Chapter Nine

Hope hadn't slept in three days.

The second she closed her eyes, all she could hear was angels yelling, which wasn't exactly the most relaxing of lullabies.

In fact, it was Hell. She knew perfectly well what their tactic was, too: sleep deprivation is one of the most effective tortures there is, and Hope's life was full of running and fighting and she was always tired anyway.

It wasn't for nothing, however, that she'd been described as 'stubborn as a mule'. She wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of yes.

She took a gulp of coffee "Sorry, what?"

Emma looked concerned "Hope, are you okay? You look exhausted."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Anyway, what did you say?"

Aidan coughed "I said that Percy Jackson and Beckendorf are going to blow up the Princess Andromeda today. The war's really starting."

Hope's war had started a while ago, but she nodded "Yeah. Hopefully they'll manage it."

"You kidding me? Of course they will. It's Percy Jackson and Beckendorf, Hope," Aidan said.

Hope smiled grimly "If skill alone won wars, then, yes, they'd be fine. Trust me, though, it doesn't."

Emma, who knew exactly what she was talking about, smiled sympathetically. Aidan just shrugged.

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And, of course, Hope ended up right, which was terrible. Beckendorf had been awesome.

Sadly, Emma had more immediate issues right then. Hope's determined refusal to sleep was scaring her. Emma knew how bad it had to be to refuse to sleep. She'd experienced it herself.

"No more coffee, Hope. That's, what, your fifth today? It's barely half ten. You have to sleep."

Hope's tired-no, this wasn't tired, this was absolutely exhausted- eyes blinked at her. "I can't."

"Tell me," Emma said. "Hope, whatever's bothering you, just tell me."

"I can't, though, Emma. I can't tell anyone all of it, because I'm stuck in this weird limbo between two wars that never end and nobody else could possibly understand that. You've never met an angel, you've never seen your brother accidentally kick-start the end of the world, which was only a little bit his fault, by the way. You don't get it."

Emma mentally rolled her eyes. Sure, she didn't know much about angels or demons, but she understood pain. "Hope Mary Winchester, don't make me go to Chiron."

"Oh, come on, Em, that's called unnecessary cruelty. All right, I guess I'll start at the beginning," she paused "Do you want the absolute beginning, as in my pre-planned life thus far, or just what's stopping me from sleeping?"

Emma shrugged "It'd be nice to be the most mysterious figure in this friendship again."

"Right. So, once upon a time, there was this archangel who threw a hissy fit because he didn't want to bow to humans. Basically, he thought we didn't deserve his awesomeness or something. So God ordered that said archangel be tossed into Hell by another archangel, whose name is Michael. The first one is Lucifer, if anyone's interested. So Mike did it, and all was well until last year when my brother Dean went to Hell and accidentally broke the first seal to get Lucifer out of Hell."

"Let me guess, Dean breaking the seal set off a nasty chain of events?"

"Somebody give the lady a prize! The demons realised that their boss Lucifer could be let out of his cage and started breaking seals like nobody's business. But, see, we all thought that only this powerful demon called Lilith could break the last seal, which was technically true, and my other brother Sam got into drinking demon blood, which I have to say was disturbing, because only the powers the demon blood gave him could ice Lilith. Enter Ruby the evil demon, who pretended she didn't want to let Lucifer out-"

"But actually did!"

"Yep. See, the last seal was actually Lilith dying, and she manipulated Sam into killing her, which let Lucifer out. Meanwhile, me and Dean got kidnapped by angels, who actually wanted Lucifer to bust out so he could have this big fight with Michael that's going to kill everyone. Anyway, Lucifer got out, and it turns out that Dean's Michael's vessel, which means that he's the dude Michael wants to possess while they have this fight. And because we all love parallels over here with the ol' Judeo-Christians, Sam's Lucifer's vessel."

Emma tipped her head to one side "I'm going to assume this runs in families?"

"Oh, yeah. Me? I'm the Vessel of All Angels, which means I get to be possessed by a whole bunch of 'em. And they're getting whiny and yelling into my head twenty-four/seven, and so I can't sleep."

"Ah. Yeah… I can see how that could be bad."

Hope rolled her eyes "They act like they're so all-powerful, but really they're just a load of babies who think they're better than everyone else."

Emma snorted "What you're saying is that I could hang out with the vast majority of the Aphrodite cabin and it'd be the same as Heaven?"

"Basically. Only the really shallow ones, though. Silena's all right, and that girl Lacy."

"Mm. You got any strategies to shut 'em up?"

Hope ran her hand though her hair "I could kill them all, but that would take a while."

"Murder, Hope? That's your answer? Why am I even friends with you?"

"I'm the only person everyone's more creeped out by than you?"

Emma shrugged "You make an excellent point."

"Yeah… I mean, we are the outcasts of the outcasts," Hope mused.

"Even the outcasts are weirded out by us."

Hope looked pensive "You think it's all the salt?"

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That was the night Heaven had something better to do than harass a Winchester, and Hope slept for twelve straight hours, which was the equivalent of three days for a girl who'd been hunting her whole life.

And, yeah, it was awesome.

That was the night Emma lay on her sleeping bag, grinned at the ceiling, and wondered what her life would have been like had she not been as good a swordfighter as she was, consequently never beating Hope, consequently remaining Emma the shy kid forever.

That was the night Aidan started to realise there was something a little strange about the girl whose life he'd saved, decided it didn't really matter, and went to sleep.

That was a good night.

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I have been writing this chapter an entire week and I'm sorry it's mostly dialogue, but, come on, I love Emma so much. She needed a chapter.

-threelittleclouds