Sam checked on Kate a half our later and she was still asleep. She was twitching and unsettled but resting. He had mixed up a concoction an old friend of John's had given them when Sam was having frequent headaches. He sat her up and helped her take small sips. She wasn't completely awake but managed to get the liquid down. He gave her some water to wash the bitter taste down and then laid her head back down on her pillow. Dean had always been there when his headaches got unbearable but Sam was the only one who knew how she felt.
Bobby sent Brian a message to call when he got the chance. Correspondence was hit or miss but he was hopeful that they'd get a call before the end of the day.
Dean called Missouri to see if she knew anything. The phone rang three times and Dean was about to hang up.
"Well, Hello, Dean Winchester. I haven't heard from you in a while." Missouri answered in a voice dripping with honey.
"Wha- how did you know it was me?" She always through him off even though he knew she had psychic abilities.
She clicked her tongue. "What can I do for you, honey?"
"Do the names Brian and Kate O'Connor ring a bell?" He asked, anxious to get some answers.
"Hmm, yeah, I have met them. What makes you ask?" She had only met them once, after John sent Brian to her house.
Dean filled her in on what was going on with Brian and that Katie had been staying at Bobby's house for the time being. "She woke up out of sorts this morning. She was obsessing over a voice she hears when she is upset. She fretted over it all morning and then finally nailed down what the voice sounded like."
"A voice? Does she mean a voice or her conscience?" She heard the worry in Dean's voice but hadn't caught up with why.
"She mimicked the voice out loud and it sounds just like you."
She slowly started to piece it together. "What is it that I am supposedly saying to her?"
Dean snapped his fingers, trying to remember. "Something about she is going to be just fine. So, we thought it was just a soothing thing to calm herself down but she was a mess this morning and once she figured it out, her head was hurting so bad that she couldn't see straight."
Missouri sat down and focused her mind on a rainy day, five years prior. Brian had knocked on her door, distraught. John Winchester had sent him and he had a darling little girl with him so Missouri had let him in. He wanted to contact his wife. Missouri had obliged him and managed a brief 'call' with Ruth. She had given them privacy and didn't listen in on what was being said. Katie fell asleep on her sofa, in front of the fire and Missouri and Brian chatted for a while. She had seen the same grief stricken, defeated look on many faces over the years and it always broke her heart. A week prior, Brian's car had stalled while driving down a country road. Kate was asleep in the backseat and Brian got out of the car to pop the hood and figure out why the car had died. He heard Kate scream and ran around the car to find someone standing over her. The person had their hands on her head and her eyes fluttered. He yelled and swung at the person and was met with a pair of black eyes. He threw holy water on it and shouted the beginning of an exorcism. The demon inside the man smoked out. The man that the demon had used panicked, finding himself somewhere he had no memory of. Brian told him he had been sleep walking and asked where he lived. The car started with no problem and he drove the man back home. Brian was under the impression that he had gotten rid of the demon before it had a chance to cause Kate any harm. Kate had days of little to no sleep and acted scared of everything. Brian was at a loss and over his head. That is what sent him to Missouri's house, in search of one last conversation with his wife.
"Do you think the demon did something to her head?" Dean asked, processing the story.
"That is what I don't know, Dean. When she was asleep she had an awful nightmare and Brian couldn't get her to wake up or calm down. Now that I think of it, I did put my hands on her and tell her she was going to be just fine. It was a suggestion so to speak. I pushed the thought into her head but it is a harmless trick." Missouri said, confirming why Kate kept hearing her voice.
"Do you have any idea what caused the headache?" That was Dean's main concern.
"Let me check on some things and I'll get back to you this afternoon. Oh, and Dean? Lay off the coffee and get yourself some sleep or you'll be in the same boat Kate is." She said warmly.
"Wha-How? Uh, yes, ma'am I'll do that." Dean sputtered.
"Tell your brother and Bobby I said hello. I'll call later. Bye for now, Dean."
"Thanks, I will, bye." Dean said as he hung up the phone. He walked to the study in search of Bobby.
"In here, Dean." Bobby said from the living room. "Any luck?"
Dean sat down and relayed everything Missouri had told him.
Bobby scratched his chin and thought. "That does help make sense of it all. Maybe Brian will have the rest of the information."
Dean bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Bobby. Sam has migraines too. Do you think what ever happened to Kate happened to him?"
"I don't now Dean. Migraines aren't that uncommon." Bobby said, although his mind was racing.
Dean thought that Sam and Kate had too much in common for those types of headaches to be coincidence but he knew that jumping to conclusions would not prove helpful.
###########################
Kate watched as water flowed over her bare feet. The birds sang and the wind blew gently. The sweet smell of wildflowers hung in the air. She stepped out of the creek and made her way down a path. She spied the source of the sweet smell and broke off a few stems. The sun broke through the trees an she turned and faced a ray of sun to soak up the warmth.
Suddenly the sun left and the forest began to chill. She looked down and the flowers had wilted. Her feet and legs were covered in scratches and her fingers were beginning to stiffen from the cold. She looked around and the path was gone. She called out for her Dad and the birds left the trees. Branches snapped behind her but no one was there. Her heartbeat quickened and she ran.
A wolf howled and her blood froze. She called out again but her dad didn't answer. Branches around her began to snap and she whipped her head around. Something was there. She could see wisps of warm breath floating in the air. She backed away, terrified. A small blue light floated down and landed in her hand. "Run." She heard a quiet voice whisper so she did. She ran until she tripped over a log and rolled down a hill. Her breath was gone and her head hurt. Leaves and branches rustled next to her and she looked up to see a cloud of breath, inches from her face. She swung her arms over her face and screamed.
"Kate, Kate, wake up. You're having a bad dream. It's just a dream." She heard a much clearer voice, pulling her from the forest.
Her eyes fluttered open but she couldn't see anything. "I can't see!" She screamed, trying to rub the darkness from her eyes.
She heard footsteps and then the door cracked open. "Hey, hey. It's okay honey. You are in your room. We just made it dark so the light didn't hurt your head. Look, you can see." Bobby's reassuring voice said.
She slowly left the forest and returned to her room. She felt shaky arms wrapped around her and found a glass of water in front of her face. She took the water and washed the rest of the dream from her head. She squinted, letting her eyes adjust.
Dean brushed the hair out of her eyes. "You scared us there."
"We heard you scream and when we got up here you were still asleep but flailing." Sam's calm voice added from somewhere in the dark room.
Dean chuckled warmly. "I don't know what the dream was about but you've got a mean right hook."
"What?" Katie asked, not fully with it yet.
Bobby chuckled as well. "Dean grabbed you to wake you up and you swung."
Katie turned to look at Dean. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Are you okay?"
He hugged her tighter. "Yep. My pride may be a little hurt if I wind up with a black eye but I'll be fine."
She could hear the smile in his voice. He could bring humor into anything and it helped her calm down from her dream. She was back at Bobby's house and safe.
The phone rang and Bobby went downstairs to answer it.
"Do you need to sleep some more? How is your head?" Dean asked.
"It hurts a little but not as much." Kate said, rubbing her forehead. She scrunched her face. "What did you give me, it tasted like feet?"
Sam spoke up. "It is a mixture of stuff that helped me with my migraines. It is nasty but works pretty fast."
They stayed in her room, letting the hall light cast a soft glow. She was still slightly shaken from the dream and needed the company.
##########
"Hey, uh Bobby, is something wrong? I just now got a chance to call but I don't have a long time." Brian's voice crackled over the line.
"Kate has been asking a lot of questions. She is piecing things together and has tried to do some demon research of her own." Bobby began.
Brian groaned. That was the last thing he wanted at the time. He had planned to talk to her after they had been at the cabin for a while. "Can you distract her until I get back?"
"That is what we are trying to do. She remembers meeting Missouri and woke up in a tizzy about it." Bobby gently pushed, trying to convey that she was more perceptive than Brian had given her credit for.
"How? She was so little and we weren't there long. Did she say anything about it? What all does she remember?" He spit out, obviously frustrated.
"She said when she is scared or upset she hears Missouri's voice but didn't realize that it was a real voice until this morning. Once she figured it out she got hit with a migraine and has been sleeping it off. She woke up not long ago, screaming from a nightmare. Brian, she is struggling." Bobby didn't envy the man but felt certain that Kate needed some concrete information before she spiraled.
"Damn kid is too curious for her own good. She needs to stop pushing." Brian wasn't prepared for Kate to learn the truth.
"That she is and you know she wont stop. It is like she is lost in her head, picking at memories until they roll out. Brian, we talked to Missouri. Kate didn't but Dean did. What happened in that car?" Knowing the call would be brief, Bobby needed to draw as much information out as he could, while he could.
Brian was quiet. He had pushed that memory to the deepest corner of his brain. "They almost got her. I should have known and should have been watching her." His voice cracked.
"Missouri remembered enough to say that the demon grabbed Kate's head and tried to take her from the car. Did it hurt her? She mentioned Kate having a nightmare then too. I need to know what happened so that I can help her. She is in rough shape."
"I ran around the car and he had the door open and his hands on her head. When he saw me, his eyes changed and he tried taking her. I managed to fight him off and he smoked out. She had some nightmares after that but it didn't seem like the thing hurt her. I had suspicions so I asked Missouri to help me contact Ruth. I figured if I could talk to her, she could tell me what happened the night she died. I am grateful that Kate was okay but if the demon was going to hurt her, he could have in a split second. I felt like he was there for a reason and needed to ask Ruth a few things." Brian spoke quickly, the pain of the memory flooding back.
"And did you talk to Ruth? Did she know what happened?" Bobby knew it was painful but needed to help Kate.
Brian tried to focus. "Yeah. She was hard to understand and so far away but I asked her what happened. From what I could gather, the demon had yellow eyes and was standing over Kate, when Ruth ran into the room. After she told me that, she flickered out and the connection broke."
Bobby thought about all of the things he had learned that day. "Do you think she interrupted something and the demon from the car came back to finish it?"
"I don't know Bobby but it makes me uneasy. Once I'm gone, if they come for her..."
"We have her back. Don't you worry about that. Just worry about getting back to her and what you are going to say to her." Bobby interrupted him.
"Thanks Bobby. Don't tell her about my deal just yet but try to give her enough information that she stops digging." John had returned and Brian needed to get back to work.
Bobby snorted. "I'll do my best. Be safe out there."
Brian merely grunted and Bobby hung the phone back up.
He walked back up the stairs to see how Kate was doing. He opened the door a bit further. Sam and Dean were still sitting with her, talking softly.
"Kate was trying to tell us what she dreamed about." Dean said, meeting eyes with Bobby.
Bobby pulled a chair out and sat down.
Kate bit her fingernails and tried to recall details of the dream. "It felt so real. I could feel the sun being warm and smell the flowers." The realness of the dream scared her and made her afraid that she would be pulled back in. "I was in a forest, walking in a stream and decided to pick some wildflowers. Then it got dark and cold and my flowers died." Her heartbeat sped up and she felt sick.
Dean wrapped his arm around her. "It's okay. You are safe. Take your time."
"I got scared and ran. I could hear wolves howling and I didn't know where I was." She kicked her blanket off and ran her fingers down her legs. "My legs were bleeding from scratches." The lack of scratches on her skin helped tie her to reality. "Something was chasing me but I couldn't see what it was. A weird light told me to run and I did but tripped and the monster was right in my face and I could see it breathe but couldn't see it." She had tears in her eyes, still terrified. "And then I woke up."
"You are awake now and nothing can get you." Dean said soothingly.
"It was so real though. I could smell and feel everything." She hung her shoulders.
"Katie, what kind of monster was after you. Maybe reading about it will help." Sam offered.
Kate gripped his hand tightly. "I didn't get to see it. I could feel it pressing down on my leg with a claw or foot or something but maybe it was a ghost. It was just a dream. My brain probably made it up. Wolves don't even have ghosts right?"
Dean made eye contact with Bobby. "Wolves?" Dean asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.
"I heard it howl and when it was chasing me it growled. It even had dog breath. So it must have been a wolf but wolves don't have ghosts and there is no such thing as an invisible wolf, not even a werewolf is invisible." She had calmed herself down by focusing on things she knew. It was just a dream and just her brain scaring her. "I am actually hungry." She stated, hopping off the bed.
"Come on, I'll make you a sandwich and hot coco." Sam offered, holding out his hand.
Dean and Bobby remained frozen while the two younger ones shuffled down the stairs.
Neither wanted to be the first to speak, hopeful that the other wasn't sharing their thoughts.
"Bobby, do you think Kate knows about hellhounds?" Dean finally asked.
Bobby ran his hands through his hair. That is what he was thinking as well and he was grasping to make sense of the dream. "No. but I think we need to call Missouri back."