She wakes up and she's sitting on a couch that is well worn but in good condition. Her head hurts from both mental and physical abuse. Her eyesight is blurry, but not cloudy enough for her to not make out the man standing in front of her. It's Dean and he's got a look of confusion anger and relief all crammed into one facial expression. She's not really getting the 'happy to see you' vibe from him, which she can tolerate; she's been off the Winchester radar for about a half a year. She did abandon them when they needed her most.
Aha, it's disappointment that's in the air, not contempt or longing. She's almost afraid to speak; what if he hits her again; what if he gets a knife and rips over her arm, torturing her for information on where she was – where it was.
And she screams.
He looks at her, in confusion, then panic. She continues yell, screaming that she doesn't have it; that she didn't take anything. He's sitting next to her, softly saying her name over and over again trying to get her to snap out of it. That's when she realizes this isn't real; this is a hallucination of what once was. It's over – what happens now is what's important. And then she starts crying onto his shoulder.
God, she's missed him.
She's sobbing hysterically. Her body is shaking and it's taken over by the shear impact of all her emptions and fears and dreams surfacing at once. She's crying because she hates him. She's crying because she missed them. She's crying because she couldn't be there to save his brother. She's crying because she needs to let everything out – because it's not healthy to keep everything pent up inside.
He pulls her closer, and her weeping diminishes into mere sniffles and a spare tear. She lets herself become content with the mere closeness and human contact. Sam's death must have triggered something inside him, letting him show a little more compassion than he usually deemed necessary. (Maybe that's why he's with this woman now.)
And that's when it all hits her. The closeness is too intimate; it's almost too close. She pulls away awkwardly from him and wipes her eyes. She can't let him reduce her to a sobbing mess. He's already seen her cry once already. She was supposed to be strong; she's lived through a war. She wasn't supposed to let her mental state out. It wasn't fair to him – it wasn't fair to anyone.
Then she realizes this is the first time he's had a glimpse at her ever so rare hallucinations. She's suddenly embarrassed. That hasn't happened in years. She feels almost guilty for dishing out her mental instability out to him. She's sure he's got enough to deal with. The last thing he needs to do is worry about her.
She takes a shaky breath and calms herself. He gives her a concerned look, asking if she's alright. She replies with a reassuring smile.
"I'm sorry," she says, "just bad memories; that hasn't happened in years. It's good to see you, Dean."
"Good to see you too, 'Mione." He smiles. She can tell something's off.
"And you're okay?" she asks, not wanting to directly speak of Sam. She knows they were inseparable and this must be extraordinarily hard for Dean.
"Okay as I'll ever be." he sighs, "how'd you hear about that?"
"I sort of figured something must have happened for you to be living in the American suburbs."
"I can't believe I'm living in the suburbs." He admits, "It's so… normal. I've got Lisa and Ben and this house and a job – an actual job that doesn't involve killing things – and it's… it's nice." He confesses.
"I'm happy for you." She says. It's a half lie. She's glad he's getting to be a normal human being. Dean at least deserves to be happy. But she can tell he didn't really want this, or at least that's what she's telling herself to feel better. She wishes it was her that he was with; she wishes that she could be there to take away the agonizing feeling that the loss of his brother has punctured him with.
"What brings you to this part of the world." He asks. She has no interest in telling him a demon. (God knows that would go over like a ton of bricks.)
"Anonymous tip, actually; I found a picture of your shed under my door and decided it couldn't hurt to investigate a little bit."
"Oh."
"Yeah." She can feel the conversation dwindling. This has never happened before between them. It's strange and eerie and she hates it almost as much as she often hates what has happened to her.
"I don't think I want to go back to Britain anytime soon." She blurts out, in hopes to redeem their discussion. She missed the sound of his voice. She missed his annoying innuendos and their in-depth colloquies. He looks surprised and looks at her while she stares at her hands which are folded in her lap tensely.
"Why's that?" he probes.
"They all look at me – I'm a war hero over there, Dean. I'm praised for my bravery and I get extra hype because of my blood. People see a strong woman when in all actuality, I'm a terrified girl. I just can't stand it when they look at me like they know me; like I'm some sort of book that they had to memorize." She sighs, not sure why she wants to have a heart-to-heart with him, "I just need to get away from it all." He grabs her hand and squeezes it, causing her to break out in goosebumps.
"That's what I'm doing in the suburbs." He whispers. She laughs; it's not even funny. Just the concept of Dean Winchester doing properly normal everyday things makes her loose it. Then he starts laughing too, and before they know it their eyes are leaking because of the incomprehensible fits of giggles.
"This is just so bizarre, I'm sorry." She laughs, "What's equally scary is what I was in a full length gown three days ago doing normal wizarding things. Gosh, I haven't dressed up like that in ages." He looks at her and she can almost hear him picturing her without her sweaters and flannels and jeans.
"I'm sure you looked beautiful." He says. She freezes, just for a second she allows herself to think that he cares about her like more than just another friend, but then she stops. He's got Lisa, and the little boy, Ben. She won't let herself get in the way of what he has here.
She realizes that she needs to go. He was to get to work. She can call him or meet him later. She pretends to ignore his comment about her being beautiful and arks the conversation a completely different way.
"I don't want to hold you up; I'm sure you've got to get to work and everything."
"No. No, Hermione, it's fine really. You don't –"
"I should best be going. I don't think I have your new number…" she opens her bag and Accio's a pen and paper for him to write it down. She shoves it in his hands before he can refuse. He scribbles down his phone number hastily and hands it back to her.
"I'll call you." She says walking towards the door, "Maybe we can get a drink or something together. And I would love to meet this Lisa!" she gives him a devilish smile, hoping to disguise her ridiculous displeasure with coyness.
"See you soon." He says. She smiles and waves before going out the door and apparating to her hotel room.
-:-
She showers and takes a nap, trying to sleep off her heartache. When that doesn't work, she decides to try to write a letter to Draco; she promised she would keep in touch. She finished that moderately quickly, and needed something else to do. She wrote to Harry and practically demanded him to come visit her soon.
Then she decided to try another nap. Fortunately, this time she fell right to sleep and there were no dreams of the war, no dreams of the brothers, no dreams of anything, for that matter. It was a deep sleep, as if she had given herself a sleeping draught.
She woke up sometime later and decided that it couldn't hurt to give Dean a call. (What she didn't know was that it was three in the morning and any reasonable American citizen would be asleep.) She pulls out the pad of paper and punches his number into her phone. It rings and he picks up.
"Hi Dean."
"Who's this?" it's a woman that picks up the phone. She sounds tired and angry and suddenly Hermione feels really quite terrible.
"I must have the wrong number; my mistake." She apologizes.
"No. This is Dean's phone. What the hell are you doing calling my boyfriend at three in the morning?"
So this must be Lisa. She feels even guiltier now.
"I didn't realize it was so late. I just came from England – "
"I don't give a damn. Who the hell are you?" Lisa interrupts. Hermione lets out a harrumph and tries to figure out a way to tell the woman that she isn't calling for the reason that she's thinking.
"My name's Hermione Granger. Dean and I are friends; I was supposed to call him when I arrived in America. Look, I can call back later if this isn't a good time."
"Yeah," says Lisa, "Why don't you do that."
"Sorry. I'm still on London time."
She hung up before Hermione could say goodbye. She decides that she doesn't really like Lisa, though she can't really blame her. If some strange foreigner was calling her metaphorical boyfriend in the early hours of the morning, she would have been a little suspicious herself.
-:-
She tries to force herself back to sleep, but that's not working, so she pulls out her copy of Hogwarts: A History and reads until her hearts content. It brings back happier, simpler memories of when her life was still black and white.
How she wishes she could go back to being her nerdy eleven year old self. When her sadness only consisted of being called a freak and an atrocity (Though that part of her life still hast really changed). How she wishes her parents still knew her by name and face. She misses her life – the simplicity of the wizarding world amazed her and she wishes that she could simply fit right back in.
But she's seen too much to go back to that life.
It's ten o'clock in the morning when she decides to down to the hotel lobby to grab some of the continental breakfast - a banana and a bagel. She brings it back up to her room to eat. She doesn't want to be watched by the creepy old man sitting beneath the television.
She eats her food in silence. While she's in the middle of sending her letters, her mobile phone rings; it's Dean's cell. She answers.
"Hermione speaking."
"Hi, it's Lisa. Sorry about being so miserable last night. Just, knowing Dean's past and everything you can't be too careful." Hermione nods, though Lisa can't see her. (Honestly, she wasn't expecting Lisa to know about the hunting, but you learn something new every day.)
"Yeah, I understand. Completely." She agrees.
"He was saying you wanted to meet up or something? Does tonight sound good?" Hermione is shocked at her change in her demeanor. Maybe she isn't so bad.
"I'm not doing anything except trying to stay away from this old creep at my hotel. Tonight sounds fine."
They decided to met up at the little bar on the main strip of town, something that she most certainly wasn't expecting. But Dean lives in the suburbs now; he's got to be keeping up his appearances.
"Alright," Laughs Lisa, "See you then! Can't wait to meet you!"
-:-
She spends the rest of her day deciding what to wear. She goes with her usual jeans and a sweater. She's a nervous wreck. What if she can see through her pleasantness? Fortunately for Hermione, she can't. Lisa finds her delightful. She can tell that Dean's happy that Lisa likes her. They spend the night drinking. It's pleasurable.
When they bid farewell, she can't help but shake the feeling of uncertainty off her back. Somethings amiss, and she's going to figure out what it is. (She swears she sees a Sam-like figure following her out of the bar. She's dissapparates before she can figure out who it is – even if it is impossibly Sam.)
Hi guys! this chapter was a little hard for me to write, seeing as I had a little bit of writers block towards the end of it. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.
Please review, favorite, or follow to let me know what you think! I really appreciate all the feedback that I've gotten so far (like my biggest response ever and it makes me feel like you guys really appreciate what I'm writing.)
I go back to school tomorrow *SCREAMS* so updates will probably be on Friday or Saturday from now on. I'll try my best to keep up with all my writing but god only knows how that's going to turn out.
I hope you're all having a lovely day/evening AND ITS ALMOST HALLOWEEN *squeal*
Thanks y'all.
bleuboxes