Home, sweet home. Though the bunker could feel somewhat confining at times, it felt like such a blessing to be coming home to their own beds and their own everything. They took a single day's rest of doing absolutely nothing and then threw themselves back into looking for cases to keep themselves busy.
June soon gave away to July and still there was no word from Chris. Allison grew worried and decided to reach out to him, only to land Araya Calavera on the phone. She had been uncomfortable to field the elder Huntress' questions about suddenly being resurrected, but Chris luckily saved her a few minutes into the inquisition. He apologized for staying longer than expected, but that he was more than fine and he was just overseeing exactly what Araya wanted with Kate, and to make sure the werejaguar didn't talk her way out of captivity.
Dean, Sam and Allison kept on with doing what they were born to do- Allison soon finding herself in the position of a leader among the two male hunters as one would growing up in the Argent household. While Sam had no problem following orders, Dean sometimes butted heads with the younger hunter, but he was slowly starting to accept to trust Allison's instincts.
xXx
Sitting around the table with books scattered in front of them, and tablets and laptops opened up to news articles and police reports, Allison and the two brothers freeze when knocking resonates around the room.
Sam and Allison look up immediately, glancing around the room for the source of the noise. The second time knocking sounds, Dean finally catches on and looks up as well. Lips pursed, he makes it obvious as he counts the three of them around the table before checking his phone for any messages or calls they've might have missed about a guest coming over.
The knocking sounds again, this time more aggressively.
"Um. Is someone going to get that or..?" Allison asks hesitantly.
Dean stands immediately, his chair scraping loudly as he pushes back from the table. He pulls out a gun from the back waistband of his jeans, clicks off the safety and marches towards the stairs that lead upward to front entrance of the bunker. Sam pulls out a gun as well and lays it atop the table to be within reach and Allison grips a dagger that's strapped to her thigh. They share a brief smile before settling their gazes on the iron balcony where Dean's disappeared only for their shoulders to sag in relief when Dean's booming laugh reaches them.
"Who do you think it is?" Allison asks, relaxing back in her chair.
"Not sure," Sam shrugs. Muffled voices get closer until the bunker's two guests appear on the balcony and Sam grins as they start to descend the stairs. "It's Jody and Claire."
The elder woman with a short pixie-styled haircut beams at Sam as she nears him and the younger blonde with a little too much eye makeup glances around the bunker with a rather callous expression.
"Jody," Sam greets happily, finally standing to his feet. "This is a surprise."
"Yeah, well, there was nothing to hunt around the home base and Claire was starting to get antsy. I thought it was good to get out and since Claire hasn't seen your base of operations yet.."
"You dropped in," Sam finishes. He and Jody share a brief hug and then his attention turns to the blonde. "Claire."
"Sam." The blonde doesn't make a move to hug him and she crosses her arms over her chest, she going as far to roll her eyes when Dean casually throws an arm around her shoulders.
Sam huffs a laugh, used to the blonde's attitude and turns to reach a hand out for Allison. Hesitantly, Allison stands and takes his hand until he's pulled her up and into his side. "Jody, Claire, I'd like you meet Allison. Alli, this is Jody and Claire."
"Allison, huh?" Jody smiles. "You just passing through or did these two lug nuts," she gestures between Sam and Dean, "decide to finally add a female to the group?"
Chuckling, Allison snakes an arm around the back of Sam's waist and casually leans her head against Sam's chest. She doesn't miss the way Jody watches the movements. "I, uh, I live here. My dad, too, but he's currently in Mexico taking care of some business."
"Oh, well this is an interesting development."
Dean then offers for Jody and Claire to take a seat at the table, he telling them of their latest hunt for their next case. Jody watches as Claire throws herself into the research, hunting being the only thing that Claire cared about nowadays beside Jody's well being. Dean offers snacks and drinks, but he's waved off as Sam and Allison vaguely explain Allison's appearance at the bunker.
An hour into research, Allison leans over to Sam to whisper something in his ear and Jody subtly watches them from the corner of her eye. She sees Sam grin and shrug, and after pressing a quick kiss to Sam's cheek, Allison stands with a fond eye roll.
"Hey, Dean-o, burgers sound good?"
"Only if you make fries." Without making eye contact, Dean raises a hand over his head and Allison slaps his hand in a high five while continuing on towards the kitchen.
"Jody? Claire? Burgers?"
Claire grunts in response and continues to stare at the screen of the laptop in front of her, and Jody meets the brunette girl's gaze, smiling happily. "Yes, please. Do you need any help?"
"I'm good. I feed Sam and Dean every other day. Two more mouths shouldn't be a problem."
Jody chuckles and concedes, making Allison promise to holler if she needs anything.
Allison's stretching her arms as she makes her way towards the weapon's range, trying to make her arms limber so she can get in a couple hours of weapon's training. Although when she gets there, she finds that it's not empty. "Claire."
The blonde in question looks up from where she'd been polishing a silver gun, her lips pressing into a thin line as she nods in greeting. "Allison." As she goes back to her weapon in hand, Allison has to hold in her snort of annoyance and continues to go about with her plan.
She really has no idea what Claire's problem is- the blonde having been very indifferent with her since they met. Sam told her not to worry about it, so instead of pondering any longer on why the girl doesn't seem to like her, Allison heads to the wall where the bows are hanging and loads up a quiver of arrows before strapping it to her back. She pulls out an arm guard and a thumb shooting glove, pulling them on before gripping a bow and heading up to the shooting counter.
There are plenty of targets already tacked up on the far wall and Allison doesn't spare Claire another glance as she takes a moment to center herself. Then finding her center, Allison reaches behind her head for an arrow and nocks is easily. She takes aim and looses the arrow, the projectile whistling before hitting the target dead center. Instead of pausing, she reaches for another arrow and then another.
Anger and hurt mixed together, Allison looses over thirty arrows- every arrow sticking out from the red bulls-eye.
Claire whistles lowly as Allison breathes heavily through her nose, the brunette girl lost in her mind. "So you're not just a little girl playing around with the big boys. You really are a good shot."
"Excuse me?!"
"What?" Claire shrugs innocently. "I've known the brothers for a while now and they don't take in strays. Not long term, anyways. It's always been Dean and Sam, but here you are," she muses. "What makes you so special?"
Allison's first instinct is to bite back at Claire's superior smugness, but as she looks closer she sees that Claire's actually curious as to what Allison's doing there. So taking a deep breath, Allison tells the younger girl some more of her story since she, Dean and Sam weren't exactly truthful to her or Jody the previous night. "I was in Hell."
Claire's grin falls. "..what?"
Allison sighs and leans against the counter, she setting down her bow and unstrapping the arm guard from her forearm. "A while back, when I was a teenager, a Darach was committing ritual sacrifices in my town. I was part of a.. group that protected the town and the Darach wasn't too fond of us trying to stop her. For part of her ritual she needed guardians, and she decided to kidnap my father as well as the single parents of two of my best friends.
"In order to find them, my friends and I had to sacrifice ourselves. We died briefly and were brought back, but in doing so a darkness encased our hearts." Taking a breath, Allison removes her glove and shoves her hands into her pockets. She doesn't spare the blonde girl a glance, Claire now more than enthralled by what she's being told. "In the end we won, but the darkness affected us daily. A couple months down the road and next new bad came into town, and again we were putting our lives on the line.
"My best friend was taken and the enemy was unlike anything we'd been up against. I unknowingly figured out a way to kill one of them and in the split second of victory, another one of the Oni shoved his sword right in below my sternum. I died that night."
"If you died, how did you.."
"With the darkness around my heart, my soul wasn't granted immediate access to Heaven. Instead, I got sent down to the pits. You know- you know that one month up here means ten years down there, right?"
"No, but now I do," Claire gulps.
"Yeah, well, I was dead for four years before the angels figured out the mistake of my soul being sent to Hell."
"Holy shit!" Claire's eyes widen, mouth falling agape. To her, if what Allison is saying was true, then this new girl had done some serious time with the demons.
"When Castiel brought me topside I didn't have my memories, so the Winchesters played babysitter. Then when my memories came back, I didn't want to leave. I found- I made a new family," she shrugs. "I found my dad in Paris and Dean was happy to put us up here. The rest you know."
"C-Castiel?"
"Yeah. You know him?"
Claire's smiling tightly now as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Somewhat." Allison remains quiet, waiting for more of an answer and when Claire notices she sighs with a roll of her eyes. "The meat suit Castiel's wearing? Yeah, that's my dad."
It's Allison's turn to gape. "W-what?"
"Jimmy Novak gave the angel Castiel permission to enter him long ago briefly, but one mission turned into more and my dad died in the process."
"I-I'm so sorry. I didn't-"
"It's whatever." Claire shrugs off the pity. "My mom left not soon after, then died because of a rogue angel. I had my rebellion stage and it was Dean who brought me back to the right side of the fight. Jody adopted me soon after, Dean and Sam became like.. brothers to me and I guess I just want to look out for them. To return the favor or something."
"Well you have nothing to worry about with me. We're on the same side."
"Yeah. I figured, especially when you were getting a little too cozy with Sam out there." Allison blushes lightly and Claire smirks. "Not to start an argument or anything, but aren't you a little young for Sam?"
"I turned twenty-one back in March. Being in Hell stopped my aging process for my duration down there, so whatever is between Sam and I is legal."
Claire snorts. "Whatever gets your rocks off. I was just curious, but not that curious."
There's a rather cocky aura emanating from the blonde and it suddenly dawns on Allison as to why she wasn't too defensive when the blonde got cocky with her. Claire oddly reminds her of Lydia. "So are you going to retrieve your arrows..? I was down here for target practice, too, but you hit every target with three or more arrows."
Allison huffs a laugh. After having what Dean would probably call a chick flick moment, the air seems to have been cleared between the two girls and some of the tension between them has obviously evaporated.
Sam and Dean are gearing up for a hunt with Allison staying behind to keep Jody and Claire company when the bunker door creaks open loudly. Jody and Claire are the only two to bother looking around to see who the newest addition might be, and they ease somewhat when they notice the others aren't worried about someone entering the bunker.
Stomping footsteps sound on the metal stairs which finally causes everyone to look up and Allison smiles easy. "Hey, dad. I didn't know you were coming back today."
"Araya wanted me to stay longer," Argent grunts, "but when I mentioned I needed to get back to my daughter and the Winchesters, she was all too pleased with who we're keeping company with and sent me on my merry way."
Dean finally looks up. "Do we have to be worried?"
"No. The Calaveras are well informed about the company you keep and what monsters actually hunt you, and they want no part of it. She's just pleased because even though the Winchesters are somewhat of pariah's in the hunter community, your hunting reputation is something to look up to."
Sam grimaces. "Yeah, well, lets just hope that that's enough to keep her and her men away."
When Chris hits the final step on the staircase, he notices then the two new additions. Allison grins. "Dad, meet Jody and Claire. They're friends of Sam and Dean. Jody, Claire, meet my dad Chris."
"Hello."
Claire nods in reply to the gruff greeting, but it's Jody who smiles rather flirtatiously and giggles like a teenager with a crush. "Hello, Mr. Argent, was it?" Chris' eyes crinkle at the corners before he nods and walks further into the room, his gaze quickly darting over Dean and his daughter who both look a little too interested in him and Jody. "It's nice to meet you. You have a wonderful daughter."
"Uh, thank you..?"
Jody nervously giggles again as she not-so-discretely looks Chris up and down, and Dean finally snorts, shaking his head in amusement. Allison's gaze ping-pongs between the two in complete shock before the amusement of the situation finally wins out and she subtly places a hand over her mouth to hide her smile before stepping behind Sam. Claire completely turns around to hide the fact she's biting the corner of her lip to prevent herself from laughing aloud and Sam huffs a single laugh before finishing packing his bag.
"Well this just got a helluva lot more interesting." Dean widens his stance, his arms crossing over his chest as he gleefully stares between the elder couple in the room.
"Dude," Sam snorts. "Don't. Leave them alone and lets go solve our case."
He finally turns to face Allison, the huntress sobering up at remembering some of the more gruesome details of the case Sam and Dean had decided to take on. She wraps her arms around his waist, but leans back to stare up at him. "Be careful. Please," she stresses. "If you need backup, Claire and I are here. If you need backup of the enhanced variety, call Charlie. She keeps tabs on our more stronger allies, so yeah. Call Charlie if you need it."
"We know," Sam chuckles. He leans down to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. "We'll be fine, Alli. Hold down the fort for us, yeah? And keep us filled in on Jody and your Dad. I'm with Dean on this one. I think things just got a lot more interesting."
One more action scene.. and then the epilogue! :O