One.
"It's… bigger on the inside," Sam wonders aloud, and Amy doesn't miss the smug expression on the Doctor's face, the slight twitch of his lips. She rolls her eyes.
A moment later Dean storms in, pauses abruptly when he sees the four pairs of expectant eyes looking at him. "Well?" the Doctor prompts.
"I prefer Battlestar Galactica," is Dean's answer, as he narrows his eyes at the whizzing console and the round things in the walls. "Seriously? This – this is a spaceship?"
"Battle – what?" The Doctor frowns as Rory smirks, and Sam lets out an enduring sigh.
"What do you know about spaceships, anyway," the Doctor murmurs and shakes his screwdriver pointlessly. "You'd shoot it if it had legs."
Dean just rolls his eyes. "Sure. No problem, you know, for saving your ass."
"Yeah, about that," Amy chips in. "How'd you shoot a weeping angel? Can you just – can you even do that?"
"Can he, Doctor?" Rory sounds amused.
"This ain't an ordinary gun, sweetheart." Dean says smoothly, and Rory isn't amused anymore. Sam jabs his brother in the ribs. "Dean, that's her husband."
"And what? I wasn't – "
"What is that gun?" The Doctor asks, reluctant curiosity making his voice grumpier than usual. Amy wants to laugh.
"A good one. Who are you guys, anyway? British secret service?" Dean jokes, but there is a line of tension in his shoulders. Sam holds out a hand to diffuse that tension. They're both big, but Sam is like a mini-giant. A gentle giant, though. Amy likes them both.
"Relax, Dean. They're friendly. Uh, this is the Doctor."
"Doctor who?" Dean distorts his face, and the Doctor smirks despite himself. This particular question always seems to amuse him, though Amy has no idea why.
"Just the Doctor." He answers habitually. "Who are you? When are you?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean looks like he might be laughing, or tearing your head apart. Or both. Rory moves a little closer to Amy.
"Didn't I mention? It's a time machine – "
"I thought you said spaceship."
"It's both," the Doctor actually rolls his eyes. Amy laughs out loud this time. "TARDIS – Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It's an organically grown time and space manipulator from the planet Gallifrey. Don't you read?"
Dean looks like he wants to answer, but isn't sure if there was a question in there somewhere. Sam sighs good-naturedly and takes over.
"I'm Sam, this is my brother Dean. We're from Earth, America – 2012."
"Dude, what's this, The Martian Chronicles? We're from Earth?" Dean complains.
"Dean, obviously they're aliens," Sam puts in patiently. "He said something about the planet Gallifrey." Amy opens her mouth to correct him, but Dean is waving his hands about and rolling his eyes.
"Oh, so now, aliens speak Queen's English?"
"TARDIS translation program, actually." The Doctor interjects helpfully. Dean stares at him like he can't believe his eyes.
"Great." He finally grumbles. "That's great. Now you're gonna tell me Leviathans are actually some aliens from the planet Purgatory, or something."
"Leviathans?" The Doctor looks taken aback. "Well, actually, there's this planet called…"
"What're Leviathans?" Amy asks. She hates not knowing.
"They're monsters from Purgatory – " Sam starts.
"Who want to turn Earth into a breeding farm," and Dean finishes. Amy wonders if they do this often, finishing each other's sentences. Dean winks at Amy as if he hadn't just said some monsters wanted to eat Earth. He has a very pretty face, and Rory bristles beside her. Dean turns to the Doctor.
"So, you were saying?"
"Leviathans. I've met them once. But their planet is completely destroyed." The Doctor taps the screwdriver on his chin thoughtfully. Sam straightens his shoulders, and turns to Dean.
"You think – that's why they came here? To Earth? And God just locked them up in Purgatory?"
"Come on, Sam," Dean crunches up his face. "You believe that? Leviathans are aliens? Besides, Death said God made them."
"Who said what, now?" Amy feels like it's a good time to interrupt. Dean and Sam just look at her awhile, like she should know.
"God? Did he say God?" Rory looks as confused as she feels. Amy looks over at the Doctor and, for once, he looks as baffled as well.
"Who's this God person?" The Doctor asks. Sam pulls back, looking weary.
"Well. God, you know. Adam and Eve, the Genesis?"
"They wouldn't, Sammy. They're aliens."Dean says sarcastically.
"Actually, we're humans." Rory explains. "This is Amy, I'm Rory. We travel with the Doctor."
"That sounds cool," Sam muses. Dean glances at his brother, and Amy can't figure out what his look means.
"So, God? Like the Christian God? He's… real?" Amy struggles to come to term with this. She used to pray as a young girl, but not after she's met the Doctor. Rory claims he's too pragmatic to believe in higher power.
"Well, yeah. As far as we can tell." Dean answers.
"Doctor?" Amy looks at the Doctor, unsure. The Doctor meets her wavering eyes, puts on a face that means that he has no idea what's what but will pretend that he does, for Amy's sake.
"Big universe, Pond. Anything's possible. Well, almost anything. Well," the Doctor shakes himself. "Anyway. So these Leviathans are giving you problems, eh?"
"You could say," Dean mutters. Then his face brightens, as an idea strikes him. Amy thinks she can almost see a tiny light bulb coming to life above his head. Dean has a very expressive face. "Hey, do you got some cool alien guns that could take them out? Our guns don't work."
"There with the guns again." The Doctor sighs, exasperated. Dean gets defensive.
"What? What do you suggest, then? Have a cup of tea at them?"
"Dean," Sam warns.
"Whatever. If you ain't gonna help, just drop us off at our motel."
"How are you going to fight them?" Rory asks, sounding concerned. It's their planet, too.
"We got no idea." Dean looks like he wants to throw his hands to the air, but rakes his face instead. Suddenly he looks very tired. "Nothing kills them. We tried everything. Dropping a car at them won't kill them."
"Doctor," Amy looks at the Doctor, fixes him with a stern gaze that she reserves for special occasions. "We're gonna help them, right?"
The Doctor smacks his lips together distastefully. "Of course we will. Just… have you tried putting them back where they come from? Purgatory?"
Amy wants to ask if Heaven and Hell are real too, Angels and Demons, but it doesn't seem like a right time. Dean opens his palms, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah, no. We haven't tried putting them back where they come from."
"Oh, well, you might want to…"
"Doctor, that was a sarcasm," Sam intones carefully. He aims a look at Dean, and Dean looks back at him with an innocent expression. "Excuse my brother. We're just a little… frustrated."
"Ah," the Doctor says. He considers the two brothers carefully. "Tell me more," he finally says.
Silence settles when Sam finishes telling the entire story. It's a long story, because Sam starts from the beginning. Dean feels like he's listening to a badly scripted horror flick as Sam starts to explain Mary's death, and then John's, and then basically everyone else they knew. Dean listens to the silence awhile, thinking about their last death that turned out to be an un-death. He feels bad about leaving Cas in a locked ward – with Meg, to boost – but is glad Sam's noodles are back in order. Then an idea hits him.
"Hey," Dean says. Four pairs of eyes turn. "You said it was a time machine, right?"
"Yes." The Doctor answers. Dean spreads his arms and looks at Sam, waiting for him to realize the obvious. Sam's eyes light up only seconds later.
"You mean – when? Before Eve?" His brother leans forward excitedly.
"If it's not too late. Maybe before you got your soul back?" Dean shrugs.
"What's this bright idea?" The Doctor asks. Dean can tell he doesn't like being left out of the loop. Well, too bad.
"Remember I said Castiel accidentally released Leviathans from Purgatory?" Sam starts explaining again. Dean snorts. "Accident, my ass." Sam ignores him.
"So what if we could go back before that happened? And… and convince Cas not to?"
"Rewrite your own history?" Amy says. "Doctor, can they do that?"
"It's tricky." The Doctor narrows his eyes. "You'd have to be very careful."
"Careful about what?" Sam asks.
"Not to run into yourselves."
"Obviously," his brother, the giant geek, is excited. Despite himself, Dean finds himself wanting to smile. "Because we would cause a discordance in the space time." Sam continues. Dean is proud of his brother for putting that expression on the Doctor's face.
"Yes. Exactly," he says, a little bemused. Dean can tell he usually likes to explain things himself. To show off.
"Bottom line – we don't go chattin' up our past selves. Other than that it's fine? Can you do it?" Dean asks.
"We could try," the Doctor says uncertainly. Dean doesn't like the hesitance, but he figures it's worth a risk.
"Alright," Dean says cheerfully. It's hitting him that he's about to go time-traveling, in an actual time machine this time. "Let's do it, then."
"I need an exact date, exact location." The Doctor yells as he starts a sort of – weird dance move, the main console deck as the dance floor, and starts pushing and smacking the controls. Dean's not sure if you can go about hammering a time machine like that, but he has to grab the banister as the spaceship starts shaking.
"Dean?" Sam prompts, yelling over the sudden whizzing sound filling up the room. Dean tries to think.
"Um," a scene flashes in his mind, angry words – there's a greater purpose here – what should have been his first clue. But he'd been very tired, then. "Sheriff's station in Grants Pass, Oregon. June 2nd, 2011. About – nine p.m.?"
The Doctor yells Yowza, and Dean yells seriously? He wonders if it's a good idea to trust this alien man. But it's too late now. He expects to feel his atoms disintegrating, or whatever, but a bad lump in his forehead is all he gets when he loses his footing and bumps his head on the main console. He misses his baby.
Rory has heard about this angel – seriously, an angel? – and is ready to be overwhelmed by divine powers, or something, but when they barge into the station, it is not what they expect. A man in a baseball cap and disintegrating padded vest looks at them, surprised. He looks more like a grumpy old drunk than an angel. He fights the disappointment.
"Sam? Dean? What the hell – "
"Bobby, hey," Sam chokes a little. Bobby, Rory recognizes the name from Sam's stories. Remembers that he's passed away not too long ago. Dean is staring at Bobby like he's seeing a ghost, which is kind of true. Rory feels inexplicably sad. He looks over at Amy and she meets his eyes grimly too.
"Sam? What – who are these people?"
"Listen, Bobby. Did we just leave?" Dean asks, regaining himself.
"What are you talkin' about, idjit?" Bobby screws up his face. "Have you lost your marbles?"
"Hello, Mister Bobby," the Doctor speaks up with a goofy grin. Rory can tell that he's forgotten Bobby's last name.
"Who the hell are you?" Bobby looks confused.
"I'm – "
"He's a time traveler. We're from the future." Dean explains. The Doctor looks grumpy, having his moment stolen.
"What?" Bobby gasps. "Is he an angel?"
Rory laughs out loud. He can't help it. Amy is sputtering, too.
"Why are you laughing? I'm insulted." The Doctor puffs. Then, "Am I insulted? I think I'm insulted. Why am I insulted?"
"Are you – is he – " Bobby narrows his eyes.
"Probably, yeah." Dean decides. "Listen, Bobby, we don't have a lot of time. Where's Cas?"
"I'm here," comes a deep voice, deeper even than the crazy umbrella man they met on that last planet, and Rory turns to find an actual angel standing in the doorway. For an angel, he looks really confused and – is that a trench coat?
"What are you doing here? I thought you went to…" Then the angel's eyes widen. "You're not from this time."
"Right. Yes. We need to talk – " Dean's interrupted as Castiel turns promptly and narrows his eyes at the Doctor, cocking his head at a weird angle.
"Timelord," he declares, much to everyone's surprise. The Doctor gets guarded in an instant.
"How do you know?"
Castiel's head tilts again. It's really quite disconcerting, Rory decides.
"There was a time when we interacted with your kind." Castiel says, sounding ancient.
"With angels? How come I don't know about it?" the Doctor keeps looking suspicious. Castiel heaves a sigh, like he's enduring a particularly difficult child.
"It was long before your time. I'm older than you can imagine – "
"Yeah, alright, showoff. I said we need to talk." Dean says sternly. He seems unfazed by the sudden weariness – thousands, billions of years just rolling off the angel. Even the Doctor looks a little disturbed.
"About what, Dean?" Castiel does the enduring sigh again.
"About you. And how you're in cahoots with Crowley." Dean says, and Castiel actually flinches.
"You… know about that?" He says at the same time Bobby yells what?
"We do, Cas, and it doesn't end well. Trust me." Sam says, his face serious.
"We need you to give it up. Otherwise – it's gonna end really, really, really terrible. And we're not joking." Dean says equally seriously. Castiel looks pained. Then he looks at the Doctor. He's about to say something, when Dean yells – "Bobby?"
They all turn to look at Dean, but he isn't speaking. He looks horrified, staring at something beyond Sam's shoulders. Someone – it's Dean, and Sam, and they look back at the little group with a dumbstruck expression on their faces. It's completely still for a while, but Rory figures it won't last that much longer. Suddenly Dean – the past Dean – starts shouting, they're shapeshifters – and pulling out his gun. Their Dean shouts wait, Castiel starts explaining loudly at the same time that the Doctor does, and the other Sam is lunging at them with a bloody machete. Rory runs to cover Amy. The Deans lunge at each other, both yelling something unintelligible. Stop! The Doctor hollers but obviously no one listens. Their fists meet each other's cheeks. Rory waits for the world to end. It does, with a flash.
"Where are we?" Sam groans, feels his brother's hands searching across his face, looking for invisible bruises that only Dean can see. He brushes him off. "I'm okay, Dean."
"It's the Doctor, actually." Sam opens his eyes, only to close it again as some light-flickering machine whizzes annoyingly at his eyes.
"Ugh, what is that?" He mutters and sits up. Another pair of hands helps him.
"It's a sonic screwdriver." The Doctor says as if it's obvious. "You're fine. No concussion."
"I don't believe it," Dean is saying somewhere to his left. Sam turns around and finds that they are in front of a wired fence somewhere, abandoned houses and wrecked cars everywhere.
"What? Why? Where are we?" Amy says, looking dazedly around her.
"The world didn't end?" Rory says something out of context. Amy frowns at him.
"We're in the future." Dean sounds funny, like he might be laughing and crying at the same time. Sam frowns.
"How do you know?" He asks, walking toward his brother. Dean points at a sign hanging across the wired fence, dangling sideways. Sam reads it. Then reads it again, just to make sure. "What the hell?" he says dumbly.
"What does it say?" The Doctor pops up from behind his back, stares up at the blood-red writing on the askew sign. Actually, now that Sam thinks about it, it might even be real blood.
"Cro… Croatoan. What does that mean?" The Doctor does something with his sonic screwdriver, which whizzes and blips. Sam is starting to doubt that it does anything else. Although, "blood," the Doctor decides, looking sick. Amy frowns.
"Blood?"
"It's written in human blood. Or, mostly human, anyway."
"Infected with a Croatoan virus," Dean explains. He looks disturbed, though, more than what makes sense, because, undead zombies that you can shoot at? But then he remembers Dean said the future, and it all makes sense.
"Dean, is this…?"
"Yeah," Dean nods grimly.
"I wish you two would stop doing that," Amy complains. "Not all of us can talk telepathically, you know."
"It's 2014," Sam explains. "Or, another version of it, at least. Remember I told you about the angel Zachariah?"
"You mean the alternate timeline?" The Doctor's eyes narrow. He sweeps their environment with the screwdriver again.
"He said it was the future," Dean says. "But it doesn't make sense. The world didn't… go nuclear when I touched my other self in that timeline."
"Good, you're thinking," the Doctor says, withdrawing his screwdriver. Sam figures it told him nothing, because he glares at it distastefully. "It's because it wasn't the future. Just some alternate reality. The angel wanted to threaten you."
"Dickbag," Dean mutters.
"But why'd we end up here?" Rory asks.
"Two points in Dean's timeline that should never have touched," the Doctor explains. "It created a paradox, and the universe flung us to this other reality to get rid of us."
"You make the universe sound like a bureaucratic asshole," Dean observes.
"And you made Death sound like an actual person," the Doctor says, and Dean shrugs.
"It's 'cause he is."
The Doctor pulls back, screwing up his face like a little kid.
"You know Death?" Amy asks. "Like, Death Death?"
"Old friend, actually," Dean exaggerates with a smirk. Sam rolls his eyes.
"It doesn't matter. How can we go back to our own universe?" He asks sensibly. Dean sobers up at that.
"Yeah, got a world to save, and all."
"The Doctor will know," Amy says confidently. "Don't you, Doctor?"
"Ah," the Doctor points his finger at Amy, somewhat pointlessly from what Sam observes. He rubs his palms together. Sam gathers that he looks rather nervous. "Well. Yes, of course I do. I have a plan."
"And what's that?" Dean says, suspicion in his eyes.
"It's, it'll come to me."
"Right." Amy narrows her eyes. The Doctor looks sheepish. Before they can get on with the non-discussion, though, there is a loud noise behind Sam's back. He turns quickly, drawing out his gun, and Dean does the same.
"Hey – do you mean to tell me, you've had that all along? In my TARDIS?" The Doctor yelps. But then the people infected with Croatoan virus – hardly people anymore – show up, growling and running, and Dean says "shut up". The Doctor says something but it's buried under the yelling, the blood gurgling and Dean's shot, hitting one straight in the forehead. Sam shoots the other one when it gets too close. It doesn't deter the other ones, though, and Sam sees more turning the corner. There is nothing but hatred in their eyes.
"Damn, more Croats – " Dean says.
"More what?" Sam says as he shoots another one, between their eyes this time.
"Croats, Croatoan. I picked it up from… me." Dean explains, briefly. Then, "there're too many – run!"
"Oh this, this I'm familiar with." The Doctor says, and Amy grins. Sam gives them credit for staying cheerful, under the circumstances.
Then they run for their lives.
