She rushed through a dark, wooded area, running from a mysterious assailant. Her breath was running out, her legs were screaming with white, hot pain. She's ran for so long, she can't even remember how long it's been since she'd started running for her life. She screamed as she almost collided with a tree, and the brief pause let what was chasing her catch up. The sound of rushing water resounded through her ears, and again she pushed herself so hard that the scream from her muscles was almost louder than her own.

After what felt like days, she saw a light ahead. Was it salvation? Was there help? She could only pray.

Her heart sank when she saw what it was; a cliff overlooking a large, deep and blue body of water with no other land in sight. She slowly turned around and saw gigantic waves rolling at her maliciously. Accepting defeat, she closed her eyes and drew in the deepest breath her strained lungs could . The waves grabbed her and threw her from the cliff like a ragdoll, cracking a bone in her ribs from the pressure. She screamed in pain, and received lungs full of water in return.

Outside of her head, she was actually strapped to a bed surrounded by doctors and orderlies ready to work. They watched her convulse as she dreamed, indicating her drowning had begun. The doctor started issuing commands to save her, resuscitation, CPR, medicine to jolt her awake. Nothing seemed to work.

The girl coughed and water choked out from between her lips and into the air mask they were trying to use to get her breathing again, and forced them to restart the process. They tried and tried to wake her, but the only time her eyes opened was when her heart monitor flat lined, and water just ran in a single stream from her lips.

She just wouldn't stop drowning.


Sam jolted awake as the car slowed to a halt at a stop light.

"What, huh? Where are we?"

"Ohio. You slept from South Dakota."

Sam's face twisted in confusion. "From Bobby's? I slept… nineteen hours?"

"Yup! You might want to look in the mirror, too. You were out of it, guess you really needed it."

Sam flipped down the visor and opened the mirror and groaned in annoyance. "Seriously, Dean? How old are you?"

Dean's voice rang with laughter as he stepped on the gas again. Sam's face was covered in pen drawings consisting of scribbles and some inappropriate shapes near his mouth. He grabbed a bottle of water and napkins, wetting the napkin and wiped at his face.

"You were tired! I was bored! I stopped for food twice, asked you both times if you wanted something. You said no, so I carried on. The second time, I got all Picasso on your face."

"Glad you can find pleasure in my misery…" Sam finished cleaning his face and threw the napkins in a take-out bag on the floorboards. "I seriously slept all the way to Ohio?"

Dean pointed at a road sign indicating entrance to Columbus, Ohio. Sam blinked in amazement.

"Why'd we come here again, Sammy?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, here," he started pulling out his notes and newspaper scans. "There've been deaths in a hospital in the middle of the nights, one each week for the past month."

"Cause of death?" Dean asked, getting into his Hunter persona.

"Drowning in their sleep. The doctors even try to prevent the drowning from happening by keeping close eyes on all the patients and making sure the staff is always present."

"What do you think is doing it? Vengeful spirit?"

"I couldn't say. We'll have to get some information."

Dean nodded and turned the dial on his radio up. Sam tried to process every possibility in his head, but gave up as Dean's music just kept piercing his thoughts.

-x-

Donned in their faux suits, Sam and Dean entered the city hospital prepared to FBI their way into more information. The brothers exchanged glances of reassurance and approached the nest of doctors at a nurse's station.

"Hey, is one of you the head doctors around here?" Sam asked as he put his hands on his hips.

One man with short shaven hair and thin-rimmed glasses spoke up for the rest of them. "Who are you men?"

"FBI Special Agents Bordeaux and Benton," Dean answered, flashing his FBI badge alongside Sam. "We're looking into the cases of all the drowning patients."

The same man who answered looked to the other doctors near him and nodded, and they dispersed. "I didn't know there was a case here."

"You're in charge here, then?" Sam pulled out his notepad and pen.

"Yes, I'm Doctor John Smith."

"John Smith?" Dean asked skeptically. A doctor with a common name as fake as that?

"I get that a lot. So what do you need to know? The police had already questioned me."

"Just cleaning up some loose ends. How did the patients drown?" Dean then pocketed his hands.

John looked around and noticed his nurses peering at him not that secretly. "Can we discuss this in my office?"

-x-

"The patients were asleep when they drown?" Sam asked with the most disbelief he could muster.

"Yeah, it baffled us all… No one really seems to believe us, but it always happened in the middle of the night."

"Did any of the patients exhibit any peculiar behavior?" Dean added.

"Well, no, not really. I mean, there were a few things, but this is not only a hospital. We also treat some unstable patients, too."

"Unstable?"

"Crazy people. But only in younger ages, more minor cases. Like suicidal teenagers, or young adults that lost a loved one crazy. Anything worse than that we send off to the mental hospital."

"Anything that stood out more than most?" Sam asked then, scribbling as fast as he could to keep up with speech.

"The first thing the patients seemed to exhibit was that they didn't want to sleep, because the night before they had a nightmare…"

"They say what was in the nightmare?" Dean leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

"That they were warned to not sleep… wait, you guys think this has something to do with it? We had autopsies completed and found nothing."

"One more question, before we go," Sam added quickly, "will you let us know right away if someone else starts to behave like the previous?" He placed a card before the doctor.

John picked it up and turned it in his hands. "I'll consider it."

"Thanks," Dean ended the conversation with a handshake and a smile.

Back at the Impala, Sam read over his notes.

"What do we do now? Wait for the doc to call us? If he does?" Dean started up the car and turned on the AC.

Sam switched it off. "It's cold enough. Let's get back to the motel and look up some info on the patients that were killed. See if there's a pattern, if there could be a ghost haunting the area."

-x-

"According to the profiles of the three drowning victims, they have nothing in common except for that hospital," Dean told Sam from the table.

"And what I've found is that there is a person that could be haunting the patients. There used to be a pool where the hospital expanded to a long time ago, they built over it. Apparently, someone had sleepwalked into the pool and drown," Sam read from his laptop on the bed.

"Someone who? Find and torch the bones and we can get rid of them?"

"The person's name was… Linda Kaufman. Only two years ago."

"What a sad way to die. Where's she buried?"

"Uh… She's not. She was cremated per her requests, so she must be haunting a personal object."

Dean's head fell in annoyance. "Greaaaaaat… Let's do some more research, my favorite."

"Go ahead and go, I know you want to."

"Go where?" Dean asked, trying to be unknowing, although he was already putting his hands on his keys.

"Just go!" Sam leaned into his laptop and continued on his search as Dean bolted out the door.

For the remainder of the day, Dean was actually out trying to gather information on the drowning of Linda Kaufman, while Sam did more backgrounds on the passed away patients, and what he could on Linda.

It seemed off to Sam that the ghost would only be two years old and already have haunting and vengeance on its mind, but he didn't truly know the nature of the deceased, so he couldn't speculate on it much longer.

-x-

Doctor John Smith looked over the FBI contact card Sam left with him. Should he call? What would they really do?

A knock sounded on the wooden frame that was the entrance to his office. "Doctor? It's Bell. She just woke up from another nightmare…"

"Still saying someone warned her?"

The nurse at the door nodded sheepishly. "She is refusing to try to sleep again, or any medication."

"I'll be there in a minute."

The nurse closed the door back over to where it was before she addressed the doctor. John stared at the card a little longer, then glanced at the phone. No, he wouldn't call. He could save this patient. He can do it, he can reverse this awkward anomaly and become a hero among the city and its people, make the papers, even the news. He can prove it to the FBI who believed the weirdness and show them he wasn't as stupid as they seemed to think of him.

He pressed the card in-between his hands, crumbling it and tossing it in the trashcan.

-x-

Dean came back in the middle of the night, deciding a stop at the local bar was needed. He didn't drink much, anticipating a call tomorrow from John. He stayed seated in the car, just looking at the window that held the room he was supposed to be sleeping in on the other side.

A sound of feathers ruffling came from his right, and without looking, he knew what that noise meant.

"Fancy meeting you here, Cas. Did Sammy call you?"

"No, Dean. I came here of my own accord."

Dean raised his brows and looked at his trench coat-wearing angelic friend. "Are you here on orders? Did I do something wrong again?" he mocked as he threw open the door and got out.

Cas was waiting for him outside his door. "No, it's about your case."

"Well, let's hear it," Dean replied while getting into the trunk of the car. His hands brushed the six-pack he bought earlier in the day, and the cold night kept it the perfect temperature.

"The patients all drown at exactly 2 A.M. each Thursday night. Tomorrow night is Thursday. The next victim will be tomorrow."

"Why couldn't Sammy find that out? Why didn't I catch that?" Dean responded with a half-hearted interest.

Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean. "Are you intoxicated?"

Dean eyed his beer bottle confusingly, and then chuckled. "Okay, so I might be, but not more than I usually am."

"Dean, I worry about you."

With the same flutter, Castiel had disappeared.

"I would worry about me, too. I think. Ha."

Dean locked up his car and went into the room. His brother was curled up and asleep soundly on one bed. Dean looked at his watch and then around the room. He sat his almost empty bottle on the table near him and started to undo his shirt. He realized he should probably look for his tie later; oh wait, there it is, in his pocket. With a small laugh at himself, he tossed it to the table to join his beer and finished loosing up his clothes and sat down on his bed.

As Dean watched his brother, he felt his sober side peaking through and give him thoughts mixed with his drunken side. Oh, Sammy, our lives are so fucked up and here you can sleep so soundly, almost every night. Do you hate me for this? I would. I would hate the shit out of me. You're way more forgiving than I am, and I think that's what keeps me strong, some days. Other days, I hate you as much as you hate me. Either way, I love ya, Sammy. See you in the morning.

Once his head hit the pillow, he was completely out of it.