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1.
Dean is mopping the map room floor when he hears the twist of the key, the heavy mechanisms of the bunker door unlocking. He pauses, leans against the mop, tilts his head up towards the door. One hand floats behind him, ready to grab at the gun at his waistband.
The door opens and Dean recognizes the footsteps; he moves his hand away from his gun and heads towards the stairs.
“Cas!” he calls.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, coming into view. There’s another person behind him, and it takes a matter of seconds before Dean realizes that it’s Claire. She has one arm tucked against her torso as if it’s injured, and she stops at the base of the stairs, looking around the map room.
“Wow,” she says.
“Hey, Claire,” Dean says. She nods at him distractedly. “What do you think of the place?”
Dean hadn’t known she was coming over. He looks at Cas, who shrugs at him, and then shifts his gaze back to Claire, still standing on the bottom step. Her eyes cycle through a few emotions, then she shrugs.
“Lame,” she says, and she hops off the step, tosses her hair.
“Are you sure you don’t want me--” Cas starts to say.
“Yep,” she says, smacking her gum, and then she turns and flounces away, picking a direction and sticking to it.
“She’s gonna get lost,” Dean says, staring after her.
“I heard that, asshole!” Claire yells, voice distant. Dean smiles, then turns to face Cas.
“What’s that all about?”
“She won’t let me heal her,” Cas says, frustration in his voice. “She called me when she realized she couldn’t drive, but she refuses to let me actually help her.”
“Kids are stubborn like that,” Dean says. He backs up and goes back for the bucket of soapy water, dipping the mop in. Cas moves away from the staircase.
“I hope it’s okay that I invited her over,” Cas says, voice unreadable. Dean grunts, looking at the water.
What is he supposed to say? Of course, this is your house too. Of course, I love seeing her. Of course, I’ll let you do whatever you want to do. I can’t say no to you. I can’t say no to her.
“Sure,” Dean says, and he pulls the mop out of the water and wrings it, watches the water drip back into the bucket. Cas sighs, coming up behind him. Is it his imagination, or does Cas almost reach out, almost touch him? Dean wishes he would. He wants to feel Cas’s hand on his shoulder, his grounding touch.
Cas doesn’t touch him.
“Okay, Dean,” he says. “I should make sure Claire doesn’t give Sam a heart attack.”
Dean’s mouth twitches up at the image. He doesn’t look away from the bucket. Cas leaves.
Dean closes his eyes, and puts the mop back on the floor.
2.
Dean recognizes the sound of footsteps behind him; lighter than Sam or Cas’s gait. He closes the fridge, straightening up, vegetables in his hand, and turns. Claire’s in the doorway, her arm in a sling, blonde curls tumbling around her face. The sweater she’s wearing--Dean recognizes it as one of his--is oversized, and makes her look younger, softer. Dean wants to wrap her up in a blanket and put her on the couch, watch whatever dumb movies she wants to watch, hold her tight.
He puts the vegetables on the counter, next to the cutting board.
“Can I help?” Claire asks, and Dean turns to look at her surprised. “With dinner?”
Dean looks at the vegetables, at the lasagna sitting beside the oven, waiting to go in.
“Sure,” he says. He steps away from the vegetables. “Can you cut one-handed?”
“Yes,” Claire says, face steeley, and Dean leaves her to it. He retrieves a big bowl.
“That’s gonna be salad,” he says, putting it next to her. She’s holding onto the lettuce with her bad arm and the knife with the other. Dean thinks it’s her dominant hand that got hurt, but maybe he’s wrong. “I normally wouldn’t bother but Sam throws a bitch fit whenever I skimp on it.”
“Whatever, more lasagna for me,” Claire says.
“Right?” Dean says, and he moves around the kitchen, retrieving another bowl, his hand mixer, the sugar and flour. When he looks at Claire, he catches her stealing glances at him. “What?”
“What’s that?” she asks him.
“Sugar, flour, chocolate chips,” Dean says, pointing at each one. She rolls her eyes and huffs out a laugh.
“I see that, asshole,” she says. “What are you making with the sugar, flour, and chocolate chips?”
“Cookies,” Dean says. He retrieves the vanilla from the spice cabinet and heads to the fridge, gets out butter, milk, and eggs.
“Cookies?” Claire asks, mouth tilting up at the corners. “Is that what you do in your manly secret bunker when you aren’t hunting? Make cookies?”
“Shut up,” Dean grumbles. The cookies are for his mom, who’s coming over tonight, to take back with her. The cookies are for Claire, and whoever she wants to share them with, to take home. “Cas likes them, okay?”
Oh god. Saying that was worse than saying the sappy stuff about his mom.
“Okay, Keebler Elf,” Claire says, rolling her eyes and refocusing on the vegetables. Dean slides the lasagna into the oven and turns back to his cookies.
He sticks the butter into the microwave to soften it and pours in both kinds of sugar. He measures out a teaspoon of vanilla and retrieves the butter from the microwave, puts it into the bowl. He turns on the hand mixer and watches the ingredients blend together.
Claire scrapes the tomatoes off of the cutting board and into the salad bowl, then she shakes the bowl gently to mix the vegetables together. She puts the lid onto the bowl and comes over beside him, tilting the chocolate chip bag over to read the recipe.
Dean turns off the hand mixer and Claire cracks the eggs gently, putting the shells on a paper towel next to the ingredient pile. Dean turns back on the mixer, blending the eggs into the dough.
He watches her retrieve the measuring cups and eye up the flour as if facing down a pack of werewolves.
“Let’s switch,” he says, before she can try to get the flour one-handed, and she holds the hand mixer as he measures out the flour, baking soda, and salt. Dean adds them in and holds the bowl as she mans the hand mixer. He rips open the bag of chocolate chips and starts pouring them in.
“You aren’t gonna measure them?” Claire asks.
“Um, no,” Dean says. “Say ‘when’.” She watches him pour.
“Stop,” she says, right about when he would’ve stopped if he was making them alone.
“Good choice,” he says, taking the spatula and mixing the dough all together. He pulls out the spatula and offers it to her, swiping his index finger through the dough gathered on the end.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Taste-testing,” Dean says. “I’m not about to bake some shitty-ass dough.”
“My dad always said eating raw egg was bad,” Claire says, reaching for the end of the spatula.
“Your dad never ganked a vampire, either,” Dean says, dipping his pinkie into the dough on the spatula. “What’s Jody’s dough-policy?”
“I don’t know,” Claire says. She wipes at some dough on the rim of the mixing bowl. “I haven’t made cookies in a long time.”
Dean hadn’t, either. He made some once with Bobby before Sam’s birthday, but besides that…
Well. He’s lived in the bunker for a few years, now. He can make goddamned cookies if he wants to.
He hands the spatula to Claire and retrieves a spoon from the silverware drawer, gathering up balls of dough to drop onto the baking sheet. Claire licks the spatula, and it’s too early for that, he might need it again, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps putting the cookies onto the tray.
3.
The cookies and lasagna are in the oven, table set, when Mary arrives at the bunker. She finds Dean and Sam in the library, Dean re-reading a Vonnegut and Sam pouring over some lore book or whatever.
“Hey, boys,” she says, poking her head into the room, and Dean looks up at her, smiles, and his phone alarm goes off.
“Just in time,” he says, standing. “Hey, Sammy, go get Cas ‘n Claire, would you?”
“Sure,” Sam says, putting a bookmark into his book, standing and giving their mom a sideways hug. He goes off towards the rooms--Cas had been helping Claire find hers.
Dean leads the way to the kitchen. He gets out the lasagna and brings it to the table, then turns to face his mom.
“We have a guest tonight, by the way--Claire.”
“Who’s Claire?” she asks, and Dean falters. Who’s Claire? Who is Claire?
She’s Cas’s vessel’s daughter. She’s a hunter. She’s just a kid. She doesn’t look like Jimmy, she looks like Cas. I see so much of myself in her that it hurts, sometimes. I made cookies with her just now and I felt something I didn’t know I was capable of feeling. Sometimes I think of her as mine.
“She’s a hunter,” Dean says, after a long time. He clears his throat. “She’s family.”
Mary looks uncertain--probably because she’s never heard of her, probably because her being alive is still new, still tender. She’s missed a lot of Sam and Dean’s lives, and for all she knows Claire is--well. She doesn’t know.
Sam brings Claire and Cas into the kitchen and takes his customary seat. Dean sits across from him. Cas sits next to Dean, and Claire sits next to Sam. Mary sits on Dean’s other side, and Dean watches Mary and Claire eye each other up.
“Mom, this is Claire, Claire, this is my mom.”
“Pleasure,” Claire says. She looks uncomfortable.
“Likewise,” Mary says. She looks a little confused--probably wondering why this nineteen year old is family.
“No offense, but I thought you were dead,” Claire says, eyes darting to Cas, then to Dean.
“I was,” Mary says. “I, um, got better. So you’re a hunter?”
“Yeah,” Claire says. Dean reaches out for the lasagna, cuts four pieces. He looks at Cas.
“No thank you,” Cas says, and Dean shrugs, distributes the slices. He even gives the smallest one to Sam.
“Mom, Claire lives with Jody,” Sam says.
“Oh, okay,” Mary says.
“You’ve met?”
“Yeah, at a hunter’s funeral. Long story,” Sam says.
“Everything’s a long story with you guys,” Claire says, rolling her eyes. Sam piles a bunch of salad on his plate, then offers it around. Mary takes a little, but Claire and Dean ignore it. Cas pulls out a few cucumber slices to put on his plate.
“Oh, so you’ll get some rabbit food but not my lasagna? I see how it is,” Dean whispers to Cas.
“I don’t like tomato sauce, Dean,” Cas says, rolling his eyes like Dean should know that. Dean loves him dearly.
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Dean says, silently banning tomato sauce from the bunker for the rest of time.
Dinner goes by. Claire awkwardly cuts her lasagna with one hand in a sling, but nobody offers to help her--Dean because he knows she won’t accept the help, the others presumably for the same reason. Mary compliments Dean’s cooking and Sam gets a second serving of lasagna. Dean takes a little bit of salad and picks out the cucumbers to give to Cas. He eats the croutons and tomatoes from his plate and leaves the lettuce alone.
When they’re done eating, Cas clears the dishes and Sam settles behind the sink to wash them. Dean turns to look at his mom.
“I should go,” Mary says, standing from the table. “Thank you for inviting me, it really was lovely.”
Dean’s heart twists. He thinks of things he could say--
We made up a room for you, if you wanted to spend the night. It’s the same room we gave you when you first came back. That’s your room, you know. You could stay. Mom, I want you to stay. I miss you. I love you.
Instead, he walks across the kitchen and retrieves a tupperware of cookies. He hands it to her.
“Here,” he says. She takes the tupperware and cracks the lid open.
“Thank you, Dean,” she says, smiling. Dean wants to cry.
“Claire helped,” he murmurs.
“Well, then, thank her for me, would you?” Mary says. Dean nods.
He remembers his mother’s gentle hands over his, helping him crack the eggs into a bowl. He remembers a trio of chocolate chips poured into his little palm, his mom’s soft whisper of just a few. He remembers standing on a chair beside the counter so he could see, his mother laughing when he spilled the flour. The way they practiced their whispering so they wouldn’t wake up Sammy, which made making cookies feel like a secret, something just for them.
Does Mary remember that? Dean doesn’t know.
Mary hugs Sam and nods at Cas. She holds the tupperware of cookies tight to her chest and smiles tentatively at Dean. Then she leaves.
Dean sags, looks at the kitchen table. He swipes at his dry eyes and wishes that it didn’t feel like a part of himself was ripping out everytime she left.
He pulls himself together and turns back around, headed for the covered plate beside the microwave. He peels back the foil and offers it to his brother and Cas.
“Nice,” Sam says, grabbing a cookie. Cas takes one and smiles at Dean.
“My favorite,” he says.
I know , Dean doesn’t say.
He grabs two cookies and shoves them into his mouth, then takes the plate to the library, where Claire is curled up on a chair, scrolling through her phone. He stands over her, holds the plate by her head.
“Thanks,” she says. She doesn’t look at him, just puts her phone in her bad hand and reaches for the cookie with the other. “It’s okay if I spend the night?”
“Yeah,” Dean says. You can finally use the room I picked for you. “We’ve got plenty of space.”
4.
The next morning, Dean catches Cas having a cookie for breakfast, but instead of chewing him out or something he holds out a hand. Cas puts a cookie in his palm and Dean dunks it into his coffee and closes his eyes, feeling the warmth of the mug seep into his hands.
He hears footsteps.
“Sleep well, Princess?” Dean asks.
“Sure,” Claire says. Dean opens his eyes and watches her move around the kitchen, taking a cookie from the plate and opening a cabinet to find some bread. She slides it into the toaster and sits on the counter, chewing on her cookie contemplatively.
“Here,” Cas says. He’s put the plate down. In one hand, he holds a jar of honey, and in the other he has brown sugar. “For your toast.”
“Thanks,” Claire says, sounding slightly surprised. She takes the honey from him. Dean notes Cas’s pleased little smile as he puts the brown sugar away.
Dean aches.
Claire’s toast pops and she retrieves a plate. She drizzles the honey over it and eats it, the honey sticking to her cheeks.
Dean hides his smile in his coffee mug.
“Can you take me back to my car?” Claire asks. Dean looks over at her. She’s looking at him.
“Sure,” he says. “Can you drive?”
She wiggles her arm, which isn’t in the sling anymore.
“I’m fine,” she says. She rolls her eyes. “Castiel, you know you basically kidnapped me, right?”
“I was worried,” Cas says primly, then he bites into another cookie.
“Whatever,” Claire says. She hops down from the counter. She’s wearing a pair of purple leggings and an oversized t-shirt--maybe Dean’s, maybe Sam’s. Maybe from the small stash of clothing Cas has. “Let me go get dressed.”
“Alright,” Dean says. She snags another cookie on the way out. Dean watches her, fond.
Cas clears his throat.
“I should go, too,” he says. “I have to return to my search for Kelly.”
“Oh,” Dean says, heart sinking. “Right.”
“Unless you need my help here?” Cas says, tilting his head.
I need you here. I want you here all the time. I hate that you’re away so much. I missed you last year when you were gone. I wish you would stay. Please, stay.
Dean tries to say that last thing, even opens his mouth, but the words stick in his teeth. He closes his mouth, swallows.
“Nah,” he says. “We’re okay.”
He stands up, runs his fingers through his hair, drains the last of his coffee. He puts the mug in the sink and leaves the kitchen, walks to his room. He unrolls his flannel sleeves from his forearms and pulls on his jacket, smooths it over his chest and makes sure his gun is secure in his jeans.
He takes Baby’s keys from his dresser and slides them into his pocket, then unplugs his phone from the bedside table and checks his notifications. He has a text from Donna and a missed call from Crowley; both of which aren’t unusual so he decides to check them later. Crowley didn’t even leave a voicemail so it can’t be that important.
Dean leaves his room and pokes his head into Sam’s.
“I’m gonna drive Claire to her car,” he says.
“Cool,” Sam says without looking up from his laptop.
“Cool,” Dean echoes, and then he excuses himself. Claire is waiting by the staircase, her backpack slung over her back, dressed again in jeans and a flannel and combat boots. “Hold on a second.”
Dean darts into the kitchen to retrieve the second tupperware of cookies. He comes back into the map room at the same time Cas does from a different door. Cas walks up to Claire and reaches out like he wants to put a hand on her shoulder, then he pulls his hand back.
“Claire,” he says.
“Cas,” she says, mocking.
“I wanted to give you this,” Cas says, and he drops an angel blade--from his left sleeve, not his right one, so it’s not his angel blade--and flips it, catches it by the blade, offers it to her. She wraps her hand around the hilt. “I know you already have the sword, but this is--it’s smaller, it’s easier to conceal. But it will kill demons, and angels. I want you to be safe.”
“You’re giving me something I could kill you with?” Claire asks, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” Cas says. He releases the blade. Claire looks down at it.
“Okay,” she says. “Jody confiscated my sword, anyway, so this is good.”
“She did?” Dean asks.
“Yeah,” Claire says, shrugging. “I was gonna try and steal it back. Still might. Don’t tell Jody.”
“I won’t,” Dean says, because he likes the idea of a secret between him and Cas and Claire. He doesn’t think Claire would actually use the sword if she stole it back, doesn’t think she’d hurt herself with it.
Maybe I could teach you how to use that blade, he thinks. Maybe Cas could teach you. Would you want that? Would I want that?
Claire turns to Cas.
“I’ve never even met Jody,” he says. Claire grins, a quicksilver flash of teeth that reminds Dean of himself.
“Great,” she says. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Cas says, painfully sincere. Claire breaks away from his gaze with an awkward laugh, and Dean leads the way to the garage. He watches Cas get into his truck and wishes his mouth would open, wishes he could say drive with me to drop off Claire. But he can’t, and Cas drives away, leaving Dean alone and unspooled.
He slides into Baby. He tosses the tupperware at Claire, who catches it and eyes the cookies inside.
“You’re such a soccer mom,” she says. Dean rolls his eyes, turns on the engine, is secretly pleased.
Baby roars out of the garage, and heads out for the open road.
5.
An hour into the two-and-a-half hour drive, Dean lowers the music and turns to Claire. She’s leaning against the window, staring out at the Kansas landscape.
“Hey, kid,” he says.
“Hey,” she says, without looking away from the window.
“Did you talk to Jody about hunting?”
“Yeah, kinda, I guess,” she says, shrugging one shoulder. “I told her I wasn’t looking at colleges.”
“That’s good,” Dean says.
“Whatever,” Claire says. Dean looks at her. She’s cradling her injured arm across her chest.
“Why didn’t you let Cas heal your arm?”
Claire sighs, blowing strands of her blonde hair away from her face, and she sits up properly.
“He only asked ‘cause he feels guilty about that stuff he did to my dad,” she says. “And I don’t want his help. It’s bad enough he had to come rescue me.”
“He wanted to heal you because he cares about you,” Dean says.
“Sure,” Claire says, huffing. “I get that you guys are like, fond of me, but that doesn’t make me important. That doesn’t mean he needs to heal me with his magic angel powers.”
“Of course you’re important,” Dean says. He searches for better words, looks at the green road signs for help. “You--you’re family.”
“Whatever, Dean,” Claire says. She crosses her arms and leans against the window again, closes her eyes.
Dean curses himself. He keeps his eyes on the road and wishes he was better at talking, wishes he knew what to say. Wishes he could say the things he wants to say.
“When...when I was a kid,” Dean starts. “My dad would always, um, drag me ‘n Sammy on the hunting trips with him. But sometimes, um, he would leave us with Bobby. Bobby Singer. He was, ah--”
“Jody’s mentioned him,” Claire cuts in. “A hunter, right? He knew everyone, or whatever? Helped her get into the life?”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yeah, that’s Bobby. Sometimes Dad would leave us with him, and Bobby would, um, care for us. About us. He was real angry when I dropped out of high school. Ah, he didn’t like us hunting.”
He looks at Claire with his peripherals. She’s listening.
“We always called him uncle, but that wasn’t right. He was more than that. We can...I could. Um.” He takes a deep breath, unpeels his heart. “I don’t like it when you hunt, either.”
“God,” Claire says, rolling her eyes. “I don’t care whether you like it or not. I’m not hurt that bad, okay?”
“Sure,” Dean says, something bleeding inside of him.
He closes his eyes for a second. Even when he does talk, it doesn’t work. She didn’t get it. She didn’t understand what he was trying to say.
Dean refocuses on the road, the leather under his hands and the road under Baby’s tires. The Zepp tape playing ends. Dean nods at the cardboard box by Claire’s feet.
“You pick, okay?” he says.
“Ugh,” Claire says, and she bends down, rifles through the box. She picks a tape and he puts it in one-handed. It’s one of Sam’s dumb girly tapes--Celine Dion. Dean guesses she picked it to spite him.
He says nothing, just turns up the radio, and drives.
6.
Claire’s car is parked in the back of a Walmart parking lot. Dean watches her move her backpack to the passenger seat. She opens her cookie tupperware and offers it to him. Dean takes a broken one from the top.
Next time, they’ll make pie. That is, if she wants to bake with him again.
“Alright,” Claire says, looking down at her feet. “Um, thanks for letting me stay and giving me cookies and stuff.”
“No problem,” Dean says. He reaches into his jacket pocket, holds out his arm. She holds her hand under his tentatively, and he opens his fist, drops the key into her palm. “For the bunker.” He says. He clears his throat. “If you ever wanna come over again, you can. Or you can, you know, call us. Anytime.”
Claire looks at the silver key in her hand, then she curls her fingers around the key, enclosing it in her fist.
“I’ll think about it,” she promises, then she pockets the key, gets into her car. Dean stands beside the Impala and watches her drive out of the parking lot, get onto the road. He swallows, gets into his car, and heads back home.