SUPERWHO BIG BANG - PART TWO.
Part Two
THREE (AND A BIT) YEARS LATER
The Doctor had no qualms about showing Sam Winchester the birth of the Universe. Well. This Universe. He was a Time Lord, after all, and he could go wherever he pleased. Whenever he pleased. They'd watched from a void-pocket. Like a viewing box, just on the edge of the Universe as it was all gathered into the space of one atom and expanded instantly, being everywhere, always, filling all of space and time at once. It was fluid. Constantly in a state of flux, changing size, shape and form. Watching such an occurrence had a heavy impact on the mind, and Sam had been rather dazed by it. No. Not dazed. Awed.
It had been seven hours, and he had only just come out of his borderline catatonic state, able to speak again.
“...that...wasn't what I was expecting.” his voice was hoarse, and he looked up at the Doctor in disbelief, eyes shining. “Why didn't you show me this before?!”
The Doctor smiled, amused. He'd been pretending to not be doing anything much of importance over the past seven hours, and picked up the conversation as if there had been no pause whilst Sam had gathered his thoughts.
“Sam. Sam, Sam, Sammy Sammy Sam. How long have you been travelling with me?”
“Uh-”
He didn't give Sam the chance to work it out.
“Three years!!” he exclaimed. “Three years I've been conditioning you to the effects of moving through time and space, and yet you still spent seven hours and...” he checked a clock that seemed to tell everything but the time - at least, not in a way that Sam had ever been able to read, “twelve minutes, thirty-seven seconds gaping at the TARDIS wall like some kind of Barronite.”
“What's a Barronite?” Sam asked, confused.
“Well, for the past seven hours, twelve minutes and forty-two seconds, you.”
Which wasn't really a proper explanation. But Sam let it slide.
“My point is-” the Doctor rolled up his sleeves with a flourish that only he could achieve within such a simple task. “That if the birth of the Universe had been the first thing I'd ever shown you, the first little jolly holiday we took, you probably would have died.”
“I'd have what?”
“Well.” he corrected himself. “Maybe not died. But it wouldn't have been pretty. And perhaps rather messy.” He seemed to consider this for a moment or two, before pulling a lever, twisting a dial and pressing some buttons that he probably had no clue as to what they did. It made him look like he knew exactly what he was doing, though. And he did. Most of the time. Well. Some of the time.
Sam, not particularly wanting to dwell on his own messy death, decided to distract himself.
“So...where are we going next?” he asked.
“Well, I don't know.” The Doctor replied, genuinely. “It depends where the TARDIS wants to go next. We could end up on a beach in California. Not the state - the planet California. We could go to Australia, three-hundred and sixty years before the British started sending their prisoners there. Anywhere. Now it's been created-” he grinned a little, proud of what he'd shared with Sam. “We can go anywhere.”
“How about...the end of the Universe? That'll just leave everything in between then, right?” Sam suggested. The Doctor's eyebrows raised, lines in his forehead appearing from nowhere.
“...interesting,” he turned away slightly, eyes somewhere distant, seeing something other than the wall of the TARDIS in his mind. The TARDIS would heed Sam’s request, certainly, but...the end of the Universe was different for everyone, depending on how they envisioned it all. The Doctor had no idea where they would be headed. After a long silence, just as Sam was about to suggest somewhere else, he turned back to the console, and pulled another lever, the entire box shuddering as it moved.
“Where are we going?!” Sam exclaimed, grabbing onto a convenient railing for support. The TARDIS was full of conveniently-placed things, that one would usually pay no mind to, until they came in handy to be used.
“Right where you asked for.” The Doctor told him, grinning, as the familiar WHOOSH-WHOOP sound of the TARDIS engines fired up. “The end of the Universe.”
*
Sam thought there was a tense atmosphere. Apparently, The Doctor didn't seem to agree, because he threw up his hands, clapped them together before rubbing them, excitedly. “Right. We don't know what we're about the face out there - so we'd better make sure we're wearing the right headgear.”
“...what do you mean?” Sam asked, suspiciously. Knowing the Doctor (which, of course, nobody really did, but after three years, Sam thought he might do a little), the end of the world took place in some sort of coal mine and they had to wear hard-hats.
The Doctor didn't respond immediately - he just rummaged through the expansive costume wardrobe. Never having been one for dressing up, Sam's stomach always sank whenever the Doctor threw open the doors to this particular closet. He'd rather have worn his Levis back in the 16th century than wear the pantaloons the Doctor had thrust at him that one time they went back there.
“Aha! I knew I had a spare one around here, somewhere. You can never have too many fezzes, Sam...” The Doctor's voice trailed off, and he poked his head out from behind a rail of jackets, looking perturbed. “What is the plural of fez?” he asked, as if Sam might for some reason know. “Is it fezzes? Fezi? Fouze?”
“Uh.”
“No matter. Here.” he held a dark red fez, complete with gold tassel, out to Sam.
“Um. No. Thanks.”
“Oh Sam, let's not do this again. Please just wear the fez. Or, so help me God, I will start up this spaceship and take you right back to 2005.” the Time Lord jiggled the impromptu head wear in Sam's direction. Sam stared at it, in an attempt at defiance, for only a few moments before he crumbled. He snatched the hat from the Doctor's hand.
“Fine.” he huffed, jamming it onto his head. “There. I'm wearing the damn fez. Can we see the end of the world now?”
“Now, now. No need to swear. But...yes. We can.” His voice lowered, and took that mysterious tone that always seemed to appear just before something incredibly exciting happened. Exciting, or dangerous. Usually both.
Sam swallowed, not even noticing the Doctor also putting on a fez. He did notice when he raised his screwdriver, though, held it in front of him. Once upon a time, Sam would have felt much more comfortable wielding a Smith & Wesson - but over time, the sonic device with seemingly limitless functions had become almost a comforting sight in times of potential danger. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it’s official function was.
Both men faced the TARDIS door, and it slowly swung inward. At first, Sam couldn't see - there was nothing but a bright, white light which flooded in through the door. For a few moments, he thought he might have died.
However, the light quickly subsided, and he could see.
“Right. Onwards we go!” The Doctor declared, and, screwdriver pointing out in front like some kind of ceremonial horn, he stepped out of the safety of the ship, into the end of the world, leaving Sam the choice of either standing alone in the control room, or following. Choosing the latter, he ducked out of the front door, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the new lighting.
The first thing Sam noticed about the end of the Universe was that it looked an awful lot like Bobby's salvage yard. Secondly, that it definitely did not resemble any Hollywood interpretation of Armageddon. No flames, no screams, no galloping horsemen. No avenging angels blowing trumpets, and no bleeding lamb. Feeling somewhat cheated, he turned to face the Doctor, eyebrows raised expectantly.
The Doctor was studying a pocket-watch.
“...Ah.”
“Ah?” Sam repeated, brows almost disappearing into his bangs. He needed a trim.
“We might have arrived a little early.”
“...how early?”
“Impossible to tell. I think-” he was cut off by a spluttering rumble that Sam knew all too well. A sound he hadn't heard in over three years - something he'd been running from and although he hadn't exactly been hoping to hear at the end of the world, he wasn't entirely surprised, either.
He felt the Doctor's hand close on the fabric of his jacket, and yank him behind a rusted out frame of an old Buick, just in time to conceal them from view as a midnight black 1967 Chevrolet Impala slowly drove past, up towards the house at the back of the yard. Or the front, depending which way you came in.
Great. After walking out on his family three years ago - well. Three years for him. He had no idea how long it had been for them - Sam was going to have to face his Dad now - at the end of the Universe. They couldn't have picked a more awkward time.
“I should have known my Dad wouldn't let the planet go down without a fight.” he whispered, with a slightly bitter laugh. The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yes...about that...Sam...we don't yet know what year this is.”
“What's your point?” Sam asked, trying to find a way to peer over the Buick and yet still remain unseen.
“I mean...” the Doctor seemed to be struggling to find a way to explain it to Sam. In fact, he was just looking for a way to say it tactfully. “That people you knew back in 2005...might not have...made it...this far.”
Sam stared at him. His mouth opened and closed a few times. “You mean...my Dad and brother...”
The Doctor popped his head up over the Buick briefly, just as the sound of the Impala's doors squeaking open sounded. Sam's head also popped up. Before he felt the Doctor's hand on his head, shoving him back down, he managed to catch a glimpse of Bobby at his door, and the backs of two men walking towards the door from the car - two pairs of shoulders that he would recognise anywhere. Dean. And himself.
There was another guy - someone Sam didn't recognise, but he was wearing a beige kind of trench coat. He didn't get a good look, though, because he was forced back out of sight.
“Hey!” he hissed, annoyed.
“Sam, listen to me very, very carefully.” The Doctor told him, speaking quickly and urgently. “If you met another version of yourself, how would you react?” he didn't wait for an answer, however. “You would assume it was a demon, or a shapeshifter, or a ghoul, or something else nasty and evil and you would try to kill it.” He was speaking almost in staccato, trying to emphasise the importance of every syllable to the younger Winchester.
Sam couldn't argue. Going from previous experience meeting other versions of himself, the immediate assumption was that it was a monster. And his family were very much shoot first, ask questions later. Which was usually fine. Except if Sam was killed in the future, he'd never make it to the future to kill himself, and the Universe would, essentially, collapse. It was like a bad Back to the Future sequel.
He took a deep breath to calm himself, before nodding.
“OK. So, right. What do we do, then? If we can't just barge in...”
“We sneak quietly and stealthily.” The Doctor said, with a nod. Sam stared.
“When have you ever been sneaky and stealthy?” he asked, in disbelief.
“I'll have you know I am very capable of...slipping through the darkness...like a dark, slippy thing.”
Sam decided not to argue further. He settled for an eye roll.
“So! Sneaking in. Here we go.”
And the Doctor stood up, brushed dust only he could see from his jacket, and strode towards the house. Sam sighed. He supposed, compared to whoosh-whooping right into Bobby's living room in a big, blue box - striding directly up to the front door and rapping smartly on it with a jaunty kind of rhythm was stealthy.
There was a long pause before anything happened. Sam just knew that those inside were sitting in silence, maybe exchanging furtive looks over their beers, wondering who the hell was knocking on the door, especially in such a brisk manner.
Dean maybe stood up, looking at the door as if someone was about to walk through it, Bobby and, well, himself, looking at each other, worried, and...well. He had no idea who the trench-coated guy was, so he couldn't judge on that. He was still stuck on wondering why his Dad wasn't there. Well. He had a pretty good idea why. It was more the how and the when that he was focused on.
Slowly, the door opened.
Really, Sam ought to have been expecting the flask of holy water that immediately drenched his face. The Doctor certainly had anticipated it, because he neatly stepped to the side, allowing his companion to take the full splash.
Unsurprisingly, it had been Dean that had threw the water.
“Woah! Dean! I'm not a demon!” Sam spluttered, pushing his now-soaking bangs out of his eyes.
“Yeah, I see that. You wanna save me some time and tell me what the hell you are?” Dean asked, in practically a snarl.
“Dean.”
It was Sam. Older Sam. Sam from the present day. He put a hand on his brother's arm, and spoke calmly, as if he'd been expecting this. Younger Sam realised, with a slight jolt, that of course he had been. He had already lived this, as Younger Sam. Himself. Stood right where he was, right then. He was feeling a migraine coming on. It was hard to keep up.
Dean had half turned to look at Older Sam incredulously. “This? Really? You had the whole of space and time to see, yet you put your hands on your hips and pulled your knees in tight to wind up here? Now?” He was shaking his head in disbelief.
“It's not like that, Dean.” Older Sam replied. He glanced at Younger Sam with a strange look in his eyes - it was almost sorrowful. The way one might look at someone who's dying and everybody but themselves know it. Younger Sam did notice, however, that Older Sam had yet to look at The Doctor. The Doctor, who was being unusually quiet. The older, longer-haired version of Sam looked back at his brother, then to the past version of himself again. “We should probably do this indoors.”
Leaving Dean to open and close his mouth a few times, at a loss for words, a murderous glare having to suffice, Sam turned his back on the men by the door and walked back, presumably to the living room. Dean shrugged and threw up his hands in defeat, before following. Sam and The Doctor exchanged glances, and also walked through the dark hall, to the living room.
As expected, as soon as they walked through the threshold into the room, Bobby - who Younger Sam hadn't seen for even longer than he hadn't seen his brother - raised his hand, which was holding a flask.
“Bobby!” Older Sam shook his head. “It's okay. It's cool. I got this. They're not monsters.”
Bobby lowered his hand, still looking suspicious. He looked exactly as Sam remembered. Perhaps a little older. And he was...in a wheelchair. Unsure what to say to that, Sam kept his mouth shut.
In typical Bobby Singer style, though, Bobby himself didn't.
“So does one of you wanna explain exactly what's going on? You got ten seconds, and then I start shooting.”
Younger and Older Sam exchanged glances.
“Well.” Younger Sam spoke first. “You know the full story. I only know as far as I've got, so maybe you'd better do the talking.”
Older Sam went to open his mouth - but The Doctor interrupted.
“That's...probably not such a good idea, actually.”
He rocked on the balls of his feet, holding one finger up, as if he'd been reluctant to enter the conversation.
“Since when has anything to do with you been a good idea?”
There it was. The pain evident in Older Sam's voice. An outburst - or as close as he was going to get to one right there. If The Doctor was hurt by it, though, he didn't let it show on his face.
“I'm full of good ideas. Brimming with them. And believe me, Sam - um - Sams. This is most certainly one of them. Younger Sam, Sam with the fringe. Fringey Sam. You should do the talking. Otherwise your future counterpart might say something that you're not supposed to know yet.”
Younger Sam, or Fringey Sam as he'd been dubbed (by a dude in a bow tie. He hardly had room to talk!), furrowed his brow, feeling all the eyes in the room on him. He wasn't stupid - clearly something went down with him and The Doctor that led to the bitter vibes he could practically taste coming off of himself. Future self. But he figured they had bigger problems.
“...where's my Dad?” he asked, finally. If anyone could sort this, it would be him.
If the silence had been tense before, it was crushing then. Sam saw the future version of Dean turn away, his expression the one he got when he was trying to block something out or pretend it wasn't happening. Older Sam's face changed from the underlying anger he'd been directing at the Doctor to an almost pitying expression, and slightly surprised - almost as if he'd forgot that of course Younger Sam wouldn't have known.
But neither brother spoke. They didn't have to. The silence was enough for Younger Sam to piece together the truth.
“...what was it?” he asked, when he was capable of speech.
Bobby opened his mouth.
“It was a-”
“No!” The Doctor interrupted again, waving his arms frantically, as if trying to wipe the words from the air. “This is exactly what I meant! You can't know, Sam. You can't know anything.”
Younger Sam was getting nothing short of furious.
“I'm not asking to know who won the World Series for the next five years!! I just want to know what, and why.”
“Listen to me, Sammy.” The Doctor's voice was soothing yet urgent at the same time, and he didn't notice the muscles in Dean's shoulders tense up as the older Winchester heard someone else use his little brother's nickname - and not get berated for it. Nobody noticed.
“Knowing won't help. You can't change it. Some things are just set in stone. Fixed points in time that cannot be altered. Ever. The death of your Father...well. You just have to let it go. You can't save him.”
“I have heard of there being absolute points in time.” the guy in the trench coat finally spoke, before Sam could argue. Sam had forgot he was even there. He looked up, eyes fixing on him. He'd hoped this was another version of the Doctor, that maybe he'd just regenerated, but stuck by him. With the suit and trench coat, it was plausible. He felt slightly crushed when he realised that wasn't the case. His Dad, and the Doctor, gone? Bobby in a wheelchair? The end of the Universe? This was the future he had to look forward to?
“I suspect the fight between Michael and Lucifer is one of them.”
“Oh, fantastic!” The Doctor laughed.
“What?” Dean turned to face the Time Lord, irritation in his eyes. “We're staring down the barrel of the friggin' apocalypse, and it's unavoidable, and that's a good thing to you? You want to see the end of the Universe? Is that it?”
“Don't be ridiculous.” The Doctor replied, airily. “I've been to the end of the Universe. Several times, in fact, and this isn't it. As if one petty brother's tiff could end the Universe.” he scoffed.
“So why did the TARDIS bring us here?” Sam asked, face screwing up in confusion.
“Because she’s sentient.” The Doctor explained. “She looked into your heart, and saw that for you, the end of the Universe is the end of your world.”
“Um.” the trench coated man spoke again. “The archangel's final battle will leave nothing but dust. It will bring end times. The end of the planet. To a human, it may as well be the Universe that ends. They'll know no different.”
“Who are you?” The Doctor asked, crossing his arms, seemingly ignoring what had just been said.
“...” A slight pause, as if the question had been unexpected. “My name is Castiel. I'm an angel of-”
“Alright! Angels! Angels. We're dealing with angels. I've met angels. And they rocked. Um. Literally, in fact. Well. They were made of rock, which is pretty much the same thing. But you...” he circled Castiel, curiously. “You're flesh. A human morph suit. Interesting.”
Castiel said nothing.
There was only so much of the Doctor’s voice that Dean could take. He’d forgot that the guy was British. Everything British always ended up to be bad news. Bella. Crowley. And now this.
“Actually, Crowley may not be British.” Castiel’s voice came, directed at Dean, confusing everyone else. “He’s been a demon for so long, it’d be near on an impossible task to trace his origin--”
“How many times, Cas? Get out of my head. It is not a public park for you to walk through at your own leisure! And besides. His meatsuit is British.”
The exchange meant nothing to anybody else in the room, but the Doctor picked enough up to declare “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not British, then, isn’t it, Dean?”
His voice was loud in an attempt to remain calm. He rarely lost his temper. Letting out a little anger was better than trying to stay polite all the time. Raising the volume of his voice released that pressure. Just a little.
“Where the hell are you from, anyways?” Bobby asked, frowning.
“Gallifrey.” Younger Sam and Older Sam both said, at the same time, before the Doctor could even open his mouth.
There was an awkward silence. Everyone stared at everyone else, as if the gravity of the situation had just hit them for the first time. There were two Sams. Every sci-fi movie ever made said this shouldn’t be possible. The same atom can’t occupy two parts of space at the same time. Yet, that was exactly what was happening.
The silence was broken by two things, also at the same time. Firstly, the Doctor knocked over a jar of pens on Bobby’s desk, and his hands were grabbing at them unsuccessfully to stop the fall. Secondly, Dean was frowning at Younger Sam, brows furrowed deeply, as if he’d just noticed something about him that he hadn’t before.
“Is this guy feeding you right? You’re looking a bit...” he searched for the word. “Peaky.”
“I’m fine.” Younger Sam replies, with a shrug. Truth was, he’d never eaten better. Better still, he didn’t get teased for it. When the Doctor went through a phase of eating nothing but jellybeans for an entire week, he was perfectly okay with the fact that Sam didn’t want to join his diet.
“Well, you’d better hold onto that for as long as you can, because that ‘fine’ don’t last for much longer--”
“Oh, you just can’t help yourself, can you, Dean?!” The Doctor exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, exasperated. Before Dean could retort, in his usual snarky way, though, The Doctor had turned to Sam. Younger Sam.
“He’s right, though. You don’t look your best.”
“You think? You made me wear a fez.” Sam replied, snatching it off of his head, wondering why nobody had mentioned it to him yet.
“This is ridiculous.” Dean shook his head. “You can all do what you want - I wanna talk in private with my brother.”
“I don’t--” Younger Sam started to reply, but Dean interrupted.
“Not you. Sam from now.”
Older Sam raised his eyebrows. “Dean.”
“Don’t gimme that.” Dean’s face was set, stubbornly. Absolute. “For five years, I ain't asked you a damn thing about your empty years. Well, enough’s enough. I wanna know, and you’re gonna tell me.”
Nobody argued. Not even Sam.
“We’ll have to hold the Sam from the past somewhere he can’t alter anything.” Castiel said, finally.
“Well, there’s my panic room...” Bobby offered. They’d used it previously to hold Sam. It was becoming a tradition, when the fate of the world as at stake; to lock a Winchester in Bobby’s panic room.
Younger Sam hadn’t been aware Bobby had a panic room - back in his own time, he didn’t, of course. But he resented the suggestion he be put in one.
“Guys!” he protested. “I’m not going to do anything! I swear!”
The Doctor shook his head. “It’s a risk we can’t take, Sam. Besides, your brother’s right - for once. Your molecular structure knows it’s in the wrong time, that there’s another you here. We can’t risk there being too much contact between you both. You could burn out the sun.”
“Not to mention,” Castiel interjected, “that if Lucifer got wind of there being an alternative vessel--”
“That’s QUITE enough of that, thank you.” The Doctor spoke over him, loudly, bustling Sam towards to door. “Let’s get you somewhere safe, Sammity-Sam.”
Younger Sam gave his older counterpart one last look before The Doctor took him from the room. When they were gone, Dean looked to the Sam remaining in the room.
“You, me, outside, now. You’re talking.”
And he, too, left the room, heading outside, leaving Sam no choice but to follow, leaving Bobby and Castiel alone.
PART THREE