Saved (a reprieve for fans of "Save Me Doctor" by )
"Weebly wobbly timey wimey," the Doctor murmured softly, shaking his head as he broke through the fathomless depths of unconsciousness.
"Oh yeah," Dean muttered to Sam, "he's cracked like a piñata."
Sam shushed him as the Doctor stopped abruptly, jerking Amy and Rory as they had still been trying to haul him to the car. He snapped, visibly brightened and pivoted on the spot, leaving the other four aghast in his wake.
"That's it, that's what we should have done all along!" he called ambiguously as he dashed back to the TARDIS. "She knew and she followed, and she found him!"
"What the blazes is he on about now?" Rory huffed as they followed him inside.
Dean and Sam shared an exasperated look before they too ducked back inside the callbox.
"She found him the first time, didn't she? That is exactly why we landed when and where we did." He said as he began pulling plugs and flipping levers. Lights and sounds started sparking and chuffing, the whole machine started whirring and Dean gripped the side of the control panel.
"Dude, what the hell?!"
"Wait, wait, are you saying the machine tracked Crowley—Canton, sorry," said Sam, struggling to catch up to speed.
"Well, yes," Amy interjected as the Doctor continued unaffected by the conversation swirling around him. "We touched down to him right at the door and he practically collapsed inside."
"So we just let the Doctor crank her up and she'll take us straight to Crowley," Dean clipped, "but then what?"
"Well, DW, we do our little bit," the Doctor said spinning to face, "you do your little bit, and we all go home happily with Canton intact, no piñata, mess or fuss."
"Okay, but we need a plan for when we find Canton," Sam said carefully.
"Easy peasy," the Doctor smiled and clapped his hands once. "That's where you come in. You're the brains of the outfit aren't you? There's a lad." With that, the Doctor turned back as the machine lurched and everyone aboard grabbed something for purchase.
"Oh God, Sammy, I'm gonna hurl," Dean leaned heavily over the beeping flashing controls and shut his eyes tightly.
Sam's jaw was clamped shut lest he do the same, and he merely nodded as if Dean could see him.
Then, as suddenly as everything had started, it stopped.
They all stood in an eery silence as the Doctor hopped jauntily to the door. Dean groaned ominously and leaned over with his hands on his knees. Rory pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to Dean, as the taller man had started sweating profusely, clearly unmoored by his virgin flight through time and space.
Sam, who had recovered more quickly raced the Doctor to the door. "Hold up, Doc! You don't know where or when we landed. There's no telling what's out there." By the time the words were out his mouth, the Doctor was out the door. Sam and Amy both lunged out the door after him, while Rory tended to Dean.
They stopped short just outside the door as they took in their surroundings. Several people garbed in black stood before a throne in a columned room. There, sitting languidly atop the throne, was Crowley.
"Hallo lads," he said lazily. "Come for a cuppa?" The friendly demeanor he adopted when he spoke dropped swiftly. "Kill them," he ordered gravely, and the demons turned and advanced. Sam grabbed Amy and the Doctor and leapt back to the door of the TARDIS.
"Dean!" he bellowed, "we got company!"
"How many?" Dean growled as the three slammed the door shut and braced themselves against it while the pounding started from outside. The demons, determined to get in, were using candelabras and whatever they could find in the throne room to beat down the door of the TARDIS.
"At least ten," Sam snapped back. "Plus Crowley! The nutcase landed us right in the middle of Hell!"
"Ohh great!" Dean rolled his eyes and started patting his pockets for weapons. "I got bupkiss, except for one angel blade and this," he said, palming a small bottle of holy water.
"I don't have much better."
"You guys got anymore bright ideas?" clipped Dean.
"Fresh out, sorry," said the Doctor as he fiddled with switches and flipped dials once again. The machine started up again, the telltale whirring vibrating under their feet.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean shouted at Sam. "Here we go again. I'll be stopped worse than I was on one of Cas's angel flights."
"Should we maybe try to call Cas?" Sam asked, trying to latch onto something viable.
"No need for all that boys," the Doctor interjected. "We are now back relatively safe and sound at Mr. Singer's."
"Great," the boys said in unison.
"Well, what can we do," Amy asked exasperated. "We've still for all intents and purposes left Canton in Hell!"
"Yes, yes, problem that," the Doctor mused.
"We could always summon him," Sam threw out. He ran his hands through his hair as Dean, glanced around for something to sit on.
"We can't summon Crowley," Dean said, gesturing vaguely. "He's somehow gotten around that now so he doesn't have to answer the summons."
"Summoning…," Amy mused. "As in, calling him here?"
"Well, somewhere," Sam conceded, "but Dean's right—"
"Deano is right spot on," said the Doctor brightening. "That is the ticket isn't it?" He spun again and practically pranced back to the initial spot where they had held Crowley. He began wiping at the paint smears and scratches and repairing the sigils that he had ruined.
"What are you doing, Doctor?" Rory asked, as the group filed in. "You heard the boys, we can't summon the demon to this trap if he won't come when called."
"He is not the one we shall summon, Pond the other." The Doctor did not even break stride as he rushed to finish. Amy, cottoning on faster than anyone, started helping him as best she could.
"No, he's right! We can't summon the demon of course, but—"
"Canton!"
"Absolutely," the Doctor chuckled, he sat up on his haunches shining with glee. "Dastardly demon type just hitches an unwilling ride, doesn't he?" He tapped his nose and pointed to Rory.
"Okay, uh, I hate to break it to you guys, but you would need something of his to summon him." Dean leaned in the doorway, looking distinctly unamused and at his wit's end. He rubbed his hands through his hair in such a similar gesture to Sam's earlier one that Amy could see the brothers shared some genetic traits after all.
"We do have something of Canton's," she replied, and she dashed for the voice recorder he had returned to them.
Crowley paced his throne room, having thrown out all of his minions for their ineptitude. If he admitted it to anyone but himself, he was…a bit unnerved at the thought of a Time Lord taking a personal interest in his affairs. Times like these, he was glad he had back-up plans for his back-up plans. He downed a finger of Scotch and grimaced, before pacing to his closet and taking down a magically sealed box. He muttered an incantation, passed a hand over the top, and the box popped open at his caress.
He took out a single piece of paper, making sure the information on it was seared into his brain, and snapped the box shut again. One more incantation later, and it was safely ensconced in the back of his wardrobe.
Picking up his crystal decanter, he made to fill his glass once more when he felt a wrenching pull from his navel. Chuckling darkly he tried once again to pour when a resonant pull from within wrenched him sideways and the glass shattered on the stone floor. "Bollocks!" he said grimly, face set as he knew instinctively what the party that had just vacated his premises was up to now.
He felt the man's soul rising to consciousness at the summons dragging him along for the ride. In a swirl of sound and vibration he felt his tenuous grasp on his meat suit slip as Canton took over and answered the call to his soul.
Crowley was dimly aware of people and talking around him, feeling the heaviness of his magick being tamped down and vaguely aware of Canton telling them things that he would rake the man over hot coals for if he'd had the choice. Then it began. The silly incantation, the magic the Winchesters intoned over his body felt heady and strong. He felt it sucking the very core of him out, strangling with it as if suffocating by magic. He clawed internally at the body he had become so attached to, but to no avail. This time, at last, he was wrenched from the man's body and swirled as a scarlet miasma through the air and away, knowing the Winchester would still track him if they possibly could. With that in mind, he made the best escape he could and cut his losses.
Canton gasped once, twice, and his head lobbed down. He blinked dizzily, and raised his eyes to look around him. "Doctor," he said questioningly, his voice cracking and dry.
"Canton III, is that you?" the Doctor said warily, he sensed the imminent danger had gone. Canton was a threat no more, or at least what had taken up residence in him was gone. Dean held out a hand, as if to hold the Doctor back from stepping over the painted ring, but the Doctor held out his hand as a sign of truce.
"He's gone you know, we saw him leave." The Doctor said placatingly, as they had all witnessed the smoke rising from Canton's mouth as the demon departed.
"Yeah, well you're welcome too," Dean grimaced. "You have no idea how long or how bad I've been wanting to gank that mother."
"Be that as it may, you would have 'ganked' Canton as well, so thanks for not and all that." The Doctor and Rory began untying their friend and Amy made off to make some tea.
Sam drew Dean away to talk to him quietly. "Look man, I'm with you on this. I want to take out Crowley just as much as you, but this was their friend and this is how we started out—saving people."
Dean swiped a hand across his mouth as if he wanted to deny that they had actually done good, and what he was struggling with finally worked its way out at last. "Dammit Sammy, we had him!" he whispered fiercely. "We had him in our hands and had to let him walk."
"He'll be back Dean, you know he comes back like a bad penny," Sam countered, "usually right when we don't want him."
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of." Dean planted his feet, hands on his hips. "The next time we have a chance like that we take it, no matter what."
Sam nodded grimly, knowing that the next time the odds may not be in their favor. "Agreed."
Crowley smoked a trail through the ether to the location he had made sure he memorized before he left his chamber. He touched down in Boston, in a well-appointed penthouse apartment, siphoning himself into the mouth of a man he considered plan B. His failsafe, who was much less anonymous than the last bloke, but ultimately more suited in ways and means. He stood from the chair in which his meat suit had been sitting and strode gamely to a wall mirror nearby, one hand tucked in his pocket as casually as though he had always inhabited this body. He stared smugly at the dapper features reflected back at him and uttered his new identity, trying out his new name to see how it rolled off the tongue, "Jim Sterling, Interpol."