WHO: Claire Bennet (future), Dean Winchester WHERE: net cafe; TBD WHEN: Saturday, June 3, 2006; eveningish, during parts of this WHAT: Protecting a loved one without racking up a body count. RATING: TBD STATUS: thread; COMPLETED!
The idea had been simple enough – make a generic account with no identification, make use of a net cafe where things were harder to trace and more than a few of the city's 'stranger' residents could be known to pop in to use the service, and temporarily install a nifty little program Claire's dad had given her long before he disappeared that provided both an IP anonymiser and enough of a block that anyone beyond a knowledgeable hacker would have little luck pinpointing the computer's location. Given some of the 'baddies' and supernatural creatures in L.A. were as tech savvy as the humans, it wasn't a stretch that one would take the precautions, especially in the current 'supernatural climate'. The mystery person could be anyone, human or creature, and Claire intended to keep it that vague, to avoid giving anyone any target to go after right now.
And it was all to protect Sam. With the sulfuric signs in that destroyed bar that just screamed Ruby's involvement, something that was bound to come out and be connected to Sam without another explanation for it, the Winchesters needed time to figure out what was going on without anyone doing something to Sam because of the Ruby connection. Ruby, as far as Claire was concerned, could be thrown to the wolves if necessary, but not Sam. It was a choice of loyalties that unsettled Claire, not only because of the reminders of the lies her father had told, but because she knew her family and A.I. were only trying to protect everyone, but she was scared, scared that in order to avoid any interference or possible capture, Sam might hurt one of them with his abilities – abilities she had no longer had any idea about – in trying to escape, or that someone without A.I.'s mixture of moral opinions would decide to target Sam.
So here she and Dean sat, putting their heads together figuratively and at times literally, to come up with responses as the mystery bad guy. And, as far as she could tell, it was working. Yet, even as it worked, it made her stomach knot. Sam wanted names and Ruby wanted names and information, which said to Claire that they were very invested. The side conversations with others, however, would serve as a way to spread out misleading information, like the sulfur research she'd pulled up to make vague references to sulfuric incendiary devices. Sam would be protected, even if it meant that, in the end, she'd covered for him doing something horribly wrong.
"I think she's getting annoyed," she murmured, turning the monitor of one of the cafe computers slightly to show Dean the recent reply from Ruby. After doing so, she turned her attention back to her cell and conversation with Sam, trying to keep it at an even pace so he didn't wonder. It was difficult, because as much as she wanted to help Sam – she was here pretending to be a bad guy after all, dammit! – and help Sam and Dean get on better common ground, Sam's willful insistence that others were wrong and that, essentially, anyone who disagreed with him was somehow wrong in the head were making Claire so angry. She loved Sam like she loved Lyle, but as years with Lyle and months with Sam had taught her and reminded her, she could love and be loyal to someone who made her want to rip all of her hair out while screaming bloody murder.
After typing furiously, she slammed the phone down on the table much too hard and turned back to Dean.