Part 3 :) Special thanks to Jenmm31, and to YOU. Thank you for sticking with me.

Natalie tried as hard as she could not to fidget nervously, seeing as that might make Captain even crazier than he already was. She pinched her little lips together, thinking to herself as hard as she could- what would Daddy and Unca Sam do?

Trouble was, she didn't know.

She had never even heard of a Zanna before, even though Sam clearly knew about them and never told her- a fact she was definitely going to be bringing up multiple times when she got home- and so she had no idea how to defeat and kill them. Vampires, sure. Werewolves, bring it on. A Zanna? Not a clue.

However, when she thought about killing Captain- actually killing him- her heart twisted in her chest. Maybe…just maybe all monsters didn't HAVE to be killed. Maybe some of them were okay, if they were good. Maybe this was what Daddy and Unca Sam were talking about sometimes when they thought she was asleep but she was just pretending- that sometimes some monsters weren't ALL bad. She didn't get it then but maybe she understood it now.

As she looked at Captain, crumpled on the floor with his head in his hands, he really didn't seem like a bad guy. Sure, stealing kids from their beds and not letting them go home wasn't GREAT but he wasn't hurting them and he just wanted a friend. He just didn't know how to actually be a friend. He wanted someone to play with. Maybe if he had someone to play with, he'd let them all go.

Well, lucky for him, he just happened to kidnap the world's leading expert on Hide And Seek who also loved to play.

Natalie shook her shoulders, determined to be as brave as Sam and Dean when they were hunting monsters. "Hey Captain," she said. She growled softly to herself when her voice shook. Grunting a little just like Dean did when he was trying to beat her in Tag, she got a hold of herself. "Wanna play Hide and Seek?"

Captain's head shot up, disbelieving what he was hearing. "You…you wanna play with me?" he asked in a hushed tone. Gritting her teeth bravely, Natalie nodded.

"Yeah," she said. Captain wrinkled his nose, and she knew why. Even SHE wasn't convinced of her own words. She put a big smile on her face instead. "Yeah, I do!" she insisted, making her voice sound super happy. "But I gotta tell you. I'm the BEST at Hide and Seek," she said. This time, she couldn't help the genuine cockiness that came with her statement.

Captain bounced up from the ground so swiftly it scared her, but she did everything in her power not to show it. He was so excited that he didn't even notice. "YES! YES YES YES!" he shrieked, spinning around like she herself did when she was really happy. "Do you wanna be 'it' first? Or should I? Should we stay in this room or do you wanna explore everywhere?" he asked in a rush.

"Um…let's stay in this room for now, okay?" Natalie said, her four-year-old mind starting to work through a plan. "And you be 'it' first and I'll hide, okay?"

"Okay! I'll count to ten…"

"NO!" Natalie said, way too loudly. Captain stopped, surprised and confused. Natalie immediately tried to rectify the situation. "No, I mean you gotta count way higher than that since I don't know this place just yet," she said haltingly, hoping that it would be convincing. Captain tapped his lips with his finger, thinking. Despite the fear she was feeling, Natalie giggled a bit. "I do that too!" she said, pointing at Captain's mouth.

"I know," he said, grinning shyly at her. Natalie's fear dissolved as she saw the genuine care on his face. This was gonna be okay. Everything was gonna be okay. It had to be okay. "How about I count to a hundred?" Captain asked instead. "Is that cool?"

Natalie nodded. She could get the job done by a hundred. "Remember, you gotta close your eyes and no peeking 'cause that's cheating," she reminded him earnestly.

"Duh!" Captain said, giggling. He clapped his hands over his eyes dramatically, making her snicker. "One, two, three…" he started counting loudly. Natalie raced over to the mound of beanbags, and carefully clambered inside the small hole that the other kids were hiding in.

"What are you doing?" Andy whispered, panicked. "He's gonna try to get us if you're here too!"

"It's okay. I have a plan to get us all home," Natalie said confidently, but before she could proceed in laying out her master work, one of the little girls flipped her hair dismissively.

"YOU have a plan?" the girl said. Natalie narrowed her eyes.

"Yes."

"You're crazy," the little girl mumbled, looking haughty. Natalie just glared at her.

"You saying you wanna spend the rest of your life in a bean bag hole instead of going home?" she snapped. The little girl looked startled, then embarrassed and shook her head no. "Yeah, that's what I thought," Natalie said gruffly, sounding more and more like her father every second. "So listen up. I got a plan." She heard a muffled whisper and craned her neck to look around for the source. There was another little girl, knees tucked up to her chest and her face buried, but the sound had definitely come from her.

"Are you okay?" Natalie said in a rush, very concerned that Captain had already gotten to twenty and her time was ticking away, but needing to check on the other kid. The little girl raised her head slightly but didn't make eye contact.

"I said what's gonna be the plan?" she whispered again, barely louder than before but enough to be heard. Natalie smiled, glad at least someone was on her side.

"Okay, here goes," Natalie said, low. "Captain really isn't a bad guy, he's just a little…weird."

"A little weird?" Andy hissed at her. "He's the monster under my bed!"

"Yeah, but he's not one of the BAD ones," Natalie insisted. At that, all four other faces paled.

"There are WORSE ones?" the other little boy said. Natalie huffed, annoyed with herself. This was exactly why Daddy and Unca Sam said never to talk about hunting. She waved her hands dismissively.

"Nope, that's just all stories," she lied quickly, praying that none of the kids had Sam's ability to tell when she was lying. "There's no such thing as monsters." They all nodded in relief, so apparently none of them did. She pressed on. "Captain is a Zanna. NOT a monster. He's like…he's like a friend that you make up for when you need a friend," she explained.

"Like…an imaginary friend?" the little girl cowering in the back asked, her head perking up a little more. Natalie nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, just like that! And all he wants to do is play. I think that if we play with him, he might chill out enough to let us go home."

"You want us to play with a monster?" the sassy little girl said, her jaw dropping. "You ARE crazy."

"Fine," Natalie said, putting on her very best Unca Sam bitch face. "WE'LL play with him and go home, and you just sit here and keep being smart mouthed living in a bunch of bean bags." Turning her back on the little brat who'd gone bright red at the second rebuke, she focused on the two boys and the cowering girl.

"I'm gonna let him find me pretty fast, then I'll see if he wants to ask you all to play too," Natalie explained in a rush. "Then I need one of you to come play." When she was met with three pairs of wide, terrified eyes, she bit her lip, pleadingly. "I promise I won't let him hurt any of you, okay?" she said.

"How do you know he won't hurt us?" the other little boy asked.

"Cause he doesn't WANT to hurt you. He's just lonely."

"I'm lonely."

Natalie's head craned towards the little girl who had hidden her face again after whispering those two words. She crawled over and put a hand on the little girl's arm. "What's your name?" Natalie asked kindly.

"Au…Aubrey," the little girl whispered.

"Hey Aubrey?" Natalie asked, squeezing the arm gently. "Can you be really, really brave and play the next round of Hide and Go Seek with us?"

"I don't think I can be brave. I'm too scared," Aubrey said, tears rolling down her face.

Natalie smiled. She knew this feeling well. "Being brave isn't not being scared. It's doing the good guy stuff even WHEN you're scared," Natalie said encouragingly, trying to remember what Dean told her about being brave. "Captain doesn't want to be lonely, and you can help him not be lonely, but I need your help. Can you do that?"

Gulping away a sniffle, Aubrey looked up just enough to nod. "I…I think I can," she whispered. Natalie nodded and smiled again.

"Okay, good. I gotta go hide now, but when I come back, be ready to play. Okay?"

"O-okay."

Natalie didn't have time to wait any more- Captain was already to eighty. She scrambled out of the hole as fast as she could, and tore across the room with everything she had in her. She dove behind a pile of bubbles that instantly scattered with the whoosh of her decent. "Ah shit," she mumbled, grateful that Sam wasn't there to hear it. She crawled quickly behind a big bookshelf full of colorful story books. She longed to pull them off the shelves to see if she could find any new stories- she was getting so bored with the same old ones back at the motel- but she had to focus and get her plan to work.

Once Captain reached a hundred, it took him about forty seconds to find her. He squealed with joy at seeing her behind the bookcase. "I found you, I found you!" he cheered, clapping his hands delightedly. "This is a really good hiding space!" he complimented her. "You ARE really, really good at this game."

Natalie nodded. "I know," she said matter of factly. "But I think it would be fun if we got some of the other kids to play too, don't you think so?"

Captain's shoulders slumped. "But they don't wanna play with me," he said sadly, kicking the ground.

Natalie shrugged in what she hoped was a lackadaisical way. "Maybe, maybe not," she said, pretending that her anxiety wasn't creeping up again. "But we could ask them, right?" Captain just shrugged one shoulder and stepped out of the way so she could extract herself from behind the bookcase. Once she was back on her feet, Natalie took Captain's hand kindly. "C'mon, let's go ask," she said. She pulled and he followed, dragging his feet.

Steeling herself and praying that Aubrey wouldn't chicken out, Natalie climbed on top of the bean bags again, peering into the hole. "Hey you guys," she said, trying to sound casual. "You wanna play Hide and Seek?" Natalie desperately looked at Aubrey, who had hidden her face again. She bit her lip and waited. Just when it seemed that all hope was lost, Aubrey raised her eyes to meet Natalie's.

"I…I do," she whispered. The boys were frozen in shock as Aubrey released the iron grip she had around her knees, and slowly and carefully crawled to meet Natalie. As she was doing this, Natalie looked over her shoulder and caught Captain watching anxiously.

"Be cool," she hissed to him. He snapped his fingers and a pair of sunglasses appeared on his face.

"Like this? Is this cool?" he asked. Natalie rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"That is not cool. My daddy says that the only people that wear sunglasses inside are blind people and-"

Right before she could finish that statement, she felt fingers brush hers. Her head whipped back around to see Aubrey reaching up tentatively, her hand shaking. Natalie took the little girl's hand firmly, squeezing it. "It's gonna be okay," she whispered to Aubrey, who nodded her head once despite the terror in her eyes. Natalie helped the little girl stand up and climb out of the beanbag hole. Upon hitting solid ground, Aubrey squeaked in terror and hid behind Natalie, who never let go of her hand.

"Hi Aubrey!" Captain nearly shouted in joy. Aubrey crouched closer to Natalie, whimpering. Natalie shot Captain a bitch face and mouthed BE COOL at him. "I mean, hi Aubrey," Captain tried again, this time in a much calmer voice.

Aubrey peeked out from behind Natalie and gulped. She tried to say hi, but her voice just wouldn't work. Natalie intervened again.

"Hey Captain, I have an idea," Natalie said. "What if Aubrey and I hide together and you come find us?"

Captain spun around once, excited. "That's a great idea, Natalie!" he cheered. "Do you want me to count to a hundred again?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea!"

"Okay, here we go!" As soon as he started counting, Natalie turned to Aubrey.

"Where do you wanna hide?" she asked, a glint of mischief in her eye. Aubrey saw that…and smiled.

For the next hour, the world's most bizarre game of Hide and Seek commenced. Eventually, Andy got brave enough to come out to play, and was pretty quickly followed by the other two, who introduced themselves as Ryan and Lena. As he got more and more playtime, Captain "chilled" and became the fun-loving Zanna he'd always dreamed of being.

Before long, all the fear and terror of the last few days had been forgotten as the five of them turned raucous, screaming with joy and delight at finding each other or being found. Hide and Seek eventually evolved into a made-up game of Belly Flop on the Bean Bags, the five of them flinging their bodies into the soft mounds with unbridled delight as children often do.

Once they settled down, they just sat around devouring cotton candy, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and skittles as they caught their breath. Finally, Captain looked up in shy delight. "Thank you guys for playing with me," he said, blushing.

Andy nodded, his cheeks stuffed with peanut butter. "It's okay," he said. "I didn't know you were fun. I thought you were a bad guy."

"I didn't mean to be a bad guy," Captain mumbled, shamefaced. "I just…I just needed a friend." It was quiet for a moment, then Aubrey stretched her closed hand out to Captain. He looked at her quizzically.

"Here," she whispered. Captain held his hand out in wonder. Aubrey dropped three red skittles into his palm. "They're my favorite, so I want you to have them," she said in her tiny voice.

Amazement burst onto Captain's face as he looked at the three tiny pieces of candy, then back at Aubrey. "Are you sure you want me to have 'em?" he asked in a whisper, just like her. She looked up at him and nodded, then smiled. At her smile, it was like Captain's face transformed. Literally. It suddenly shifted to a much more elfish style with pointed ears and long, purple hair. His clothing looked like he had dressed himself in forest leaves and vines. Natalie nodded at how cool he looked. Aubrey's eyes lit up at the transformation- this must be how Aubrey pictured her imaginary friend. Natalie saw her mouth 'wow'.

"Thank you, Aubrey," Captain said, a sparkly tear running down his face. To everyone's surprise, Aubrey stood up and walked over to him, wiping his tear away with her thumb.

"Don't cry," she said sweetly, then she leaned forward conspiratorially. "I got lots more skittles at home."

For some reason, that made everyone laugh so hard that all you could hear bouncing around the room was joy for a very long time. When everyone had finally collected themselves, Aubrey took Captain's hand, squeezing it. "Do you wanna be my friend?" she asked. Captain's grin couldn't have been wider.

*SPN SPN SPN*

Dean awoke with a start. The cramp in his back was killing him, and for some reason, the back of his head was sore. He cursed under his breath. He must have fallen asleep while sitting up and watching…oh fuck. Natalie.

His guts threatened to burst out of his insides for a split second, until he saw her peacefully curled up on the floor next to him. A tidal wave of relief washed over him, and he stretched his hands out to her, pulling her in close. The movement woke her up. She blinked sleepily a couple times, then looked up into Dean's face. The smile she gave him reminded him of all the good things in the world and how they all resided in his arms.

"I'm back!" she said joyfully, wiping the sleep from her eyes. The sound caused Sam to start up from his chair, where he'd apparently been passed out too. Sam's wild gaze around the room finally landed on father and daughter, where he looked at his brother in horror, realizing that he'd fallen asleep. Dean just shook his head dismissively at Sam's panic, trying to convey that Natalie was fine and here.

"Hey squirt," Dean said, his voice rough. Sam shook his head and sneezed. Dean could have sworn he'd seen a bit of gold expelled from Sam's nose, but Natalie recaptured his attention before he could think too much about it.

"Daddy, I solved the case!" Natalie squealed, putting her hands on either side of his face and patting his cheeks with glee.

"You…you what now?" Dean asked, confused and still trying to wake up.

"I solved it! It was a Zanna-" Natalie said, before her face crumpled in consternation. She pushed herself up and out of Dean's arms and was too fast when he made a grab for her. She pounded her way over to Sam and put her hands on her hips. "How's come you didn't tell me about Zannas, Unca Sam?" she asked sternly, tapping one foot on the ground.

"About…Zannas?" Sam asked, trying to sort out what the hell was happening. Natalie nodded and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah! 'Cause that would have been really good to know like a hundred hours ago," she said bossily. She looked up at him, waiting for a reply.

"I'm…sorry?" Sam said, completely at a loss for everything. Natalie sighed heavily and pranced back to Dean, who was heaving himself up off the floor.

"Daddy, it was a Zanna named Captain! Well, I named him Captain because he needed a name and the other kids didn't want to name him because they were too scared but Captain wasn't scary at all but they didn't know that because he had taken them from their beds but when I met him he was really nice and he had a gold cape that made you and Unca Sam fall asleep, well it was the gold dust that made you sleep kinda like pixie dust that makes you fall asleep instead of fly but it probably can make you fly if you asked but I didn't ask. Anyways, I found the other kids and we all played Hide and Seek and Captain found his new friend and-"

"Kid, kid…KID!" Dean finally said, interrupting the stream by picking her up and placing her on his hip. "Just…hold the phone, okay?"

"Okay!"

Dean looked over at Sam, who was still reeling. "Any word from Garth?" he asked. Natalie tapped him on the shoulder patiently.

"Garth doesn't need to come," she answered primly. "I SOLVED it, Daddy. I told you."

"Sure you did, squirt."

"I did!"

"I think you had a dream."

"Nun-uh! I solved it! It was a Zanna!"

"Natalie," Dean said sternly, looking at her. She stopped, surprised. How was he not celebrating with her? "Stop," he said firmly, then looked back at Sam. "Garth?" he prompted again.

Sam, however, was blinking rapidly at his niece. "Dean…" he said slowly. "She's…she's never heard of a Zanna before. How did she come up with that name?"

"Cause that's what it was," Natalie said under her breath, clamping her lips shut when Dean shot her another look. Sam knew that Dean's stress level was climbing, so he quickly looked at his phone.

"Garth's almost here, maybe ten minutes."

"Good," Dean said, nodding. He turned back to Natalie who was pouting. He chuckled. His little girl, thinking she'd solved the case because she had had a dream. "Hey squirt," he said kindly. "Tell you what. Why don't you try to catch some more zz's? You were up pretty late last night."

"I'm not tired!" she said, regaining her cheerfulness now that Dean's attention was on her in a positive way.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Nope. I already ate peanut butter and jelly and cotton candy and skittles."

"We're out of peanut butter."

"I know. Captain had some. From when I solved the case."

Dean snickered again, but stopped cold when he looked at her. There was the tiniest smug of peanut butter in the corner of her mouth.

*SPN SPN SPN*

Garth and Sam combed the town the moment he arrived. All the kids, it seemed, had magically appeared in the morning. Sam was even more startled to realize they all appeared at the same time that he and Dean had woken up. The creeping suspicion that Natalie had been right kept tugging at the back of his brain. He'd taken her childish insistence about solving the case much the same way that Dean had- she'd had a dream. His lie detector hadn't gone off because she so insistently believed it was true. But as the facts kept piling up, so did his doubts.

After going back to the hotel and having Natalie tell all three of them the story, start to finish (which took about two hours with all her childish embellishments), they all came to the conclusion that she had ACTUALLY solved the case- that it had been a misunderstood and confused Zanna, and she just did what she did best- be herself and play.

Dean had been falling over himself, between feeling incredibly guilty at dragging her into this situation and then not believing her, that he'd been constantly apologizing to her, promising her everything from a pony to never having to go to bed again. Natalie forgave him instantly, of course, and reveled in the extra attention she was getting. Having had enough of this entire situation, the boys thanked Garth profusely, packed up, and got the hell out of the town.

They'd been driving for a couple hours- it was well past midnight. Natalie, who had been insisting she wasn't tired all day, was passed out in her car seat, her late night adventures finally catching up with her.

"I can't believe this happened," Sam muttered, not for the first time.

Dean nodded. "I know," he said. "I mean, it wasn't like we didn't know exactly what the options were when we took her on the road with us," he defended. "But…this…I didn't expect this. She's always been safe with us."

"But that's just it, isn't it?" Sam said. "We don't ever really know if she's safe when she's with us. I know that we do our best, but Dean…I'm worried."

Dean chewed on his lip, his mind racing. He didn't want to say it. It would kill him to say it. But he had to say it.

"Sammy, maybe it's time to have that conversation about kindergarten."