But he wasn't alone, and he hadn't been for at least five minutes.
Claire had gone back and forth with herself all morning about whether or not to come back here. She'd left this apartment for a reason- for a lot of reasons, actually- it was too close to everything, and everyone. Her sense of twisted claustrophobia had been gnawing at her little by little since she arrived here, but after everything had gone down with the aliens, with Dean's death and resurrection, the time they shared in the infirmary... At first, she just needed to give herself some space to breathe and reset the personal and social boundaries she was used to. But then as weeks passed, and the concerns she'd been denying about her body became suspicions, it kept her away. Especially with people from his past showing up, tangling knots she had been trying her damnedest to avoid. Now those suspicions were undeniable facts, and she had been mostly serious when she told Dean she liked the idea of living alone in the mountains. When he texted her yesterday, she'd had every intention of being cold and detached.
So much for intentions. Protecting herself and him from what was going on with her hadn't been enough to keep from being sucked back in by her concern for him. Dean was a beast, far as booze tolerance went, but that didn't mean it wouldn't leave him vulnerable. Claire finally justified it by saying she'd just do some recon to make sure he didn't choke on his own vomit during the night.
That's how she ended up in her old living room, having come in when she couldn't hear anything through the door. She'd seen him through the open hallway, bathroom door, and right into the shower- apparent still too drunk to realize the curtain hadn't been pulled, or something. The fact that he was belting out the unofficial anthem for all newly-released men from their relationships, it wasn't a huge leap.
Definitely was not a sight or scenario she'd prepared herself for, either.
The noise he'd heard was a magazine dropping from the edge of the coffee table to the hardwood floor, thanks to being off-kilter enough to catch the side of her jeans, and Claire not realizing she'd been stuck between the rational get the fuck out of there urge and a little sight-seeing for the part of her that'd been hating her self-isolation. He stopped singing right as she cursed under her breath, and side-stepped out of the line-of-view.