Author's Note: Guys. Why can't I hold all these feels. You have no idea how much fun I had reading all of your reviews. And you have no idea how much fun it was to read all of your reviews and then upload this chapter.
...Mine is an evil laugh.
The trip was utterly silent and still, so much so that Sam couldn't tell if they were moving or not. It was unnerving, but it was better than watching his brother turn green as they pitched and rolled through time and space. Time and space. It was a little surprising to Sam how easily that thought came to him. But he supposed he was pretty primed for accepting weird stuff.
He didn't know how long they'd been there, but he couldn't pretend that he didn't need the breather. There was something calming about this room, too. The rose scent, the flavor of the air filled his lungs and relaxed him. He wondered what the purpose of this room was when the Doctor didn't have visitors prone to getting airsick, which he assumed was probably most of the time. Meditation? Did the Doctor do yoga? Something about that image struck Sam as funny, and he let a smile spread across his face.
But it died quickly when he remembered where they were headed. Even with the Doctor as their "counsel", they were in deep trouble. Dean had killed a refugee alien. Sure, it was to save his brother and sure, the alien was possessed by a demon, but he didn't know if that would be reason enough for the members of the Shadow Proclamation to give them any reprieve. And if the Doctor couldn't convince them, he didn't know what the penalties were for breaking intergalactic law, but he couldn't imagine they were pleasant.
(There was a tiny, tiny part of him, though, that wondered if being sentenced by the Shadow Proclamation would override Dean's deal. If it would, then space prison would be worth it. Hell, if it would, then he'd ask the Doctor to put in a guilty plea for them.)
Sam raised his eyes as Dean stood up and walked into the middle of the room. His hands were in his pockets and he looked around, taking in all of the monotony. Sam couldn't tell if he was mad at him; he hadn't said much since they got into the Zero Room. Hadn't looked at anyone, just sat by the wall, lost in thought. And Dean usually thought out loud, so that was unusual. But now he took a deep breath, shaking his head. "So we're in space," he said plainly.
"Yep," Rose replied. She sounded like she was too weary to sugar-coat anything. She picked aimlessly at the cuffs of her pink jacket, balling up little pieces of fluff and tossing them onto the floor of the Zero Room.
"Outer space," Dean said, as though to clarify.
"Yep."
"That's pretty weird."
Rose's lips tweaked into a bit of a grin. "Yep."
"So the Doctor's an alien."
Rose nodded. "Time Lord. From Gallifrey. Don't ask him about his planet or his people, and don't tell him he looks human, he'll only say you look Time Lord. He's a bit tetchy about that."
Dean took a moment to process that, then shook his head. "But why's he here? I mean, not here on his ship. Earth."
Rose took a deep breath and shrugged. "'S like I told you before. It's his favorite planet. He's fascinated with us. Thinks we're pretty marvelous for some reason."
Dean nodded, but Sam could see his jaw getting tense. "Okay," he said. "Then why didn't my dad trust him, if he's such a fan of humans?"
Rose sharpened a bit at that. "Not everybody likes the Doctor," she replied, a little defensively. "But he's on our side, I can tell you that. I don't know what happened with your dad." She faltered, and bit her lip. "But maybe...sometimes, it's hard, with the Doctor. You think he can do things, for you, but he can't, or he won't. And it's...hard to accept." She lowered her eyes. "Like I thought he could bring back my dad. But he couldn't. Well, he could, that's the thing. But it would have led to a paradox, and he can't let that happen. Maybe your dad thought he should have been able to do something he wasn't willing to."
Sam caught Dean's eyes, and knew that his brother was thinking the same thing he was. Maybe their dad had met this time-traveling alien and thought he could save their mom, stop the whole thing from happening, make it so that he could've raised his sons with his wife outside of Hunting, outside of demons and monsters and salting hotel rooms. Maybe he'd asked and the Doctor had refused. It was a grimly comforting thought—that that was all there'd been to it. That he'd written what he'd written in his journal in anger.
Comforting, but Sam wasn't sure it was likely. It was too simple to be true.
(He'd have to think of an opposite of Occam's Razor to apply to life as a Winchester.)
Rose looked around, frowning. She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and glanced down at her watch. Dean noticed, and snorted. She looked up. "Is that, you know, a lot of good, traveling with him?" Dean asked.
Rose looked confused, and then smiled, looking like she was surprised that she had done so. "Well, there's subjective time in your own timeline versus objective time in your traveling," she said. "Objective like, we might have to take a detour in the year 3270 before we get to the Shadow Proclamation. But subjective, like, how long has it been for us since the Doctor locked us in here? Answer is, thirty minutes. He doesn't usually take this long to get us somewhere, not unless the TARDIS is acting up. But I don't think she would, not now."
"She?" Dean echoed, and Rose nodded. He looked mildly impressed. "Man after my own heart. Maybe I misjudged the guy."
"But point is, it's weird that we're still in here," she said, standing up and walking to the door. She folded her arms. "He should've been here to get us by now."
"Think something went wrong?" Sam asked.
Rose opened her mouth to reply, turning back to him, and the doors opened behind her. Her shoulders slumped and she rolled her eyes. "Such dramatic timing," she began, but as she turned and saw the expression on the Doctor's face, she stopped. "Doctor? What is it?"
He shook his head. Sam stared at him. He'd shed his trench coat and his suit coat, and looked totally disheveled. Even a little sweaty. His face was pale and his dark eyes serious under his glasses, which were sitting askew on his nose. "Something's gone wrong," he said. "And I don't know what so don't ask. But the TARDIS' navigation instruments were highjacked by the Judoon ship. We're not at the Shadow Proclamation, I know that for sure."
"Then where are we?" Sam asked slowly.
The Doctor shook his head, pulling his hands through his hair and pacing in the Zero Room. "I don't know. Not for sure. It doesn't make any sense. Why would the Judoon take us anywhere but the Shadow Proclamation? They're totally loyal. Mindlessly loyal. That's why they're the perfect hired guns. They wouldn't have the imagination to betray the Shadow Proclamation, even if they had the motivation, and I couldn't imagine what could motivate them."
"What's on the screens?" Rose asked.
The Doctor threw his arms in the air in frustration. "Nothing. Black. All black, at every angle. I can't see a thing. Whatever they did to override the destination protocol is interfering with surveillance instruments as well." He stopped in the middle of the room, closing his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck. He was still for a moment, and seemed to take strength from the room. He inhaled the rose-scented air deeply, and nodded, opening his eyes. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. "All right. Let's figure this out."
He strode purposefully out of the room, and Rose and the Winchesters followed him. Sam stopped short about five yards out of the room, when, after turning one corner, they were back at the control room.
"How—" he began, but the Doctor was already saying, "She puts rooms where they need to be." Sam nodded. He didn't understand, but he nodded.
As the Doctor stood at the console, flipping switches and banging on screens in an attempt to fix them the same way Dean always fixed TVs, Rose walked up to the doors. "Why don't we just step outside and see where we are?" she asked. "That's what we usually do."
"Don't touch the doors," the Doctor called, sounding distracted. He stopped, and looked over to her, adjusting his glasses. "I've got a bad feeling about all of this," he said. "Don't go out, not yet."
Rose backed away from the doors, hugged her arms around her body and walked back up to Sam and Dean. The Doctor took out his screwdriver and aimed it at one of the screens, but before he could hit the button, the screen clicked on.
Everyone jumped, even the Doctor, just a little, as a smiling man's face filled the screen. Middle-aged, Caucasian, with thin brown hair and absolutely ice-cold brown eyes. He wore a crisp, expensive-looking black suit. He gave a little wave. "Hello, Doctor," the man said. He, too, spoke with a British accent.
The Doctor's face was totally blank, his eyes fixed on the screen. There was a weariness in those eyes, a resignation, and Sam knew that the pieces had all fallen into place in the Time Lord's head. "Crowley," he said, his voice dull.
"Long time no see," Crowley said with a smirk.
"Not long enough," the Doctor replied. "So it was you paying the Judoon. Clever to have them pretend to be with the Shadow Proclamation. How did you manage to send out the Shadow Proclamation wanted call, though? It was extremely convincing."
Crowley shrugged carelessly. "Oh, Doctor. You underestimate us. The call was genuine. Humans aren't the only creatures that can be possessed, you know that. One of my men hitched a ride on a convict, then on a justice."
Sam and Dean looked at each other, startled. Possessed. This was a demon? "Doctor, where are we? Who is that?" Dean demanded, but Sam could hear the tremor under his rough tone.
The Doctor looked over, and so did Crowley on the screen. "Ah, Dean Winchester," Crowley laughed. "How perfect. Sort of a poetry to it. It's always the humans that give you problems, isn't it, Doctor? As for who I am...we'll get acquainted later. But as for where." Crowley's eyes didn't flip black, but they took on an unholy glee as he said, "You're in Hell, boy. A couple months early."
Dean staggered back, and Sam caught him. The Doctor returned his eyes to the screen. "He's telling the truth," the Time Lord said to the brothers. "But it's not for the reason you think. Stay calm."
The Doctor looked at the screen like one would look at a snake about to strike. "You already have a contract on Dean. Samuel is your collateral. Rose isn't your concern, so this is a trap for me, or am I mistaken?"
Crowley smiled. "As usual, not at all," he said. "I'm tired of you interfering in my affairs, Doctor. We all are. Converting one of my crossroads girls was the last straw."
"She made her choice," the Doctor replied, but there was no fight in his voice. "You knew about my meeting John Winchester, you knew I'd be concerned that the eye of the Shadow Proclamation was still on his sons, so you used that to bring me here. The Winchesters were never in danger—not more than usual, at least. It was all a trap."
Crowley began to clap slowly. "Clever boy. But I wouldn't say the Winchesters weren't in danger...the call sent out from the Shadow Proclamation did come from a justice. They are wanted. Lucky you found them before someone else did, eh?"
"And my TARDIS," the Doctor continued, ignoring the threat. "She'll be disabled until you have me, effectively trapping my Companions here unless I surrender."
"Naturally."
The Doctor ran a hand along the TARDIS' console, lovingly. "And if I go with you, you'll let them go?" he asked.
"Doctor, no!" Rose cried, but the Doctor ignored her.
Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Well, sure. But you're the only one who can pilot your ship."
"Yes, I am," the Doctor said. "So it won't hurt you to release her. I'll come with you, willingly, if you agree to release her and let my Companions go without following them."
Crowley drew back just a bit, looked hesitant. "Are you making a deal with me, Doctor?" he asked.
"Only way I can trust your word," the Doctor said, some heat behind his voice. "You know me, Crowley. You know how clever I am. If you don't take this then you don't know what will happen."
Crowley frowned, but nodded. "Can't exactly seal it," he said, amused. "But it's a deal, Doctor. See you out here."
The Doctor held out his screwdriver and turned off the monitor. He turned towards the Winchesters and took a breath to speak when Rose walked up to him, stood in front of him for a moment, and slapped him full across the face.
He staggered back a step, raising a hand to the offended cheek, and caught himself on the console with the other. "Suppose I deserved that," he murmured.
"You bastard!" Rose cried, and rushed at him. He grabbed her by the wrists, held her for a moment, until she collapsed into him, weeping. He wrapped his arms around her. "You can't leave me, not like this," she murmured.
"You have to trust me," the Doctor said into her hair. "Now more than ever. I'm clever. Remember that I'm clever."
"Doctor, if you don't come back to me I'll kill you," Rose said, halfway between laughing and crying.
"I'll let you," the Doctor said. He pulled away from her gently, and looked at Sam. "Samuel. Come see."
Sam shared a glance with Dean, but did as he was told. He stopped right in front of the Doctor, looking down at the Time Lord. The Doctor met his eyes intensely. "I hope I'm not wrong about this," he said quietly. "Samuel, I need your permission to give you something."
"Give me something?" he asked warily.
The Doctor nodded. "Knowledge. I need to give you knowledge. Unless I've made a terrible mistake, you can get Dean and Rose out of here. I have a job for you to do. But I can't explain it, I don't have time, I just have to give it to you."
Sam hesitated. He didn't like it. Some of their reading said that the Doctor had powerful psychic abilities, but he'd had enough people messing with his head for one lifetime. He didn't want any more. But the pleading look on the Doctor's face, and the lack of other options, didn't leave him a lot of choice in the matter. "Sure," he said. "Just...make it fast."
"Faster than you'd imagine," the Doctor said wryly, placing his fingertips gingerly on Sam's temples. He closed his eyes, squared his shoulders. "Here we go."
The sensation was unlike anything Sam had ever felt before. His head felt full; it was like the inverse of when he had his visions. Suddenly all this energy filled his head, this other presence, quick and delicate and clever. He felt himself shudder, as though from a distance, while he felt the Doctor searching for the right place to...give him the knowledge, whatever it was that he was getting. He felt that cool, sharp presence hover over a part of his mind. He felt a little shock, and realized that it was just that, shock—the Doctor's shock. Something had surprised him.
And then he felt it.
He gasped out loud, and heard Dean shout his name, Rose shout for Dean to stop. But he only noticed vaguely, as through a fog. Because his head was full. Full of such bright, beautiful things.
The TARDIS. She sang to him now. He understood those loving caresses that the Doctor gave her, the reverence with which Rose spoke of her. He could feel the years of her, the experience of her, the intricacy and delicacy and beauty of her, the all-encompassing feeling of love that she wrapped the Doctor and Rose with, tendrils of it wrapping around Sam and his brother already. He could feel the warmth and unfathomable power of her heart. The knobs and levers and hammers and horns all made a chaotic kind of sense to him now. He saw the flow of it, the organic logic of it. Of her. Of all of her.
The plan. He understood what he needed to do, what he needed to say, where he needed to bring them, how he could coax the TARDIS into carrying them safely there and back once the job had been done. It blossomed in pictures in his head: the people he needed to talk to and the words he had to say to them, translated by the TARDIS. The etiquette that would keep them safe. The favors he could call on, the debts to the Doctor he could cash in.
And when the Doctor withdrew his fingers from Sam's brow, he saw the Doctor for the first time. How had he ever thought that this creature seemed in any way human? He shone. He was ancient and he shone. "What did you do to me?" Sam asked, breathless.
"What did you do to him?" Dean demanded hoarsely at almost exactly the same moment.
The Doctor only looked at Sam. "I wish I hadn't had to," he replied, his voice heavy with regret, "but it's the only way to get you out of this. When you're done, I'll take it back."
"No," Sam said instantly. "No, Doctor, I make sense. For the first time...ever."
The look in the Doctor's eyes chilled Sam. It was horror and grief and pity. "I was afraid of that," he said softly. The look disappeared and was replaced with a business-like manic focus. He pulled his suit coat off of the rail and shrugged it on. "So! I go out, get myself captured, brilliant plan step one. You, Sam, follow the directions I gave you, and take this key and don't lose it." He pressed a small Yale key strung on a thin length of twine, like the one Rose showed them in the woods, into Sam's palm. "Rose and Dean, listen to Sam, he knows what he's doing."
He picked up his overcoat from the floor, and pulled it on slowly as the energy seemed to visibly drain from him. He looked down and took a deep breath. "And I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely audible. "This was my fault. I brought the three of you into this, and I can't get you out of it." He looked up and met Dean's eyes. "I suppose you were right after all, Dean. I was nothing but trouble for you and your family."
Sam watched his brother, waiting for his response. Dean was still and quiet for a long moment, much longer than he usually waited before firing off a witty one-liner. When he finally spoke, it was quiet. "You stuck your neck out for us," he said. "You're about to throw yourself to the wolves out there, so my brother and Rose and I can make an escape. You made a deal with the devil to save three humans, and two of us are strangers." He shrugged and swallowed hard. "Frankly, Doc, even if you got us into this mess, you're pulling us out of it a lot better and braver than almost anybody else we know would have. So I guess you're all right in my book."
That took the Doctor by surprise, and there was an odd light in his eyes...if he were human, Sam would have thought he was touched by Dean's words. He nodded and took a breath. Then his face brightened. "Well! Right then," he said. "Allons-y and all. I'm off to bother some demons, you're off to adventure in the stars for a bit, and we'll all meet up later." He ran lightly down the ramp, and stopped when he got to the end. He looked up at Rose, and she walked slowly down to him. He took her by the wrist and pulled her towards him, and then framed her face in his hands. "I won't let them take me from you," he promised. "Trust me, Rose Tyler?"
She nodded. Sam couldn't see her face, but he could see her shoulders as they shook. "Always," she said.
The Doctor released her, and she took a few steps back. He winked at her, then waved to the Winchesters, and flung open the door. "Hello, boys!" he cried, and swung himself outside, slamming the door behind him.
The scent of sulfur filled the TARDIS.
Sam stood at the console, and felt Rose's and Dean's eyes on him. He put his hands gently over the controls, let them hover, let them feel the energy that was contained by such a thin veil of electronics. The heart of the TARDIS.
"Sam? What did he do to you?" Dean asked, but he sounded hesitant, like he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Sam just breathed for a moment, feeling his pulse synch itself with the pulsating of the TARDIS. His blood reacted to her. He felt more alive, more right, than he ever had before. He wondered if that was okay. If that was what the Doctor had done, or if there was something else at work.
"Sammy?"
Sam turned around, shaken out of his reverie, and the smallest bit annoyed about it. "I can pilot her," he said. Rose's eyes widened and her mouth fell open. "Not easily. But he...taught me how to. Enough to get us where we need to go."
"Sam, the Doctor can barely pilot the TARDIS by himself," Rose said tentatively. "It's supposed to take half a dozen Time Lords to pilot a TARDIS. Half the time we end up in the wrong century or the wrong galaxy. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be pessimistic, but...how are you supposed to pilot her by yourself?"
Sam shook his head, but he realized he was unfazed by her doubt. She didn't have to believe him. He knew he could do this. "He put it in my head," he said. "How to take us there. And she'll help me. She knows it's important."
He looked back and saw the worry in his brother's eyes, but he saw something else, too. Pride, and trust. "All right, Sammy," Dean said. "Take us where we're going."
Sam smiled, feeling more warmed by his brother's confidence than by the heart of the TARDIS, when Rose cleared her throat. "Not to interrupt this lovely brother moment," she said, "but where exactly are we going, if you don't mind my asking?"
Sam walked around to one of the screens, tilted it, and began inputting coordinates. "We're headed where we were supposed to be going anyway," he said. "Dean, this is probably going to be an even rockier ride than last time, so you might want to get back to the Zero Room."
"No way," Dean said firmly. "I'm not leavin' you."
"All right," Sam said, in a suit yourself tone of voice.
"Sam—" Rose said, but broke off as Sam finished hitting the buttons and pulled down a lever, and shouted "Hang on!"
As the TARDIS began to rock, he said, "Everybody hold on tight. We're going to the Shadow Proclamation."