Part 2

Sam lay on the bed staring at the ceiling since it was better than staring at the clock watching time pass in the darkest hours. Now sun filtered in through the blinds and Sam could hear the city, not that New York City ever slept, but there had been lulls in the noise level.

At least with the dawn breaking it was justifiable for him to get out of bed. He still lingered, trying to grasp on to some sleep. He could not shut off his mind, seeking redemption, to remove the threat of Lucifer. He hoped he would find it by becoming The Scholar.

He hadn't found it by leaving hunting, leaving Dean. All that time spent running away from his family when truly he needed them. They were an asset. Dean, however, had been held back by his family because they needed him. Dean's path to redemption was a little different; he was proving to himself he could still be there for his family, yet make independent decisions to help more than his family.

They were on their own paths, although it looked different, they were converging onto a wide road. With a sigh, Sam decided he was not going to fight to get some sleep. He could put his energy elsewhere. He navigated out of his room at Caleb's home, surprised to see his brother lacing up his sneakers. "Hey, you going out for a run?"

After Dean double knotted he stood up, then stretched long. "Heading to Central Park for a lap around the Reservoir."

Sam scratched the back of his head, feeling his hair sticking up. "I'm going to hit Caleb's gym." Caleb had set up a small gym, which would have been an office in anyone else's home. There was just enough equipment with a mat in the middle. The heavy bag was in the living room with its wood beam as part of the décor.

A short time later, Sam had his iPod buds in, keeping time to his workout on the elliptical trainer. He sensed Caleb was awake before the older hunter came into the room. As much as Sam wanted to avoid his abilities, shut them down, they were still there and aching to be used. Caleb had convinced him to keep to the basics- an open line between himself and Caleb, and also a way to track Dean if need be. The rest he would gauge on a case by case basis and make a conscious decision on the moral dilemma.

Caleb cradled a glass of orange juice. "You want some bagels? The deli on the corner will deliver for me."

Sam hadn't thought about food. They got home late and there had been no need to raid the refrigerator. He had started the day with a glass of water before starting his workout. "You are totally cool with this?"

"Yeah, I mean it's a carb, but bagels and New York are synonymous." Caleb finished off the juice. He patted his stomach. "I'll have them send over some eggs and stuff, too."

Sam shook his head at Caleb's one track mind, and his confidence. "Not the food, dude, The Triad." He wanted to call Mackland for reassurance. But, it would be intruding on their unofficial honeymoon. They hadn’t gone on vacation but were planning something when things settled down - whenever that might be.

Caleb shifted the glass back and forth. "Sammy, practically our whole life has been about this time. We're ready, you're ready."

Sam shook his head. "There's so much over us. What if we don't make it?" Sam didn't want to go on as Lucifer. The fallen angel was seductive, hard to resist. Already the things the rebel angel had said were immersed in the truth.

"We can't make it this far and not make it 'til the end. Dad is right- together we can stop this." Caleb sat down on the workout bench. "I thought you learned your lesson about that?"

"I did. Dean did." They agreed not to talk about the time apart or Dean's trip into the future. There was only about going forward from where they were now. "We know, but Castiel, Michael and Lucifer?"

"Are not crashing the party." Caleb put his hand up to stop Sam from interrupting. "My brain fried a synapse about this. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Sam tried to walk gently because Caleb's amnesia had scared him. He needed Caleb to balance Dean when his brother irritated him like only Dean could do. "We're going to pretend that Lucifer is not after me?"

"Yes, because you need to agree first. Are you going to consent?" Caleb was very matter of fact.

"No." Sam shook his head.

"Moot point."

Sam had to smile at Caleb's faith. "Dean and Michael?"

Caleb put the glass down on the wood floor. "Not going to happen. I'm betting on Castiel."

The angel was determined in his mission, Sam did not know if it was for Dean or for Castiel's faith. "To find God with Dean's amulet?"

"Yes." Caleb sighed as if losing patience.

"O-kay. Preposterous possibility." Even Sam, knowing Castiel’s doggedness, could not fathom how the angel could ever be in the same place as God on Earth. Logic had served him well in the past and he was reverted back to that when he could.

Caleb shrugged his shoulders but took the answer. "Makes perfect sense to me." He stood up. "I'm going to place the order; food should be here in twenty minutes."

If it was Caleb's intent to infuse Sam with a sense of calmness with the normalcy of the situation, then he was succeeding. This was them trying to get their part of normal. "Food sounds good."

In twenty minutes there was a feast delivered. They had already eaten, finished their workouts and showered by the time Dean came in the door, sweaty, wearing an urgent, determined expression.. He didn't offer a greeting, instead going to his room and bringing down his duffle, gun at the ready as he nosed the barrel between an opening in the blinds.

"What's going on?” Caleb took the other side, knife from the arm sheath revealed. Sam manned the front door at the ready for any imminent attack.

"Look out there- what do you see?" Dean asked.

"Nothing," Caleb stated.

Sam frowned and moved to the side glass, which flanked the door. He pushed the fabric covering slightly to take a peek. "Dean, there's nothing out there." Sam gnawed his lip as he thought of the possibility of the Trickster or Gabriel finding them.

Dean opened the blinds wider and pointed with the muzzle of the gun. "You don't see six kids sitting on the steps?"

Sam squinted but still could make out nothing. "No."

Dean retracted the gun, letting his arm drop to his side. "There are six kids out there that followed me home from the park."

"Deuce?" Caleb moved closer to Dean.

"They want to go home." Dean glanced at Sam. "But they are all from different places, and then I figured out that no one else at the park could see them." Dean rubbed his neck.

"You really see a bunch of kids out there?" Caleb asked.

Dean looked out the window. "Yeah, not the same kids as before, but there are six kids out there." Dean spoke slower. "They popped up at the Park, then followed me back here. No one else seemed to see them either. A lady almost called the cops because she thought I was crazy talking to some kid who wasn't there."

"Doesn't this sound a bit like The Trickster?" Sam leveled his gaze at Dean.

His brother shook his head. "I don’t think Gabe is coming near us for awhile."

Sam trusted what his brother saw unless proven otherwise. So this was a hunt, and he had to treat it as such, not looking for angels in everything. "These kids want to go home? Where's home?" Sam asked.

"All different places. It's weird." Dean stepped away from the window, wiped the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand, then sniffed the air. "Do I smell cinnamon raisin bagels? I'm being stalked by ghost kids and you're having breakfast. Nice."

"Strawberry cream cheese, too," Caleb said, gesturing for Dean to follow him into the kitchen but to leave his gun. "Relax, will ya? They can't come in because of the wards." Caleb's place was well protected, even if they did not have their own set of guards. Caleb threw Dean a kitchen towel, which Dean used to wipe himself up a bit before attacking a bagel.

"Dean, what do you mean about these kids being weird?" Sam asked, showing complete patience with the urgent matter of unseen children at the door who wanted to go to some unknown home.

"They talk funny. I mean some with accents, but some with old fashioned words. Same thing with the way some of them are dressed. It’s like they’re from different time periods, places, all over the U.S. . . " Dean mumbled between bites of half a bagel while smearing cream cheese on the other half.

"Nothing is getting in here for now." Caleb went to the Mister Coffee to pour himself a cup. "But, it would be nice to see what we’re dealing with."

"Yeah. Why can't you guys see them?" Dean drained the pot into his mug. "I don't want to use rock salt to chase them away or hit them with some iron. I don't think they're like that."

"Is this worth the risk?" Caleb asked. More than ever, the next Knight was shoot-first-ask-questions-later. "No one sees them but you. That makes my spidey sense tingle."

"They told me an angel said I could help them." Dean looked down into his coffee cup as Sam tried to meet his gaze. "Can you sense anything? Either of you?"

Sam did not reply. Caleb wanted to start accessing his abilities that had nothing to do with demon blood, but right now any ability seemed tainted. However, he couldn't be The Scholar without some psychic ability.

"I got nothing," Caleb answered after a moment.

"Maybe Joshua knows a spell that can help us," Sam said. He was trying to re-forge a relationship with the blond hunter plus show he trusted his brother. "He's still in town. It's worth a try."

Dean had enough time to finish breakfast, check on the kids outside, not the original ones who followed him, but the other ones, and take a shower. The run was supposed to have been for the purpose of clearing his head, instead he found himself vested in another case.

Children matching his pace, calling for attention so much so that when he stopped and argued to tell them in crude terms to leave him alone, instead of the kids dissipating he had an angry woman threatening to call the police to arrest him.

The kids remained. He had a knife on him but tempered himself in the open. "Talk," he told them. Talk they did, but it didn't make sense. They kept talking about home, their families, but not how they got to New York or what had happened to them.

Still did not make sense even after talking it over with Caleb and Sam. He hoped Josh sprinkling some stuff over Caleb's threshold would change that. It was pathetic.

Joshua was rushing into his Advisor role, already putting up a protest. "I don't think this is a good idea. There are wards set up here for a reason."

"It's only temporary." Caleb stated, putting a hand under his nose to stop the waft of fumes from whatever Joshua had used. "We need to see it, too."

Joshua looked towards Dean. "Because you don't want to be left out of the club?"

Dean was in full agreement with Caleb. "The Triad, plus their Advisor, are standing right here, if we can't handle some kids then who can? Get on with it, Josh, we'll be fine."

Joshua lit a match and the herbs on the ground caught the flame and smoldered a cool blue. "Invite them in."

Dean felt a little foolish; he made sure no one was passing by the brownstone before making an absurd announcement to only people he could see. "Okay, kids on the stairs, inside, now." He watched them as they entered, and so did the other hunters as judged by their reaction.

"Damn, Deuce, this is weird." Dean didn't know if Caleb was talking about the shimmering effect around the kids’ bodies or being able to see something that was at first not there, then was.

"Is that all of them?" Sam asked, corralling the kids to make sure they went into the area he had marked.

"Yep," Dean replied, after shutting the door behind the last child.

The kids looked around in awe. Sam closed the circle he had made with salt. It was large enough to allow the children to move around, but still keep the adults safe. Once the children had recovered from their initial shock, they started their lament.

"I want to go home." It was said in different ways, sometimes with an accent, but it was all the same.

Caleb winced. "Okay, we'll get you all home, but we need to know where you're from and what happened?"

"One at a time," Sam said, making a peaceful gesture with his hands.

"You,” Dean picked a boy with a Red Sox hat, “start talking. What's your name? Are you from New England?"

"Maine. Portland, Maine, by the water. I'm Matty." He tipped his hat up a bit. He had light brown hair, which seemed to be a buzz cut in the midst of growing out, but frozen in its awkward state. He had blue eyes, accentuated by the shimmering around him.

Dean recognize the boy as one of the first ones from the park, . The other children had changed but their longing attitudes were the same.. Dean felt nervous, which he blamed on being in a room full of spirits that they were communicating with. This was uncommon for the hunters in general, but Dean also sensed it was the weight of more responsibility being given to him. "Matty, this I can say is a first for us, but we're going to give you guys a chance and try to help you out. Okay?"

Matty nodded.

Dean spared a glance at Caleb, who was on alert, but was not warning them of any evil.

He tried to soften the truth by making it a question. "Matty, do you know you're a spirit?"

"I know. I don't like it. None of us do." Matty looked to his other five compatriots.

"It means we died," said a little girl with a ponytail on the top of her head. "But this isn't heaven. Is it?"

"No, it's not heaven. You didn't move on," Sam explained as he shifted from foot to foot.

Caleb and Joshua looked equally uncomfortable. Dead children as mean spirits were a cruel twist of fate. Dead children as victims of the supernatural were a hunter's worst nightmare, because it served as another reminder of why most hunters had gotten into the business.

"How did you. . ." Sam started, planting his feet and keeping eye contact with Matty.

Matty shrugged his shoulders. "I started to have dreams where there was this woman, and she was like my mom only better. She was the best mom ever; let me do whatever I wanted in my dreams."

"Then one day it wasn't a dream?" Dean asked, but just having a mom would be a dream. Dean didn't need an improved version. However, he understood from when he was growing up how kids thought that other kids have had it better.

"But I didn't want this. I thought there would be music because I like music. But all we hear is that one song. . ." Matty rubbed his head.

"Over and over," the little girl with the ponytail rolled her eyes.

"How does it go?" Caleb asked, turning on his phone to make a recording.

Another little boy hummed but it did not sound like any song Dean recognized. "Anyone know that?"

No one answered so his brother continued, "You all hear music?" Sam asked, rubbing his lip.

The kids nodded. "If I had my flute I could play it for you." The little girl with the ponytail chimed in.

"Thank you, sweetheart." Caleb winked at her and it seemed as if she shimmered more for a moment.

"But if we get too far away then it all gets so loud and jumbled. It hurts." An Asian girl put her hands over her ears.

Dean shared a glance with his brother. Sam shook his head as this was unfamiliar to him, too.

"Do you know what happened? How you died?" Joshua asked after having remaining silent for so long. He accentuated each word as if they were having difficulty understanding.

"Josh, way to go for the jugular," Caleb commented.

"Ignore them, they're brothers," Dean quipped. He sensed the thrown looks between Joshua and Caleb. "But, like he said-do you know?" Dean swallowed, feeling the lump in his throat.

"I don't know. She was there in my dream and she made all these promises. It seemed like a good idea. She was so warm and told me it would all be fine," Matty explained.

The other children nodded.

"She said she loved me," an Asian girl said, who was no more than seven or eight.

Matty reached out his hand to the little girl. "I didn't know what it meant to go with her. I didn't want to leave home, my family. I want to go home."

The children huddled closer to each other. It seemed that was all they had to count on--receiving sympathy and comfort from one another. Dean felt the welling of anger at the entity who had done this to them. He was going to make this better for them. "Shrtiga?"

"It's a possibility, but one by one? That's not the M.O.," Caleb replied, cupping the back of his neck.

"What does she look like?" Joshua spoke up again with a question that did not irritate Caleb.

"Like my mom." Matty sighed.

"Me too- she has long brown hair-" the pony tailed girl added.

"Yellow hair with blue eyes, like my mom," replied another little boy.

Dean looked at the other men, then put his finger to his lips to quiet the kids. "Okay, we get it. She’s very pretty, like your moms." Dean clenched his fist. His life was unfair, and there were similarities with the supernatural intruding on his life at four and these kids being tainted by the supernatural. But he was an adult and had some power to choose, while these children had been forced into a nightmare by a mother-like figure.

"And not a shrtiga, unless there is one that can change shapes," Joshua concluded their thoughts out loud.

"Have you tried to leave?" Sam asked with a quick dart of his eyes to Dean.

Matty furiously shook his head. "We can't. It hurts too much when we get too far away from where we are supposed to be."

"But you're okay now?" Dean studied the children for signs of pain.

They all nodded in response.

"So it is now or never for us to catch her," Caleb said, starting to pace.

"How many of you are there?" Dean bent down to be at their level. He had seen eleven different children so far. But now he was becoming worried the kids would be punished for being separated from their group.

Matty looked to the other children as if for verification. "A hundred of us, I think. Only a few of us know about the angel and you. We're taking turns so she doesn't notice."

Dean wanted to ask for a description of the angel, but there was too much of an audience. He had to believe it was Castiel on his quest to find God, and not Michael on his quest to find Dean. He didn't want to be reminded about Michael when he had to think about being The Guardian, too.

"Why won't he talk?" Caleb asked, gesturing to an African American boy who had remained silent.

Matty sighed with the weight of having to explain something so easy to an adult. "The longer we follow, the more we lose. I've only been here for 5 years."

Dean sympathized with the silent child. Maybe this one hadn't lost anything but was holding onto, controlling the situation by doing the one thing he could do, not talk, keep it inside before it was all lost. Dean wanted to muss his hair, but remembered they were spirits, spirits that needed to be released, not tied to this world after losing their freedom of choice.

"We need to write down where you’re from and when you disappeared, as best as you can remember. Okay?" Sam fetched a yellow pad from the coffee table.

"Can you stay here or do you have to go? I don't want you guys getting into trouble." Dean was trying to pay attention to the different times and places where the children came from.

"We have to go," Matty said with a bite of his lip.

Dean kicked some of the salt to create an opening. He did not want to ask what the punishment for the infraction would be. "Try to check in with us tomorrow night. Matty, can you come back again? I'm a sucker for the Sox."

Matty touched his hat as if he had forgotten its significance. "Yeah, Billy will cover for me." Matty led the way to the door.

"Who's Billy?" Caleb asked, bringing up the rear of the group.

"My friend. He lived a block away. He's got my back."

"I get that." Dean spared a glance at Caleb. "Come by tonight. We'll be waiting for you."

Joshua opened the door for the ragtag group, then swept up his mess, placing it in a plastic bowl with a cover. Dean crooked up an eyebrow. "That's domestic of you."

"You can use this later. Don't leave it on the threshold because it makes an open door for anything supernatural." Josh handed Caleb the container.

"Recycling, impressive." Caleb smirked and shook the odd colored dust at Joshua.

Dean elbowed his brother, glad to have a light moment and some time to process a hundred spirits of children. "Aww, look, Sammy, the stepbrothers are bonding."

Caleb growled at Dean, but Dean ignored him. Caleb got to the matter at hand. "So what are we thinking? Hybrid shritga?"

Sam tapped the yellow legal pad with his pen. "It would be smart because normally a shrtiga would garner attention by going after a group of kids."

"I haven't heard of any shritiga sightings since the last one you dealt with, and when they feed on the children their form is not very motherly," Joshua commented.

The last time they had dealt with the same shritiga that had gotten to Sammy, and Dean had made up for that mistake though it took him close to twenty years for the opportunity. "Great, just what we need-smarter baddies."

"I would like to know how those kids died. New York Public Library would be a good start," Sam stated, looking to Dean for approval on his idea.

"On Fifth Avenue?" Joshua moved next to Sam.

"Josh, are you trying to make Damien jealous by bonding with Sam?" Dean joked. It would be awhile before he would stop teasing Josh and Caleb about their new step-brother status. "You two team up and see what you can find out."

"What are we going to do?" Caleb asked, crossing his arms, which Dean noticed was more of a Josh move.

"Find out about that song," Dean said. “And, this being your town, you can come up with some leads.”

Caleb nodded. "We should pay Mac a visit. He's always going to the theater, symphony, all that shit. He might recognize it."

"Can we give them one day for their honeymoon?" Sam interjected, throwing his hands up in the air.

"No," both Joshua and Caleb replied at the same time.

Dean laughed and totally understood why Mac and Esme had planned the wedding secretly.

"There is no 'honeymoon’," Joshua explained. "My grandmother is staying with them, not with Cullen. I think they will be fine with a visit."

Dean shook his head; this was going to be a trying case in more ways than one.