Last chapter! The ending seemed to be as good a place to leave it off as any. This bunny so hasn't gone away, but it's wandering more into the Doctor Who side of things than the Supernatural side of things. Also, it's asking to be a real person fic (kind of. In a wibbly-wobbly sort of way. AU real person?)

Warnings are the same. Time travel gets to work the logic centers of your brain. More plot!


Sam groaned as the world filtered back into focus. Touch was the first sensation to return. Something sharp was biting into his hip, though not enough to break the skin. It was a dull ache that radiated through the whole left of his body. He rolled away from the source and coughed into what he was lying on. Something rose into the air around him – dust, he thought. It wasn't cold enough to be snow, and it smelled like dust.

Along with the dust, he smelled concrete, and grass. He wasn't lying on the grass, but its smell was strong. Freshly cut, he thought. He heard the mowers running. There were no birds. All he could hear was the sound of human civilization.

He groaned. At least he was alive, he thought. The breeze ruffling his hair told him that he was outside, so he wasn't in the same place as before. It looked like the Angel had chosen not to kill him, so that left only one question.

Opening his eyes, he looked on the past. It looked normal, he thought as he staggered to his feet. If he had to guess, it was the eighties. There were lots of boxy cars rumbling down the roads, and plenty of crimes against fashion on the streets.

Specifics, Sam thought. He ignored the odd stares he was getting and wandered down the sidewalk. If he was in the eighties, then there might just be time.

Two hours later, he stared at a newspaper and sighed. It was too late. His mother was already dead. "Well, what's the point?" he asked irritably. He dropped the newspaper and settled against a nearby mail box to think.

He was trapped in the past, though he was surprised. The other victims had been sent far enough back to die of old age in the present. He'd be old when he got there, but he wouldn't be about to keel over. Maybe the Angel had decided to be kind? It had listened to his words and his promises, and now he would see Dean again.

Until then... he was in the past. That meant that Heaven and Hell were still working, just as they always had been, for millennia. Maybe he could get a bit of help to get back to his time without having to go the long way around.

His stomach growled. He pulled out his wallet and studied the bills. He had money from the present, in all its multicolored glory. He'd be laughed out of every place in the city. His only recourse was to break the law.

Not the first time, he sighed, but this time he really didn't want to. This wasn't a matter of stopping monsters. He had to survive, though, and it was with that in mind that he wandered to a parking lot. Ten minutes later he was driving away. His chosen car reeked of cigarettes and had more trash in it than the average dumpster, but underneath the seat was a wallet.

Finally full a few hours later, he settled into a motel room bought with his stolen funds. The car was safely ditched on the other side of town, and he could focus on his plan A.

Which angel should he pray to? He settled into bed and stared at the ceiling. Castiel was an option, he thought. It would play hell with the future, since a lot hinged on Cass being so enamored with Dean that he rebelled against Heaven. If Cass met him early, who knew what might happen. Since Sam hadn't managed to stop the demon from tearing apart his family, Cass needed to rebel in the future.

"Argh, time travel," Sam groaned. "It's a good thing the Doctor isn't real. It'd be hell if he decided to go change things."

So, he had to think of a different angel. He paused. "Gabriel," he said out loud. "I know you're out there, and I know what you really are. Everyone on Earth thinks you're a Trickster, but I know you're an angel. I need your help. I'm in Canton, Ohio, at the grubby little motel just off the main highway, room 105."

He sat up and looked around. "Come on, Gabriel. I know you're interested. 'Who is this?' you're asking. 'How does he know?' Well, let's put it this way. I'm one prayer away from giving you up to Michael. To hell with causality."

"Shut up!" a voice hissed. Sam turned his head to the bathroom, where Gabriel was leaning against the door. The angel was still in his same vessel, the short man with the short and curly brown hair. He had a chocolate bar in one hand. "I'm here. You've got two minutes to tell me why before I think up something particularly nasty to do to you."

"Why do I need to tell you?" Sam asked. "You're an angel. Get it out of my head."

Gabriel took a huge bite of the chocolate and chewed thoughtfully. "Oh, I can see it," he said when his mouth was free. "You're from the future. Twenty years, thirty, from now? You've only just been born. How is that possible?"

"A tulpa," Sam told him. "One that can send people back in time to live to death, and it feeds on the energy they leave behind."

"Oh, I see it in your head. Nasty, isn't it?" Gabriel mused. "So what's this got to do with me? You're caught, no doubt about that. Why shouldn't I just leave you right here and get back to doling out my oh-so-wonderful just desserts?"

"Because you know I'm not afraid to rat you out to Michael. I can leave my past-slash-future self the note about the horsemen's rings," Sam said plainly.

Gabriel smirked. "You won't. You say that you don't care about causality, but I can see that you really do care." He finished his chocolate bar and tossed it to the ground. "Besides, I'm an angel, I can see things you couldn't believe. You were sent back in time for a reason, buddy, and you have to stay here." He shrugged. "Now, if you're serious about telling Michael, I'm going to have to do something drastic."

Well, that was a bust. Sam sighed. "Fine, whatever. It was a long shot anyway. Sorry to drag you away from your important business."

"I do feel for you, though, so I'm going to be nice and give you the message," Gabriel mused. "Go home."

"I can't if you won't take me," Sam pointed out.

Gabriel waved him away. "That was the message," he insisted. "You're not the first one to track me down today. Time travel makes me queasy and he stank of it, just like you. So, your message is to go home."

Before Sam could say anything else, the angel vanished in a rustle of wings. "Go home," the hunter repeated. "Home… but I've never had a home."

He paused, glancing at the clock. "Maybe he meant Lawrence?" he wondered. "But the fire's just happened…" It clicked in his head and he wanted to bang his head against the wall. "It's only just happened! Dad is going to be there! I can… I can't warn him, exactly, but maybe I can tell him what I wasn't able to last time I saw him."

So, it was to the bars to hustle up some spending money. He didn't remember any of this, he was too young, but he thought he'd heard Dean say once that they stayed in Lawrence for a few months after the fire. If he was quick, he could catch John Winchester before he vanished into the wind.


Dean kicked Sam's bed and glowered at the empty blankets. "Dude, you're the one that figured out how this works," he growled. "You're supposed to send me a message saying that everything is fine. Did you forget the motel or something?"

"No, he didn't," a voice said. "I got it right out of his head."

It was an impossible voice. It was a voice that was supposed to have died four years ago. Dean whirled around and stared at Gabriel. "You!" he shouted. "How?"

"Time travel, duh. I met your brother in the past and lifted all of the little nitty-gritty details of my demise out of his head. Was easy enough to fool everyone," Gabriel grinned. "Want ice cream? I brought enough for all three of us."

"You met Sam in the past and didn't bring him back?" Dean asked in disbelief. "Man, I knew you guys were dicks, but that's a new level of dickery."

"Sheesh, no ice cream for you." Gabriel flopped into Dean's bed and licked his ice cream cone. "I didn't bring Sam back because I happen to know that he gets back another way. I can't tell you how, though, because… oh, what did that man say? Ah, yes." He grinned. "Spoilers."

"Dude, that's seriously not funny." Dean slapped the angel's leg with a scowl. "I'm sure, since you got it all out of Sam's head, that you knew about Heaven getting closed off?"

"Yeah, I know. Good riddance, I say. It's kind of annoying in some ways, but since I stayed out of Heaven I didn't get my wings burned. I can still teleport around!" Gabriel grinned. "Foreknowledge is kind of cool in that way, but now I'm as dumb as the rest of you."

"Well, fan-freaking-tastic. What all did you pick up from Sam's head?" Dean asked warily.

"Just normal human things. I stuck around after he thought I left. Did you know, he went to visit your father?" Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Sentimental, both of you. It worked out in the end, I suppose. He ended up meeting Spoiler Man – or rather, he will meet him. Time travel tense trouble," he grinned. "Anyway, I just wanted to come have a chat now that I won't be spoiling anything for you. You're my favorite humans, you know? Gotta run!"

Before Dean could protest, Gabriel vanished. He sighed and massaged his forehead. "Well, that sucked. I guess that was Sam's message, though. He's getting back because of some other dude." He paused, Gabriel's words sinking in. "Wait, why did he say he had ice cream for three?"

There was a knock on the door.


Lawrence, Kansas, in the year he was born, was quiet, Sam thought. He closed the door of yet another stolen car and surveyed the rain-sodden wreckage that had once been his family's home. The fire had happened months ago, to the neighbors that politely weren't looking at blackened beams. The rubble had long since ceased to be an interesting sight to them.

To Sam, it was a lifetime of memories. He wandered into the wreckage almost without realizing it. The stairs were intact, at least, and he found himself standing in the hallways outside his nursery. The room itself was gone, a hole in the side of the building, so there wasn't much to see. The burn patterns on the wall outside the doorframe indicated that the room burned quickly. Perhaps his mother hadn't suffered much.

"Who are you?"

Sam turned to the achingly familiar voice and only kept his face blank out of practiced habit. "Fire department," he lied, fumbling in his pocket for a fake ID he was lacking. "Off duty," he added. "And you are?"

John Winchester was so young. Sam remembered pictures of his father from that time, but it was quite another thing to see the real deal. The dark hair he knew so well was still cropped short, still neat, and there was only the barest trace of stubble on his chin and cheeks. The haunted look to the man's eyes was fresh, still tempered with the barest traces of hope.

"This was where I lived," John said dimly. "The fire started up here. Do you – have you figured out what started it yet?"

Sam shook his head, though he knew full well what had started the fire. He had to lie, though. He couldn't tell John the truth. He couldn't risk messing up his future. It was a deep-seated instinct that held his tongue.

"Sorry, still no leads." Sam turned away from his father and stared at the carnage. His mother had died in that room. After a moment, he sighed and turned away. "I don't know if we'll ever solve this case," he said without thinking. "The fire can't have been started naturally."

Then he froze and stared at John. He held his breath. He couldn't remember if John was already looking into the occult. Then again, he thought with a hidden smile, that was the nature of time travel. Maybe, all along, he'd been the one to get his father started.

John's eyes darkened. "I know," he said softly. "I can't tell anyone else, but I've been thinking about it. Mary and I were careful, we always checked everything. There was nothing that could have started the fire."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" he asked, feigning stupidity.

"I've been doing research. Come to this address," John said, pressing a paper into Sam's hands. "I'll show you everything I've discovered in the past few months."

Hours later, Sam rolled up to the apartment that his father was renting. There was only one light on, which made sense. The sun was down, so his younger self and Dean should have been in bed already. He hoped they would stay in bed. He didn't know what it would do if Dean saw him, all grown up.

John answered on the first knock. Sam stepped over the line of salt at the door under his father's wary eyes. Salt was the most basic thing in hunting. That John didn't offer him a drink afterwards spoke volumes.

He sat and listened as John told him his theories. He looked at all of the books John handed him, all of the notes and whispers his father had gathered. At the end of it, when John was hoarse from speaking, he couldn't help his impressed smirk.

"What?" John asked. He settled into a chair, a chair that would one day belong to Bobby Singer. Sam didn't know that the chair had come from his father. Was it rescued from the house? There was no way to ask without being obvious.

Instead, Sam waved his handful of papers. "You're pretty good. I was just about to check for EMF when you walked up." What the hell, he thought. His father became a Hunter somehow. Why couldn't he be the one to point him in the right direction?

"EMF?" John asked. "What's that?"

Sam pulled his EMF meter out of his pocket. His cell phone had been left in the future, but at least this had come with him. He turned it on and blinked at the lit lights. They all flickered on and off.

"Looks like it's acting up," he sighed, though in reality he was thinking something quite different. What if the EMF was reacting to him? It'd only been a few days since being sent back to the past. Maybe there was residual energy from his time travel. Temporal energy was nothing like what EMF usually picked up, so that would explain the glitching up

Who knew, though. Sam pocketed the device and sighed. "EMF is something that ghosts and demons give off," he explained. "It hangs around even after the spirit is gone. It's one of the best ways to see if what you're dealing with is a ghost or another creature."

John sat up. "How do you know about this?" he demanded.

Sam decided, on the spot, to give his father his life story. There was nothing in his words to indicate who he truly was. No mention of demons or angels or any of that. John only learned that Sam came from a family of Hunters, of things that preyed on humanity, and he'd grown up with all of it.

After his story, John sat there in thought. "So it's all real," the elder Winchester said thoughtfully. "Everything that haunts us in stories. Everything in the dark wants to eat us."

"Bigfoot's not real, if it makes you feel better," Sam offered.

"Bigfoot's nice," John pointed out. "It'd be nice if he was real." He sat back in his chair and sighed. "So it could be anything that killed Mary. Anything at all." He gave Sam a hopeful look. "Do you have any ideas?"

"None," Sam was forced to lie. "With my EMF gone, the house is too burned for any other evidence. It might take years to find out what killed your wife."

They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Sam checked his watch and saw the late hour. "Well, I should be going," he said. "I wish I could help you, but this case is long since dead. I have to move on."

"I understand," John said. He stood and walked with Sam to the door. "If someone wanted to start hunting, where would they go?" he asked. Sam hesitated with one foot out the door.

"You can't ask directly," he answered at last. "That's the best way to get thrown into a mental hospital. You just have to look for clues. Find cases and meet other hunters there. Let them show you the ropes."

John followed Sam out to the car. "Why can't you?" the elder asked. "You seem to know all about it. Let's find a – a case together, and I'll watch you handle it."

Oh, that was an invitation to disaster, Sam thought wryly. John was damned persistent, though, and if they worked together, Sam would slip up. Then again, maybe that was just what he needed. He'd come to make amends with his father, after all.

"Get in," Sam said shortly. He climbed in and waited for John to scramble into the passenger's seat. "I'm not going to take you on a hunt," he said when John made to buckle in. "I'm just going to tell you something that you have to promise to never tell another soul, not until the day you die."

John looked doubtful. "What happens if I tell someone?"

"They won't believe you," Sam answered. "The course of history could be changed. This is my first time doing something like this, so I don't really know."

"What do you mean, the course of history?" John demanded.

Sam sighed. "You probably won't believe me either," he muttered, "but here it is. I'm from the future."

John laughed at him. "No, I don't believe you," he agreed. "But if you were telling the truth about monsters, then I guess time travel might not be so far-fetched."

Sam chuckled. "I always knew you were smart," he said fondly. "Now, here's the thing, John. I never told you my last name, did I?" When the elder shook his head, Sam continued. "It's Winchester. Sam Winchester."

John frowned. "Oh my god," he said after a moment. His head snapped up to the apartment, where Sam's younger self and Dean were still sleeping. "You're my Sammy?"

Sam nodded.

"I brought you and Dean up to be hunters," John said softly. He studied Sam intently. "You turned out well, it looks like. Was I a good dad?"

"You did your best," Sam said softly. He also glanced up at the apartment. "I didn't see that until a few years ago. Well, a few years ago from my perspective," he amended. "It'll be in your future. The time I'm from, I haven't seen you in about seven years." He looked back at his father. "The last time I saw you, we argued, and – well, I'm not going to say why, but it's pretty much guaranteed that we'll never see each other after that."

John frowned, trying to work it out. He didn't voice the conclusion he came to, but Sam knew that he saw it. He nodded. "So that's why you came here. You wanted to make amends."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Please, when I grow up, just – just do your best. We're not going to see eye to eye, and we're going to fight a lot. I'm not going to understand until I've seen more things than you can imagine. And, I just wanted to say-" His throat closed up and he held back the tears that wanted to fall. Now that he was actually doing this, it was proving difficult. He wanted to tell his father everything. He wanted to warn him away from hunting.

Just those few episodes of that stupid show, though, just that and something deep inside him, kept those words inside. Instead, he wiped away his tears and took a deep breath. "Thank you, Dad," he said softly. "Thank you for being there when I was a kid. Thank you for the childhood you gave me, and Dean. It wasn't the best childhood, but it was the childhood I had, and I couldn't ask for anything else. Thank you," he finished.

John didn't seem to know what to think, but he opened his arms. Sam let himself be swept into a hug and he buried his face in father's shoulder. John smelled the same as he remembered and he savored it. It would be the last time it would happen, he thought. This was his father, thirty years too early, but still his dad just the same.

"Thanks," he said, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jacket as they parted. "Sorry about that."

"You're my son. Even if you're all grown up and still an infant at the same time, you're my son." John sighed. "I guess you have to get back to your own time, huh?"

Sam snorted. "I'm stuck," he admitted. "My plan was to keep hunting and stay out of your way."

"Well, if you get into any trouble," John told him firmly, "you call me. I don't care that you're from the future. You're my son and I'll help you any way I can."

Sam grinned. "Thanks, Dad." He turned and gestured up at the apartment. "You'd better get up there. Dean told me horror stories about what he could get up to when he was left alone."

John climbed back out of the car and shut the door behind him. Instead of heading back inside, he circled around until he was at Sam's window. "Look, son, it's going to sound strange, but someone put a letter under my door. It had a note to give it to someone from the future." He pulled a crumpled-up envelope from his pocket and handed it to Sam. "I just didn't realize it'd be my own Sammy."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Time travel," he groaned as he looked at the envelope. "I hate Doctor Who."

"They canceled it," John told him. "Don't worry about it." He leaned back. "I've gotta go. See you in a minute, Sammy." He grinned. "Though you won't remember it. You're so tiny now, but you grow up to be a giant."

"Bye, Dad," Sam said. "Thanks again." He couldn't say it enough. John finally went back inside, and Sam put the letter in his pocket. He'd read it back at the motel.

It didn't take him long. Before he knew it, he was throwing his jacket on the other motel bed. This room was decorated like it had come out of the sixties. The letter was still in his hand, the note for John still scribbled on the envelope. He took out the paper inside – it was a single sheet, plain white paper. It was the sort of thing that, in 2013, could be found in any office store in America. It was out of place here.

Sam looked at the paper curiously. More time travel? Someone sent the note from the future to the past. Trying to keep track of it definitely was going to make his head hurt. He unfolded the paper and read the words there.

Look outside.

Two words, sent through time for Sam to read. A sound caught his attention, one that he couldn't place, but it was quickly drowned out by an eighteen-wheeler passing by the motel. He put the paper down and went to the window.

"No way," he said. He could hear the disbelief in his own voice, a bit breathless and weak. "That's just not possible."

There was a knock on his door. He tore his eyes away from the impossible sight outside his window and went to the door.

"Hello!" the equally impossible figure standing outside his door greeted. Sam stared at the man, from the dark bangs hanging over his bright green eyes to the bow tie, all the way down to the black boots. He met those eyes and stepped back.

"I don't understand," he said weakly. He backed up to his bed and flopped down. His knees refused to hold him up anymore. "I mean, I get the Weeping Angel coming to life, but it's just a monster. You – you're-"

"The Doctor," the man agreed. His accent turned the word into something like "Doh-ktah," but it was recognizable enough. He stepped into the motel and wrinkled his nose. "You and your motel rooms. It's filthy. Can't you smell that?"

"How can you be here?" Sam demanded. "I mean, you're not real."

"I know that," the Doctor agreed. "It's just the same as the Weeping Angel, though. Enough people focusing their thoughts on one thing, one big massive thing, and then bam!" He slapped the table with a wide grin. "I came to life. Can you imagine how disorienting it was? I don't have memories as you would know them, no. I have… episode synopses. My life, as I know it, is relegated to a bunch of episodes of a television series. The life I know, the life that I think should be there, is a lie."

Sam felt sorry for him. "You're another tulpa," he breathed. "You and your Tardis."

The Doctor shot him a wan smile. "Yes. I exist, now, thanks to the humans in the future. I'm still a Time Lord." He tapped his chest. "Two hearts."

"So why are you here?" Sam sighed.

"To take you home, of course!" The Doctor looked around the room and wrinkled his nose. "I exist, and the Tardis exists, and I know you watched the show. Come on! You're smart, you figure it out."

Sam glanced out the window at the blue box sitting innocently on the street corner. "You can travel through time. Your Tardis was brought to life and it can do exactly what it could do on the show. It can travel all through time and space."

The Doctor grinned. "Well done! Grab your coat."

Sam scrambled for his jacket and followed the Doctor out of the room. He shut and locked it reflexively behind him. "Doctor, I don't really get it," he said. "Why are you taking me back to the future? Why aren't you just leaving me here?"

The Doctor paused, his key in the lock. "Sam, I feel really old," he said softly, "but I'm young. I'm so young, only a few years old. I took my time getting here, after my birth, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm a toddler by your standards. Still, that doesn't mean I'm stupid. There's a Weeping Angel running around in your time."

Sam nodded. "That's how I got here."

"But you see," the Doctor said, the impossible man standing before Sam Winchester in the time when Sam existed as a haunted warrior and innocent child both, "I, and the Angels, were brought into existence by humans. Hundreds of thousands of human minds, all influenced by a show on the telly that's been around for, oh," and he checked his watch, "About twenty years now. Almost fifty for you, but, well, here we are."

Sam just stared between the man in the clothes that were a few centuries out of date and the bow tie, and the blue police box that stood next to him. "What are you trying to tell me?" he asked numbly.

"Humans always have these things," the Doctor said. "Opinions. Some said I really don't like bow ties and I say I do to annoy my companions. Some said I had some rather… hm, unusual ideas about my relationship with the Master. I am not only the sum of fifty years of television programs, I am also the interpretation of those programs." He waved his hands. "It's so hard for human minds to comprehend the wibbly-wobbly of existence. Do you get what I'm trying to say now?"

It clicked in Sam's head. "Every monster has a weakness!" he blurted. "Mary said that. So I just need to see what the consensus is about the Angel's weakness!"

The Doctor grinned. "You're a smart one. Now, come on. Now that I exist, I can do all sorts of things. Well, not everything, since I'm limited by a few laws that your world has that mine doesn't, but I can sort you out easily enough. You'll just have to do me a favor."

Sam nodded. This man, and the blue box – the Tardis – were tulpas as well. They seemed to be good, at least, so he ventured close enough to the box to touch. The wood's grain was rough under his hand, threatening to almost splinter at his touch. "You need a good paint job," he said softly to the box. He turned back to the Doctor. "What's the favor?"

"Let me borrow a pen," he said. Sam handed him the pen and watched him scribble on a piece of paper. He folded the paper again and wrote more. "Good, now take this." He pocketed the pen and handed over the paper. "I wrote the directions on the outside. Don't look." He snapped his fingers and the wooden doors opened. "Now, shall we?"


Dean opened his door to see Sam standing there, none the worse for wear. "Hey, Dean," he said weakly. "I'm back."

He grunted under the force of Dean's hug. "How the hell did you get back?" Dean demanded. He pulled Sam into the room and shut the door behind them. "Gabriel just said that he couldn't bring you back."

"He's alive?" Sam asked. "Of course, he got the memory of his death out of my head. He tricked us all." He couldn't help his grin. "Anyway, there's more than one tulpa out there," he told Dean. "He'll be back in a moment, he just had to drop someone off."

"Who?" Dean wanted to know.

Sam grinned at him. "David Tennant."

"You've got to be kidding me," Dean groaned. "I need a beer."

"Tell me about it." Sam took the beer Dean handed him and kicked back in a chair. "So, how long was I gone?"

Dean checked his watch. "A few hours? The Angel has your phone, by the way."

"Dean, I was gone for days." Sam shook his head in wonder. "Time travel. I saw Dad, you know."

"Did you do something stupid?" Dean wanted to know. "I mean, you didn't warn him about anything, did you?"

"I told him who I was," Sam said. He downed his beer in a few gulps and sighed. "I told him that we didn't get along, but I thanked him. He's our dad, and I didn't want him to die thinking that I hated him."

"Well, that's good." Dean tossed Sam another beer and gulped at his own. "Now, we wait."

"Wait for what?" Sam asked.

"I made a truce with the Angel. It's going to see if it can get by doing like you said. If it can survive by sending animals back in time and eating their energy, I told it we'd leave it alone."

The door opened and the Doctor strolled in. "Well, that was fun," he declared. "In a few months all of Earth will know I exist, but until then, we have an Angel to defeat." He clapped his hands and grinned. "So, Sam, what did you find out?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "I just got back. I'm enjoying being alive, Doctor. Besides, Dean just said that we were going to wait and see."

The Doctor glared at Dean. "I know you've watched the show, Dean. It won't stop. It won't ever stop, not until it's had its fill."

"You had enough time to change your clothes," Dean pointed out. "What's with that? I thought your outfit was some kind of old time chic."

The Doctor lifted his jacket to show off his suspenders. It was the same jacket as in his last few episodes, the one with his companion Clara Oswald, but the shirt was all David Tennant's Doctor. The pants were different, as well, black but in the same style as Tennant's. He still had the bow tie and boots, and his hair was still fluffy and unruly. "What, this?" he said. "Just something I threw together."

Sam stood. "I get it," he breathed. "You were brought to life looking like Matt Smith's Doctor, but everyone has a different Doctor. You're a mix of 10 and 11, aren't you?"

The Doctor smiled and inclined his head. "I get brought to life a few months from now, during the show's 50th anniversary special. Spoilers, but let's just say that 10 and 11, as you say, are on everyone's minds."

"If you don't exist yet," Sam asked slowly, "then why are you here?"

"Because," the Doctor answered, his voice serious, "if you don't help me, I won't exist. Everything I've done, sending Sam those messages and getting him back here, will be undone."

"What messages?" Sam asked in confusion. He reached for his phone out of reflex before remembering that it was gone. "Wait, you're the one that sent me the text message about the angel!"

"Yup," the Doctor confirmed. "I also sent your father the message to give to you. Tracking down Gabriel was a bit tricky, but I'm a Time Lord." He grinned. "I know how to scan for angels, and there was only one on Earth back then. Even so, without that first message, you never would have come to Canton, and you never would have been sent back in time."

"I hate freaking time travel," Dean groaned. "Well, since you know all this, what about the Angel?"

"That, you have to see for yourself. I really don't know." The Doctor looked out the window mournfully. "I have to keep a low profile until the 50th special. Matt Smith can't be seen in two places at once. So, I need a place to park the Tardis until after I'm born." He paused. "That just sounded strange. Anyway, that's why I need you boys. This is a whole new universe for me, a whole, wide world of magic and evil and things. You boys are my best shot at understanding it. My mind is full of science, not magic, and that the Tardis works means that maybe, just maybe, my science will work here. If I'm lucky," and he grinned widely, "I can use science to hunt, instead of magic. Spirits? Nothing more than the leftover energy imprint of a human who's passed away. Heaven and Hell? Pocket dimensions, diverting human energy from the planet so it doesn't implode. Positive energy goes into Heaven, and… well, you get the rest."

"We can see if we can use you to reopen Heaven," Sam said. He stood and crossed to the Doctor. "You have your sonic screwdriver, right?"

The Doctor pulled the device out. "Of course."

"Then we just need to find a door to Heaven. If you can figure out how to undo the lock, we can let the angels back in," Sam cried with glee. He patted the Doctor on the back with a grin. "We have a place you can park your Tardis."

"We still need to deal with the Angel," Dean pointed out. "The Weeping Angel, not the dicks."

"Oi, language," the Doctor reprimanded Dean with a frown. "I have a time machine, you know. We can pop forward to next week and see what happens. I hate taking the slow path. Then you can show me where to park, and that's when the fun begins."


Muahaha. Still have a lot of things to do, like dealing with the Doctor's birth, but that's just a bit too much timey-wimey stuff for my head to comprehend at the moment. Even so, I hope this was enjoyable. Thanks for reading!