Jariel woke up with the sun from the window streaming in his face. He let out a yawn and tried to sit up, only to find that something, or someone, was preventing him from doing so. He leaned up to see Dawn, who was sleeping soundly, sitting up against him, her head resting against the back of the couch. He smiled and slowly tried to get up without disturbing her. He tried to remove his legs from behind her, but found he could do no such thing without having to move her, which in the end would lead to her waking up. He sighed and laid back down, giving up. That is, until Dawn started to stir and opened her eyes, looking over at Jariel with a confused look on her face.
“Did I fall asleep out here?” she asked, letting out a yawn and sitting up just enough so that Jariel could remove his legs, which he found were a bit numb.
“You must have.” He laughed. Dawn blushed and stood up.
“I’m sorry! This is so embarrassing!” she apologized, her face turning redder.
“Hey, I’m not mad.” Jariel said, trying to make her feel better. “It could happen to the best of us.”
Dawn tried to smile, but Jariel guessed that she was still a little bit embarrassed about what had happened. She ducked out of the living room and in to the kitchen, where Jariel could hear her making herself a bowl of cereal. A couple of moments later he could hear what he assumed to be Annette’s bedroom door opening down the hall. She stumbled in to the living room wearing batman pajama bottoms and a superman pajama top. Her black hair looked like a birds nest on top of her head, and her make up that she had forgotten to take off was all around her eyes. All together, she looked like hell.
“Tough night?” Jariel asked, hoping to make the tension between them go away. He knew that Annette didn’t like him, and he really didn’t blame her. He was a stranger that was living in her home, which was supposed to be a safe haven for her.
“I don’t even wanna talk about it.” She groaned. “So, you’re Jariel, right?”
“Yep.” He nodded. “And you must be Annette. I’m sorry for kind of barging in to your home. I know you weren’t too happy about it…” his voice trailed off.
“I was being a jerk then.” She waved off his apology. “I should be the one apologizing, so I’m sorry for storming out and making it seem like it was your fault.”
Jariel paused, shocked that she was apologizing. He thought that it was his fault, he was the one who persuaded Dawn to let him live with her, out of pure selfishness on his part. He just nodded to her, and attempted to smile. When, in reality, he didn’t really deserve the apology. He was becoming selfish just like the humans he had called scum. Who was he kidding? He was a hypocrite. Dawn had showed him that not all humans are horrible scum like he pictured them to be. Maybe, at least a little bit, he was having a change of heart. But only a little, microscopic, bit. He would never admit to that.
Annette returned the smile and went to join Dawn in the kitchen. Jariel stayed in the living room, letting out another yawn. He turned on the television, happy to see Saturday morning cartoons on, instead of the news, for a change. Annette and Dawn came out to join him after they ate and they watched cartoons together. Dawn asked Jariel if he wanted anything to eat, but he told her that he wasn’t hungry at the moment, which was a lie. He just didn’t feel like getting up, especially since all three of them were getting along right now.
“Gotta love Saturday morning cartoons.” Annette laughed after they finished watching Tom and Jerry. Jariel and Dawn nodded in agreement.
“So, any plans today?” Dawn asked, stretching.
“Well, I would like to go to the library.” Jariel said. He needed to get a move on if he was going to try to find the others.
“I can go with you.” Dawn said. “After all, I don’t think you have a library card.” She laughed.
“Okay. That sounds like a plan.” He agreed. “You have any plans Annette?”
“Cleaning out Derek’s crap from my room.” She said, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“Oh, please tell me that you’re not going back to that jerks home alone.” Dawn said with a worried expression upon her face.
“No way!” she laughed. “I’m just going to trash it all. After all, he has enough crap in that filthy house.”
“Okay, good.” Dawn let out a sigh, relieved that her friend wasn’t going to put herself in danger. Jariel just listened and then got up and went to get dressed. He was beginning to like it here, and that scared him. He didn’t want to like it here; he wanted to hate it so that when it was time to go back, he wouldn’t hesitate.
* * * *
Dawn was so happy that Jariel and Annette were getting along. She was afraid that Annette still harbored bad feeling about him, and the whole situation for that matter. It was nice that Annette was giving Jariel a chance, and vise versa. She hoped that this peace between all three of them would last.
Dawn stood up and went to go get dressed and ready to take Jariel to the library, where she hoped he would find what he was looking for. She really did hope that he could find happiness, whether it was back in Heaven of here. Part of her wished he could, or would, stay here with her, but then she realized that she was being selfish and brushed the thought our of her head. He couldn’t stay here. In reality, he didn’t even belong here. He was an angel; he belonged in Heaven with the other angels. She let out a sigh. Life was so unfair sometimes, but that was life and she needed to learn to live with that fact.
“You ready?” Jariel asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. She recollected herself before answering.
“Yep. Let’s go do this!” she fist pumped in to the air, making Jariel laugh. They told Annette that they were leaving and then walked out the apartment door. The cold air nipped at their faces as they walked amongst the other crowds of people. The grass was frosted over from the cold last night, a sign that snow was soon to come. They walked in silence, both lost in their own deep thoughts. Birds that had stayed behind to enjoy the winter sung among the trees and put a smile on Dawn’s face. She was glad that, even though winter was on their doorstep, there were birds that stayed behind and treated her ears with their songs. She started to whistle a tune as they walked, and from the corner of her eye she saw Jariel smile, which caused her to smile.
“What, got a problem with my whistling?” she teased, causing Jariel to laugh.
“Not at all, I’m just wondering what song you’re whistling to.” He responded.
“Just a random tune.” She shrugged. Jariel smiled again and they continued to walk.
The library was a bit father than Dawn remembered. It took them a little over forty minutes to walk, which in the cold felt like an hour and a half. The old ladies inside greeted them, like they were overly happy about it. Budget cuts were threatening to close down some of the local libraries, so she could understand why they seemed overly excited to see them. It was a Saturday morning after all, how many people spent them in the library? Dawn couldn’t think of many people that would. They pondered where they would find books that mentioned things about fallen angels, and eventually wandered over to the religion section of the library, thinking that was the most sensible place to start. Jariel went over to one end of the section and Dawn stayed at the other end. They pulled any books from the shelves that mentioned angels, or anything having to do with angels, fallen angels, or Heaven for that matter.
An hour had passed by. Dawn had a good stack of books by her, as she sat on the brown carpeted floor paging through another book. Jariel, on the other hand, had maybe one or two books. The librarians had passed by, giving them weird looks but once Dawn explained they were doing a ‘research paper’ about fallen angels, they seemed more sympathetic, and even helped out some, directing them to some other sections of the library, including the Fiction section. Dawn thanked them, and sent Jariel to go look in that section while she finished up in this section. She had grabbed a cart to put the large stack of books on, so she didn’t end up falling on her face trying to carry them back to a table.
She met up with Jariel at a table in the far corner of the library, where she hoped that people wouldn’t overhear their conversation. They each took out one book from the fairly large pile of books that they had in front of them and started to flip through them. Some of the books had detailed, and by detailed she meant graphic, pictures, which she did her best not to look at. She didn’t like the sight of blood and, or, guts. It just made her stomach weak. They flipped through book after book, just hoping to find what they were looking for. Dawn knew there had to be some information concerning fallen angels that they could take away, which would hopefully help them. She just prayed that they would be able to find it.