Here's the next chapter! Sorry it took a while to get up, and that it's a bit shorter. But please review anyway!
I don't own Supernatural.

"Dean..." Natalie rolled over and pressed herself closer to her big brother, sleeping right next to her and protecting her from the dark. It was too hot, and there were things in the dark, nasty things that were going to come and get her, and she needed to wake Dean up so that he knew, knew that the room was far too hot but freezing at the same time and that Natalie had been trying for ages but couldn't sleep because of the things in the dark...

"Wassamatter Tally?" Dean mumbled, surfacing slowly from sleep. "Y'ok?"

"Dean," Natalie's voice was little more than a whimper this time, weakly burying her head in Dean's shoulder and shaking with cold and hot and everything so strange and hurting...

Dean snapped awake and slowly sat up. "Whoa, Tally, you're like a freaking furnace," he said, touching her shoulder and then her forehead. "You okay, little girl?"

"No," Natalie whimpered, weakly tossing over and moaning. "De, hurts, monsters, De, help..."

"Monsters?" Dean's hand automatically went out to the gun on the bedside table. "Where, Tal? Where are the monsters?"

"Everywhere, De, help, hurts," and Dean was beginning to cotton on, dropping the gun back down and lying gently next to his little sister. Putting out a cautious hand he again felt her forehead. Tally was burning up, scaring herself, shaking.

"Aw, princess, you not well?" Dean asked, gently sorting out the twisted and sweaty sheets on the bed so that they were lying straight, before pushing Natalie's curls off her neck. "There we go, firefly. No school for you today."

"De, monsters..." Tally was not shutting up about the monsters, but Dean was afraid that the main light would be too much - compromising, he covered the bedside lamp in a thin shirt that was lying nearby and turned that on. The room was illuminated in a soft glow.

"See, Tally? No monsters." Dean lay back down next to Tally and brushed his fingers through her hair, the familiar and soothing gesture meaning that Tally relaxed into his hand. "And seriously, I'm here, you know that all the monsters are far too scared of me to come anywhere near you," he joked. It was a bad sign that Natalie just gave one weak giggle, instead of making a return comment or jabbing him in the ribs. "You gonna tell me where it hurts, princess?" Dean said, curling so that his body was arranged protectively around Natalie's.

"M'tummy," Natalie said. "M'head, hurts, De..."

"Okay, I gotcha baby," Dean said, pressing one hand on Natalie's forehead in a way that always made her relax when she wasn't well. Sure enough, he soon felt the soft weight of her head in his hand. "There we go. Now you stay here for just one minute, and then I'll be back and I'll make you feel better."

Dean never knew how to express this without sounding horrid, but there was something he loved about the times Natalie was ill, when he got past the worry and stress that she was in pain. Now that she was 7 and 'a big girl', Natalie hadn't let him just look after her in a long time, and he missed it. Loved the obvious trust in the green eyes, so like his own, when Dean pressed a cool cloth to her forehead, and the resulting little pressure that told him that she'd let all the muscles in her neck go and was just trusting him. Loved the way she let him gently move her into a more comfy position so that she could take little sips of the water that he'd poured the contents of one Tylenol into. Loved the way that she settled back against him when she was done, shutting her eyes and curling into his side in a way that made him feel so special and trusted.

The next morning it was obvious. Natalie wasn't going to school that day.

Instead, come lunchtime, she was lying on the sofa with her head in Dean's lap, covered with a thin blanket as some random TV show played.

Dean's fingers were tangling her hair horribly as he fiddled with it absentmindedly.

The 16-year-old looked down at the 7-year-old with all the love and protection that a parent usually provided.

But Natalie's Dad didn't really care for this side of things.

Dean and Sam were far more parents to Natalie that John had ever been.