"I don't get it, Garth." They'd checked into the motel Garth was staying at and were now going over his latest case. Sam sifted through a pile of notes spread across the dinette table while Dean chowed down on take-out pizza. "There's no missing kids, no suspicious deaths, no evidence of foul play… Are you sure these hunter friends of yours didn't just bail on you? Because, honestly, I'm not seeing a case here."

"Sam, I'm telling you, whatever this thing is, it's smart." Garth selected several pages of notes from the heap of evidence. Dog-eared on one side and torn on the other, the papers had clearly been ripped from a hunter's journal. "These are Angie Daly's initial notes. The first victim we know of was her cousin's daughter. Normal, happy family," Garth went on. "Mom, dad, two kids… Until one day, mom goes nuts, starts insisting her daughter isn't really her daughter. Says she's been taken over by some kind of monster."

"That's the kind of crazy talk that'll get you locked up in a padded cell," Dean opined between bites of pepperoni, double-cheese pizza.

Sam frowned at him. "Except her cousin Angie, the hunter, believed her story," he surmised.

"Yep." Garth nodded.

"It still doesn't add up. Leviathans absorb all the thoughts and memories of the people they shapeshift into," Sam argued. "If a Levi really had taken the little girl, Angie's cousin wouldn't have suspected a thing."

"And she didn't. Until," Garth said triumphantly, "she just happened to see her sweet, innocent little daughter devour one of the neighbors."

"Huh. That would make you wonder about the kid," Sam had to agree.

"Where's the missing persons report on the neighbor?" Dean asked.

"Wasn't one. Apparently the guy was some kind of Deadhead or something, you know, one of those free spirit, Jack Kerouac On the Road types."

"So when he went missing everybody figured he'd gone off following Phish on tour?" Sam reasoned.

Garth nodded. "Something like that, yeah. Nobody believed the mother of the little girl, that's for sure."

"So why didn't Angie gank the Big Mouth?" Dean wanted to know. "What went wrong?"

"The Leviathan must have realized a hunter was on to it. The whole family just disappeared. Here, these are Angie's notes of interviews with other family members." Garth passed the page across the table to Dean.

"Says here the husband told everyone they were going to check mom into some kind of private psychiatric hospital and rent an apartment nearby so they could visit," Dean read aloud.

"That was the story, but Angie wasn't able to track them down after the move. Nobody's heard from any of them since," Garth explained. "Angie figured the Leviathan made a snack of the whole family and then moved on."

"And then Angie disappeared, too?"

"She was convinced the Levi was operating out of the local grade school, so she forged some credentials and got a job as a substitute teacher."

Sam's frown was back. "Bad idea. If she was close with her cousin and the kid, the Leviathan would have already known exactly who she really was."

Garth nodded. "And it would have a heads up on the next hunter to come nosing around looking for Angie."

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

"I'll just make copies of the boys' records, Mr…"

"Fitzgerald," Garth supplied, bobbing his head in an eager nod.

"All right, then, Mr. Fitzgerald. Mrs. Hansen, the principal, will be with you right after morning announcements." The secretary took the fake school records Sam had created and bustled out of the office, leaving the three hunters to look around curiously.

There was the typical large wooden desk with two upholstered chairs pulled up in front of it. Garth and Dean took seats, leaving Sam to slip behind the desk. The wheeled desk chair was much too large for him and his sneakered feet swung back and forth as he swiftly scrolled through the principal's files.

"Well, there's no record of communiques from Dick Roman or anything else that screams 'Leviathan'," he said dryly.

Dean had just swiped a piece of candy from the decorative jar on the desk when the PA system crackled. A feminine voice, presumably the principal's, announced, Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Garth leapt to his feet, head swiveling on his skinny neck until he located the small American flag on display on one wall. He snapped to attention, right hand over his heart, raising his eyebrows at Sam and Dean when they remained seated.

"Up, up," Garth whispered urgently, gesturing at them.

"Are you serious?" Dean slouched in his chair and rolled his eyes.

"The Fitzgeralds are patriots," Garth hissed, grabbing his wayward 'son' by the arm and forcing him to his feet. Dean sighed and brought one hand up to his forehead in a mock salute as the familiar morning recitation came over the loudspeaker. Sam hopped down from the desk chair and placed his hand over his heart, dutifully mouthing the words. The Pledge was followed by a moment of silence and then the usual school-related announcements. Garth listened intently.

"Oh! It's pizza day." He frowned, worried, and began patting the pockets of his jacket, hunting for cash. "Dean, do you want pizza instead of home lunch?"

"It's okay, Garth. School cafeteria pizza tastes like ass," Dean reassured him.

"It's 'Dad'," Sam cautioned. The announcements had ended and the click-click of high heels on linoleum signaled the approach of the principal.

"And watch your language," Garth added.

"Mr. Fitzgerald. I'm Mrs. Hansen," the voice from the announcements, now attached to a slender woman in her late fifties, said warmly, offering a hand to Garth, who shook it with enthusiasm. "And these must be your sons, Dean and Sam."

"Yes, ma'am," Sam replied politely. He and Garth both instinctively turned to Dean, glaring at him and quelling any remark he might have made. Moving to take her seat behind her desk, Mrs. Hansen didn't seem to notice.

"Please, sit down. We just have a few forms to fill out."

Garth reached for Sam, pulling him onto his lap.

"Gar—" Sam began to protest, but then, remembering his role, he amended it to, "Dad! I'm a big boy, remember?" He squirmed out of Garth's arms to stand beside the chair while Dean snickered and the principal chuckled indulgently. Sam glowered. This was already the worst first day of school ever.

Author's note: Thanks to CommChatter and GrammarDemon for this fic's very first reviews!