Author's note: Hello there again, hope you are all well 😊 Sorry for the long wait time just flies by… I divided this Chapter into two, because it got so long… Chapter 12 is a little more Dee annoying Dean and little more about Coco and Rickie. Chapter 13 is the Winchesters finally getting the weapon. Hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who reviewed, you are awesome :)

Previously: The four Winchesters and Castiel are left behind in the library, while Coco and Rickie disappear into the bigger library behind it to retrieve the people's of Altis knowledge about the baltunph. Behind closed walls the Sisters have a little time to catch up on everything they feel and repress.

Chapter 12

"What is taking them so long?" Sam asked annoyed. He wasn't annoyed to wait and he also knew that it could take a while for the two to retrieve something from a library this size, but he was really annoyed that they didn't give him the opportunity to check out the library that was just a few feet away. Of course he wouldn't tell the others. From the look on Samantha's face he could tell she also wished to be able to inspect the big library hidden behind the small one they were in. And from the look on Dee's and Dean's faces they'd definitely call them 'nerds' if they'd voice their discontent. So he instead complained about waiting. "Seriously, what are those two doing in there?" Sam rambled on.

Dean just smiled this a little absent, mischievous, unidentifiable smile of his in return.

"What?" Sam asked now projecting his annoyance on his brother.

Dean didn't answer just kept the sly smile on his face. Unfortunately he didn't think about the woman in the room who knew exactly what he was thinking and absolutely loved to embarrass him.

"Your brother is just imagining a little porn inside his head. His answer to what are they doing is them closing the door, Coco biting her lips and playing with her hair, Rickie is slowly opening her dress and…so on. Gross Dean, really gross…" Dee threw in.

"Hey! What… I mean how?..." Dean stumbled.

"Because I was thinking about the same." she answered confidently. "With the little difference that when I say I was thinking about porn people think 'oh, what a gorgeous, independent, hot woman', when you say it they are like 'what a horny perv'"

"No one ever said that to me." Dean pouted, but quickly caught himself and put that sly smile back on "at least not in a bad way."

"Of course not. Look at us, we are a joy to be around" Dee said probably as a peace offer or maybe just to praise herself. Not a second later she almost jumped out of her armchair being startled by a warm but somewhat mocking laughter that echoed through their heads.

They turned their heads to the dragon. "You sure are two curious members of the homo sapiens species."

"More like homo neanderthalensis if you ask me" Samantha whispered into the direction of Sam and Castiel, having had enough of her sister's antics.

Sam couldn't help but smile. He had to admit that Dean sometimes had something of a neanderthal.

"I can assure you none of the two is a Neanderthal" Castiel contributed lost in thought and a lot louder than the other two. This caught the attention of Dean and Dee. By the annoyed, shushing way Sam looked at the angel Dean could immediately tell they had talked about them. With all eyes now on him, Castiel of course misjudged the situation and added his explanation:

"The Neanderthals were capable of amazing poetry and cave painting. The closest thing I heard to poetry out of Dee's mouth was:

'A sweet girl can kiss a guy,

A bird can kiss a butterfly,

The raising sun can kiss the gras

And you my friend can kiss my ass.'

Also her doodling is not comparable to the complexity of cave paintings."

A moment of silence followed in which Sam resisted the urge to facepalm, Dee wasn't sure if she should stare angrily at Samantha or the angel and Castiel couldn't figure out why everyone stared at him.

"You complain about my painting skills? At least I didn't almost burn down the bunker when I tried to heat up a pizza like a certain angel did." Dee retaliated. And Cas had the decency to look ashamed. Well at least it seemed like it. An angel might look like this if he felt ashamed. Okay, most likely he just couldn't figure out how she made a connection from Neanderthals to pizza… But good enough for Cas. It was time she went on to her sister and Sam. But the other so called Neanderthal beat her to it.

"So Neanderthals, huh? Really Sammy? You call me Neanderthal? Better be happy if this Neanderthal doesn't kick your girly ass" Dean stated the whole time focusing on Sam. After he'd finished he suddenly realized what he'd just said and he cussed himself, this universe and this godforsaken day in his head. "…I didn't mean…" he stuttered now looking at Samantha "…girly is just a term I use because of Sam's princess hair…" And he just made it worse. "…you two are not girls, I mean girly girls… you know what? I just shut up."

Samantha and Dee just sat there with their arms crossed and looked at Dean unamused but suddenly broke out into echoing laughter. "What an eloquent explanation" Samantha blurted out. Sam and Dean just couldn't resist to laugh with along with them.

"What a day" Sam said after their laughter died away.

"What a crazy day" Samantha added.

"I drink to that." Dean got up and poured everyone a new drink, he raised his glass and said almost ceremonial "too… whatever this is." All of them downed the drink and for the first time a comfortable silence filled the room.

"If the two don't come back soon, we should just take some of this fancy stuff and get out of here", Dean remarked after a while. Tired of sitting he got up and walked over to one of the shelves and pulled an old book out "What do you think we would make if we sold this?"

Now it was Sam's turn to get up and inspect the item in Dean's hand. It was an old book. A bible written in Latin. Or more printed in Latin.

"Be careful with that!" Sam suddenly burst out, realizing what it was. Carefully taking the Bible out of Dean's hand he brushed his hand over the pages carefully.

"What is it, Sammy?" Dean asked curiously.

"I can't believe it. This can't be, can it…?" Sam stuttered amazed.

"What Sam?" Dean asked even more curious.

"Dean, this is a Gutenberg Bible. It is the first book ever printed. Look how well preserved it is! They only printed about 180 of these in the 1450s. Before Gutenberg invented the letterpress every book had to be copied by hand. This is a milestone of history! Imagine if they hadn't invented it. No newspapers, education only for the rich…" Sam enthused.

"Why do you know such things? Wait, I don't care" Dean mocked.

"Do you still don't care if I tell you that one of the Gutenberg Bibles sold for over 4.5 Million?" Sam retorted.

"4.5 Million for a book? People are crazy" Dean remarked. "Shouldn't a book this valuable have no pages hanging loose?" He pointed to an edge of a paper that sticked out of the Bible.

"That's not a page of the Bible, it looks like an old note." Sam said, pulling the paper free carefully "I can't read it though. It must be old German or something."

"That's usually when I come in" Cas suddenly said and took the piece of paper out of Sam's hand. And he was right. He usually always started to participate when they needed an information or when they had something to translate. " It says: 'My dearest Lady Miriam of Altis, thank you for the inspiration. Gratefully your Johannes Gutenberg.'"

"Does that mean they have had some influence on the invention of the letterpress?" Sam askes excitedly, "Seems to me those people of Altis are even more interesting than I thought."

"Let's see what else we can find in here" Samantha suggested. And it didn't take long for all the Winchesters to take closer looks through the shelves trying to figure out what else was in the room that could tell them more about the mysterious people of Altis.

They came up with more valuable first editions which made Sam feel like a child on Christmas morning and expensive artefacts. Dean just put back a Ming-dynasty vase (after he almost broke it and of cause without knowing what he had in his hands) when his eyes fell on a simple tin box. It really wasn't something special. It had an interesting carving of a dragon resting in a big feather whose paw seemed to protect two little hearts. But other than that artistic carving it seemed to be out of place between those priceless artefacts. So Dean took it to inspect it further.

"Please put it down again. It is the most valuable thing in this room" the voice of the dragon suddenly said, taking everyone by surprise. They had almost forgotten her presence.

"This tin box here? Why is it filled with diamonds and a gift from the Emperor of China to her noble ladyness of Altis?" Dean asked only half joking.

"No. It's filled with something much more valuable than diamonds." Aylana answered calmly "it is filled with memories. Memories of an extraordinary and loving family…"

Behind the wall Rickie decided that enough time had passed and it was time to join in the action again. Unfortunately the few minutes they waited with not much to do everything else that had happened had time to catch up to the sisters.

"Ready to finish up?" she asked her sister with faked enthusiasm.

"Please, just let her finish the story" Coco answered quietly trying to speak with the huge lump of sadness in her throat. She couldn't explain how she just wanted to forget what she had lost, but at the same time couldn't get enough of this trip down memory lane, now after she had been reminded of it all. She didn't know how to deal with all this feelings. She remembered to never have felt like this before. She felt indescribably sad. She felt a certain feeling of warmness when she remembered. She felt just so angry that it will never be like it was back then. She felt helpless because she wasn't able to change it. She was just so damn confused. And she wasn't sure she could pull herself together enough to finish this, but she knew that she had to and if not for herself than for her sister who certainly was worried for her now. What she was sure of though was that she wanted to hear the story of the tin box.

"We sure can if you want to" Rickie answered simply. She knew that Coco knew there wasn't much of a story behind the box, but it certainly had a meaning to both of them.

"Do you think it still exists?" Coco suddenly asked.

"The box?" Rickie asked back also struggling with her feelings more than she would admit "Maybe. I don't know. When Raphael came and kill… I mean the night everything happened I remember bursts of energy everywhere…"

"I mean does anything still exist? Is something left of Altis? Of them?...Of us?"

"I don't know. Presumably not. I never tried to get back…" Rickie cleared her throat that felt awfully tight"… It was attacked by an archangel there can't be something left. And I don't want to see what he did to that place, I want to remember it the way it was."

Rickie looked at Coco like she was asking her for approval or maybe for her forgiveness. Which Coco didn't notice as she just grabbed her sister's hand squeezed it to and for comfort. This day just went so different than she had expected. Than they both had expected.

"Do you remember how we planned on just having some fun and heartwarming memories of the old time?...Just tell the tin box story and get this done with" Coco said having found her previous determination. She brushed the confusion away and felt her sister do the same.

"Okay, I am ready."

"It won't open" Dean said annoyed with the box still in his hands.

"Maybe because they don't want to have some curious dude going through their personal stuff" Samantha pointed out.

"I also think we should open it" Dee disagreed with her sister "this is the first really personal thing we found in here. Sure, there are all those gifts and stuff, but those just told us something about what the people of Altis did, but not who they were."

"This is quite wise contrary to my first impression" Aylana observed "but like always there are two sides to this. You, on the one side, want to open it, because you want to know what kind of people you are dealing with, what their motives are and more important if they have a good heart and are trustworthy. They, on the other hand, sealed the box, because to them it is something special, a heritage they are trying to protect, memories that are their own. So which of the needs is the more important? Yours? Theirs?"

"I'd like to say ours, but there is now right answer to this. They have just as much right to protect their privacy as we have the right to protect our security. So even if we find the way to open it, should we really do it?" Sam voiced his thoughts and was briefly reminded of all his juridical and philosophical debates back at Stanford.

"Before I came to earth it appeared to always be just one way, to follow orders and not to question who it might affect. When I've learned one thing from humanity than that every decision offers many perspectives. And if you don't agree you find a compromise… Given the case you are not stubborn people" Castiel noted and then turned to the dragon "I know dragons can only tell the truth. So if you tell us what you can about the box and we don't try to open it anymore this is a compromise. None of us will truly be happy but we can live with it."

Four pairs of eyes stared at Castiel in amazement. Even the dragon seemed impressed.

"Well spoken, angel, very insightful for one of you kind. I accept this compromise. You see, this little box isn't as old as most of the things in here and the value of the material much lower. But it still is the most valuable object…"

"Because it contains memories. We know. You already told us that. You have to give us more or the deal is off." Dee complained after the dragon didn't continue right away.

"Patience is a virtue. As is honoring ones family. And they are my family, so forgive me if I take some time to remember the brighter times. Back when this family was still here." Aylana answered still calm but determined "And an extraordinary family they were. The mother a true lady of Altis. The father so totally different from her, yet still they loved each other dearly. I think this is the only reason why the grandmother, who was the leader of the people of Altis at the time, even accepted him. Because she sure didn't like him. And then there were their two little girls. Both had the gentleness of their mother and the cheeky streak of their father… But I digress. Then one day the mother's birthday came up and the two girls didn't know what they should give her as a gift. They wanted it to be something really special. What they finally came up with you are holding in your hands, Dean Winchester. Something homemade and personal. The younger sister designed the box, she wanted a carving on top that represented every member of their small family. The older sister carved it in. Then each of them started to fill it with memories. The sisters put in the song lyrics of a lullaby their mother sang, for example, and a leaf of a tree they planted together. Also they put in the plan and photos of the onetime their mother had helped them prank their father. And even he contributed something to the box. A napkin of the club he and their mother first met and a little phial with glowing stuff he claimed was a part of him. In the end they ask the grandmother to put a spell on it, so only they could open it, because they said it is their treasure and one has to protect his treasure. I still remember the proud look on their faces when they gave it to their mother and her expression of pure happiness and gratefulness. I remember her being so overwhelmed by it that she just said 'I cannot express how much I love you girls. You are the greatest gift.' Over the next year their box got plenty of little things added, pictures mostly. Valueless for most, but priceless for them. So please just put it back."

Dean met the demand in silence. A nagging feeling told him that there was much more to the story of this family, but he wasn't able to put a finger on it.

Suddenly they heard movement behind the wall and a few seconds later Coco and Rickie had returned. One carrying a book in her hand the other a sword.

TBC