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Seasons: a Supernatural Fan Fiction Anthology
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2018-02-22
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Hope, Revisited

Summary:

In her dreams, she knelt in front of him, crying, pleading, repeating I love you more than anything in a voice she barely recognized as her own.

Coda to 4x08 "Wishful Thinking". At the end of the episode Hope's memories of her relationship with Wes are gone. A short exploration of how she deals with the aftermath.

Notes:

This story was written for the Seasons SPN fic anthology. A big thank you to babybrotherdean for putting together this wonderful project. And another big thank you to my lovely beta hunenka.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Hope was used to feeling eyes on her skin. She’d been head cheerleader and prom queen at high school. Not even to mention all the beauty contests Mom had dragged her to. It had never unsettled her when a stranger’s gaze lingered on her, tattooing I want you on her arms in invisible ink—not until now.

There was this one guy who was always watching her. Nerdy glasses, unkempt hair, in his late forties. Probably. It was difficult to tell. He seemed the type who’d been born looking ancient.

Wherever she went, he was there too. Staring. Just staring. Always staring. Hell, he didn’t even blink.

For the first time in her life, she felt afraid.

 

***

 

She couldn’t have said for sure when it started. It must have been sometime after that weird day she returned to her apartment and noticed the pile of wedding mags on her coffee table. One of Mom’s endless hints, maybe. At least Hope couldn’t think of a better explanation. She certainly hadn’t ordered them.

Sometimes she wished Mom would just come out and say how disappointed she was. A part time job at the local copy shop, where Mr. Wilcox stared at her breasts and called her Hilary, was hardly the glamourous future she’d envisioned for her daughter.

You need to get out of this town. You’re meant for better things, she’d repeated countless times during Hope’s childhood. Hope had done her best to make her proud, had taken one step after another down the path Mom laid out for her. Only to turn her back on it as soon as she met Matt. Matt, who blew town one day without a word, leaving her behind like an abandoned crossword.

Mom never said, I told you so. She didn’t have to.

The message behind the mysterious wedding mags might be: If you can’t do anything better with your life, you might as well give me some grandchildren. Mom never mentioned them, and Hope never asked. She was too busy trying not to freak out over her nerdy stalker.

 

***

 

He never did anything. Never approached her, never talked to her. He was simply there, impossible to ignore, like a run-over animal on the side of the road that you couldn’t help but look at, no matter how much you didn’t want to.

She briefly considered going to the police. But what would she say? Sheriff, I keep seeing this guy everywhere I go?

Sheriff Cooper would only laugh at her. It’s a small town, sweetie.

And if she insisted, But he keeps staring at me! It’s creepy! He’d only give her a patronizing pat on the arm. Why don’t you button up your blouse next time you go out of the house, huh. You’ll see, that’ll do the trick.

 

***

 

One day, she gathered all her courage and brought it up to Mr. Wilcox.

“What is it, Hilary?”

She’d long given up on correcting him, so she only pointed to the bench outside. “See that guy? He’s been sitting there all morning.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you think that’s…weird?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. And I don’t care. My business is what goes on inside this shop, not outside of it.” He gave her a stern look. “As should yours be.”

She swallowed. “Yes. Sorry.”

Who knew, maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. Maybe she was exaggerating things.

Maybe she’d been alone too long. She hadn’t really dated anyone in years, not since Matt.

So the next time Pete asked her out while she signed for the deliveries, she said yes.

 

***

 

Pete was a good guy. Funny, too. She’d known him all her life. Nonetheless, the date was an utter disaster.

Her creepy stalker sat at a table on the other side of the diner. He was watching her with a wounded expression. Like she’d wronged him somehow.

She couldn’t concentrate on what Pete was telling her. And every time he asked her a question, she confined herself to monosyllables, afraid that her stalker was listening in on every word she said.

It didn’t really come as a surprise when Pete said at the end of the night, “You’re a great girl, Hope, don’t get me wrong. But I think maybe we should just be friends?”

 

***

 

Things only got worse from then on.

As if stalking her during every hour of the day wasn’t enough already, the guy now also took to haunting her dreams.

His name was Wes, according to Sally.

“Total loser,” Sally had added in a confidential whisper as she filled up Hope’s coffee. “He’s been out of work for months.”

In her dreams, she knelt in front of him, crying, pleading, repeating I love you more than anything in a voice she barely recognized as her own.

Matt had called her clingy once. But she didn’t think she’d ever been this needy.

The girl in her dreams was a pathetic, spineless bitch, prostrating herself before a total loser. Hope hated her with a passion.

But that didn’t stop the dreams from coming.

 

***

 

One night she came home from work and prepared dinner on autopilot, watching the news.

On the TV, a bright column of light shot up into the sky. Hope had never seen anything like it.

“—Governor O’Malley urged calm,” the newscaster announced, “saying it’s very unlikely an abandoned convent in Maryland would be a target of terrorists, either foreign or homegrown.”

Reports on a hurricane slamming into the Galveston area, an earthquake in North Italy, a successful nuclear test in North Korea, and the outbreak of Swine flu in the Middle East followed. Hope had never heard of so many catastrophes happening on the same day.

She took her eyes off the screen when she pulled her dinner out of the oven—and dropped it onto the floor with a scream.

Roast chicken. She’d made roast chicken.

She didn’t know how to cook. Anything more complicated than grilled cheese or scrambled eggs was beyond her.

And she was a vegetarian.

Yet somehow she’d put together a dish which looked and smelled exactly like grandma’s Sunday roast.

In the background, a reporter asked, “How would you explain an earthquake, a hurricane, and multiple tornadoes, all at the same time, all around the globe?”

Another voiced replied, “Two words. Carbon emissions.”

Some people sleep-walked. Maybe she sleep-cooked?

Then she remembered a dream she’d had the night before. She’d made roast chicken for him, for Wes.

Shivering, she knelt down to clean up the mess.

“It’s the apocalypse,” an old man’s ominous voice came from the TV. “The end is near.”

Hope scrubbed the floor until every last trace of her dinner had disappeared into the trash. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Her whole life was unravelling and the rest of the world was unravelling right along with it.

And she had no idea why.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled to herself, sitting back on her haunches. “I just don’t know…”

Grandma always used to say, What you don’t know won’t hurt you. She was wrong.

Notes:

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