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“Did I ever tell you the story about when my dad dragged me out of CBGB?” He said in the midst of a nighttime drive on I-80.
It had been hours of unbroken silence between them with nothing but an endless cycling of old tapes of classic rock filling the air of the car. Her head was leaning against the window and she was sure she would’ve nodded off had he not put on a mixtape she’d never heard before. It was the sort of old 60s and 70s acoustic music she knew Jody liked and it had jolted her out of the calm of familiarity. That had been maybe twenty minutes ago and they were supposed to reach the motel in Pontiac in an hour or so. He was in a bad mood and if she was honest she hadn’t expected him to take the job there in the first place. It brought up only heartbreak for them both but she wasn’t going to argue when he had told her. And they both had a tendency for self flagellation.
She turned her head from the window and looked at him, his eyes still resolutely on the road.
“What?” She asked. “Oh, I think so. Yeah.”
“It’s a funny story,” he said and she nodded perfunctorily. She didn’t think it was very funny, if she was being honest. He was silent for a long time again and she wondered if that was all he had to say. The lights of the highway flashed across his face and she was glad the lights were warm golds, not cold whites. Jack’s grace was gold. White, silvery grace was from Cas and they were thinking about him enough that day already. He took in an intake of breath and then looked at her. “You know, it wasn’t really CBGB.”
“Yeah. I know.” She told him. And of course she’d known. Sure, she could imagine a place like CBGB would have a pull on a young Dean but out in the Village? In the 80s? And his dad reacting the way that he did? She could fill in the blanks in a story like that as she often had to do in Dean’s stories, especially when they trail off at the ending. Jack hadn’t learned to do that yet and she didn’t have the heart to teach him. Besides, they saw him so little lately.
He used to hunt with them, immediately after everything had happened with Chuck and Amara and the Empty, after they won and lost everything at once. Neither of them could stay in the Bunker, that was obvious right away. So they had driven out to Sioux Falls and found her and the three of them had drifted across the country for a few years, doing cases and sleeping in motels, hustling pool to get by, just like she knew Dean had done as a kid himself. It had been good, she’d thought. No responsibilities except to each other, endless quiet nights drinking beer on the hood of the car, all that had been lost being left carefully unspoken. And they made a hell of a team, the three of them. Her and Jack especially, easily picking up each other’s blind spots. Him inquisitive and caring while she was restless and brutal but they had equally reckless demeanors which led to a feeling of invincibility. And Dean, undeniably a master hunter, was an endless pool of knowledge and patience and experience. And he needed them so badly she knew it hurt him.
It hadn’t been good for Jack, though, and they’d both known it. He would never say anything, but he was unhappy. He missed Cas, missed the bunker, missed being able to laugh and listen to pop music and be a kid. He couldn’t stand the long hours of silence that fell between her and Dean. There was nothing comfortable in it for Jack. He would never complain, and he loved to help people, but they could both see it, how it was killing him.
They did their best to gently set him loose, something that had hurt him at first, feeling rejected and unloved. He had cried when Dean had first brought up him leaving. But now he was in his Sophomore year at UMich and while they both loved him terribly, they knew he was better off. In his phone calls and emails he begged them to let him come back, but he couldn’t disguise how happy he was to be at school. Funny how he had somehow become the one meant to make it out. But that had been one of Cas’s dying wishes, Jack getting out of the life and being somewhere close to a normal kid, and none of them would deny him that.
Dean nodded and kept driving for a moment and she wondered if that was all. Emotion came in fits and starts with him and even that had been a lot. But instead his mouth seemed to soften and he kept talking.
“I’ve never told anyone that. Not even Sam,” he admitted and his voice sounded tense and strained. She was afraid to speak, sure he would latch on to anything she might say as a route to change the subject and so she stayed silent and gazed at him, trying to keep her blue eyes as free of sadness as possible. “I didn’t think I would ever tell anyone the truth. Not even to…” He trailed off and shook his head. “But I need you to know...I never want you and your brother- you and Jack to ever think you have to hide yourselves with me. No matter what.”
“We know,” she replied quietly but he seemed to not even take it in.
“And I certainly would never hurt either of you. I know- in the past- especially with Jack- I made mistakes. And that- I mean that is gonna haunt me to the goddamn grave. I ain’t never gonna make that up to either of you. But you need to know, that’s never gonna happen again. Nothing you do could make me-” he stopped for a moment as if the words were stuck in his throat. “I’m not afraid to love you two anymore. And that love, nothing's gonna change it.”
It’s more than he’d maybe said to her about his feelings in years and she was so overwhelmed she had to suppress an awkward laugh to compensate. A little more silence passed as the music was filling the car. Soft and warm guitar strumming made her feel as safe as she had before her father had walked out into the night in 2008.
“How are things with you and Kaia?” He asked with a bit of a joke in his voice and she rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. “I know you don’t want me putting my nose in your life, Claire. It was the last thing I’d ever want my old man to do to me. I just know you haven’t seen her in a while.”
“I’m too busy,” she told him curtly and he gripped the wheel a little tighter. Kaia texted her sometimes. And sometimes when Claire got drunk she called her to which Kaia would promptly hang up. She was back at Sioux Falls and that was where she could stay safe. Whenever they visited there would be the first few stages of awkwardness, bursting into a terrible tear filled fight where Kaia would accuse her of being obsessive and distant and Claire would call her needy and self righteous and then resolving into them in bed together picking up just where they left off. Claire found it easier to hate her than love her and so that’s what she usually did. Kaia understandably didn’t enjoy this tendency. At the current moment they were on the outs but she expected that not to last very long.
“I know I’m no one to give love advice,” he began and she snorted. “But you don’t want regrets. Not in this life. If it’s unsaid it’ll probably never be said.”
“Kaia knows how I feel about her,” Claire shot back and the accusation was clear. He nodded again and she wanted to apologize but knew she wouldn’t.
“That’s a good thing,” he said and she turned her attention back to her window. A small way of indicating she wanted out of this conversation. It might have stayed that way had a certain soft fingerpicking not drifted into the car. Kathy’s Song. Dean’s brow furrowed instinctively. She noticed his reaction and reached to skip it but he stopped her hand. She brought it back to her lap, feeling embarrassed slightly. He spared her another sideways glance.
“He loved this type of music. I think my mother got him into it. When she was alive. She loved Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell and Judee Sills and all so I think it sent him down the Spotify algorithm or whatever. I made him this tape. So he would have some stuff of his speed. You know, he listened to Zep and all, but I think it was more for my benefit.” He said it softly and she knew a normal daughter might reach for his hand or shoulder now. Might do some gesture of comfort. But even the way she was his daughter wasn’t normal so there was no reason to start now. “He had burned this CD in the cabin, where Jack was born. Probably meant to play it for him to help him sleep. Had “Sweet Baby James” and “Both Sides Now” and a lot of Carole King and this song. Hearing this it just… well I knew what he was thinking about. I broke that CD in two. It was a terrible thing of me to do. Taking it from Jack, I felt so guilty right off that I burned Jack a tape of them all, once...once he came back. Never told him why. I think he still has it, at school. But at the time… I couldn’t keep it. Couldn’t even look at it.”
Claire had nothing to say to that. Not even a nod or a yeah or anything lame. Claire listened to the lyrics for what felt like the first time. Paul Simon’s simple voice telling her so you see I have come to doubt all that I once held as true. Oh Cas, she thought.
“I’m gonna kill this thing,” he said to her and she nodded. She believed him. There was no one like a Winchester when it came to revenge. She should know. “I just wish I had been able to die for him instead of kill for him. I’ve died so many times but somehow never had the chance for that one. ‘Course, he did for me more times than I can count.”
She knew Cas had never held a thing like that against him. That the people he loved were his whole world. That he was happy to die for Jack, for loving Dean, that he wouldn’t have wanted to die any other way, that he would never have wanted to live when they were gone. That the momentary joy of that love being put into words was worth dying for. But she hated Cas for it and she knew it was cold comfort for Dean, who yet again couldn’t save him. She wanted to tell him they would save Cas. That when they killed the Empty they’d get him out and he’d come back to them, like he always did. But she knew Dean. They were too alike. He wouldn’t be able to bear hope right then.
“But Claire, if I fail, if something takes me out before I can kill it, you know that you don’t have to keep going, right? You go do whatever it is you want.”
“I’m a hunter. I’m not gonna stop until it’s dead,” she responded quickly, her voice blunt and flat. She knew it was a formality, him saying this to her. He knew her nature and knew it had been him who had given it to her, as surely as if they were blood. She would never rest until this destroyed her as surely as it had destroyed him.
“But know that it’s not what I want,” he said, his voice heavy with guilt. “And Jack- you keep him out of it. He’s gonna fight you but you gotta make him. He’s got a real chance to get out. Don’t let him throw it away.”
“I won’t,” she said and then he turned to her, green eyes harsh and steely.
“Promise me, Claire,” he said. She felt a strange shiver down her spine. Ice cold guilt took over her bones as she assumed it must have overtaken him at just her age.
“I promise.” And they both turned back to the radio and the music and thought about the vamp nest waiting for them in Pontiac the next morning.
It was only a few months later when Dean left a motel in Toledo early to check out a job in Detroit. She found a note on the bedside table that he would call her when he knew more,the Impala keys laid neatly beside the note. Something awful took root in her stomach and she wanted to call Jody or maybe even Kaia, but she shook it off and waited for his return.
She began to realize she had a choice. She could stay in that motel room, slowly going crazy from worry, drinking herself into a stupor every morning, and feeling useless, or she could go out and find him. Pick up where he left off.
So it wasn’t long after that she packed up and drove off to check out the Detroit job herself. And well, Ann Arbor was basically on the way. A pit stop really and she couldn’t stop herself because she knew she couldn’t be alone, not anymore. Not after days and nights of just her and Dean and the memories of Cas and Jack between them. And there was only one person who could help her or at least understand that. Just one person on earth.
It ultimately wasn’t hard to break her promise. She was pretty sure he knew she would anyway. Just wanted her to carry the full guilt when she did. He had passed it down to her as surely as the car and his old tapes. It was her legacy and she had never been more his daughter than she was that night.
It’s two am in a dorm room at the University of Michigan. Jack Kline’s blue eyes glow gold as he takes in the girl who has emerged from the darkness. She leans against his beat up mini fridge and grins haphazardly as she tells him:
“Dad’s on a hunting trip...and he hasn’t been home in a few days.”