Sam looked hard at his brother, studying his reflection as he checked and double checked himself in the mirror.

He hadn't been the same for a long while now. Fighting hundreds of demons at once, unleashed from hell, had proven a hard, long task. But it was over now, and they were supposed to be relaxing, but Sam had dragged Dean here with the aim of more hunting. Now, his brother was out to meet some girl he'd met down the pub, and Sam wondered if it would be a good idea to remind his brother why they were there.

In the end, he simply watched him go and simply said "have a good time." His brother needed the break, they both did really. But Sam knew it would be easier for him to cope if he just kept going, kept fighting.

It stopped him from dwelling on the horrors that he'd seen, from the death of friends, and from what he'd almost become.

Dean dealt with it by going out with some random girl; Sam dealt by working through the night, trying to find clues to the vampire.


"So what is it you and your brother do?"

"Not much actually." Dean gave her a light shrug. "Our parents left us quite a bit of money so we're just travelling at the moment."

"Another traveller." She smiled at him. "Me and my brother are doing the same. Though its money I've earned rather than anything my parents left me."

Dean smiled, as she brushed her hair back.

They carried on talking over the drinks, returning to something they knew they had in common; America.

After Dean returned from the bar again, she broached a subject in order to see his reaction.

"Do you believe in Angels, Dean?"

"Angels?" His head snapped up from the drink, his eyes devoid of any emotion, his face blank as he looked at her. She offered him a grin, and he laughed. "Nah…my mum used to say, when I went to bed, that angels watched over us but…"

"But too much shit has happened for you to believe it?"

He laughed, nodding as he did so, before running a hand through his dirty blond hair. "Put simply, yeah."

"See, not long I did think like that but…" She titled her head, staring down at her red wine. "But I guess I've seen a lot of evil in this world Dean, and I'd like to think there's some good too."

"I guess so." He chewed his lip, choosing his words carefully, not trying to give anything way. But she had brought it up, and this was a subject matter he knew so much about. "I think, if you look hard enough, you can find good but…" A shake of his head. "Not of the supernatural kind."

"What about evil?"

"What about it?"

"No good of the supernatural kind, does that mean there's evil of the supernatural kind?"

"Like what?" Another good natured laugh from him, as he watched her carefully. Her face remained blank as she looked at him.

"I don't know. Demons, werewolves. Maybe even Vampires."

"You're kidding right? Shadow, you've been reading too much fiction."

"How do you know they're not real?"

"Have you ever seen a demon?" He leant forward now. "Or a werewolf? Ever heard anyone say they've seen a vampire?"

"No." She leant towards him, so their faces were just inches apart. "But you must have heard about the deaths, right? The frequency of them, the gruesome details…it's why you're here right? To investigate them?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Because clearly you're here for a reason Dean. This is a small seaside town with hardly any tourists. At the moment it's crawling with cops, and you two just happen to turn up in the midst of it? Anyone could tell you're here because of them."

"That still doesn't mean it's anything out of the ordinary."

"Well no. Except for the fact that the bodies were drained of blood, am I correct?"

"How would I know?"

"Because you were at the morgue yesterday." She titled her head to one side, her deep blue eyes focused on his hazel orbs. "I have friends there Dean. I asked. It's also how I know about the abnormalities on the bodies. Oh, and in case you didn't know, another guy was found drained of blood."

"Who are you?"

"I told you Dean. I'm Shadow, and for the time being, that's all you need to know."


Back in their respective hotel rooms, the brothers of the pair contemplated their siblings and what exactly had drawn them to their current drinking partner.

For Sam, he came to the same conclusions he had drawn previously; that his brother needed to forget, and a beautiful woman could help him do so.

For Tim, the matter was a little more complicated. Before, whenever his sister had believed a hunter was in town, whether they were after them or not, she would pack both their bags and the next morning they were gone, no traces of them left behind for the hunter to find.

Both boys sank back in their chairs, Tim drinking from a bottle pulled out from the beer cabinet, Sam staring at his laptop screen, at the article that spoke of the latest death.

The man had moved to the small town some years ago, trying to escape (or so the article claimed) painful memories of his wife, daughter and older son. All dead. Or presumed dead in the case of the last two. Both father and his youngest son had been killed the previous night, and details of their deaths were not, at the moment, being given to the public. Though there were rumours of no blood being found, no evidence of a struggle.

Feeling curious, Sam found himself clicking on the articles about the children who disappeared. The one about the older brother described him as a 'loner', and although listed as a missing person in the article (from the year he disappeared) it also claimed that those who knew the lad had thought it no surprise if he had decided to just leave home without telling anyone. After all, he had always been "a bit strange", or so those in the article claimed.

He found another article about the kid (Sam mentally kicked himself; Theo was older than him) this time a more informative article looking at why he would have left home. It seemed that he didn't enjoy home life, rarely spoke to his parents and often locked himself in his room. "Where the hell do they get this stuff?" He muttered to himself, before returning to the article about the deaths and decided to look at the articles about the young girl.

He needed to find out if there was a link between the father and son, and anyone else who had been killed.

For now, he'd bypass the death of the woman; all he found in the original article was that she'd died of natural causes, a heart attack (though the small paragraph devoted to her claimed heart break after the disappearance of her children). Charlotte.

His eyes flicked down the article; a girl who to those who knew her from school, thought she was a bit weird (these were very honest journalists, he thought) a girl who kept to herself and never bothered anyone.

His fingers tapped on the table as he took a sip of the water beside the laptop, his mouse scrawling down to an image of the girl at the age of fourteen, looking at the camera with a blank stare. Her stark blue eyes looked lonely, he thought. Kind of sad. Blonde locks tumbled over her shoulders; something about her was very familiar, though Sam thought he'd remember those sad eyes.

With a sigh he closed the internet pages and pushed the laptop down, rubbing his eyes before he walked over to the window looking out onto the car park.

The shady parking lot was lit only by one lamppost, and Sam's eyes carefully scanned the shadows on the road. One lone figure headed towards the lamppost, moving slowly and carefully. Dean. He stepped into the light, and looked up at the window, sending a wry grin towards his brother.

Sam smiled back down, before drawing the curtains and turning at the bed. Laying back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, he tried to process the information about the latest two deaths and the link with the two children.


When Shadow returned to the hotel room – two hours after saying goodbye to Dean – she found her little brother already asleep on his bed, on top of the duvet and still wearing his jeans and t-shirt.

She smiled as she looked at the fairy boy. "Poor mite." She muttered under her breath, crossing over and pulling the duvet over his small frame. For the thousandth time since they'd found each other, she wondered if perhaps little Timmy wouldn't be better of without her. After what he'd been through, he deserved some sort of normal, real life.

Her head tilted to one side, as she watched his chest rising up and down softly, in a rhythmic motion that soothed her.

She needed him though, she knew that. And, she guessed, he needed her too. Otherwise he could have scampered long ago. She was able to protect him from most things in this world; mostly the cold cruel hearts of mortals, who cared not for anyone but themselves. She had learnt that back in New York, back with Phoenix.

Phoenix.

He'd be…She thought long and hard. Twenty-two now. She wondered if his boyish good looks had faded, if his dark eyes still sparkled and if he still held that all-knowing, arrogant grin of his.

Properly not, after what had happened.

But she had to push Nix behind her now, along with Poison and Blake. Forget them, forget New York and Vegas. She could do nothing to change the past, and anyway, she had another guy with an arrogant grin to think about now.


A/N: Thought I should give an explanation about Shadow & Tim before we go any further: they're from my novel Realm of Shadows, which is about Shadow's travels with a coven of vampires. At the beginning, her brother Tim gets replaced by a changeling. Recently I decided that after the novel, at some point she finds him, after he's lived in the fairy world. More about the fairy world later.
Anything else you want explained just message me or leave a review or something.
Oh yeah, sorry about the short chapter. But I promise the others should be longer.