Author's Note: Sorry for the long delay and thanks to everyone who reviewed! Here's the next chapter and, again, I'm sorry it took so long. I've been swamped at school, but hopefully I'll be able to write more often now. Anyway, I'll stop blathering and let you read; with only a friendly little reminder to please review once you're done! Thanks.

Chapter Six: R and R

Dean helped Dani into her bedroom, laying her back onto her bed as gently as was humanly possible. Sam emerged from her bathroom holding in his hands the first aid kit that she had purchased when she had first moved in. Another lesson from the boys' dad: always have medical supplies on-hand. Dean helped her out of her coat, wincing when he heard her sharp intake of breath at the surge of pain that he knew she must be feeling. Knowing what they had to do next, he raised his eyebrows at Sam, who responded with a helpless look accompanied by a 'what else can we do' shrug of his wide shoulders. Dean nodded and came around to kneel in front of Dani as she sat up.

"Hey, Dani." He said, "This is, uh, this is probably gonna make you uncomfortable, but it has to be done."

"What?" Dani asked, giving him a sideways look.

"Me and Sam, we gotta clean up those cuts." He explained.

Dani nodded, not entirely certain as to why that should make her uncomfortable. Then, Dean reached forward and started unzipping her bloodstained sweater and it dawned on her…more like it whacked her upside the head. Sam sat down beside her on the bed and opened the first aid kit. Dani achingly shrugged her shoulders out of the jacket and Dean helped her peel it down her arms.

"Okay, lift your arms." Dean commanded softly, his voice low and soothing.

Hesitating for just a moment, Dani obeyed, raising her arms up painfully over her head. Dean took hold of the hem of her once white tee shirt and ever so gently slid it up over her head, his frown deepening with every whimper that escaped her lips.

"You know, if you boys wanted to get me naked, all you had to do was ask." She said weakly, attempting to make light of the situation.

But, her arms and torso were riddled with cuts and gashes. The wounds on her throat, head, and wrists from the sharp metal bindings were deep. There wasn't a sexual thought in the air as they all took in the severity of the damage that had been done to her body. Dean straightened, still holding the blood dampened tee shirt in his hands. He tossed it to the floor with her sweater and felt his jaw involuntarily tighten as he looked down at her. She looked small and bruised and battered beyond repair; in that instant she resembled a broken toy doll.

The corners of Sam's mouth were tipped downward as he struggled to swallow the lump in his throat. Neither he nor his brother had known this girl for very long, but there was something there; something about her that made every protective instinct in him come to life. It was happening to Dean, as well; like earlier when he had leapt from the Impala before it had even come to a complete stop because he saw that guy slam Dani into the wall. Sam couldn't remember the last time he had seen his brother react that way to something that wasn't a demon of some sort.

And now, she was sitting there in her bra, half naked, trembling and vulnerable, with blood covering sixty percent of her upper body. It looked like someone had taken a carving knife to her stomach, the skin was peeled back from her wrists, her neck was bruised and purple, there were three long slashes diagonally across her chest disappearing beneath the fabric of her bra along with another pair of cuts that were just peaking out from under the waistband of her jeans. The nature of the wounds suggested a severely perverse sadistic sexual kind of torture. Sam dug through the first aid kit in search of alcohol and peroxide.

"Lay back." Dean said.

Dani looked up at him, her chin quivering, "Why didn't we go back?"

"What?" Dean asked.

"I told you, I know where Tate's buried." She said, blinking back her tears and struggling to control the tremor in her voice, "I wanna know why you didn't go back and finish it."

"Dani," Sam said, bringing her scowling face to his direction, "you couldn't go back in there."

"Well, now I'm gonna have to go back in there!" She retorted, her jaw clenching as she spoke, tears overflowing from her eyes and streaming down her cheeks.

Dean cleared his throat and Dani's gaze snapped back to him. "Lay back, Dani." He said, his voice taking on a firmer tone.

Despite the fact that she still hadn't gotten the answers that she wanted, Dani felt the fight drain out of her. Her shoulders dropped about an inch and she averted her eyes to the other side of the room before easing herself down onto the flat of her back. Every movement that she made felt like it was ripping her apart.

Dean studied the cuts on her abdomen. They hadn't clotted yet; blood was still oozing from them, running down her sides and adding to the steadily growing stain on her jeans. He ducked into her bathroom and came back out with a towel in hand. Girls tended to be particular about their bedspreads and he didn't want her to ruin hers. He knelt down by her side and slid his hand under her back.

"Can you arch your back a little?" he asked, softening his tone as much as he could.

She nodded and lifted her hips from the bed, squeezing her eyelids tightly together, her lips tightening into a thin line, her face giving away how much the effort hurt. Dean supported her back as much as he could with one hand as he tucked the towel in underneath her with the other. He felt something brush his fingers at the small of her back, so once he let go of the towel, he took hold of it and pulled it out from behind her. It was her gun. She had had it on her the entire time and been unable to use it. He gently lowered her back down onto the mattress and looked up at his brother, his eyebrows drawn together in unease.

"Sammy." He said.

Sam nodded as he poured some peroxide onto a cotton pad and pivoted on the bed so that his body was facing her.

"I'm not gonna lie to you," Sam said, "this is gonna sting."

He touched the pad to one of her open wounds and Dani sucked in a gasp of air through gritted teeth, the muscles in her stomach involuntarily clenching up in protest. Dean's hand was suddenly on the top of her head, stroking her hair. It took Sam over an hour to get all of the cuts on her body cleaned and bandaged. Then, he and Dean helped her change into a pair of baggy sweats and a tee shirt that had, according to her, belonged to an old boyfriend and was about three sizes too large. She slipped into bed and within minutes, she was lost in a fitful sleep. She slept because her body needed rest and shut itself down; but she wouldn't find any comfort there. She would start and whimper and cry out as her poor mind was tormented by overwhelming nightmares. Dean and Sam knew that she was in for a long night.

Sam gently shut Dani's bedroom door behind him after checking on her for the fifth time just as Dean moved the coffee table out of the way so that they could pull out the sofa. Sam turned to his brother, his arms crossed over his chest and concern etching a deep line in his forehead.

Dean jerked the bed out of the sofa a little harder than necessary as he said, "I should have been paying better attention to her."

"The way you guys say things happened, it doesn't sound like there was anything you could have done to stop it." Sam said, crossing over to the bed and unfolding the same blankets that they had used the previous night.

"Maybe we shouldn't have taken her there." Dean went on, shaking his head at himself.

"It could pay off." Sam reasoned, "She said she knows where the bones are. Tomorrow, she'll tell us where they're buried and we'll go torch them. She doesn't have to come with us to do that."

"Yeah." Dean said, but he still looked upset with himself. That was just Dean though. He carried the weight of the world on those shoulders of his. If somebody got hurt, he felt that it was his job to have saved them. When Sam and John used to fight, he was always the one to try and keep the peace between them. Not to mention he had taken on the role of protector for Sam at the tender age of four; and that had never changed in his eyes.

"Oh!" Sam exclaimed suddenly, "With everything that was going on, I almost forgot!"

"What's up?" Dean asked, shrugging out of his over shirt.

"This." Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the three ribbons that the little girl had given to him, "When I was searching upstairs, I ran into a spirit; a little girl."

Dean walked over to him and took the ribbons from his hand in order to examine them closer.

"She gave those to me and…and asked me to help her." Sam said.

"How can you help her, Sam?" Dean said, giving him a sideways look, "She's dead."

"Yeah, I know, but…Dean, it was weird. I wanted to help her. I mean, I felt like I needed to help her." Sam explained, trying to find the words to best describe what he had been feeling with the girl.

"Why would she give you these?" Dean asked, holding up the ribbons.

Sam shook his head accompanied with a shrug of his shoulders, "Your guess is as good as mine."

"All right," Dean said, dropping the colorful ribbons down onto the coffee table, "We're not gonna learn anything new tonight. Let's get some sleep and we'll stew over all this some more tomorrow."

"Yeah." Sam said, stripping his sweatshirt off over his head.

The wretched beeping of her alarm clock sounded, dragging Dani out of the even more wretched nightmare that she had been having. She opened her eyes and swatted at it; her body felt just as tired as it had before she had fallen into the restless sleep. She eyed the white gauze taped to her wrist and groaned. She looked like a suicide patient. She pulled herself into a sitting position and tongued at the split in her lower lip. She pushed the covers off of her and slowly swung her legs over the side of the mattress, every joint in her body screaming in protest as she did so. Even brushing her teeth was agonizing.

When she finally emerged from the bedroom, she couldn't help but smile at what she found. The guys were still asleep. Dean was on his stomach, his head at the foot of the bed. Sam was curled up on his side, clutching a pillow tightly over his head. Dean stirred and his eyelids fluttered open. He stretched his arms out along with his legs, kicking Sam in the head in the process. Sam grunted and threw the pillow that was covering his face at his brother. A laugh burst from Dani's mouth and both of the guys' movements stilled, then they each slowly turned to look at her.

"Morning, boys." She said, her voice raspy from sleep…and strangulation.

"Hey, how you feelin'?" Dean greeted her, climbing to his feet, the sheet falling away revealing that he was wearing nothing but boxers.

Dani quickly turned her face to the floor as her cheeks instantly blushed bright red. She was trying to pretend that the image of his taut toned stomach muscles weren't going to stay with her for the rest of her life.

"Uhm" she stuttered, "I feel…stiff. Achy."

"I'll bet." Sam commented, also getting out of the bed.

She heard the sound of a zipper and glanced up just as Dean was pulling a black tee shirt on over his head. She walked over to the fluffy arm chair and eased herself into it. Sam, who was thankfully clad in a pair of sweats and a tee shirt, went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Dean set to straightening up the couch. If she didn't know what she knew about them, they could have almost passed for being domesticated.

"All of the cuts were pretty much superficial." Dean explained, tossing the pillows into the floor, "They hurt like hell, but they won't leave any permanent damage. Shouldn't even scar too badly."

"Well, that's good news." Dani said dryly, "Now all I have to do is figure out how to explain to the guys at work why I look like a human carving board."

"I hope you don't think you're going to work today." Sam called from the kitchen.

"I have to go to work." She replied, "I missed yesterday."

"Dani," Sam said as he came back into the living room, "you need to stay in bed."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, "you need to rest for at least a day."

"You just said that the wounds were superficial." Dani said.

"Well, yeah, but your body still needs time to heal." Dean responded.

She opened her mouth to argue further, but was cut off when Sam said, "Don't bother. I'm calling you in."

She looked up at him just in time to watch him stalking into her kitchen with her cordless phone in his hand. Reading her work number off of the paper hanging from her refrigerator door by a magnet, he dialed and put the phone up against her ear. Dani laughed out of incredulity and dropped her head into her hands. She was suddenly struck by the image of the Winchester brothers as two F5 tornados; swirling through her world and leaving nothing untouched in their wake.

"Great," she muttered, "so if I stay in bed all day, am I going to be in good enough shape to go back to the mansion with you tonight?"

"You're not going back." Dean stated in a tone that told her there was no room for dispute on the subject.

She ignored that tone, "I have to go back. We have to get rid of Tate Hughs's remains."

"Yeah, we will." Dean said, "As in, me and Sam will. All you have to do is tell us where they are."

"I'm not exactly sure." Dani replied.

Sam entered from the kitchen and handed her a mug of coffee, his brow furrowed in confusion, "But, you said last night that you knew where the bones were."

"Yeah, I know what part of the house they're in, but I don't know their exact location." She told him, taking a small sip of coffee, relishing the soothing sensation of the hot liquid sliding down her sore throat.

"Well," Sam continued, handing Dean a cup as well, "what part of the house are they in?"

Dani looked from one Winchester to the other, hesitating on her answer for a beat too long, "The basement."

Dean burst into laughter that held no real humor, "Well, you're sure as hell not going back down there."

"You don't get it." She argued, "I need to be there. I need to be able to walk around. I need to feel them out."

"No." Sam said, shaking his head.

"Look," she said quietly, "I don't want to go back…"

"Good." Dean interrupted her, "Then it's settled."

Dani let out a frustrated sigh. She may as well have been arguing with a couple of brick walls for all the good this was doing her. Dean set his coffee cup down on the end table by the edge of the couch and replaced the coffee table where it belonged. After that was done, he and Sam returned to the kitchen and began rummaging through her cabinets in search of something to eat for breakfast.

"There are bagels in the bottom drawer of the fridge." She called to them just before her eye caught sight of the color strips of silk lying on the corner of her oak coffee table. With a great deal more effort that should have been necessary, she leaned forward in her chair and reached for them, "Hey, guys, what are these?"

Dean and Sam looked over at her just as her fingers caught hold of the ribbons.

Giggling. Light brown pigtailed ringlets tied up with pink ribbons. Playing with a golden ball. Twirling around, faster and faster and faster until the whole world seemed to spin. More laughter; laughing with…sisters.

Small and chubby round cheeks. Clutching a brown teddy bear. Golden curls, half tied back with a blue ribbon. Chasing crickets and butterflies. Laughing. Everything seemed new and fresh.

Tall and slender. Pale skin. Elegant. The smell of fresh powder and sweet perfume. A coy smile and flirtatious bat of the eyes. A delicate yellow ribbon tied around a long slim neck.

Golden ball bouncing downstairs…stairs that lead…to the cellar.

Crying. Screaming. Begging for death.

Dani opened her eyes with a gasp to find herself on the floor with Sam and Dean kneeling on either side of her.

"Dani?" Sam asked, "Are you okay?"

"The Wyatts." She rasped, looking sharply at him as tears began to pool in her eyes.

"What?" Sam responded, sharing a look with Dean.

"Where, where, where did you get these?" she asked, holding up the ribbons; her words spilling from her mouth quickly, borderline panicked.

"Um, at the house." Sam answered vaguely.

"Why?" Dean asked, trying not to seem like he was pressing her for information.

Dani felt so sad all of the sudden, "They belonged to the Wyatt sisters."

"How do you know?" Sam asked, unable to mask how anxious he was to hear her reply.

"Because, I saw them." Dani said, tears falling in a steady flow from her eyes, "We couldn't find out anything about them because they disappeared in that house. That's why old man Wyatt left and never came back. He knew that something was wrong with that house. That's why no one ever moved in and why they never sold it. They didn't want the same thing to happen to anyone else." She held up the pink ribbon, "This one was Katherine's. She was the first one he took. When she was ten, she had a gold ball that she played with and it rolled down the stairs to the basement." She exchanged the pink ribbon for the blue one, "This one belonged to Lilian, who was five and followed her big sister everywhere because she wanted to be just like her. She even followed her to the basement." Her voice cracked with each word as she held up the yellow ribbon, "And this one was Elizabeth's. She was the one he really wanted. She was sixteen and so beautiful…she raced to the basement when she heard…when she heard her baby sisters' screams."

"You said the pink one belonged to Katherine and she was ten?" Sam asked.

Dani nodded, laying the ribbons out on the table in front of her and staring at them sadly.

"I told Dean last night, I got those from the spirit of a little girl. I didn't think she could be much older than eleven. Guess I was off by a year." He said dryly.

"He said she asked him to help her." Dean added.

Dani looked at them wide eyed, "He's got them trapped there?"

"Makes sense." Dean said, putting things together in his head, "Maybe all those deaths you feel…maybe they're his victims."

"From life and death." Sam continued.

The phantom tingle from the surge of energies she had felt in the mansion coursed through her and Dani added up how many people would have to have died in order to project that much force. "We have to go back." She said, "We have to help them."

"You're right, we do." Dean nodded, "But not you."

"But…"

"No!" Dean cut off her protest before it even began, "This psycho tried to add you to his collection! You're not going anywhere near that house!"

"He's right, Dani." Sam concurred with his brother's statement, "We can't let you go back with us. Come on, let's put you back to bed."

He helped her to her feet and walked her back into her bedroom so that she could rest. When he reemerged from the bedroom, Dean was pacing back and forth, tugging at his lower lip which was never a good sign. Sam shut the door gingerly and sat down on the couch.

"So, what are we thinking?" he asked.

"I'm thinking we gotta go back into that damn basement." Dean answered.

"Yep." Sam said with a nod.

"And I don't think we should waste any time in getting it done." He went on.

Sam looked up at him, "You took the words right out of my mouth."

With that decided, the Winchester boys went to work doing what they did best. They spent the majority of the day cleaning and checking their weapons; making sure that they had enough salt and lighter fluid, that kind of thing. Occasionally, Dani emerged from her bedroom for a glass of water or something to eat, but she more or less did what they instructed and stayed in bed. It was late afternoon when Dean finally decided that it was time for them to leave. They both pulled on their coats and shared an acknowledging stare before slipping soundlessly from the apartment; not wanting to disturb Dani's rest if by some chance she had in fact managed to fall back to sleep.

Dani padded across her bedroom floor to the door, grumbling a stream of obscenities under her breath, not the least of which were curses directed at whoever it was that was pounding on the door to her apartment. She had known when the guys had left; true enough, they had made practically no noise, but she had sensed their absence…like a loss of warmth and security. She hadn't been able to fall back asleep for worrying about those two nitwits. Now, someone had come around banging on the damn door. On the bright side of things, her body seemed to be moving a lot better. Maybe the bed-rest thing really did help. Who would have guessed?

She swung open the front door, forgetting how rough she looked, and came face to face with Liv. Liv gasped at the sight of her, her bright brown eyes widening to the size of small plates as she took in her friend's appearance.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, "Did Eddie do this to you?"

"No. No." Dani said, shaking her head, "I had an accident."

"With what, a barbed wire fence?" Liv spat.

"I'll tell you about it later. What's up?"

"Oh, well, I came to invite you to go with me and Janie and Todd." Liv said, "We're gonna go get drunk at the old haunted mansion and see if we can spot old man Wyatt, but you look a little…beat."

"Liv, don't go to that house!" Dani pleaded, grabbing her friend by the front of her fluffy white winter coat that always made Dani think of the marshmallow man from the movie Ghostbusters.

"Oh, come on, Dani." Liv giggled, "I know the place gave you the heebie-jeebies when it was just you and me, but this time we have Todd. He's a big, tough man!"

"Liv…" Dani began, but Liv held up her hand to silence her.

"Look, Dani, I know you're upset. I gotta go. I'll call you tomorrow, kay."

"Wait!" Dani called as Liv started to walk away, "Just let me get dressed."

"Yes! That's my girl!" Liv cheered, clapping her hands, "You rock! Hurry up!"

Dani hurriedly got pulled on a pair of jeans, wincing at every stiff joint and muscle and letting out a quiet whimper whenever she brushed against her bandaged torso. She changed into a long sleeved shirt and then stepped into her hiking boots. Her eyes landed on her dresser where Dean had set her handgun last night. A lot of good it had done her then; but tonight she had Liv to worry about. She grabbed the gun and tucked it once again into the back of her jeans. On her way out the bedroom door, she pulled on a vintage black leather coat that hung down to her knees. It had once belonged to her mother and Dani had always considered it to be sort of a good luck charm…and once Sam and Dean found her in that house again, they were gonna be pissed and she had the feeling that she was going to need all the luck she could get.

Author's Note: That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to let me know!