The Apocalypse Stops For No Time Lord [Part One]
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Part One
One rainy afternoon about three hours beforehand and still 2011
Sam found it hard to believe that once upon a long time ago in a state far, far away, life was easier. Life was about the next motel room and surviving the new school, and yeah, he hated it, but it was simpler. Now life was looking at your closest friend, your guardian angel, and seeing his skin peel away from his body. Now life was watching that same friend walk into a lake and dissolve beneath the surface, lost under the water in a death not fitting for him. Now life was losing someone who you would have died for and not having enough time to mourn him.
Dean kept Castiel’s trench coat in some unspoken agreement, tucked away in some dark corner of the trunk. They couldn’t always see it, lost in the shadows, but they knew it was there. Every now and then Sam would brush his fingers across the fabric and feel guilt and sorrow settle in his stomach once more.
After Amy, Bobby seemed to decide they needed a break from the whole ‘save the world’ rigmarole to calibrate with this new threat. He started sending them on random, small-scale hunts he would normally give to greener hunters, assuring them he would find a way to kill the ‘black-blooded sons of bitches’.
The brothers didn’t complain. There was tiredness in every movement they made, a weariness brought on by saving the world more times than most generations do in a century. Dean was moving gingerly on his leg although he liked to pretend there was no problem. The scar on Sam’s hand would never fade, sometimes leaking teardrops that stained his clothes in red bulls-eyes.
This was how they ended up in a fairly nice (by their standards) motel room in the middle of Montana with rain running down the window in occasional splatters. Dean was getting progressively more antsy, stuck inside for the last few days thanks to the rain and a case that required they hang around for a couple of weeks until the moon was just right. Or something like that anyway.
In a desperate bid to distract his brother, Sam was on all the local news websites and weather pages looking for something, anything, supernatural nearby to provide them with a quick hunt. He didn’t quite believe it when he finally found something. Freak weather patterns combined with freak water pollution and freak lights in the sky was normally the recipe for something evil.
Dean was delighted to have something to kill. Sam didn’t get past ‘Dude, listen to this’ before the shitty b-movie was turned off and Dean was fumbling around on the table looking for the keys.
"Come on, Sammy," Dean's grin was like a spark plug in the dark, setting the engine running between the two brothers. "There's no time to waste; people are in danger."
"Okay, Batman," Sam replied, trying valiantly not to smile as his brother all but bounced across the room, gun tucked into his waistband. "If the public are in danger."
"You know that makes you Robin." He paused, making a thoughtful face that Sam liked to think he rarely saw on his brother. "There was totally something fishy going on there. Just a billionaire, his butler and a young kid in that mansion."
"Sometimes I wonder why you're my brother," Sam groaned, heading for the door. Dean's laughter followed him.
"Man, you gotta love the internet." Sam considered asking how Dean knew any websites except news and porn pages, then decided he didn't want to know where his brother had discovered the theory of Batman and Robin's... relationship.
Outside the rain had fallen into a short respite, puddles blotched across the pavement like a thousand mirrors to reflect the grey skies. The Impala was waiting for them, stretched out along the ground, water dripping steadily from her sleek body. Sam couldn't stop himself running a finger along her bonnet, tracing a line through the lingering rain. In his mind he would never stop thanking this car, this relic of the Winchester family. In his mind she was a constant reminder that Lucifer was gone, that the devil standing next to him wasn’t real.
It wasn't a long drive to the centre of the supernatural activity, only half an hour or so. If Google maps was right - Dean was skeptical but Sam would swear by it - the centre of the freak events was in a small wooded area that seemed populated by a single rundown building of some sort. Neither of them had any idea what the source could be so they were prepared for anything with silver bullets and salt-filled shells. Sam felt the heavy weight of the gun in his lap and wished it didn't feel like a safety blanket.
Five minutes out, the road degraded into rough gravel and Dean refused to go any further, terrified about the harm it would do to his freshly rebuilt baby. Sam rolled his eyes but figured it would probably be quieter to go by foot; not that the Winchesters were particularly good at stealth.
Thirteen minutes and much cursing later, they dodged yet another jagged bush and found themselves behind what had to be the house Google maps had promised. The building looked even more rundown than the grainy image had suggested. Parts of the roof had already caved in and creepers clung to most of the walls, climbing inside through the many broken windows. If the house had ever been painted, it was a long time since it had held even some streaks of its former coat.
"Well this looks like a lovely place," Dean sighed. "Back door?"
"Back door," Sam agreed. They quickly made their way to the back entrance of the house, guns fitting perfectly into their hands. The back door was swinging on its hinges, creaking softly in the light wind. Beyond it the house seemed empty, darkness tucking itself into every corner that wasn't already claimed by dust and spiders. Sam couldn't decide if the building was perfect for a haunted house or just pathetically clichéd.
Dean went in first, posture dropped and gun extended in front of him. Sam followed quickly behind. Inside the house it was strangely quiet; whatever sounds they could hear outside simply dropped away, sucked down into the warped wood. Apart from the constant creak of the house, it was silent. A chill ran down Sam's spine and he pushed it to the side, gripping his gun tighter.
They had ended up in a small thin room which they quickly passed through. That led into what was surely once a kitchen, the blackened edges of a stove still visible under thick blankets of dust. It too was empty of any kind of domestic clutter. A pantry was off to the left, its doors lying splintered on the ground, fallen soldiers in the war against pestilence.
Steadily the brothers passed through the rooms on the first floor. Dean went first, Sam brought up the rear. Each room was empty, not even footprints in the dust to indicate some kind of life asides from their own. On the second floor it was different. There were footsteps everywhere, trailing in dots and dashes, twisting around the rooms in Morse code stops and starts.
It wasn't until Sam walked into the smallest bedroom that he stopped breathing. Soft blue light painted the walls and cast shadows over the footprints in the dust. In the middle of the room stood a blue police call box.
“No...” Sam’s voice was a whisper in the soft light. “It can’t be.”
With a creak the box’s door opened and a man stepped out wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches. He straightened his red bow tie before turning his gaze upwards, finally noticing the two hunters. Sam flinched back, eyes not quite sure if they were seeing properly. It had to be the man from all those years ago, the man with the blue box.
Except this man, with his wide nose and deep eyes - this man looked nothing like the time-traveller from space. He carefully ignored Lucifer, poking the blue box as if it might vanish at any second. This was real, not something in Sam’s mind. Dean was rigid beside him, eyes not leaving the man in front of them. It was real.
“Oh, hello!” He smiled widely, that smile that couldn’t shake the sadness, the age, in his eyes. Sam’s mind turned in a circle, corners blurring on memories that were once so certain. It had to be him. It just had to. “I’m the Doctor.”
“You’re the astronaut,” Sam blurted out before he could think about the words. For a moment the Doctor looked confused then, wrinkles creasing his brow and sending shadows over his eyes. “The time-travelling astronaut. You asked me what year you were in 1988, but your face...” He trailed off, unsure of what to say. Unsure if there was anything that could be said.
The Doctor’s brow smoothed out and a smile spread across his face. “Sam Winchester! I remember you. Brave Sam Winchester and his Dean.” He looked Sam up and down, pausing for a second. “Though you were much smaller back then.”
“Why do you look different?” Sam could feel his hands trembling, too many questions and doubts and so many thoughts trying to make themselves heard. “You can’t be the Doctor, who are you?”
“I’m the same Doctor that you met, Sam. I’m just older.” Sam couldn’t reply to that. There weren’t words that could voice the disarray in his mind. Here he was, the Doctor, the strange man who had become his imaginary (and often his only) friend for years. Here he was with a different face, a younger face, telling him that he had grown older. The curious case of the time-travelling astronaut. Sam swallowed the urge to laugh.
“Not that this reminiscing isn’t nice and all,” Dean broke in, gun still pointed at the Doctor. “But who is this guy, Sam?”
“Guns.” Fleeting disappointment flashed across the Doctor’s face as he pasted the picture together. “Sam Winchester and his guns.”
“Hey, easy Dean,” Sam soothed, pushing his brother’s hands down. “It’s alright, he’s the Doctor, my imaginary friend from when I was five.”
“I was your imaginary friend?” The Doctor was smiling strangely now, another one of those moments when words meant more to the time-traveller than they did to Sam. The hunter just nodded and for a moment, the sadness left the Doctor’s eyes.
“Wait.” Disbelief had taken up permanent residence on Dean’s face. “You mean the Doctor’s real?”
“I told you so.” Dean was opening his mouth again when a loud thud broke through their conversation. Instantly all eyes turned to the door, the Winchesters already raising their guns. Another thud cut through the house, this one followed by muttering voices.
The three men were in the corridor seconds later, moving perfectly in time with each other. It was hard to pinpoint the source of the voices, sound filtering like smoke through the cracked wood of the old house. The Doctor pulled out the stick-shaped device Sam remembered from the last time he saw the time-traveller. Pushing one of the buttons, he started waving it about randomly like some kind of dance, the green light on the end cancelling out the faint blue of the police box.
“This way!” The Doctor shouted, seconds before dashing off down the stairs. Dean gave Sam a doubtful look but all the younger Winchester could do was grin and chase after his imaginary friend. They caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs, managing a breath before the Doctor was racing off again. This time he stopped and hunched over outside one of the larger and more cluttered rooms of the huge house.
Sam thought it was probably once some kind of master dining room. It was long, stretching the length of the house, and in the middle there crouched a gigantic dining table that looked too heavy to lift with anything less than a crane. It was the only furniture in the house and now it had four men clustered around the end.
The two hunters and their astronaut guide silently slipped inside, crouching behind what seemed to have been a small cabinet for keeping refreshments. Hidden behind the cabinet they couldn’t see anything but the conversation floated along to them, sound crowded in by the low ceiling.
“I thought we said one person only.” A voice pointed almost lazily and Sam was sure he had heard it somewhere before. “I count two of you.”
“It seems we both have escorts.” Beside him the Doctor tensed, eyes widening. “I’m sure we can work around this issue.”
“Very well.” Dean was recognising the voice too, brow furrowed in concentration. “Down to business?”
It clicked then - all the clogs meshed in Sam’s head and he knew that voice. It was one of the leviathans. He locked eyes with his brother, mouth opening, but Dean figured had it out too.
“Leviathan.”
“What? Who?” The Doctor asked.
“That’s a Leviathan out there,” Dean supplied. “A creature from purgatory. They’ve been giving us Hell for ages now.” He cocked is gun and Sam’s fingers were already fitting perfectly around his.
“Let’s go.” The brothers burst out from behind the cabinet, guns raised and hearts hammering faster and faster. This was another opportunity to test these creatures’ immortality. The Doctor was yelling something in the background, words trying to push through the adrenaline cloud in Sam’s mind.
The brothers didn’t listen. They knew the supernatural, knew Earth and its extremities. They were hunters, where the Doctor was a time-travelling astronaut. He knew different times and different places. The Doctor knew the planets and stars of space. Sam and Dean, they knew the star-burst splatters of blood that dead monsters left behind.
Surprise was written across the Leviathan’s faces when they saw the Winchester brothers barrelling towards the group. There were two of the creatures, both familiar although Sam couldn’t place them in the haze of violence that had infected his mind.
Two more people were standing at the table; one a man with sharp eyes and a sharper nose, the other hidden underneath some kind of brown habit. Surprise crossed the man’s face as well but it melted away before the first bullet was zinging towards them.
Sam hit the Leviathan closest, Dean aiming for the second one. Targets were already allocated in that wordless way they managed to communicate. Before either of them could squeeze the trigger for a second time, the sharp-eyed man was wrapping long fingers around the shoulders of both Leviathans. The monk rested a hand on the man’s elbow and then they were gone - static for a second and then simply not there.
“What the-” Dean was cut off as the Doctor appeared from behind the cabinet.
“I told you to wait.” Anger flashed in the time-traveller’s eyes, anger that Sam somehow never thought he would see in his imaginary friend. “But give one of you a gun and suddenly you think you’re invincible.”
“Where'd they go?” Dean was typically ignoring the Doctor’s words, questions fixed on the recent disappearing act. “What was that?”
“Short range teleporter,” The Doctor replied briefly, waving his green light stick around again. It whined in pitches, reminding Sam of broken machinery or Geiger counters. “Probably wired to their mothership somewhere up there.” He waved wildly at the ceiling, eyes still fixed on his electronic device. “Must have some kind of cloaking device if I can’t find them with the sonic. We’ll certainly never know now that you’ve scared them off.” He fixed the hunters with a glare. “Put your guns away before you hurt someone.”
“Who were they, Doctor?” The gun was warm in Sam’s grip, a weight that slotted perfectly into the waistband of his jeans and suddenly he didn’t know what to do with his hands. “You knew them, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” the reply was distant and only half-present, the Doctor already turning away to pace in twirling patterns over the floor. “Members of The Silence. A headless monk and that man, he was there, but what are they doing here? The TARDIS locked onto their signal but from what and why Earth?”
“Doc-”
“Shhhh,” the Doctor cut in, slapping a palm against his head. “Think, think, what am I missing? No reason for them to be on Earth, not now. I haven’t crossed time-lines so River isn’t here and - wait.” The pacing drew to a sudden halt and the strange astronaut darted over to Sam, pointing at him with revelation on his face.
“You said you recognised those other ones. What did you say they were?”
“Leviathans from purgatory,” Sam replied quickly, the Doctor’s urgency catching on. “We’ve been tracking them, trying to figure out a way to kill them.”
“Right, Leviathans look like humans and someone opened Purgatory again. I love this planet.” Dean turned and mouthed ‘again’ to Sam with a mildly incredulous look on his face. “Good, good, who was it this time?”
“A demon called Crowley and two angels, Raphael and Castiel. What do you mean ‘again’?”
“Oh, Castiel,” the Doctor’s face lit into a grin. “Lovely angel although a few daddy issues. What was he doing opening purgatory with a demon?”
Sam rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, pointedly not looking at Dean. There was an unspoken rule between them, a boundary that neither of them needed to voice to know was there. They didn’t talk about Castiel, nothing more than a fleeting mention, just a name delegated in history. It wasn’t a difficulty in facing what had happened, the blood-covered rooms or sigils on the walls. There was no glitch in the who, what, when, where or how. Only in the why. Only in the guilt, betrayal, anything that wasn’t cold hard fact.
“Oh,” the Doctor breathed, eyes flicking back and forth between the Winchesters, swaying slightly on his feet. “Oh, bad question.” Then he was off again, a constant distraction as he somehow managed to simultaneously stride and spin across the room.
“What have we got then. Leviathan and the Silence meeting on Earth in... 2011. I am right there, it’s not 2005 like last time? Almost told good old J.K. how to end her book.”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam replied, pointedly ignoring the ‘what-the-hell-is-your-imaginary-friend-talking-about-now’ glare Dean was now directing at him. “It’s 2011.”
“Fantastic.” The Doctor paused for a moment, frowning and knocking his teeth together. “Oh no, can’t say that. I still manage to forget about the teeth.” And then he was darting off again, heading for the stairs. “2011, not the best year for you humans. You make it through, of course. Amazing you lot are.”
By the time Sam reached the second floor the Doctor was already disappearing into the blue-lit room. When the Winchesters burst through the door, he was waiting for them, grinning like a madman with a mad secret.
“What’s going on Doctor?”
“I have no idea,” the time-traveller replied. “And that’s not something that happens to me often.”
His excitement was infectious, catching like a cold until Sam was smiling back at him. All the fear, all the unknown that had been building up in Sam’s mind, faded away. Somehow he just knew that everything was going to be okay. Like a belief imprinted in his mind, he just knew that the Doctor would make everything alright.
“What's that?” Dean didn’t believe like Sam did. Although he aimed at nothing more than the heart of the floor, Dean hadn’t let go of the gun, hands readjusting over and over in a nervous twitch. “Your blue... box... thing.”
The Doctor didn’t blink, though Sam could see the itch under the astronaut’s skin as his eyes lingered on the gun. Instead the Doctor just leaned back against the object in question, arms crossed, with a patient look on his face. Or, at least, Sam thought it was a patient look.
“Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
“What?” Dean’s forehead was curved into the frown that too often casting shadows over his eyes.
“Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This is my TARDIS.”
“Your space-ship,” Sam elaborated.
“Yes,” the Doctor conceded, sounding amused. “You lot do like to call her something like that.”
“Why do you say that?” Sam wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the answer to his question, wasn’t entirely sure that would be an answer he could process. “Why do you say ‘you lot’? Aren’t you human too?”
The Doctor straightened his jacket and smiled in that way that meant a million possibilities wrapped up in adventures stretching the universe. Somewhere Leviathans were plotting but it no longer mattered.
“Tell me, brave Sam Winchester; in all those planets and stars, in all the things that you see when you look up at the sky and wonder at how small the Earth is, didn’t you ever think that maybe you’re not alone?”
And then he was gone, slipping into the TARDIS as though he were slipping on a second skin. Something told Sam he shouldn’t follow that mad man into his box, that there would be no way back. For a heartbeat he considered not pushing open the door, conveniently left ever so slightly ajar. He could feel Dean’s gaze on him, uncertainty lingering in his brother’s mind.
It didn’t matter, though, none of it mattered. Sam was going to follow the time-travelling astronaut because in the dregs of his childhood, when everything was doasyou’retold, with monsters under the bed and one life instead of three, Sam’s imaginary friends were the only things that were his and his alone.
“Sammy.” The apprehension in Dean’s voice made Sam smile because he knew that Dean wouldn’t trust the Doctor. Sam’s brother was made of certainties and absolutes. He saw in black and white, blind to the shades of grey lingering in the shadows. Dean was born with his feet on the ground and hands curled into fists. It was Sam who floated a million miles away in possibilities and maybes. It was Sam who saw in Technicolour stripes and complexities.
“Come on, Dean.” He knew there was no way of convincing his brother to step into the TARDIS without proof of the Doctor’s good intentions, so instead Sam gave him no choice. If there was one certainty Sam had it was that his brother would follow him.
The TARDIS door creaked as he pushed it open. Behind him footsteps followed Sam into the paradox as his mind tripped over its own feet. There was a house inside the small, blue police call box. There was another world slotted neatly into a three person standing space. It was then that Sam decided that reality was no longer a viable concept.
The Winchesters synced in the space, speaking perfectly in unison. “It’s bigger on the inside.”
“At the same time!” The Doctor had a delighted look spread across his face as he seemed to talk to no one in particular. “They said it at the same time!”
“How...” Dean trailed off, not bothering to finish the impossible question. Meanwhile Sam was re-writing his world, integrating the Doctor and his TARDIS into the map in his head. His eyes traced the porous spirals and flashing lights, lingered on the buttons and gadgets and is that a cheese grater?
There were no words to put to this new world so he asked what he could. “Where are we going?”
“Where would you like to go?” There was a smile on the Doctor’s face as he leaned back against the circular display that took up the centre of the dais in front of Sam. “Think about it Sammy, the boy with dreams of other stars and other worlds. Which one would you like to see first?”
A thousand stars and constellations flashed through his head, each one named on the hood of the Impala. Each sought out by eye and mapped by fingers coated in clinging drops of condensation swept from beer bottles. A million planets and galaxies ran behind, torn from pages of books and the dreams of children.
“Our hotel room.” It was Dean who spoke in the end, breaking through the intergalactic travel down memory lane. “If the Leviathans are plotting with your Silence, we need to know why and how much firepower it’s going to take to stop them.”
Sam’s brother was right. Dean kept his feet and his mind on Earth. Sam had got lost in the universe and forgotten about the world that they had sacrificed so much to keep safe.
“Dean’s right.” The Doctor didn’t look surprised. Instead, something like concern clouded his face. “We need to work out what’s going on.”
For a heartbeat it seemed as though the Doctor was going to say something, perhaps even tell them he couldn’t help them. Sam wondered if he could the TARDIS now that he had seen inside. Then the Doctor pushed himself to his feet, spinning on his heels and darting around the console, pushing buttons and pulling levers.
“Hotel rooms! Always an adventure there. Which one is yours?”
It took a moment for Sam to remember, to pull his head out of the clouds. “Uh, room 23 of the Burwer’s Motel and Inn. It’s about thirty-five minutes south-west from here.” The Doctor pranced over to a hanging scanner that Sam had been eying up. A few buttons pressed and the strange symbols morphed into stranger symbols.
“Right then!” The Doctor grinned over his shoulder, something Sam thought might be close to insanity glinting in his eyes. “I haven’t tried a hotel landing yet, not with these fingers anyway, so prepare for some turbulence.”
“But you can land this thing, right?” Dean spluttered.
The Doctor winked then flipped a switch. Instantly the world tilted on its axis, loud creaking and groans weaving in with that whooshing sound Sam knew the TARDIS always made. The Doctor was laughing, Dean made a strange sound that could pass as a fearful grunt and Sam was somewhere in between. All those times that he imagined time-travel, it had been nothing like this.
“Wait, missed something.” The Doctor was somehow standing and staggering around the console, pushing and prodding various things. “You know, it takes seven people to fly her normally. Ah, there you are!”
A small ting echoed through the TARDIS as the time-traveller slammed his hand down on a bell sticking out of the console. Then, almost as quickly as it had begun, the insanity stopped. The floor levelled out with a creak and a groan before everything fell silent, apart from the soft whooshing of the TARDIS.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” Dean half-growled, pushing himself up from the floor.
“Can’t always keep track of that one, it likes to move.” Quickly the Doctor flipped a few more switches and pushed a couple of buttons, running back and forth around the console. “Now, here... we... are!”
With a flourish he pressed another button and the TARDIS gave a violent shudder. Thrown off balance once more, Sam collapsed into a conveniently placed chair just in time to feel gravity give up for a moment. Exactly as the contents of his stomach were about to make a hasty exit, gravity slammed back and the TARDIS shuddered to a halt once more.
“There!” The Doctor cried from where he was somehow still standing. “Textbook landing. Now let’s see where we are.”
There was a pained groan from behind Sam followed by a weak, “You mean you don’t know?”
“Landing in a hotel room.” The Doctor fixed his attention on the screen hanging over the console showing some kind of scanner. “Isn’t as easy as it seems.”
“It really doesn’t seem easy,” Sam groaned, finding his feet again.
“She doesn’t always land in the right room.” The TARDIS gave a particularly loud groan. “Okay, I don’t always land her in the right room.”
“Don’t you have GPS on here or something?” Dean asked as he hauled himself up from where his face had met the floor. “Kirk always knew where the Enterprise was.”
“I threw the GPS into a supernova. It was boring.” The Doctor turned away from the scanner, straightening his bow-tie. “Come on!” He didn’t stop to see if Sam was following him, just darted over to the door. He didn’t need to, of course, Sam was right behind him.
“Well then, Sam Winchester,” the Doctor grinned at him, leaning against the door frame as Dean half-stumbled over to join them. “You’ve just dematerialised and rematerialised in a new place.” With a smile he pushed the TARDIS door, letting it swing ajar. “After you.”
Sam was about to slip out the door when a strange, completely irrational thought exploded into his mind.
“You’re not going to leave, are you?”
And really it was a completely rational thought. Really it was perfectly plausible because the Doctor had the Universe spread at his feet. The Doctor had a million stars to wish upon and a thousand galaxies to explore. The Doctor had all this and Donna wasn’t with him anymore, not with this Doctor and his changing face, so really it was perfectly rational for Sam to think that the TARDIS might disappear if he ever turned his back.
The Doctor smiled but his eyes stayed sad. Then he disappeared through the TARDIS door and all Sam could do was follow him, Dean seconds behind.
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| Part Two |