Supernatural / Doctor Who Fic: More Things In Heaven And Earth
I have this problem; it started about eighteen months ago, when I began to wonder if I could come up with a way to make the TARDIS collide with all my fandoms. It's taken about three months on and off, from first idea to final execution, with a few breaks inbetween for other more linear fanfiction, but I now present for what is hopefully your pleasure, a rather long Doctor Who / Supernatural crossover fic.
If you're looking for somebody to blame, alas, I have nobody but myself.
Disclaimer: Supernatural is the property of The CW. The BBC owns Doctor Who. I own my brain and sometimes I wish I didn't.
Author's Note / Schmoopy dedication: Um. Had a bit of an idea. Got carried away. For all the fellow Whovians on my friends list, in particular brandywine421, who read it first and didn't laugh at me bluestargirl6 because she's so very sweet and squees at New Who as much as I do.
Spoilers: Post Home, 1.09 & Shadow, 1.16 / The Christmas Invasion (Tenth Doctor)
Words: 7273
Summary: The Doctor doesn't often stay for the clean up.
The dark was spreading across the distance, scything like an event horizon towards the stranded car and its travellers.
Alone in the cold Montana night, Dean desperately tried to reach his brother.
"Sammy, cut it out, okay? You're starting to scare me… Sammy? I mean it.… Sam?"
Then, softer.
"Please, Sam, you gotta help me. I don't know what to do."
High in the deepening blue above them, the stars began to show. In the woods to the North, the shadows, now gathered in a single pack, crept closer.
~~~
A thousand stars away, hanging loosely behind a tranquil moon, the TARDIS lay still.
In the soft dim of the console room the Doctor snored quietly slouched into Rose's shoulder, both of them lulled into a snatch of sleep by the ship's resonant hum. They hadn't gone far this first voyage, Rose promising her mum that they'd just take a short burst no further than the edges of the Milky Way, just to check that everything was still shipshape. Or as Jackie so delightfully expressed it, "If you think I'm just going to let that you go off gallivanting round the back end of the universe and have that flying saucer of yours turn my daughter into gazpacho the minute you go for fifth gear, you've got another think coming."
No matter how indelicately Jackie voiced her concerns, the Doctor knew it was a good idea to let the TARDIS recharge her metaphorical batteries closer to home. And it wasn't just the TARDIS either; in all honesty, he was so tired that if she'd insisted he kip down in the spare room, he would probably have been happy to acquiesce. Regenerating even under the best of circumstance was enough to make a man want to sleep for a week, but throw in a crash landing, a homicidal Douglas Fir, a couple of neural implosions and a broadsword fight and it was enough to knock out even the hardiest of Time Lords.
The snores were getting louder.
Rose shifted in her doze, knocking the Doctor from the cosy nook of her shoulder on to slope of her arm. Slowly, but surely, he began to slide sideways down the seat, leaving an uncharacteristic and undignified trail of drool in his wake, until gravity inevitably took charge.
"Ow."
"Hmm, what?" Rose mumbled, woken by the thump, looking with sleepy confusion at the Doctor, only the smallest flash of loss scarring through her as she remembered the new strangeness of the figure in front of her.
"Sorry," he said with an apologetic smile, "Haven't quite mastered coordination yet."
Rose stretched and got to her feet, offering the Doctor a helping hand to follow suit. "Growing a hand, that's no problem, but staying still, that's a tricky one. Yup, seems like the same old Doctor to me."
Ignoring both Rose's hand and her impish grin, the Doctor stood up with an emphatically energetic bounce. "Hey, less of the old, thank you very much, Rose Tyler," he protested. "Technically, right now, you could say I'm younger than you are, although, I must admit I feel about as sprightly as the Face of Boe," the Doctor mused, rubbing absently at his side where he'd caught the console on his descent. "Maybe I'm clumsy now? Am I that sort of a man? Clumsy, rude and not ginger."
Something flashed on one of the console screens and the Doctor squinted at it. "And short-sighted. Mustn't forget that." He felt in his top pocket for his glasses, grunting on finding them absent, "Oh, don't tell me I left them at your mother's, that would be perfect, that would; clumsy, rude, short-sighted, forgetful and not ginger-"
"- Here."
The Doctor turned to Rose, who held out the retro glasses to him with smiling patience, "They just fell out of your pocket, that's all."
"Oh. Right. Thank you." Sheepishly, he took them from her, pushed them on his nose and turned his attention back to the screen, examining a handful of brilliant glowing dots scattered across a revolving projection of the earth. "This looks… not unlike trouble."
"I think you can add worrywart to that list."
"Worrywart? Old? Anything else you want to throw my way? How about gangly? No, actually, I like gangly."
"Fashion sense's getting better. I like the trainers."
"Well," the Doctor said, "I thought it'd be more practical, you know, running for our lives on a daily basis and all that. Besides," he went on, with just the merest hint of embarrassment, "My old ones don't fit anymore. Apparently, my new feet are huuuuuge."
"I'm saying nothing," Rose replied, smiling diplomatically.
"Although," he continued, "I understand that's supposed to be appealing. Big feet. To some people. I don't get it myself, but maybe it's true, what people say about earth girls."
The Doctor glanced flirtatiously at Rose just long enough to watch her mouth drop wide in surprise before he unleashed a wide beaming smile of his own. He looked back at the sprinkling of lights on the screen and tapped his head. "Rude and not ginger."
Without looking, he casually reached out and pulled the nearest lever, whirring the TARDIS into life and on into the vortex, the sound of Rose's perfect laugh echoing in his new-formed ears.
~~~
It was colder now and the stars shone fully bright in the bleak emptiness of the sky.
Inside the Impala, Dean sat huddled on the edge of insanity, the engine running, fighting the intensifying urge to press his hovering foot hard into the accelerator.
He looked at his watch again, just in case anything unusual had happened in the thirty seconds since he last looked at it.
It hadn't. It was still the middle of Christmas night in the middle of nowhere. It was still hours since Sam had stopped talking, stopped driving, stopped thinking and opened the door before the car had even rolled to a halt. It was still an eternity since Sam'd climbed up on to the roof of the Impala and stood unmoving and unresponsive on the edge in the cold and snow, and twice as long as that since Dean gave up on trying to pull him off the car by his own force and decided to utilise the Impala's.
Rev up, foot down.
It was a great idea, in theory.
In practice, Dean had spent the last hour and then some wavering between psyching himself up to drive his brother off the roof and talking himself out of it. Dean could feel the sense of Sam above him and his desperation flared again. Worst of all was the nagging feeling that if their situations were reversed, Sam would know what to do to fix it, somehow, he'd figure it out. But Sam was gone, or locked away inside somewhere and Dean was alone.
Outside, not far away, the wilds began to scream.
That was it then. No choice.
Dean closed his eyes, deciding to allow himself the luxury of counting to three, in the desperate hope that inspiration might put in a long overdue appearance.
One.
Two.
Right on the edge of hearing, a sound whir-whined from out of nowhere and Dean's foot froze above the accelerator.
Three.
The sound grew louder and Dean tried to place it; almost familiar, but out of place here in the shadow of the mountains. Almost like… whale song. Unearthly, but not hostile.
Four.
It stopped.
Five.
Dean opened his eyes, his heart pounding as he caught the reflection in the rear view mirror.
There was a blue box standing in the middle of the road.
"What the- ?"
Adrenaline flooding through his bloodstream, Dean instinctively took his foot off the accelerator and slid down into his seat out of sight, closing his hand firmly round the comforting cold cylinder of the shotgun to his side. A voice floated out into the night.
"I don't understand it; everyone else should have been switched off by now."
Male. English. Dean processed automatically, adding visuals to his initial assessment as the speaker came into the scope of the rear view mirror. Tallish, lankyish, and- although he never assumed- apparently human. As increasingly weird as this night was, Dean felt more than a little relieved; he was so not in the mood for zombies.
"But he's all alone…" came a second, puzzled voice, "Wonder how long he's been here."
A girl stood next to him, looking pensively in Sam's direction. As well as sharing the man's English accent, she also ostensibly ticked the same human box to Dean's satisfaction, as well as the ones marked short, blonde and, he couldn't help noticing, hot.
"Well, hello there. You're a tall feller aren't you?" The man said as he walked closer to the car.
Taking the cue, Dean sprang into action and burst out of the car, confident that wherever the strangers had come from- and he was yet to formulate a theory on that one- he could take them. Whatever was happening to Sam- and yes, alright, he didn't have a goddamn clue about that either- he was damned if he was going let him be stared at like some sideshow circus freak.
"Get away from my brother," he commanded fiercely, punctuating his words with the sharp snap of the shotgun safety.
"Whoa, whoa, there, Dean my lad," said the man hurriedly, putting himself between Rose and the shotgun with an instinct that Dean couldn’t help but approve of. "Let's calm down, shall we?"
"Calm down?" Dean demanded, his finger tightening on the trigger even as his stomach dropped with fear. "Who are you and how the hell do you know my name?"
"I'm the Doctor and this is Rose and we're here to help."
"Help?"
"Samuel. Sam?" Dean nodded. "Sam. We're here to help him. And I find myself distinctly less inclined to do so the longer you point that shotgun at Rose. And me."
He put his hands in his coat pockets and rocked back on his heels, as if to underscore his words. "That is unless you want him to live out his days as a hood ornament?"
Dean didn't move, instead glancing sideways at Sam. His eyes still vacantly gazed across the plain and Dean could see his brother's fingers were blushed purple with cold.
"Doctor-" the girl said with sympathy and made a move towards him.
"I don't do guns, Rose," the Doctor said firmly and put a hand out to stay her, "I learned that the hard way."
Accepting the Doctor's words, Rose looked to Dean instead. "Look, I know you're scared and you don't have to trust us, but just put the gun down, yeah, and we'll explain."
"Explain what?" Dean barked at her, in no mood for touchy feely crap, no matter how cute the touchy feeler, "Who you are? Where the hell you came from? Why my kid brother decided to get use the roof of our car as a lookout? And what the hell is a frickin' police box anyway?!"
Seeing the young man's aggression was grounded in tightening fear, the Doctor dropped his confident stance and carried through Rose's impulse to approach him. "I'm the Doctor and this is Rose," he repeated gently. "She's from London and I'm, well, from slightly further away." He pointed up at the stars and then behind him, drawing Dean's gaze and holding him there like a spider-webbed butterfly.
"The police box is actually the TARDIS, my ship, and she can take us anywhere through space or time that you could dream of. Ever wondered if man will live on the moon one day? I could take you there, to the first colony and you could watch the earth spin from under the Gaudi domes. Or Jupiter, that's got moons too, but humans don't walk there for, oh, so many years yet. I could take you to any of those places, but right now, I think you want you to be here, in Montana, at Christmas with your brother. And so do I. Because we came here to fix him."
The Doctor stopped and smiled kindly at Dean, "And I still don't do guns."
Defeated and desperate, Dean lowered his gun in silent surrender, cracking it open and dropping it to the floor in one unconscious motion.
"Thank you," said the Doctor knowing even through their briefest of acquaintances how much that act of trust had cost the man standing before him.
Dean turned to Sam and touched his brother's booted foot, giving it a small squeeze for comfort. "What's wrong with him?" he asked, voice small.
"He's been hypnotised."
"He's been what now?"
"Hypnotised," said the Doctor, reaching into his pocket for what looked to Dean like a blue MagLite, "Rose, do the honours, would you?"
Rose stepped forward, her eyes carrying the hint of a smile as she explained. "You see the thing is, the Sycorax wanted to colonise Earth for the mineral resources, so they used the blood from Guinevere One and used it to control everyone with- you’re looking at me like I've grown an extra head."
Rose stopped, embarrassed by the way Dean looked at her blankly. "Sycorax? Guinevere?" he asked, trying not appear like a complete idiot, "Like King Arthur? Excalibur?"
"Sort of," said the Doctor, taking over the explanation and walking round to the back of the car, "Except less of a sword, more of a space probe mission to Mars. Usual quaint 21st century earth stuff on board, plants, languages, bit of Mozart, basket of muffins and a vial of A+ human blood." He looked at Dean steadily. "Which is where Sam comes in."
Before Dean had time to realise the Doctor's intentions, he climbed with surprising grace on to the trunk of the car and up on to the roof, continuing to talk as he did so. "Sonic screwdriver. Won't hurt a bit." He said casually, as if that explained everything, before stepping towards Sam and shining it in his eyes like, well, a doctor.
"The long and short of it is, a particularly unpleasant bunch of aliens hypnotised Sam and every other human with A+ blood, marched them to the nearest roof, pier, cliff, whatever, and threatened to make them walk off the edge unless the earth surrendered. Which I'm delighted to say it didn't do. Bit of skilful negotiation by Rose here, ably assisted by yours truly and the Sycorax's blood control was broken."
"But my brother," Dean asked, more concerned about the way the Doctor shined his blue flashlight gizmo into Sam's blankly staring eyes than the fact he was suddenly quite happy to take the man's explanation of blood-cursing aliens at face value. "You said the control was broken, but he's been like this for hours and I couldn’t get him-"
Dean stopped short, closing his eyes momentarily in an attempt to quell the rising lump of emotion that had risen unbidden in his throat.
"It's okay, you know," Rose said as she touched his arm lightly, "The Doctor's good at this."
Dean flinched in surprise at her touch but made no move to resist it, grateful for the warmth of her kindness. "I'm supposed to look out for him. I couldn't get him to move and there's something in the woods," he rambled, at this point way past caring if it was wise to hint at the family business to strangers, especially ones who apparently came from outer space, "I thought maybe… I was going to drive… I didn’t know what else to do."
"It's a stumper, I'll give you that," the Doctor said, a frown crinkling up his freckled nose as he twisted and clicked his light into a new configuration. "Sam wasn't the only one left standing when the Sycorax's control was broken, but they were mostly spiritual types, in touch with their subconscious, that kind of thing, a few hardcore yoga teachers, a couple of nuns- the Dalai Lama took a bit of convincing let me tell you, but this is - Oh!"
With a bright snap, the Doctor's face broke into a wide grin that even in his new incarnation Rose already recognised as one of fascination and awe. "Look at this, Rose."
Rose unceremoniously dropped her hold on Dean's arm and the two of them looked up at what had piqued the Doctor's excitement so suddenly. The Doctor was staring in rapt wonder at his sonic screwdriver, which now hung in the cold night air directly level with Sam's lost gaze as if suspended from the sky itself.
"Wow," Rose breathed, sharing his captivated amazement.
Dean stared at his brother, still rooted to the car, the usual bright grin of Sam's eyes usurped by the dull glaze of oblivion. He shuddered. "How are you doing that?"
"I'm not," The Doctor said, staring closely at Sam, enthralled. "Sam is."
"Dude, shut up!" said Dean, all too aware that he sounded like a clichéd teenaged girl.
"Yeah, that never works," Rose grinned sarcastically, enjoying the brief flash of indignation that danced across the Doctor's face.
"I am choosing to ignore that comment, Rose Tyler," he said before looking down at Dean, his face full of questions. "Fascinating. Does he do this a lot?"
"Never," Dean answered, unable to take his eyes off the hanging screwdriver and adjusting his line of enquiry to factor in this new, unnerving development. "How is he doing it?"
"I have no idea. And I don't suppose Sam does either." The Doctor turned his attention back to Sam, searching for answers somewhere behind his blank eyes.
The Doctor's wide smile fell to a frown and Dean felt his stomach clench. "It's not hurting him?"
"Oh, no," the Doctor replied confidently, plucking the screwdriver out of mid-air and slipping it back in his pocket. "Whatever Sam's tapping into, it's buried far far down in his subconscious. The telekinesis, it’s just a glimmer, residual psychic energy, I just amplified it. Perhaps one day, but right now, I very much doubt Sam could move a feather if his life depended on it."
The Doctor looked back at Sam for a moment before resting his gaze ponderingly on Dean. "Maybe if your life depended on it."
Now, he thought, how about you ask me what's really worrying you.
"Is it bad?" Dean blurted out, as if he'd heard the Doctor's thoughts. "I mean is it wrong?"
"And why you would you ask something like that?"
Dean clammed up, not knowing how to express his fears that Sam's expanding psychic ability scared him half to death. "Long time ago, something killed our mom. My brother and me, we've spent our whole lives hunting things, evil spirits, monsters, things most people don't believe in. This last year-" Dean's voice cracked and he looked down, almost embarrassed by the frankness of his emotions. He could barely believe he was talking about this with people he'd met less than ten minutes ago, but to be welling up like Sam watching Extreme Home Makeover in the process? Determined to pull himself together he cleared his throat and stood a little straighter. "This last year, though, it's gotten crazier, feels like something's starting, something bad. Our dad took off. And Sam-"
"-And Sam?"
"He's started having nightmares. And they've started coming true. Some of it we've stopped, but…"
Dean's words hung in the air, their implication clear and melancholic.
"I see." The Doctor looked serious, his expression hardening as he turned his attention back towards Sam.
"What kind of nightmares?" Rose asked softly, her concern shadowed for the first time with just a trace of fear.
"Does it matter?" Dean snapped, not liking what was hearing from Rose or the way the Doctor was looking at his brother. Suddenly he'd had enough of this stranger's scrutiny, of taking weirdness for granted. "We were born into this life, we didn't ask for any of this, alright? All I want to do is keep my brother safe and find our dad. So are you going help us or not?"
Hush fell on them, heavy and confrontational. The Doctor looked at Dean for an impossibly long time. "Yes," he said finally. "I'll help."
"Great," Dean said, trying to keep his cool even as a huge wave of relief washed over him. "Thank you."
Acknowledging Dean's appreciation with the smallest nod of his head The Doctor turned to his companion, "Rose, inside the TARDIS, there's a small square button under the console near the reverse temporal shift lever. Go and press it. It might make a bit of a bang, don't worry about it. Then put the kettle on."
"Now?" Rose said, momentarily stilted by the sudden leap into action.
"Would be lovely. Off you go."
Dean watched as Rose headed back towards the TARDIS and disappeared round the other side. "That's been to the moon?" he asked, sceptically. "It's smaller than my car."
"And a very fine car it is too. Very shiny," the Doctor said, ignoring Dean's statement with a grin. "Lovely model, the Impala. Named after a type of deer. Still, better than Bambi."
"Hey!"
"Reliable too. Borrowed a fanbelt from a man in Connecticut once when the fourth cortex circuit blew on the return trip from Alcatraz. The planet, that is, not the prison. Now then," The Doctor said, placing his hands with gentle precision on Sam's temples. "Ready?"
"What are you doing?" Dean said, stepping forward quickly towards Sam as the Doctor closed his eyes and went very still.
"Sam's not the only one who's a wee bit psychic," he said matter-of-factly. "Not like your brother or the others out there, it's a different trick of the Time Lords and one I don't like very much. Don't worry; Sam won't feel a thing. Unless, of course, you drop him."
Dean watched with horrified fascination as the Doctor drew in a controlled breath and connected with Sam's mind, flinching in pain or consternation at whatever he found there. Then, with a sudden intake of breath, Sam shot to life, stumbling backwards into the Doctor and knocking them both off their feet on to the flat roof of the Impala.
"Sam!" Dean called out in panic, trying unsuccessfully to control their fall, relieved as the Doctor managed to do it for them.
"Well, that was unexpected," said the Doctor. Hyperventilating, Sam struggled to sit up and disentangle himself from the stranger considering him with a warm wily smile. "Hello!"
"Sam, it's okay-" Dean called out, trying to ground his brother before he did it literally. Panicking, Sam backed away further from the Doctor towards Dean, half sliding and half falling off the back of the car on to the hard ground.
"- Dean?" Sam said, shivering with cold as he tried to get his bearings.
"I'm here, you idiot. Calm down, alright, I got you."
"Sorry," Sam whispered, his gaze splitting as he the physical shock of the night's events asserted themselves on his frozen body and he passed out.
"Sammy?"
"It's okay," The Doctor said, joining Dean by his brother, his composure recovered. "It's normal."
"You're an alien, my kid brother's developing scaryass superpowers and I hunt ghosts and monsters." Dean looked at the unconscious form of Sam slumped against the car. "Nothing about this is normal."
The Doctor shrugged and then smiled, a spark hiding in his eyes. "Wait until you see the TARDIS."
~~~
Two hours later, Dean sat dozing alone in the console room, hotter than a mouse in a microwave.
The Doctor hadn't been kidding; this place was incredible. Once he'd got over the initial shock of the size of the space inside, Dean decided he liked it; the constant comforting hum of the engines, the coral-like beams, the soft blue glow of the console's central column… and the old chair he sat on right now was possibly the most comfortable place he'd ever parked his ass in his life. The oxygen-rich humidity the Doctor had Rose generate earlier to coax Sam back to the land of the living made him feel like he was made of lead and he finally felt like he could let his guard down enough to rest his eyes for a while.
"Caught you."
"What?!" Dean said, jerking awake to find Rose standing before him with a mug of what he really, really hoped was black coffee. "I'm awake; ready for anything."
Rose smiled wryly, holding out the mug. "Here."
"Coffee?"
"Sort of. It's actually huxon juice. They’re sort of like cows with extra legs. Tastes the same though."
That was about as much as Dean wanted to hear. "Huxon… juice?"
"They have these horns-"
"-Uh, I'm good, thanks."
Rose laughed and held out the mug. "God, you two are far too easy. It’s coffee. Honestly."
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart."
"Great. Thanks." Dean took the mug from her gratefully, savouring the familiar rich aroma. "Where's Sam?"
"He's fine. The Doctor's giving him the once over in the med lab, just to make sure. Refused to let me wake you."
"Is that right?" Dean said with interest, making a mental note to bitch Sam out later. "So, med lab? Just how big is this place anyway?"
"Big enough." Rose said plainly, giving the Dean the distinct impression that she wasn't about to tell the Doctor's secrets… but for his own protection? Or out of loyalty?
- …I find myself distinctly less inclined to do so the longer you point that shotgun at Rose. And me. -
- …At Rose... Oh. Not just loyalty; the other one. Obviously.-
Dean smiled to himself as he made sense of the puzzle, covering his amusement with a more innocuous question. "And the Doctor?" "Is that like his real name or is he just full of it?"
"No, course not." Rose replied, joining Dean on the seat and putting her feet up on the console. "It's what he goes by. He's got other names too, I think, but he doesn’t talk much about that sort of thing, you know? Home. The Time Lords. His planet's gone, now, it's just him."
"And you."
"And me."
"So Rose Tyler. What do your folks make of the Doctor?"
"It's just my mum. She's okay with it. She misses me. I miss her too, but time machine, has its perks. The things I've seen, people I've met-" Rose looked sad for a moment, as if an unbidden painful memory had stirred. She shook herself out of it before Dean could comment with a brighter than truthful smile. "And the washing machine's amazing, there's a thing, a temporal anomaly filtered through it; you put your clothes in and they come out brand new again! Brilliant."
"Man, we could do with one of those," Dean raised his eyebrows, impressed. He offered the coffee to Rose, who shook her head.
"No thanks; tea girl through and through. Two sugars and a chocolate digestive, same as Mum. First thing she does whenever I come home; puts the kettle on. Always the same, I've been away for weeks and it's back home and a cup of tea a few days later. Mostly."
Dean glanced at her, but she was lost in her thoughts.
"Sometimes, though, it seems very far away, home." Rose sighed quietly, almost to herself, looking for the right words. "Like it's my planet that's gone."
Rose frowned, like she'd admitted something terrible. She looked up at Dean, almost embarrassed, her big soulful eyes framed with beautiful mascara laden lashes. Dean felt a pang of sorrow for her, from one traveller to another.
"Doesn't she mind? You going off round wherever you go off with this guy?" He heard himself asking more before he could stop himself in a fumbled attempt at offering comfort. "I'm mean, I'm grateful and all, but this," he said glancing round the strange space of the TARDIS, "It's not a regular life for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" Rose said, unimpressed, an unspoken "What's that supposed to mean?" following right behind it.
"Pretty. Smart." Dean qualified quickly, before adding flirtatiously. "Pretty smart."
Rose hit him. "Oi! You think you've got all the right moves, don't you?"
"Sweetheart, I invented most of them," Dean smiled and drank his coffee, noting with satisfaction as Rose smiled back. Another time and place, he'd definitely be interested in taking this further, but somehow Dean had the feeling that the Doctor wouldn't be letting him use the TARDIS for that any time soon.
"Never gonna happen," Rose interrupted Dean's thoughts, as if she could sense they needed it.
- Definitely interested.-
"What about your dad?" Dean said suddenly, leaping on to the first change of subject that dropped into his head.
"He died," Rose said softly, taken aback by the new direction, the smile falling from her lips. "Long time ago. I never knew him. Not really."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay. We're okay, so…" She trailed off, the memory of her father's hand growing cold and limp in her own returning once more. Reluctant to dwell on what couldn't be fixed, she followed her curiosity, hoping it would lessen the pang of remembrance. "What happened to yours? Your mum, I mean?"
Frowning, Dean looked down. "Truth?"
"If you want," Rose, suddenly wondering if she'd pried too far, despite the natural intimacy between them. "Sorry, it's none of my business."
"No, it's okay," Dean said, unexpectedly grateful for a sympathetic ear. "I was four? Sam was six months old, my dad went to check on him and found-" Dean gripped the mug a little tighter, finding the telling awkward and painful. "He found Mom on fire, pinned on the ceiling. Dad gave Sam to me and we got out. But Mom, she didn't. Dad went back for her, but there was a demon; it killed her."
"A demon? So when you said born into it…" Rose asked gently, "Your whole life, you've been hunting this thing?"
Dean nodded. "Sam left for a while, went to college, Stanford. Then a few months ago, same demon took his girlfriend, same thing, fire on the ceiling. Truth is, I still don’t know what really happened to them and I don't guess we ever will neither. I wish it was a just another hunt, bad things happening to good people and our family got caught in the crossfire, but…" Dean swallowed thickly. "But then Sam tells me he dreamed about Jessica dying for days and then it happens just like he saw? Just like Mom? Truth is, it's not just another hunt, never was. Some reason, this thing wants my brother and Mom, Jess, they just got in the way. So it killed them."
"Do you-" Rose began before stopping suddenly, as if almost afraid to ask. "Why do you think it wants Sam?"
"I don't know," Dean said shaking his head, the admission painful. "Maybe it's these freaky dreams he's started having, maybe it's something else. I don't know and I don't think I care. This much I know; hell's gonna freeze over before I let it hurt him. Or anyone else in between."
Rose looked at him compassionately and for a moment, Dean had the strongest urge to give up, rest his head down against the coral beams of the TARDIS and ask her, Rose and the Doctor to take them far, far away.
What was worse, for a second, he thought Rose might offer.
Pushing the thought down, he locked it away and sat up straight in the chair. "So, Rose Tyler," he said, taking a welcome drink of coffee, "That's my tragedy. Want to tell me yours?"
"Not really."
"Okay."
Dean smiled and took another drink. Even if this was huxon juice, he could give a damn, this stuff was awesome.
"The Doctor-" Rose began, before falling abruptly quiet.
"Yeah?" Dean said trying to find his own way not to push too hard just as Rose had moments ago. "What about him?"
"He changed recently. Something happened to him, it wasn't his fault, but he's different now. I've tried to be okay with it and I am, mostly, some of it's great actually, but even though I don't want to, I keep missing who he used to be. How things used to be. The worst of it is, he's still changing. I'm still finding stuff out him, things I thought I knew. What he'll fight for. What he's capable of. And I know it shouldn't, but what he's changing into, sometimes…"
"It freaks you out?"
"Yeah." Rose nodded, half-ashamed of her thoughts, half-grateful that someone understood them.
"Yeah," Dean echoed. He remembered the urgency in Sam's voice telling him they had to go to Lawrence; the matter of fact way his brother had told him about his precognitive dreams, like Sam'd had a disturbing amount of time to get used to the idea by himself before telling Dean. "Yeah, I get that."
"Don't get me wrong, he could be a right idiot sometimes. Arrogant. Always had to be right."
"Sounds familiar," Dean said, his eyes twinkling briefly in recognition. "Stubborn too, I bet."
"God, like a donkey."
"You could leave though, right? Go back to London."
"Yeah. I could. But I won't. I'm all he has."
"I know how that goes."
Rose looked at Dean and they shared a look of understanding and smiled, each grateful to the other.
"I think-" Rose said, articulating her feelings for the first time and acknowledging them in the process. "I think- it's okay to be freaked out. All of this, stars and hunting, it's a pretty weird way to live a life."
"You're telling me," Dean agreed, glancing again around the strange alien features of the console room. He still wasn't over this bigger on the inside thing.
"And if I'm all he has, then that means to someone, I'm everything. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?"
"No," Dean said, his thoughts returning to Sam again and again; the baby bundled in his arms in Lawrence being rescued from the fire, the desperate man fighting him tooth and nail in Palo Alto to remain in it. "Not a bad thing."
~~~
The sun was beginning to grey the sky with the first hint of dawn by the time Dean and Sam were ready to hit the road.
The Doctor emerged from the TARDIS, tucking his glasses away in his pocket.
"I re-checked the scanners. Those noises in the woods last night, definitely just a group of Miltinites passing through that got curious, that's all. Their migration takes them this way every few hundred years or so. Noisy, bit creepy looking but basically harmless. They've left already."
"Miltinites? Are we supposed to take care of crazy aliens now too?"
"No. That's what I'm here for. Things that go bump in the night, that's where you're needed. The rest is up to crazy aliens like me."
"And Rose?" Dean asked.
"Always. Always Rose. So, now that that's taken care of, where are you fine fellows headed off to?" asked the Doctor, leaning against the TARDIS with one converse-clad foot cranked casually on its point.
"Baton Rouge," Dean replied, leaning against the Impala in an unconscious mirror of the Doctor's attitude. There's a fraternity down Louisiana State just moved into a new house; they've had three brothers disappear in less than two months."
"Fraternities? Now there's something I'm pleased to say never caught on outside your solar system. Can’t imagine why."
"You're doing it again," Rose said absently, from by the trunk where she was helping Sam cram in provisions of clothes, food and other miscellany the Doctor had rooted out for them. From his vantage point, the Doctor merely grinned. It was getting to be a habit.
"What about you?" Sam asked, his eyes sparkling brightly with almost childlike inquisitiveness, "Where are you guys going? Are there any others still out there? Or are you going to go-"
"- To infinity and beyond?" the Doctor interrupted, humouring his curiosity and coming to join them by the car. "Nope, you're officially the last. And it's back to London for us. Promised Rose's mother I'd have her back in time for tea, seeing as it's Christmas. At least it was." He squinted at the sun slowly peeking over the horizon, dappling the grey sky with lavender. "Boxing Day now."
"Two sugars and a chocolate digestive?" Dean asked Rose with a pointed glance in her direction.
"Something like that," she replied with a shy half-smile, the Doctor frowning as he noticed her avoiding his gaze.
"And after that?"
"Oh, I don't know, all this talk of the Gaudi domes, I've come over all nostalgic. What do you reckon Rose? Fancy a trip to the moon?"
"My moon?"
The Doctor nodded. Dean watched as Rose looked up at the Doctor, smiling contentedly as she caught his gaze in hers and held it tight. "Sounds perfect."
~~~
Two Earth days and several thousand TARDIS years later, Rose stood beneath the Gaudi domes looking across the heavens to earth, tiny and lonely in the vast heavens of space.
"Penny for your thoughts?" the Doctor asked kindly. "Not that I actually have one." He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out half a packet of mints. "Polo? Polo for your thoughts."
Rose ignored him.
"You okay?" The Doctor asked after a moment, unsure and worried about the source Rose's malaise and his inability to pinpoint its origins.
"I'm fine."
"We could have stayed longer with your mum," he guessed tentatively dropping the Polos back in his pocket and slipping his hands inside.
"It's not that," Rose said, not wanting the Doctor to doubt for a second that she'd rather be anywhere but here. "I was just thinking. About Sam and Dean."
"Oh." The Doctor frowned and looked out at Rose's gently spinning planet. "Oh."
"Just the two of them, looking for their dad. They're not that much older than me, but the life they've had…. And Dean, he seemed so tired. Doesn't seem fair, what's happened to them. It isn't fair."
The Doctor sighed, wishing he could offer her more in the way of reassurance. "I've seen how things end for hunters before, Rose."
"And how does it end?"
"How it always ends for the true heroes of the world; not well."
Rose felt her heart drop at the Doctor's words. It wasn’t that they were unexpected, just brutally raw in their truthfulness.
"There's so much out there. This time last year, I was working in a shop, wondering what I was going to do with my life. Waiting for something to happen, I suppose." Rose drew in a deep quiet breath, as if ashamed of her previous innocence. "Never guessed it was happening already. Then it turns out it's not just happening out there, some planet light years away or a million years in the future, it's happening down here too, and now."
"There's always something happening, Rose. Can't stop it all."
"I know. Doesn't stop me wanting to though."
"And that," the Doctor said softly, his voice sad yet grateful, as he reached for her hand and clasped it gently in his own. "Is why I asked you to come with me."
Rose squeezed his hand tight, reassured by the gesture and glanced up at her companion. "I just wish there was something more we could do for them."
"Me too. Although, maybe…" the Doctor hummed thoughtfully, the corners of his mouth crinkling with a smile as an idea formed. It would mean crossing a personal timeline or two, but Rose was wiser now and knew the risks and respected them. Still, it wouldn't be too hard… "Do you know what?" he said eventually, "I think maybe there is."
~~~
Sam and Dean were bone tired by the time they stumbled into their room.
They'd driven along minor roads as far their aching will could muster before pulling into a motel just over the Indiana state line, and despite the jagged rakes marking his face, it had been Sam who had made himself just presentable enough to secure their lodgings for a night, wishing with all his heart that he was reserving a room for three Winchesters, not two.
He approached with the key just as Dean finished hauling their bags out of the trunk, looking like he might drop any moment.
The room was overpriced, horribly decorated and had just the one king bed between them but after been beaten down every which way in Chicago they could have cared less if it was a single.
On the bed was an envelope, plain brown and innocuous.
"Did you put this here?" Sam said, picking it up and frowning as he realised their real names were on it.
"Did you see me develop superpowers?" Dean said, too tired to bitch properly. "No, man."
"Who knows we’re Winchester?"
Dean's frown matched his brother's, concerned. "Nobody, Sam, come on, let's go. I don't like this."
Sam turned it over, calm washing over him for the first time that night as he saw the brief message written in a careful, stylised hand.
From one pair of travellers to another.
"Sammy, what is it?"
"It's okay," he said glancing up at Dean. He sat down on the bed and opened the envelope. "I think it's from Rose."
"Space Rose?"
"Do you know another?" Sam said with half-hearted sarcasm, sliding the contents into his cut and aching hands, stunned as he realised what they now held.
"Sammy?" Dean said tentatively as he joined him, his breath stopping as he saw for himself.
It was a collection of photographs.
The paper was glossy and new, but the images were old, all taken spontaneously by secret and careful observers. A family of four, happy together; a little boy partly dwarfed by his baby brother clutched safe in his arms; a beautiful bride kissing her husband on a quiet church porch; two brothers again, now so nearly men roughhousing in the snow; now one of them tenderly kissing a girl with cocoa rich dark skin on a park bench; now the other with a girl on his back, both laughing as they run down a stretch of California sand, surrounded by friends.
"This must have taken days," Dean whispered, captivated by the photo of his mother he held between shaking fingers.
"I think you made quite the impression on her," Sam replied, smiling even as salt tears stung his clawed face.
"Yeah," Dean said breaking away abruptly as a familiar sound caught his senses, "looks like."
Recognising the sound, Dean sprang to the door and pulled it open, the night air hitting him with a fresh blast of cold as he ran into the parking lot, his brother hot on his heels.
Across the street, behind a cluster of trees, Dean saw a familiar shape and watched with unspoken gratitude as the outline of the TARDIS glowed once more before vanishing.
Sam joined only seconds too late and the two of them stood by his side, lost somewhere between surrender and hope.
"One day, when we finish," Sam said finally, acknowledging the possibility of a different future for them, "We'll find them. And maybe-"
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.
Dean held the photograph of his mother a little tighter in his unsteady hand, and they stood side-by-side, alone and waiting beneath the star-eaten blanket of the sky.
"Yeah, Sammy," he said, the smallest trace of a smile finding his lips for the first time of days. "We'll find them."
~~~
If you're looking for somebody to blame, alas, I have nobody but myself.
Disclaimer: Supernatural is the property of The CW. The BBC owns Doctor Who. I own my brain and sometimes I wish I didn't.
Author's Note / Schmoopy dedication: Um. Had a bit of an idea. Got carried away. For all the fellow Whovians on my friends list, in particular brandywine421, who read it first and didn't laugh at me bluestargirl6 because she's so very sweet and squees at New Who as much as I do.
Spoilers: Post Home, 1.09 & Shadow, 1.16 / The Christmas Invasion (Tenth Doctor)
Words: 7273
Summary: The Doctor doesn't often stay for the clean up.
The dark was spreading across the distance, scything like an event horizon towards the stranded car and its travellers.
Alone in the cold Montana night, Dean desperately tried to reach his brother.
"Sammy, cut it out, okay? You're starting to scare me… Sammy? I mean it.… Sam?"
Then, softer.
"Please, Sam, you gotta help me. I don't know what to do."
High in the deepening blue above them, the stars began to show. In the woods to the North, the shadows, now gathered in a single pack, crept closer.
~~~
A thousand stars away, hanging loosely behind a tranquil moon, the TARDIS lay still.
In the soft dim of the console room the Doctor snored quietly slouched into Rose's shoulder, both of them lulled into a snatch of sleep by the ship's resonant hum. They hadn't gone far this first voyage, Rose promising her mum that they'd just take a short burst no further than the edges of the Milky Way, just to check that everything was still shipshape. Or as Jackie so delightfully expressed it, "If you think I'm just going to let that you go off gallivanting round the back end of the universe and have that flying saucer of yours turn my daughter into gazpacho the minute you go for fifth gear, you've got another think coming."
No matter how indelicately Jackie voiced her concerns, the Doctor knew it was a good idea to let the TARDIS recharge her metaphorical batteries closer to home. And it wasn't just the TARDIS either; in all honesty, he was so tired that if she'd insisted he kip down in the spare room, he would probably have been happy to acquiesce. Regenerating even under the best of circumstance was enough to make a man want to sleep for a week, but throw in a crash landing, a homicidal Douglas Fir, a couple of neural implosions and a broadsword fight and it was enough to knock out even the hardiest of Time Lords.
The snores were getting louder.
Rose shifted in her doze, knocking the Doctor from the cosy nook of her shoulder on to slope of her arm. Slowly, but surely, he began to slide sideways down the seat, leaving an uncharacteristic and undignified trail of drool in his wake, until gravity inevitably took charge.
"Ow."
"Hmm, what?" Rose mumbled, woken by the thump, looking with sleepy confusion at the Doctor, only the smallest flash of loss scarring through her as she remembered the new strangeness of the figure in front of her.
"Sorry," he said with an apologetic smile, "Haven't quite mastered coordination yet."
Rose stretched and got to her feet, offering the Doctor a helping hand to follow suit. "Growing a hand, that's no problem, but staying still, that's a tricky one. Yup, seems like the same old Doctor to me."
Ignoring both Rose's hand and her impish grin, the Doctor stood up with an emphatically energetic bounce. "Hey, less of the old, thank you very much, Rose Tyler," he protested. "Technically, right now, you could say I'm younger than you are, although, I must admit I feel about as sprightly as the Face of Boe," the Doctor mused, rubbing absently at his side where he'd caught the console on his descent. "Maybe I'm clumsy now? Am I that sort of a man? Clumsy, rude and not ginger."
Something flashed on one of the console screens and the Doctor squinted at it. "And short-sighted. Mustn't forget that." He felt in his top pocket for his glasses, grunting on finding them absent, "Oh, don't tell me I left them at your mother's, that would be perfect, that would; clumsy, rude, short-sighted, forgetful and not ginger-"
"- Here."
The Doctor turned to Rose, who held out the retro glasses to him with smiling patience, "They just fell out of your pocket, that's all."
"Oh. Right. Thank you." Sheepishly, he took them from her, pushed them on his nose and turned his attention back to the screen, examining a handful of brilliant glowing dots scattered across a revolving projection of the earth. "This looks… not unlike trouble."
"I think you can add worrywart to that list."
"Worrywart? Old? Anything else you want to throw my way? How about gangly? No, actually, I like gangly."
"Fashion sense's getting better. I like the trainers."
"Well," the Doctor said, "I thought it'd be more practical, you know, running for our lives on a daily basis and all that. Besides," he went on, with just the merest hint of embarrassment, "My old ones don't fit anymore. Apparently, my new feet are huuuuuge."
"I'm saying nothing," Rose replied, smiling diplomatically.
"Although," he continued, "I understand that's supposed to be appealing. Big feet. To some people. I don't get it myself, but maybe it's true, what people say about earth girls."
The Doctor glanced flirtatiously at Rose just long enough to watch her mouth drop wide in surprise before he unleashed a wide beaming smile of his own. He looked back at the sprinkling of lights on the screen and tapped his head. "Rude and not ginger."
Without looking, he casually reached out and pulled the nearest lever, whirring the TARDIS into life and on into the vortex, the sound of Rose's perfect laugh echoing in his new-formed ears.
~~~
It was colder now and the stars shone fully bright in the bleak emptiness of the sky.
Inside the Impala, Dean sat huddled on the edge of insanity, the engine running, fighting the intensifying urge to press his hovering foot hard into the accelerator.
He looked at his watch again, just in case anything unusual had happened in the thirty seconds since he last looked at it.
It hadn't. It was still the middle of Christmas night in the middle of nowhere. It was still hours since Sam had stopped talking, stopped driving, stopped thinking and opened the door before the car had even rolled to a halt. It was still an eternity since Sam'd climbed up on to the roof of the Impala and stood unmoving and unresponsive on the edge in the cold and snow, and twice as long as that since Dean gave up on trying to pull him off the car by his own force and decided to utilise the Impala's.
Rev up, foot down.
It was a great idea, in theory.
In practice, Dean had spent the last hour and then some wavering between psyching himself up to drive his brother off the roof and talking himself out of it. Dean could feel the sense of Sam above him and his desperation flared again. Worst of all was the nagging feeling that if their situations were reversed, Sam would know what to do to fix it, somehow, he'd figure it out. But Sam was gone, or locked away inside somewhere and Dean was alone.
Outside, not far away, the wilds began to scream.
That was it then. No choice.
Dean closed his eyes, deciding to allow himself the luxury of counting to three, in the desperate hope that inspiration might put in a long overdue appearance.
One.
Two.
Right on the edge of hearing, a sound whir-whined from out of nowhere and Dean's foot froze above the accelerator.
Three.
The sound grew louder and Dean tried to place it; almost familiar, but out of place here in the shadow of the mountains. Almost like… whale song. Unearthly, but not hostile.
Four.
It stopped.
Five.
Dean opened his eyes, his heart pounding as he caught the reflection in the rear view mirror.
There was a blue box standing in the middle of the road.
"What the- ?"
Adrenaline flooding through his bloodstream, Dean instinctively took his foot off the accelerator and slid down into his seat out of sight, closing his hand firmly round the comforting cold cylinder of the shotgun to his side. A voice floated out into the night.
"I don't understand it; everyone else should have been switched off by now."
Male. English. Dean processed automatically, adding visuals to his initial assessment as the speaker came into the scope of the rear view mirror. Tallish, lankyish, and- although he never assumed- apparently human. As increasingly weird as this night was, Dean felt more than a little relieved; he was so not in the mood for zombies.
"But he's all alone…" came a second, puzzled voice, "Wonder how long he's been here."
A girl stood next to him, looking pensively in Sam's direction. As well as sharing the man's English accent, she also ostensibly ticked the same human box to Dean's satisfaction, as well as the ones marked short, blonde and, he couldn't help noticing, hot.
"Well, hello there. You're a tall feller aren't you?" The man said as he walked closer to the car.
Taking the cue, Dean sprang into action and burst out of the car, confident that wherever the strangers had come from- and he was yet to formulate a theory on that one- he could take them. Whatever was happening to Sam- and yes, alright, he didn't have a goddamn clue about that either- he was damned if he was going let him be stared at like some sideshow circus freak.
"Get away from my brother," he commanded fiercely, punctuating his words with the sharp snap of the shotgun safety.
"Whoa, whoa, there, Dean my lad," said the man hurriedly, putting himself between Rose and the shotgun with an instinct that Dean couldn’t help but approve of. "Let's calm down, shall we?"
"Calm down?" Dean demanded, his finger tightening on the trigger even as his stomach dropped with fear. "Who are you and how the hell do you know my name?"
"I'm the Doctor and this is Rose and we're here to help."
"Help?"
"Samuel. Sam?" Dean nodded. "Sam. We're here to help him. And I find myself distinctly less inclined to do so the longer you point that shotgun at Rose. And me."
He put his hands in his coat pockets and rocked back on his heels, as if to underscore his words. "That is unless you want him to live out his days as a hood ornament?"
Dean didn't move, instead glancing sideways at Sam. His eyes still vacantly gazed across the plain and Dean could see his brother's fingers were blushed purple with cold.
"Doctor-" the girl said with sympathy and made a move towards him.
"I don't do guns, Rose," the Doctor said firmly and put a hand out to stay her, "I learned that the hard way."
Accepting the Doctor's words, Rose looked to Dean instead. "Look, I know you're scared and you don't have to trust us, but just put the gun down, yeah, and we'll explain."
"Explain what?" Dean barked at her, in no mood for touchy feely crap, no matter how cute the touchy feeler, "Who you are? Where the hell you came from? Why my kid brother decided to get use the roof of our car as a lookout? And what the hell is a frickin' police box anyway?!"
Seeing the young man's aggression was grounded in tightening fear, the Doctor dropped his confident stance and carried through Rose's impulse to approach him. "I'm the Doctor and this is Rose," he repeated gently. "She's from London and I'm, well, from slightly further away." He pointed up at the stars and then behind him, drawing Dean's gaze and holding him there like a spider-webbed butterfly.
"The police box is actually the TARDIS, my ship, and she can take us anywhere through space or time that you could dream of. Ever wondered if man will live on the moon one day? I could take you there, to the first colony and you could watch the earth spin from under the Gaudi domes. Or Jupiter, that's got moons too, but humans don't walk there for, oh, so many years yet. I could take you to any of those places, but right now, I think you want you to be here, in Montana, at Christmas with your brother. And so do I. Because we came here to fix him."
The Doctor stopped and smiled kindly at Dean, "And I still don't do guns."
Defeated and desperate, Dean lowered his gun in silent surrender, cracking it open and dropping it to the floor in one unconscious motion.
"Thank you," said the Doctor knowing even through their briefest of acquaintances how much that act of trust had cost the man standing before him.
Dean turned to Sam and touched his brother's booted foot, giving it a small squeeze for comfort. "What's wrong with him?" he asked, voice small.
"He's been hypnotised."
"He's been what now?"
"Hypnotised," said the Doctor, reaching into his pocket for what looked to Dean like a blue MagLite, "Rose, do the honours, would you?"
Rose stepped forward, her eyes carrying the hint of a smile as she explained. "You see the thing is, the Sycorax wanted to colonise Earth for the mineral resources, so they used the blood from Guinevere One and used it to control everyone with- you’re looking at me like I've grown an extra head."
Rose stopped, embarrassed by the way Dean looked at her blankly. "Sycorax? Guinevere?" he asked, trying not appear like a complete idiot, "Like King Arthur? Excalibur?"
"Sort of," said the Doctor, taking over the explanation and walking round to the back of the car, "Except less of a sword, more of a space probe mission to Mars. Usual quaint 21st century earth stuff on board, plants, languages, bit of Mozart, basket of muffins and a vial of A+ human blood." He looked at Dean steadily. "Which is where Sam comes in."
Before Dean had time to realise the Doctor's intentions, he climbed with surprising grace on to the trunk of the car and up on to the roof, continuing to talk as he did so. "Sonic screwdriver. Won't hurt a bit." He said casually, as if that explained everything, before stepping towards Sam and shining it in his eyes like, well, a doctor.
"The long and short of it is, a particularly unpleasant bunch of aliens hypnotised Sam and every other human with A+ blood, marched them to the nearest roof, pier, cliff, whatever, and threatened to make them walk off the edge unless the earth surrendered. Which I'm delighted to say it didn't do. Bit of skilful negotiation by Rose here, ably assisted by yours truly and the Sycorax's blood control was broken."
"But my brother," Dean asked, more concerned about the way the Doctor shined his blue flashlight gizmo into Sam's blankly staring eyes than the fact he was suddenly quite happy to take the man's explanation of blood-cursing aliens at face value. "You said the control was broken, but he's been like this for hours and I couldn’t get him-"
Dean stopped short, closing his eyes momentarily in an attempt to quell the rising lump of emotion that had risen unbidden in his throat.
"It's okay, you know," Rose said as she touched his arm lightly, "The Doctor's good at this."
Dean flinched in surprise at her touch but made no move to resist it, grateful for the warmth of her kindness. "I'm supposed to look out for him. I couldn't get him to move and there's something in the woods," he rambled, at this point way past caring if it was wise to hint at the family business to strangers, especially ones who apparently came from outer space, "I thought maybe… I was going to drive… I didn’t know what else to do."
"It's a stumper, I'll give you that," the Doctor said, a frown crinkling up his freckled nose as he twisted and clicked his light into a new configuration. "Sam wasn't the only one left standing when the Sycorax's control was broken, but they were mostly spiritual types, in touch with their subconscious, that kind of thing, a few hardcore yoga teachers, a couple of nuns- the Dalai Lama took a bit of convincing let me tell you, but this is - Oh!"
With a bright snap, the Doctor's face broke into a wide grin that even in his new incarnation Rose already recognised as one of fascination and awe. "Look at this, Rose."
Rose unceremoniously dropped her hold on Dean's arm and the two of them looked up at what had piqued the Doctor's excitement so suddenly. The Doctor was staring in rapt wonder at his sonic screwdriver, which now hung in the cold night air directly level with Sam's lost gaze as if suspended from the sky itself.
"Wow," Rose breathed, sharing his captivated amazement.
Dean stared at his brother, still rooted to the car, the usual bright grin of Sam's eyes usurped by the dull glaze of oblivion. He shuddered. "How are you doing that?"
"I'm not," The Doctor said, staring closely at Sam, enthralled. "Sam is."
"Dude, shut up!" said Dean, all too aware that he sounded like a clichéd teenaged girl.
"Yeah, that never works," Rose grinned sarcastically, enjoying the brief flash of indignation that danced across the Doctor's face.
"I am choosing to ignore that comment, Rose Tyler," he said before looking down at Dean, his face full of questions. "Fascinating. Does he do this a lot?"
"Never," Dean answered, unable to take his eyes off the hanging screwdriver and adjusting his line of enquiry to factor in this new, unnerving development. "How is he doing it?"
"I have no idea. And I don't suppose Sam does either." The Doctor turned his attention back to Sam, searching for answers somewhere behind his blank eyes.
The Doctor's wide smile fell to a frown and Dean felt his stomach clench. "It's not hurting him?"
"Oh, no," the Doctor replied confidently, plucking the screwdriver out of mid-air and slipping it back in his pocket. "Whatever Sam's tapping into, it's buried far far down in his subconscious. The telekinesis, it’s just a glimmer, residual psychic energy, I just amplified it. Perhaps one day, but right now, I very much doubt Sam could move a feather if his life depended on it."
The Doctor looked back at Sam for a moment before resting his gaze ponderingly on Dean. "Maybe if your life depended on it."
Now, he thought, how about you ask me what's really worrying you.
"Is it bad?" Dean blurted out, as if he'd heard the Doctor's thoughts. "I mean is it wrong?"
"And why you would you ask something like that?"
Dean clammed up, not knowing how to express his fears that Sam's expanding psychic ability scared him half to death. "Long time ago, something killed our mom. My brother and me, we've spent our whole lives hunting things, evil spirits, monsters, things most people don't believe in. This last year-" Dean's voice cracked and he looked down, almost embarrassed by the frankness of his emotions. He could barely believe he was talking about this with people he'd met less than ten minutes ago, but to be welling up like Sam watching Extreme Home Makeover in the process? Determined to pull himself together he cleared his throat and stood a little straighter. "This last year, though, it's gotten crazier, feels like something's starting, something bad. Our dad took off. And Sam-"
"-And Sam?"
"He's started having nightmares. And they've started coming true. Some of it we've stopped, but…"
Dean's words hung in the air, their implication clear and melancholic.
"I see." The Doctor looked serious, his expression hardening as he turned his attention back towards Sam.
"What kind of nightmares?" Rose asked softly, her concern shadowed for the first time with just a trace of fear.
"Does it matter?" Dean snapped, not liking what was hearing from Rose or the way the Doctor was looking at his brother. Suddenly he'd had enough of this stranger's scrutiny, of taking weirdness for granted. "We were born into this life, we didn't ask for any of this, alright? All I want to do is keep my brother safe and find our dad. So are you going help us or not?"
Hush fell on them, heavy and confrontational. The Doctor looked at Dean for an impossibly long time. "Yes," he said finally. "I'll help."
"Great," Dean said, trying to keep his cool even as a huge wave of relief washed over him. "Thank you."
Acknowledging Dean's appreciation with the smallest nod of his head The Doctor turned to his companion, "Rose, inside the TARDIS, there's a small square button under the console near the reverse temporal shift lever. Go and press it. It might make a bit of a bang, don't worry about it. Then put the kettle on."
"Now?" Rose said, momentarily stilted by the sudden leap into action.
"Would be lovely. Off you go."
Dean watched as Rose headed back towards the TARDIS and disappeared round the other side. "That's been to the moon?" he asked, sceptically. "It's smaller than my car."
"And a very fine car it is too. Very shiny," the Doctor said, ignoring Dean's statement with a grin. "Lovely model, the Impala. Named after a type of deer. Still, better than Bambi."
"Hey!"
"Reliable too. Borrowed a fanbelt from a man in Connecticut once when the fourth cortex circuit blew on the return trip from Alcatraz. The planet, that is, not the prison. Now then," The Doctor said, placing his hands with gentle precision on Sam's temples. "Ready?"
"What are you doing?" Dean said, stepping forward quickly towards Sam as the Doctor closed his eyes and went very still.
"Sam's not the only one who's a wee bit psychic," he said matter-of-factly. "Not like your brother or the others out there, it's a different trick of the Time Lords and one I don't like very much. Don't worry; Sam won't feel a thing. Unless, of course, you drop him."
Dean watched with horrified fascination as the Doctor drew in a controlled breath and connected with Sam's mind, flinching in pain or consternation at whatever he found there. Then, with a sudden intake of breath, Sam shot to life, stumbling backwards into the Doctor and knocking them both off their feet on to the flat roof of the Impala.
"Sam!" Dean called out in panic, trying unsuccessfully to control their fall, relieved as the Doctor managed to do it for them.
"Well, that was unexpected," said the Doctor. Hyperventilating, Sam struggled to sit up and disentangle himself from the stranger considering him with a warm wily smile. "Hello!"
"Sam, it's okay-" Dean called out, trying to ground his brother before he did it literally. Panicking, Sam backed away further from the Doctor towards Dean, half sliding and half falling off the back of the car on to the hard ground.
"- Dean?" Sam said, shivering with cold as he tried to get his bearings.
"I'm here, you idiot. Calm down, alright, I got you."
"Sorry," Sam whispered, his gaze splitting as he the physical shock of the night's events asserted themselves on his frozen body and he passed out.
"Sammy?"
"It's okay," The Doctor said, joining Dean by his brother, his composure recovered. "It's normal."
"You're an alien, my kid brother's developing scaryass superpowers and I hunt ghosts and monsters." Dean looked at the unconscious form of Sam slumped against the car. "Nothing about this is normal."
The Doctor shrugged and then smiled, a spark hiding in his eyes. "Wait until you see the TARDIS."
~~~
Two hours later, Dean sat dozing alone in the console room, hotter than a mouse in a microwave.
The Doctor hadn't been kidding; this place was incredible. Once he'd got over the initial shock of the size of the space inside, Dean decided he liked it; the constant comforting hum of the engines, the coral-like beams, the soft blue glow of the console's central column… and the old chair he sat on right now was possibly the most comfortable place he'd ever parked his ass in his life. The oxygen-rich humidity the Doctor had Rose generate earlier to coax Sam back to the land of the living made him feel like he was made of lead and he finally felt like he could let his guard down enough to rest his eyes for a while.
"Caught you."
"What?!" Dean said, jerking awake to find Rose standing before him with a mug of what he really, really hoped was black coffee. "I'm awake; ready for anything."
Rose smiled wryly, holding out the mug. "Here."
"Coffee?"
"Sort of. It's actually huxon juice. They’re sort of like cows with extra legs. Tastes the same though."
That was about as much as Dean wanted to hear. "Huxon… juice?"
"They have these horns-"
"-Uh, I'm good, thanks."
Rose laughed and held out the mug. "God, you two are far too easy. It’s coffee. Honestly."
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart."
"Great. Thanks." Dean took the mug from her gratefully, savouring the familiar rich aroma. "Where's Sam?"
"He's fine. The Doctor's giving him the once over in the med lab, just to make sure. Refused to let me wake you."
"Is that right?" Dean said with interest, making a mental note to bitch Sam out later. "So, med lab? Just how big is this place anyway?"
"Big enough." Rose said plainly, giving the Dean the distinct impression that she wasn't about to tell the Doctor's secrets… but for his own protection? Or out of loyalty?
- …I find myself distinctly less inclined to do so the longer you point that shotgun at Rose. And me. -
- …At Rose... Oh. Not just loyalty; the other one. Obviously.-
Dean smiled to himself as he made sense of the puzzle, covering his amusement with a more innocuous question. "And the Doctor?" "Is that like his real name or is he just full of it?"
"No, course not." Rose replied, joining Dean on the seat and putting her feet up on the console. "It's what he goes by. He's got other names too, I think, but he doesn’t talk much about that sort of thing, you know? Home. The Time Lords. His planet's gone, now, it's just him."
"And you."
"And me."
"So Rose Tyler. What do your folks make of the Doctor?"
"It's just my mum. She's okay with it. She misses me. I miss her too, but time machine, has its perks. The things I've seen, people I've met-" Rose looked sad for a moment, as if an unbidden painful memory had stirred. She shook herself out of it before Dean could comment with a brighter than truthful smile. "And the washing machine's amazing, there's a thing, a temporal anomaly filtered through it; you put your clothes in and they come out brand new again! Brilliant."
"Man, we could do with one of those," Dean raised his eyebrows, impressed. He offered the coffee to Rose, who shook her head.
"No thanks; tea girl through and through. Two sugars and a chocolate digestive, same as Mum. First thing she does whenever I come home; puts the kettle on. Always the same, I've been away for weeks and it's back home and a cup of tea a few days later. Mostly."
Dean glanced at her, but she was lost in her thoughts.
"Sometimes, though, it seems very far away, home." Rose sighed quietly, almost to herself, looking for the right words. "Like it's my planet that's gone."
Rose frowned, like she'd admitted something terrible. She looked up at Dean, almost embarrassed, her big soulful eyes framed with beautiful mascara laden lashes. Dean felt a pang of sorrow for her, from one traveller to another.
"Doesn't she mind? You going off round wherever you go off with this guy?" He heard himself asking more before he could stop himself in a fumbled attempt at offering comfort. "I'm mean, I'm grateful and all, but this," he said glancing round the strange space of the TARDIS, "It's not a regular life for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" Rose said, unimpressed, an unspoken "What's that supposed to mean?" following right behind it.
"Pretty. Smart." Dean qualified quickly, before adding flirtatiously. "Pretty smart."
Rose hit him. "Oi! You think you've got all the right moves, don't you?"
"Sweetheart, I invented most of them," Dean smiled and drank his coffee, noting with satisfaction as Rose smiled back. Another time and place, he'd definitely be interested in taking this further, but somehow Dean had the feeling that the Doctor wouldn't be letting him use the TARDIS for that any time soon.
"Never gonna happen," Rose interrupted Dean's thoughts, as if she could sense they needed it.
- Definitely interested.-
"What about your dad?" Dean said suddenly, leaping on to the first change of subject that dropped into his head.
"He died," Rose said softly, taken aback by the new direction, the smile falling from her lips. "Long time ago. I never knew him. Not really."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay. We're okay, so…" She trailed off, the memory of her father's hand growing cold and limp in her own returning once more. Reluctant to dwell on what couldn't be fixed, she followed her curiosity, hoping it would lessen the pang of remembrance. "What happened to yours? Your mum, I mean?"
Frowning, Dean looked down. "Truth?"
"If you want," Rose, suddenly wondering if she'd pried too far, despite the natural intimacy between them. "Sorry, it's none of my business."
"No, it's okay," Dean said, unexpectedly grateful for a sympathetic ear. "I was four? Sam was six months old, my dad went to check on him and found-" Dean gripped the mug a little tighter, finding the telling awkward and painful. "He found Mom on fire, pinned on the ceiling. Dad gave Sam to me and we got out. But Mom, she didn't. Dad went back for her, but there was a demon; it killed her."
"A demon? So when you said born into it…" Rose asked gently, "Your whole life, you've been hunting this thing?"
Dean nodded. "Sam left for a while, went to college, Stanford. Then a few months ago, same demon took his girlfriend, same thing, fire on the ceiling. Truth is, I still don’t know what really happened to them and I don't guess we ever will neither. I wish it was a just another hunt, bad things happening to good people and our family got caught in the crossfire, but…" Dean swallowed thickly. "But then Sam tells me he dreamed about Jessica dying for days and then it happens just like he saw? Just like Mom? Truth is, it's not just another hunt, never was. Some reason, this thing wants my brother and Mom, Jess, they just got in the way. So it killed them."
"Do you-" Rose began before stopping suddenly, as if almost afraid to ask. "Why do you think it wants Sam?"
"I don't know," Dean said shaking his head, the admission painful. "Maybe it's these freaky dreams he's started having, maybe it's something else. I don't know and I don't think I care. This much I know; hell's gonna freeze over before I let it hurt him. Or anyone else in between."
Rose looked at him compassionately and for a moment, Dean had the strongest urge to give up, rest his head down against the coral beams of the TARDIS and ask her, Rose and the Doctor to take them far, far away.
What was worse, for a second, he thought Rose might offer.
Pushing the thought down, he locked it away and sat up straight in the chair. "So, Rose Tyler," he said, taking a welcome drink of coffee, "That's my tragedy. Want to tell me yours?"
"Not really."
"Okay."
Dean smiled and took another drink. Even if this was huxon juice, he could give a damn, this stuff was awesome.
"The Doctor-" Rose began, before falling abruptly quiet.
"Yeah?" Dean said trying to find his own way not to push too hard just as Rose had moments ago. "What about him?"
"He changed recently. Something happened to him, it wasn't his fault, but he's different now. I've tried to be okay with it and I am, mostly, some of it's great actually, but even though I don't want to, I keep missing who he used to be. How things used to be. The worst of it is, he's still changing. I'm still finding stuff out him, things I thought I knew. What he'll fight for. What he's capable of. And I know it shouldn't, but what he's changing into, sometimes…"
"It freaks you out?"
"Yeah." Rose nodded, half-ashamed of her thoughts, half-grateful that someone understood them.
"Yeah," Dean echoed. He remembered the urgency in Sam's voice telling him they had to go to Lawrence; the matter of fact way his brother had told him about his precognitive dreams, like Sam'd had a disturbing amount of time to get used to the idea by himself before telling Dean. "Yeah, I get that."
"Don't get me wrong, he could be a right idiot sometimes. Arrogant. Always had to be right."
"Sounds familiar," Dean said, his eyes twinkling briefly in recognition. "Stubborn too, I bet."
"God, like a donkey."
"You could leave though, right? Go back to London."
"Yeah. I could. But I won't. I'm all he has."
"I know how that goes."
Rose looked at Dean and they shared a look of understanding and smiled, each grateful to the other.
"I think-" Rose said, articulating her feelings for the first time and acknowledging them in the process. "I think- it's okay to be freaked out. All of this, stars and hunting, it's a pretty weird way to live a life."
"You're telling me," Dean agreed, glancing again around the strange alien features of the console room. He still wasn't over this bigger on the inside thing.
"And if I'm all he has, then that means to someone, I'm everything. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?"
"No," Dean said, his thoughts returning to Sam again and again; the baby bundled in his arms in Lawrence being rescued from the fire, the desperate man fighting him tooth and nail in Palo Alto to remain in it. "Not a bad thing."
~~~
The sun was beginning to grey the sky with the first hint of dawn by the time Dean and Sam were ready to hit the road.
The Doctor emerged from the TARDIS, tucking his glasses away in his pocket.
"I re-checked the scanners. Those noises in the woods last night, definitely just a group of Miltinites passing through that got curious, that's all. Their migration takes them this way every few hundred years or so. Noisy, bit creepy looking but basically harmless. They've left already."
"Miltinites? Are we supposed to take care of crazy aliens now too?"
"No. That's what I'm here for. Things that go bump in the night, that's where you're needed. The rest is up to crazy aliens like me."
"And Rose?" Dean asked.
"Always. Always Rose. So, now that that's taken care of, where are you fine fellows headed off to?" asked the Doctor, leaning against the TARDIS with one converse-clad foot cranked casually on its point.
"Baton Rouge," Dean replied, leaning against the Impala in an unconscious mirror of the Doctor's attitude. There's a fraternity down Louisiana State just moved into a new house; they've had three brothers disappear in less than two months."
"Fraternities? Now there's something I'm pleased to say never caught on outside your solar system. Can’t imagine why."
"You're doing it again," Rose said absently, from by the trunk where she was helping Sam cram in provisions of clothes, food and other miscellany the Doctor had rooted out for them. From his vantage point, the Doctor merely grinned. It was getting to be a habit.
"What about you?" Sam asked, his eyes sparkling brightly with almost childlike inquisitiveness, "Where are you guys going? Are there any others still out there? Or are you going to go-"
"- To infinity and beyond?" the Doctor interrupted, humouring his curiosity and coming to join them by the car. "Nope, you're officially the last. And it's back to London for us. Promised Rose's mother I'd have her back in time for tea, seeing as it's Christmas. At least it was." He squinted at the sun slowly peeking over the horizon, dappling the grey sky with lavender. "Boxing Day now."
"Two sugars and a chocolate digestive?" Dean asked Rose with a pointed glance in her direction.
"Something like that," she replied with a shy half-smile, the Doctor frowning as he noticed her avoiding his gaze.
"And after that?"
"Oh, I don't know, all this talk of the Gaudi domes, I've come over all nostalgic. What do you reckon Rose? Fancy a trip to the moon?"
"My moon?"
The Doctor nodded. Dean watched as Rose looked up at the Doctor, smiling contentedly as she caught his gaze in hers and held it tight. "Sounds perfect."
~~~
Two Earth days and several thousand TARDIS years later, Rose stood beneath the Gaudi domes looking across the heavens to earth, tiny and lonely in the vast heavens of space.
"Penny for your thoughts?" the Doctor asked kindly. "Not that I actually have one." He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out half a packet of mints. "Polo? Polo for your thoughts."
Rose ignored him.
"You okay?" The Doctor asked after a moment, unsure and worried about the source Rose's malaise and his inability to pinpoint its origins.
"I'm fine."
"We could have stayed longer with your mum," he guessed tentatively dropping the Polos back in his pocket and slipping his hands inside.
"It's not that," Rose said, not wanting the Doctor to doubt for a second that she'd rather be anywhere but here. "I was just thinking. About Sam and Dean."
"Oh." The Doctor frowned and looked out at Rose's gently spinning planet. "Oh."
"Just the two of them, looking for their dad. They're not that much older than me, but the life they've had…. And Dean, he seemed so tired. Doesn't seem fair, what's happened to them. It isn't fair."
The Doctor sighed, wishing he could offer her more in the way of reassurance. "I've seen how things end for hunters before, Rose."
"And how does it end?"
"How it always ends for the true heroes of the world; not well."
Rose felt her heart drop at the Doctor's words. It wasn’t that they were unexpected, just brutally raw in their truthfulness.
"There's so much out there. This time last year, I was working in a shop, wondering what I was going to do with my life. Waiting for something to happen, I suppose." Rose drew in a deep quiet breath, as if ashamed of her previous innocence. "Never guessed it was happening already. Then it turns out it's not just happening out there, some planet light years away or a million years in the future, it's happening down here too, and now."
"There's always something happening, Rose. Can't stop it all."
"I know. Doesn't stop me wanting to though."
"And that," the Doctor said softly, his voice sad yet grateful, as he reached for her hand and clasped it gently in his own. "Is why I asked you to come with me."
Rose squeezed his hand tight, reassured by the gesture and glanced up at her companion. "I just wish there was something more we could do for them."
"Me too. Although, maybe…" the Doctor hummed thoughtfully, the corners of his mouth crinkling with a smile as an idea formed. It would mean crossing a personal timeline or two, but Rose was wiser now and knew the risks and respected them. Still, it wouldn't be too hard… "Do you know what?" he said eventually, "I think maybe there is."
~~~
Sam and Dean were bone tired by the time they stumbled into their room.
They'd driven along minor roads as far their aching will could muster before pulling into a motel just over the Indiana state line, and despite the jagged rakes marking his face, it had been Sam who had made himself just presentable enough to secure their lodgings for a night, wishing with all his heart that he was reserving a room for three Winchesters, not two.
He approached with the key just as Dean finished hauling their bags out of the trunk, looking like he might drop any moment.
The room was overpriced, horribly decorated and had just the one king bed between them but after been beaten down every which way in Chicago they could have cared less if it was a single.
On the bed was an envelope, plain brown and innocuous.
"Did you put this here?" Sam said, picking it up and frowning as he realised their real names were on it.
"Did you see me develop superpowers?" Dean said, too tired to bitch properly. "No, man."
"Who knows we’re Winchester?"
Dean's frown matched his brother's, concerned. "Nobody, Sam, come on, let's go. I don't like this."
Sam turned it over, calm washing over him for the first time that night as he saw the brief message written in a careful, stylised hand.
From one pair of travellers to another.
"Sammy, what is it?"
"It's okay," he said glancing up at Dean. He sat down on the bed and opened the envelope. "I think it's from Rose."
"Space Rose?"
"Do you know another?" Sam said with half-hearted sarcasm, sliding the contents into his cut and aching hands, stunned as he realised what they now held.
"Sammy?" Dean said tentatively as he joined him, his breath stopping as he saw for himself.
It was a collection of photographs.
The paper was glossy and new, but the images were old, all taken spontaneously by secret and careful observers. A family of four, happy together; a little boy partly dwarfed by his baby brother clutched safe in his arms; a beautiful bride kissing her husband on a quiet church porch; two brothers again, now so nearly men roughhousing in the snow; now one of them tenderly kissing a girl with cocoa rich dark skin on a park bench; now the other with a girl on his back, both laughing as they run down a stretch of California sand, surrounded by friends.
"This must have taken days," Dean whispered, captivated by the photo of his mother he held between shaking fingers.
"I think you made quite the impression on her," Sam replied, smiling even as salt tears stung his clawed face.
"Yeah," Dean said breaking away abruptly as a familiar sound caught his senses, "looks like."
Recognising the sound, Dean sprang to the door and pulled it open, the night air hitting him with a fresh blast of cold as he ran into the parking lot, his brother hot on his heels.
Across the street, behind a cluster of trees, Dean saw a familiar shape and watched with unspoken gratitude as the outline of the TARDIS glowed once more before vanishing.
Sam joined only seconds too late and the two of them stood by his side, lost somewhere between surrender and hope.
"One day, when we finish," Sam said finally, acknowledging the possibility of a different future for them, "We'll find them. And maybe-"
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.
Dean held the photograph of his mother a little tighter in his unsteady hand, and they stood side-by-side, alone and waiting beneath the star-eaten blanket of the sky.
"Yeah, Sammy," he said, the smallest trace of a smile finding his lips for the first time of days. "We'll find them."
~~~