( THE HOBBIT )

BUNKER LIBRARY
[ ☼ ]

Sam and Dean enter. "So no chance of a recovery, huh." Sam says. 

"No. No, Gertrude seemed like a cool mom, too. Kind, strong, taken from her family way too young — remind you of anybody?" Dean says. "Did you find anything?"

"I think so. A John Doe from nine years ago." Sam says. "The original coroner wanted the body sent to the CDC, but the coroner's new assistant "accidentally" ordered the body to be burned."

"New assistant?" Asks Dean.

"Jennifer O'Brien." Sam says.

"Coroner's a hell of a cover for hiding kills."

ABANDONED SHIPPING WAREHOUSE
[ ☼ ]

Jennifer releases Charlie's arm, leaving behind a blue handprint. "My manly man-friend's gonna come get you, you creepy power-suit lady." Charlie says.

"Oh, let him come. He reeked of fear as well." Jennifer grabs Charlie's arm again. Charlie screams, then passes out.

BUNKER LIBRARY
[ ☼ ]

"Now get this. CDC never heard from Jennifer this time either." Sam says. "She faked the reports, burned the bodies to cover her tracks."

"So why does she get sloppy again after nine years, start leaving the bodies where they can be found?" Dean asks.

"Well, let's go ask her. According to this, she owns two pieces of property in town, one two-bedroom house about ten minutes from here, and an abandoned shipping warehouse." Sam says.

"Course she does."

ABANDONED SHIPPING WAREHOUSE
[ ☼ ]

Sam and Dean enter and make their way to the area where Charlie is being held. Jennifer is nowhere to be seen. Dean moves over to Charlie. "Charlie. Charlie! Hey!" He shakes her. "Hey. Charlie."

Sam, meanwhile, explores the rest of the warehouse. Suddenly, Jennifer creeps up behind him. He attempts to attack her, but she easily overpowers him. She starts rolling up her sleeve. The tattoos and her eyes glow blue as she approaches Sam. Suddenly, the blue light in her eyes dies out and she drops to the floor; Dean has come up behind her and stabbed her with the silver blade.

"You okay?" Sam asks.

"Where's Charlie?"

Sam and Dean run up to Charlie. Sam injects her with a syringe filled with blue liquid, but it has no effect. "What the hell's going on?" Dean asks.

"I don't know. Different Djinn, maybe she needs a different antidote?" Sam asks.

"Charlie?" Dean touches her forehead. "She's burning up, man, we're not letting her turn to jello."

"Okay, okay, uh. Okay, Djinn poison puts your brain in something like a feedback loop while your blood boils, right?" Sam asks.

"Right."

"Um, if the antidote didn't break the loop, then maybe we can find a way to break it from the inside." Sam says. "I mean, if Djinn take you to your happy place, your happy place is like a dream —"

"African dream root." They say in unison.

Sam unscrews a jar of African dream root. Dean tips in a vial of ginger as Sam pulls out one of Charlie's hairs and adds it to the jar. "Alright, let's do this." Dean drinks the contents of the jar. "Ugh. Okay. Alright, I'm gonna need to go sleep fast, so, punch me." Sam gives him a look. "Look, man, I know you don't want to, okay—" Sam punches him. Dean staggers backwards a little, but isn't knocked out. Sam shakes his hand in pain. "Well, you're a little off your game there, cause I was— that was pretty—" Sam punches him again and Dean slumps into the unoccupied chair, unconscious.

MILITARY HOSPITAL
1950's
[ ☾]

Dean is being approached by the growling creature — which turn out to be two vampire soldiers. The elevator behind him opens. Charlie is inside it, in combat gear, carrying a shotgun. Dean steps out of the way and Charlie exits the elevator, shooting both vampires.

"Come with me if you wanna live." She says. "I've always wanted to say that. What're you doing in my dream?"

"You were attacked by a Djinn. The coroner, Jennifer, remember?" Dean asks. "Djinn usually send you to your, uh, your happy place— uh, no judgement, but, you got a really strange sense of happy, kiddo."

"Wait wait wait, no, no, no. Jennifer said that her kind feeds off fear. This isn't my happy place." Charlie says. "It's a recurring nightmare of mine."

"What is this?" Dean asks.

"It's a videogame."

"Wait a second, you're telling me that this whole thing is a videogame?" Dean asks.

"It was called The Red Scare. A first person shooter against super-soldier vampires. I copied it off a game company's server before it was finished, reprogrammed it to reflect my flamingly liberal politics and then I released it." Charlie says. "For free. Then they tracked me down and had me arrested. I was twelve."

"And you've been on the run ever since."

ABANDONED SHIPPING WAREHOUSE
[ ☾]

Sam coughs and checks for blood, then glances over at Charlie and Dean. There's a sound in the distance.

MILITARY HOSPITAL
1950's
[ ☾]

"So how do we get out of here?" Charlie asks.

"I don't know. We gave you the Djinn antidote, it didn't take." Dean says. "And I killed the Djinn.

"Both of them?"

ABANDONED SHIPPING WAREHOUSE
[ ☾]

Sam looks around the warehouse and sighs. The younger Djinn, Jennifer's son, steps out from behind a corner. "You killed my mom." He approaches San and his eyes glow blue.

MILITARY HOSPITAL
1950's
[ ☾]

Dean and Charlie are walking down a corridor. "We gotta get back and help Sammy. Tell me about this game, maybe if we can win, we— Several more vampire soldiers approach." Dean says as he and Charlie take them all out.

"Look, I don't know how long I've been out, but I've been through this level a thousand times already."

"What?!" Dean asks.

"Every time I beat the level and save the patients, I get reset back to the beginning, only there's less weapons and the vampires are faster." Charlie says as they kill two more vampires. "It's an infinite loop. Like, Pac-Man without level 256."

"Level what?" Dean asks.

"Nothing." Charlie says.

"Wait, what patients?" Dean asks.

Dean and Charlie lock themselves inside the patients' room. Dean slides back the curtain around one of the beds to reveal Gertrude. "Charlie? I know who this is." Dean says.

Charlie comes over to have a look. "What are you talking about?" She asks.

"When you went missing, me and Sam found your little crash pad. We saw the payments that you make for her." Dean says. "So I went and visited your mom, looking for you."

"She's why I'm in Kansas. I sneak into the hospital whenever I can, and I just... I read to her." Charlie says. "She used to read me to sleep at night when I was a kid. Sh— she'd read me The Hobbit." She blinks back tears. "She's the reason I love the stuff I love."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Dean says.

"She's not gone." Charlie yanks the curtains closed and paces away as Dean opens another curtain.

"Sam?"

Charlie walks over. "Is this my nightmare or yours?" She asks. The vampires start breaking down the doors to the patients' room.

ABANDONED SHIPPING WAREHOUSE
[ ☾]

Sam is thrown to the ground by the Djin, but crawls back up. "So, it wasn't your mom who messed up, it was you." Sam says.

"Shut up!" He punches Sam, who drops to the ground again. "I just came of age, I had to feed. I screwed up." Sam reclaims the dropped silver blade as the Djinn looks over to Jennifer's body. "Mom knew how to cover her tracks. She always told me not to play with my food." Sam comes up behind the him and stabs him as he turns around.

"Yeah, well, you should have listened to your mom." Sam says. The Djinn drops to the floor.

MILITARY HOSPITAL
1950's
[ ☾]

"This is it, the boss battle. Come on, we gotta save the patients." Charlie says.

"Wait wait wait. You said that we're stuck in a loop, right? But out there in the real world, you're dying." Dean says. "And I might be too. We gotta find a way to break this loop."

"Okay. How?" Asks Charlie.

"I think the only way to stop this is to... not play."

"What?! No, no. We gotta save them. Not up, Winchester." She says. A vampire punches in through the door. Dean shoots him. "See? You can't stop either."

"Listen to me. This poison, it's designed to put your mind into an endless cycle, while your insides turn to mush, okay, and its fuel is fear." Dean says. "Now call me crazy, but I think the only way to break the cycle is to let go of the fear and stop playing the game."

"You don't know that." Charlie shoots another vampire.

"I know that your fear is creating all of this. You're not afraid of those super-soldier vamps out there, you're not afraid of this game, and you're not afraid of what it did to you." Dean says as Charlie reloads, tearful. "Hey! Look at me. You're afraid of losing her. Charlie, she's already gone."

"No. No, you don't understand. You don't understand! I was at a sleepover, and I got scared. So..." She starts tearing up. "I called my parents to come and get me. They should never have been driving that night."

"It wasn't your fault." Says Dean.

"I just wanna tell her that I'm sorry and that I love her. And just have her hear it again. I just need her to hear that one more time. But she can't. She can't."

"I know. Believe me, I know. But you gotta let it go." Dean says. "Game over, kiddo."

Charlie takes aim at the vampires near the door again, hesitates, then drops the shotgun. The vampires disappear. Dean walks over and opens what is left of the door; the hallway is empty. Charlie walks over to Gertrude's bed and slides open the curtain. The bed is empty as well.

"Mom?"

ABANDONED SHIPPING WAREHOUSE
[ ☾]

Dean starts to wake up. "Dean? Dean. Hey. Hey! C'mere. You okay? What happened?" Sam asks and helps him out of the chair. "What happened?"

"I'm okay." Dean looks over to Charlie. "Charlie?" She wakes up, looks over at Dean, and lets out a tearful gasp.

"I'm sorry. I had to." Dean says. Charlie starts sobbing again as Dean pulls her into a hug.

BUNKER
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Charlie, Sam and Dean all exit the bunker. Sam hands Charlie her bag. "So... thanks for saving our bacon." Charlie says.

"Any time, your Highness." Sam says.

"You know you're gonna be okay, right? Those books portray you as like, one tough customer." Charlie says. "If anyone can get through the trials, Sam, it's you."

"Thanks. You know, you really should come back and dig through our archives." Sam says. "You are definitely a Woman of Letters."

"I like the sound of that." Charlie says as Sam hugs her and retreats to the bunker.

"Well, thanks for stopping by, Charlie. Always wanted to get Tron'ed." Dean says. "What's next for you?"

"Gonna go by the hospital." Charlie says. "Gotta let go, right?" Dean nods. "What about you, you're gonna let it go?"

"Never."

"That's my boys." She says. "I love you."

"I know." Dean pulls Charlie into another hug and kisses her temple. She waves and walks away.

BUNKER LIBRARY
[ ☼ ]

Dean enters. "Okay, look, you were right, I-I should've laid low, I— I know, I should've hung back, but I'm glad I was able to—" Sam starts.

Dean pulls him into a hug. "What d'you say we find our prophet?" He exits, leaving Sam standing there slightly bewildered.

GERTRUDE'S ROOM
[ ☼ ]

Charlie signs in and hands the Nurse back her clipboard. "Take all the time you need with your mom, okay?" The Nurse exits. Charlie goes to sit by her mom's bedside. She brushes a lock of hair off Gertrude's face, then pulls a tattered book out of her bag.

"One last time, okay?" She turns the first page. "'In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on, or to eat. It was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort'."