Can I be happy now?
Can I let my breath out?
Let me believe
I'm building a dream
Don't try to drag me down
I just want to scream out loud
Can I be happy now?
Been down on my knees
I learned how to bleed
I'm turnin my world around

- "Happy Now," Bon Jovi

Ten years. The maximum sentence.

It turns out that their biggest asset in the courtroom wasn't Henriksen, who flayed Dean's assailants and even Dean's 'clients' on the stand, or Sam who stayed in the courtroom start to finish handing Henriksen notes, or even Charlie and Ash's tag team of digging up dirt on Crowley's witnesses. The biggest boon they had in the courtroom was an impatient judge who had no time whatsoever for spoiled rich boys escaping even being charged with rape in his jurisdiction, and then trying to get away with sexual battery in his courtroom, right under his nose, as adults.

Once the jury came back, the judge could have given them two years. He could have offered the option to probation. Hell, he could have levied a fine against them. But apparently despite all his bitching about it, the way to Rufus Turner's heart was cussing on the witness stand. He took Dean's testimony as a whole to be the 'victim's impact statement' and handed down the sentence as soon as a verdict was given, in no uncertain terms. From then on out Sam and Charlie had been off running. The civil rights movement for Omegas started on the steps of a courthouse in Lawrence, Kansas, and it moved quickly after that.

Dean paces tightly in the back yard of the Novak house as information filters to him in bits and pieces from his family in Kansas. Charlie calls from Sam's phone twice as he's working, always apologetic, but Sam's worked his magic and is making the civil case against Castiel for injury disappear as he pushes forward with making Dean's attackers lives miserable in civil court, just like he promised Castiel he would when he took their case. Prison isn't enough for him; he is trying to destroy them financially, socially, and tear Crowley down with them.

He's maybe getting a little too into it, but Dean's the last person to judge.

Given that, Dean's not going to begrudge him a few handed off phone calls. But he's waiting for them all, clinging to every piece of news. Nothing has changed about his past, none of the screwed up stuff in his head has been washed away by this verdict, but he's struggling now with something he never expected. Hope is a fragile thing, and he's afraid any moment some development will crush it, and he'll be all the worse for having entertained the concept. He doesn't even want to name it, doesn't want to think about it, but the good news from Kansas continues to trickle his way slowly.

It was one thing, knowing his family backed him. It's another to know that they convinced a jury of complete strangers not to see him as just a thing, or a whore, or Alastair's broken toy. He may be afraid to hope too much, but he can't help feeling vindicated and pushing forward with their plan for change. Even here in Illinois, he's not powerless in it. He's getting as many questions as he is updates, and in a quick phonecall with Sam, who sounds breathless and exuberant, they get his emancipation paperwork filed not in California, where something like that would be expected from a bunch of liberal lawyers, but in Kansas where it all started, where it'd be more surprising, where maybe it'll mean more.

Inside, he can see Castiel seated in the living room with Chuck, a conversation that's probably slow and stilted and awkward, but from time to time Cas gestures Dean's direction out the window, fierce and proud as he entreats Chuck's help in the next case. It's thirty minutes after lunch when Claire slips out the back door, and she drops herself onto the swing near Dean's pacing track, one hand wrapped around the chain and her foot slowly dragging through the ash that has built up without someone actively blowing it away regularly from the groove once cut in the dirt by feet. Her eyes are curious as Dean stops typing out a text response to Charlie, who's asking if they want to let Crowley's two clients settle in the civil suit, and use the settlement to fund the federal suit. The swings creak, a lonely sort of sound, and Dean looks up at her.

"You're an Omega." Claire says, as if it's the first she really thought about it, and maybe she should have figured that out already before she had to get it by eavesdropping on her elders.

"That a problem?" Good job, Winchester, issue challenges to twelve year olds. But Dean knows that Jimmy and Amelia were a traditional Alpha/Beta pair like Sam and Jess, that the Novak family is (was?) religious, and he knows from Cas and from experience that their religion has some problems with him. Of course, then it strikes him that they've taken Chuck in, so clearly it's not a problem, and maybe he's a little punchy at the moment. Thankfully, she seems to have missed the tone.

"No, I'm an Omega too."

It sucks the air out of him completely. Claire says it so casually, like it doesn't spell out a crappy life for her, like that isn't one of the biggest fears Dean has about any children he might have, like those words didn't just superimpose her into Dean's nightmares and make him flinch in horror. She has no idea what that pronouncement means, not the way Dean does. Sure, it'll be different for her. Claire is a beautiful young girl, the Omega ideal, but the world is going to serve her up a shitty lot pretty damn soon if she's right. "I mean, I will be soon. Uncle Castiel didn't tell you? He knows. We've all known, as long as I can remember."

No, Castiel didn't mention it. Dean damn sure would have remembered that. Pocketing his phone, he slowly makes his way to Claire's side, settling onto the swing right next to hers. Hell, she's too big for this so Dean must look like a giant. It's too low, and the bar above them creaks threateningly at taking an adult's weight, but it feels like the right move, getting on her level instead of towering over her. "How do you know?"

"Blood tests." Claire says promptly, shrugging as she tucks honey-blonde hair behind her ear. "When Dad got sick, everyone was really worried about me, too, so they did a lot of tests. I don't remember a lot of it." Biting her lower lip between her teeth, she looks out over the yard, thinking hard, rifling through memories. "I remember Mom, Uncle Castiel, Uncle Gabriel and Michael and Lucifer getting into a fight at the hospital while Dad was there, the night Uncle Castiel got back from the Army. I think Raphael and Uncle Emmanuel were there too."

Dean doesn't miss who gets the title of 'uncle' and who's left out of it. He's pretty sure he's hearing a child's memories of the conflict that ripped her family apart, and getting a clearer picture of the battle lines than she even realizes she's giving. He can't help prompting her for more. "Yeah?"

He's pumping a kid for information on his boyfriend's family. And Cas thinks he isn't going to hell.

"Mom yelled a lot about it being their family's fault for trying to change Dad before he was born, and how it wasn't worth him getting sick . . ." Claire looks at him, so painfully young and lost, like she's afraid Dean is going to tell her that her worries are stupid. "I think. . . I think he was supposed to be an Omega, like me. But they did something to make him an Alpha, and that messed him up. Is that . . . is that possible?"

It could just be a young girl's way to feel more connected to her dead father, searching for another thing they had in common the same way she'd happily grabbed ahold of Castiel's cooking problems . . . But Dean doesn't think so. Kids hear things, they soak up information like a sponge, and she's been eavesdropping for years.

Is it possible?

It fits everything he knows about Castiel, every bitter word about his family's obsession with Alpha status, every time he tried to affirm Dean's worth as a human being, not an Omega. It means that Cas wasn't just grieving and guilty over leaving—it's survivor's guilt. If Claire's right, it was just luck of the draw before they were even out of the womb meant that the twin who didn't care about sex or gender designation and planned to remain a virgin priest anyway lived, and it was the young father among the three of them who's health fell apart because some dipshit scientist pulled a blood sample en vitro and thought Jimmy might turn out 'wrong.' It explains how much Castiel seems to hate Lucifer for calling Jimmy defective, when their family's obsession had introduced the genetic defect and chemical imbalance that eventually killed him in the first place. It explains how quickly both Castiel and Gabriel got on board with the Omega rights fight, and how personal it became for them—on behalf of this girl, the crèche-broken omega father Castiel had never met, and maybe even their brother's memory.

If they suspect that the crèche poked around with Jimmy's brain chemistry and hormones to make sure he'd conform, it explains some of the obvious focuses of Castiel's medical career.

Letting his breath out in a sigh, Dean glances in the window at Castiel where he is earnestly staring at his Omega father, a look that Dean's pretty sure even Chuck will end up caving to, and wraps his arms around the chains of the swing. He takes a moment to filter his thoughts for decency and language, for Claire's sake. "Sometimes people suck, Claire. They really. . . really suck." Turning his head, he looks back at Claire who's watching him like he's the oracle from the mountain or whatever, here to give her sage advice. "I don't know what to tell you, kid. Just. . . we're trying to make it suck a little less."

Claire nods solemnly, and for a moment she reminds him a little of Cas, and he can see her as the adult she's on her way to becoming. She's so close already, on the cusp of puberty, and it strikes him that as young as she looks, as much as he thinks of her as a kid. . . she's just a few short months younger than he was when he presented as an Omega. When those assholes raped him, then left him broken and bleeding behind a stadium.

And just like that, Dean has another reason to fight.

Claire Novak doesn't have a clue the kind of pain and discrimination being an Omega can bring.

Maybe she'll never have to.

xXx

The day has been exhausting, the ups and downs of it draining and it's still only early afternoon. Freaking out earlier took something out of Dean, wore him out, and now he's coming down from the adrenaline surge and euphoria of actually winning, and he's just wiped. He's starting to regret dragging Cas around for all this family fun time, especially when Amelia's place seems pretty okay, and Claire is an unexpected bright spot in this little journey, and he's not sure they want to move on yet. But the idea of leaving Cas behind has slowly eroded away.

Cas could do well here. It'd be good for him, maybe good for Claire even. But then what? A fresh batch of grief for the Novaks? Dean can't do that to them and he's starting to think he doesn't want to do that to him and Cas, either.

And now all that's left is the big family dinner, a dinner the Novaks and Chuck are decidedly not invited to, and Dean's starting to dread it like Cas does. Amelia quirks her lips in a faint smile at the door, and catches Cas in another one-armed hug. "You know, I saw you go to war without dragging your feet this much."

"I knew what I was actually doing, there." Cas grumbles, and he stoops to wrap himself around Claire, hugging her tightly. "I'll email you my new address soon."

"Or we could just email. You know... with the email you'll be emailing from." Cas laughs, a genuine, amused laugh that seems to transform him, and he tightens his grip around her for a moment. She's easy and comfortable around him, teasing in a way that proves she's done it in the past on paper without ever being chastised or talked down to for heckling her elders, and she tightens her fingers in the back of his shirt in a childlike reluctance to let him go.

Cas is probably the closest thing this girl has had to a father since hers died, some combination of loving uncle and long-distance best friend, and he's good at it. Then again, maybe that isn't all that surprising; no one could ever fault Cas his ability to just listen. Someday, Cas is going to make some kid a great dad; a little indulgent, terrifyingly protective when provoked, but supportive and caring even if he's forever out of touch with what's 'cool' at the time, and completely unconcerned with gender or designation or sexual preferences.

Dean tears his eyes away, and finds himself pulled into a hug as well. Amelia's quiet thanks for bringing Cas back to them makes Dean uncomfortable, but he accepts the hug from her, and moments later the one from Claire, before shaking Chuck's hand. Chuck seems a little out of place again, in this family affection, but after a moment's hesitation Cas hugs him, too. Brief, and faintly awkward, but the pat on the shoulder is the first and only parental affection Castiel has ever received in his entire life, and just how depressing is that thought? Dean and John may not have ended well, and may've been screwed up long before John cashed that damn check, but he got more than Cas ever did out of a relationship with his father. Hell, that's discounting Bobby, who Dean still expects to give Cas hell if they make it to Sioux Falls together.

Chuck seems alright. Maybe he'll get the nerve to help their fight: Cas seems to hope so, and to hope it'll mean getting to know his own father.

The Impala is too warm again from sitting in the bright sunlight for hours, and Dean idles her outside of the Novak house with the windows down to let her air out, while Cas looks at the place like he's mapping memories, and for once he doesn't have the haunted expression that Dean's come to associate with Jimmy.

"You didn't tell me Claire's an Omega."

Castiel doesn't even have the guile to pretend a look of surprise, or come up with a denial. He turns slightly, arching a brow, and watches Dean with something like irritation. "I never concealed that fact. It just never came up."

Never came up. Dean snorts and thinks of a few dozen times it could have been brought up in conversation, given since the day they met Cas has been neck deep in Omega problems.

Sighing, Castiel closes his eyes, but there's a sadness there, a regret that Dean expects must have to do with Jimmy and Claire until it doesn't. "Why is it easier for you to believe I am invested in trying to fix things for her, or for Chuck, but not for you? You matter to me, Dean. You're not my only motivation, but you . . ."

"I get it." Dean interrupts abruptly. He can't take Cas naming Dean as his primary motivation, doesn't want to face being made that important to someone. As much as he doesn't deserve that, as screwed up as some part of him thinks it'll leave Cas, he's not blind enough to miss it. "This whole damn trip… Cas, I'm an asshole." This time Cas interrupts Dean, capturing Dean's lips in a kiss and denying him the start of an apology that Cas really doesn't think he needs to give. It's sweet, uncharacteristically gentle from Cas, and feels like forgiveness. No, not forgiveness, empathy: Castiel doesn't think he has anything he needs to apologize for, and somehow that's even worse. He knows what Dean was trying to do, here. He knows Dean's been trying to find a place to foist him off into 'better' life, but he understands because Cas sees himself as a runaway and screw-up too.

And Cas isn't quite sure how to say all of that, so he doesn't try, just curls a hand around Dean's neck and lets action speak for him, because otherwise he'll just start them on another circular argument about their respective self-worth.

Knuckles rap against the frame of the car, breaking them apart, and Claire stifles a giggle as Cas jolts away from Dean like he's expecting a fight or like the Pope himself decided to show up, and stares at Claire in confusion. Dean, for his part, has to brace a hand against the back of the seat to keep from crashing forward into the sudden absence of Cas right against him. Cas blinks once, then flushes bright red at being interrupted by his niece, though all they were doing was kissing. "I. . . yes, Claire?"

Claire laughs again, bright and clear as the peal of a bell, and bites her lower lip trying a little belatedly not to smile. "Sorry. Mom wanted me to run out here before you left. You forgot your coat." And she holds Jimmy's coat out to him through the window, neatly folded by Amelia's hands and delivered by Claire. Castiel isn't sure why that has him swallowing around a lump in his throat, and he accepts it slowly—it's just an old coat that he's had possession of for eight years, that was never fashionable and is entirely unseasonable in the middle of the summer, but it means something. And whether Claire realizes that there is significance in this, he's sure Amelia must.

"Thank you."

"Bye, Uncle Castiel." With an unsubtle emphasis worthy of the Novak name, she includes Dean as well. "And Uncle Dean. . ." There's a moment of hesitation, then she offers Dean a shy smile. "You can email me too?" Then, her chore accomplished and that offer given with the air of someone afraid that she'll be rejected, she darts back off leaving both men staring after her.

"That was fighting dirty. The uncle thing."

"But it worked." Cas is unrepentant, and he rests the familiar coat on his lap, hands smoothing over the fabric. Rolling his eyes, Dean shifts them into drive and shakes his head. He wants to make a joke about it, but Cas isn't wrong.

"She's gonna be okay, Cas." It's comfort, but also a question. Castiel smiles fondly, looking out the window as they head out, watching Claire wave from the doorway and raising his hand in a farewell.

"She's a good writer. Chuck agrees with me on it. And Amelia told me that she's been putting the money into a college fund, the last few years. She'll look into women's universities once Claire is old enough."

Claire will be fine.

They'll all make sure of it.