Fair warning: you're probably going to hate us (well, me, really) for the ending of this chapter.
To give credit where credit is due, the poem the Doctor quotes is "The Spider and the Fly" by Mary Botham Howitt. Songs used include Hot Chelle Rae's "Honestly", the Imagine Dragons' "Every Night" and Def Leppard's "Billy's Got a Gun." Admittedly, I also used a line from Matt Smith's Doctor from "Nightmare in Silver" and some inspiration for the Doctor's lines came from the "Dark Doctor" tag on Tumblr.
Songs used in the previous chapter include the following: "Heroes", "Save Me", and "Second Chance" by Shinedown; "Desert Song", "Fractured Love", and "Die Hard the Hunter" by Def Leppard; and the Fray's "Over My Head."
Chapter Two
The Time Lord snapped awake some time later, only to find he was somehow curled up in the trunk of the Impala. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he muttered.
He could faintly hear Annabelle's music playing. "What Hurts the Most" by Rascal Flats changed to the Imagine Dragons' "Bleeding Out". Faint sniffles caught his attention, and he strained to hear more.
"Are you sure you're okay, Annabelle?" Dean asked.
"Even emotional stuff can be traumatic," Sam's voice added.
"I just need time," he heard Annabelle say. "I'll get over it." Somehow, the Doctor wasn't convinced that she would.
Eventually, he felt the Impala roll to a stop. There was the sound of car doors opening and shutting; then he found himself blinking against the sudden burst of light as the trunk door opened. The Doctor climbed out, wincing slightly as his muscles shrieked in protest, and then glared at the three hunters. "Well, then? Take me to your leader." His face broke into a grin, and the effect was unnerving for the others. "I've always wanted to say that," the Doctor added gleefully.
"Annabelle, go find a room," Dean suggested to her, wanting to keep her away from the Time Lord. "Get some rest."
The teenage girl gave Dean a quick hug. She looked at the Doctor with tear filled eyes before walking away, going inside the bunker.
"Man I haven't seen her like this since Dylan," Sam remarked when she was gone.
"That kid had an excuse," Dean replied. "The Doctor? He's just the Doctor. And now he's pissed me off and hurt Annabelle. That kid is everything to me."
The Doctor said nothing as the two Winchesters moved him to an interrogation room. Sam looked at him, something almost like pity in his eyes. "I wouldn't want to be you," the Moose said. "Dean will find a way to get to you."
"You bet I will," Dean growled at the Doctor.
The Time Lord shot him a hard, cold look. "I'd like to see you try."
'Take a seat, Doctor," Dean ordered. "Sam, go make sure Annabelle's getting settled in." Sam left the room, found Annabelle, and talked with her for a while.
Dean glared at the Doctor from across the room. "You screwed up."
"Oh really? Do tell," he drawled, leaning back in the chair and propping his feet up on the table.
"You don't mess with a Winchester, especially not when they have living relatives."
"Yes, and I'm the last Time Lord in existence because I killed all of them," the Doctor said calmly, deadly, with a hint of a smile on his face. His eyes were nearly black, dead.
Dean finally had a sense of how old the Doctor really was, of how much he'd gone through in 906-plus years of existence. And it scared him, because he had no idea exactly what the Time Lord was really capable of. It took all his willpower not to move. "I guess you'll just have to sit and think for a while," he said finally, approaching the Doctor with some restraints.
The Time Lord shot out of his chair and backed away from the hunter, his hands in his pockets. His eyes wouldn't meet Dean's all of a sudden, like it physically hurt to look at the hunter. "Stay away from me," he said in a low growl.
"Why? Because you said? Not enough. Maybe if you survive this, next time you'll think twice before you hurt a teenager." Dean kept moving toward the Doctor, dragged the chair out in front of him. "Take it like a man or Time Lord or whatever the hell you are."
"Sorry, Dean, but just looking at you hurts. I'm a Time Lord. I can't help it; it's in my guts. You're wrong, a fixed point in time and space. You're a fact."
"Obviously I'm a fact. I'm standing right in front of you. Sit. Now."
"I meant a fact in time. Haven't you wondered why you and your brother keep coming back from the dead?" He knew that would hold Dean's interest, and he was right.
Dean hesitated, but only for a moment, before saying, "Someone cares for us. We know this angel, Castiel. He likes me better alive than as a corpse."
The Doctor shook his head, a small smile on his face. "That's not it, at least, not exactly. It looks like Jack wasn't the only one Bad Wolf brought back to life—and he can't die either."
Dean's jaw tensed. He relaxed in an attempt to control his growing frustration with this man who claimed to know everything. "Take a seat. Relax," he said, forcing himself to sound friendly. "Tell me what you're going on about."
The Doctor didn't sit, but he did lean against the wall. "Rose, she took the Time Vortex into her, became the Bad Wolf. She used that power to erase the Daleks from the Game Station, to spread the words 'Bad Wolf' across time and space. As Bad Wolf, she also brought Captain Jack Harkness back to life—and probably you and Sam as well—but she couldn't control it. She brought the three of you back forever. It's ironic, isn't it," he mused, "that the final act of the Time War was life?" His voice hardened, a mixture of regret and anger swirling in his eyes. "And she can't reverse it, because I took all of the power out of her. I killed myself for a foolish, selfish human girl, and for what? She still left me. They all do."
"Obviously you were a better person back then. If we're selfish what does that make you? Does being the last of your kind make it okay? What kind of legacy will that leave for your kind?"
"No, I wasn't a better person back then. I was worse, having just come from the Time War and traveled on my own for so long before meeting her." A half-smile flickered on his face. "When we first encountered a lone Dalek in a museum, I tortured it, almost killed it before the humans tore me away. I regenerated into this form after taking the Vortex from Rose."
"You didn't answer my questions."
"The war turned into hell during the final days. The High Council released a horde of travesties: The Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been King and his armies of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres. Rassilon and his followers had a plan to ascend, to become creatures of consciousness only. It wasn't just the Time Lords and Daleks that suffered; the war devastated higher species, had the whole bloody universe convulsing. My people were just as hated as the Daleks. So, really, there's not much of a legacy to tarnish. As for me . . ." The Doctor shrugged with a menacing glint in his eyes. "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
"Who said you have to become the villain?"
"What makes you think anyone said I had to?" the Doctor countered coolly.
"Nothing, I guess."
"Is there anything else you want to know? Cos if not I'm leaving. And you can't stop me." The Doctor started to shove off from the wall, took a couple steps forward.
Dean reacted quickly. Before the Time Lord could blink, Dean had pinned him to the wall with no possible way for the Doctor to overpower him. "You're not leaving," Dean stated in a low voice.
The Doctor stared Dean down coldly, unflinching. "If you don't like me now," he said, "you're going to hate me when I'm caged. Because if there's one thing you never ever want to trap, it's me. You also never answered my question."
"I've got plenty more to ask but since you mentioned you don't like to be caged I'll just let you sit for a while."
Dean left the room, locking it with a wooden lock. He found Sam and Annabelle in a room not far off the interrogation room. Sam had a laptop up and running; Dean knew that it was connected to the camera in the interrogation room. He glanced at Sam quizzically, surprised that Annabelle was even in the room. Sam shrugged and said, "She sat there and wouldn't move."
A few minutes after Dean had gone, the Doctor began pacing the interrogation room, strides short and tense. A frustrated growl rose from his throat when he realized the lock was made of wood and therefore he couldn't use his sonic. "Oh, bloody shagging fantastic," he snarled angrily.
Eventually he sat on the edge of the table, but this body was not one to stay still for very long. His eyes searched the upper corners, homed in on the camera. So, they were watching him, were they? Even better. "Come on, then," he addressed the Winchesters through the camera. His voice turned low, sinister. "Wakey-wakey, boys and girls."
Annabelle snapped to attention at his tone, the fact that he'd noticed the camera. "Sam, shut it down," she ordered, panicked.
"What? No way."
"Shut it down now. Please. For me." She hated that a pleading note had crept into her voice, but this freaked her out more than she cared to admit.
"Shut it down, Sammy," Dean ordered.
Sam shot his brother a pissed look before turning to the teen. "Annabelle, can't you just go to another room?" he suggested.
Slowly, she crept out of Observation and inched toward Interrogation. What am I even doing? she thought. Annabelle hesitated before opening the door and slipping inside. Sitting silently against the door, she began absentmindedly wrapping a wire from her ear buds around her finger, then unwrapping it. She forced herself not to acknowledge the Doctor at all.
Surprise flickered across his face when she came in, but he hid it before either Sam or Dean could pick up on it. Besides, he could use this to his advantage. "I wasn't expecting to see you in here just yet," he said. "Dean maybe, but you? He chuckled, but it was humorless, dark. "And here I was getting the feeling you want nothing to do with me."
Annabelle continued ignoring him, but she couldn't hide her sadness at how cold he'd become. She was hoping for some little spark of warmth, someone to ask how she felt and really follow through with it. This wasn't what she wanted; this wasn't how she wanted things to work out for her. The tears welled in her eyes again. She didn't try to hide them, just scooted a little deeper into the corner.
"What, nothing?" The Doctor paused, studied her. "I take it you're not going to try and save me—if you even can." He added slyly, "You never did tell me if you found anything of mine on the TARDIS."
She ignored him still, but turned up her music a bit. "Honestly" by Hot Chelle Rae blasted from the headphones:
"Honestly, why are my clothes out on the street? Honestly, I think you've lost your mind. I can't believe I came home to find my car keyed. Honestly, I'm way too tired to fight. I'll go out get drunk again. Make out with all your dumb friends. Tag your face just to rub it in. I'm 'ma go cuz I got no problem with saying goodbye. Is it wrong that I'm gonna be having the time of my life? Cuz deep down I know I should cry, I should scream, and get down on my knees. I should say that I need you here. But I'm gonna party tonight, cuz honestly I just don't care."
Sam and Dean were watching with disbelieving eyes from Observation.
"What's she doing?!" Dean hissed. "Is she insane?!" He made up his mind in that instant. "I'm gonna go get her."
He made to rise and go for the door, but Sam put a restraining hand on his arm. "No," the younger Winchester said. "No, let her try whatever she's trying to do. He's taken an interest in her."
And that's a good thing? Dean thought uneasily.
In the interrogation room, the Doctor leaned back on the table, tilted his head as he studied her. He could hear the lyrics, but they meant nothing to him. "Feel free to talk," he invited. "I don't bite—unless you like that."
She glanced at him. It was quick, barely noticeable, and then she went back to the wire, wrapping it a little too tightly for her own good before unwrapping it. She pulled up her sleeves so he could see her bruised wrists. It was a clear accusation, and they both knew it. "You did this," she reminded him.
"What's she thinking?" Dean said incredulously. Sam shrugged, unable to come up with a reply.
The Doctor's shoulders lifted in an indifferent shrug. "Yeah. And? As I recall, you didn't even try that hard to get away."
The look on her face darkened. She moved on from that, pulling the sleeves down again. Annabelle took out a different notebook of hers, one he'd never seen before, and slid it toward him. The cover read Adventures with the Doctor in her best handwriting.
"That's a new one," Sam muttered.
The Doctor flipped to the back, sped-read it in a second, and then tossed it back to her. The expression on his face didn't change. "You'd better be careful where you keep that," he advised. "You wouldn't want nosy hands getting hold of it." He glanced meaningfully toward the camera, then back to the teenager. "Get out."
She left the notebook but only moved to just outside the door. Annabelle locked it behind her, decided she would be back later.
"What was that?" Dean asked his brother, puzzled.
Sam shook his head, bewildered. "I don't know."
The Doctor's eyes found and held the camera again. "Well, Sam? Dean? Having fun watching, are we?" His voice hardened. "I don't like being kept waiting," he said ominously.
Sam and Dean said nothing, just watched. Annabelle, sitting outside the Interrogation door, made her presence known by unplugging the ear buds. "Every Night" by Imagine Dragons played softly: "I'm the colorless sunrise that's never good enough. I'm the wind that's in your hair that ruffles you up. If you can find a reason then you can let me know. I won't blame you. I'll just turn and go. . ."
"You and your bloody music," the Doctor muttered under his breath, annoyed. He hopped off the table, stalked over to the door. "Then go already." His voice was a snarl. "Better yet, run. And don't even think about going to the TARDIS; she won't help you."
"Maybe the music is better company than all of you combined!" she screamed at him. "Maybe I'm done trying to help! Maybe I'M GIVING UP ON EVERYTHING!"
He grinned, brown eyes glinting. "You really are turning into me, aren't you?" The grin died. "I already told you to leave. You get one warning. That was it."
"Obviously I'm not taking it!" she retorted. "What are you gonna do about it? Yell at me? There is nothing you can say or do to make my opinion of you lower!"
He didn't say anything, just glowered at her through the window on the door. Annabelle could feel the pent-up fury, hate, and darkness rolling off him in waves. There was a reason he was called the Oncoming Storm.
She was looking at it.
Annabelle didn't budge, just looked back at him with the same hate and fury in her glare. She was done running, done listening to him try to be dominant, done pretending she could handle his betrayal. Besides, what was the point anymore? Everyone either did something like this to her or died on her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to take on his rage; maybe it would give her some sort of closure. If it didn't, maybe he would just kill her. Right now, that would be okay with her: She couldn't lose anyone else.
"Do you want to die?" His mouth stretched in a dark smirk. "Annabelle," he said when she didn't respond immediately, and he was reminded of another time with another companion when he'd asked the same question. There had been a door separating them as well.
"I should be dead already. Sam and Dean should've let me go the first time. You should've done away with me when I gave you the chance." She sighed, suddenly sounding tired, and for the first time he remembered that she was only fourteen years old. "Now? I want to go home to my family in Colorado. I want to feel peace for the first time in my entire freaking life. I'm done. I'm done with it all. I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want to see you. I don't want to be in a bunker in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, I think I want to die, don't you?"
The Doctor smiled to himself. The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den, he thought, for well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again: So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly, and set his table ready, to dine upon the Fly. "Then let me out and I can take you home," he said cajolingly. "No more stops along the way. Promise. Trust me," he coaxed her.
"Why should I trust you? You've done nothing but hurt me the past few days."
"Would you believe me if I said I've seen the error of my ways?" ("Will you step into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly.)
"Rule number one: the Doctor lies," she shot back.
He shrugged. "Yeah, well, didn't think you would." He fished around in his pocket, searching, and pulled out the Master's laser screwdriver. He'd taken it from the other Time Lord's body, hidden it in this suit ages ago, and he'd almost forgotten he'd even had it in the first place. Since the sonic doesn't do wood, he had a feeling the laser screwdriver would. "Figured it was worth a shot." He aimed the screwdriver at the lock, set to work.
"I hate you. I hate you with my entire being!" she yelled at him, furious. "Shut it down, Sam, now! You're all idiots!" she ranted. "This is useless! It's all useless! What's the freaking point?!" Annabelle unlocked the door for him, on the verge of tears again.
At that, the Doctor couldn't help smirking, lines from a Def Leppard song running through his mind: Never give him an even break. Getting caught is the chance you take. It could be your last mistake. . . .
"Get out!" Annabelle was still screaming. "Leave! All of you leave me the hell alone unless you actually have something helpful to say!" She stormed out, leaving the bunker, and wandered into the woods. The teenage girl found a tall tree and climbed up into it. Staring at the sky, she felt more tears run down her face and didn't bother trying to wipe them away.
The Doctor, as soon as Annabelle was gone, switched screwdrivers and aimed the sonic at the camera, causing it to short out and leave Sam and Dean in the dark. Satisfied, he stepped out into the hallway, turned, and started walking.
"Go after the Doctor," Dean told his brother. "I'll find Annabelle." Dean didn't wait for Sam's answer and ran to find the teenage girl who was like a little sister to him.
Sam stepped out to meet the Doctor. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Out." He didn't stop and didn't even glance at the Moose.
"Hey!" Sam stepped in front of him, more than a little bit irritated that the Time Lord had somehow managed to wrestle control of the situation like he did with pretty much everything. Besides, this was his home, had been for the past few months. "You're not leaving," Sam said firmly.
The Doctor glared at Sam, sidestepped, and kept going. "Watch me."
Sam grabbed his arm and pulled him back before he could go very far, throwing the Time Lord onto the floor. "No."
The Doctor's eyes blazed angrily up at the hunter. He concentrated, was able to see Time curling around the human in twisted, golden strands. It would be so, so easy . . .
Without saying anything, he sprang to his feet, nails digging into his palms. The Doctor could easily picture the blood coating his hands, dripping from his fingers. In his mind his clothes, the hallway, was already stained with the dark red liquid, most of it Sam's. "Get out of the way." His voice was deceptively quiet, calm.
Sam's unflinching gaze met his. "No."
"Then what happens next is your own doing."
That was the last thing Sam heard.
The Doctor concentrated on the golden threads, pulling Time into, around, and through Sam. Within seconds, the only thing that was left was a pile of ashes, and he stepped over them and continued on his way. "Let's see how long it'll take you to come back from that," the Doctor murmured.
No second chances. I'm that sort of a man.