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Who: Owen, Martha, and Clara
Where: All over the mansion!
When: Sunday, 6/09
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: Clara's piqued his interest about the fear gas, and Owen decides to investigate further.
The Story: For once, Owen's actually doing something during his shift in the clinic; he's busied himself in the laboratory section, setting up equipment and getting some more from the closets. It's not quite as advanced as the setup he had back home, but that involved some adapted alien tech rigged up specially for the purpose. He's quite capable of making do with an admittedly inferior setup.

As he starts running tests on the spectrometer, he glances at Martha. "Oi, Jones," he drawls lazily, "how do you feel about biochemistry and/or scavenger hunts?" Sure, he's got Clara to help (or he will once he enlists her), but there's a lot of mansion to cover. As he waits for her answer, he pulls his network device out of his pocket, firing off a quick text to Clara and asking her to come down to the clinic.

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While Owen has spent most of his shift in the clinic rummaging back in the lab, Martha's been covering the front area unless any patients show up. If she's honest with herself, she hasn't wanted much to do with the lab since the past event, seeing how that's mainly where she'd performed experiments on people. She'll move past it at some point, but at the moment the memories are just far too clear. Luckily, she has a good excuse for not being back there, and is only drawn toward the area when Owen calls out for her.

Letting out a breath in preparation, Martha pokes her head in and looks Owen over, eyeing the setup he has with a raised eyebrow. It looks like he's most definitely up to something, though that might be a good thing. Better that Owen keeps himself busy, rather than languishing in boredom or hitting the bottle too hard.

"I might rank scavenger hunts over biochemistry, just a bit," she says with a playful smile. She prefers anatomy to chemistry when it comes to her studies, because it's less theoretical, but it's not like she isn't capable if the occasion calls for it. "What are you plotting?"

Worried that's something's wrong, Clara hurries her way down to the clinic as soon as she gets the message. Right before she walks through the door, she thinks that maybe he just wants to see her and it's supposed to be a social call. Which would make bursting inside a bit awkward, so she takes it slow, cracking the door open to peek inside.

"Owen?" She catches sight of him and moves inside, closing the door behind her before making her way over to him.

Martha's there too, and she offers her friend a smile and a wave, before turning her full attention to Owen. He gets a hit to his arm and a slight pout. "Could've mentioned everything was okay," She pauses, with a hint of a tiny smile to let him know she's not actually cross about it at all. "It is, isn't it?"

"Of course it is," he reassures her, "I just wanted to ask for your help with a project." Owen reaches for a trio of gas masks and dangles them from his hand, showing them to Martha and Clara. "Scavenger hunt," he explains, "for more of those stuffed toys with the nasty neurotoxin inside." He's not sure how much help gas masks will be - he doesn't want to wear one the whole time, after all - but it's a preventative measure he feels obligated to take.

"You know about the stuff from last weekend, right?" He directs the question at Martha, glancing over at her to verify. He's seen a couple posts on the network - including Clara's - and so it seems likely she's found out about it by now. If not, he's more than willing to explain it to her.

It might have helped if Owen had told her that he was calling Clara down here, but either way, it's a welcome surprise. Martha quickly returns the smile, quietly amused when Clara smacks Owen. Whatever that was for, he probably deserves it. She hadn't realized that the two of them had gotten to know each other, but judging from what she's seen here, they've already become fast friends.

Because when it comes to Owen, there's a strange definition for friend.

It's clear that she's a bit out of the loop here, but at least that's something Owen picks up on. "Well, Clara told me about the nightmare visions, but this is the first time I'm hearing about... stuffed toys?" She looks between them. She knows that Clara was affected, but if Owen's this invested, then he must have gotten hit with it too. Martha frowns. "Mind filling me in?"

"Stuffed bear, in my case. Not gonna be too eager to ever pick up one again after this." She explains without really giving much of any important details at all, and stares up at Owen for a moment before taking one of the gas masks out of his hand. She places the strap up and over her head and wears it almost like a necklace, the mask part itself dangling down over her chest.

"Found it just sitting in the hallway. On the fourth floor, I believe. Sounds like it's as good of a place as any to start." Her bravado toward going right out there to find more of the evil stuffed toys keeps her from showing just how much the fear gas impacted her and upset her. She's grateful for the opportunity to prove to herself that some intense fear isn't going to break her.

"Some sort of delivery mechanism hidden inside stuffed toys," Owen adds. "Most likely an aerosol spray with a hair trigger - hence the gas masks. So I figure if we can get a sample to analyse, it shouldn't be too difficult to work out some sort of antidote. I've done it before, once or twice." Not that he's bragging to impress them. Certainly not. (He knows it won't work, but he might as well try, right? Right.)

"Mine was in the library," he offers, "on a bookshelf. I must've bumped it while I was looking for a book." Because Owen isn't exactly the sort of person to pick up stuffed bears at random. "Anybody else tell you more, Clara?" She and Martha are both the sort of people others find it easy to talk to, whereas Owen...well, let's just say he isn't, and leave it at that.

As Owen explains, Martha nods along. What sick person decided to fill teddy bears with some sort of hallucinogenic gas? Of course, Martha is hardly in the position to judge, considering what she did during that event, but it still rubs her the wrong way. Still, the idea of putting together an antidote in case it ever crops up again is a good idea, and she might be just a tiny bit impressed that Owen thought of that. She smiles at him, but that's the only real indication that she gives.

She takes the other gas mask from him, looking it over and briefly reminded of the Sontaran gas and that whole mess. At least this isn't quite as bad as that, though that's an easy claim for her to make when she wasn't made victim to any of those nightmare visions.

"So you think we'll just be able to find another one of those teddies hanging about somewhere?" Martha doesn't know how likely that is, but if they were really scattered all over, then maybe there's a chance that there are still a few floating around.

"Haven't heard much in the way of information yet, but I'm hoping Sam might be able to help me out. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders." She shrugs, unsure if Sam even wants to get involved in something like this. She'll have to ask him later, if they can find a sample.

"And there must be some just lying around, waiting for a victim. I came across a few after I was initially sprayed." Which probably explains why her nightmares lasted for what felt like forever. She frowns, but doesn't waste any time in making her way back over toward the door at a march. She pauses at the doorway, fiddling with the gas mask. She pulls it up onto her face, feels that's much too stuffy, pulls it to snap atop her head and that just feels heavy, so it's slid back down once again to rest around her neck. And now that she's spent the past twenty seconds looking like a five year old toying with something new, she covers it up by acting like she knows what she's doing and she's the one in charge.

"Oswald, out." And with a playful salute, she motions for them to follow with a sweep of her head.

"I'd like to know what sort of sick bastard is planting this shit," Owen grumbles. And in teddy bears, too - the sort of thing that's likely to lure kids in. There are a few of them here, from what he's seen on the network, and the thought of a kid having to deal with that...well, it's not something he wants to think about. He'd rather focus on finding one of the bears first, and then making an antidote.

(If he ever does discover the culprite, he thinks that he'd be sorely tempted to give them a taste of their own medicine - not out of revenge, but because the deed itself just pisses him off.)

Owen lets his own gas mask dangle from his hand as he follows after Clara, giving Martha a slightly sheepish smile. He really needs to find some women who aren't such take-charge types (even if he does kind of like it).

At the mention of Sam, Martha tilts her head to the side, wondering if it's the same Sam she knows. It's a common enough name, but she's only met the one here, so she thinks that it's yet another coincidence.

After watching Clara struggle with her gasmask, Martha decides to slide the strap over her arm, letting it hang from the crook of her elbow for the moment. She follows the others out into the hall, already keeping an eye out for any teddy bears. She's more or less on the same page with Owen on this. "I'd like to know, too -- though we also have to remember that they may not have been able to help themselves with that event." It's easy to direct all of their anger against whoever did this, but she doesn't want to jump to that too quickly.

"Clara, were you talking about Sam Winchester earlier?" Martha feels guilty when she thinks of him, because she hadn't really been able to help him as much as she would have liked when Dean had brought him over after their return. She hopes he's been all right.

"That's the one. He's an interesting one, that's for sure." Clara considers him to be a friend, but also a source of information, someone to go to when she has questions or to ask for help researching. It's not much of any surprise that Martha knows him, she thinks, because they're both efficient and hard-working people that know what they're doing.

"Dunno if he has any experience with the gas," She fibs a bit, not wanting to reveal anything Sam told her because she's not sure if he wants anything told, "But I'm sure he'd be willing to help out if we find a sample."

Quite honestly, Clara cares less about finding out the one responsible for the fear gas, and much more about finding an antidote. They can't exactly lock up whoever did it in the first place, because Martha's right, they weren't themselves. So all anyone can do is prepare for a next time, because she's certain that in a place like this, there's always going to be a next time.

She leads the way up to the second story, where thankfully, the library is currently situated and not about to pop on up to the third floor. She opens the door for the other two, and makes sure they're both inside before slipping on in after them.

Owen's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt once, but if it happens again, without an event to blame, then he won't be quite so forgiving. On a personal level, he hates the lack of control panic attacks cause. He remembers all too well what it was like to curl up in a foetal position in the library, helpless and blind, and it pisses him off. He's got quite enough of that sort of thing to deal with without any sort of neurotoxin involved, making him look weak in front of other people.

He enters the library, glancing around to see if he can spot any teddy bears. "Mine was sort of tucked away next to some books," he offers for the other two, "not quite in sight. I brushed it while I was taking some books off the shelf."

An interesting one, Clara says. Martha wonders how much she knows about Sam, his brother, and what they do, but that's a conversation for another time. Her interaction with Sam has been limited, but just from those encounters she can tell that he's sharp. "We'll keep him in mind, then. With something like this, I imagine we need all the help we can get."

When they enter the library and Owen makes it clear that he'd found one of those stuffed bears here, Martha decides that it's time for the gas mask. She positions it over the face and then pulls the strap to the back of her head. It's constricting and uncomfortable, but after what she's heard about this gas, she's willing to put up with this if it means not breathing it in.

"Should we split up and search the shelves, then?" she asks the others. Her voice comes out distorted, but hopefully they can both make out her words well enough.

Clara isn't putting on her mask just yet, instead she gives Martha a thumbs up and sets off in the opposite direction. There's a lot of shelves of books here, so she's not all that excited to just be rifling through them, especially with the thought of being gassed again. Even with the safety of having the mask, she has a sinking suspicion that Wonderland would make them not function properly, just to mess with them.

It's only when her fingers brush across the first book that she reluctantly pulls her mask up and on, huffing at the heavy feel of it on her face. She knows it's necessary though, and wears it with as little disgust as possible. The first few shelves she checks have nothing but books, so she moves further down her row. She can't hear or see the others the further down she moves, and it's when she's feeling entirely alone that she becomes a bit more cautious and slow, which is a pity as the shelves only seem to be getting taller and taller.

So tall that she climbs up on one of the shelves to get a good look at them, it's not easy being as short as she is and doing investigative work. While standing up on the second shelf she reaches up above her head to try and reach to the top, and her fingers brush across something that feels fuzzy. With a shout, she jerks her hand back, balance shifting to she topples to the ground. A few of the items from the high up shelf fall with her, landing on her. The culprit of all this? Not a stuffed bear, but a worn peace of leather parchment. She lays there for a moment, a bit dazed by the fall. Oh, this hunt is going so well.

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