Hello, kids. Long time no see. Summer vacation equals a heavy workload for me…sorry, I'll try to update more frequently. This chapter's way too long, but it flows rather nicely this way. Stick with me here, it's just getting interesting!

Reviews keep me going…thanks, guys!

Chapter 4: The Girl

"Are you sure this is the place?" Sam muttered to Dean. They were parked in front of the apartment complex that the mother and daughter were supposedly staying at. Dean had 'badged' his way into the local precinct, posing as an FBI agent. It hadn't taken much, as the town only employed a handful of cops and detectives. Obviously, the secretary at the front lacked experience—in more ways than one, Dean had thought, a bit cruelly.

"Yeah, this is the place. Why, not freaky enough for ya?"

"No, it's plenty freaky," Sam mumbled, his eyes fixated on the empty, desolate street. "You ever felt this creepy vibe before?"

"You getting one now?" Dean peered curiously into Sam's eyes, getting a punch on the arm in return for his troubles.

"Yeah, you idiot. This is majorly weird,"

"Okay," Dean sat there a second, digesting the information. Then, he completely shoved it aside. "Let's go,"

He popped out of the driver's seat, abruptly shutting the door to make his way to the apartments. He was halted in his tracks by a sharp tug to the collar.

"Not so fast, Sherlock," Sam hissed in his ear. "What's your plan, huh? 'Hey, we're big bad cops and we want to hear in person how your kid saw her daddy die'?"

Dean paused for a moment in consideration, head cocked to one side.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Okay. You let me do the talking,"

"If you screw this one up…"

"I swear I won't, Dean," Sam gave Dean the patented 'puppy dog eyes', and Dean gave a doubtful snort in response. He let Sam lead them up the steps, however, without further comment. They opened the door, scanning the mailboxes on their left to see which apartment they belonged to.

"Noonan. That's empty apartment they're staying in now, right?" Sam pointed.

"Yeah, Apartment 2C," Dean started up the stairs only to be pulled back by his belt.

"Sam, what is it with you? Am I your bitch or something?" Dean patted his clothes back into place, ignoring his brother's smirk.

"Seriously, Dean, let me do the talking,"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean muttered, glancing suspiciously behind him as he once again started up the stairs. Finding the apartment on the second floor, Dean lifted his hand to knock.

"Hello? FBI, open up," As he knocked, the door slid open a bit. Dean and Sam exchanged nonplussed looks.

"Dude. That is straight out of a horror flick," Dean breathed, listening as the door emitted a tiny screeching sound. It was then that Sam noticed that the lights in the hallway had dimmed and were now on the verge of flickering out.

"Dean…" Sam said warningly, drawing his gun. But Dean was already pushing the door open, his .99 Magnum in hand.

The door hit against the opposite wall with a resounding smack. Dean winced, squinting in the dark. Sam was right behind him; Dean could hear his heavy breathing. Unfortunately, he couldn't see anything wrong with the apartment. All of a sudden, he felt a chill go up his spine, so sharp that he was forced to shudder.

"Sam, what in the name of…"

Dean turned, only to find Sam's back to him.

"Sam?"

"Don't move," a high, scared voice came from in front of Sam.

Dean saw Sam put his gun down on the floor, slowly and steadily, as a figure moved into the light.

It was the daughter.

Her hand shook on the gun trained in their direction. "I swear, I'm going to kill you!"

"Hang on there, we're cops, we want to help you," Sam soothed, his cracking voice the only sign of stress.

"You're cops? I didn't call the police…" She stuttered, finger loosening on the trigger.

"We were just coming down here to ask you some questions, and we saw the door—"

"She's dead," It came out as a sob, and Dean winced. Jeez, talk about traumatizing.

"Who's dead?" Dean asked, his voice rough with tension from the gun in front of him. She still hadn't realized that Dean's gun was in his hand, but he wasn't about to move. If I spook her, she's liable to pull the trigger.

"My mom! It killed her! In her r-r-room!" The ten year old sobbed openly while the brothers eyed the gun in her hand with trepidation.

"What killed—"

"The same thing that killed my dad and CeeCee! I told you guys before, I told the cops before, but they didn't believe me!" She was hysterical, waving the gun in front of her.

"We'll believe you—" Sam was cut off by Dean.

"You knew CeeCee?"

"She was my real mom!"

The only sounds heard in the room were those of the girl crying and the clock in the corner ticking. Sam and Dean processed what she had said. Her real mother was murdered. Meaning she was...adopted? And now, her other parents are dead, too... The brothers exchanged a glance, each knowing what the other was thinking. Now it makes more sense.

"I saw it kill Dad! CeeCee and Mom are dead! And now, I'm the only one left!"

With that, she slumped onto the floor in a dead faint.

The boys stayed silent for a second, surveying the damage.

"I told you to let me talk," Sam said as he moved to the girl, checking her pulse. "We never even found out her name,"

"She's still alive, right?" Dean worried. Sam looked up, surprise etched on his face.

"Yeah, but it's not like we're going to kidnap her or something,"

"Well, right, but, I was just making sure that she wasn't…"

"Dead?"

"Yeah,"

Sam stood up, eyeing his surroundings. He saw a light switch in the corner, and flipping it on simply revealed the extent of the normalcy of the apartment

"CeeCee was related to the Buchanan family because this girl," Here Dean paused to indicate the unconscious child, "was her real daughter,"

Sam went to the girl, picking the gun out of her grasp. "Should we move her?"

"I don't think so, I don't think it's a good idea to get our prints all over this shit,"

"Wait, what were you saying?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I was saying there's a connection. The families were connected by this girl. Maybe all the other people, the other victims, were related in some way. That would explain a lot,"

"Yeah, but wouldn't Dad have checked this out before?"

"I don't think so," Dean's mouth pursed, and Sam looked at him curiously.

"Dean?"

"Dad came down here the year after I came down here, just to follow up on some leads. I don't think he went too in depth, besides finding all the exsanguinations. I guess he couldn't find anything solid, but if he had done research, he should have found connections, right?"

"Well, how do you find connections all the way from the 1800s?" Sam tried to reason, wondering why he was the one defending their father.

"That was the year…" Dean paused in his thought process, glancing in Sam's direction.

"What?"

"Nevermind."

"No, what? You have to tell me, Dean, it could be important,"

"That was the year Dad went on a binge-drinking spree," Dean said quietly, unexpectedly. "You were gone, it was just me and him; and then I went on hunts by myself…I guess he just wasn't himself. I remember…"

"What do you remember?" Sam took in the absurdity of the situation. He was learning about his family problems in the middle of an apartment with an unconscious girl and dead woman in the bedroom.

"I had to clean up a lot of his work for him," Dean swallowed. "I ended up having to go on all the jobs with him, towards the end of the year, because he was screwing stuff up,"

"Are you fucking serious?"

"Yeah,"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Well, obviously, Sammy boy, you didn't want to give us the time of day after you left us, remember?" Dean was taken aback by the animosity in his own voice.

"Let's not do this now,"

"What do you mean? You're the one that started it, dude,"

"So you're saying," Sam desperately tried to divert conversation back to the case, "that Dad might have missed something?"

"No, I'm saying we might not have looked hard enough for relations. We didn't even check family records," Dean defended. Sam sighed, looking at his brother. Daddy's little soldier.

"Well, we're obviously going to have to do that,"

"Yeah, but we can't just leave the girl here," On cue, the lump on the floor started moving. A dark blonde head twitched as it was raised into the light of the one lamp turned on.

"What…" Her voice was hoarse, childlike. Because she's just a kid, Dean forced himself to remember, painfully.

"Hey there," Sam crouched down to her level. "How are you feeling?"

The girl's eyes were now devoid of tears. She looked at Sam, sizing him up.

"You're not a cop,"

Sam started, stepping back. She stumbled to her feet, precariously resting her hand on the sofa.

"I can tell you're not a cop,"

"You're right, we're not. But I promise, we're not going to hurt you. We're just looking for answers,"

She regarded him, sadly and calmly. She didn't reach for a gun, didn't fight them.

"Me too," She responded in a voice much too old for a ten year old.

"Can you give us some information on what you know? We can help stop this if you help us out,"

The girl sighed, looking from one haggard face to the other. "I guess if you wanted to kill me, you could have done it already,"

"I'm Sam, and this is Dean," Sam motioned towards his brother. "We try to solve things like this for a living,"

Dean was surprised at Sam's openness. He tried to find a reason to tell him to shut up, then realized that he was supplying her with the reassurance she needed.

"You mean, like ghostbusters?" she questioned, red eyes widening.

Sam let out a soft chuckle. "Yeah, like ghostbusters,"

"I'm Jamie," She held out a soft, pale hand to shake. "Jamie Buchanan,"

"Nice to meet you, Jamie," Sam shook her hand.

There was a silence, then Jamie piped up.

"Did you…did you call someone yet? To…take Mom?"

Oh shit. Dean remembered that there was a freaking dead body in the other room.

"I'm on it," he muttered to Sam. "Let's get out of here, call the cops, then break back in after they're gone. I don't think seeing the lady's body is gonna help us in any way,"

Sam nodded in assent. "Hey, Jamie, why don't we take you down to the police station?" Sam ignored Dean's frantic attempts for his attention and his whispered 'WE CAN'T GO TO THE STATION!'s.

"Okay." She seemed lifeless, drained somehow. She walked to the door, pausing to take one last look at the apartment. "You know, they said we'd be safe here. That the man couldn't get us here, because it was a safelocation,"

The brothers looked at her, finding it hard to meet her gaze.

"I told them it wasn't a man," She continued, hand resting on the doorknob. "I told them it was something else." She lowered her eyes to the floor. "I'll be in the hall,"

"Okay," Sam smiled encouragingly at her while she walked out, then turned a look of fury upon his brother.

"What should we do now, Dean? Do you propose that we 'take her on a walk', to pry some information out of her? How perverted would that be, huh? She has no reason to trust us, as it is. She just lost her mom, or her adopted mom, or—whatever she was, she is obviously in major shock, and if she disappears the cops are gonna send out an Amber Alert for her! Did you even think of that? We ARE going to the police station," At this point, Sam leveled a gaze of 'just try me' at his older brother. "On the way to the station, we can ask her about what she knows. That should be long enough. You call the cops when we get in the car, we make up a story when we get to the station about finding her in the park, and we're good to go!"

Dammit. Why is he right so often? "Fine. But I could have come up with a better plan," Dean groused, tromping his way to the door.

"And Dean…"

"What?"

"Thanks for letting me do the talking," With that, a glowering Sam swept out of the door.

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