Guys, your response to this is really beyond my expectations. I'm really glad you're enjoying this and thanks for the reviews! Let's move on to chapter 3, shall we?

Chapter 3

So they let him play

Play their minds away

ABBA – The Piper

He should tell Dean the truth. He should tell him about what might have happened the last time he had been in town. They could no longer continue to keep secrets between them. Secrets were bad. They led to tragedies, to death and betrayal and heartbreak. Sam knew all that. Talking to Dean now, being honest with him for once, would have been the best thing to do.

Still, Sam hesitated. Partly it was because of how Dean reacted these days when it came to Sam's memory. He tried keeping his brother away from prying into what had happened during his soulless escapades and Sam was afraid he might be tempted to grab Sam and haul ass, even though what had happened had been long ago and quite probably had no bearing on the Wall in Sam's mind. Sam knew Dean enough to realize his brother would be hesitant to risk it.

And maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was not about Sam at all. Maybe Robert was talking about someone else. there were other Hunters who had kids and brought their kids on Hunts. It did not necessarily have to be him….Yeah, Sam was aware this was more wishful thinking than anything…

There was also the minor detail about yet another supernatural thing having gone after Sam. Of course, with what Sam knew now, the demon blood and his status as a vessel and all, he had probably looked like gourmet food for some of the monsters out there. And he didn't want to remind Dean of all that.

Sam was telling himself that it would be better if he did some digging of his own first. Then, if he got anything concrete, he would tell Dean. Otherwise it would not do to drag the past up again. Dean would understand. Right, Sam thought his mouth quirking up. The day Dean understood Sam keeping secrets from him would be the day Castiel and Crowley got married and ruled Heaven and Hell jointly.

He and Dean had met at the local diner for lunch and to exchange notes. Dean was rather dissatisfied that he had not gotten much out of the coroner.

"According to him, the body is definitely that of a ninety-year-old woman. He did send her and Kelsey's DNA to the nearest city for comparison. Against Doctor Blackstone's wishes, though. Makes you wonder why."

"I mean, right now Blackstone thinks his daughter is still missing. As long as he doesn't get confirmation of the opposite, he can go on believing she is alive."

Dean frowned.

"I'd say knowing the truth is better."

"Is it?" Sam asked softly. "Would you think it's better if it happened to you? I mean, as long as you don't know for sure, you have hope. Once you know, what do you have left?"

Dean's eyes darkened and Sam immediately regretted his question. With all that had happened to them, this was hitting too close to home. He was grateful when the waitress came with the food.

"Anyway," Dean went on, "I ran into a friend of Kelsey's. She said Kelsey might have left voluntarily. That she did not want to be found."

Dean was watching him carefully as he spoke, and Sam started to wonder if he was really the only one keeping something from his brother.

"From what I gathered Kelsey did not really like her new stepmother."

"Her third stepmother," Dean corrected. "Can't say that I blame her. That doesn't sound like a stable environment for a kid."

Several years back, Sam would have pointed out that they were the last people on earth that should talk about growing up in a stable environment. He had seen enough, now, to realize some things could not have been avoided.

"Kelsey's friend also told me her father was talking about the other times children have gone missing."

Sam straightened up. This was his chance. If he talked now, Dean would at least not be mad at him for hiding things. Still, he could not bring himself to do it. Not before he knew for sure what was going on.

"Blackstone was saying something similar," was all he said.

It wasn't really a lie, was it? More like an omission.

Sam tuned his attention to his salad. It was actually good. One of the advantages of small towns was that vegetables were usually fresh and not the prepackaged stuff that tasted stale and rubbery. By the looks of it, Dean was enjoying his heart attack on a plate just as much.

"Anyway," Dean said. "Lara – that's Kelsey's friend – was saying Kelsey told her something about music coming from the woods. That familiar to you?"

"Maybe," Sam said. "I'll have to do some digging, though. Something's niggling at the edge of my mind. Can't really put my finger on it just yet."

xxxxxXXXXXxxxx

Jim Hayes scowled as he heard the front door closing behind his parents and his little sister. He went to the window and watched as they all got into the car and drove away, then he pulled the curtains back.

"Have fun," he muttered. "Without me."

It wasn't as if he had wanted to get that F in Literature. And it was not as if he had deliberately sought to get in trouble with the teacher. Well, yes, he had made that joke about Kelsey, and it was rather cruel, and he had a long history of scaring Kelsey and Lara and telling them all kinds of stuff, but it wasn't his fault they believed him. Being punished by not being allowed to join the family on movie night sounded extreme. They never punished his sister like this. Of course, his mother would say she was too young to be left all alone in the house but still…

Jim looked around his room, scowling. There was nothing to do for about three hours, if not more. No way was he going to spend his time reading the stupid book with the stupid title that wasn't even about mockingbirds, no matter how much his school thought they had to read it. It wasn't his fault his teacher had no idea what a good book actually was.

He once again went to the window and pulled back the curtains. He wondered if he couldn't sneak out. Just a little walk and he'd be back by the time his family was home. No one would need to know.

It was then that he heard it. At first, Jim was not sure what it was. He opened the window and stuck his head out. Music! There was music but not coming out of a radio or something. It sounded like a strange instrument, a whistle or something close to it. Jim did not know what drew him to the song. Any other day, he would have scoffed and called it boring, since it did not have drums or an electric guitar or anything exciting. But right now, he felt like he needed to keep hearing that song. He needed to get close.

Jim left his room without bothering to close his window. He bounded down the stairs and grabbed his shoes, not waiting to put them on fully before he was out the door. He ran down the path that led away from the town, to the woods, where the music was coming from.

xxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxx

Sam and Dean got back to the hotel in the evening. Loretta was still at the front desk, scowling.

"Rats," she said, when she saw the two. "There were several rats in the back yard. They scurried before I could do anything, but I can't understand how they got here. I regularly set up traps. And yet this town still gets rat infestations once every several years."

Sam stopped in his tracks.

"What about some twenty years ago?" he asked. "Did you have rats then, too?"

Loretta frowned in surprise.

"My God, honey, that was the worst time ever. They were everywhere. Got in the houses through the pipes and all. It was in the papers. You must have read about it there."

Sam nodded quickly.

"Yeah, that must have been it."

But the look he gave Dean showed that there was much more to it.

Once back in the room Sam went straight to the laptop. Dean watched him thoughtfully.

"I can see steam coming out of your ears, Sammy," he said. "What's on your mind?"

"Are you familiar with the Pied Piper?" Sam asked.

Dean dragged a chair to the table and sat down opposite Sam.

"The rat-catcher dude, right?"

Sam nodded.

"Yeah, him. According to legend, the town of Hamelin in Germany was suffering from a rat infestation – which was pretty bad news in the Middle Ages, since they usually brought the plague with them. Now, this person came into town and promised to get rid of the rats. Which he did, by playing a tune on his pipe and drawing them to a river, where they drowned. Apparently, he did this twice and managed to save the town. But, when he asked for a fee, the townspeople refused to pay."

"That's a douchebag move," Dean commented.

Sam's lips quirked upwards.

"Apparently, he thought so too. Because the next time he played his flute, it was to draw away the town's children."

Dean was beginning to see what Sam was getting at. The music, the children going missing, and now the rats. It all fit.

"Draw them to where?" he wanted to know.

Sam hesitated.

"There's more than one version about what happened to the children. Some stories have it that he led them away to a different land somewhere beyond the forests, where they could form a town of their own and where they lived the rest of their lives."

Dean snorted.

"And the non-Disneyfied version?"

"That he led the children off a precipice or drowned them in a river," Sam deadpanned.

Dean tapped his fingers against the table thoughtfully. Something still did not add up.

"Kelsey did not drown," he pointed out. "She came back aged up. What have you got to say about that?"

Sam hesitated.

"That he probably did take them somewhere. Some place where time moves differently, as I said the first time. Or maybe he does not do the same thing to every child. Maybe he varies the punishment."

The sound of a police siren had Dean tensing. The car drove by the motel without stopping and Dean relaxed. He noticed the frown on Sam's face.

"You said this town was set up by German immigrants, right? Think they brought their own Pied Piper with them?"

"Maybe," Sam said. "There might be something else."

He paused, chewing his lip in the classical I-don't-think-I-should-tell-Dean pose. Dean tried to hold his irritation in check.

"Dude, if you've got something to say, say it."

Sam looked like he was actually considering it. Then, he shook his head.

"Just give me some time to think this through. I might have something else, but I'm not sure yet."

Dean was about to press. But it was getting late and Sam looked tired. Maybe they should wait until the morning.

He was nearly falling asleep when he thought he heard the police sirens again. They drove past the hotel, heading towards the woods.

xxxXXXXxxxx

At first, Dean had no idea what had woken him. His phone said it was 02:30 a.m. The room was silent and warm, for once. He was comfortable, the blankets soft and heavy. He buried his face in the pillow and closed his eyes, willing himself to go back to sleep.

Then his eyes snapped open. He recognized a sound that did not belong to the room. A soft scurrying outside the window. Grabbing his knife from under his pillow, he padded to the window and drew back the curtains. A giant rat stared back at him from outside. Dean cursed and drew back, letting the curtains drop. He hated rats, and having one so close by made him all kinds of uncomfortable. But the window was locked, so it couldn't get in. Not to mention the wards that kept away anything unnatural.

He was ready to head back to bed when another sound caught his attention, this time from the room. And this was something Dean was familiar with. Sam's breathing was speeding up, the way it usually did at the onset of a nightmare. Dean braced himself, waiting to see what would happen. Maybe the nightmare would stop on its own. And maybe it would progress, in which case Dean was ready to wake his brother before it did any damage.

Sam sat up with a gasp his eyes wide open. Dean moved swiftly to switch on the lamp on the nightstand. Sam was still sitting up, breathing harshly, seemingly searching for something. He seemed confused when he saw Dean, but then recognition returned to his eyes and he started to calm down.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"No problem," Dean said. "Mind telling me what was that about?"

Sam drew a hand over his face. Dean tried to pretend he did not notice it was shaking.

"Just a nightmare, man," Sam said.

"Sam…" Dean began warningly.

Sam shook his head.

"No, really, Dean. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill wacky dream. It wasn't about anything in particular. I was…I was walking down a corridor, that's all. I was walking down a long corridor and it was dark and I could hear something."

"What?" Dean asked leaning forward. "Hear what?"

Sam shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't think I could figure out even in the dream. But I was…I was scared. I don't know why. It felt like I was suddenly the only person alive in the world. Like everyone I knew was gone." Sam paused, then laughed shamefacedly. "Like I said, just a weird dream."

Dean debated pushing further, but Sam looked like he was actually ready to go back to sleep. He moved to switch off the light, clutching Sam's shoulder briefly. He ignored the warm feeling when he felt Sam relax under his touch. Apparently, a year without Sam and almost six months with his brother's soulless replica had not made Dean lose his talents.

He went back to bed, but he could not fall back asleep. It was not the first time Sam had that dream. In fact, he remembered the first time very clearly now.

xxxXXXXxxxx

The first night after Dean's return from Sonny's, Sam slept like a log. After his brief heart-to-heart with Dean, the kid had stretched out under the blankets and was out like a light in record time. Dean figured he must have been exhausted and wondered how much sleep Sam had gotten during his two months absence. Dean himself fell asleep quite quickly, too. He had not realized it while he was at Sonny's, but now it came to him. He had missed Sam breathing next to him. It was weird and all kinds of sappy, but Dean knew his little brother's breathing pattern by heart. He could fall asleep to it.

The second night, though, was when the problems started. He and Sam had spent the day doing mostly nothing. John had called to let them know his hunt would probably be over in a week, after which he would be back to take the boys to spend some time at Pastor Jim's place. Sam had perked up at that. Then Dean had gone on a grocery run in the evening, and Sam had insisted on accompanying him. The kid was probably terrified Dean would disappear on him again, and Dean was feeling mellow enough to indulge him.

That night Dean woke up suddenly to the sound of Sam's harsh breathing. He quickly switched on the light. Sam was struggling with the blankets, his eyes tightly shut, an expression if unspeakable panic on his face. Dean was by his bedside in an instant.

"Sammy," he said, reaching out but not daring to shake him yet. "Sam, come on. Wake up."

Sam sat up with a cry, his eyes suddenly wide, searching wildly across the room. Something in them seemed to settle when he caught sight of Dean, but he did not stop trembling.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said, sitting down on the bed next to him and allowing Sam to grab a hold of his arms. "Hey, you're safe here, buddy. Just you and me here, see?"

Sam took a deep breath, shaking his head.

"There was…" he gulped. "I wasn't here…There was this place…and I was all alone…And there was this sound…And…and he told me you were lost and would never be found again…Said you wanted it that way…"

"Sammy, we've already talked about this," Dean interrupted him quickly. "Where else do you think I'd want to be?"

Sam said nothing for a while. Dean allowed him the silence, thinking the only thing he could do for his brother now was to give him time to put himself together. And be there. Like he had not been these last two months, and he was only now starting to realize what his prolonged absence had done to Sam.

"It was just a dream, dude," Dean said, reaching out to pat his brother's back.

"Those two months weren't a dream, though," Sam insisted. "And I really was there. I really was alone."

"Well, you're not anymore," Dean said firmly. "So why don't you go back to sleep and tomorrow we can think of some awesome way to spend the day together. Anything you want, right, Sammy? Even if it's embarrassingly geeky and girly."

Sam snorted.

"God, I'd forgotten what a jerk you are."

But he sounded relieved instead of offended.

XXXxxxxxXXXXX

Dean was unable to go back to sleep that night, not after what he had just remembered. He sat for a long time watching Sam sleep. His brother was almost on the edge of the bed, facing Dean, as he always did after he had a nightmare. He looked peaceful, for once, but Dean could not get over the many worry lines he saw on Sam's face.

One thing was bothering him. This Hunt was tied to what had happened in the past. Back then, he had thought Sam's dream had been nothing more than the imagination of a scared kid who had spent two months wondering if he was going to see his brother again. But now Dean was forced to reconsider this. What had happened in Rattigan when Sam had been here the first time? What had his father hidden from him? And, more importantly, what was Sam hiding from him now?

Notes:

-The Legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is a very intriguing one. Particularly because in the town of Hamelin (Germany) there is a record from the year 1300 saying: "It's been a hundred years since our children left" and there are documents that show that over 100 children vanished some time in the 1200s. There are a lot of theories about what might have happened (if something did happen). One is an illness that affected children more than adults. Another is that the children might have been taken to serve in a war (not necessarily only as soldiers, but also as attendants to soldiers). Another is that they were indeed taken to another land (I think some legends say to a valley between forests, or something like that). Meaning, they were taken (or probably either given or sold by their parents) to what was known as a recruiter to populate certain areas in Central and Eastern Europe. Some say Poland (where, in some areas, there are people with German-sounding last names) or Transylvania (where there is a German community even today). Right. I should stop geeking out now ;)

-Jim Hayes' thoughts notwithstanding, I actually liked To Kill A Mockingbird. Then again, I did not have to read it for school.