"So what do you know about the Winchesters?"
The Doctor spins in his place at the entrance of the TARDIS, eyebrows knitted in curiosity, sending a glare towards the console.
"What do you know about the Winchesters?" he asks River. He begins taking slow, deliberate steps toward her.
She shrugs. "A little bit."
"When did you hear about them?" he questions casually, trying to hide his mild anxiety.
"Not too long ago," she answers as she takes her place next to him at the console.
He begins flipping switches, turning knobs, pulling strings. The TARDIS hummed to life, sending that too-familiar sound through his ears and a not-so-gentle rumbling under his feet.
"Oh, stop trying to hide it. I know it was you."
A smirk finally appears on his face to match hers as he pulls the last lever.
"And how much of that do you know?" He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
She sighs playfully and turns to rest her back on the console, her arms folded across her chest. "Just that a time traveler and some hunters managed to stop a catastrophe." She looks to him out of the corner of her eyes before continuing again: "But I would love to hear some details."
"It's a long story," The Doctor warns.
"We have all the time in the universe for it."
He looks up to the ceiling, lips pursed, debating with himself. She deserves to know, and it isn't something that necessarily needed to be kept secret.
"Fine. I'll tell you. But you can't interrupt!"
A smile spreads across her face as he hops up to sit on the rails surrounding the console. He hunts through his mind to determine where to start and how to say it, and when he finally does, he lets out a huff of satisfaction.
"So, it all started-"
"Oh please, you can't start a story with that cliché," River teases.
"It's my story, I can start however I please, River Song," he plays along.
River gives a quick turn of her head to flip a curl from her face and grants him her full attention.
"Well then. It all started back when I was still travelling with Amy and Rory. It was well after we opened the Pandorica, but not too long before you and I married…"
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"Rise and shine, Ponds! Come on, wake up."
Amy groaned as she sleepily flipped on her other side to face Rory, attempting to ignore the sound of The Doctor's fist against their door.
"I thought we would eat breakfast on Earth before we travel again. Who knows what effect an intergalactic diet can have on a human," he said through the closed – and locked – door. "Actually, I believe there have been some studies. But they were never tested on actual humans. Mostly the tests were only conducted on robots similar to humans. The tests were actually quite…"
As he continued to beat on the door speak about human-robot tests, Amy groaned again when she pressed closer to Rory, this time covering her ears. His heat and his gentle exhales that moved her bangs helped her to block out the early morning disturbance. Almost.
"What are you smiling about?" she asked Rory groggily when she felt the corners of his mouth turn against her cheek.
"You know he won't stop until we're up," he answered, placing a kiss on her forehead.
Amy finally opened her eyes, only to see Rory's shirt collar and the faint light that seeped through the cracks in their door. She rolled her eyes, knowing Rory was right. On a task as simple as waking the two of them, The Doctor would never give up.
"Alright, alright, we're up!" she yelled.
"Brilliant! Hurry and get dressed, I haven't had a London breakfast in years!" With a snap of her fingers, Amy turned on the lights in the room and pushed the covers off her and Rory, following The Doctor's orders.
After perfecting his last touch – a dark blue bowtie – The Doctor called to his friends, "I'm going to get us a seat; I'm betting the restaurant is busy on Saturday mornings. I've left some directions by the flux switch for you two."
"Got it!" he heard Amy's voice from her and Rory's room.
With a small smile and a key in his hands, The Doctor locked the door to the TARDIS – wouldn't want to leave his companions vulnerable to a curious human or a malicious alien. He clapped his hands together once and turned to head toward the restaurant. But as he took a step forward, a firm hand to his chest stopped him abruptly and caused him to nearly lose his balance.
"Wha- where did you come from?" The Doctor asked, perplexed as to how this dark-haired, trench coat-wearing man appeared for the short moment his back was turned. He rubbed his collar bone where he had collided with the palm of the man's hand.
"You can travel through time, correct?" Trench Coat Man asked.
"A bit blunt, are we?" The Doctor said.
"I'm sorry, but my friends need your help, but I lack the power they need. I believe you're the only one who can help them."
"Yes, very blunt," The Doctor murmured. He quickly looked the man up and down, attempting to determine his reason for coming to him. He seemed human enough, except something was a bit… off. His energy. There was far too much for a normal human being.
Then it was coming to him: the faint, sweet but tart smell, the slight change in temperature, and how the feeling of blood coursing through his own veins had suddenly become prominent all led to the presence of special kind of energy.
"You're an angel, aren't you," The Doctor stated.
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"An angel?" River asks in disbelief.
"Ah-ah," he stops her, raising a finger. "You promised you wouldn't interrupt."
She purses her lips in defeat, and once again gives him her attention.
"Nothing like the angels we've dealt with." He gives a short laugh. "Far, far from it."
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"Yes, my name is Castiel; I'm an angel of the Lord," he answered, the familiar phrase leaving his lips easily.
"Well, Castiel. I haven't come in contact with your species in centuries. And, are you sure it is a problem you can't solve on your own? I'm spending a bit of time with my friends, and –"
"We've come into contact with dolums," Castiel interrupted.
The Doctor stopped for a moment. "Dolums?"
The angel nodded once, slowly.
"Nasty creatures, those things. Somehow, they've found a way to communicate through time. Luckily they have no way to travel through it; that would be a catastrophe. But the only way to deal with them – from what I've discovered – is to take the pod from each of their times and lock them up where they cannot change the future. Now, they're hard to track. They aren't part of any dimension the TARDIS can recognize," The Doctor thought aloud.
"They're spirits," Castiel offered.
"Exactly. But if they find a way to materialize like other spirits have, they can wreak havoc."
"And we believe this is what they are doing."
The Doctor scratched his cheek in thought, ran a hand through his hair. What about Amy and Rory? He couldn't leave them here. But they are in their own time – maybe he could.
But what fun would that be?
"Give me a moment to gather everything. Your friends are in the twenty-first century, I'm assuming," The Doctor says as he pulls his sonic screwdriver from his inside coat pocket, quickly scans the angel, and then flicks it open to read its data.
Castiel, however, takes a step back, unaware of the strange device The Doctor has just used on him.
"Don't worry – I'm just getting a signal the TARDIS can lock onto," The Doctor said after he noticed Castiel's hesitant step back. "I'll follow you."
With one last skeptical glance at The Doctor, Castiel disappeared with the sound of flapping wings.
"Who were you talking to?" came Rory's voice behind The Doctor.
"Oh. That was…" The Doctor hesitated shortly, "a change of plans!"
"You mean we're eating someplace else?" Amy asked.
"No, no. We'll get breakfast when we get there."
"Get where?" Rory asked.
The Doctor walked in between the two, returning back to the TARDIS. "I don't know yet. Come along, Ponds!"
The two looked at each other, shrugged, and turned to follow The Doctor back into the TARDIS. They never minded spontaneous adventures, anyways.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"Cas!" Dean called to the spot Castiel had been standing a moment before. He realized his call would not be answered, and he sighed in defeat. "I hate it when he does that."
"He'll be back soon," Sam said, his eyes never leaving the newspaper or his breakfast.
"It would be nice if he didn't leave right in the middle of a conversation." Dean sat across from Sam at the table. "An important one at that. How do we know these things are trying to change our futures?"
Sam shrugs, looking up for the first time. "It's what Cas said."
Dean rests his head on his hand. "Since when was time travel possible?"
"After everything we've seen, is this really that surprising?"
"Yeah, actually," Dean admits. "So what do we know about these things?"
"They've been visiting a few of the places we investigated; Cas thinks they could be trying to change a few small details first."
"But they haven't."
"As far as we know."
Dean glared at Sam, angered by his negativity.
"Hey, I'm just saying what I think is happening."
Dean leans back in his chair, knowing his brother is right. "So, basically these things can undo all our work for the past eight years?"
"Yeah, unfortunately," Sam says as his eyes drop back down to the paper.
"So why can't Cas just zap us back there? If we can find these things, we can kill 'em and there won't be anything to change what's happened."
"You know he hardly has the power to take us to a different time zone once. That nearly killed him last time."
Dean crossed his arms, pursed his lips. Damn, he hated it when Sam was right. But he knew it too. He knew there was no way Cas could do that.
He just hoped Cas could find someone that could.
Hope you liked it! If you did, a review would be so appreciated.
I'm planning on making this multi-chapter, obviously by the cliffhanger.