SPN Fanfic: Between a Quantum Rock and a Hard Place - PART 2/?
Title: Between a Quantum Rock and a Hard Place 2/?
Characters: Dean, Sam, The Doctor, Martha
Rating: GEN, PG13
Word Count: 3100 words
Disclaimer: None of this is mine! None of it! It all belongs to a bunch of other people!
Warnings: Spoilers for: Season 2 Supernatural, Season 3 (TenDoc) Doctor Who. Horrendously inaccurate depictions of American history and geography. Other than that, nothing content-wise that couldn't have been aired in either originating country...
Summary: Sam and Dean go hunt something. Things go wrong in unusual ways... Also, the Doctor and Martha aren't having a great day either.
A/N: And in this section, we go full crossover. This is the first time I've tried to write Doctor Who in fic at all, so anybody who reads this who's watching Doctor Who as well, I'd love to know whether it's working or not. And fair warning, everything I know about the time period involved, I learned from the internet, Wikipedia and RPGs, so people who actually do know American history, put on your cringing hats.
Missed Part 1?
Between a Quantum Rock and a Hard Place
Part 2
by CaffieneKitty
-
Sam and Dean sank to a crouch and gaped as the covered wagon progressed along the flat land on the other side of the rise. A string of about ten cows followed on a rope behind it.
"Wagon," said Dean after a long pause.
"Uh hunh," agreed Sam, staring.
"Dude, it's an actual covered wagon. Like in a cowboy movie."
"Yeah... yeah, I can see that, Dean. I don't think they're shooting a movie though. No cameras."
"Hunh." They stood for a second and watched it get closer. One of the cows relieved itself. "Think they're, like, re-enactors? People re-enact the settlement of the old west, right?"
"Maybe. People re-enact the civil war. There was a bunch of people at Stanford that called themselves lords and ladies, dressed up in armor every weekend and whacked each other with swords."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Well, blunt swords."
In the no-longer-so-distant distance the wagon rocked side to side and a bucket of something foul-looking was pitched out the back and away from the string of cows following it.
"I don't think these are re-enactors, Dean."
"Ghosts?"
"I don't think cows have ghosts." Sam's nose wrinkled as the smell reached them. "...and if they did, I doubt they'd smell so... organic."
A man with a shaggy beard and a floppy hat held the reigns and kept an eye on the Winchesters. The wagon rocked again as a substantial woman in a yellow dress stepped over the bench to sit beside him.
"So..." said Dean, "Maybe they're Amish?"
"God, I hope so."
"Well," Dean stood up from crouching on the small hill and dusted his hands on his pants. "We're not gonna find out anything by watching them go by."
Sam looked up at Dean. "Wait, what?"
Dean started walking down the hill toward he wagon, raised his hand and shouted, "Hey! Hey you! In the wagon, stop!"
"Dude, what are you doing?" Sam rose quickly and followed his brother down the hill, grabbing at Dean's jacket.
"They're people Sam," said Dean, waving and smiling brightly, "They're the first living things we've seen that isn't a cactus or a buzzard, and we need to find out what's going on here." he looked back at Sam. "I mean they have to at least know where we are, right? Even if they're Am-"
A puff of white smoke erupted from the front of the wagon, matched by a spray of hard-baked mud to Dean's left as the sound of the shot rang across the plain.
Both boys threw themselves to the ground.
"Son of a bitch!
"The Amish don't have guns, Dean!"
"I know that, smartass!" Dean raised his hands from ground and shouted at the wagon. "Look! We aren't-"
Another boom and a spray erupted in front of Dean, dirt clumps raining down on both of them with a patter.
"Dammit!" shouted Dean, staying down. "We're not gonna hurt you! Stop shooting!"
"We just want directions!" Sam added from the ground.
The woman in the cart exchanged the man's spent rifle for a musket which the bearded man leveled at the Winchesters. The woman hurriedly pushed a rod with a rag on the end down the barrel of the rifle, glaring at Sam and Dean.
"You stay. No move." The man spoke with a heavy Scandinavian accent. "What is want?"
"Directions! Where's the nearest town?"
The man frowned and leaned over to mutter together with the woman, who kept loading the rifle and glaring. Two small blond heads peered out from the back of the cart, wide-eyed.
"Town?" Dean shouted again propping himself up on his elbows.
The man re-aimed the musket at them. "No move. Town," pointing back direction the wagon had come. "Day."
"A day?" Sam said incredulously.
"Horse, day. No horse, two day."
Dean swore.
"Can we get water? We have no water." Sam asked.
The man leaned over to speak with the woman again. An argument in a language neither Sam or Dean understood rapidly ensued.
"Two days walking across mudflats?" Dean muttered to Sam.
Sam shrugged, mouth set wryly. "Not much we can do about it, Dean."
A kidney-shaped leather bag landed on the packed mud a few yards from the wagon with a slosh.
The woman pointed the loaded rifle at Sam and Dean, looking very un-thrilled at leaving the water-skin behind. "No move!" said the man, picking up the reigns and snapping them across the backs of the oxen. The placid and possibly deaf animals which hadn't shifted at the gunshots plodded forward amiably.
The boys got to their feet. Sam picked up the water-skin. Dean watched the two blond kids in the back of the wagon duck below the edge of the wagon gate, fingers poking between the slats. The wagon rolled off into he distance, trailing cows.
"So," said Sam, weighing the water-skin in his hands, "That was a muzzle-loaded weapon."
"Yeah. A black powder rifle. And a musket."
"When exactly did they stop manufacturing those?"
"I dunno, eighteen hundreds, I think. Maybe early twentieth century? Caleb would have known."
Silence fell, except for distant mooing.
"Do you think we really-"
"Let's just start walking, Sam," interrupted Dean. "I don't know what to think right now."
"Right. Me either. And we've apparently got some time to think about it."
They headed down the hill to follow the tracks of the wagon back to town.
-
"...and that should be the end of the weeping angels," said the Doctor, breezing through the TARDIS door in 1969.
"Thank god," said Martha, swishing in behind him in a polka-dotted dress. "I swear I will never be rude to a shop girl again!"
"Things look different from the other side of the counter, do they?"
"Oh, like you'd know." Martha took her hairband off and shook her hair out. "So that's it for the angels then? Staring at each other for eternity?"
"Well, yeah," the Doctor said, trotting up the walkway to the console. "As long as no one decides they'd look nice in the garden and has them moved. Hm. Have to make certain that doesn't happen, and before night falls in Wester Drumlins and it gets too dark for them to see each other."
"So, not so done as all that then?"
"Oh, just a quick cab ride really." He poked buttons on the console and things bleeped. "Find some geologically stable planetoid with no inhabitants and one side always in daylight, pick them up, drop them off, they'll never not see each other again."
"Planetoids like that common?" Martha asked.
The Doctor grinned at her over the console. "Dime a dozen."
"Great! So we are done then!" She spun, sending the pleated skirt of her dress swirling. "Just think we don't have to stay one more day in that miserable little flat! We can leave it to the cockroaches! One bathroom shared between three floors, never any hot water. Never again!"
The Doctor pulled Sally Sparrow's DVD out of the slot on the console. "Here," he tossed it to Martha.
Martha read the label, and glanced back up at the Doctor. "'Notting Hill'? Not really my preference. I can't stand Julia Roberts."
"Doubtful the movie part of it works anymore after being used as an authorization disk, so you aren't at any risk of accidental exposure." Something blipped on a screen on the console and the Doctor tapped the monitor.
"Well, I'm for a long hot soak, and a swim. You coming?"
The screen blipped again and the Doctor frowned at it. "In a bit, just need to check on a few things."
"Right! I'll save you some hot water!" She laughed and disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS.
The Doctor put on his glasses and leaned forward, peering at the screen. "What are you then?"
-
Twenty-eight hours and a shivery, firewood-less night later, Dean kicked the road sign that read '10 miles to Angel Gulch'.
He shook his head and continued trudging along the wagon ruts. "Dude."
"I know, Dean."
"I freaking hate angels."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I know, alright? I'm not too fond of them right now either."
"Next time I see anything that looks anything like an angel, I'm kicking its freaking ass."
"Yes, Dean," Sam sighed.
"That goes for that little cupid freak too."
"So you've said. Over and over."
The walked in silence for a bit.
"Hey, Sam," Dean said, "Think that angel was maybe a Djinn of some kind? Is your deepest wish to live in the Old West?"
"Uh. No on both counts. The lore was pretty clear on this one, Dean." Sam pulled out the leather-bound book.
"Yeah, the lore that included robot dogs. Oh, and by the way," said Dean, annoyed, "When exactly were you gonna show me the rest of that book, Sam?"
"Uh, what?"
"'Uh, what?' Dude," Dean snagged the book out of Sam's hands. "I took a look at the damn thing before you woke up this morning, Sleeping Beauty." He flipped to a page with a drawing of something that looked kind of like a phone booth. "Magic box?" He flipped again and held up another page. "Oh and these, what's he call them? 'Marching metal men'? These are totally Ronald's Mandroid pals from that magazine cover."
"The guy was right about the angel, Dean."
"Yeah, well, doesn't mean he isn't a total whack job." Dean snapped the book shut.
"Okay, so it's not Dad's journal," Sam grabbed the book back and grimaced. "But it's the only thing we have here, Dean, and complaining about it won't make it any different."
"I just wish we'd got stuck back in the past with a more useful book is all."
"Whatever. Anyway, from what we've seen, and the fact that last night there were no planes or satellites or anything in the sky at all, it looks like maybe the weeping angels are sending people back in time..." Sam flipped through the book.
"...and back in the present they disappear completely?"
"Right, I mean, no trace of the other victims was ever found, except abandoned cars and bikes and stuff."
"My car..." Dean moaned.
"Dean, focus. There's a whole bunch of stuff about time and causality in this book too, Dean. I don't know how reliable it is, but it looks like the guy might've known about the time travel thing."
"Nice of him to tell us the angels could do the time warp," Dean said sourly.
Sam shrugged and tucked the book back into his jacket pocket. "It's the most useful book we have, Dean. All things considered."
"Considering it's the only book we have, yeah." Dean snorted. "I still can't believe you didn't bring your gun on a hunt."
"We were hunting a solid stone statue and we were going to be blowing it up with grenades! I left it in the Impala 'coz I figured it'd either be useless or overkill."
"No such thing as overkill, Sammy."
"Your gun's not going to do us much good anyway, it's anachronistic as hell-"
"It'll still kill stuff," Dean muttered, frowning.
"Um yeah," Sam said with a wry half-smirk, "and leave twenty-first century bullets in eighteenth or nineteenth century corpses. We can't shoot, drop or lose anything while we're here, Dean. We're a walking threat to the time-space continuum." He flipped through the book again. "Or something like that, anyway."
Dean scuffed his feet as the wagon tracks they were following went up a gentle rise. "What are we supposed to do, Sam? Walk around completely naked?"
"We can't leave anything we brought lying around anywhere, but we should definitely find some local equipment. Including clothes."
"What's wrong with our clothes?" Dean looked down at himself. "Jeans have been around forever and the rest isn't that bad."
Sam plucked at the zipper of his blue cotton-polyester blend jacket. "I'm just saying, we're obviously not from around here."
"This is messed up. We're stuck in the old west. We have," Dean counted their inventory of last night off on his fingers, "a book that's ninety percent crap, one gun that we can't even shoot things with, eighteen plain old non-silver bullets, some knives, some matches, some super-glue, a bit of holy water and a rosary, flashlights, a third of a flask of whiskey and clothes that make us look like freaks. Oh, and half a bag of M&M's left after 'dinner' last night, and a leather bag of muddy water that tastes like wendigo sweat."
Sam nodded. "Yeah, that's about it. Plus a wallet full of plastic and useless paper."
"And your money clip thing which might be silver, but is anacro-whatsis, so we can't even try and sell it."
"Maybe if we melt it down..." Sam shrugged. "I'm pretty sure it's just silver plate, anyway."
"We've got jack-all, Sam." Dean kicked a rock. "Not that that's a huge deal, we've made do with jack-all before, but this whole time travel crap is-"
"Yeah, I know."
-
Martha came back into the control room an hour later to find the Doctor studying multiple screens.
"What's the matter?" she said, toweling her hair dry. "Not up for a swim? I'd have waited but I've gone all pruney."
The Doctor scowled at the screens. "Something's not right."
"The angels?" Martha frowned.
"No, no," he waved a hand dismissively. "They're fine. I've relocated them on a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way stellar-locked planetoid, circling a brand new star that's not about to switch off. They won't be bothering anyone again. But this..." He tapped the screen. "This is wrong. Very wrongly wrong."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Another one."
"Oh, is that all? So, we pick him up and drop him on the planetoid with his chums then."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple..."
"Of course not."
"This one is in the United States-"
"Got separated from the tour, did it?"
"-in a different universe."
"What?" Martha came around the console to look at the screens. "What do you mean different universe?"
"Different universe, could be any number of degrees different from ours. Different physical laws even."
"Well it can't be too different if it's got a United States."
The Doctor glanced sideways at her. "You'd be surprised." He looked back down at the screen on the console. "That's not the point. The point is, the angel shouldn't be able to get there, and we shouldn't be able to see it where it is, but," he tapped the screen, "there it is."
Martha touched a pale blue dot on another screen. "So what's that then?"
"That is..." the Doctor frowned. "...impossible."
"What, again? So what else is new?" said Martha, awaiting for further explanation.
"Well, it's just there is no way for that to have gotten there unless..." the Doctor tapped his teeth with a fingernail. "Unless I put it there myself and I didn't. Or rather I haven't yet. I don't even have that anymore. We'll need to pick it up."
"Pick what up? What is it?"
"That's what's odd, it's nothing really, it's just my-"
The time rotor in the center of the console lit up and started moving up and down "Oh no!"
"What is it? Where are we going?"
"Nononono, oh no you don't!" He ran around the console, slapping switches and pulling levers. "The other universe, it's sucking us in! If we go now we'll never get back, and both universes could be destroyed!"
-
After walking in silence for a while, Sam and Dean stood looking down at the town of Angel Gulch in the shallow valley before them.
"Two streets and... what, ten, twenty buildings?" Sam said sourly. "Big town."
"C'mon Sammy." Dean slapped his brother's chest. "I see a bar. Beer's on me."
"Uh, they probably don't take Visa, Dean."
"I know that, smartass. They play poker, don't they?" Dean grinned.
Sam rolled his eyes and trailed after Dean.
People stared as they walked down the street, with odd little half-smiles for the most part, as though expecting the Winchesters to break into song or dance their way down the dusty road.
"I told you we don't look right, Dean," whispered Sam. "Walking into the bar dressed like this is nuts."
"Too many people around to try and hunt up some clothes off someone's laundry line." Dean looked around, smiling and nodding and trying not to feel like they were on parade. "Besides, these people are all pretty short. I don't see anyone who's clothes would fit me, let alone you."
Sam sighed and they entered the bar, dark after the afternoon light. Dean headed straight to the bartender with a smile, and Sam trailed along behind, eyeing bar patrons in case any of them decided to jump the freaky newcomers for something to do.
"Hi!" said Dean brightly, "We were-"
The bartender held up a hand. "You two are some of Smithy's people, ain't ya?" he said, looking them up and down.
"Uh, maybe," Dean looked over his shoulder at Sam who shrugged and nodded. "Yeah sure. Good old Smithy."
"Clothes like that and your accent, I can tell a mile off." The bartender grinned. "At least ya ain't talkin' crazy like some."
"Do you know where we could find him?" Sam asked, still keeping an eye on the customers in the bar, all of whom now seemed to be smirking.
The bartender pointed with a meaty hand toward the only intersection in town. "End of the road, then hang a left. Big sign over the door. Can't miss it."
"Okay then!" said Dean, "Thank you."
The bartender cleared his throat. "'Have a nice day!'" he said awkwardly, and grinned. "That's how your folk say 'bye, ain't it?"
A few of the customers snickered.
"Um, yeah," said Sam. "You have a nice day too..."
The bartender chuckled and half the customers burst out laughing, slapping their knees.
Sam and Dean left the bar quickly. Back out to the street, townsfolk who had accumulated around the front door while the Winchesters were inside scattered nonchalantly with amused backward glances.
"What was all that about?"
"I'm not sure," Sam said, "but I have an idea."
A group of kids ranging in age from about eleven to about six were 'hiding' behind the horse hitch outside of the general store across the street. Dean waved at them and they scattered, giggling and shrieking.
"C'mon Dean, let's go see this Smithy guy. That is, if you're done terrorizing the local kids?"
Dean made a rude noise and followed Sam down the street. "Figure this Smithy might be one of the angel's previous victims?"
"Could be." He looked over his shoulder to see two of the older kids peering out from behind a post on the porch of another building closer to them. He grinned. "Looks like we're being followed."
"Not surprised. I'm starting to think we might be the most interesting thing to happen in this town for quite a while." Dean waved at the kids again and they ran off laughing, feet thumping on the boards of the porch. "As long as no one's shooting at us, let 'em have their fun."
The Winchesters turned left at the corner of the only intersection in town, and caught sight of the very obvious sign hanging out into the street over the entrance to a blacksmith's forge a few buildings away.
It could have been made by a person who wasn't too concerned about capital letters. The dots and bars and curlicues could be a convenient and arguably decorative way to connect the words and show the blacksmith's skill... but the sign stopped Sam and Dean in their tracks, staring up at it.
"smithy@angel_gulch.us"
The Winchesters exchanged a look and headed inside.
- - -
( This way to Part 3)
A/N: Expect an update in around two weeks. Not setting a specific date for the next update, because setting a specific deadline is apparently like waving a red flag under the nose of my universe. :-P
A/N ADDENDUM: Schedule has obviously gone to hell, but just in case anyone else checks back and gets discouraged, I swear by everything I hold holy, that I will be continuing and finishing this WIP. I'm sorry for the delay. I suck. :-(
Characters: Dean, Sam, The Doctor, Martha
Rating: GEN, PG13
Word Count: 3100 words
Disclaimer: None of this is mine! None of it! It all belongs to a bunch of other people!
Warnings: Spoilers for: Season 2 Supernatural, Season 3 (TenDoc) Doctor Who. Horrendously inaccurate depictions of American history and geography. Other than that, nothing content-wise that couldn't have been aired in either originating country...
Summary: Sam and Dean go hunt something. Things go wrong in unusual ways... Also, the Doctor and Martha aren't having a great day either.
A/N: And in this section, we go full crossover. This is the first time I've tried to write Doctor Who in fic at all, so anybody who reads this who's watching Doctor Who as well, I'd love to know whether it's working or not. And fair warning, everything I know about the time period involved, I learned from the internet, Wikipedia and RPGs, so people who actually do know American history, put on your cringing hats.
Missed Part 1?
Between a Quantum Rock and a Hard Place
Part 2
by CaffieneKitty
-
Sam and Dean sank to a crouch and gaped as the covered wagon progressed along the flat land on the other side of the rise. A string of about ten cows followed on a rope behind it.
"Wagon," said Dean after a long pause.
"Uh hunh," agreed Sam, staring.
"Dude, it's an actual covered wagon. Like in a cowboy movie."
"Yeah... yeah, I can see that, Dean. I don't think they're shooting a movie though. No cameras."
"Hunh." They stood for a second and watched it get closer. One of the cows relieved itself. "Think they're, like, re-enactors? People re-enact the settlement of the old west, right?"
"Maybe. People re-enact the civil war. There was a bunch of people at Stanford that called themselves lords and ladies, dressed up in armor every weekend and whacked each other with swords."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Well, blunt swords."
In the no-longer-so-distant distance the wagon rocked side to side and a bucket of something foul-looking was pitched out the back and away from the string of cows following it.
"I don't think these are re-enactors, Dean."
"Ghosts?"
"I don't think cows have ghosts." Sam's nose wrinkled as the smell reached them. "...and if they did, I doubt they'd smell so... organic."
A man with a shaggy beard and a floppy hat held the reigns and kept an eye on the Winchesters. The wagon rocked again as a substantial woman in a yellow dress stepped over the bench to sit beside him.
"So..." said Dean, "Maybe they're Amish?"
"God, I hope so."
"Well," Dean stood up from crouching on the small hill and dusted his hands on his pants. "We're not gonna find out anything by watching them go by."
Sam looked up at Dean. "Wait, what?"
Dean started walking down the hill toward he wagon, raised his hand and shouted, "Hey! Hey you! In the wagon, stop!"
"Dude, what are you doing?" Sam rose quickly and followed his brother down the hill, grabbing at Dean's jacket.
"They're people Sam," said Dean, waving and smiling brightly, "They're the first living things we've seen that isn't a cactus or a buzzard, and we need to find out what's going on here." he looked back at Sam. "I mean they have to at least know where we are, right? Even if they're Am-"
A puff of white smoke erupted from the front of the wagon, matched by a spray of hard-baked mud to Dean's left as the sound of the shot rang across the plain.
Both boys threw themselves to the ground.
"Son of a bitch!
"The Amish don't have guns, Dean!"
"I know that, smartass!" Dean raised his hands from ground and shouted at the wagon. "Look! We aren't-"
Another boom and a spray erupted in front of Dean, dirt clumps raining down on both of them with a patter.
"Dammit!" shouted Dean, staying down. "We're not gonna hurt you! Stop shooting!"
"We just want directions!" Sam added from the ground.
The woman in the cart exchanged the man's spent rifle for a musket which the bearded man leveled at the Winchesters. The woman hurriedly pushed a rod with a rag on the end down the barrel of the rifle, glaring at Sam and Dean.
"You stay. No move." The man spoke with a heavy Scandinavian accent. "What is want?"
"Directions! Where's the nearest town?"
The man frowned and leaned over to mutter together with the woman, who kept loading the rifle and glaring. Two small blond heads peered out from the back of the cart, wide-eyed.
"Town?" Dean shouted again propping himself up on his elbows.
The man re-aimed the musket at them. "No move. Town," pointing back direction the wagon had come. "Day."
"A day?" Sam said incredulously.
"Horse, day. No horse, two day."
Dean swore.
"Can we get water? We have no water." Sam asked.
The man leaned over to speak with the woman again. An argument in a language neither Sam or Dean understood rapidly ensued.
"Two days walking across mudflats?" Dean muttered to Sam.
Sam shrugged, mouth set wryly. "Not much we can do about it, Dean."
A kidney-shaped leather bag landed on the packed mud a few yards from the wagon with a slosh.
The woman pointed the loaded rifle at Sam and Dean, looking very un-thrilled at leaving the water-skin behind. "No move!" said the man, picking up the reigns and snapping them across the backs of the oxen. The placid and possibly deaf animals which hadn't shifted at the gunshots plodded forward amiably.
The boys got to their feet. Sam picked up the water-skin. Dean watched the two blond kids in the back of the wagon duck below the edge of the wagon gate, fingers poking between the slats. The wagon rolled off into he distance, trailing cows.
"So," said Sam, weighing the water-skin in his hands, "That was a muzzle-loaded weapon."
"Yeah. A black powder rifle. And a musket."
"When exactly did they stop manufacturing those?"
"I dunno, eighteen hundreds, I think. Maybe early twentieth century? Caleb would have known."
Silence fell, except for distant mooing.
"Do you think we really-"
"Let's just start walking, Sam," interrupted Dean. "I don't know what to think right now."
"Right. Me either. And we've apparently got some time to think about it."
They headed down the hill to follow the tracks of the wagon back to town.
-
"...and that should be the end of the weeping angels," said the Doctor, breezing through the TARDIS door in 1969.
"Thank god," said Martha, swishing in behind him in a polka-dotted dress. "I swear I will never be rude to a shop girl again!"
"Things look different from the other side of the counter, do they?"
"Oh, like you'd know." Martha took her hairband off and shook her hair out. "So that's it for the angels then? Staring at each other for eternity?"
"Well, yeah," the Doctor said, trotting up the walkway to the console. "As long as no one decides they'd look nice in the garden and has them moved. Hm. Have to make certain that doesn't happen, and before night falls in Wester Drumlins and it gets too dark for them to see each other."
"So, not so done as all that then?"
"Oh, just a quick cab ride really." He poked buttons on the console and things bleeped. "Find some geologically stable planetoid with no inhabitants and one side always in daylight, pick them up, drop them off, they'll never not see each other again."
"Planetoids like that common?" Martha asked.
The Doctor grinned at her over the console. "Dime a dozen."
"Great! So we are done then!" She spun, sending the pleated skirt of her dress swirling. "Just think we don't have to stay one more day in that miserable little flat! We can leave it to the cockroaches! One bathroom shared between three floors, never any hot water. Never again!"
The Doctor pulled Sally Sparrow's DVD out of the slot on the console. "Here," he tossed it to Martha.
Martha read the label, and glanced back up at the Doctor. "'Notting Hill'? Not really my preference. I can't stand Julia Roberts."
"Doubtful the movie part of it works anymore after being used as an authorization disk, so you aren't at any risk of accidental exposure." Something blipped on a screen on the console and the Doctor tapped the monitor.
"Well, I'm for a long hot soak, and a swim. You coming?"
The screen blipped again and the Doctor frowned at it. "In a bit, just need to check on a few things."
"Right! I'll save you some hot water!" She laughed and disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS.
The Doctor put on his glasses and leaned forward, peering at the screen. "What are you then?"
-
Twenty-eight hours and a shivery, firewood-less night later, Dean kicked the road sign that read '10 miles to Angel Gulch'.
He shook his head and continued trudging along the wagon ruts. "Dude."
"I know, Dean."
"I freaking hate angels."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I know, alright? I'm not too fond of them right now either."
"Next time I see anything that looks anything like an angel, I'm kicking its freaking ass."
"Yes, Dean," Sam sighed.
"That goes for that little cupid freak too."
"So you've said. Over and over."
The walked in silence for a bit.
"Hey, Sam," Dean said, "Think that angel was maybe a Djinn of some kind? Is your deepest wish to live in the Old West?"
"Uh. No on both counts. The lore was pretty clear on this one, Dean." Sam pulled out the leather-bound book.
"Yeah, the lore that included robot dogs. Oh, and by the way," said Dean, annoyed, "When exactly were you gonna show me the rest of that book, Sam?"
"Uh, what?"
"'Uh, what?' Dude," Dean snagged the book out of Sam's hands. "I took a look at the damn thing before you woke up this morning, Sleeping Beauty." He flipped to a page with a drawing of something that looked kind of like a phone booth. "Magic box?" He flipped again and held up another page. "Oh and these, what's he call them? 'Marching metal men'? These are totally Ronald's Mandroid pals from that magazine cover."
"The guy was right about the angel, Dean."
"Yeah, well, doesn't mean he isn't a total whack job." Dean snapped the book shut.
"Okay, so it's not Dad's journal," Sam grabbed the book back and grimaced. "But it's the only thing we have here, Dean, and complaining about it won't make it any different."
"I just wish we'd got stuck back in the past with a more useful book is all."
"Whatever. Anyway, from what we've seen, and the fact that last night there were no planes or satellites or anything in the sky at all, it looks like maybe the weeping angels are sending people back in time..." Sam flipped through the book.
"...and back in the present they disappear completely?"
"Right, I mean, no trace of the other victims was ever found, except abandoned cars and bikes and stuff."
"My car..." Dean moaned.
"Dean, focus. There's a whole bunch of stuff about time and causality in this book too, Dean. I don't know how reliable it is, but it looks like the guy might've known about the time travel thing."
"Nice of him to tell us the angels could do the time warp," Dean said sourly.
Sam shrugged and tucked the book back into his jacket pocket. "It's the most useful book we have, Dean. All things considered."
"Considering it's the only book we have, yeah." Dean snorted. "I still can't believe you didn't bring your gun on a hunt."
"We were hunting a solid stone statue and we were going to be blowing it up with grenades! I left it in the Impala 'coz I figured it'd either be useless or overkill."
"No such thing as overkill, Sammy."
"Your gun's not going to do us much good anyway, it's anachronistic as hell-"
"It'll still kill stuff," Dean muttered, frowning.
"Um yeah," Sam said with a wry half-smirk, "and leave twenty-first century bullets in eighteenth or nineteenth century corpses. We can't shoot, drop or lose anything while we're here, Dean. We're a walking threat to the time-space continuum." He flipped through the book again. "Or something like that, anyway."
Dean scuffed his feet as the wagon tracks they were following went up a gentle rise. "What are we supposed to do, Sam? Walk around completely naked?"
"We can't leave anything we brought lying around anywhere, but we should definitely find some local equipment. Including clothes."
"What's wrong with our clothes?" Dean looked down at himself. "Jeans have been around forever and the rest isn't that bad."
Sam plucked at the zipper of his blue cotton-polyester blend jacket. "I'm just saying, we're obviously not from around here."
"This is messed up. We're stuck in the old west. We have," Dean counted their inventory of last night off on his fingers, "a book that's ninety percent crap, one gun that we can't even shoot things with, eighteen plain old non-silver bullets, some knives, some matches, some super-glue, a bit of holy water and a rosary, flashlights, a third of a flask of whiskey and clothes that make us look like freaks. Oh, and half a bag of M&M's left after 'dinner' last night, and a leather bag of muddy water that tastes like wendigo sweat."
Sam nodded. "Yeah, that's about it. Plus a wallet full of plastic and useless paper."
"And your money clip thing which might be silver, but is anacro-whatsis, so we can't even try and sell it."
"Maybe if we melt it down..." Sam shrugged. "I'm pretty sure it's just silver plate, anyway."
"We've got jack-all, Sam." Dean kicked a rock. "Not that that's a huge deal, we've made do with jack-all before, but this whole time travel crap is-"
"Yeah, I know."
-
Martha came back into the control room an hour later to find the Doctor studying multiple screens.
"What's the matter?" she said, toweling her hair dry. "Not up for a swim? I'd have waited but I've gone all pruney."
The Doctor scowled at the screens. "Something's not right."
"The angels?" Martha frowned.
"No, no," he waved a hand dismissively. "They're fine. I've relocated them on a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way stellar-locked planetoid, circling a brand new star that's not about to switch off. They won't be bothering anyone again. But this..." He tapped the screen. "This is wrong. Very wrongly wrong."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Another one."
"Oh, is that all? So, we pick him up and drop him on the planetoid with his chums then."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple..."
"Of course not."
"This one is in the United States-"
"Got separated from the tour, did it?"
"-in a different universe."
"What?" Martha came around the console to look at the screens. "What do you mean different universe?"
"Different universe, could be any number of degrees different from ours. Different physical laws even."
"Well it can't be too different if it's got a United States."
The Doctor glanced sideways at her. "You'd be surprised." He looked back down at the screen on the console. "That's not the point. The point is, the angel shouldn't be able to get there, and we shouldn't be able to see it where it is, but," he tapped the screen, "there it is."
Martha touched a pale blue dot on another screen. "So what's that then?"
"That is..." the Doctor frowned. "...impossible."
"What, again? So what else is new?" said Martha, awaiting for further explanation.
"Well, it's just there is no way for that to have gotten there unless..." the Doctor tapped his teeth with a fingernail. "Unless I put it there myself and I didn't. Or rather I haven't yet. I don't even have that anymore. We'll need to pick it up."
"Pick what up? What is it?"
"That's what's odd, it's nothing really, it's just my-"
The time rotor in the center of the console lit up and started moving up and down "Oh no!"
"What is it? Where are we going?"
"Nononono, oh no you don't!" He ran around the console, slapping switches and pulling levers. "The other universe, it's sucking us in! If we go now we'll never get back, and both universes could be destroyed!"
-
After walking in silence for a while, Sam and Dean stood looking down at the town of Angel Gulch in the shallow valley before them.
"Two streets and... what, ten, twenty buildings?" Sam said sourly. "Big town."
"C'mon Sammy." Dean slapped his brother's chest. "I see a bar. Beer's on me."
"Uh, they probably don't take Visa, Dean."
"I know that, smartass. They play poker, don't they?" Dean grinned.
Sam rolled his eyes and trailed after Dean.
People stared as they walked down the street, with odd little half-smiles for the most part, as though expecting the Winchesters to break into song or dance their way down the dusty road.
"I told you we don't look right, Dean," whispered Sam. "Walking into the bar dressed like this is nuts."
"Too many people around to try and hunt up some clothes off someone's laundry line." Dean looked around, smiling and nodding and trying not to feel like they were on parade. "Besides, these people are all pretty short. I don't see anyone who's clothes would fit me, let alone you."
Sam sighed and they entered the bar, dark after the afternoon light. Dean headed straight to the bartender with a smile, and Sam trailed along behind, eyeing bar patrons in case any of them decided to jump the freaky newcomers for something to do.
"Hi!" said Dean brightly, "We were-"
The bartender held up a hand. "You two are some of Smithy's people, ain't ya?" he said, looking them up and down.
"Uh, maybe," Dean looked over his shoulder at Sam who shrugged and nodded. "Yeah sure. Good old Smithy."
"Clothes like that and your accent, I can tell a mile off." The bartender grinned. "At least ya ain't talkin' crazy like some."
"Do you know where we could find him?" Sam asked, still keeping an eye on the customers in the bar, all of whom now seemed to be smirking.
The bartender pointed with a meaty hand toward the only intersection in town. "End of the road, then hang a left. Big sign over the door. Can't miss it."
"Okay then!" said Dean, "Thank you."
The bartender cleared his throat. "'Have a nice day!'" he said awkwardly, and grinned. "That's how your folk say 'bye, ain't it?"
A few of the customers snickered.
"Um, yeah," said Sam. "You have a nice day too..."
The bartender chuckled and half the customers burst out laughing, slapping their knees.
Sam and Dean left the bar quickly. Back out to the street, townsfolk who had accumulated around the front door while the Winchesters were inside scattered nonchalantly with amused backward glances.
"What was all that about?"
"I'm not sure," Sam said, "but I have an idea."
A group of kids ranging in age from about eleven to about six were 'hiding' behind the horse hitch outside of the general store across the street. Dean waved at them and they scattered, giggling and shrieking.
"C'mon Dean, let's go see this Smithy guy. That is, if you're done terrorizing the local kids?"
Dean made a rude noise and followed Sam down the street. "Figure this Smithy might be one of the angel's previous victims?"
"Could be." He looked over his shoulder to see two of the older kids peering out from behind a post on the porch of another building closer to them. He grinned. "Looks like we're being followed."
"Not surprised. I'm starting to think we might be the most interesting thing to happen in this town for quite a while." Dean waved at the kids again and they ran off laughing, feet thumping on the boards of the porch. "As long as no one's shooting at us, let 'em have their fun."
The Winchesters turned left at the corner of the only intersection in town, and caught sight of the very obvious sign hanging out into the street over the entrance to a blacksmith's forge a few buildings away.
It could have been made by a person who wasn't too concerned about capital letters. The dots and bars and curlicues could be a convenient and arguably decorative way to connect the words and show the blacksmith's skill... but the sign stopped Sam and Dean in their tracks, staring up at it.
"smithy@angel_gulch.us"
The Winchesters exchanged a look and headed inside.
- - -
( This way to Part 3)
A/N: Expect an update in around two weeks. Not setting a specific date for the next update, because setting a specific deadline is apparently like waving a red flag under the nose of my universe. :-P
A/N ADDENDUM: Schedule has obviously gone to hell, but just in case anyone else checks back and gets discouraged, I swear by everything I hold holy, that I will be continuing and finishing this WIP. I'm sorry for the delay. I suck. :-(