The sky was that same icy blue like every other time, the same blue that sat squarely in Claire's irises. The firmament stretched on for what seemed like an eternity, beautifully reflected in the mirror of calm water sitting before her. She couldn't escape that blue in this dream, that blue that had mesmerized her mother so long ago. That blue that could only mean her father, and in the distance she could see a figure in a tan trench coat standing on the other side of the lake.

She'd given up on trying to reach him years ago. It was futile. When she'd tried to walk around the lake, she would find herself running and running and running, only to end up in the same place she started, her father's silhouette still all the way across that aquamarine water.

The one time she'd tried to swim across, she woke in a cold sweat after sinking to the bottom like a rock, the taste of fresh water in her mouth.

But after all these years, and after all her failed attempts to reach her father, Claire would never try to push this dream away. She just stood on the bank of the lake, and tried to remember her father as she'd last seen him. Trying to convince herself that he was okay. That maybe one day, she would see him again.

And sometimes on the wind she'd hear a whisper,

"Hey, baby."

"How long has it been since you last had the dream?"

Claire picks at a string on the cuff of her fraying blue jeans as she tightly hugs her knees to her chest, not making eye contact with Carolyn sitting in the chair across from her. The room is quiet, though Claire can make out the sounds of people chatting in the waiting room, she sighs, "A few weeks, at least." Lie. She'd been having the dream every night for the past two weeks, and the ending had taken on a bit of a new twist. Now instead of her father turning and walking away, a blinding white light engulfs the scene and the feeling Claire wakes with is even worse than after the running or the drowning.

A high-pitched ringing suddenly echoes through Claire's mind, accompanied by indiscernible murmuring; no matter how hard she focuses, Claire still can't make out what the voices are saying.

"Claire?" The therapist calls her name when that glazed expression comes over her eyes. "Claire?" She reiterates, making a note on the legal pad balanced on her knees.

"Hmmm?" Claire responds when she has finally pushed those interloping sounds out of her mind; even after all these years, it's still difficult for her to stay in the moment when she has one of her 'attacks'.

"You're still having the dissociative episodes, I see," Claire knows that Carolyn doesn't intend for her tone to sound so despairing, but she can still make out that sigh in her therapist's voice that betrays the positivity she feeds her. Claire wishes she could be honest with the woman who wants nothing more than to help her.

"No," Claire snaps, with a bit more bite than she'd intended. "Sorry," She apologises, softening the expression on her face as she makes deliberate eye contact with Carolyn, to prove that she's truly there, in the moment. "I just remembered some homework for my calculus class," She lies effortlessly once more and wonders if it had been this easy for her father.

That seems to satisfy Carolyn enough to keep her from adding on another anti-psychotic. "Well, we are out of time," Carolyn begins as she grabs Claire's chart from her desk. "Now, for our session next week, I want you to really think about what is triggering the return of your dream about your father, okay?" Claire is standing and slinging her backpack over her shoulder as she takes the appointment card.

It had always been difficult for Claire, ever since her father's disappearance had labeled her the daughter of a madman. But the stares and avoidance Claire could deal with just fine, it was the fact that no one knew the truth of what happened. No one believed her when she said her father hadn't been crazy, but then again, Claire couldn't exactly tell everyone why her father left anyway. So she let them make their own opinions.

It isn't as bad as it used to be, Claire notes to herself pulling her scarf around her neck against the icy wind whipping her blonde hair as she walks home from her therapist's office. She hadn't seen her father in six years, and most of the talk about him had fizzled out several years ago, leaving Claire virtually friendless, on a cocktail of psych meds, and labeled as the fucked up girl with Daddy issues.

Jimmy Novak lives only in her memories now, as Carolyn likes to tell her. Even her mother had given Jimmy up for lost, but not after convincing herself that everything that happened that night with the Winchesters all those years ago had all been some sort of sickly realistic nightmare. Claire knows better because, even if she had wanted to, there is no way she could ever erase the feeling of that angel inside of her. That burning light, like an acid coursing through her entire body, the fury of voices and sounds that she couldn't understand, and the one voice that came out of the haze, that beautiful song that goes by the name, Castiel.

The dull, monochromatic wintry day hangs limply in the air around Claire as she feels herself bristle at the memory of Carolyn's words, and her mother's deliberate ignorance. Her father is out there, and Claire knows it, and as much as she would like to not be haunted by that thought every moment of every day, she would never let go of it. Sometimes she feels like the only one who even remembers him, and that hurts. Her mother had already buried him in her mind.

Claire turns off the road and onto a small, packed dirt trail as she remembers that her mother is working late today. A small murmur of voices once again prickles the back of her mind, and rather than push it away, Claire tries to pay more attention to it. After a moment she has a terrible head ache and she takes a seat on the grass of the large open meadow at the end of the trail.

Rubbing her temples, she raises her head up and stares at the overcast sky, willing the voices in that unrecognisable language to come back. "Come on," She huffs in exasperation, still staring at the sky. "I'm ready!" She shouts as the clouds swirl violently in the wind, it looks like snow soon. "I'll go with you! Yes!"

Nothing. Like always. Claire doesn't fully understand how the whole 'vessel' thing works, but she knows that the angel needs permission, and not a day has gone by in those six years that Claire hasn't tried. Sometimes screaming Yes until her throat was raw to the point of bleeding and fat, hot tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Though she would never admit it to anyone, she misses her father more than words can say. It wasn't how everyone told her it would be; it didn't seem to get easier, and now she is almost 18 and she still can't help screaming in her sleep as she watches that blinding white light surround her father's body and burn him from the inside out.

"Come on, Castiel!" She shouts at the sky again, the murmuring in her head beginning to intensify slightly. "Where the hell are you?" She screams at the top of her lungs and the sound echoes through the empty meadow as she feels tears stinging in her eyes. "Fucking fine." She mutters, grabbing her backpack again, unwilling to sit out in the cold for nothing like she usually does whenever she decides to tempt fate.

I just want to know. She thinks to herself as she walks down the trail towards the road. I want to know what happened to my Dad. Is that too much to fucking ask?

Claire still owns her father's Bible, and though her experiences had left her disenchanted with the idea of God, she still sleeps with that book underneath her mattress. She pulls it out as she flops down onto her bed when she finally gets home.

It comforts her to know that Jimmy had touched these weathered pages; all the writing and underlining could make her feel like he'd only been gone for a short time. Hell, sometimes it made her feel like he was right next to her, stroking her hair as he reads her a bed-time story. From this Bible, she'd come to know who her father had been, and even though she sometimes is overwhelmed with the urge to burn that book, she can flip it open to the page marked by her baby picture and stare at her father's small, tight script in the margin and she will be okay.

She holds the book in her lap as she pulls out her laptop to scan the internet for any sightings of her father. Even after all these years, she's still not certain whether seeing his face would make a difference or not. Looking at those photographs never does anything to dull the ache of missing him.

Claire slams her laptop closed and growls in frustration as the voices in her mind intensify. "Castiel, you bastard, you're driving me crazy!" She tries to keep her voice below its maximum since they do have neighbours. "What the hell is going on inside my head?" No response. Her room is still in the muted winter light.

"You promised my father that you would take care of us!" Tears are welling up in her eyes and she just wants to throw something. She is acutely aware of how much she sounds like her father when he would get into one of his angry moods just before he left, and more than anything it makes her wish that he were there to help her through whatever the hell she is going through.

Throwing her laptop aside with a frustrated sigh, she rolls her eyes, "You're a son of a bitch, you know that, Castiel." Allowing her eyes to flutter closed, she tries to summon sleep that is not centered on that lakeside, but the image is burned into her retinas and it appears clear as day the moment her eyelids are closed.

But it's not in her dream that she hears that sound. Her heart stops and her stomach knots tightly as she starts into a sitting position, her eyes filling with tears, she turns towards the flutter of wings.

Her father is standing in her room, and Claire suddenly feels very small as all the air rushes out of her body. Trying to stand, she staggers to the side as all the blood drains out of her head. Her father's hands are immediately underneath her arms, steadying her.

"I am sorry, Claire." It was her father's voice, and yet not her father's voice. That cut through Claire like a knife to the heart; shaking her head, she tries to push the voices out again as they whisper loudly in Castiel's company.

Hands on her aching head, "What the hell is going on?" She implores Castiel as the voices crescendo painfully.

After a few moments, Claire finds it a bit easier to see Castiel, Angel of the Lord in those features that mean the smell of after-shave and kisses on the forehead before bed. The look of pain and sympathy playing across her father's face is so human; there is something different about the Castiel standing before her. Something much more organic about the way he comports himself. A weight drops in the pit of Claire's stomach.

"He's not in there, is he?" A very small voice asks. It takes Claire a second to realise that she'd stated the question aloud, her tone flat and resolute.

Her father's eyes stare deep into her own, but the gaze is unfamiliar. "No," Castiel says; Jimmy's voice had never been that deep or gravely, and a shiver runs down Claire's spine as it truly sets in that this is not at all her father. "I have done..." Castiel trails off and looks away from Claire's eyes. "Terrible things." Castiel drops his head. "And I paid for my disobedience. I was destroyed, but I was brought back in this vessel." Castiel pauses, and Claire feels as though she is seeing actual pain in the angel's-her father's face.

Claire tilts her head to the side and furrows her brow in confusion. "Where is my Dad?" She demands. "What happened to Jimmy Novak?" At her father's name, the voices scream in her mind. "And what the fuck is that?" She asks of the voices.

"I'm afraid your father was not returned to this vessel after my destruction," For some reason, Claire is surprised when she feels her knees give out and she sinks down onto her bed. Maybe part of her had always hoped that there would be a knock on the door and she'd open it to find that face staring at her. A choked-up, "Hey, Baby." on his lips. That would never happen now, and part of Claire is...strangely relieved even through the bone-crushing sadness.

She buries her face in her hands as the tears flow freely, dripping into the dark denim of her jeans. The voices are quiet for a moment, and she finds herself very thankful for that fact. Sitting down next to her, Castiel stares straight at the wall opposite her bed, but he places a hand on Claire's back. The warmth of his palm evokes a small sob.

"I am in uncharted territory with this vessel," Castiel still doesn't look at her, and it's almost easier that way. "Things are different, my grace is what holds this body together. I imagine your biological connection to it, as well as your being a vessel has somehow connected you to the host." Claire leans into Castiel's side and rests her head on his shoulder as she feels herself drawn towards that ghost of her father's voice, her tears wetting the sleeve of his trench-coat.

"So is he..." Claire trails off as she feels a hand awkwardly smooth her hair. "Is he in heaven?"

"From what I can tell, his soul has arrived in Paradise, Claire," Castiel reassures her. "You will see him again one day."

Taking a shaky breath, Claire exhales it all in one big sigh. "I don't want to stay here," She whispers to the angel that now has his arm awkwardly wrapped around her body, and she buries her face in his trench coat. "I want to say yes." Her voice is muffled in the fabric as she feels Castiel stiffen. She pulls away and regards the angel seriously. "I can't keep going like this. Everyone thinks I'm just crazy, and honestly, half the time, I tend to agree with them." Her voice is plaintive.

Castiel shakes his head as he opens his mouth to speak, but Claire cuts him off, "No," Her voice is firm and unmoving. "You don't have the fucking right to tell me that I can't do this, if that's what you're about to say."

Pulling his arm from around her, Castiel turns to look on her face once more. The pain in her father's eyes is almost more than she can take, but Claire sniffs back her tears and doesn't look away. "I did make a promise, Claire. Your father never wanted this for you."

Claire feels red-hot anger boiling up in her belly as she truly feels outrage towards this angel who had taken everything from her. "That's rich coming from you," She fires in return. "What a good job you did keeping your promise while I was lying on my bathroom floor with blood running out of my wrists." Though she tries not to think about it, she'd always been devastated that even when she'd almost killed herself, her father still hadn't come back.

"Claire," Castiel begins, his voice softer than before. "Though you did not see it, you were protected, and you are still here. I was under the assumption that seeing me in this body would not make things any easier." His words sting with truth.

The house is very still, and the late afternoon winter sun is barely peeking over the horizon as sunset comes so early nowadays, and Claire just stares at Castiel, trying to decide whether or not seeing her father's face has truly been the panacea that she thought it would be. Averting her eyes to the ground, she realises that it hasn't helped anything, and the voices are still yammering loudly in her head.

Suddenly, Claire shoves her books of her desk with a frustrated shout; they fall to the floor with a resounding crash. "It doesn't make it easier," She confirms in a loud voice, venom coating each word. "But I'm done here. I'm going to say yes, whether you like it or not. You're not my father." Claire stops in her tracks, and the rest of her words seem to stick in her throat. She can't hold the tears back and she sinks to her knees, an inhuman sob escaping her lips.

Castiel is instantly kneeling before her, and when he pulls her into his chest, she doesn't see her father at all, and it is not his voice that speaks, "I am sorry, Claire." Castiel begins to place two fingers on Claire's forehead, as the tips approach her skin the voices unify and begin to resonate loudly until a white light blinds Claire's vision and a glorious delicious silence descends.

When Claire opens her eyes, she is lying on her back in soft, warm grass. The blue sky above her is that heart-breaking hue as it stretches impossibly far. In the distance, she can hear the lapping of waves on a lake shore.

"Claire?" It is the same voice that she conversed with in her bedroom, but it is choked with emotion in a painfully familiar way, and flashes of her father play across her mind's eye. "Baby?"

A smile spreads across Claire's face as she rises and turns to face her father's true voice. "Daddy," She calls in a whisper as Jimmy jogs towards her, picking her up and twirling her around in the air before wrapping his arms tightly around her body. Feeling a kiss on the crown of her head, Claire grabs a handful of her father's jacket, grounding herself here in this moment.

"What are you doing here?" Jimmy asks her as he pushes her out from his embrace to look her over. He tries to brush her hair out of her face but only succeeds in plastering it to her tears. "Oh baby..." He covers his mouth as her is slightly overwhelmed by a wave of emotion at seeing his daughter, now a beautiful young woman. "Was it Castiel?" The way Jimmy says the angel's name as he looks up to the sky and then glances across the lake. Claire follows his gaze and suddenly realises that she is on her father's side of the lake from her dream.

"I dream about this place," Claire states as she looks around and notices all the small nuances of the scene that she knows so intimately from years of dreaming. "I've never been able to make it to this side before." Her father's face is confused.

"This is my heaven," He states his voice dropping with concern as he steps closer to where Claire is still examining her surroundings. "You're not-" He can't finish his thought.

"No," She reassures quickly, turning her full attention to her real father, standing within arms distance. "Castiel came to me. I've been calling him for years, and he finally came." Part of Claire doesn't want to tell her father about the years in his absence. She wants to sit and simply know that after all these years, her father is finally by her side once more.

Jimmy notices her silence. "Would it be wrong to ask you about your life since the last time I saw you?" He asks with a baleful drop of his head.

"Why don't you tell me a story?" Claire directs as she extends her hand to her father. Taking it in his own, Jimmy nods and follows his daughter towards the shoreline.

"I think I manage that, baby," Jimmy says. "Let me tell you about the father who watched his daughter from across a lake..."