Dean took Abby back to their motel room while Sam went to check the Carlton house. He held her hand until they were close to the bed. Since he and Sam were going to need the couch for their research, Abby's cot was the next best location.

"You could have done anything to get our attention, Abs… Anything at all," he said, clearly upset. "Why'd you have to use Dad?"

"Lucas wanted to give you his picture."

"Don't put the blame on someone else. Okay… Kick me again like last week if you must. But don't ever use Dad again unless we can see him, too." Dean came down to her eye level. "We haven't been paying much attention to you lately, have we? Glitter bombing the car… The bubble bath explosion a few nights ago… Sammy's cell phone yesterday?" Every hesitation received a nod.

"DD, will we ever find Daddy?"

Dean wanted to lie to her. He really did. "I really don't know, Kid."

"Are you being honest, DD?" Abby asked shyly. The mattress dipped beside her. She wrapped her arms as far around Dean's waist as they would go. Dean returned the gesture with a one-armed hug.

"I wish I was lying, Abs. I really do."

"I wish you were, too."

Since Sam was still away from the motel, Dean decided to give something a chance. Being seven and lacking most of the things that other kids her age would have, there wasn't a lot to take away from her.

"I need you to grab something from my bag," he began. "Side pocket… other side pocket." She pulled out a game boy color. "That's what I'm looking for… when was the last time you remember using this?"

"Last night…" Dean gave her a disapproving glance. "Well, you and Sammy were sleeping, and I thought it would help me sleep after…"

"After what, Abs?"

"Something came to me after my shower."

"Is that why you asked what a water ghost looked like?" Abby nodded again. Dean held the gaming system so Abby could see it. "I'm gonna lock this in the car when Sam gets here… You'll get it back in a week. You don't use it much to begin with… Now, I want you to tell me what you saw, and then you're going to take a nap."

"I'm not a baby, DD," she crossed her arms with a huff.

"Don't argue with me. You only got about one hour of sleep last night. I'd like you to get a few more before we go and stakeout Andrea's place."

She wouldn't tell him any more about the water ghost now. It was broad daylight. She hadn't done anything fun at the park other than keep Lucas company for her brothers and Dean was making her take a nap.

"If I need one, then Sammy does, too. He didn't sleep either."

"Sam did sleep, unlike someone else who was waking me up before the sun."

"No, he didn't."

"Abs," he warned.

"But he didn't, DD… He was up all night, looking up all that stuff about the lake," Abby continued. Dean knew Sam wasn't sleeping well, but he thought their brother was getting at least a few hours a night instead of none at all.

If their first week back together as siblings told him anything, it was that Sam seemed to sleep better when he held their baby sister in his arms. Even Dean felt that way sometimes. Usually, such occasions were close calls like their trek through the woods. Since Sam drove that night, Dean fell asleep in the back with the sleeping child wrapped around his body.

Sam sat on the sofa, his eyes on his laptop's screen. A creak came from one of the beds. Dean was sound asleep, and his own bed was obviously empty. But the little cot in between was also empty.

Maybe she just needed to use the bathroom… Only, where was the light at the bottom of the door? He almost rose to his feet when he saw Abby approaching. Her tiny bare feet silently padded across the floor. She was rubbing her eyes, tired, yawning even.

"You can't sleep either?" he asked softly. Abby shook her head. She was more vocal with Dean thanks to the last two years of his absence. Hopefully she'd be just as vocal with him some day, like she was before he left for college. "Come here." Sam lifted her onto his knee and leaned back.

Within minutes, Sam had fallen asleep with Abby's head on his shoulder. She was still wide awake. She tried closing her eyes, only nothing happened. Sleep refused to come to her.

Over time, Sam's arms had loosened from their hold around her. Slowly, Abby rolled away from him, still wide awake. She climbed down from the couch. A dim light, red in appearance, illuminated the room, allowing her to see where she was going without waking her brothers.

Abby held her hands out in front of her. Yet another thing for her brothers to ask their father about when they finally find him.

In the now dimly lit room, Abby made her way to Dean's go-bag. One of the side pockets held a device that was rarely ever seen. Even Sam didn't know she had it, but Dean did.

Dean was still sitting on his bed when Sam returned. He saw Abby sitting on hers, arms crossed in the same pout he remembered from her toddler years.

"What's with her?" Sam asked.

"Kid only got an hour's sleep last night. She's refusing to take a nap."

"She's almost eight, Dean. Naps aren't really their thing anymore…" Sam turned his attention toward Abby before she could say a word. "That being said, you're taking a one. You're clumsy to begin with, and it only gets worse when you're tired, Abs."

"It's not fair! Why do I have to take a nap, and you don't?" Abby stormed her way into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Or at least trying to. The door was heavier than she remembered.

The brothers sighed. They had dealt with a tired and grumpy Abby over the years. Never angry-enough-to-slam-a-door Abby.

"Sam."

"I know. New territory again. I'll deal with her when she comes back out."

"Just make sure it's under control before we find Dad. If we find him," Dean said. He turned his eyes toward the bathroom door, then looked back at Sam, telling him to continue.

"Well, I think it's safe to rule out Nessie. There was an ambulance outside the Carlton house. Will Carlton is dead. Drowned in the sink."

"Okay, so it isn't a creature," Dean confirmed. "Maybe it's a water wraith? Some kind of demon? What controls water that comes from the same source… and visits with little kids in their bathrooms?"

They recalled that the dam was falling apart. The lake was going to be no more. The recent body count. Whatever this was, its time was running out.

"Little kids in their bathrooms? Is that why-"

"Yeah. Told me about it a few minutes before you came back… Didn't want her to think she did something wrong by telling us. I was killing someone in my head, Sam."

"What'd she tell you about it?"

Dean sighed. "We didn't get that far. It's not her first time crossing paths with our line of work, and it likely won't be her last. Kid just needs to know that she can't say Dad's around if he's not."

After knocking on the bathroom door, Sam opened it to find their sister sulking in the tub. Her tiny figure folded in on itself.

Silence was all that followed the next few moments as Sam climbed in to sit with her. His legs hung over the side with his feet touching the floor.

Even after a four-year absence and all the new things they had learned about her over said time, Sam still seemed to know what to do. He didn't say a word. Just sat there. He knew that eventually, the silence would get to Abby, and she would break it.

"Please don't be mad at me, Sammy." It took a little longer than he thought it would, but it did happen.

"Just don't do it again. Okay." He wrapped an arm around her.

"What if Daddy really is there?"

"As long as Dean and I can see him, too, we won't have an issue."

"Sammy?"

"You have to sleep, Abs. And not just because Dean said so."

"Is it because you're still in charge of me?"

"That's only part of it, Abs. Dean and I will always be responsible for you."

"But what if you die, again?" Seeing as he hadn't died, and he wasn't a ghost or spirit, that question confused him. "I don't know how to do anything, Sammy. Everything was always done for me."

What did any of this have to do with what they were talking about? Nothing as far as he could tell… but it certainly was concerning. Until that day, Abby wasn't one to make stuff up. Especially now that what they thought was an active imagination turned out to be a lot more.

"We'll figure it out, okay." He figured they'd humor her since some of what she'd say made sense. The part about them dying was even newer than anything they had known over the last seven years. "But, until then, I need you to do something for me, Shortround."

Abby looked like she was going to sulk even more. Sam had no intention of taking more than what Dean had already taken from her had he even known she had a handheld gaming system. Instead, he made a simple request that was quite relevant to their current case.

With Will Carlton dying the way he did, Sam didn't feel comfortable sitting in the tub. It was just something he did in the moment without thinking. But now he wanted nothing more than to get his sister as far away as possible from any water source connected to the lake.

He got out of the tub before turning to face Abby who had stood along side him. Once in his arms, he carried her out of the bathroom and proceeded to the beds.

"It won't be forever, okay. I just need you to stay away from the lake and our plumbing until we get out of here."

"What about going to the bathroom?"

"We'll figure that out when we have to, okay."

Abby looked even sadder if that was possible. In the short time the water spirit had made its presence known to her, she had made a friend. And it didn't require plumbing to visit her. She had learned a lot about the water spirit. She would have told her brothers more about it, but she had Sam's stubbornness, if such a thing could be considered genetic.

"Two hours, Abs. That's all we want from this nap, okay."

"Kid needs way more than two hours, Sam."

"I know. But we need her to sit with Lucas if something does happen."

Dean scoffed. He was willing to try just about anything to get that kid talking again for his mother. And while he could relate to the boy on a level Sam couldn't, Abby could relate even more as her traumatic event was more recent.

Abby yawned as Sam set her down on her cot. Her arms were tight around his neck, a sure sign she wasn't planning on letting him go of him any time soon. Every attempt to stand only brought the little girl up into the air.

"I think Shortround's trying to tell you something, Little Brother," Dean said with a tired grin. He, too, was tired, though unlike his younger siblings, he had gotten a full night's rest. "We'll pay Mr. Carlton a visit after you two get some sleep."

The next two hours seemed to fly by for the sleeping siblings, though one was more awake than the other by the time they'd awakened. Abby had even fallen back to sleep in the car, using her brothers' jackets as pillow and blanket during the drive to the Carlton home.

She was more tired than she was willing to admit since she slept through that visit, and even through most of their drive through the town.
"This isn't a playdate anymore, Sammy," Dean said as he pointed to something on the Carlton property that both had noticed in Lucas' drawing. The Carlton house looked exactly like what was drawn on paper, if what was on paper was a DR. Seuss replica.

Dean turned to look through the Impala's windshield to see Abby. She was still asleep but had changed positions. She was now facing the back of her seat, curled up in a ball because her brothers' jackets weren't heavy enough for her.

Having seen the same thing, Sam went to the trunk where Abby's travel blanket was stored. He pulled it out, leaving it folded until he had the back door open. He leaned inside and draped the soft material over Abby's little frame which somehow made her look even smaller.

Dean stepped into the driver's seat. He was hoping to keep Andrea and Lucas out of this as much as possible. But they, specifically Lucas, were becoming their investigation's focal point with each passing hour.