The Apocalypse Stops For No Time Lord [Part Two]
Part Two
By the time they were prepared and standing in a ring around the console, the countdown had fallen to 8 minutes. Crowley and Bobby were equipped with water guns that the Doctor had uncovered from somewhere in the TARDIS, filled with the deadly cleaning solution, and machetes. Sam would have laughed at how ridiculous they looked holding the brightly coloured plastic but it didn’t seem appropriate.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was silent, walking around the time-machine’s console, all spin lost from his movements. His head was tilted down, brows casting shadows over his eyes that made him seem darker than ever. Whilst his hands still expertly navigated the buttons and gauges of his TARDIS, it was clear that his mind was universes away.
Sam didn’t mind the silence; it gave him time to think. As far as he could figure, the Doctor was a wind-up toy. Every morning some Time Lord part of him got wound up and his second heart was kick-started so he could run through the day. Once he was charged up, the Doctor was... well, the Doctor. He laughed and smiled and twirled about the room in concentric circles like a child’s Spirograph. By day the Doctor was a mad man with a box and a hundred companions to share the Universe with.
At night Sam liked to think the Doctor felt more alone than ever. Of course he would never be truly alone, because in the end, when every other thing in the Universe has dripped away like rain on a windshield, the TARDIS would always be waiting for him. Sam knew that when everything had lost it’s meaning, when the narrow-eyed governments built colossal metal structures that reached for the sky to say ‘we were here’, the TARDIS would run away with her Time Lord.
So perhaps he would never be completely alone, but Sam thought that at night when the Doctor stared at the gentle lights of the TARDIS’s control panel and felt the Universes beneath his fingertips like a pulse, the assurance of life, he would close his eyes and see a million different planets and a bazillion different civilisations and a hundred gazillion different cities and so many people there aren’t words to express them. The Doctor would see all this and feel like an ant in the shadow of a shoe, like the smallest thing in the world.
At least, Sam liked to think that because under his feet the floor was vibrating softly and all around him the TARDIS filled his world with so many possibilities and promises and infinities. Sam was the tallest person in the room but he had never felt this small and he didn’t think he could ever grow tall enough to fit into the Doctor’s world.
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It felt like hours before they finally touched down but Sam knew it had only been minutes. The landing was a lot smoother, only the shudder or jolt of what could be passed off as airplane turbulence. This time the Doctor didn’t wait to check his scanner, just headed for the door.
There was a man waiting for them when they filed out of the TARDIS, one-by-one. He was wearing a blue military-looking coat and a smile that stretched across his entire face. As soon as he spotted the man, the Doctor headed for him.
“Ah, Captain Jack!” The two men met in the middle, easily falling into a tight embrace. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“You’ve changed plenty,” the Captain replied happily, holding the Doctor at arm’s length with hands on shoulders. “I love what you’ve done with the face and is that a bow-tie?”
“Bow-ties are cool,” the Doctor assured him, smile never leaving his face. “Now, Captain Jack Harkness, this is Sam and Dean Winchester and Bela Talbot.”
“Well hello,” Jack said with a smirk, eyes running over the trio. “You should have dropped in sooner, Doctor.”
“Stop that, we didn’t come to flirt.”
“I was just saying hello.”
“Exactly.” The two men grinned at each other and Sam felt distinctly out of place.
“So why am I honoured by your presence?” The smiles faded, melting away as easily as butter over heat. “There must be something wrong to bring you here.”
“Where is here?” Bela asked, eyes lost on the room they had stepped into. Sam hadn’t really looked at the place the TARDIS had flown them to, attention on the man in military dress. Now that he moved his gaze on he could see why Bela was asking.
What must have been a huge space seemed cramped and cluttered by the volume of equipment that seemed to cover every surface. Lights blinked at Sam from out of every corner, red and green linking to make Christmas lights interspersed with the occasional yellow and blue. Huge tables sagged under the weight of hundreds of computers, devices and some things that looked vaguely weaponised. As far as he could tell, the TARDIS had taken them to the warehouse for every electronics company in the world.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jack declared loudly. “Welcome to the temporary headquarters of Torchwood, Earth’s primary defense against negative alien creatures and objects.”
“Great,” Dean muttered sarcastically. “The men in black are on the case.”
“Speaking of Torchwood,” the Doctor continued, ignoring the snark. “Where are the rest of your team?”
Jack’s face fell then, changing into something else, broken sorrow cutting lines where he had seemed so young a second ago. Sam knew that look. He had seen it every time Dean heard the name ‘Lisa’, or Sam thought of Jessica on those mornings when the mirror reflected the weariness of life on his face. That look came when he thought of those seemingly endless months when Dean was a cold corpse in the ground.
“Who?” The Doctor’s voice was soft, almost hesitant, commanding a complete understanding of the situation.
For a moment Jack didn’t speak, then he took a deep breath, face hardening. “Ianto.”
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said carefully and Jack nodded. A long silence fell between the two men then, something sacred that Sam didn’t dare break. He had the distinct feeling that he didn’t belong in this moment, that he was someone from a different time and a different place. Although, he supposed, he was.
Thankfully a switch flipped in the Doctor and they returned to the warehouse. “We’ve got an apocalypse, always fun, and I need your help.”
“You know that I’ll do what I can,” the man in military dress said carefully, his stance shifting to attention.
Hearing her cue, Bela quickly jumped in. “If I give you the data, do you have the power and programs to track something? It’s traceable through weather patterns and data from bodies of water.”
Jack smiled and winked. “For you, Ma’am, I’m sure I can.” Offering her his arm, the pair of them headed further into the warehouse. Dean followed, saying something about keeping the demon in sight. Sam just ignored them, opting instead to follow the Doctor.
The Time Lord had darted off among the towering shelves of whirring electronics and cluttered graveyards of those machines whose lights had died. The sonic was out, whining and buzzing as the Doctor searched among the debris.
“What are you doing here?” He had stopped beside what looked like some kind of harness. The steel frames were perfectly shaped to fit a human body, wires trailing from the structure to what seemed to be a poorly built bathtub beside it. “You’re not supposed to be here. They said they’d destroyed all of you.”
Sam was about to call out to the Doctor when a noise interrupted him, a song coming from his pocket. He pulled out his ringing phone and instantly felt stupid for thinking it so bizarre. At some point he had just assumed that they were so far away from the world, here with the Doctor, that nobody would be able to contact them.
“Where in the Hell are you idjits?” It weird to hear Bobby’s voice come down the line when he answered. “It’s costing me an arm and a leg to call you.”
“Sorry, Bobby,” Sam replied, smiling at the curious Doctor. “I’m not actually sure where we are.”
“Sydney,” the Doctor supplied helpfully and Sam quickly decided not to share that piece of information with Bobby.
“You boys are alright, aren’t you?” Sam couldn’t hold back a smile at the question. It was an easy answer, always the same. They were never alright, but it was comforting to hear the concern in Bobby’s voice. It was always good to be reminded that they had friends out there when the world was falling apart.
There was an undertone to the question though. Sam could hear it swirling underneath Bobby’s words like held breath. His words were questioning nothing more than physical health but what Bobby was really asking was, ‘your egg’s still working, right? No more Lucifer. Dean’s still blundering on, right? Not too much of the liquid medicine.’
The Devil smirked at Sam from where he leaned against a stack of winking laptops, daring the hunter to tell the truth. Dean’s flask was still in the Impala, forgotten in the rush of endoftheworld.
“We’re fine, Bobby,” Sam replied and his voice didn’t even waver. There were more important things than unstable minds. “But Crowley and a fresh-from-Hell Bela found us with some information about the Leviathans.”
“That can’t have come cheap.”
“They made a ‘business proposal’, as Crowley put it. They give us the information and we kill the Leviathans.” Sam paused then, unsure of how to tell Bobby that there was another apocalypse rushing in on the horizon. Another apocalypse, another chance to die, another chance to not come back.
“What is it, kid?”
“The demons found out the Leviathans are trying to raise their crown prince or something like that. He’s basically Purgatory’s Lucifer.”
“Balls!” Bobby swore loudly. “I called you to tell you what I found. Turns out I was looking in the obscure section when I should have gone straight to the best-seller. I found this in the Bible:
‘His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.
They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.
His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth.’”
“Bela said it was another apocalypse.” Sam’s voice sounded thin, even to him.
“As much as I hate to say it, she might be right on this one.” A shiver ran down Sam’s back, criss-crossing over his skin like breath from a whispered threat. It felt as though there was an uneasiness in the air that hadn’t been there before, as though the world was trying to accommodate the thought of the end after all it had survived.
A loud clang made Sam jump, snapping his mind away from thoughts as black as the sluggish innards of a tar pit. The Doctor burst up from behind a cabinet for a second, mouthing ‘sorry’, and an idea struck Sam.
“Doctor!” The Time Lord appeared again, brushing flyaway strands of hair out of his eyes. “Have you read the part in the bible about Leviathans?”
“The bible?” The Doctor thumped his temple, shaking his head. “Found it a bit dull in the middle so it seems I replaced it with Refaclorian etiquette.”
“Right.” Sam didn’t bother asking, instead switching his phone to speaker and heading over to the doctor. “Bobby, could you say that again?”
“Hello Bobby!” The Doctor called, leaning over the phone. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Pleasure,” came the strained reply, followed by the Bible verse. “What are you thinking?”
Sam looked over at the Doctor. His face had remained blank, impassive through the words, but the hunter could see the cogs turning in his mind. On the outside there was just a humanoid being but inside two hearts were beating to Time Lord thoughts.
“Doctor?” He looked surprised at Sam’s voice, as though he had forgotten that he was not alone in the room, and perhaps he had. “What are you thinking?”
“Sammy Winchester.” The Doctor’s face split into a smile and Sam felt hope swell in his chest. “I’m thinking about Hittite technology, magnetostatics and the Lorentz force. Lovely man, Hendrick Lorentz. Always got a little distracted by long division though.”
“Right.” Sam took a deep breath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Without warning the Doctor grabbed the phone and darted off down the aisles of the warehouse, Sam struggling to keep up. “Bobby, hello, it’s the Doctor!”
“Yes, I know who you are, Memento.”
“I need your help.”
“I’ll do anything I can.”
“I like you. Pack a bag of whatever you use against the Leviathans and wait in your living room for my blue box.”
“Your blue what?”
“My TARDIS. We’ll come as soon as we’re done in Sydney.” With that the Doctor snapped the phone shut, tossing it over his shoulder and into Sam’s hands.
“Doctor,” Sam puffed. “What are we doing?”
“We’re running,” the Time Lord called over his shoulder. “And I’m being very clever.”
For a moment Sam considered asking the Doctor again, trying to get some sense out of the man with the blue box. Then, like so many other things he had considered in dirty motel rooms and against the soft leather of the Impala, he forgot them. Instead he let a smile crease his face and he kept running.
A few seconds later, and too many turns to remember, they skidded to a halt next to the computer that Bela, Dean and Jack were staring intently at. Sam could swear the warehouse kept getting longer. The hunter and the demon looked up, surprised, but Jack just smiled.
“Still running, Doctor,” he asked quietly, moving on without waiting for an answer. “We’ve found the Leviathans. They’re massing in the middle of some fields in a place called Trenzalore. I’ve never heard of it but they’re gathering around a lake there.” Jack paused, staring at the Doctor who seemed frozen in place. “Are you alright?”
“Me?” The Time Lord smiled and his eyes stayed sad. “I’m always alright.”
“Do you know Trenzalore?”
“Yes,” the Doctor replied slowly but before anymore questions could be asked and left hanging in the air, he was moving again, pacing about. “But that doesn’t matter because I’m extremely clever and I have a plan.”
“What do you need?” Jack stood a little straighter then and looked a little more serious, a little more distant. It was the stance that soldiers took as they prepared to return to war. “Torchwood will help in any way we can.”
Sam knew apocalypses and wars against things that were nothing more than fiction to most people. The thrum of adrenaline and the insane race to be halfway ready was nothing new to him, nor was the scramble to pretend preparation for something that could never be predicted.
But this was different, this hop, skip and jump that was the Doctor and his mind. Thoughts fell from his mouth in a million decisions and revisions and plans dictated in science until it was a guessing game just to figure out what the Time Lord was saying.
And all that time they never stopped moving. There were moments when Sam would be dodging his friends and moments when he would be suddenly alone. Even the Doctor, a seemingly constant presence would disappear and reappear only when someone questioned his absence.
Ten minutes of insanity and they were standing in front of the TARDIS. It took a head count but they were all there; two hunters, a demon, a military man and a time-travelling astronaut. The new Team Free Will.
“We don’t have much time,” Bela muttered, glancing down at the tablet Jack had presented to her with a flourish. They had taken a good five minutes making sure the device had everything on it they could need and a steady network connection. “If what we’ve found is right they should be raising Ephialtes in about thirty minutes.”
“You weren’t kidding,” Dean growled. “That’s no time at all. Doctor, are you sure this is going to work?”
“Most people have more confidence in my genius,” the Doctor grumbled. “Come on, I have a dinner date with Nefertiti that I’m late to.”
They filed into the TARDIS after the Doctor, pigs to slaughter or soldiers to war. Sam tried not to feel a sense of impending doom but it crept up on him anyway, sending a chill pattering down his spine. They clustered around the crates, waiting to see what was inside as the Doctor pulled out his sonic.
“Still using the old sonic screwdriver, Doctor?” Jack teased.
“What?!” Dean’s face was a perfect picture of disbelief. “That thing’s a screwdriver?”
“A sonic screwdriver,” the Doctor said indignantly. “And there’s nothing wrong with it.”
Echoing the Doctor’s defense, it only took a second to unlock the case, numbers scrolling by until the lock gave way with a click. Inside were four cylinders painted matte black and slotted into a porous black material like it had come straight out of a bad sci-fi movie. With the cylinders was a small plastic square with an inlaid switch and two options; ‘on’ and ‘off’.
“What are they?” Dean asked. “Bombs?”
“Bombs?” The Doctor shook his head. “Typical human.”
“They’re magnets,” Jack supplied. “Some of the most powerful magnets in the world. We based them on alien tech that came through the rift.”
“The rift?” Bela asked.
“I’ll tell you that story another time,” Jack said with a smirk.
“What do we want with electromagnets?” Dean asked. “That’s not going to help us defeat a Leviathan.”
“Oh my god,” Sam hissed as Bobby’s voice echoed in his head and it finally clicked in place. “The shields, right?” He turned to the grinning Doctor. “It’s the shields, right?”
“I visited the Hittites once,” the Doctor replied cryptically. “Amazing they are. First humans to understand iron and use it. Ephialtes is very old, older than me and his shields are still made of iron. A little help from Lorentz and my mind we should be able to make it work.”
“Lorentz?” Dean asked, looking to Sam. The younger Winchester just ignored him. It wasn’t like he had an answer anyway.
“Four magnets,” Jack muttered, nodding slowly. “All at different corners of the lake pulling the shields in four different directions.”
“This is insane,” Bela calmly declared. “You want to use magnets to stop a prince of Hell. You’re all insane.”
“It will work.” There was a cold determination in Jack’s voice that Sam knew was complete and utter belief in the Doctor. Idly, he wondered: if the Doctor said jump, would Sam say no?
“How can you be sure?” Bela looked as worried as Sam thought she would ever get and finally the Doctor stepped up to her, a smile on his face. “How do you know we won’t die?”
“I know what happened to you, Bela.” His voice was soft, almost not carrying to the others. Once more Sam felt like he no longer belonged in the moment. The Doctor had an uncanny ability to make even the TARDIS seem like it should only fit two. “I know how the girl became the thief.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” That was the only time Sam had seen Bela look vulnerable, pinned down by the Doctor’s words.
“Bela Talbot, not a good thief, a great one. I always know great people and there is something that you must know.” The Doctor leaned forward and whispered something in the demon’s ear. Shock flashed across her face, quickly followed by a gratitude that Sam had never seen on her, even when she wasn’t tainted black.
“Okay,” she said calmly, her face echoing the resolve that Jack had tried to convince her with. “Okay, Doctor.”
“Come along,” the Doctor called, spinning over to the control panel in a way Sam suspected only he could. “Dean, hold onto this. Jack, push that. Bela stand here and press that when I tell you to. Sam keep turning that and none of you touch anything else.” He reached out to pat the column in the middle of the console. “She gets grumpy during apocalypses.”
As human and demon and alien scrambled to their allocated positions, the TARDIS started her familiar whooshing. Sam couldn’t stop a smile from stretching his face. She wasn’t the Impala with her scars and soldiers MIA, but he loved the blue police box and her Doctor.
“We have one stop to make before Trenzalore,” the Doctor said over the sound of the TARDIS. “I do love meeting new people.”
A few seconds later there was a jolt and anyone who wasn’t a TARDIS frequent flyer was thrown to the left. Sam had barely righted himself when the Doctor disappeared out the TARDIS door.
“Hello Bobby!” The Doctor’s exuberant voice floated in from outside. “I’m the Doctor.”
There were a few moments of silence followed by a tirade of impressive swearing. “First Crowley and now a blue box appears out of nowhere in my living room!”
Sam exchanged a glance with Dean before slipping out of the TARDIS. Sure enough, the Doctor had landed in the middle of Bobby’s living room. The older hunter was standing behind his effortlessly cluttered desk and, strangely, Crowley was next to him, wearing a somewhat amused expression.
“Hey, Bobby,” Sam said, walking over and pulling the older man into a tight hug then nodded to the demon. “Crowley.”
“It’s good to see you, kid,” Bobby muttered gruffly. “But what in the Hell is going on?”
“Bobby,” the Doctor appeared at Sam’s elbow, smile as predominant as ever. “Lovely name Bobby. Bobby’s are always good. We need your help stopping the Apocalypse. You too, Canton.”
“Crowley,” the King of Hell corrected.
“Doctor,” Bela called from the TARDIS. “We have about 23 minutes left.”
“A countdown!” The Doctor grinned at Sam. “Haven’t had a countdown in a while. Lately the problem has been time happening all at once, not that you would remember that.”
“We’ll explain later,” Sam reassured Bobby, choosing to ignore the Doctor’s ramblings. “Just get what you have that can go up against the Leviathans and get it in the TARDIS.”
“We need industrial cleaners.” Bobby nodded to the demon next to him. “Crowley brought me a Leviathan nicely trussed up, and we finally found a way to cook them.”
“Good thing you’re on the case.” Bela was leaning against the TARDIS door, a scathing look on her face. “Now we know to clean them to death.”
“Comedian,” Crowley replied dryly, returning her glare with an equally caustic one. “There’s a chemical in the cleaner which has a similar effect to that of acid on human skin. Makes for a delightful mess.”
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| Part Three |