thank you all for the wonderful reviews, i am glad you are all enjoying the mystery.

D: same as before.

SOMETHING LOST

Chapter 2

Sam sat on the bed opposite his brother's, his head cupped in the palms of his hands as his elbows rested on his knees. He couldn't get his mind around the events of the past week, couldn't understand what was laying in front of him, how it had come to be. He felt like he had skipped to the back of the book, fast forwarded to the end of the episode. Something was missing, oh yeah, Sam thought bitterly, the entire rescue. He had lost Dean, spent nearly a week searching for him in vain, and then received a mysterious text message that led him directly to his missing brother. The older man had even been cleaned and bandaged, a morphine drip attached to his arm and a prescription for painkillers on the bedside table. And a note from someone named 'K'.

It was all to much for the younger Winchester, all too confusing to let his mind dwell on it. His brother was alive and safe, laying on the bed in front of him, and at the moment that was all Sam cared about. Dean was hurt, there was no question there, his body clad in only his jeans and covered with neat white bandages. The left side of his face was a myriad of blue and purple bruises, his head wrapped tightly, his cuts stitched almost professionally. He also had a brace on his left wrist and more then a few cracked ribs, and while he looked like he had been run over by a train, Sam was relieved when he discovered nothing life threatening. Except for the fact that Sam had been at the motel for over six hours, and his brother had yet to move a muscle.

Maybe it was the drugs coursing through his system, Sam continued to think as he rubbed his eyes, still staring at his brother's pale and bruised body, after all, morphine was pretty strong. But Dean's new found safety still wasn't enough to calm Sam's frayed nerves. Thing just didn't add up. Why hadn't someone just called him, or taken Dean to the hospital, why bring him here, to a nearly forgotten town hundreds of miles away from where he had disappeared. What the hell was with all the secrecy. And, instantly, Sam found a new loathing of one of his most hated phrases, 'need to know.'

It was stupid really, if it was happening and it effected you then, obviously, it was something that you needed to know. So, Sam thought, because at that moment he wanted his mind on anything else other then the problem at hand, 'need to know' was pointless, because if you knew enough to know that you needed to know, well then, he needed to know. He really did hate secrets.

Sam was brought out of his tail spinning mind when a soft groan, almost inaudible, sounded from the still form before him, his brother's eyes beginning to flutter weakly as consciousness regained its hold. Sam immediately made his way to his ailing brother, sitting softly by his side as he encouraged him to wake, to open his eyes, to show him that he was still part of the living.

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Sam, that's a stupid question."

"Yeah, but I'm still asking."

"I feel like something beat me over the head with a brick wall."

"By the looks of you, it did."

"Where the hell are we?"

"A motel."

"How the hell did we get here?" Dean asked, struggling against his own body, as he tried to get up.

"I was hoping you might be able to tell me." Sam began as he placed his hand against his brother's chest, immediately stopping the older man from rising.

"Well, I was a little beat to hell at the time. You can't remember?" Dean questioned, his eyes immediately surveying the man before him, searching for any sign of injury, a blow to the head he somehow missed.

"Dude, I'm not the one that found you."

"What?"

"I'm not the one that found you."

"Yeah, I heard you the first time." Dean retorted still staring down his younger brother. "Well."

"Well what?"

"Well, are you gonna tell me who found me, or just leave me to wonder?"

"I don't know who it was."

"You never saw them before?"

"No, I mean, I seriously don't know who it was, I just got a text message yesterday with this address." He finished, raising his arms in defeat, obviously just as confused as the injured man before him. "You didn't see anyone?"

"No. One minute I was standing next to you in a graveyard, the next I was in a cave somewhere getting my ass kicked. After that, well, I woke up to your ugly mug."

"You don't remember anything else? Not even what attacked you?"

"Didn't really see it. Did you call the number back?"

"I'm not an idiot, Dean. It was unavailable."

"Cool your jets." Dean mumbled as his eyes began to slide closed once again, the short conversation stealing away all of his new found energy. "So." He began, looking over himself, then to his brother.

"So, what?"

"Did you do this?" He asked, pulling loosely at the bandages around his ribs, almost as though he were afraid of the answer.

"Not me, it must have been your mysterious savior."

"Man." Dean mumbled again, a look somewhere between mortified and disgusted crossing his face. "I don't like strange people touching me."

"Well, I'm sure that whoever it was didn't really like touching you either."

"Shut up, bitch."

"Jerk." Sam answered, watching as his brother's tired eyes finally fell closed. He sat on the bed for a few more minutes, watching as Dean's chest rose and fell, listening to his soft snoring as he eased into sleep. He couldn't believe his luck, his brother obviously having been put through hell. But someone saved him, someone brought him here, bandaged him, and then called Sam. Someone knew enough not to get the hospitals involved, but still how to care for his brother.

And it suddenly dawned on him. 'K' was a hunter, or someone tied to the lifestyle. But at that moment, Sam thought as he pulled out his laptop, still sitting on his brother's bed, 'K' could be a raving lunatic for all he cared, as long as his brother was safe. He leaned his back against the headboard, taking one more look at his sleeping brother, before turning on the computer, research on his mind. But there was so much he wanted to know, and so little information, that he didn't know where to start.

Five hours later Sam was, if anything, more annoyed then when his Internet search began. From what he knew Valley was a typical small town with nothing much to offer except food and rest to the weary traveler. He also found that there were a lot of people who's name began with 'K'. From Kenny Abrone, to Kelly Zafros, K. Branding to K. Harrison, and hundreds more besides, there were just far to many to really mean anything. Besides, Sam thought dryly as he closed the computer, who's to say that 'K' was even from this area, they could have just been passing through. The young man again pushed the lingering sense that there was something he was missing from his mind and leaned over to wake his brother, worried about the man's long silence.

"Hey, wake up." He spoke softly as he shook his brother's arm gently, the older man's eyes fluttering slowly.

"Go away."

"You gotta wake up."

"Why?"

"Because, you need to eat something."

"No thanks."

"It wasn't up for debate."

"Dude, just leave me alone."

"Come on, Dean. Wake up."

"Uuhhh."

"I need to get some food in you, and I wanna check your bandages."

"Fine. What's for dinner?"

"Soup."

"Where'd you get that from?"

"It was left in the cupboard with our names on it, there was soda and water in the fridge, too."

"What the hell, was I rescued by Martha Steward?"

"From the looks of it."

"Hey, Sam." Dean began, as Sam went to the small kitchen to begin dinner, his senses spinning with each new discovery. Someone really had thought of everything. "I think we should go back to the grave, see if we can pick up the trail from there."

"Dude, I looked around there for six days, I couldn't find anything."

"Well then, where do you suggest we start, Samantha." Dean chided as he pulled his tired and sore body up the bed, resting his back against the headboard, his face twisting as he looked once more at the bandages. 'At least they left my pants on.' He thought sarcastically, shivering a bit in the cool room.

"Why don't we just count ourselves lucky and move on?"

"Sam!"

"Dean!"

"We can't just turn our backs on this."

"Why not. Look, hear me out. You're fine, I'm glad, but whoever found you obviously doesn't want us to find them."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"Not too much." He answered sheepishly. The truth of the matter was the it bothered him a lot. Dean was his brother, he should have been the one to find him, to save him, not some mysterious stranger that didn't even wait around to see if Sam found the motel.

"Sam."

"Fine. But can we at least wait till you're feeling better?"

"Nope, trail will get cold. Just make dinner, we can get going after that."

"Whatever."

"Did our mystery person leave anything?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, what's the name the room's under?"

"John Smith."

"Original. Maybe they dropped something?"

"No, I didn't find anything."

"Well, there has to be a trail somewhere, people don't just vanish."

Sam wanted to scream that they did, that he had, that their father had, but he remained silent, his mind falling on the note in his pockets, and the single letter it was signed with. His mind was telling him to pay attention, to be alert, to search. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why he was being so secretive, why he hadn't told his brother of the note. There was something about this place that Sam knew he should remember, something he was sure his brother would remember and he wanted to figure it out on his own. He needed to know, and he didn't need his older brother worrying about him while he searched for the truth.