Title: With A Song and A Prayer (1/2)
Characters/Pairings: Jimmy/Amelia, Claire, Castiel
Rating: PG
Summary: Jimmy chases down one ghost after another, searching for Claire, Castiel, or both. Eventually, he reaches the end of the world. 4.20/5.04 AU.
Word Count: 3,042
Warnings: Some gore.
Notes: After reading some frankly awesome stories about how Claire meets 2014!Castiel, this idea turned up like a bad penny and I just had to write it. Apologies for the many inaccuracies no doubt incurred regarding how the US Army handles zombie outbreaks. Enjoy!

Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there
Just like a muse to me, you are a mystery
Just like a dream, you are not what you seem
Just like a prayer, no choice your voice can take me there

- Madonna, "Like A Prayer"

If Jimmy has to describe his life with a metaphor, he would say it's a bummed record. The needle skips back from the crack in the vinyl and the same snatch of song plays again and again way past the point of tedium. There's probably a lesson to be learned right there.

Jimmy still gets a lot of sympathy these days, though he is usually forewarned by the slightly constipated look adopted by his well-wishers as they approach and can come up with a plausible excuse in time to effect a polite escape. They mean well, but what they don't know is that as the months had dragged by and become a year after Claire's disappearance and the media buzz began to die down is that he and Amelia had searched for and found some tenuous semblance of normal if only just by their fingertips. They still had each other and the steadying bulwark of their faith. God would provide – if not their daughter, then some measure of peace, acceptance, balm for their wounds.

Then one day the bell had rung and Jimmy almost ripped the door off its hinges in his haste to touch the miracle standing on the step, give it warmth and flesh and bone. Claire hadn't vanished into smoke or went away like last time. Instead she had thrown her arms around him, sobbed "Daddy, Daddy" into his ear while Amelia seized Claire from behind and the three of them had rocked back and fro in a scene that wouldn't have graced even the cheesiest of Hollywood flicks.

Claire's hand was just as real and warm over his hours later in the split second before the light sank into her mouth and eyes and settled into her bones, holding on tightly as though she would never let go.

But the angel in her skin did a moment later, and walked away without a word.

Jimmy doubts anyone could possibly blame him for being a little obsessed.

Jimmy searches for Claire in the cracks, the dissonance between the waking world and the stuff of nightmares that he had lived through however briefly. Reports of mysterious deaths go into a folder that gets filled up quickly, and during lunch break his browser is crammed with multiple tabs on a varying but similar theme. Demons, omens, spirits – anything he figures an angel in the thick of the Apocalypse might be interested in. Anyone is an expert on the Internet but Jimmy didn't spend five minutes in an angel's head without picking up at least a knack for sniffing out the bullshit from the authentic stuff.

Amelia wants to move on, get back on the rails they circled so easily back in a past that seems curiously remote, lost on the other side of an unbridgeable chasm. She gets that tight, pinched look around her brows every time she catches sight of one of his files so Jimmy always makes sure to keep his research locked out of her sight. He keeps secret, too, the few pictures of Claire that he finds – always blurred, cut off partway, or looking to the side, elusive as in real life. Her face is hidden but not the distinctive orange and black stripes of the hideous Halloween-themed jacket a friend had once given as a gag gift. It certainly makes things easier and sometimes Jimmy wonders how much Claire knew, how much Castiel let her know. Was it the first coat she had grabbed, on the way out the door? Or was it for another reason entirely?

Jimmy looks for signs and symbols in everything, now.

"Why can't you just let it go?" Amelia explodes one day when she catches him on the phone to an old buddy of his in Miami, enquiring after a cruise ship found off the coast filled with carved-up bodies. She had stayed silent about the salt on the windowsills and the Devil's Trap under the welcome mat because it was understood without saying that safety is infinitely preferably to a normalcy that is at best only an illusion. That doesn't mean she likes it though, and the confrontation has been a long time in coming. The words hang between them, out at last, and Jimmy feels almost relieved.

"How can you say that when our daughter's out there fighting to save the world?" he counters. "I just want to know whether she's okay—"

"That's not Claire." Amelia's tone could have frozen boiling water. She never says Castiel's name if she can help it.

"She's still in there, sleeping," Jimmy insists. "Like I was."

Amelia's gaze is steady and sad. "An endless sleep that you don't wake up from," she says. "You know what people usually call that, don't you?"

Jimmy looks away.

"Claire sacrificed herself so you could live." Amelia moves close, touching his neck with the tips of her fingers. "All those cases you're reading about…we can't do anything about those, they're out of our hands. Or are you going to grab a gun and go hunting like the Winchesters?"

Jimmy shakes his head. "No, definitely not. I…" He trails off.

"Then what are you really looking for?" Amelia pushes but there isn't an answer to that, or at least an answer that Jimmy can readily give.

As it turns out, it doesn't matter. None of it mattered in the grand plan, the Novaks' private pain an insufficient sacrifice to stave off the Apocalypse and all but ignored as the world folds in on itself and civilization crumbles around its death throes.

An explosion booms in the distance and Jimmy thinks darkly that T. S. Eliot can go ahead and suck it as he and Amelia huddle together with a hundred other shivering bodies in the dark, cramped space of the bomb shelter. A soldier stands at the entrance armed with a machinegun that he keeps trained on those inside as much as the rampaging monsters outside. Just the touch of blood to blood is enough to turn you into one of them and Jimmy can't bank on whatever special quality his blood has that gives Castiel a free ticket to ride him around to grant him immunity. He keeps glancing around nervously at his neighbors, suspicion crackling in between them like a coming storm.

"Why is this happening?" Amelia whispers. Her voice shakes with fear and just the slightest hint of anger. "Where are the angels, what are they doing?"

The cramped confines make even a whisper hard to conceal, and it is overheard by the man sitting next to Amelia, his knees hugged to his chest; Jimmy can't make out any more details than that. "Watchin' over us, sister, just as the good Lord set." He shrugs. "Look on the bright side—leastways we're still alive, aren't we?"

As if on cue, a spray of gunfire goes right off right outside the big steel doors. Fists and bullets bounce off the metal and for an indeterminate period of time that might as well be an eternity they listen to the sound and fury of a protracted battle taking place right at their doorstep and the hammering of their hearts underneath the layer of noise. There's only one exit and if those monsters break in there won't be any humans walking back out.

When silence finally falls thick and heavy as a shroud someone breathes out, "Thank God", quick and startled, and is swiftly hushed.

There is a knock—tat-a-tat-tat and their guard unlocks the door. Someone on the other side says, "All clear", sounding weak and tired. When they are herded out they see why, the horribly recognizable bits and pieces strewn everywhere like the stuffing of carelessly manhandled dolls where the bullets had ripped the monsters apart and turned them human again in death.

Beside Jimmy, the angel expert bends over and throws up on his shoes. The air is heavy with the smell of smoke and burned flesh and death and absolutely devoid of angels. Jimmy clamps his mouth shut to keep the stuff from getting on his tongue and walks on without looking back.

They are shunted to the nearest safe zone, a neighborhood in Davenport where delivery of the tainted vaccine had been delayed because of a traffic accident. Some might even call it an act of God. Jimmy thinks he might have been here once before everything went to hell. It's not easy to tell because of the steel fences and barbed wire that are being erected and the military on every street corner. When Jimmy asks, he is told brusquely that they are here on order of the President to keep the civilians safe in a tone that heavily implies 'idiot'.

Jimmy's notes were left in Pontiac along with whatever small remnants of his old life, but that doesn't mean the flame has gone out, only tamped to a spark in the ashes. Once they settle in the temporary shelters and enough complacency has set in for them to feel safe, Jimmy finally gives in and falls asleep.

Jimmy dreams; an old familiar dream, dropped in for a visit.

In it the rain is falling hard as always, soaking into his clothes and hair. It glances off the leaves and skips against the pavement, gurgling through the storm drains; and all of it is a voice tracing the shell of his ear, whispering of destiny, of salvation and sacrifice. Water drips down his face and it feels like the caress of a cold, intangible hand.

I can save them. All you have to do is to say yes.

Jimmy rubs his sore wrists where the ropes had cut deep into the skin. The first time he had agreed without hesitation, spurred by the danger, his unthinking trust in the mercy of angels. Every time he relives the dream, the pauses in between the request and the answer grow longer, but the answer hasn't changed. Not yet. He isn't strong enough yet.

A comet asks you to ride with it, you say yes. You don't ask for directions, you just hang on tight and hope with everything you have that you don't get thrown off.

The rain pelts down around him and they both wait for the inevitable, thunder booming in the distance like the sound of beating wings.

Jimmy learns how to shoot.

He justifies it as self-defense, serving his country, whatever that sounds good. Now and then the soldiers head out into the hot zone, slow but surely reclaiming parts of the city. They need all the trained men they can spare and so during those times Jimmy and the other volunteers help stand guard under strict supervision.

It is long and boring but also dangerous, the worst combination possible, which means that Jimmy's eyes keep slipping shut only to snap open in an instant at sounds both real and imagined, magnified to the accompaniment of his rapidly beating heart. Still, it is better than drowning in lethargy, waiting for the barest minimum of news that the soldiers allow in, better than sitting around just waiting to be told when to go home. Amelia takes up first aid and sometimes comes back in the wake of a patrol gone wrong white-faced and trembling, but she never stops. Jimmy finds out what a head looks like when shot at point-blank range with a shotgun but he never stops.

Everyone just wants to be useful; in the hope that, somehow, what they are doing helps beyond the here and now, that all the sum of their combined efforts will snowball enough to stop humanity from falling over the edge. No one speaks of it as if in fear that once brought under the sunlight it will melt away like a desert mirage, and with it, their last hope.

It is at one of those extended walkabouts at the chain-link fence that Jimmy first learns about Camp Chitaqua.

That night three bodies already sprawl facedown in the street and Jimmy's hands don't shake anymore as he lowers the shotgun. His aim is still slightly off but it hardly matters when the Crotes simply charge ahead like a bull at a matador. The shot of adrenaline pumping through his veins will be enough to keep him awake for the rest of the night but he accepts the cigarette from Kennedy anyway, wanting to take the edge off the metallic taste lingering on his tongue.

"Hey, man, don't you ever get tired of this shit?" Kennedy asks, blowing out a stream of smoke and staring out at the deceptively quiet night beyond. They aren't really supposed to be talking but the officer has moved on to check on another part of the fence.

Harris snorts and kicks the toe of his boot against the ground. "You mean you aren't already?"

"That's not what I mean." Kennedy looks around and lowers his voice as though about to impart a great secret, causing the others to lean towards him. "No one ever tells us anything, man! Not the grunts, not the brass, as though we don't spend the nights freezing our asses off for them. It's all just do this, do that. What are we, robots?"

Harris shrugs. "They're the guys with the guns, including the one in your hand. Face it, dickish as they are the military is our best hope of getting out of this one alive. The last thing everyone needs now is a revolt."

"How stupid do you think I am?" Kennedy says, indignant. "I'm just sayin', things could be run better!"

""Like how?" Harris is skeptical.

"I heard the brass talking the other day. They were real angry about it, started shouting," Kennedy says, gleefully conspiratorial. "Some civilian went against orders, set up a militia of his own around South Dakota. Runs sweet and tight as a drum. If I ever met that guy, I'd shake his hand. Cool name too. Like a gun…"

Jimmy's neck prickles, and something both hot and cold slithers through his chest. Memories twist in his mind like live wires, electrifying him wherever they touch. "Was it…say, Winchester?" he says in what must be the worst attempt at casual ever.

Kennedy stares at him. "How the hell did you know?"

Jimmy forces his shoulders up in a shrug. "Lucky guess?"

Three days later an infected soldier somehow gets past the security checkpoint and proceeds to run wild through his shocked troopmates when the poison finally takes hold in the barracks. Luckily they manage to put him down in time but not before he infects two others and kills another man. It is a cold reminder that they are only in the eye of a storm that has yet to pass and this finally makes up Jimmy's mind for him.

"You want to go where?" Amelia stares at him like he's a madman. Jimmy ignores her and checks his bag of supplies again. He doesn't have long; he'd failed to return his gun and ammunition to the quartermaster and the loss won't go unnoticed.

"I know where Claire is," he says rapidly. The dullness that had shadowed him for too long is gone and he is burning, he has a purpose before him that he can track and map in his mind. He feels alive.

"We've had this conversation before." Amelia grabs his hand, pleading. "She's gone, Jimmy. With the world like this, do you think the angels are ever going to let her go? Assuming if…Castiel isn't dead itself already?"

"I don't care," Jimmy says stubbornly. "We have to go find her, she shouldn't have—she didn't deserve—as long as there is a chance to save her—" There are too many words he wants to say and too much that can't be articulated without breaking the dam on his emotions and so he just shuts up, waits for Amelia's reply. She knows everything, anyway. Almost everything.

He doesn't expect this: "Leave if you have to. But don't expect me to come with you."

"…What?"

"Jimmy, I understand." Amelia wipes angrily at the tears in her eyes. "If I keep you here, you won't be happy even if you're alive and safe, will you? But as for me…I've made friends here, I have a job to do. Are you going to take me away from that?"

"Amelia…" Jimmy reaches for her hands but she draws them away. "Please, don't you want to see Claire again?" Emotional blackmail at its finest—or worst—and he completely deserves the scorching glare that Amelia directs at him.

"I just don't want to have to choose between you and Claire," Jimmy mumbles, looking away.

Amelia sighs and finally comes close, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her smile is sad and distant and Jimmy doesn't like how it makes her look almost like a stranger, like the people who used to come up and commiserate with him over Claire's disappearance, full of pity. "You talk too much, Jimmy. Even in your sleep."

Jimmy freezes, not knowing where this is heading, but then Amelia kisses him, soft and gentle, and they know without words that this is goodbye. Jimmy's own eyes blur but somehow he manages to get himself out of the door and down to the meeting place without running into anything.

"The missus not coming?" Kennedy asks, faintly puzzled when Jimmy brushes past, silent. "Oh, okay then. Gotcha."

Kennedy, the de facto leader by virtue of the fact that he'd dreamed this plan up—with some encouragement from Jimmy—takes the ragged group out of the shadows of the alley. Jimmy doesn't know them all, their names lost in the stuttering of the needle, the memories that rewind themselves and replay again and again, at times far more vibrant than the drab shades of the present can ever be.

Kennedy catches his eye and waves him forward, grinning. "Camp Chitaqua or bust, huh, Novak?"

"Or bust," Jimmy agrees. He is armed with more than a prayer now and every step he takes brings him closer to his daughter. Already the world seems a little brighter and the cool breeze he feels against his upturned face just then feels almost like a blessing, a touch from a passing angel.

-end of part one-

Ending Notes: Heh, I couldn't resist and snuck in a reference to my Gen Big Bang fic in here. I'd be making a lot more progress if I didn't keep getting sidetracked by all the bunnies. Oh well. Part Two will be up soon.