AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before I start this (admittedly very long) chapter, it would probably help if I gave you all a context in which to place our heroes. As far as character arcs are concerned, this story occurs somewhere between "The Age of Steel" and the Season 2 finale of Doctor Who, between "A Scandal in Belgravia" and "The Hounds of Baskerville" for Sherlock, and sometime between "Changing Channels" and "Hammer of the Gods" for Supernatural.

Let's choose to ignore the contradictions this causes if we assume that Sherlock and Supernatural occur in real-time.


London, England—10:00 PM

It was Mrs. Hudson who answered Dean's knock at 221 Baker Street. She opened the door and stared up at him, clearly questioning the presence of three bedraggled young men at her home.

Sam could almost hear Dean's let's-seem-nice-for-the-citizens smile as he spoke. "Hello, Mrs. Hudson? I'm Dean Winchester." He pointed at his companions with one thumb, nearly jabbing Sam in the neck. "This is my brother, Sam, and our friend, Cas."

Peering over Dean's shoulder, Sam made eye contact with the elderly woman. He waved in greeting. "Hi."

"You're more of Sherlock's friends, I suppose?" Mrs. Hudson's tone was warm, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. She held the door with a firm hand as if ready to slam it closed at any moment. "He didn't tell me you three were Americans."

Sam felt a twinge of pity. Sherlock had told them that his landlady might be skittish around strangers, especially American strangers. No one had asked why. Considering her tenants' line of work, it was probably better that way.

Dean was about to speak, but Sam took over the conversation. "I guess he really didn't think it was important, ma'am. You know how Sherlock is. He doesn't consider stuff like that."

Mrs. Hudson eyed him for a terse moment, but then she opened the door wider and stepped back from the threshold. "All right. Come on in, then. Flat B, it's right upstairs."

The two men and one angel stepped inside. Neither Sam nor Dean informed her that they had, in fact, been here before. She seemed like a sweet woman, and it wasn't her fault she didn't know, as she had been on vacation the last time the Winchesters had called at Baker Street.

Sam pushed away the memories of last time before they could start to crowd him. That job had cost them far too much, which was probably why he felt as though his feet got heavier with every stair he climbed. Nothing was ever simple when Sherlock Holmes got involved with Team Free Will. What if this job was even worse than when they had first met?

Sam pushed that away, too. He couldn't worry about it now. He was here, in London, and he was going to fix whatever was wrong. That was his job. Whatever happened as a result, they could deal with it. They always did.

As the foursome continued up the steps, Sam heard those already present in apartment B arguing in high, cheery voices.

"Doctor, there is no such person as Professor Time Lord!"

"Well, then, you don't have the right version!"

"As long as you aren't playing as Mr. Green, he's mine."

"Sherlock, we've already gone over this; you're not playing, it's bad enough we have to pry the knife out of the board from last time."

Here, Sam reached the landing. As he entered the apartment, the talking stopped, and the heads of Sherlock, John, Rose, and the Doctor turned to look at the newcomers. Dean and Cas eased into the room behind Sam, fidgeting just inside the door as a tutting Mrs. Hudson addressed her tenants. She was still halfway down the steps, however, and the echoes of her voice in the hall somewhat dampened her stern tone.

"Sherlock, you've got more guests," she called. "You keep it down in here, now, or you'll have the whole street banging on our doors."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Hudson," grinned the Doctor. "Quiet as mice, that's us."

Sam stepped inside and glanced around the apartment, which had changed little since the last time he had visited. Perhaps there were a few more obscure books thrown around, but it was the same homey, cluttered space he remembered it to be. A skull shared mantel space with piles of overdue bills. Microscopes and test tubes dominated the kitchen counters.

A smile threatened to turn the corner of Sam's mouth as he realized how strange such an apartment would seem to normal people. Then again, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson weren't exactly normal. None of them were.

The others were crowded around the coffee table, on which was sprawled some kind of game board. John and Sherlock were seated in their customary spots by the fireplace. The Doctor and Rose had made themselves comfortable by pulling chairs from the kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson went back downstairs, muttering something about bachelor parties.

"Oh good, you're here," said Sherlock. "Now we can get to business."

John shot his roommate a pointed look. "He means, how was your flight, and you must be famished, do you want some tea?" He was already up and on his way to the kitchen.

Sam smiled. "I'll take some, thanks. And we don't really fly these days. You could say we picked up some transportation of our own."

Before anyone could ask what that meant, Rose stood up and quick-stepped over to Sam, wrapping him in a tight hug. "Sam, how are you?" she asked. "Not getting into too much trouble, I hope."

Actually smiling now, Sam leaned down as much as he could to return her embrace. "Of course not. Nothing Dean and I can't handle." Except the Apocalypse, that is. Flashes of the task he had left behind in the U.S. flitted through Sam's mind. But Rose didn't need to know about that.

Rose let go of him after a moment and turned to his brother. "Dean," she said warmly, hugging him as well. "Got that business with your soul sorted out, did you? Good. I would have missed ya."

"Oh, you know us," said Dean. "Winchesters! Cheating death at every turn."

The English girl pulled away from him then, and that's when she noticed Cas standing behind the brothers. "And who's this? You didn't have another brother hidden away somewhere, did you?"

Dean looked like he'd been kicked. "What?" he spluttered. "Uh—no—Cas is, uh, not our brother, no. Not him. No, he's, um—"

"My name is Castiel," Cas interrupted. "I am an angel of the Lord."

Sam watched the others carefully as he said this. He certainly hadn't taken the news of angels gracefully, and he wondered how the others would handle it. The Doctor seemed the least shocked, though his mouth tightened in what could only be called concern. John had returned from the kitchen and now stared unabashedly at Cas, a cup of tea tipping dangerously in his hand. When he finally caught himself, he shifted his weight and coughed, obviously attempting to regain his composure.

It was Sherlock whom Sam was most interested in. A slight rise of the eyebrows was the only hint that the detective felt any surprise at all. He put his hands together as if praying and pressed the tips to his mouth. Thinking, Sam guessed. Weighing the possibilities. Filing away the new information.

As for Rose, her emotions were written on her face. She didn't believe Castiel for a second. In the end, she was the first to speak. "An angel?" she asked, smirking. "Really?"

"Yes," replied Cas stiffly. "I have been accompanying the Winchesters for some time now. They have long been involved in the affairs of Heaven."

"I thought angels were the chubby little babies with the harps."

The Doctor nudged Rose with his foot, a movement that Sam noticed instantly. When she looked over at him, he shook his head slightly.

"She's kidding, of course," the Doctor said quickly to Cas. "We're very respectful of you angels, aren't we, Rose?"

Cas stared the two of them down. "You are worried I am offended. Don't be. You are Dean's friends. I will tolerate your unbelief."

"No, Cas is cool," nodded Sam, accepting the tea John offered him and taking a sip. "Seriously. He does the whole make-you-burn-from-the-inside thing, but he saves that for the bad guys, you know?"

Dean managed to chuckle without showing the barest hint of a smile. "Except when he doesn't."

What followed was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Rose and the Doctor stared at their shoes, while Cas stared straight ahead, seemingly unfazed by the encounter.

"Anyway," continued Sam, "that's why we didn't have to fly here. Cas kind of travels under his own power. Teleportation, I guess." He sat down on the couch closest to the door. Dean followed suit, but Cas remained standing in the corner, still uncomfortable with his new surroundings. Sam was reminded of a cat who had just been brought home from the pet shop. "It's better that way," he finished. "Dean doesn't do well on conventional flights."

Following the angelic revelation, Rose had gone back to the coffee table and busied herself with packing up the board game, but now she paused her work and looked up at him. "You're tellin' me. Guess who had to clean up after 'im last time he took a hop in the TARDIS?" Her head rolled to one side until she was glaring, eyebrow raised, at her partner. "And guess who didn't help?"

"Well, when you learn how to pilot the most powerful ship in the universe, I'll be happy to mop." The Doctor grinned as Rose hit him on the arm.

Sam sipped at his tea again, and Dean glanced over at the china cup with annoyance. He shifted awkwardly in his seat. "You got anything stronger than tea? A decent coffee, even?"

"Sorry, no luck," said John apologetically.

Dean considered this for a moment, then shrugged, pulling a thermos out of his backpack and gulping from it.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted," mused Sherlock, "why don't we actually talk about the reason I called you to London in the first place?" His gaze was dark as he swept it around the room, taking them all in. "This latest case of mine is something even I can't figure out. At this very moment Sam Winchester's body is lying in the morgue."

The announcement rang through the room, stilling the atmosphere. Everyone tried their hardest not to look at Sam. Everyone failed miserably.

"Sherlock's right," John said. "Yesterday I saw you dead, Sam. Dead. And now you're telling me that wasn't you?"

Sam shrugged. He and Bobby had spent the time between John's phone call and now researching anything that could imitate his body, but had turned up nothing concrete. He was as mystified as the rest of them. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"I can confirm that," said Cas suddenly, pointing at Sam. "This is the real Sam Winchester."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Cas, we got that. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The Doctor grinned. "I like him."

Sherlock cleared his throat. Sam could sense him getting impatient with every sidebar conversation this group had. He was a man of work, Sam remembered. Social engagements didn't suit him the way skulls and microscopes did.

"All right, fine." The Doctor turned to the detective with a curious glint in his eye. "Why don't you tell us everything that's happened from the start? We all have different bits of the story, and I think it would help all of us to hear it straight from you, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock locked eyes with the Doctor for a couple of seconds. "Very well," he said, then began a rapid-fire account of the previous day's investigations.

"At eleven forty-five yesterday morning, I received a text from Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, who asked me to go to a small apartment building on the south end of London to investigate a homicide. Seeing as my morning was free, I roused John and made my way to said apartment building via cab.

"When we arrived at the scene, we were shown to the body by one Detective Anderson, a rather simplistic and ignorant member of the force. It was no wonder that he had called me, as he could not collect evidence if it was labeled by the murderer himself—"

John cleared his throat. "Ah, Sherlock?"

Sherlock, who had been staring into the fireplace to give his tale, turned his head sharply to meet his flatmate's eye. "What? You told me to put some of my own thoughts into it—"

"Yes, Sherlock, when you're writing about it, to make it more human-sounding. But I don't think you need to, er, do that now."

The detective shrugged and turned back to the fireplace. Everyone else stared at their teacups—or, in Dean's case, thermos—and waited for Sherlock to continue.

"The body was located in a set of rooms on the third floor. The entrance to the flat in which it was located was directly across from the steps. From there, Anderson led us through a small living room to a short hallway. The first doorway to the left brought us to what I imagine would be a bedroom, were it occupied. The windows, two of them, faced east.

"I observed immediately that the cause of death had been stab wounds to the back of the torso. Eight such wounds existed, by my count, each of them deep enough to cause massive internal damage and blood loss. The wounds were all dealt by someone right-handed with a two-edged knife. Judging from the volume of blood visible, I deduced that the attacker had failed to hit anything vital and had thus left the victim alive to bleed out.

"After ascertaining this, I examined the area around the body. No signs of struggle were present, other than the stab wounds. The floor, which was made of wood, was clean and free of marks. No doors in the building showed any evidence of forced entry, and the windows had remained secured throughout the night.

"It was at this point that I took a closer look at the body itself. No dirt or skin was visible under the fingernails; in fact, the entire person seemed remarkably clean. His shoes were worn but well cared for, as were his clothes. He was clearly someone who spent much of his time on the road, who had a physically demanding job, and who cared a great deal about keeping up appearances despite his irregular income and nomadic lifestyle. He carried nothing in his pockets. It was then that I looked at his face and recognized you, Sam."

Everyone looked once more at the Winchester in question, who set his tea down and nodded at them all. "And that's when you contacted us."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Obviously."

"So where's the body now?"

"The morgue at St. Bart's. I told Molly I would have people in to identify it, and she agreed to hold it as long as needed."

Cas' voice rumbled like thunder from the doorway. "Who is Molly?"

"A friend of ours," explained John. "She works in the morgue, helps us out on cases."

"Got a thing for death, huh?" Dean leaned forward in his seat. "Sounds like my kind of girl."

Now it was Sam's turn to roll his eyes. "Every girl is your kind of girl, Dean," he muttered, getting an elbow in the side for his trouble.

"So. There is your problem," mused Sherlock, nudging them back on track. "I am the world's only consulting detective. I have solved more cases than anyone at the Yard, and yet it is to you I turn in times such as this. Something strange is going on here, something far out of the realm of the mundane. Sam and Dean, you are experts in the field of ghosts and other supernatural creatures, and I don't think I have to explain that you have a rather personal connection to the case. Doctor, Rose, you've seen things the rest of us can only imagine, and your cunning could be of great use to us.

"We've all worked together in the past. Now, I'm asking for your help. So, will you take the case?"

There was a moment of silence in which everyone took in Sherlock's words. It was true, they worked well as a group, but for all of them to be brought to the same place usually meant the kind of danger that even they couldn't find on a daily basis. Sam stared into his tea, while Dean fiddled with a pocketknife. Rose spoke up first.

"Yeah. We're in. Me and the Doctor both. It's the least we could do after what happened last time."

"Us, too," agreed Sam, with a sideways look at his brother. "It's my body you guys found. Whatever this is, it's got something to do with me. And me and Dean, we stick together. So we'll help. Can't say the same for Cas, though."

Cas stepped forward. He spoke to John and Sherlock, but eyed the Doctor while he did it. "You people interest me. I'll help, too."

The atmosphere of the room shifted. That was it. Whatever happened, whatever danger was sure to follow, they were committed. None of them could turn back now. It was time to get down to business.

Rose let out a breath. "So, what do we do? I mean, we're all here, that's a start, but we need a plan. How do we go about figuring this out, whatever it is?"

"I'd like to see that body, if you don't mind," the Doctor replied. "Get a closer look."

"Me too," said Sam. "See if it's really me."

John nodded. "The morgue'll be closed by now, but we'll go first thing tomorrow."

"One moment, John." Sherlock held up a hand. "Seeing as our party is rather large and hostile-looking, it's doubtful that any hospital employee is going to let us in to see their bodies. Therefore, I advise that we go at night, when everyone is gone. It'll be locked, of course, but that should be no problem for the likes of us, especially with the Doctor's remarkable screwdriver to open the way."

He turned to the Doctor, who winked conspiratorially. "Just as long as we don't need to get past anything wooden," said the latter, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of his coat's inside pocket. "It doesn't—"

"It doesn't do wood," Sam cut in. "Yeah. We know."


St. Bart's—11:30 PM

But for the muffled footfalls of the group's feet on tiles, the hospital's morgue level was silent. Sherlock and John led the way for the rest of them, with the Doctor right behind. The latter held his sonic screwdriver aloft, having just bypassed the first set of locks.

After him walked Rose, who held his hand. She was rather frightened, the Doctor knew, by the thought of a hundred recently dead bodies sharing the same space as herself. The hand was more for her comfort than for his enjoyment. Still, he relished the sensation. Humans ran at a higher temperature than Gallifreyans, and the Doctor found Rose's heat comforting.

Following Rose came Dean, then Sam, and last of all, Cas, who was finding the whole exercise in silence fascinating.

The group came to the last door that barred them from the morgue's storage area. "Doctor," whispered John, pointing at the keypad next to the steel door.

The Doctor nodded and raised his screwdriver. It whirred and glowed in his hand, and within seconds a green light on the keypad switched on. With a small beep and a hiss of pneumatics, the door swung inward.

Inside were walls that didn't really count as walls. They were row upon row of drawer-like slabs, each one concealing a body behind its neatly labeled gray cover. Rose clung closer to the Doctor as she stepped over the threshold.

Sherlock was already checking the labels on the slabs, looking for the number Molly had given him. Within two minutes, he found it halfway down the length of the room. The drawer was relatively close to the ground, so when he slid it open the entire group had a good view of Sam Winchester's corpse.

When the face finally emerged from the shadows, even Sam and Dean couldn't help a sharp intake of breath. The Doctor looked around for the angel, Castiel, but he wasn't with the group. Instead, he stood guard by the door to the room, watching them all with head cocked. Some all-powerful being.

"That's me, all right," affirmed Sam. "But how the hell...?"

"Why do you think we called you guys?" asked John. "We don't know."

"Let me take a look," suggested the Doctor. Sherlock moved aside to let him get close, and the Time Lord activated the sonic screwdriver once more, running it along the ample length of the Sam-body. After a couple of passes, he inspected the screwdriver, reading data that was invisible to the humans around him.

What he saw made his breath stop. It was like nothing he had ever seen. The Doctor's hearts sped up as he looked from the screwdriver to the corpse and back again, making sure he had it right.

"Oh," he breathed. "Oh, this is brilliant." He looked down at Rose and gave her a big smile. She smiled right back and squeezed his hand. She didn't completely understand just yet, but the Doctor's excitement was infectious.

"Why?" asked Sherlock, surely anxious about being a step behind. "What is it?"

"No idea." The Doctor grinned around at them all, but they just stared back in confusion. Didn't they see it? Couldn't they understand how exciting this all was?

"Great," muttered Dean. "Mind filling us in on what's so brilliant, then?"

The Doctor pointed at the Sam-body's torso. "This body," he began, "is not human. Not even close. It's an excellent copy, I'll grant you that, everything's in the right place. But its energy levels are off the scale. If any human absorbed this much stuff, he'd disintegrate. Even when Rose was piloting the Time Vortex, she had some time. This is...something else." He let go of Rose's hand for a moment in order to run his own fingers through his hair, making it even more disheveled than usual.

"Massive amounts of energy?" clarified John. "Shouldn't it be, I dunno, glowing or something?"

"Glowing? Oh, no. See, you humans, you can only process so much. There are whole spectrums you're completely blind to. I bet the angel can see this, though." The Doctor turned to the angel in question, who still hesitated by the door. "Castiel! Come take a look."

It took only a moment for Castiel to join up with the rest of them. They all parted to give him access to the Sam-body. He looked down.

And recoiled instantly.

"Gabriel!" he hissed.

Dean and Sam had their weapons out in a second, aiming them in the Sam-body's direction. "Everybody get back," warned Dean. "Now!"

The group obeyed without question. They all had too much respect for each other not to realize when one of them had more knowledge of the danger they were in.

"Dean? Sam?" asked John. "What's that mean? What's Gabriel?"

"I think you mean who," said a new voice. It echoed around the room and seemed to emanate from the Sam-body. But the body's lips hadn't moved.

Castiel's jaw clenched. "He's an archangel. One of the most powerful in the garrison."

Dean snarled, but his pistol shook. "Give it up, Gabriel," he said. "Or are you going to skip out right when the game gets good?"

Rose pointed to the Sam-body's face, but the Doctor had already noticed what was happening to its features: they were melting, shifting, and coming together again, like a child's clay creation being wadded up and then repurposed. The rest of the body followed suit, and within seconds the image of Sam was gone, replaced by a man with long blond hair and glittering eyes.

The new man—Gabriel, the Doctor assumed—blinked in the dim light of the morgue. He sat up on the slab and looked around at his audience.

The Doctor thought about that word: audience. A strange one to use, certainly, but it seemed oddly appropriate in the context of this little man who radiated power. He certainly gave the Doctor the feeling of watching a carefully crafted show. This was someone who wanted all eyes on him, although the Doctor got the feeling that Gabriel didn't much care what happened after that point.

"Thanks for opening that for me, bud," he said to Sherlock, indicating the slab. "It was getting kind of cramped in there." He yawned and stretched his arms, his back arching like a cat's.

"Gabriel." It was Castiel, who still remained close by. "What do you want with these people?"

"What are you doing here in the first place?" asked Sam. "I thought you'd be lying low after coming out to your brothers."

Gabriel winked. "Call it a favor for a friend, Sammy. As for what I want, no need to rush things. Let's sit back, relax. Light a campfire. Swap stories."

Almost faster than could be seen, Sam shoved Gabriel back down on the slab and held his knife to the angel's throat. "What do you want with us, you demented egomaniac?" he snarled. "What's the point of bringing us here? What happened to making us fight your wars?"

Suddenly, Gabriel's hand came up to push against Sam's chest. The younger Winchester flew backward, hitting the opposite wall with a crash of metal. He sank to the floor, winded but conscious. Gabriel pushed himself back into a sitting position on the slab. He brushed off his shirt as though he had just had a little mishap rather than thrown an adult male human across a room. The rest of the group just watched, powerless to react. Even the Doctor was unsure what this new angel was capable of. This was a fight for the Winchesters, not them.

"Don't ever presume to know what I want, Sam Winchester." Gabriel's eyes had turned from cheery to hard in an instant. Fire raged in them. Even the Doctor felt a twinge of panic, looking at those eyes. "People change. Or people aren't who you thought they were. Or people are different people altogether. It's all in how you play it."

"Yeah?" said Dean. "Well, we don't have time to play your games, angel man."

Gabriel smiled and looked up. His gaze bored into Dean.

"On the contrary."

And he snapped his fingers.