Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. I don't own Sam, Dean, Bobby, etc. Don't sue; it's all in good fun.

Chapter 1

Oh, Mister Sandman

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A young woman sat slouched in a wooden chair. Ropes wound around her wrists, ankles and shoulders, tying her to the chair. At some point, she might have fought against the bonds, but she was clearly exhausted and clearly in pain. Her face was a mess of blood and bruises.

A young man, close in age to the cruelly abused woman, stood in front of her. He chuckled.

"I'm so glad you stopped screaming. It makes things a tad easier, but it's not nearly as much fun."

He knelt down on one knee and whispered something incoherent into her ear. He stroked her hair, mockingly. She looked up with defiance and spat in his face.

He stood up slowly and backed away half a step then backhanded her. The force of the blow made the chair rock slightly.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" he asked calmly and quietly.

She took a shallow ragged breath and fought to raise her voice, "You can kiss the fattest part," her body spasmed with hacking coughs, "of my frilly, white ass, you sonuvabi—"

He cut off her insult with a swift front kick to her rib cage. The chair fell over backward and landed with a sick thump and the sound of fragile wrist bones cracking.

---

Sam gasped and woke with start. He stumbled noisily to the bathroom and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl. Dean woke to the sound of Sam's retching.

"Dude, what's wrong?"

"The headaches and dreams, they've been making me sick."

"Apparently. You had another dream?"

"Yeah."

"Same one?"

The conversation temporarily took a back seat as Sam vomited again.

"Yeah," said Sam as he stood up and walked the few steps to the sink.

"And you're sure these aren't visions?" Dean asked, worriedly.

Sam rinsed his mouth and splashed his face with cold water, "Yeah, they don't feel like visions."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean leaned against the door frame.

"I always knew the visions would come true. It was this urgent feeling that I had to stop something from happening. These just feel wrong."

"Wrong?" Dean's face melted from concern into confusion.

"Yeah."

"Then tell me, Sammy, if you're so sure they're not visions, then why are we driving to DC to look for this chick?"

"Because, I need to know why I keep seeing her."

"How do you know she even exists?"

"They feel wrong, but real. Almost like they already happened…"

"If they already happened, how do you know she's even still alive? You said she got the crap beat out of her, she could be dead."

"Then all the more reason to look for her."

"You don't even know where to look. All you know is somewhere in DC, in an ugly apartment," said Dean, "and let's just say that it already happened, well then there's nothing we can do about it. It could have happened years and years ago."

"It wasn't too long ago, there was a computer in the room," Sam closed his eyes in concentration, "and an iPod on the table."

"Great, there's a good start," said Dean sarcastically, "Sometime in the last ten years, a girl living in a crappy part of DC gets the holy hell kicked out of her by some guy. I'm sure she should be easy to track down. It's not like it's a big city or anything, it's not like there haven't been a lot of these cases."

"Why are you so reluctant?" said Sam as he flushed the toilet and made to leave the bathroom but Dean stood in his way.

"Because all of your visions—"

"It's not a vision." Sam corrected.

"Whatever. The point it, when ever you used to do something psychic, the Yellow Eyed Demon was always involved. And since he's been dead, you've stopped having visions. So what's up with these dreams?"

"I have no idea, but I need to find out. Starting with the girl."

Dean sighed a heavy weary sigh. Sam shoved his way past his brother into the grungy room. "There's no talking you out of this, is there?" asked Dean.

"No." said Sam as he climbed into the bed.

Dean sighed again, it was a very Sam-like sigh. "Alright, tomorrow we keep heading toward Washington. You'd better have more to go on by the time we get there." And with that, Dean, too, crawled into his bed.

---

Motorhead blared through the speakers of the Impala.

"Seriously Dean, can you turn that down?" asked Sam with a huff.

Dean's only response was to turn it up.

"Dude, c'mon, I can't concentrate." Sam looked at his brother pleadingly.

"What are you working so hard on? You've been staring at that notebook all morning."

"I'm making a list of all the things I can remember from the dream."

"What have you got so far?" Dean turned the music down, interested.

"Thank you. I think her name is Lynn Lydon, I haven't ran it through any databases yet, but she looked about twenty."

"And how do you know all this? I thought he didn't say her name."

"He didn't, but there was mail on the table by the iPod and it was addressed to Lynn Lydon."

"You saw her name on the envelope?"

"I think so."

"You think so?"

"They're dreams, Dean, I can't just zoom in and out. It's all fuzzy, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it said Lynn Lydon."

"What makes you think she's in Washington?"

"The license plates on the cars. When it starts, I'm standing outside and the man walks past me and into an apartment building. Then I'm inside the building and in the room, like a flash and I'm just standing there watching him beat on some girl tied to a chair. He kicks her in the stomach and the chair falls back and I wake up with a Hell of a headache and nauseous."

"Still not much to go on."

"Yeah, but it's enough."

"Barely," said Dean, begrudgingly.

---

They drove for hours before reaching Washington DC. Dean drove aimlessly around the city until he found a diner. The sun was beginning to set. Sam was dozing in his seat; Dean nudged him less than gently.

"Alright, we're here," Dean told Sam, "let's eat and you do your thing with the computer."

Sam slid into the booth of the sleazy diner and immediately opened his laptop. As Dean flipped through his menu, Sam could be heard typing busily away. Dean stared out the dirty window into the parking lot. When Dean ordered a bacon cheese burger, Sam did nothing but sip his coffee.

"Dude, you're like a mad man." said Dean.

"Don't bug me; I'm almost into the database."

"Fine." Dean took a bite out of his burger and continued to stare out the window. He chewed nosily and sipped his coke. "Anything yet?" He asked again after a few more minutes.

"No."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Okay, I think I got it, one sec." He pushed a few more buttons and sat back. "Okay, I'm into DC's police database." He paused as he searched the name. "God dammit! Nothing, absolutely nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"No Lynn Lydon has ever lived in or been connected to a crime in this city."

"What now?"

"Well, I'm gonna search just the last name and see what I get."

"Can you expand the search to nation wide?"

"I don't think so, police databases are local, not federal, they're connected, but I'm not sure how to hack the connection. Hold on—" Sam furrowed his brow in concentration.

"Anything on her last name?" asked Dean.

"That's what I'm looking at, a woman, Irene Lydon, died about six years ago."

"Is it her?"

"No, she was fifty-five when she died, and not from a beating." Sam scrolled down the police report "Dude, she was decapitated."

"Decapitated? How?"

"Police report says a neighbor found her, she died sometime during the night, they thought home invasion until the coroner said the head wasn't cut, it was ripped from her body."

"Someone or something ripped her head off? That's starting the drift into our territory…"

"They suspected her daughter—"

"Her daughter?"

"Yeah, but her alibi checked out."

"Wait, hold on, what was the mothers name?"

"Irene Lydon, why, does the name ring a bell?"

"Yeah, but I can't think of why, what was her daughter's name?"

Sam glanced at the computer screen for a few seconds and then looked at Dean triumphantly, " I think I just found Lynn Lydon. The daughter's name was Jennifer Lydon, Jennifer Lynn Lydon."

"Alright, time to go."

"Huh, go where?"

"To a motel, I'm now realizing how public this place is."

Sam shut the laptop lid and Dean scooted out of the booth to pay the check. Sam followed reluctantly after his brother, he was irritated about being forced to pause his search, especially since he had made a significant breakthrough.

Later that night, they discovered that Irene Lydon's killer had never been caught. Lynn lived with her older sister until she finished out the remainder of her senior year. Then shortly after her graduation, she left the suburbs to live in DC.

"Three years ago, Jennifer Lydon was attacked in her apartment by her boyfriend, Peter Ardell. According to her statement, she was in her apartment, making dinner and her boyfriend, came home. He hit her over the head with something heavy, knocked her out, and when she woke up she was tied to the chair. He beat the living crap out of her, and after four hours, one of her neighbors got tired of all the screaming and called the cops. They bust in, but the boyfriend was already gone out the fire escape."

"Nice neighbors. Did they ever find him?" asked Dean.

"No, he skipped town and was last seen near the Canadian border. But one part of her statement is particularly interesting."

"What's that?"

"She claimed he had black eyes."

"Like demon possession black eyes?"

"Not in so many words, but yeah, that's what it sounds like. It makes sense though, doesn't it? He's a perfectly good, upstanding citizen and loving boyfriend and out of no where, he attacks and nearly kills his girlfriend."

"Why didn't he just kill her?"

"Dunno, but he worked her over pretty good, her left wrist was broken in three places, she had a fractured collar bone and two broken ribs, plus a concussion and a sprained ankle; not to mention dozens of bruises and cuts. Look at the pictures; I'm surprised he didn't knock her teeth out."

Dean came to stand behind Sam; he let out a long, low whistle. The pictures were grotesque, her face was swollen and bruised, her wrist was bent at an awkward angle, and her abdomen was a mess. He could barely look at them for too long.

"So where is she now?"

"No idea, she changed her name and dropped off the grid."

"What'd she change it too?"

"Those kinds records are sealed, can't get to 'em without a court order, but I think if I could get into city hall, I might be able to log on to their servers."

"We're gonna need disguises, aren't we?"

"And maybe a few fake badges."

"Great," said Dean sarcastically.

---

They were dressed in dark blue jumpsuits, claiming to be electricians who were sent to look at some faulty wiring in the offices. The young woman at reception took one look at Dean and let them through and into the elevators. It didn't take Sam long to find a computer to hack and download the information they needed. They were in and out of city hall in less than an hour and no one gave them a second glace. Except for the receptionist, she gave Dean a third and fourth glance…

Once they were back in the motel, they went over their information. Lynn had changed her name to Laura Jenkins and was currently living New York. She lived alone, worked days in a diner and nights in a bar.

It was more than a good start.

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[A/N okso, i'm not too thrilled with the opening chapter. i've written better but i needed to get ths fic started. yes there will be an OFC. but (and i know everybody says this) it won't be a mary sue. and if it starts to drift into the forbidden domain of mary-sue-dom please fell free to tell me.

and if you care to read on, chapter 2 will be up in the next couple of days.