Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

Author's Note: The tag to Adventures in Babysitting should be up in a day or two… Time After Time After Time will follow.

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Thanks to Cheryl and SandyDee84 for being awesome!

Chapter X: With Silver Bells and Cockleshells

The library is smaller than the one in Netherfield, although still big enough to hold a decent-sized apartment. Without a word, Sam and I go to opposite ends of the room and start going through the shelves. I need to check with him occasionally, when I'm not sure when a book was published; on the whole it doesn't take very long.

At the end of an hour we've covered the library pretty thoroughly and found nothing.

I'm about to suggest asking after a library in the village. I stop when I see that Sam's got his thinking face on. Annoys the hell out of me, that face, but it can sometimes be useful.

"What?"

"Maybe the answer isn't a library," Sam says. "The rules are changing."

"How can it – no, come on, Sam! The rules in the books might be changing, but they're still books."

"Yeah, but maybe the place to find them isn't going to be the most obvious one anymore. Or maybe it will be the most obvious one but in a different way."

"What are you talking about?"

"The first time we found The Odyssey in Elrond's library," Sam says. It says a lot about the last few – What? Days? Weeks? – that instead of checking him for possession I'm nodding as though he's actually making sense. "But we found The Secret Garden in Stapleton's cottage, not in the library at Baskerville Hall. And that's the last place you'd go to look for a book, but for that book it's the first place you'd go."

"What?" I prompt when he trails off.

Sam bitchfaces. (Yeah, I know that isn't a real word. But there isn't a real word that can describe the face Sam makes when I do something he doesn't like.)

"It's a murder mystery," Sam murmurs, so softly that I have to strain to hear him. "The Hound of the Baskervilles is a murder mystery and Stapleton's the killer. He's the answer to the riddle."

It dawns on me what Sam's saying. "So the answer to this riddle is the actual secret garden?"

Sam nods. "Let's go."

"Now? It's the middle of the night."

"You want to hang around here till morning?"

"There might be… things," I mutter. Sam raises an eyebrow and I elaborate. "You know, gerbils… rats… scorpions…"

"Scorpions? Here? Come on, Dean."

"Why the hell not? Mary Lennox came here from India, didn't she? Maybe she imported some."

"You really think an orphaned girl would've been smuggling in deadly insects?"

"Wouldn't have been smuggling, Sammy. They probably don't have anti-scorpion laws in this time."

"We don't have anti-scorpion laws in our time, Dean. We have customs regulations and –"

"Whatever, geek. Can we just wait?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to talk to you!" I burst out.

As soon as the words are out, I realize that they're true. I do want to talk to Sammy. This is getting weirder by the minute – and it takes a lot for me to call something weird. To make matters more complicated, I have a feeling Sam guesses more about our situation than he's telling me.

"What was the deal with that dog?" I demand, before he can say anything. "Back in Sherlock Holmes? It was a – well, I don't know what it was, it was some sort of monster mutt and you went after it with no plan! If I hadn't shown up when I did, I bet you would've tried to put a collar on it and started calling it Rover. I may not be the world's biggest nerd but I'm not stupid –"

"I never said you were!"

"Then stop treating me like I am!"

"Dean." Sam protests. It's only then that I realize that I have my face right up in his, my fists bunched in his – please kill me now – nightgown. I shove him back, ignoring the sound of his head hitting wood panelling. "Dean!"

He turns on the look. The My big brother just deliberately hurt me and I don't know why look. It's ridiculous – I mean, there's no way I actually did him any damage – but it makes me feel guilty. And that makes me angrier, and there is something very messed up here because it doesn't work like this. When I'm mad at Sam, I'm mad at him, and when it's over I feel bad about whatever it was I said and I find a way to let him know. That's the way it works; that's the way it's worked for years.

But this? This mixture of guilt and frustration, wanting to thump Sam on the back and smack him upside the head at the same time?

Something's wrong.

Maybe Sam's right. Maybe there really is no time to waste.

But as soon as we're out of here, I'm getting an answer from him.

"Fine," I say. "Fine, but I am not going outdoors like this. We need to find some normal clothes – or whatever passes for normal in this place. With my luck we'll probably have to wear kilts."

"We didn't have to wear kilts when we got Crowley's bones," Sam points out. "Don't be ridiculous, Dean. As soon as we find a book we'll be somewhere else – hopefully back home – and we'll be in different clothes anyway. How does it matter?"

"Of course it matters, Sammy. What if the kitchen maid and the under-gardener are having at it behind a rhododendron? You really think it's appropriate for gentlemen to be seen in public like this?"

Sam glares.

An hour later, we've searched the house from attic to basement.

I swear, I will never complain about not getting old-world mansions on our cases. Old-world mansions suck! The doors have squeaky hinges, the stairs creak, the floorboards are uneven, and the carpets seem to have minds of their own. We had so many near-misses that it's not even funny. The worst was when I tripped in one of the passages upstairs (I swear the rug deliberately tripped me) and the housekeeper heard the noise and came out in her dressing-gown, holding a poker in one hand and a candle in the other. If Sam hadn't grabbed me and pulled me into an alcove in time, I would have been in the middle of a miserable concussion right now.

An hour is how long it took us to find something. It looks like a bedroom and it has clothes that seem to be Sam's size – and given that Sam's, you know, Sam, that definitely can't be a coincidence.

I don't bother to look for my own bedroom after that. We've wasted enough time, and maybe Sam's clothes hang on me in an undignified way, but there's no way I can look stupider in them than I do in the nightgown.

When we're both changed and ready we go outside. I let the oversized freak take the lead, because I'm stumbling along in boots that are too big for me and the coat sleeves really do cover my fingers. I knew I should've stopped buying him those high-fibre high-protein granola bars when he turned fourteen. If I'd fed him like a normal person he might be a normal person.

As we slip out, I sneak a glance up at where I think the window of Colin's room should be. There's no light in it, so presumably the family reunion is over. Just as well. They'll do much better at school tomorrow if they get their rest.

"They don't go to school, Dean," Sam says, and I realize I said that last part out loud.

"No wonder they didn't know who we were. Right, so how do we find this garden of yours?"

"It's not my garden – never mind. I don't know exactly where it is, but it can't be far. Let's just walk around."

"Great," I grumble. "Wandering around the great English outdoors in the middle of the night. I just know we're going to get in trouble. You'll probably fall off a cliff."

"Shut up, Dean," Sam says, leading the way down the garden path. "We're going to be fine."

"All I'm saying is that if you fall off a cliff, don't expect me to come rappelling down after you. I will leave your ass right here in Lennox-land forever."

"Sure you will."

"You bet I will!" I give Sam a light shove. He barely even reacts, the freaking giant. "Then I might actually be able to eat dinner without having you lecture me about polyunsaturated fats."

"If you'd eaten healthy food as a teenager, you wouldn't be short."

"If you'd eaten normal food as a teenager, you wouldn't be the size of the Empire State Building and we wouldn't have to go on a freaking quest every time you need a new jacket."

"Shut up, Dean."

"Nice comeback. You think –"

Sam's raised hand stops me short.

There's a brief pause, and then I hear it too – hurried footsteps coming up the path towards us.

"What the hell?" I hiss. "It's the middle of the night! Doesn't anyone freaking sleep around here?"

"You probably rubbed off on them," Sam mutters. "C'mon, let's get out of the way. If we stay in the shadows he won't see us."

We scramble under the cover of the trees – just in time, because a second after we hit the ground a man emerges from the shrubbery on the other side of the path.

He has a slavering dog on a leash.

I don't know if it's my imagination, but that dog looks scarily like the hound that almost ate Sam near Baskerville Hall.

Sam draws in a sharp breath.

So not my imagination.

"Dean…" he murmurs.

"It's the same dog," I murmur back. "It can't be the same dog, Sam. There's not supposed to be a hellhound here."

"I know."

"Do you have a Plan B, genius?"

Sam frowns and opens his mouth.

The dog turns sharply in our direction and begins to growl and strain at the leash. The man holding the leash pulls a shotgun out of his pocket.

"Run!" I yell.

Sam and I shoot out of cover and run away from the house. It's not hard to outpace the guy. He fires after us, but he has a hundred-year-old gun (well, it's new now, but you know what I mean) and it's not meant to be fired while running. The shots don't come anywhere near us.

Sam, with those long legs of his, is a little ahead of me. He's heading for some kind of ivy-covered boundary wall. I squint at it – Sam can get over it, no problem, and it has enough handholds that I should be able to get over it, too. The guy chasing us, who's short, will have to find a way around.

It'll buy us some more time.

I'm so busy looking at the wall and calculating just where I need to grab the ivy to vault over that I don't see the loose stones on the ground until it's too late.

My foot skids out from under me and I go crashing down.

Sam stops short and comes back to help me up. My ankle twinges when I try to put weight on it – it's sprained, I think, not broken.

"Come on," Sam grunts, glancing back. The guy – and his dog – are closing in. (I'm amazed he hasn't let the dog off the leash – no way we could've outrun it – but I'm not going to ask too many questions. Yet.)

I let Sam half-drag, half-carry me towards the wall.

I grab the nearest vine that looks thick enough to hold me. Sam pushes me up (he does not give me a boost) and I manage to grab the top of the wall. I hoist myself the rest of the way up.

"Come on, Sam, let's go."

Sam jumps, fingers snagging the top of the wall, and starts to hoist himself up.

There's a gunshot.

Sam flinches and falls.

"Sam!" I yell. "Sam, no, come on!" There's a red stain spreading on the shoulder of his shirt, dangerously low. I'm sure my heart's stopped beating.

I'm about to jump down.

"Dean, no," Sam says, sounding strangled. "It'll tear us apart. Just –" He gets to his feet, clutching the wall for support. It takes agonizing seconds. "Pull me up."

He reaches up – I don't know how he's even standing, hurt that badly – and oh thank God he's the size he is, because even with him hunched over from pain and unable to lift his arms all the way, he's tall enough that I can reach down and grab him.

He's heavy, but I pull with all my strength, and his feet are off the ground just as the dog leaps.

Sam helps as much as he can – which isn't much, but enough to keep him from getting turned into kibble. I manage to haul him up, and he's fading, and I really should get him down slowly and gently, but we don't have time.

I help him get those colt legs over the wall and try to lower him carefully to the other side. All I manage to do is keep him from falling too fast – I hope I've kept him from falling too fast.

Sam collapses to his knees.

I jump down, jarring my ankle again. If it wasn't sprained before, it is now.

But there's no time to worry about that. Sam's shivering, starting to go into shock. We have to go – the guy with the dog is probably on his way right now; he probably knows where the door is – but I take a minute to rub Sam's back anyway.

"You OK, kiddo? Come on – let's just get out of here, and then I'll take care of you."

Sam shakes his head. Then he mumbles something I can't hear.

"What, Sammy?"

"The garden," Sam mutters. "We're in the garden. The book – it has to be here."

"The – oh." I look around, noticing what I didn't earlier because all my attention was focused on Sammy. We're in a large, enclosed space full of plants that are running wild – and have been for years, if I'm any judge. There are roses and violets and a lot of other things I can't identify.

And – there's a book. Right in the middle, sitting there in the wet grass like someone was reading and forgot to take it back indoors with them.

I hear a bark and look around. There's a door not too far from us – and now there's a man's voice, too. Looks like Shotgun and his mutt have shown up.

I run for the book.

As soon as I've picked it up, I want to kill something.

If Sam weren't hurt, if he weren't bleeding out on me, if there weren't a lunatic with a gun rattling a key in the lock, I would've tossed that book straight on the nearest bonfire and found something else. But – well, it's not like I have a lot of options right now.

I go back to Sam and tug him into my arms. He settles down willingly. We need to get out of here – and then I'll take care of him.

"Ready, Sammy?"

Sam nods against my shoulder.

I open the book.

"Professor Trelawney pulled her shawls tight about her with slightly trembling hands…"

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