Title: The Boys Went Down to Georgia

Author: Razorbackgal0225

Rating: PG-13--A little language, but that's all

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, cars or situations from Supernatural, but I sure wish I did. Anything you don't recognize is mine.

Author's Note: Thanks to the reviewers! You make me want to finish this!

The boys' day had been busy. They had gone to the scene of each attack, checking for any sign of supernatural activity. The EMF meters had shown zilch. Every place they had visited had been completely clean. Even Sam's 'spidey-sense' hadn't picked up anything. The only thing Sam had noticed was how easy it had been to sneak into Granger's Toy Store without the cashier knowing. This supported Sam's growing theory that maybe this wasn't a ghost with which they were dealing. Now, they were at the town's newspaper office, going through back issues, searching for anything that sounded as if it would fit the situation.

"Well, there goes that theory," Sam announced, seemingly out of nowhere.

Dean took his attention away the old newspaper he was reading and focused it on his brother across the table. "What theory? We had a theory?"

Sam rolled his eyes before answering. "Remember the kid that Tina Lloyd's mother mentioned? The one that got hit by the car in the Wal-Mart parking lot?" Dean nodded. "I can guarantee you that the boy Lilly and Tina saw before their attacks was not that kid."

"Let me guess," Dean commented, "The kid's remains were cremated so there's no way it could be his angry spirit."

"Nope," Sam replied. He handed an article to Dean, over the stacks of newspapers between them. It contained a picture of a sports team. "The boy that was hit by that car five years ago is now the star of the high school basketball team. He was knocked unconscious and had a broken leg, but he recovered nicely."

Dean frowned. "So there goes that theory," he repeated.

"You know," the younger man finally voiced his opinion, "maybe this isn't one of our type of cases. Maybe it is some random kid doing this. Or maybe it's overactive imaginations at work."

"No," Dean countered, rather vehemently. Sam was surprised by the strength of his response. "The description Lilly gave of the boy was much too detailed. It sounded exactly like ghost."

"Listen, I know she's a sweet girl, but we don't have any other corroborating evidence. Tina Lloyd is still in shock and," Sam paused and gestured at the newspapers stacked on the table, "we haven't found anything about a violent death of a little boy in the last 15 years."

"Hey," Dean argued, "just because you're using those college boy words, I know what you're saying." He stood from the table, obviously upset. "You don't believe Lilly."

"It's not that I don't believe her, Dean," Sam answered. "But you know as well as I do, that kids get confused and exaggerate. She might have not seen what she thought. And you saw yourself how easy it was to sneak into that toy store. Maybe that boy did the same thing."

Dean was shaking his head before Sam was finished speaking. "She wasn't confused. That boy she saw was a ghost. I know that as sure as I'm standing here."

If the kids that had been attacked weren't confused, Sam certainly was. Dean was stubborn to the point that once he made up his mind about a case it was almost impossible to convince him another solution was possible. This time, though, he was even more obstinate than usual. The instant connection he had made with Lilly was another issue with which Sam wasn't entirely clear. Lilly was about thirteen years younger than most girls that caught Dean's interest. Sam might have thought Dean was guilty of using the niece to impress the aunt, but that didn't seem to be the case. Before he had a chance to question his brother's motives, Dean spoke again.

"Let's go talk to Lilly again. If she gives a different story or you hear something that doesn't sound like our kind of case, then we'll head out of town tomorrow morning." Dean was already grabbing the Impala's keys off the table.

Sam had learned in twenty-three years of living with Dean that it was easier to give in at this junction than argue. He nodded and lifted himself out of the wooden chair. "Alright."

"Great," Dean responded, tossing the keys to himself as he left the room. "This time, I get to question Katie." He threw a cocky grin over his shoulder as he pushed the door to the parking lot open. Sam shook his head and reconsidered his earlier conclusion. Maybe it was the aunt.

Five minutes later, Dean pulled into Katie's driveway and put the Impala in park. He exited the car and forced himself not to rush to the porch. Dean had never been one for self-analyzing, and as such, he hadn't put a lot of thought into why he liked Lilly as much as he did. He only knew that Lilly was a sweet kid with a lot of spunk, something most of the kids today were lacking. She had been respectful to Sam and him, another trait that wasn't instilled in much of the younger generation. He hadn't even minded holding Belle, which spoke volumes. Especially to Sam.

The younger Winchester had been pondering this same issue since they had left Katie's house the day before. It wasn't unusual for Dean to be concerned about children involved in a case. His over-developed sense of 'big brotherness,' as Sam liked to call it, caused this. Lilly was special, though. Not only was Dean determined to protect the little girl, but he also appeared to genuinely like her. Sam continued to be perplexed by his older brother. Just when he thought he had seen all there was to Dean, another quirk would pop up.

Sam joined Dean at the front door of Katie's house and waited as Dean knocked. A few seconds later, they heard skipping footsteps approach the front door. Lilly pulled the door open and smiled at them through the screen door.

"Mr. Dean, Mr. Sam, you're back!" she exclaimed, happily.

Dean returned her grin. "I told you you'd see us again, munchkin. Can we come in?"

Katie heard Dean speaking and her heart began to pound. She had hoped that the men wouldn't come back to her house and that she wouldn't be forced to face them. She didn't exactly enjoy confrontations. If this had only involved her, she would have pretended she wasn't at home, or something equally evasive. But she had already had the pleasure of telling her sister that the men had been lying; she didn't want to have to tell Amanda she had been chicken as well. She took a deep breath and headed towards the front door.

As Lilly reached up to unlock the screen door, Katie walked into the hallway. "Lilly, honey, go upstairs." Her voice was much harsher than the day before, but trembled a little as she spoke. Three pairs of eyes, all confused, rested upon her. She stepped behind her niece and pulled her away from the door. "You heard me, upstairs. Now."

"Aunt Katie, what's wrong?" Lilly asked, her lip quivering a little.

"What's wrong is that I told you to go upstairs, and you haven't yet," Katie commanded. Lilly's expression changed to sullen as she took two shuffling steps toward the stairs. At that moment, she looked exactly like her mother had when Katie and Amanda's mom would order her to not play with her makeup. She realized her aunt wasn't going to relent, when Katie's eyebrows rose in frustration. Lilly stomped into the next room.

"Katie, is there something wrong?" Sam asked. Katie whirled back around to face the two men. Sam quickly noticed that the eyes that had been so warm and friendly the day before were now hot with anger. He involuntarily took a step backwards.

Even her southern drawl didn't soften her next words. "You could say there's something wrong. I found out the nice men I allowed to question my niece, my nine-year-old niece, lied to me. I called Wilson and Wilson today and they've never heard of either of you. Are you even private investigators? Or was everything you said a lie?"

Sam immediately began trying to work on a cover story to explain the glaringly obvious false identifies they had given her. Before he could get past 'we're undercover,' Dean was speaking.

"No, we're not private investigators, Katie. We did lie to you. But there was some truth to what we told you." This was obviously not what Katie had expected to hear, as she appeared slightly shocked. So did Sam. Katie recovered quicker.

"If you're not investigators, then what do you want with Lilly?" she asked, then raised a hand to cut off any answer she was about to receive. "You know what, no, I don't want to know. Just get off my porch and get out of our lives!" She put a hand on the door to shut it, but was stopped by Dean's response.

"Wait, Katie, we can explain." He took a step toward the screen door, causing Katie to take a matching step back. "We are investigating the accidents that have been happening. We are investigators, just not exactly like we said."

"Really, I would have never guessed." Her comment was heavily laced with sarcasm. "I don't care why you are here, I just want you gone."

The next words tumbled out of Sam's mouth before he could stop himself. "We think Lilly might have been attacked by a ghost." This time it was Dean's turned to be shocked. He hadn't expected Sam to spill that secret. In truth, Sam hadn't meant to say it. He wasn't even sure he believed it, but he had to tell Katie something to keep her from thinking they were kidnappers or worse. His explanation was met by a strangled laugh from Katie.

"A ghost? You've got to be kidding me? Oh, that's it, ya'll are just nuts. Get off of my porch, or I will call the police," Katie retorted. "I have nothing more to say to ya'll."

"Listen," Dean began. "We know this sounds weird, but after talking to Lilly, we think that the little boy she saw before the shelf fell might be a ghost. We're still trying to find out who or why, but that's what we think is happening."

It was evident that Katie was growing angrier and angrier with each passing minute. "You expect me to believe that a ghost is haunting my niece. And what, you're the ghost-busters?" she scoffed. "This is frickin' unbelievable. Just leave, now!"

Dean's voice was rising in volume to match Katie's. "If we leave now, you may never know what's going. Are you willing to risk more kids being hurt or worse?"

Katie huffed at this idea. "Don't even try to lay some kind of weird guilt trip on me. For all I know, ya'll have something to do with these accidents. If you don't want to end up in jail, I suggest you never show your face in this town again."

Before Dean could make another response, Sam put a restraining hand on his arm. Dean turned to look at his brother, and Sam tried to make a smooth exit. "We're sorry, Katie, we'll be going." He tugged on Dean's arm, hard enough to force the older man to take step toward the stairs leading away from the house. The slamming of the door as soon as they left the porch put a period at the end of the conversation.

Katie leaned up against the door she had just shut and let out a shaky breath. She could not believe that those guys had tried to convince her that a ghost was involved in Lilly's accident. Like she even believed ghosts were real. She didn't know what kind of freaks Sam 'Teague' and Dean 'Ross' were, but she was glad they were finally gone.

Dean was muttering under his breath the whole walk back to the Impala. Sam knew this wasn't going to be a pleasant ride back to the motel. At least, he hoped they would still be able to go to the motel. If Katie followed through with her threat of contacting the authorities, the possibility existed that they would be run out of town. It had certainly happened before. As Sam climbed into the passenger seat, Dean turned the key violently to start the car and then hit the steering wheel.

"Damn it!" he yelled. Sam waited; knowing more was on the way. Dean continued his rant as he backed out of the driveway. "What the hell were you thinking, telling her the truth like that?"

"What was I supposed to do?" Sam defended himself. "She obviously was thinking the worst of us. I'm surprised she didn't greet us with a shotgun. Or have some nice police officers waiting on us."

Dean let out a loud sigh. "Now there's no way we're going to be able to talk to Lilly again. And that puts us back at square one."

Sam did not know how to put his next idea without getting a negative reaction out of his brother. Although with Dean driving, that did lower the risk of getting punched in the shoulder. "Dean, I'm seriously beginning to wonder if we need to stick around."

"What?" Dean practically shouted. "Are you kidding me? You know what's going to happen if we don't send this ghost to hell. It's going to kill someone."

"Other than sketchy accounts from children, what do we have to go on? We've been through fifteen years of news from this town and haven't found one story about a kid dying in a violent way." Sam pushed a hand through his shaggy hair. "I know I told Katie that it was a ghost, but honestly, I'm just not convinced."

This time it was Dean who showed his frustration. He scrubbed his hand over his face. "One more day, alright? One more day and if we don't find anything, we'll show this town our taillights."

Sam contemplated this deal for a moment. Then he nodded in agreement. "Alright. One more day." He opened his mouth as if to continue, but didn't. Dean saw this out of the corner of his eye and commented,

"What? Anything else you want to tell me?"

It was obvious that Sam was hesitant to finish his thought. "I just hope you're not doing this out of some misguided need to be every kid's big brother. Cause you know you don't have to."

"Oh God," Dean mumbled bitterly. "You've already told me I'm wrong today, can we skip the Oprah moment?"

The younger man chuckled. "No Oprah moment." He skipped a beat before adding, "Right now."