A/N I'm not sure what caused me to ship Gwen and Sam, but I feel like it would work for various reasons, if only initially.
Thanks to azebra117
Disclaimer I don't own Doctor Who/Torchwood/Sherlock/Supernatural or any associated characters, events, etc.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gwen Cooper
Don't let it fall apart
A shot in the dark
A shot in the dark
~ "Shot in the Dark," Within Temptation
xxx
"So, this is normal for you?" I clarify of Sam, my arms folded and my fingers wrapped around my elbows as I contemplate the expanse of dark road winding before us. I glance over in time to see him dip his head in a quick nod, and raise a single eyebrow as my gaze flicks back to Sherlock. The detective is just backing away from the small wooden box he'd buried in the ground, containing a glossy picture of himself (hastily captured by an instant-print camera that the Doctor had stored away in one of the TARDIS's many hidden crannies), a handful of graveyard dirt, and the yellowed bone of what was apparently a black cat (I tried not to question what Sam and Dean carried around with them).
"Relatively normal," he agrees quietly. "Even though—well, we try to avoid making actual deals most of the time, of course, but… it can be… tempting, sometimes."
This catches me by surprise. "Have you ever made a deal before?" I ask curiously. Sam seems too smart, too logical for something like that.
"I've tried."
Wow. Perhaps I don't know him at all, really, if I can make such a large misjudgment of his personality. I sneak another sideways glance at him. He's not watching me, or Sherlock, or anyone, really, but rather gazing into the sky, the expanse of glittering silver stardust reflected in his shining eyes. Lost in thought. I resign to be quiet, to not bother him, and instead turn back to Sherlock, who's now tapping his toe on the ground in sharp impatience.
"Alright, let's all back off," Dean suggests, from where he stands on the other side of Sam. "The thing might want to hold back if there's a crowd, it's understandable enou—"
"Missing me?" a purring British voice cuts in.
It's unfamiliar, and coming from the other side of me, so I whirl around along with everyone else. Standing there with a rather smug look on his face is a short-ish, solid-figured man, decked out in a velvet suit that looks alarmingly expensive and holding his dark eyebrows high, a smirk pulling at his lips.
"You made the deal?" Dean sputters in disbelief, and I can feel Sam tense even with the few inches of air between us. Iciness is suddenly palpable in the air. Confusion radiates from the expressions of the Doctor, Amy, Rose, and Molly, and Sherlock's brows are drawn together, probably rapidly trying to come to turns with the fact that he's standing meters away from his brother's murderer—and the man who brought he himself back to life.
"Crowley," the younger Winchester greets with frosty calmness, and the demon's smirk widens.
"Moose. And company, I see. A nice little entourage you've pulled together for yourself. What might be the problem this time? Something to do with darling Mycroft, I'm guessing, by your use of Mr. Holmes the younger like bait on a fishing line?"
"It's a simple enough request." Sam stands with his shoulders squared, and takes a half step in front of me—it's almost a defensive stance, I note with perhaps a bit more pleasure than I should. "We need to know what Mycroft died for. Why Sherlock is alive now."
"Can't tell you that one." The demon—Crowley—looks almost on the verge of a yawn, with his hands tucked into his suit pockets, slowly swaying his shoulders from side to side with apparent boredom. "Client confidentiality, all that."
"We need to know," Sam repeats. "It wasn't for no reason."
"Points for you, Antlers. One of the most brilliant men the world has ever seen did not, in fact, die for no reason. I believe this is a display of the infamous 'Winchester logic'?"
"Crowley." Dean's voice is low, monotonous, toned in a way that shows just how little patience he has for the whole situation. "It's pretty damn straightforward. You have information we want, so you're gonna give it to us."
"Bossy, bossy," Crowley murmurs. His teeth glint under his curled lip, and his eyes seem to darken—at first, my heart skips a beat, wondering whether I'm about to see the inky obscuration of the iris and sclera that Sam mentioned, but it seems only to be a shadow. "I'd stay in my place if I were you, boy, and not go making veiled threats."
"I'm—"
"Please, you're all so dull." Then his gaze swivels around to focus on the Doctor, who seems vaguely surprised at being picked out in this manner. "Well, except for this one over here. An alien, am I right? A… Time Lord?"
"And you're a demon," the Doctor replies enthusiastically, taking a step forward and paying no regard to the warning hand that Dean lifts. "I haven't gotten a good look at one of you before, at least not one who's actually willing to let a word out of their mouth…"
Crowley's lips curl up fully, forming a tight smile as he surveys the Doctor's young, innocent appearance—probably, I guess, seeing right past the vivid expression and candy-colored bowtie, into the heart of the ageless, godly creature that Jack would tell stories about. "Then this is a first for both of us. Most of my dealings so far have been on Earth… it would be interesting to… extend them."
"We're not here to talk about business expansion!" Dean barks, looking more and more agitated by the second. "If you don't have anything to say about Mycroft, then you can just shut your mouth until… until, well, you do."
The demon's nose wrinkles. "Masterfully delicate phrasing, there. And if you must be so insistent… there is something that might be able to help you idiots out a bit."
"Why should we trust you when you say that?" Sam challenges steadily.
Crowley's eyes stretch in a wide, exasperated roll, scoping out the entire expanse of the skies before returning to focus sarcastically on Sam. "Oh, I don't know," he growls, his voice even morecha low and rasping than before, "perhaps because we've allied before?"
"You gave us a gun, once," Sam corrects. "That doesn't mean we were allies."
"Oh, but we've cleared this up already!" he huffs. "I want Lucifer dead at least as much as you do, so—"
"How is Lucifer relevant?" Sherlock speaks for the first time now, deep and clipped. His stare is frigid, calculating. "We were here only to inquire as to my brother's death."
"Are we being clever, now? Yes, of course Lucifer is relevant. You lot all need to stop telling yourselves that you've got a million different enemies at once. There's only once force that we're working against, and we're all working against it, however… grudgingly. So how about you drop your pathetic little grudges and we all agree that we're together on this one, yes?"
"We might be able to," Dean snarls, "only you're refusing to let us know the one thing that could be useful!"
"I can't tell you, dimwit," Crowley snaps back. "If you had a brain connected to that ridiculous face, then you'd have caught onto that by now. I can't tell you what Mycroft died for, because I made the deal. If you wanted to know what's so important about Sherlock, I'd suggest you pay a visit to a certain Miss Irene Adler."
Irene Adler. I blink—the name is unfamiliar—and in the time it takes me to do as much, the demon vanishes without so much as a whisper. One moment he's there, the next he's gone—simple as that.
"Damn it!" Dean shouts. "I told you we should have set up the Devil's Trap…"
"It's not like he didn't leave us with anything at all," Sam protests. "That name—Irene Adler…"
"Hardly an uncommon one," Rose points out quietly. "It could take ages to find the right one, and we won't necessarily know when we have…"
"Can't stop us from trying, though, right?" The Doctor's tone is cheerful, but in a rather forced way, like he's running out of things to be optimistic about. I can sympathize with that, I suppose. I mean, what do I have left, really? I've left my whole damn life behind in what I'm now beginning to see as a ridiculous move, I'm completely wrapped up in some world of demon deals and resurrections and time travel that's beginning to give me a material headache…
Well, there's Sam. It's a pretty small thing, but I do like him, at least what I've seen of him. He's something completely detached from Torchwood and Cardiff, and something that I think might at least somewhat help me to get over Rhys. Well, perhaps not get over him, but distract myself, at the very least.
This is what Jack wanted for me, I realize.
And then I force myself to shake my head, to straighten my shoulders and lift my chin and not dwell on this right now. Because Jack is the last thing I need to be thinking of. Torchwood is the last thing I need to be thinking of. Right now, my focus is the Doctor and the Winchesters and the TARDIS, Sherlock and Crowley and Lucifer. Anywhere but home, really.
Or maybe this is my home, now. Maybe I should start thinking of it that way.
"Irene Adler, then?" Amy clarifies as the Doctor pushes open the door to the TARDIS and leads us inside. My shoes echo on the ground as it shifts from soft, springy-grassed earth to the hard glass of the TARDIS's flooring, and the temperature around us seems to rise by several degrees, switching from chilled to pleasantly warm.
"Irene Adler," he confirms, and prances over to one of the screens hooked up to the main console. "This ought to be Earth's internet, if I'm not wrong… hopefully I've got the year straight this time…"
"You have access to the internet from in here?" I can't help but half-laugh at that. The whole of time and space isn't enough, evidently, unless there's also a web connection.
"It can be useful." The Doctor's tone is almost defensive, and this time I let out a full laugh, shaking my head slightly.
"Right."
"Anyways. Irene Adler… that's an awfully nice name. Flows off the tongue." He taps away at the screen, which seems to have a virtual keyboard of odd squiggly symbols rather than the English alphabet—or any other Earthly language's, for that matter. The screen swirls silver and blue for a moment, loading, then a page of results springs up. I'm too far away to read the small print, but I see his pale eyebrows rise slowly, until they look like they're going to disappear into the dark flop of his hair.
"What is it, Doctor?" Amy asks, sounding amused, and peeks over. Her hazel eyes almost immediately grow as wide as moons, as do Rose's, when the blonde joins them for a glance.
"What is it?" I question curiously, craning my neck to see over their collective shoulders.
"She's a…" the Doctor stammers. "Er, well… it looks like… if this is the right Irene Adler, of course, there's a chance that…"
"She's a dominatrix," Amy announces, "if these results are any sort of indication. And… good at her job, it would seem." She lifts a hand, her painted nails running over the screen as if to select a specific result, and the Doctor slaps her wrist quickly.
"Do that in your spare time!" he yelps.
She rolls her eyes and grins. "I wasn't looking at her website, silly, it's this." Her fingers move back up and tap a blue-shaded link. Seconds later, the screen fills with what's clearly a news article, the headline of which I can read even from here: Nationally renowned dominatrix and infamous gossip-bearer found dead in her London mansion.
My jaw drops. "Irene Adler is dead? But then… how can we get information from her?"
"Are you kidding? It's easy," Amy insists. "This is what the time machine is for."
"No," Sherlock cuts in. His eyes are narrow. "If Crowley had wanted us to talk to her, he would have said so. But he didn't. Only mentioned that she had information for us. So perhaps we're meant to learn something from her death… from the way she died, perhaps. We need to go to England. Find a way to examine the crime scene, see what we can learn about her killer…"
"A good old-fashioned mystery, eh?" the Doctor agrees. He nods thoughtfully, seeming rather less dampened than one would expect of him by the news of Adler's death. "Alright, wonderful, off to England it is. Though I think that only one or two of us should do the actual investigating—and my apologies, Sherlock, mate, but I think you're a bit too famous of a dead man, especially with the police, to get involved."
The word police strikes something within me, and I find myself speaking up. "I can do it. If I tell them I work for Torchwood… they'll let me access anything." A hint of pride of my job, Jack's organization, lingers in my chest.
"Perfect," the Doctor agrees brightly. "Right, then, Gwen will see what she can figure out by interviewing the police and whatnot."
"And probably miss at least four extremely obvious bits of evidence, on the way," Sherlock mutters. I try not to be offended, knowing from what the others have said that he talks this way to everyone, and yet I can't help but feel a bit ruffled.
"I won't," I promise, my voice steely.
"And if it helps," Sam adds, "she can take pictures and show them to you. Then you can see if there's anything she missed."
"Right." I'm smiling, somehow. It's nice that he comes to my defense. Warming.
"Then, that's the plan!" The Doctor swipes at the screen, still featuring the article on Adler's murder. "Just let me plug in the coordinates of her house—we'll head back to the day the murder was committed, just to be safe, then you can see any fresh evidence—and we'll be off!" He flicks a pattern of knobs—I can't help but notice how the takeoff commands appear to be different each time, not in a way as if he's altering them for the different destinations, but more like he's improvising each flight. I wonder for the first time if I should be concerned about just how safe this time machine is, not to mention the alien flying it, but I push such a thought aside. I just need to focus on what I've been told to do. Questioning my superiors has always been my biggest mistake, and I'm not going to make it now.
We land almost instantaneously, and I can feel the others' eyes on me as I turn my head towards the door. "Just like this?" I ask. "I go out and… see what I can get?"
The Doctor nods, the movement accompanied by an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "Best of luck, I'm sure you'll do brilliantly!"
"Wish we were both that sure," I mutter under my breath, then straighten my shoulders and raise my voice. "Don't go flying off anywhere. I don't want to come back here just to find the TARDIS gone."
"Not a worry," he promises.
"Great. See you all soon, then."
"Good luck," Sam says softly to me as I pass. I smile back at him—not a wide grin, only a curling of the edges of my lips, hinting at happiness while not flaunting glee. I casually push the TARDIS's door open with my shoulder, and find myself in complete darkness.
I blink, as if that'll change things, even as I step fully out of the machine and let the door shut behind me. I am, in fact, completely surrounded by solid black. Has the Doctor made some kind of ridiculous mistake? Landed us in a cavern on an alien planet or something? I'm just about to go back inside the TARDIS when my eyes adjust enough to detect a tiny sliver of dusty light along the floor. I squint, willing the fragment of buttery paleness to spread across the rest of the space, but it's not strong enough. I step slightly sideways, and my shoulder brushes against what feels like fabric—it is fabric, I realize, and then, fingering the bit of clothing's shape, it hits me all at once.
I'm in a closet.
A closet containing the 'outfits' of a worldwide-renowned dominatrix.
I can feel myself flushing even as I quickly rip my fingers away from the skimpily sewn silk, then fumble for a doorknob along the wall before me. I find one soon enough, and shove it open, finding myself hit immediately by grey light that streams through the tall, heavy curtain-rimmed windows of the room around me. Rain attacks them in quick splatters, establishing that London is being plagued by its typical weather. I shiver, even though the house is too well-heated to feel the chill, and slowly take in the rest of the scene.
I'm in a bedroom. A very nice bedroom, long and wide, with cream-colored carpet and a truly magnificent bed, all plush pillows and heavy comforters and dark-carved wooden posts. I try not to let my eyes linger on it, knowing what kind of activity its sheets must be stained with, but a dark shape catches my eye.
My throat freezes. There's a corpse splayed out on the lush blankets. Her chest is crusted with multiple dark crimson bullet holes, ripping through the delicate velvet robe wrapped around her slim figure, and her face seems to be carved out of wax, pale as snow and eerily still, glassy sapphire eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Brunette curls splay out from her head and neck, falling over the pillows in uneven waves.
Irene Adler.
It's just then that I realize I'm not alone in the room. There are a few other men stationed around it—one by the door, murmuring into a walkie-talkie, a second carefully examining one of the body's hands, and a third stepping up towards me, a stressed, confused expression on his worn features.
"And just where did you come from, miss?" he asks suspiciously. His voice is London-accented, matching the impression given by his dark eyes and short-cropped grey hair.
"Oh—closet." I jab a finger over my shoulder, shrugging as if it's the most normal thing in the world. "I, ah… I was just taking a look in there."
His eyes comb over my figure, taking in the leather jacket, the dark jeans, the careful stance. "You're not with the police," he replies, his voice painstakingly calm, "so I'm going to have to ask you to come in for a few questions. Your presence on this crime scene could be considered suspicious."
"I'm with Torchwood," I reply automatically, and it takes me a moment to realize that the words are a lie, that I'm not with Torchwood at all. I try my best to look convincing, though—I work to keep my voice and gaze steady and even. "I think you'll find that I have access to anywhere I need to be."
"Torchwood?" A thin line forms between his brows, and I can tell by a wince tugging at the corner of his mouth that a headache just set in. "Do you have any sort of ID?"
"Nothing on me, but you can check with my boss, if you need to. Captain Jack Harkness in Cardiff, I can give you the phone number, just ask if he dispatched Gwen Cooper to investigate the Adler murder—"
"No, no, it'll be fine," he interrupts. I can't help but be amused, even as sympathy for his obvious overwork stirs in my chest. "Just try to be quick with what you need to get done, Miss Cooper, we're going to be cleaning up here pretty quickly."
"Not a problem. But I might have to ask you a few questions, actually, Mr.…?"
"Detective Inspector," he corrects wearily, "Greg Lestrade."
"Right," I amend. "Detective Inspector Lestrade. What can you tell me about the circumstances of this murder?"
He crosses his arms and sighs. "Not much, yet. It was a messy job, as you can see, but our paramedics are saying it looks like the first shot fired struck her right in the heart, killed her instantly. Whoever did this kept going even after he had killed her, so he was either very angry or not quite right in the head. Or, well, he just liked shooting people."
I raise my eyebrows. "Anything else?"
"Well, she had this mobile phone—well-known, really, it was what made her infamous. She kept all of her information on it. Records of all the scandals and affairs that made her name well-known… and the thing went missing. Completely gone—her killer must've taken it. I'd say it narrows our suspects, but it really doesn't. There are probably hundreds of people who'd want her dead for that information, and plenty of them qualified snipers. Or, well, men who could shoot a gun easily enough. Men and women, as a matter of fact… yeah, there's really nothing. If you'll excuse my blatancy, Miss Cooper, we haven't got a clue."
"You sound… particularly upset about that," I observe carefully. I'm aware that I'm walking a very fine line, and I try to stay balanced, silently praying that he doesn't grow any more suspicious than he already seems to be.
"It's just that we had this detective, once—he hired himself out to Scotland Yard, see, right genius, he was. And he could have solved this one in a snap, I'm sure. But he disappeared a few months ago… killed somehow, apparently. I don't want to believe it, but…"
A chill slips over my spine. He's talking about Sherlock. I'm not sure how I know, but who else could it be, really? I had no idea that he consulted with the police, yet it seems obvious, now. Someone as perceptive and intelligent as him surely wouldn't waste their gift. And the death several months ago, the death that this Detective Inspector never received any proof of… for a moment, I want to tell him. Tell him that there's an impossible blue box hidden in the closet, and that inside of it is an alien, and a couple of demon hunters, and Sherlock Holmes himself—Lestrade, at least from his appearance, seems to need a bit of adventure in his life.
But I know how stupid that would be. I'm here on a job. To let my actions be controlled by sentimentality, to allow this man in on everything just because I feel bad for him, is entirely ridiculous. I shake off the impulse, forcing a tight smile to cover up my nervousness. "I'm sorry," I murmur. It's obvious that my tone is false, but I hope he owes it to uncaring rather than dishonesty—not that I want him to think of me as heartless. "Torchwood is going to be trying just as hard as your men to put something together here, Detective Inspector. We should be able to figure something out together."
"Hopefully," he agrees dully. "Best of luck, Miss Cooper. I hope you'll manage to turn up something better than we have."
So do I, I almost say, you've got no idea how much depends on it—but I simply nod instead, forcing another humorless smile. "If you don't mind, I'm just going to take a bit more of a look around," I tell him.
"Of course. But haste really is appreciated."
I nod again and turn away, pivoting on my heel to face the bed. I should be used to dead bodies right now, what with my job. And I suppose I am, somewhat. But it still hurts to see Adler carelessly flopped on the mattress like this, to know that she's never going to breathe or laugh or smile again. I wonder if anyone will miss her. Her lifestyle certainly isn't a family one, but perhaps she had parents, siblings… some sort of relative who'll be grief-stricken when they hear the news of her demise.
I almost hope so. The thought of her dying alone just makes the whole thing even sadder, somehow.
The man currently examining the body backs away as I approach, giving me ample room that I don't necessarily desire. I carefully hold my bottom lip between my teeth. What am I even supposed to do with the body? The only thing I've been trained for is checking for alien attack marks, and I'm fairly positive that Adler was killed by a human—or otherwise one possessed by a demon, but I'm not to know if there are any usually any visible indications of such a thing. What I really need to do is get back into the TARDIS, tell Sherlock and the rest what's going on, but I can hardly step back into the closet without arousing definite suspicion. The best thing I can do is wait until this room is clear again. Which could, I reflect, take quite a while.
I distract myself by forcing my hands to accept the pale blue latex gloves that I realize one of the policemen to be offering me. I utter a low and insincere "thanks" as I force the dry, rubbery material over my fingers. Now that I'm covered, I really don't have any excuses. Holding my breath for no real reason, I reach forward and lift her limp wrist in my right hand. Even with the barrier of the glove in between me and it, I can't help but feel revolted. It's not cold, exactly, but an unappealing room temperature, like meat left out on the counter too long. And stiff, too—more like wood than flesh, which is actually rather helpful in detaching myself from the whole experience. It's easier if I can pretend that this is a fake body, somehow, rather than a genuine dead person.
I can't be sure why it's bothering me so much. I have had my share of corpses. Perhaps it's the mundaneness of this murder, the knowledge that hundreds like this occur every day, really, whereas the alien accidents that I'm used to investigating are few and far-between enough for Torchwood to function with only its tiny team of five operatives.
I sigh through my nose and let my fingers wander along her arm, then move to the curve of her hip and thigh. I really don't know what I'm looking for—I'm probably looking like an idiot, as a matter of fact, casually stroking the corpse with no apparent method to my actions. Desperately, I turn back to Lestrade—noticing in such an action that he's the only officer left in the room. Getting there.
"Where was she keeping the mobile?" I ask offhandedly, as if it's the most casual inquiry imaginable.
"Safe downstairs," he gets out through a yawn. His eyes flick down to his watch, then back up towards me apologetically. "If you don't mind, Miss Cooper, we really do need to wrap up in here. We've got to get her to a coroner as soon as possible."
A safe. Of course. I was stupid to think that the phone would be carried on her person—if it really did hold as much information as was apparently rumored, then there'd be no reason to keep it in such a vulnerable place.
"Right," I mumble in an improvisational manner, "I was just going to head out, actually—just one more look in the closet."
"What's so interesting about that closet, anyways?" he asks curiously as I drop Adler's arm and shuffle towards the door. "You must have been spending an awful lot of time in it to be here before the Yard."
"Nothing in particular…" God, I'm awful at this. I suffice to shrug, and I can tell by the shift in his features that he's growing suspicious all at once.
Conveniently, a massive crash rings through the building just then, from what sounds like a floor down.
"What the—" His head whips around, eyes wide. Without another word, the Detective Inspector hastens out the door. It's an odd coincidence, but one I'm not going to question—I dart into the closet, just in time to see the TARDIS fading into place.
Dammit. They were supposed to stay.
I half-kick open the door and march in. "I thought I told you not to go anywhere!" I exclaim to the room at large, my eyes roving over everyone clustered there. "Wherever the hell you were, you barely got back in time!"
"You needed a distraction," Sherlock replies neatly. "You were taking longer than needed to ask a few simple questions, so I merely suggested that we check to see if you were doing alright. Sure enough, it seemed as though you could use something to take the attention off of yourself, and so we provided."
"You don't ever need to worry about us being back in time," the Doctor adds, "this is a time machine, you know."
"Right—right, whatever," I sigh, my eyes finding Sam automatically. He glances away, towards the wall, just as our gazes meet, and I can't stop the small smirk that curls the edge of my mouth. "Nothing much to report," I continue, turning to Sherlock; "the biggest thing is that she had a mobile phone missing after her death. It had a bunch of information on it, scandals and such, that could be extremely dangerous, I guess."
"That's easy enough, then," Sherlock murmurs. "We need to find the phone. If we find the phone, we find the murderer."
"Sure, alright," Dean speaks up, his voice tight and exasperated, "only how exactly do we go about finding the phone?" There's pronounced stress around his eyes and jaw, and it's clear that he didn't sleep much last night—compared to Sam, who looks relatively refreshed and bright, he seems awful. I wonder if his bad condition has anything to do with the angel who seems to have turned against him, and from there I can't help but wonder what exactly their connection is, so that it would affect Dean so much while leaving Sam alone. Just how close of friends were they? Or were they really friends at all?
I'm distracted by my rather gossipy train of thought by Sherlock's cutting retort.
"It can be somewhat easier to track a designated electronic device than a person," he growls. "Phones leave a trail behind them whenever they're in use, a trail that can never be fully erased. If we can get ahold of its signal, then the process of locating the killer will be entirely straightforward. I actually used a similar method in a…" His words drop off abruptly enough that I can tell something's wrong. For a moment, something seems to move behind his icy eyes, then his face morphs into a full-on scowl, as if challenging the concerned glances that have risen up around him. "We need to find the phone's signal," he mutters.
"Signal, right!" the Doctor says loudly, then his face twisted into a confused expression. "…How exactly do we get a signal?"
"Well, we are in a time machine…" Rose points out quietly.
"So we could go back, plant some sort of bug on the phone, then track it now?" Amy finishes.
"Lovely! See, I only pick the best," the Doctor declares. "Right brilliant, the two of you are."
"It was the obvious solution," Sherlock breathes grouchily, but the Doctor makes an effort to pay him no attention.
"Off we go, then," he goes on, flicking another seemingly random assortment of switches. "Ready to meet Irene Adler?"
