was weird. Dean let that kick around a moment and then asked, "Like a spell?"

"No, I checked for hex bags and such. It was just a feeling, like maybe he wasn't even really there, and if I moved toward him I might have been proved right."

"That's weird." He took her bowl and got up to return it to the kitchen. He called back into the room, "You said he looked familiar."

"Yeah. That's the other thing."

Dean came back with a second full bowl of stew for her. She started eating it like she hadn't already eaten before. "How long's it been since you ate?"

"Just a day. I was pretty determined to get here." She mumbled something else around a bite, but Dean couldn't understand her.

"So, the other thing?"

"I saw your brother a few days ago." Dean nodded. "He let me stay in the bunker. I went through the books and poked around for anything useful."

"You were careful?"

"Of course. I'm not an amateur, Dean." She huffed and set the bowl on the table, the spoon rattled out a protest as she did so.

"Be careful with the fine china." They laughed.

"So, anyway, I found the books about you and Sam. One of them had stuff about my dad. Like actual full chapters about him, not Castiel. I read it, and it freaked me out. The details were like someone was in my house describing down to the minutest thing what was there, what was happening. I asked Sam about it, and he said that it was written by a prophet named Chuck."

"Yeah, that's a long story. Did he get you up to speed?"

"Uh, yeah. God?" She threw her hands up in a move that said, what haven't we seen. Dean shrugged in acknowledgement.

"Sometimes he's just Chuck."

"Yeah well, sometimes he's just the one following me too."

"Huh?"

'Yeah."

"Chuck's following you? Why?"

"Or God?"

"Shit."

"Yeah, color me freaked. So either he's writing about me, which eww, don't need that. I saw how he talked about you and Cas. Don't need to have everyone reading about me and Alex like that."

"You and Alex?"

"Shut-it, Dean." Claire sunk back into the couch more and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Chuck seemed like he took liberties with the details he shared." Dean didn't argue with her. He remembered the first time he read the books. He had tried to argue with Chuck's retelling then, but in his head, he knew just how accurate it all was. "So?"

Dean focused on her again. "So what?"

"So, are you going to help me figure out what's going on?"

"I don't do that stuff anymore. Sam does some consulting, but you know I can't."

"Dean." It sounded like begging, and Dean knew how much she hated it. He swore sometimes that they were cut from the same cloth.

"I can't do the hunting thing, Claire, so if this turns into something like that, I have to back out." She looked brighter now. "I'll help with research, nothing more."

"That was all I ever would have asked for anyway." She uncrossed her arms and seemed to relax. "Thanks Dean."

"Yeah, don't make me regret it." He batted a hand at her to get her up off the couch. "Let me get the bed pulled out of the couch for ya so we can all get some sleep. We'll crack the books tomorrow."