Chapter 5 I Dreamed That God Would Be Forgiving
Dean awoke in his room, curled under the soft blankets. He rolled over and was surprised to see Hope sitting on the edge of the mattress, watching him. He jumped.
"I'm sorry." Hope apologized. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just....kind of miss sleeping. It was always nice to be able to escape for a while. And, well, you seemed so peaceful...." she trailed off, blushing with a look on her face that said she could not believe she said that out loud. "I mean..." she stood as if to leave.
Dean frowned, sitting up. "Hey, it's okay." He said, stopping her retreat. She sat back down, glancing up at him and then quickly away, a blush creeping into her fair cheeks. "Look, about last night--" he began.
She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I understand. Sometimes you just can't talk." She assured him. The angel paused, uncertainty playing through her eyes. Finally, she sat back on the mattress and continued. "But I hope that when you can talk, you'll talk to me." She added, searching his eyes.
"Yeah," Dean's voice was rough "Yeah, I think I will. And you....you can talk to me." Hope just nodded.
They sat there for several seconds, neither willing to break the moment. And though Dean's walls did not come down, Hope could see them soften just the tiniest bit which gave her....well, hope.
Finally, Dean cleared his throat. "We should probably get moving if we're going to find the tablet before dark."
"You're right." Hope agreed, trying not to sound too mournful. The angel sighed. "Let's go see if the rest of the Scooby Gang is up."
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Once everyone was awake and had eaten breakfast they gathered in the main room of the bunker. "Alright, here's the plan;" Dean began, clapping his hands together, "Sam, Kevin, and I are going to track down the tablet. When we find it, we'll come back here, switch out Moses for Feathers," Kevin and Hope scowled at the hunter's nicknames, "and go Indiana Jones on the Godsetta Stone."
"Hold on," Hope protested. "I'm coming with you."
"No, actually, you're not." Dean replied.
"Why?"
"You're kind of a blinking 'Please Kill Me' sign for Abbadon." Sam explained, giving the angel an apologetic look.
Dean nodded "I'd rather not get my ass kicked by demons today. This is a strictly confrontation-free trip. I'm leaving the nukes at home. Plus, we've got the King if Hell in our dungeon. Wouldn't want to leave him unsupervised."
"It's not as if he can escape!" she protested. Dean just raises an eyebrow, to which Hope frowned. "Well, what are me and Cas supposed to do while you're gone?"
"I don't know. You're brother and sister, right?" the angel and former angel nodded. "Then....bond." Dean said, shrugging. "Sam, Kevin, we need to get going. You ready?" The two men nodded. "Great, let's hit the road."
The prophet and the two hunters grabbed their bags and were gone, leaving Hope and Castiel alone in the bunker.
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"Arghh, this is so boring!!" Hope groaned throwing herself down into one of the chairs around the two rectangular tables in the main room of the bunker. "You'd think with a library that big they'd have something decent to read, but no." She sighed. "I want my book!"
Cas looked up at that. "What are you reading?" he asked, surprising the angel. He hadn't said much since the boys left a few hours ago.
"Uh,...Ender's Game." She replied. "By Orson Scott Card."
Castiel nodded. "Where is it?" he asked, a bit awkwardly, as if casual conversation was extremely difficult for him. Hope couldn't blame him; she personally hated talking to people she didn't really know more than just about anything.
"In my dorm." She told him, her words followed by a mournful sigh. "Along with my other stuff."
Castiel was silent for a moment. Then, "Would you like to go get it?"
Hope looked up at him, boredom glinting in her pale blue eyes. "Oh, god, yes!"
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"There, turn there!" Kevin yelled from the back seat of the Impala, leaning forward between Sam and Dean to watch the road. Sam would have sat in the back but his legs were too long and Dean refused to let him drive his baby.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean muttered angrily, turning the wheel hard to the right and slamming on the brake to keep from sliding off the narrow country road. "You gotta give me more warning than that, Kev."
"Sorry!" the prophet sighed. "I'm telling you as soon as I know. It's not as if I've got a road map in my head, it's just a feeling of when and where I should turn."
"Yeah, well, tell your 'feelings' to give me more warning, because if they make me wreck my baby you'll be feeling when and where my foot goes up your ass." Dean snapped, peeling his eyes away from the road to send Kevin a glare.
Kevin raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry."
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Hope and Castiel appeared in a small room. The walls were painted white and covered with posters of various TV shows and movies (most of them based on books). One wall held a bulletin board covered in sticky notes with random quotes and reminders scrawled on them in a messy but feminine hand. Beside it stood a bookshelf that looked like it was brought into the room in pieces because it was much too big to fit through the door. It was completely filled with books. In the corner there was a small dresser with a slightly warped mirror and a twin sized bed with tangled dark blue sheets rested against the far wall with a small, cluttered table next to it. Hope's dorm room, Cas realized, beginning to understand why Dean always protested against being 'zapped' places.
"Here we are." Hope said, spreading her arms to gesture to the room. She walked over to the bedside table and picked up a book resting on a pile of note pads and loose papers. The angel opened it to the middle and buried her nose in the pages, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. "Oh, I've missed you." She muttered, kissing the cover lightly.
Castiel watched this with a confused and slightly concerned look on his face, tilting his head and squinting his crystal blue eyes. Hope glanced up at him and laughed.
"I love books. As you can probably tell." She explained, waving a hand at the enormous bookshelf to their right. "Have you ever smelled a book before?"
"No." Cas replied cautiously. "Is that a normal part of human behavior? I've never seen Sam or Dean do it."
"That's because the only books they read would probably give you the black death if you smelled them." Hope teased. "Here, try it." She offered, handing Castiel the book. The former angel took it cautiously, uncertainty playing on his features. "Go on." Hope encouraged him.
He raised the book to his nose, opening to the middle as Hope had done, and sniffed it carefully. His eyes widened in surprise and he sniffed again, inhaling more deeply this time. "Mmmm." Cas looked up at Hope, shocked, "It smells good! Like...vanilla."
Hope nodded. "I think so, too." She agreed, taking the book back. "Okay, I'm going to pack some of my stuff. I have a bag in the closet over there, would you hand it to me?" She asked, rifling through a drawer in the small table. Castiel obliged, passing the blue duffel bag to her. She unzipped it and began filling it with everything from books to clothes to toiletries. She even grabbed the pillow off of her bed.
"You ready to head out?" She asked when she was finished.
"I suppose so." Castiel murmured. "Are you?"
Hope nodded, taking a last glance around the room. "Yeah. Let's go home."
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"You're sure this is the place?" Sam asked, staring at the building in front of them. The Impala was parked, per Kevin's instructions, outside of the Winchester Public Library in Winchester, Tennessee. It was almost dark outside, the drive having taken several hours.
Kevin nodded. "The tablet is in there. I can feel it."
Dean snorted. "It's kind of ironic, If you think about it." He said.
"Yeah, Dean, we know; hiding from the Winchesters in Winchester. We get the joke." Sam muttered.
"No; it's the Word of God....in a library surrounded by the Word of God-knows-who-all-else." Dean laughed. "It's punny."
Sam just stared at him. "Ha ha." He said sarcastically.
"Never mind. C'mon, let's leave before they notice us." Dean grumbled, cranking the Impala and driving away.