Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed! I'm so glad you're all enjoying this; I know a personal worry of mine was that people would be turned off by the whole wee!Sammy bit, so yes. Very very glad you're all enjoying. Please to be enjoying the next part, kthx.

Dean was completely ready to shut the book and call it a night, but forced his eyes open to keep reading. So far, this "half-assed" spell was proving to be a full-on pain in the ass. All he wanted to do now was close his eyes and sleep for a month.

The thought of his little brother in the other room, fast asleep, made him flip another page and keep searching.

The sound of a book being shut firmly made Dean look up at last. Bobby was shoving his book away, rubbing at his eyes. "Nothin' else we can do," Bobby said. "I can't find anything in these books about an age regression spell."

Dean frowned. "I thought these things were pretty popular."

"Yeah, but no one's managed to do one correctly, that's the problem," Bobby sighed. "There's been time shifts, like if he'd been pulled out of the year when he was really five. That would mean that your Sam would be back in '88 or something like that. Then there's shrinking spells, but the memory would stay intact, or the memory loss spells that can go back to a certain period and wipe everything else."

Dean really didn't want to know what he was going to say next. "But...?" he prompted anyways.

"This is like all of those scenarios at once," Bobby said. He pulled his hat off of his head to run a hand over his hair. "Something that's never been accomplished successfully, so far as I know. There's always been complications. Always. So either this wizard kid of yours was a genius, or he was a bumbling asshole who just managed to put all the right crap together."

"I'd vote on the latter," Dean growled. "So now what do we do?"

Bobby pursed his lips while he thought. "The spell might wear off," he finally said, pulling his hat back on. "Week's the usual norm for stuff like this, everyone knows that. I don't want to take that chance, though. It's still fairly fresh, only two days old right now. We can still trace it, I bet."

"Yeah, but we don't know how he did it," Dean countered, raising his eyebrow. "So how's tracing it gonna help?"

"If it's cast to an object, then we find it, wherever his junk might've wound up, and we bless it and burn it," Bobby said, before standing. "If it wasn't, then we hook up the spell to a crystal and let it sort out what the stupid kid did. Kinda not a road I wanna go down, though."

The entire thing was only making Dean's head hurt more. "Does this mean we can go to bed now?" he asked hopefully.

Bobby snorted. "Gonna have to; shopping center's closed by now."

Dean's heart fell. "Shopping...?"

"Yeah; there's a new age shop in there with specific crystals for things like this. We need four crystals for the map, along with some essential herbs that I don't have stocked. You and Sam should be back by lunch tomorrow, if you leave in the morning."

Dean stared for a moment, before he let his face slide into a glare. "And you're gonna be doing what?"

"Translating the damn Sumerian text for this into English," Bobby replied, but he smirked when he said it. "Sorry," he added without sounding sorry at all.

Rotten bastard.

Dean finally trudged off to bed, grumpy and exhausted, and glanced in to check on Sam out of habit. Two tired but stubbornly awake eyes met his in the dark, and Dean paused, then stepped inside. "Sammy? What's up?"

The small, "Nothin'," was full of a great deal more of something than Sam obviously wanted to own up to. Dean swallowed the sigh that seemed to come naturally and stepped over to the bed. Sam was sitting up, though propped against the headrest, and Dean watched as his eyes slid down, only to blink awake widely.

"There a reason you're not asleep?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged wearily. Kid was wiped, that much was obvious. "Do you...d'you think that Daddy's okay?"

Dean parted his lips to say something generalized, like 'sure he is', but the words wouldn't come out. "I hope so," he found himself saying, and meaning it. Whatever his dad had done that day in the hospital had been supernaturally based, and he hoped and prayed every night that his dad wasn't burning for it.

Not for him.

Sam's eyes began closing again, and he forced them open once more. "Sammy, go to sleep," Dean said gently, tugging Sam down and back into the bed. "You're wiped, kid."

"But I always stay 'wake 'till you're goin' t'bed," Sam explained with a yawn, his words slurred by sleepiness.

Dean paused, hands over the blankets. "What about when me and Dad are out late?" he asked. Dean had gone with their dad on a few hunts when he was eight, more when he was nine. Before that, he and their dad had stayed up, discussing demons and hunts while Dean had thought Sam was sleeping in the next room. How much had he heard?

"I stay up," Sam said simply, blinking up at him slowly.

Dean gazed down at him, swallowing past another lump in his throat. "You shouldn't do that, Sam," he said. "You need your sleep."

"Can't sleep f'you're no'here," Sam murmured. "Can't sleep f'you're no'safe."

"Well I'm here now," Dean said quietly, resting his hand on Sam's head. Sam blinked once more, then closed his eyes, and didn't open them again.

Dean gazed at his brother in the dark for a long time, wondering why he hadn't noticed any of this for all those years. Wouldn't surprise him if Sam still stayed up waiting for him, even at twenty-three and knowing that Dean could take care of himself.

He turned and headed out to his own room, his own bed. Despite the tiredness he'd felt earlier, it took him a long time to fall asleep.


"Don't let go," Dean stressed again, holding on tightly to Sam's little hand. Sam merely nodded, eyes wide as they took in the area around them.

Dean hated malls.

Worse yet, he hated large crowds. Not normally, of course, but with Sam not even at his waist, not visible above the crowd like he normally was? Yeah, Dean was a little nervous, to say the least.

Thank hell Sam seemed to be feeling the same way. Of course, Sam'd started being nervous outside the mall, which had in turn led to Dean being nervous with Sam and for Sam. The way he clung to Dean's hand and remained practically glued to Dean's left leg meant that while he was scared and Dean hated it, it meant that he'd be staying close, and Dean was more than okay with that. If he could walk out of here with Sam still by his side, he'd let himself not feel guilty that his little brother was terrified.

Really.

The new age shop that Bobby had mentioned was near one of the exits, and that was blessing. Dean didn't really want to delve into the center of the mall, where everyone seemed to be congregating. Sam bumped into his leg again as a group of people walked by the opposite way, and Dean clutched a little tighter. "I'm right here," he said, and Sam only nodded.

Dean hated malls.

Then they were in the shop, and Dean relaxed his grip slightly at the low amount of people inside. Just some guy in a leather jacket scanning the shelves, two girls holding hands as they perused the candles, and a shopkeeper in the back. Dean headed there first, giving the woman as sincere a smile as he could. "I wondered if you could help me with some crystals and some herbs," he asked.

The woman knew her stuff, he had to give her that. She took him around the store, explaining not only what each crystal was intended for, but how to properly use it with the herbs he had. He carefully noted it all and quickly paid for his purchases, snagging his bag with his left hand before turning around and freezing.

His left hand. The one Sam had been holding.

Sam was gone.

"Sammy?" he called, trying to keep the franticness out of his voice. Sam didn't respond, and he wasn't anywhere in the shop, from what Dean could see. "Sammy?" The panic was there for everyone to hear, but Dean didn't care. Not when Sam was missing.

He darted outside the shop and stared in horror at the amount of people in the crowds. Left, right...there were so many. Anyone could've taken Sam, because no way would Sam have left on his own. But he hadn't heard a protest or a fight, so...?

He turned suddenly towards the exit, which was so close. What had once been a blessing was now a curse that made his heart speed up to the point of a heart attack. They could've already had Sam outside, in a van, driving off to who knows where to split him open-

That wasn't helping. Dean forced himself to take a deep breath and turned back to the mall again. No. There was a security guard at the door; he remembered passing the man when they'd come in. He was still standing there, looking bored, but still there. Sam would've put up a fight, and they would've been stopped.

That meant that Sam was still in the mall somewhere.

He could spend hours searching through stores and restrooms and wouldn't find Sam. The loud speaker; that would do it. Had to be in the same room as the cameras, and Dean stepped out to his new destination.

His ears were tuned to hear a small voice, though, through the crowd. Nothing but rushed voices, the tinny music above him, and the rushing water to his left was heard.

Wait a minute. Water?

He jerked his head to follow the sound, and saw the small fountain in the center of the hallway to his left. A memory from years before came to mind, and he began striding towards it.

"I-I got lost, Dean, and I couldn't find you or Daddy-"

"It's okay, you're okay, I'm right here. Listen, if you ever get lost again, you go find a...a fountain, okay?"

"Like this one?"

"Like this one. All places have 'em, and they're easy to see, so I'll find you. Okay?"

"'Kay."

"Sam?" he called when he got to the fountain. A few heads turned his way, but none were of the short, floppy-haired variety, so he didn't really care. "Sammy?"

"D-Dean?"

Dean sagged with the physical relief when Sam poked his head out from behind a table. He looked scared as all shit, but he was okay. When he saw that it was Dean, he ran out from his hiding place and tackled Dean's legs with a force that made him stagger backwards. Two seconds later he was kneeling down to hug Sam for real, breathing harshly and shakily. "Are you okay?" Dean asked, pulling away to look Sam over.

Sam nodded jerkily. "Then what happened?"

"I-I saw you lee-eave," Sam stammered, tears brimming in his eyes. His lower lip began to tremble. "An' I followed, 'cuz I dinnit wanna get l-left behind, and then you turned 'round and it wasn't you, Dean, and I thought it was 'cuz he had your coat, and he had black eyes an'-"

Oh god no.

"An'...an'...an' I was so scared," Sam whispered finally, his breath hitching as he began to cry. "M'sorry, Dean, m'so sorry-"

"It's all right, I've got you," Dean instantly soothed, pulling Sam in close. Sam was practically bawling now, into Dean's shirt so it was muffled, and Dean didn't care. He clutched Sam closer, closing his eyes and fighting the urge to burst into tears himself.

Couldn't they get one freakin' break? Just one? They'd been stuck on an emotional roller coaster since Dad had died, and now the universe was trying to take the one person he had left away from him.

Tenderly he lifted Sam into his arms, and Sam kept crying into his neck. Hot tears had fully soaked his skin by the time he found where he'd dropped his bag in his haste to find Sam, and together they left the mall.