"Claire, you're leaving in fifteen minutes, get out of bed!" Castiel yells from the other side of her bedroom door.

"I'm up!" she calls back.

"You better be!" he replies, walking back to the kitchen to check on how Anna's doing.

He remembers getting ready for school was never an easy task for the Novaks, so he's not surprised to see Anna sitting at the kitchen table on her phone. She barely glances up at him as he enters the room before returning to Snapchat. Castiel walks over and plucks the phone from her hand.

"Hey, give it back!"

"Get ready for school," he counters.

"I am ready!"

Castiel looks pointedly at her nearly empty backpack. She groans and shoves her stuff in the largest pocket, looking even messier and disorganized than Gabriel was in high school. She walks back up to Castiel and holds out her hand for the phone.

"Have you even eaten breakfast?" he asks.

"Yes, I did," she replies matter-of-factly.

"Yeah? What'd you have to eat?" he challenges.

"I ate — that's not the damn point."

Castiel has to refrain from rolling his eyes. "Go eat breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," she says stubbornly.

"Fine, bring something to eat at school when you do get hungry."

"I'll just eat my lunch earlier," she replies.

"Yeah? And what'd you pack for lunch?"

"Why do you keep badgering me about my meals?" she asks. "Dad never does this."

"Dad barely leaves his office," he reminds her.

"Well, Michael never does this, either."

"Michael's still in school. He has other things on his mind."

"And you don't?" Anna challenges. "People think you're a rapist now — yet another thing that's Claire's fault, by the way. Shouldn't you be trying to clear your name or some shit like that?"

"I think your health is a little more important than some rumor going around that'll never go to court anyway," he replies. "Have a pop tart. Hell, have two pop tarts. They're cookies and cream. It doesn't get much better than that."

"I'm not hungry," she repeats.

"Eat 'em at school," he suggests. "Anna, you can't just not eat all day."

"I buy lunch."

Castiel rolls his eyes. He knows what the school lunches at like. There's no way she buys it voluntarily, especially over cookies and cream pop tarts.

"Seriously, Anna. Eat something."

"How about you stop pretending you're Mom?" Anna counters as if it's an insult, which really pisses him off.

"How about you don't talk about Mom like that?" Castiel snaps. He's a bit ruder than necessary, but it's not like Becky can stand up for herself, what with being in fangirl Heaven and all.

"How about you stop being so defensive about everything everyone says?"

"How about you stop judging me when you don't know anything about my life?"

"How about you take your own advice?" she counters. "You don't know what I'm going through. You know high school isn't easy. At least I'm not in the verge of suicide. I may have problems, but I'm not as bad off as you."

She grabs her phone from his hand and throws her backpack over her shoulder before storming out of the house. She doesn't even stop for a jacket; it may be March right now, but that doesn't mean it's warm. Castiel debates following her to give her a jacket and apologize, but decides against it. She's a teenage girl. It's what they do. Besides, she's the one that started it with that comment about their mom. Why should Castiel have to chase after her to apologize anyway?

"You were suicidal?"

Castiel turns around to see Claire standing in the doorway, her blond hair in a braid made of small French braids — isn't there a word for those? Cornrows? He doesn't know; he's not a hairstylist. Her makeup is flawless, too. Wait, she brought her makeup? She was kicked out of the house and she chose to bring makeup?

"Uh, yeah, a while ago," Castiel replies.

"Well, you're still around, so there's that. At least it wasn't that bad."

"Yeah, definitely," he replies.

He doesn't bother correcting her, telling her that he's only alive because of Gabriel. Other than his family and the Winchesters, he doesn't think anyone knows about it, and he'd like to keep it that way. It's not because he's ashamed of it; he just doesn't want anyone to see that things haven't changed very much.

"Do I have to go to the bus now?" Claire asks, more whining than a question. "I thought I still had ten minutes."

"I think you do," Castiel confirms. "Or so Michael said last night."

"Can we ask him?" Claire asks.

"He's sleeping."

"Why does he get to sleep in?" Claire whines.

"Because he was up 'til one this morning studying," Castiel replies. "He deserves to sleep in a little."

"So how come you're up?" Claire asks. "Wasn't that you watching tv all night?"

Oh, she heard that? He didn't think it was loud enough for people to notice. But it wasn't all night; he slept from about two to six. That's four hours. It's not too bad. That's also how he knows what time Michael went to bed; he could hear his eldest brother moving upstairs.

"That's my own fault," Castiel replies. "Besides, someone has to be awake to make sure you and Anna actually go to school."

"I would've gone to school without you making me," she says defensively.

"Right, definitely," he says
sarcastically.

"Okay, yeah, no, I wouldn't," she admits.

"And you better not ditch any of your classes," Castiel adds.

"But —"

"I mean it," he insists. "You're at school anyway. Might as well go to class."

"But it's stupid!" she complains. "I don't need to know how to find the hypot — hypoth — the side of a triangle in my everyday life."

"Hypotenuse," Castiel substitutes. "And you never know. Like, back during the civil war, there was a general who wanted to know how long the river was before he crossed it, so he made two triangles, with one point across from him at a tree on the other side of the river. He used something... side angle side? No, it was... probably the angle side angle theorem, logically, to figure out that he could measure a line on the other side of the river to find how long the river was."

"How does that even make sense?" Claire asks. "I say he got lucky."

"No, not really," Castiel tells her. "It's simple geometry. Just the theorems for triangle proofs; ASA to find out that the two triangles were congruent and CTC..." He pauses as he tries to remember the initials for the theorem. "The whole 'corresponding parts of congruent triangles are congruent' thing. CTCPC or something."

"I have no idea what you just said," Claire replies with a blank expression on her face.

"What math are you taking this year?" Castiel asks.

"Hell if I know. I don't show."

"Okay, not knowing what you're learning is one thing, and not knowing the subject itself is another," Castiel tells her. "Seriously, Claire. You've got to go to class."

"But it's boring!" she whines.

"Too bad. Part of the rules of the house. You go to class and you do your homework, then you get to have fun. So, either you go to class and be bored there, or you can ditch class and not be allowed to do anything fun here."

"That's a stupid rule," she pouts.

"I don't make the rules; I just enforce 'em," Castiel replies with a shrug.

"Who did make the rule, then?"
Castiel pauses. Who made that rule? It's always been a thing. It hasn't always been strictly enforced, but he can't remember a time before that was in place.

"Probably my mom," he decides finally. "Back when Lucifer and Michael were in elementary school, I'm guessing. It just sort of stuck."

"Where is your mom?" Claire asks. "Business trip?"

"She died," he says simply. The whole "she passed away when I was young" answer gets really tiring after a while. Why sugarcoat it? She died, simple as that.

"Oh, sorry, I thought —"

"It's fine," Castiel assures her. "It was a while ago." That doesn't stop him from missing her everyday, but that's irrelevant at the moment. "But it's still a rule, so moral of the story, go to class or life will suck."

Claire groans. "Ugh, fine, I'll go to class! But I can't promise I'll actually pay attention."

"Baby steps," Castiel replies with a shrug. "Time to go to the bus stop. It's up around that corner and keep walking down the street." He gestures to the general direction of the bus stop, according to Michael. "Bye. Have fun at school. Well, that's not possible, because it's school, but whatever. Try to have fun."

Claire laughs in spite of herself. "Alright. It's not gonna happen, but sure. Bye, Castiel. See ya later."