Dean stifled a yawn before slowly opening his eyes. He stretched as much as he could until he bumped into something, which, after visual confirmation turned out to be his little brother. They were actually lying on a queen sized bed. Fragments of the previous day came to his memory. They had arrived to Hartford after the sun had set, and after a brief argument about whether to start searching for the documents straight away or not, they decided, or better said, John decided that his sons would do nothing of the kind until they had a decent night sleep. This resulted in Erin driving them to the nearest motel and dropping them and the Colt to a room and then storming off to find information, not before reminding John they may not have the luxury of a night sleep before that Demon was knocking on their door. John didn't have to be reminded of that, he knew that the Demon was regaining his strength with every passing minute, but a look at the tired faces of his sons also told him they weren't up for the risks just yet. So he ordered dinner, and after making sure the Colt was as safe as possible and all the room entrances were sealed with salt. Dean remembered that, after having dinner, another short lived discussion aroused between John and Sam. Sam had wanted to start surfing the net, trying to find any indication of the whereabouts of the documents Samuel Colt could have hid, but his father wouldn't have any of that, and after pointing Sam's reflection, to make his point about the tiredness reflected on his youngest son, and finally Sam had no option but to capitulate, and more when Dean had intervened in the discussion with a 'Dude, I'm not sleeping 'til you do it". So grudgingly, he had moved to Dean's bed, and after Dean scooted to one side, got under the covers. When John asked Sam why he was sleeping in the same bed as Dean, Sam said it was the only condition he was resting and not researching, that his father took the other bed and rest himself too. So now it had been John's turn to capitulate and do as told.
So when Dean peaked at the bed next to his and saw it empty, he freaked. He freaked until he heard the sound of water running from the bathroom door and sighed relieved. A few minutes later his father emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed with clean clothes, shaved and offering a better image than the last few days. At the sight of his eldest son awake, he approach the bed.
"Hey, how are you feeling?"
"Much better" And Dean realized it was true. He felt his strength was slowly returning to him. He knew a lot of more time would be needed for him to be again one hundred percent, but he didn't feel half as tired as the day before, and when he sat on the bed, he just felt the sharp pain of the stitches of his chest being stretched, and a dull throbbing tiredness, not the full pain he had felt when he had tried to do the same things the day before. John nodded and sat down on his own bed.
"Where's Erin?" Dean whispered, not wanting to wake up Sam.
"She hasn't returned yet" John whispered back.
Dean looked at him worriedly. "You don't think something's happened to her, do you?"
John rubbed his eyes "I don't know, son. She seems pretty resourceful, but you don't go playing with Demons and don't expect them to want to play back"
"What is she doesn't come back?"
"We stick to the plan. Sam can start researching and as soon as we have something, we start moving" Dean looked at him silently "Son, I don't like the fact that the one person who's helped us so far may be dead or captured, but if we don't make those bullets, we're as good as dead"
"I know that but still…"
"How about we don't bury Erin just yet, huh?" Dean felt the bed moving under himself, and knew without the need of turning around, which, in his opinion would have been a waste of energy he couldn't afford right now, that Sam had got up. Sure enough, his brother appeared on his line of vision and went to the table where the laptop rested and connected it. Dean nodded before turning again to his father. " I wanna take a shower"
John raised his eyebrows "Dean, I don't think that's such a good idea just yet…"
"Just… I need to feel minimally human again. I won't let the stitches get wet, okay?"
John sighed. "Okay, but be careful" Dean nodded, and after he got up he started making a slow progress to the bathroom, only stopping to accept the clean clothes his father offered him. It was good that the IV had come off the night before, because he knew he wouldn't stand a chance of taking that so much needed shower had the needle still be stuck in his arm.
When Dean closed the door behind him, John looked at Sam. "How are you, son?"
Sam looked up from the laptop and smiled "Much better, I admit you were right last night. We needed the rest"
A sudden knock on the door had both Winchester immediately alert. John grabbed his shotgun and threw a gun to Sam. Approaching the door, John opened it just a little slide, only to reveal Erin waiting outside, partly covered in mud and with a tired expression on her face. John opened the door, but continued staring at her suspiciously. Erin sighed
"Déjà Vu. Okay, salt on the floor" she pointed the thick line of salt before stepping upon it and entering the room "Look, I could enter" John relaxed and lowered the shotgun and Sam sat again.
"We were worried" The young Winchester said and Erin smiled.
"Yeah, I thought it'd be pretty easy, but turns out Mr Colt decided to bury the documents pretty deep"
John looked at her surprised. "You found them?"
Erin extracted a little metallic box and opened it. Inside, there was a small notebook, with pages that looked so fragile that the slightest breeze could tear them apart. The pages were written in a small but clear letter, and some of them contained sketches, mostly of guns, revolvers and bullets.
"How did you find it?"
"Well, I went to where Samuel Colt lived, and the house is still there. Turns out it's some kind of museum, you can visit it and all. I supposed the best option to hide this would be to bury it somewhere in his backyard, so that's where I went, and sure enough, I found that tree with a carved symbol. So I prayed to be lucky and started digging on the base, and well…" she pointed again to the box "Guess I was"
"Hey, you've come back" Dean said, exiting the bathroom and feeling more human. Erin smiled at him. "Did you find anything?" he said, after taking the long walk to sit on his bed.
"Yep, but I'll let your father and brother do the talking. I need a shower badly…" she answered before entering the bathroom and closing the door. She cleaned the mirror from the water vapor condensed there with her hand, before looking at her reflection. Slowly, a smile appeared on her face as her eyes changed from brown to yellow…
TBC
A/N: Yep, third update in three days, world must be ending or something! ;) Okay, told you last chapter was some sort of bridge for the action, so… action here it is!
