Hey, you wonderful person. How are you doing today? It's FRIDAY! YIPPEE!

Thank you for all the reads, reviews, follows, favorites, all of it. You guys are INCREDIBLE. So here's part two for you!

Special thanks to Jenmm31 for beta-ing like a BOSS! Please go check out her stories if you haven't already. They're a brilliant, fun, sweet and emotional read- absolutely fantastic. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

So if you remember, the last part of the last chapter (or should I say The Road So Far...hee hee hee) Natalie had woken up in the hotel room alone. Enjoy the ride.

I love you people and there's nothing you can do about it :)

A/N- this is part 2 of a three part case story. If you haven't already, please go back and read the previous chapter, otherwise this ain't gonna make a lick of sense. See profile page for disclaimer.

The first thought that ran through Sam's mind was that they had forgotten to pull the shades last night. He could feel the brightness from the morning light burning his eyes through his closed lids. He reached a hand up to shade his sight before trying carefully to blink his eyes open.

When he finally managed to crack his lids, he instantly knew something was wrong. For one thing, their room was all reds, golds, and blacks, just like the dining room. But everything surrounding him was white. And not a room. It appeared to be some corridor.

Shaking his head as his eyes adjusted, he picked himself up off the floor. Okay, he had definitely gone to sleep in a bed last night. Why the hell was he waking up on the floor in the middle of a stark white hallway?

"Dean? Natalie?" he called, his voice gruff with sleep. All he could hear was the echo of his own voice down the hallway.

Okay, this has got to some bad practical joke, Sam thought to himself. Natalie probably found this place and convinced Dean to leave me up here. Although, how they moved me without waking me up…

Sam shook his head without finishing the thought. Brushing off his clothes, he noticed that up and down the solid white hallway, there seemed to be doors. Lots and lots of them, all up and down the corridor. Surely one of them led to an exit where he could get his bearings back. As he looked up and down the hallway, trying to judge which of the doors would be the best option, he pinched his lips in displeasure, thinking of all the extra Latin homework Natalie was going to be getting as a result of her little practical joke.

He finally realized that there was no indication as to which door might actually help him. There were no signs, no lights, not even finger smudges indicating that a human being had gone through one of them. Nothing but stark, unforgiving whiteness and the sounds of his own footsteps. At random, he tried the closest door, wondering if it would even open. His hand connected with the doorknob and, gripping it tightly, he twisted it. The door swung open easily.

The interior of the room was dark, despite the brightness of the hallway. He walked in and the door instantly shut behind him. He whipped around and latched onto the knob, panicking that he had just somehow been trapped in the room. Years of hunting had made him paranoid about this kind of thing. He twisted the knob, and it opened back into the hallway. Breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn't locked in here after all, he turned to explore the room.

After such intensity with all the white, he felt almost blind in the dim light. His eyes began to adjust, painfully slowly. He was able to make out shapes after a moment. He held his hand out in front of him, trying to reach one of the shapes. He gingerly touched it, and as his eyes continued to adjust, he was able to identify it. It was a desk. A teenager's desk, from the look of it. He tilted his head, studying it. It was piled high with papers and notes, all done in a meticulous hand. He squinted at the notes, realizing that there was something familiar about them, but in the dim light, it was hard to make out exactly what. His gaze shifted to the piles of books. AP Calculus, Biology, Learning Through Literature vol. 3- he recognized all of these. They were similar to the books he used when teaching Natalie. Then his eyes landed on the laptop shoved to the side of the desk. He knew that laptop as well as he knew the back of his hand. It was Natalie's laptop.

He stood bolt upright. Where the hell was he? He began frantically searching the walls in the dim light for any other kind of indication. What he found shocked him- and scared the living hell out of him.

Taped to the wall, pinned on a corkboard, hanging in frames, were pictures. Probably about twenty to thirty; too many to count quickly. Sam zeroed in on the closest one. The background was what looked like a national park with a giant rock formation- possibly Yellowstone, or the like. A family was posed, smiling for the camera. It contained three people. Dean, Natalie, and another woman. A short, dark haired woman who looked familiar. With a terrifying jolt, Sam realized- it was Jamie. Natalie's mother.

He frantically began searching the other pictures. Sure enough, every single one of them contained some combination of the three of them. Natalie with Jamie, Dean with Jamie, Natalie and Dean, all in happy, typical, family poses. There was one of a probably three-year-old Natalie spraying Dean with a garden hose while laughing uproariously. There was one of Jamie tucked up next to Natalie in bed, under a Frozen blanket, reading to her. One of Dean with his arm around a ten-year-old Natalie who was in a blue bathing suit and goggles, holding up what looked like a swimming medal. One of Jamie and Dean slow dancing, touching forehead to forehead, eyes closed.

Sam stepped back, both captivated and afraid. What was this? Was he in some sort of alternate dimension, where Natalie had been raised by Dean and Jamie- but not him?

"Have you figured it out yet?" came a familiar voice suddenly from behind him. Sam whipped around to see Natalie standing there- the Natalie as he had left her last night.

"Bug, thank God you're okay," he said, his voice hoarse with relief. He reached out towards her, but she instantly stepped back. He stopped, surprised. She had never done that before. "Are you okay?" he asked, concern laced into his voice.

She was gazing at the pictures, an unreadable look on her face. Finally, after an awkward silence, she turned her attention back to him.

"You have the balls to stand there in front of all of these pictures and ask me if I'm okay? No. I'm not okay, Sam," she hissed out bitterly.

Sam's jaw dropped. Natalie didn't talk like this. Natalie never called him Sam. Which meant only one thing.

"You're not Natalie," he said, his voice dropping low as he instantly raised his guard.

"Oh, I'm her, alright. Just not the one you know," she said, a self-righteous tilt to her eyebrow. At Sam's confused look, she explained. "I'm the choice you didn't make about Natalie."

"You're the…what?"

"You going deaf? The choice you didn't make about Natalie. You could have made so many different choices about me, and you didn't. You didn't watch Jamie closely enough. You let her escape from the hospital. You let your Natalie grow up without a mother- just like you. Were you jealous of the fact that she once had one? Is that why you let Jamie slip through your fingers?"

"No- no," he stammered, his eyes growing wide at the sudden accusations and the strangeness of it all. "It wasn't like that…we had no idea she was a flight risk. She said…"

"Oh, she said, did she?" the fake Natalie taunted. "She said, she said. What did she say? Did she say that she wanted an apple pie life? Didn't you think your brother deserved that when he had the chance?"

"He tried to take that chance with Lisa- and he hated it. I know he hated it," Sam said, his mind whirling as the image of Natalie change trains of thought rapidly.

"Do you think it would have been different for him with a kid that was actually his?" she spat out. That stopped Sam in his tracks.

"I- I wanted him to get out...When I realized that he wasn't going to give up Natalie, I tried to talk him out of leaving the hunting world-"

"But you didn't try hard enough," fake Natalie interrupted. "You didn't really try. You didn't speak up for me. I didn't even have a voice back then. You were supposed to be that voice for me. I needed you to be the voice for me," she spat at him, advancing on him, step by menacing step, forcing his back against the wall.

"Natalie, I'm sorry…" he gasped out, waves of guilt and confusion crashing over him in an emotional tsunami.

"Sorry doesn't get me back the life I was supposed to have. A life without you in it."

Even though he knew this was some illusion, even though he knew it wasn't really her, Natalie's words cut his very soul. Holding on to the slippery reality that this WASN'T his reality, he turned and bolted for the door, yanking it open and darting out.

He instantly found himself back in the stark, white hallway. He removed his hand from the doorknob, wiping it on his shirt and trying not to hear the echoes of the fake Natalie's accusations in his head. He looked around wildly, afraid to try another door, but knowing that if he wanted to get out of here, he had no other options. Which begged the question- where the hell was he?

*SPN SPN SPN*

Dean came to, his face smashed into the carpet. Wait- he hadn't gone to sleep on the carpet. Their hotel room didn't even have carpet- just a polished black wood floor. Man- maybe that sake he had at dinner was stronger than he realized.

He pushed himself up to a seated position on one hip, and suddenly became aware of where he was. The thick, plush red carpet underneath him was instantly recognizable. He was- somehow- in the dining room. He shook his head, confused. Had he sleep-walked down here? He quickly looked around, expecting to see other hotel patrons. He realized with a sleepy grin that with the other party staying in the motel, it probably wasn't too unusual to find a dude passed out drunk in a room that he wasn't supposed to be in.

He stood up, stretching and grumbling. The carpet was thick and soft, but he was still getting up there in age, and a night on the floor wasn't exactly the most comfortable sleeping arrangement to begin with. He stretched his arms and legs, and starting sniffing, hoping to find a coffee pot nearby. Or even another person who could maybe let him back into his own room.

As he looked around, he noticed that the dining room was set perfectly. Every place had the china dishes from dinner last night, along with an impressive display of cutlery and wine glasses. The little bar that was tucked into the corner of the room where he'd done two shots of sake last night was polished and pristine, just waiting for the frat boys to come and defile it. Looking surreptitiously around himself to make sure there was still no one there, Dean poured a quick tumbler of bourbon, tossing it down the hatch. There. That wet his whistle. Not exactly coffee, but it would have to do.

He looked around again. All the window shades had been drawn, just like they had been last night. He walked towards the carved ornate black doors. He reached for the handle and twisted, but it didn't give. At all. He tried again, with a little more force this time. Nothing.

His hunter senses clicked on immediately. He was locked in the dining room- but by what? Maybe it hadn't been the sake after all. Maybe there was something else going on here. Wouldn't be the first time.

Dean patted down his pockets, looking for weapons, tools, a lock pick, anything. He still had his flashlight and lighter, but that was it. No knives, no gun, nothing. He cursed for a moment, then examined a nearby table. Salt shaker and what he hoped was a silver knife. That'll do, he thought.

He quickly pocketed the items while continuing to scour his surroundings. The buffet, to his surprise, was full- a waiting feast. How had he not noticed its seductive scents before? He sniffed again, appreciating the curls of steam drifting off of the large platters. The scent itself seemed to fill his stomach. He sniffed deeply, again and again and again.

Then he suddenly realized he wasn't hearing just his own sniffing. Another sound- to his right- caught his attention. It was sniffing too- but it wasn't human. Dean spun around to locate the source of the sound and instantly froze.

A huge black dog was facing the buffet line, sleek and three times the size of a normal pit bull. Dean's heart stopped. How the hell was a hellhound loose in the dining room?

The dog turned his sniffing head towards Dean as he caught his scent. Dean reached quickly into his pocket and withdrew the knife, holding it in a guard position. The dog tilted his head to the side, as if confused by the sight of Dean brandishing a knife. The dog seemed to look him right in the eye. Dean's head instantly filled with a buzzing fuzz.

"I don't intend on hurting you, you know."

Dean shook his head. Where had that voice come from?

"Stop panicking. You're only going to get yourself upset." Dean looked wildly around the room while keeping his guard up. He didn't want to take his eyes off the hellhound, but where was the voice coming from? Did someone sneak into the room without him noticing?

He heard an exasperated sigh. "Dean, it's me," the voice said. Just then, the dog took a tentative step towards him. Dean immediately focused all his attention back onto the creature, ready to slice the damn thing to ribbons.

"Please don't 'slice me to ribbons'. I really don't want to hurt you," the voice said meekly. The dog dropped his head down subserviently, but still kept his gaze on Dean.

Dean's jaw dropped. After a minute of stuttering, he finally found his words. "Are you…are you TALKING to me, dog?" he said, his voice full of disbelief.

"I wouldn't exactly call it talking," the voice said, as the dog dropped to the ground casually, relaxing. "More like- speaking in your head," the voice continued.

Dean shook himself. This was nuts. He must still be feeling the after effects of the sake- or maybe even that shot of bourbon he just did. He pointed the knife at the humongous beast.

"You- you are NOT talking…in my head or anywhere else," he finally spat out, hoping that his voice sounded more authoritative than he felt. He looked around for an exit. The windows were still all drawn. With the speed of an Olympic runner, Dean took off towards the nearest one and ripped down the shade. He pulled back an elbow to put through the glass window to free himself.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Something about the voice inside his head made him stop- and not a moment too soon. He whipped his head around and got a good look at the window. The glass was easily three inches thick. He would have shattered his entire arm trying to break his way out of the room.

"See? Do you believe me now? I'm looking out for you. I don't want to hurt you, Dean," the voice whispered gently. The black dog cautiously got up and took a gentle, creeping step towards him, as if it was afraid. Dean put his back to the glass window, but didn't raise his knife.

"What is this?" he yelled out, trying to intimidate the creature into giving some answers. "Why am I down here? Where's Natalie and Sam?"

The dog plainly rolled his eyes. "Ah, yes. Natalie and Sam. Don't be afraid. You won't have to worry about them for much longer."

That instantly raised Dean's hackles. "You wanna tell me what you mean by that, Fido?" he shot back.

"First of all, my name's not Fido. Secondly, please remember that I mean you no harm."

"Yeah, you just got me locked me in a room with a telepathic dog. I completely feel led to trust you."

The dog continued speaking in Dean's mind as if he hadn't been interrupted. "And third, you won't have to worry about them much longer because they won't be around."

Without a second thought, Dean roared with rage and charged the dog. He raised the knife as if to stab it right between the eyes, but somehow, the dog wasn't there anymore. Dean flipped around, confused, to see the dog standing behind him, a look of pity on its canine face.

"Dean, please stop. I really don't want to hurt you."

Ignoring the words echoing in his head, Dean charged the animal again. No one threatened his daughter or his brother and lived to tell the tale. This time, he made contact. His knife drove right through the animal's chest. He pushed against it with all his might, hoping to hit a vital organ and do fatal damage. He finally flung himself away from the beast, breathing heavily.

The dog looked down and seemed to sigh, seeing the knife lodged in his chest. "Do you feel better now?" it asked in Dean's head. Dean's eyes went wide- the damn thing had a knife sticking out of its chest. It was deep enough that it had to have at least punctured a lung. As he watched in horror, the dog lifted a paw, and with a casual flick, pulled the knife out. It dropped to the ground. The blade had been bent- as if it had struck something internally. It wasn't even covered with blood.

Dean looked up again at the dog in horror. "What kind of freaking hellhound are you?" he managed to gasp out.

"Well, there's your first mistake," the dog said casually, licking the paw it had used to pull out the knife. "I'm not a hellhound."

"Then what the fuck are you? Cujo? Benjy?"

"Both clever guesses, but inordinately wrong. I'm Nobody."

"You're…nobody?" Dean repeated, incredulous.

"Capital N, if you please. Nobody is my name."

"Strange name for a mutt."

"I'm not a mutt, either. And you should really try to be more civilized now that you're speaking to me."

"Oh yeah? And why is that?"

"Because we're going to be spending a long time together."

"Really."

"Yes. The rest of your life, as a matter of fact."

"If you think that, you've got another thing coming, Lassie. You don't know who you're dealing with."

The dog suddenly looked up and narrowed its eyes at Dean. "Oh, yes I do," he said firmly. "The Great Dean Winchester. Survivor of Hell, Heaven, and everything in between. The Greatest Hunter the World has ever seen. Does that about cover it?" the dog thought sarcastically.

Dean shrugged and looked smug for a moment. "I wouldn't say the GREATEST hunter, but other than that, pretty damned close. So you do know me. Big deal."

"Oh, it is a big deal. See, not only do I know you- I'm what you keep locked in that little black box inside the deepest recesses of your brain."

"There's a dog trapped in my brain? You've got to be kidding me."

"No. I'm only taking this form because you're secretly still a little scared of hellhounds, no matter what you tell you brother or your daughter." At the mention of Sam and Natalie, Dean instantly saw red again.

"Where are they? What have you done with them?" he roared again. "You tell me or so help me, I'll make Chinese food outta you."

"No need for the dramatics. I'm not after them. Time will take care of that." Dean was stunned into silence trying to puzzle out the dog's words. The dog took the opportunity to forage ahead.

"See, the thing that you most fear is being left alone. Your mother left you, your father, even your precious brother for a while. You are terrified that your daughter is going to leave you too. That if she does, your entire existence will be shattered. I'm just here to let you know that- it will happen. The things you fear- I'm the embodiment of them. In this place, your brother isn't here. Your daughter isn't here. They're gone. And you're left with me. The person you fear the most." The dog tilted his head again. "Nobody."

*SPN SPN SPN*

Natalie made her third trip around the room before she accepted the fact that neither Sam nor Dean were there, had left any message, or any indication as to where they might be. Her hunter training kicked in automatically as she assessed the situation. There was no sign of a struggle, which meant they had left the room peacefully. Unless they had been drugged. Or magically transported. Both reasonable assumptions in their line of work.

She quickly armed herself. Salt, holy water, gun, silver knife, the whole nine yards. Keeping her favorite silver .45 in her hand but tucked casually behind her back, she slowly opened the door into the opulent hallway and looked carefully around. There didn't seem to be anyone there.

She crept out, closing the door gently behind her, keeping her back towards the wall like Dean had taught her to. But it was unnecessary. She didn't encounter another single human being along the way. There was no one in the hallway- there was no one on the stairwell. It seemed like she was all alone in the place.

She was starting to get creeped out. She knew there was that whole frat boy convention here. She should have seen at least someone by now. She shoved down the rising panic in her chest at having no clue where her father and uncle were. She slowly made her way downstairs to the ornate front lobby. Tiffany was at the front counter, typing away on her computer. Before rounding the corner from the staircase and into Tiffany's sight, Natalie quickly tucked the .45 into the small of her back and pulled her flannel shirt over it. She then walked hastily towards the front counter.

"Tiffany?" she asked cautiously, hating to disturb the woman's work, even at a time like this. The concierge looked up and smiled.

"Ah! Natalie, right? How did you sleep last night?" Tiffany inquired with a polite customer service oriented smile.

"Fine, fine," Natalie said, brushing the question aside. "Have you seen my dad or my uncle this morning? When I woke up, I couldn't find them." She expected Tiffany to look concerned or upset. Instead, a slight smile crept onto her lips.

"Yes, I've seen them," she said softly.

Natalie's insides sagged with relief. "Oh, okay good. Can you tell me where they are?"

"No, Natalie. I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

That threw her for a loop completely. "Wait- what? Are you…you're not serious?" Natalie stammered.

"I'm very serious. But don't worry. They're fine. For the most part."

"For the most part?! What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that you all are here for a reason. You stumbled into my little oasis, and I couldn't be happier. The Winchesters- in my hotel. I never thought I'd be so lucky," Tiffany said, her perfect smile suddenly seeming sinister.

That smile did it. Natalie instantly pulled her gun and trained it directly at Tiffany's head.

"Alright, you smarmy bitch. Where the hell are we?"

*SPN SPN SPN*

Sam's hand touched a doorknob at random. He knew he had to try another out, but after his last encounter, he was shaken. He steeled himself, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

To his immense surprise, the room inside was almost exactly like the one he had fallen asleep in with his family last night. Except this room was facing the parking lot- theirs hadn't been. Morning sunlight streamed through the window, confirming that, in this room at least, it was still early in the day. He noticed a few duffle bags laying around, but there was still no sign of life in the room. He crept over towards the window cautiously, and looked out.

There were no signs of life in the parking lot either- no one getting in or out of cars, exiting the building, anything. Where were all the people?

Sam looked up at the hotel sign. It looked just like it had last night when they pulled in.

Fort Lilac

One Hi A-

"nd you'll never leave!"

He tilted his head. Something was off about the sign. As he studied it, he realized that he hadn't noticed the bizarre break up of the word "and" before. In addition, the way the slogan had been placed on the sign seemed, last night, to make sense, but now, he saw it in a different light. His brain struggled to figure out the pieces of the puzzle that was directly in front of him.

Suddenly, in one stomach churning moment, he got it. "It's an anagram," he whispered to no one.

*SPN SPN SPN*

Dean couldn't catch his breath. The dog's words were resonating in the room still. The terrible fear that he kept locked up in his mind-that he tried not to acknowledge except when forced to- was currently sitting in front of him, licking its paws.

"You…you don't know…" he stammered out incoherently. "You don't know about my family. They'll never leave me."

"Just like you thought Sam would never actually leave and go to college. Just like Jamie would never abandon her own daughter. Just like your own father died saving your soul, leaving you and Sam so terribly alone."

"Stop it."

"I'm sorry, Dean. But you have to realize where you are, and what is happening. That will help you come to terms with everything that is now surrounding you. Think about what you've seen in the last twenty-four hours. You're smart. You can figure this out," the dog said without a trace of animosity. In fact, its words were almost encouraging.

Dean tried to calm his quaking mind. He thought back to pulling into the motel- to parking Baby next to a Benz. A Mercedes Benz. Something about that rang a bell. Suddenly, image after image flooded his mind. A lit-up candle to show the way. A spirit not seen since 1969. Gathered….for the feast.

Dean's eyes dropped again to the knife still on the floor. Without a shadow of a doubt, he knew that it was a steel knife- not silver like he'd hoped.

"No," he muttered. "No way. No freaking way am I trapped in an Eagles' song."

*SPN SPN SPN*

Tiffany looked at the handgun pointed directly at her forehead and smiled.

"I said, where are we?" Natalie shouted at her. Tiffany's smile only grew as she answered.

"Welcome to the Hotel California."