The first lesson Kat ever learned when she moved in with her grandmother was to never, ever mess with the Fae. Never invite them anywhere, never make deals with them, and she knew multiple ways to escape from them. If anything else, you give them gifts to earn their good graces and keep them from meddling with your life. Dean had never seen her do this, but she made sure to leave little offerings for any nearby Fae wherever they were. In fact, when she went with Sam and Dean to Scotland to help Bobby get his soul back, she made a point to leave some special gifts for them when they were digging up Crowley's human body, because...well ...Scotland. Thus far, they had avoided any and all contact with the Fae, something that Kat was eternally grateful for.

Until Elwood, Indiana.

The small town had Three missing persons cases just in recent months. As the Winchesters asked around for information, more people were saying that it was UFO abductions...except for one lady, who insisted it was fairies.

"Fairies?" Dean repeated when the older woman told them that. "Okay. Well, thank you for your input."

"What, flying saucers not insane enough for you?" Sam asked.

"What newspaper did you say you worked for?" the lady asked in return.

"Okay, if you want to add glitter to the glue you're sniffing, that's fine, but don't dump your whackadoo all over us. We'd rather not step in it," Sam snipped.

"Okay, we're done," Dean said, trying to pull his brother away.

"The only thing you're missing is a couple dozen cats, sister," Sam continued.

"It's a blood sugar thing. My apologies," Dean said with a smile as he finally managed to guide Sam away from the woman.

"What?" Sam asked when they were walking.

"What, you gotta ask?" Dean said...then remembered. "Right, yes, you do have to ask."

"Look, I'm sorry, but this is all a big joke, right, and we're not actually taking this UFO crap seriously?" Sam said.

"No, man," Dean agreed. "ET is made of rubber, everybody knows that. But there are Three legitimate vanishings in this town. Something's going on. And Sam? By the way, it's not the lady's fault that she took the brown acid."

"Yeah, so?"

"Empathy, man, empathy," Dean chided. "I mean, the old Sam would have given her some wussified, dew-eyed crap."

"Old Sam had a soul….was a soul...whatever," Sam said, rolling his eyes.

"Right! Yes, and...but you don't...aren't...whatever."

"Right."

"Right….you don't care."

"Well-

"You have to care," Dean insisted.

"About what exactly?" Sam fired back.

"About everything, man!" Dean cried, slowly losing hope for the conversation.

"Look, Dean. You obviously care a lot and that's great. But I can't care about...what I can't care about, you know? What do you want me to do, fake it?"

"Yes! Absolutely! Fake it! Fake it 'till you make it!"

"What happened to you wanting me to be all honest?" Sam said.

"Hey, you wanna be a real boy, Pinnochio, you gotta act the part," Dean replied.

"I was faking it, Dean!" Sam cried. "Ever since we got back on the road together, I was picking every freaking word. It's exhausting."

"Okay, all right," Dean sighed. "But until we get you back on the soul train, I'll be your conscience, okay? Kat, help me out here." Kat started when Dean said her name. She had been in a daze this whole time, only partially listening to the conversation.

"What?" she said, looking between him and Sam.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked. "You seem...distracted,"

"Yeah, I'm good. Sorry, I was just doing some thinking," Kat said. In reality, she was heavily pondering what that woman had said about fairies. Would it surprise her if they were active in this town? Absolutely not. That said, she had gone a very long time without having to deal with them, and it seemed to her that she was going to have to deal with them now. She climbed in the car with the boys and they headed to interview their next possible person.

They walked into Brennan's Watchworks, and were greeted by an older man who definitely fit the look of a watchmaker: graying hair, sweater, and special glasses that magnified whatever he was looking at in order to see the tiny inner workings of whatever watch he was working on.

"Mr. Brennan?" Sam called as they walked in.

"Mmm?" the man said, looking up from what he was working on.

"We're from the Mirror, we would like to ask you…"

"What? Is this about Patrick? Patrick's gone!" Brennan said a little too quickly before turning back to his work.

"Missing, right," Dean said, frowning slightly. "Yes, that's what we want to talk to you about." Brennan sighed, but continued to work.

"Now, your son was the first to disappear," Sam stated, opening his notepad.

"First to be taken," Brennan corrected, seemingly without thinking.

"Taken," Sam repeated, looking at his siblings. Brennan froze, took off his glasses and started waving at them.

"Get out! OUT!" he ordered, walking past them.

"Mr. Brennan, who do you believe took your son?" Kat said, trying to redirect him as they followed.

"You people can't help me," Brennan cried. "My boy is never coming back."

"You sound awfully sure," Sam commented.

"Excuse me?" he asked, confused at the comment.

"Like you know something you're not talking about," Sam went on.

"Okay, all right," Dean said, stepping in to try and move Sam away.

"You know what they say," Brennan pointed out, starting to sound a little tired. "72 hours. After that, the odds of finding a missing person drop to nothing, right?" Kat took a second to study the man. He was very worried about his son, but he had almost moved on to mourning. He was dead certain that his son wasn't coming home...but she couldn't put her finger on why. She had a feeling that he knew, but getting him to say anything was probably going to take some measures that she knew Dean would be unwilling to take.

"Well, every case is different," Dean said. Brennan stammered for a minute, then sighed.

"It's been weeks," he said weakly. Dean looked at his brother and handed Brennan a number on a business card.

"All right, listen, call us if anything comes to mind." Dean stopped Sam before he opened his mouth, and the three of them left the shop.

"What do you guys think?" Sam asked when they were outside.

"I think he's hiding something," Dean said. Kat nodded her agreement. "Why don't you stay and watch Watchmaker and see what happens when the sun goes down, and Kat and I will go check out the crop circles."

"Okey dokey," Sam replied, a little too cheery.

"But DO NOT engage with, maim or in any way kill Brennan. In fact, I don't want you making any judgment calls whatsoever. Anything happens, call me," Dean added, and the two of them went to get in the car.

"You know, Jiminy," Sam called, making a reference to the cricket from Pinnochio. "I was on my own for a whole year. I did fine without you."

"Yeah, I don't want to know your definition of fine," Kat mumbled.

Dean and Kat headed out to a field where some of the crop circles were. They were looking around when Dean's phone rang, startling both of them.

"What?" he sighed when he answered.

"The only thing this guy is up to is alcoholism," Sam's voice said from the phone.

"Good."

"You know, maybe I should go talk to him," Sam continued. "I mean, you're the one who said he's hiding something." Dean wasn't listening. He and Kat were looking around frantically, hearing whirring noises. They both pulled out their guns and looked around. Dean shushed his little brother. "What? You see something? Dean, what's up?" Sam asked.

"Hang on a second," Dean whispered. Suddenly, a beam of light started coming toward them. They looked up to see a huge light in the shape of a flying saucer, humming and whirring as it came towards them. They stared for a moment before their senses took over and they started running. "UFO! UFO!" Dean cried as they started running. Kat could barely hear Sam as they were running. "Close encounter!" Dean was shouting into the phone. "They're after me!" He paused for a moment, then pulled the phone away from his ear. "Empathy Sam! Empathy!" They became separated in the cornfield for a moment. Kat looked around before hearing Dean shout, "Come on!" She ran towards the sound and the light, but got there just in time to see the light flare and Dean disappear, his phone dropping to the ground.

"Dean?" she called, still looking. "DEAN!" She grabbed the phone and put it to her ear frantically. "Sam, they got him! You need to get out here now!"

Sam came and got a frantic Kat and the two of them headed to the campground where a group of UFO chasers were living. They had interviewed a couple of them in town, and the one in charge, Wayne, had told them where his group was camped out. There was a mix of RVs and converted school buses, each one decorated with some sort of alien-related art. A few of them had maps of sightings all over the country, and others were routinely checking telescopes aimed at different points of the night sky. Wayne, a balding man with glasses, was sitting in front of his own RV in a camp chair, legs propped up on a table with a lantern, reading a book. If Kat wasn't so worried about Dean, the way Wayne seemed to be expecting them would have completely unnerved her.

"So, they're real? UFOs?" Sam asked him as they walked.

"Like I said before, son, the truth is out there," Wayne said, gesturing to the night sky.

"Okay, you're the expert. How do I get them?" Sam continued.

"Come again?" Wayne said, standing and taking off his glasses.

"You hunt aliens, right?" Kat asked, jumping into the conversation. "We need to know how to get them."

"You and me both," Wayne chuckled. He handed Sam a small packet of research, a few pages of paper stapled together in the corner. It reminded both of the Winchesters of research papers they had to do in college.

"This is it?"

"Well, I'd say 30 years of eyewitness accounts speak for themselves as incontrovertible proof-" Wayne began explaining, a little put off by Sam's tone.

"My husband, his brother, was abducted so we're pretty good with the whole proof part," Kat scoffed.

"Your husband was abducted?" a younger girl with red hair said, walking up to them.

"Yeah," Kat answered, still a little shook.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed.

"It's fine," Sam said. "We've had time to adjust." Kat whipped her head around and glared at Sam.

"Did it happen when you were kids?" the girl asked.

"No, like half an hour ago," Sam answered. He then turned back to Wayne. "So, you've been hunting UFOs for over three decades and you basically have no concrete data and zero workable leads?"

"Well, I-"

"Have you considered the possibility that you suck at hunting UFOs?" He walked away and all Kat could do was smile apologetically.

"He's not as well adjusted as he says he is," she explained. When she looked for her younger brother again, he was talking to the red-haired girl, who called herself Sparrow. Well, he was talking, she was flirting...and laying it on thick, and he was going for it. Great, guess I'm sleeping in the car, Kat thought.

Sure enough, she was in the car as Sparrow was offering her...help. She didn't sleep, though. Dean missing and the possibility of fairies made her restless. That night, she doubled up on her efforts to keep them at bay. She put salt in individual vials and put out extra bowls of milk behind their motel. If fairies were the cause of all of this, they weren't coming for her or Sam. As she was walking back to the car, someone bumped into her, stumbling frantically.

"Woah, hey watch…" she started to say, but stopped when she saw who it was. "DEAN!" she cried, and jumped into his arms. Dean held her as tight as he could, more than relieved to see her. "Are you alright?"

"Not sure. Where's Sammy?"

"He's in the room, but I wouldn't…" she began. Her words were caught in her throat when she heard Sparrow gasp. "Go in there," she finished lamely. Kat followed him in to see Sparrow picking up her clothes.

"What were they like?" she was asking Dean, staring at him with the same spacy awe that she had given Kat.

"They were grabby, incandescent douchebags. Good night," Dean snapped.

"Too soon?...okay," Sparrow said, a little disappointed, and left. Kat shut the door behind her and turned to the boys.

"You're upset," Sam said after a very tense moment. Kat looked at Dean, who took a solid few seconds to manage to speak.

"I was abducted," he said, pointing to the door. "And you were banging Patchouli."

"I didn't think she smelled that bad," Sam commented.

"I was abducted by aliens!" Dean shouted.

"I was looking into it," Sam said.

"Looking into it? I was gone for, like, an hour," Dean cried. Sam and Kat looked at each other and both started to pull out their phones.

"An hour?"

"And most of that was walking back to town!"

"Dean, I think your watch is off," Kat said, walking over to him. "You've been gone all night." Sam nodded his agreement.

"What are you talking about, no I haven't!" Sam and Kat both held up their phones, displaying the time. "Three A.M.?"

"Yeah," Sam said, then snapped his fingers. "UFO timeslip. This actually falls in line with a lot of abduction stories." Kat ran over to the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a glass, anticipating that Dean was going to need a drink.

"Nothing's falling in line," he cried.

"Here," Kat said, handing him the glass. Dean downed it, and Kat poured him some more as Sam sat down next to him.

"Talk to me," he said. "What happened?" Dean took a minute, and started getting his thoughts together.

"Well, there was this….God help me, Sam, there was this bright white light!" he started.

"It's okay," Sam said, patting his leg. "Safe room." Dean looked at his brother incredulously. Kat gave Sam a look and mimicked the action with the other leg, though Dean seemed to respond a little better to her touch. Sam met his sister in laws eyes and pulled his hand away.

"And then, suddenly, I was...I was in a different place," Dean continued. "And there were these beings, and they were too bright to look at, but I could feel them pulling me towards this sort of table -"

"Probing table!" Sam exclaimed.

"God, don't say that out loud!" Dean cried.

"Right," Sam said quietly. "So what did you do?"

"I went crazy," he answered. "I started hacking and slashing and firing. They actually seemed surprised. I don't think anybody's ever done that before. Yeah. I had a close encounter, Sam...and I won." He seemed very pleased and relieved when he finished talking.

"You should take a shower," Kat said, rubbing his knee.

"I should take a shower," Dean repeated, agreeing. "I'm gonna...I'm gonna take a shower now." He went to the bathroom and ended up showering for over an hour. Kat was almost asleep when she felt him slip into bed next to her, spooning with her. She rolled over and faced him.

"You okay?" she asked softly. He didn't look at her at first, but that was all the answer she needed. She gently cupped his face with her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, which he returned with an emotional need. "It's okay. I'm here," she assured him softly. Dean managed a grin and pulled her closer to him. Once comfortable, they drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, they got up and went for breakfast at the local bar and restaurant.

"So, on top of all the demons and the angels and the ghosts and the skinwalkers," Dean was musing. "So if aliens are actually real, what's next, huh? Hobbits? Seriously." When Dean looked at his brother, Sam gave a look to the waitress walking by...and continued looking as she did. "You just gave her the silent how ya doin'," he said.

"What?" Sam asked, confused.

"Our reality is collapsing around us and you're trying to pick up our waitress?"

"Yeah," Sam said absently, then refocused. "Okay, look, brings up a question. So, say you got a soul and you're on a case and your brother gets abducted by aliens…."

"Yeah, then you do everything you can to get him back," Dean interrupted.

"Right, you do, but, what about when there are no more leads for the night?" Sam continued. "Are you supposed to just sit there in the dark and suffer, even when there's nothing that can be done at the moment?"

"YES!" Dean exclaimed.

"What?"

"Yes. You sit in the dark and feel the loss."

"Absolutely, but couldn't I just do all that and have sex with the hippie chick?" Sam pressed.

"When your brother's wife is in the room?" Kat added.

"I mean...you could just not watch…" Sam's sentence was cut off by Kat kicking him under the table.

"I'd be in the dark," Sam pointed out.

"No, you couldn't because you would be suffering, and you can't just turn that off for the night," Dean said. The waitress dropped off the check right then and all three hunters sat up.

"Thanks, guys," she said with a smile.

"Thank you," Kat said as Dean glared at his brother, who was still making come hither looks at the girl.

"Um...why not?" Sam asked.

"Because if you had a soul, your soul wouldn't let you," Dean snapped.

"So you're saying having a soul equals suffering," Sam said, following what he felt was logic.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying," Dean said. "It's the only game in town." He got up and let Kat out.

"Okay, so how do we deal with the little green men?" Sam asked as Dean left some money for the tab.

"Research," he said. "We've got about a century of UFO lore to catch up on and there's no time for…" he stopped as he looked at the large front window. "What's up with that guy?"

"Who?" Sam and Kat asked at the same time.

"The guy by the window giving the stink eye," Dean replied.

"You mean the cop?" Kat asked, her heart starting to race.

"No, not the cop. The guy! He's right…" Dean looked around. "Oh, now he's gone."

"Who's gone?" Sam asked.

"Can we please just get out of here?"

"What's up with you?" Sam pressed his brother.

"Before I hit you," Dean groaned, and they left.

Sam headed to the library while Kat and Dean stayed in the motel room and did research online. While Dean scanned the blogs upon blogs about aliens and abductions, Kat looked into all of her old notes about fairies. The guy that only Dean could see spooked her, so she was refreshing herself on everything she had learned from her grandmother, her mentor, and every witch she had studied with. Hours went by as they kept reading. Finally, Sam called.

"Library's closing up soon," he said. "I'm almost done."

"You find anything?" Dean asked as he clicked through some more web pages.

"Yeah, way too much," Sam answered, sounding annoyed. "Everyone on the planet believes in UFOs, and they will not stop writing books about it."

"Yeah, well at least books have punctuation," Dean grumbled. That was a huge pet peeve of Kat's as well. "All right, keep digging and we'll see what you've got when you get back." Not long after he hung up, the lights started flickering. "Not again," Dean said as he stood up and looked around. A bright light went by the window as the Winchesters stood up. The door crashed open and a ball of light flew into the room. Kat's heart almost stopped. This was what she was afraid of: it was fairies. The ball and Dean faced off for a moment as Dean eyed his gun. He got closer, trying to get a good look at it.

"Dean, get away from it," Kat warned.

"Nipples?" Dean said as his face got inches from the ball...then it punched him in the face, throwing him against the wall. "BITCH!" he shouted. They tussled for a moment, Kat unable to get to the vials of salt she had prepared. After a minute of fighting, Dean trapped it in the microwave and turned it on. The ball bounced around for a few seconds, emitting screams before it suddenly exploded. "HA HA!" Dean cried triumphantly. When he looked at his wife, though, his victorious smile changed to a worried frown. Kat's face was a picture of terror. All the color had drained from her face and her gray eyes were glassy and wide.

"Shit," was all she could manage to say.

Kat went back to her reading with gusto and was waist deep in more research when Sam came back. Dean was very enthusiastic to show the carnage in the microwave to his brother, but just as Kat feared, Sam still couldn't see it.

"So, shot in the dark here, but did this little lady have wings?" Sam asked.

"What the hell made you say that?" Dean asked as Kat's head snapped up and looked at Sam.

"She did, didn't she?" Sam said.

"Yeah, but how did you…?"

"One of the fringer theories I came across," Sam explained as he sat down across from Kat at Dean's laptop. "It's actually what the crazy crystal lady was yammering about. What if these abductions have nothing to do with UFOs?"

"What?" Dean seemed both interested and scared.

"Okay, say these encounters have been going on for centuries, not with extraterrestrials, but with ultra-terrestrials. People nowadays say 'space aliens' or whatever, but they used to call them -" Sam continued, turning the laptop around. Dean looked at it and frowned.

"Smurfs."

"Fairies," Kat said quietly.

"Fairies?" Dean said, looking between his wife and his brother. "Come on!"

"Dean, there's a straight line between ETs and fairies. Glowing lights, abductions. It's all the same UFO stuff, just under a different skin," Sam said.

"You seriously think that the secret with UFOs is -" Dean suggested, pointing to the screen on his laptop.

"Hey, you're the one who pizza-rolled Tinkerbell. I'm just doing the math. But this is good. This is a lead, and judging from Kat's face, I'd say it's a pretty good one," Sam said. Dean looked at his wife, who still looked really pale. On her computer screen was what looked like scanned pages from a book. It was written in old English, but the word "faeries" was everywhere.

"Kat? Is Sam right?" he asked. Kat looked up at her husband and sighed.

"Fairies are real, Dean, and what just happened confirmed that this is what we're dealing with. Now that you've killed one, you're in a shitload of trouble...we all are. Nothing I do is going to keep them from messing with us now," she said quietly.

"Wait, what do you mean nothing you do?"

"Why do you think I keep leaving stuff behind our hotel rooms?" she asked. "My grandmother taught me this when I was a teenager and I've been doing it ever since. They are literally everywhere. The best thing you can do with them is keep them happy, and just like demons, never ask them for a deal. Messing with the Fae is something that every single witch knows not to do unless you are sure beyond a doubt what you're doing. Those that do anyway without the correct knowledge and understanding don't last very long. They wield very old, very powerful magick and are absolutely nothing to be fucked with. I'm still looking for anything that can help but as of right now, we are well and truly fucked." She got up and walked over to her bag, pulling out several corked vials of salt, handing a few to Dean and a few to Sam. "This is the best we can do until I can come up with something better."

"Salt?" Sam asked, holding one of the vials up.

"Spill it in front of a faerie of any species and they will be compelled to count every single grain. If nothing else, it's a good escape plan," Kat explained, putting a few in her own pocket.

"So where exactly is this leading us?" Dean asked after putting the vials in his pocket.

The three hunters sat at a table with 'crazy crystal lady', whose real name was Marion. Tiny tea cups sat in front of them, and the trailer was covered in little figurines of every possible type of fairy one could think of...and a few one couldn't.

"Fairies," Marion was saying, bringing a plate of pastries to the table. "Sprites and spriggens, bogarts and brownies. The little people have many names."

"Well, that's her," Dean said, pointing to a figurine of a fairy with butterfly wings. "That's the little-" Marion smiled, nodding her understanding. "Anyway, I get that tinkerbells are fairies, but what about the tiny Santa Claus and the troll and the-" he continued, looking around at the other figurines.

"That's a garden gnome," Marion replied, pointing to the santa. "That's a large goblin, the troll, and -"

"But they're all fairies?"

"Yes. Fairy comes in many shapes and sizes. Magical, mischievous beings from the realm next door," she explained.

"The fairy realm?" Dean said. Marion nodded.

"So it's like another dimension?" Sam asked.

"Another reality, yes!" she said, happy that they were getting it. "Only people who have been there and returned to our world can see the Fairy here." Kat frowned, wondering why she was able to see the one that had attacked Dean.

"Umm...why are the fairies abducting people?" Dean asked, squirming a bit at the memory of his abduction.

"There is much theory and little fact," Marion explained. "We know they only take firstborn sons, just like Rumplestiltskin did. Personally, I think they're taken to Avalon to service Oberon, the King of the Faery." Dean looked at Kat, who gave a small shrug to agree with her. That caught Marions attention. "I take it you've had some dealings with the Faery as well, my dear?" Kat grinned and shifted the collar of her shirt to reveal the triple goddess pendant she always wore.

"My grandmother taught me enough: leave cream out for them and leave them alone."

"Oh but they're such wonderful little creatures," Marion said.

"And dangerous, capable of ten times their size in misfortune and destruction," Kat argued back.

"Anyway," Dean cut in. "How can we...forcefully interact with them?"

"Well, like your friend there said, if you want to win a faerys favor, leave a bowl of fresh cream. They love cream," Marion began.

"And more forcefully?" Dean asked.

"All Faery hate iron, and the dark Faery burn when touched by silver," she continued. "What else...Oh! You can spill sugar or salt in front of them. No matter how powerful, the Faery must stoop to count each grain."

"Well, alrighty...that's...wow. A lot to absorb. Thank you," Dean said, and went to get up.

"Oh stay! Finish your tea!" Marion insisted, taking a sip herself. Thus far, no one had taken a sip at Kat's instruction. However, Kat had carefully spilled some salt on the floor near her and she didn't move, so she nodded.

"Do you have bigger cups?" Sam asked after finishing his in one huge gulp, the teacups looking even tinier in his huge hands.

"God, is it on me?" Dean said, brushing himself off. "I feel like I've got the crazy on me."

"No. You did sit in some glitter, though," Sam said, glancing down at his brother's pants.

"Makes me want to believe in UFOs again," Dean commented. "Was everything she said true?"

"About how to fight them? According to all of the lore I read, yeah," Kat replied. "The firstborn son thing is a good tip too. Probably why it came after you."

"Doesn't really give us our next move," Sam said. "We can always put the call out to Bobby." They went to get in the car when Dean looked across the street at a local grocery store.

"I'll be damned," he said. Sam and Kat looked and saw Mr. Brennan buying several crates of cartons of cream.

"They love cream," Sam said, remembering what Marion had said. They followed Brennan back to his shop and watched him carry the crates into the store. Once he was done, he locked up and left.

"Right, you stick with half and half, Kat and I are gonna check out the store. And no hippie chicks!" Dean added as he got out of the Impala. Sam slid over behind the wheel of the car as Dean and Kat broke into the store through the back door. Inside, they could hear tools going, despite there being no one there. They both drew silver knives and nodded to each other. They cracked open the door to the workroom and, sure enough, it was full of brownies making and fixing watches, sipping on little bowls of cream every so often. As quietly as they snuck in, they snuck back out, not wanting to risk anything else happening. The second they got to the front of the store, Dean called Sam, who was at the same bar Brennan frequented and they had eaten that morning.

"Freakin' full of keeblers over here, man, just full of 'em!" Dean spat as soon as Sam answered. "It's like the story with the shoe guy and all the elves. Hey, you think Brennan made a deal with a bunch of fairies?"

"Lemme get back to you," Sam said, and hung up. Dean hung up and looked at Kat, wordlessly asking the same question.

"If he did, it would explain why he was so keen to not talk about Patrick or his son. Either way, I think he's in over his head...and Sam talking to him might make it worse," Kat said. "Wait here!" She took off for the bar, peeking in the window and seeing Sam talking to Brennan. She walked in and gave Sam a look, who waved her over.

"Keep going, Mr. Brennan. My sister-in-law here is a little more knowledgeable on your situation." Brennan looked at Kat, who glanced at Sam before nodding for Brennan to continue.

"I supported my family for 30 years making those watches. It's the only thing I know how to do." He held up his hand, which had a tremor. "But the Parkinson's...I was losing my hands. I was losing everything. My grandmother always used to say that they were real. She told me all of these stories when I was a kid about how to summon them, how to get favors from them."

"So you learned how to work a spell," Kat said.

"I mean, honestly, I doubted it would even work. I was just desperate," Brennan said. But she left me this book, so I did the ceremony in my back office two months ago, and this man appeared and said he was a leprechaun."

"A leprechaun," Sam said.

"I asked him just to cure my hands, but he said he would do even better. He would make me more successful than I had ever been," Brennan explained. "He told me he'd bring a crew of workers, that I could save my business, save my name."

"What did they want in exchange?" Kat asked.

"He just wanted a place for them to rest, to take the fruit and fat of the land. I said yes," Brennan answered. "I wasn't thinking."

"And the fruit and the fat was -" Sam began.

"My firstborn," Brennan said. "Not just mine. There's been others. They're not stopping. They're not going to stop."

"There's gotta be a way to reverse the spell," Sam said.

"There is," Brennan confirmed. "But the book is in a safe in my shop. They won't let me near it. It's been a nightmare."

"So you can see the fairies?" Sam asked, which Brennan confirmed. Sam then looked at Kat.

"What should we do?"

They decided to walk Brennan back to his shop as Sam tried to call Dean to see if they could put a plan together

"Don't worry Mr. Brennan, we can do this," Kat was saying. "The boys and I are gonna cover you while you reverse the ritual." They came across a crowd. They were all looking at a police car...and Dean getting handcuffed and put in the back.

"Dean!" Sam called. "Dude, what happened?"

"Sam! Kat!" Dean managed to call before he was put in the back of the car.

"What am I supposed to do?" Sam shouted.

"Fight the fairies! You fight those fairies! FIGHT THE FAIRIES!" Dean shouted as the car drove away. Sam and Kat looked at each other, worried. They had to get the spellbook and take care of this fast.

They snuck in the back door and walked quietly into the workroom. The little brownies were all passed out on the floor, a few spilled bowls of cream lying there.

"Are they here?" Sam whispered.

"Yeah, but it's alright. Cream hits them like tequila," Brennan replied. He got to the safe and opened the book, beginning to read a spell in Gaelic. Kat caught a few of the words before there was a sickening slick noise and Brennan began choking. The hunters turned to see a knife sticking out of his chest. It was ripped out and he collapsed, revealing…Wayne.

"You? You're the leprechaun?" Sam asked, not lowering his shotgun.

"Indeed I am," Wayne replied with a grin. "Sorry about the mess," he continued, cleaning the blood off of his knife. "But your friend here went back on his deal."

"Well you weren't very clear with him on the terms," Kat said, keeping her own gun pointed at him as she reached in her back pocket for a vial of salt.

"I told him there was a price. Once we come, we come to stay," Wayne said, resting what Kat figured was a shillelagh on the floor like a cane.

"So you take firstborns and then what?" she asked. "You just sit back and watch while they cover the abductions for you with all that crazy UFO crap? Which you help encourage, naturally."

"Nice con," Sam said. "But your cover's blown now...Wayne."

"Blown? To whom?" Wayne asked. "Brennan's dead. Your brother? He's marked. Been to the ranch. He's ours now."

"Yeah, well then there's me," Sam pointed out. "And Kat."

"You two? But you can only see me…" He vanished in Sam's view, but not in Kat's. "If I let you." Sam started looking around and Kat pretended to as she worked to uncork the salt vial with one hand.

"True," Sam called. "But you'll have to get near me eventually, and I have very good reflexes."

"You're not like the rest of them, are you?" Wayne asked, reappearing.

"Nope," Sam replied.

"I could see that right off. You're missing a certain piece, right in the center, ain't you?" Wayne looked Sam up and down.

"Says who?"

"We fairy folk? We're all about energy. And the human soul gives off a certain...perfume," he explained. "Your soul is far away, but not completely out of reach."

"Is that so?" Sam scoffed.

"Sam, I can get it back for you," Wayne continued, leaning back on a desk. "For a price."

"That price is always too high," Kat snapped.

"Says the witch who pays a hefty price for her powers," he fired back.

"Depends on who I pay it to," she spat back. "You've already proven too expensive and unworthy of anything we could possibly have to offer, and I'll make sure your mark is off of Dean permanently."

"Besides, it's locked in a box with the devil," Sam pointed out.

"Your devil, not mine," Wayne smirked.

"There's no freaking way a leprechaun can do what angels cannot," Sam spat.

"Angels? Oh please," Wayne laughed, and vanished again. "I'm talking about magic, sonny. From my side of the fence, and your little sisters here." He reappeared. "Got a way of getting in back doors."

"So you're my blue fairy," Sam said. "You can make me a real boy again?"

"When you wish upon a star," Wayne replied.

"Sam, don't," Kat whispered.

"Yeah, I got a wish," Sam said after a minute, and fired a shell full of iron at Wayne.

"Iron," he winced. "Painful, but not a dealbreaker." He vanished, this time for both Sam and Kat as Sam fired off another shot. They proceeded to fight. Wayne traded off between hitting the two of them, Kat still trying to get the cork off of the vial. She silently cursed herself for using the vials she used for potionwork, as those corks were meant to be airtight and hard to get off to prevent leakage. At one point, Wayne grabbed the blade of Sam's silver knife, which burned him but didn't stop him. Okay, he's gone dark if he wasn't already, Kat thought, keeping that in mind.

"Come on," Wayne mocked them as the humans groaned on the floor. "You've already taken your best shots."

"You're right," Kat groaned, standing up. "We're done shootin'. So do me a favor," she said, holding up the vial. "Count this."

"Oh no," Wayne gasped as she poured the salt onto the floor. He glared daggers at her as he sat down and started counting each one. Kat ran to the spellbook and glanced through the incantation.

"Why didn't you do that earlier," Sam groaned, panting for breath. Kat finished the spell that Brennan had started and the leprechaun was sucked back to what she could only assume was their home. They swore they heard the brownies vanish in the other room, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The next morning, Dean was out of jail and they stopped on a backroad for a drink, having filled each other in on everything they had encountered, including Dean's unfortunate tussle with a red cap. Dean offered a beer to Sam and Kat. The former said no while the latter said yes, taking the bottle from him, cracking it open, and taking a huge swig.

"Here's to the tiniest DA. At least they're dropping the charges," Dean said.

"Little big man," Sam muttered with a grin.

"I was wondering something," Dean said after taking a swig.

"Yeah?"

"You think Lucky Charms really could have...you know...returned soul to sender?"

"Come on," Sam scoffed. "It's crazy to think. He did talk a good game, though."

"Would've made a crossroads demon proud," Kat added, taking another swig.

"You said no, though, Sam. Why?"

"It was a deal," Sam replied. "When's a deal ever been a good thing?" Dean nodded his understanding and agreement.

"Just trying to figure out how it works in there," he said, gesturing to his own head.

"Dude, I do still have all my brain cells. If anything, my brain works better now," Sam chuckled.

"Just making sure where your head's at," Dean said, taking another drink. "That you're not having second thoughts about getting your soul back." There was a moment of silence before Dean continued. "You're not, are you?"

"No," Sam answered. Kat looked at her brother-in-law...and didn't like the look that came over his face when Dean looked away.

What little trust she had left in him was waning fast.