The Winchester Three (S3): The Aftermath

Chapter Nine: Dream a Little Dream of Me

"What?" Angel was instantly on her feet, "Ill- Ill tell Asa to finish the case without us and pack up everything." She quickly threw some money on the bar before motioning to a wobbling Sam, "You go get him some coffee or something."

In Bobby's hospital room...

Bobby was lying in a hospital bed motionless as the Winchesters stood at his side. Angel's jaw tensed as she stared down at the man who had been more like a father to her and her brothers than their biological one. Her hands gripped the metal railing on his bed tightly as her brothers spoke to the doctor.

"So..." Sam looked from Bobby to the doctor, "What's the diagnosis?"

"We've tested everything we can think to test. He seems perfectly healthy."

Dean motioned to Bobby's still unmoving body, "Except that he's comatose."

"Mr. Snyderson, you're his emergency contact. Anything we should know? Any illnesses?

"No, he- he never gets sick." Dean shook his head, "I mean, he doesn't even catch a cold."

Angel pulled her sad eyes away from Bobby to make eye contact with the doctor, "Can you help him?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but we don't know what's causing it, so we don't know how to treat it." He shook his head sadly, "He just... went to sleep, and didn't wake up."

Angel's jaw clenched again as she shared a look with her brothers before all three of them looked over to Bobby.

At Bobbys motel room...

"So, I'm thinking Bobby's in Pittsburgh for a job." Angel said as she led her brothers into his room, "Unless he's taking an extremely docile vacation."

Dean sighed as he began looking around, "And by docile you mean lame." They moved around the very plain, very empty room trying to search for any clues, "Well, you think there'd be some sort of sign of something, you know?" He opened a drawer but came up empty, the room looked completely clean, "Research, news clippings... A friggin' pizza box or a beer can."

Sam turned to the closet and opened it. Bobby's clothes all hung there neatly but he could see papers littering the back wall.

He turned on the light, "How 'bout this?"

Sam moved the clothes out of the way and on the wall behind them hung all of the news clippings, maps and pictures they were looking for. There were pictures of roots, mushrooms, seeds and a map where Bobby had written 'Pittsburgh' in big letters and underlined it. Post-it notes hung with addresses and numbers etched on them and there was a piece of paper that held information about a plant.

"Good old Bobby." Dean chuckled as he and Angel walked over, "Always covering up his tracks."

Sam frowned, "Either of you making heads or tails of any of this?"

"'Silene Capensis.'" Dean took the paper about the plant and read the title with a frown, "Which of course means absolutely nothing to me."

"There's an obit." Angel motioned before taking the newspaper clipping and skimming it, "'Dr. Walter Gregg, 64, university neurologist.' They aren't sure how he bit it." She cocked her eyebrow at them, "Says he just went to sleep and never woke up." She handed the obit to Dean, "Sound familiar?"

"Alright, um..." Sam thought for a second as he frowned, "So let's say Bobby was looking into the doc's death. You know, hunting after something-"

Dean looked up at him, "That started hunting him."

"Yeah."

"Alright, you two stay here." Dean pointed to the closet, "See if you can make heads or tails of this."

Angel crossed her arms, "And what will you be doing in the meantime?"

He smirked and walked to the door, "I'm gonna look into the good doctor myself."

Angel sighed at him as she shook her head at Sam, "He gets the fun stuff while we get the grunt work."

Later on Dean called to inform them that Dr. Gregg had been conducting sleeping experiments on test subjects to alter their dreams. He was administering a yellow tea to the test subjects in order to do so. One of which said the experience was like a 'bad acid trip' that scared him out of the study.

After doing some research, Sam and Angel met Dean back in Bobbys hospital room. Angel sipped on a black to-go coffee cup as Sam held onto the file with all the information they had acquired. They stopped at the door frame to see Dean sat by the man's side, a thoughtful look upon his face. Aware of their presence, he turned around and shared a knowing look with both of them as they walked further into the room.

Angel looked the older man over as the three of them came to stand at the foot of his bed, "How's he doing?"

"No change." Dean rubbed his hand over his chin, "What you got?"

"Well, considering what you told us about the doc's experiments..." Sam sighed, "Bobby's wall is starting to make a hell of a lot more sense."

"How so?"

"Silene Capensis AKA African Dream Root." Angel pulled up a picture of a plant from the folder they brought, "Shaman and medicine men have used it for centuries."

"Let me guess." Dean interjected, "They dose up, bust out the didgeridoos, start kicking around the hackey."

"Not quite." Angel smirked but Sam shook his head at their brother's explanation as he continued explaining, "If you believe the legends, it's used for dreamwalking. I mean, entering another person's dreams, poking around in their heads."

"And of course, in our line of work, since when do we not believe the legends? It gets crazier." Angel handed over a paper from the folder that contained info on the root as well as a drawing of it, "This stuff is powerful. You take enough of it, with practice, you can pretty much become Freddy Krueger."

"You can control anything." Sam added, "You could turn bad dreams good, you could turn good dreams bad."

"You could kill people in their sleep for example."

Dean sighed tensely at that as his eyes flashed to Bobby worriedly.

Sam nodded, "Let's say this doc was testing this stuff on his patients, Tim Leary-style."

"Somebody gets pissed at him, decides to give him a little dream visit." Dean finished, "He goes nighty-night."

"Yet it doesn't explain Bobby." Angel looked over to the older man sadly after tossing her now empty cup in the trash beside the door, "If the killer came after him, why is he still alive?"

Dean frowned, "I don't know."

In Bobby's subconscious...

Bobby was back in his house once again at the beginning of his dream. He was holding a closet door closed as a woman was banging on it, making it rattle. She continued to scream as Bobby panted in fear on the other side. He looked around for something to hold the door, and grabbed an old suitcase. Desperately grappling around the space he gripped anything he thought could hold the door. Grabbing a broom to use as a weapon he held his back to the door, trying to keep it closed.

"Help me!" He screamed, "Somebody help me!" The small space of the closet was now gone, replaced with a very long never ending hallway, "HELP ME!"