A/N: Like I said, I spent a whole lot of time at the airport getting stuff written. This is the result. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the rights or anything related to Supernatural or Doctor Who.

...

"I think he's drunk," Rose whispered.

The Doctor nodded. Dean had a stronger liver than most kids his age, but two full bottles of very old wine would get to even an older man. (The Doctor wasn't sure whether he should be proud or worried about the fact that Dean made it through a bottle and a half before he started to show it.)

Both the Doctor and Rose watched as the scowl, the fear, and the pain slowly faded from Dean's face, replaced by a fit of giggles.

Dean had a good smile. He should show it off more. Just not right now.

"Should we do something?" Rose whispered.

The Doctor bit his lip. As much as he hated to admit it, Dean's plan was really the only good one they had, and it would be a shame to abandon it. Not to mention the Doctor really had no idea what Dean would do if they started to act insubordinate. He was a giggly drunk, but he could turn nasty. Most hunters were like that.

"We'll wait," the Doctor said at last. "Dean can take care of himself." He didn't let Rose see that he had crossed his fingers behind his back. It probably wouldn't do anything, but they would need all the luck they could get.

Dean toddled back into one of the unfinished houses nearby. The Doctor and Rose weren't exactly sure what he planned to do, but every move had been measured until this point, so the Doctor figured they should just wait.

Then again, they were dealing with a drunk teenager . . . .

"Maybe we should follow him," Rose muttered.

"My thoughts exactly."

Rose picked up the ingenious little machine Dean had built and gathered it up in the best defensive pose she could muster. The Doctor couldn't help being impressed at that part, at least. They hadn't really hit the digital age of this planet yet, and already Dean was far ahead of his time. If the Doctor wasn't convinced Dean would try to kill everything in sight—and if he wasn't already content with Rose, which he definitely was—Dean would have been perfect to travel with him.

Maybe he'd invite him when he was older. Or younger. Less . . . hunter-y, at least.

But it was a decent device for the materials he had to work with and the limited technological knowledge of his time. Rawheads had a hard time with electricity—enough of it could kill them—and this was the perfect weapon to fight them with. The Doctor didn't usually appreciate such raw talent going toward destruction, but, well, Dean was a hunter. And this was quality work. Kid was wasted on fighting monsters.

"What's he doing in there?" Rose whispered. "He knows he's supposed to stay where we can see him. How are we supposed to provide him with any backup if we can't find him?"

"I'm sure he has a plan," the Doctor said, but it was obvious he was trying to convince himself just as much as he wanted to convince Rose. More than likely, he was just flat-out drunk and had decided to do something stupid and dangerous.

"Of course he does," Rose muttered. She could always see right through him when he tried to lie to her.

They made it to the house just in time to hear Dean's shouted explanation: "You don't have to worry," Dean said. "I was just gonna splash some water on my face because I think I'm drunk."

"Oh, he thinks he's drunk," Rose giggled to the Doctor in a low whisper. She rolled her eyes and smiled playfully at him, but he held a finger to his lips.

The Doctor was just about to shout his answer back to Dean, but he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. "Rose," he whispered tersely. He jerked his head in the direction of the movement.

Rose saw it too. Her face was pale, and she looked worried—she must have seen more of the creature than he had—but her lips were pressed together and he knew she wasn't going to let anything happen to Dean.

"Do you think it lives in this house, then?" Rose asked.

"Not sure. We'll have to wait just a bit longer," the Doctor said. He couldn't hear any muffled sounds, and he had been listening with every sense he had.

Thump.

Rose rushed forward without thinking. They both knew that sound. It was the sound of a body hitting the floor, and they'd both heard that sound far too often in their experience.

"Dean?" Rose called out. When there was no answer, her voice jumped up a pitch. "Dean!"

"Dean!" the Doctor shouted. Still nothing. He frowned and nodded to Rose, who of course understood. They split up without a word, still calling out into the dark confines of the house. "Dean! Dean, where are you? Are you okay?"

The Doctor frowned. This was definitely not what they wanted. They had hoped to see the rawhead when it took Dean, and now they had three missing kids and less than an hour to save them. He hadn't known any kids to survive longer than that.

He kicked the nearest kickable object out of sheer frustration, but it happened to be a box of tools, and that really did nothing to improve his mood.

There were still plenty of places to look, of course. Lots of nooks and crannies in unfinished walls, but the Doctor's gut was telling him that Dean was long gone from here. They'd have at least heard something by now.

He knew this was a bad plan.

When Rose finally caught up to him, she looked terrified. "Doctor," she breathed, "he can't die now, can he? Not when I meet him in a couple years?"

The Doctor frowned. "Time can be rewritten," he said, mostly because he didn't really know the answer. It didn't seem likely that Dean could die, not when the entire reason they were working together was that Rose recognized him and convinced them it would be fine to collaborate, not when Rose and Jack were still alive because of him. There was a lot tied up in him still being around.

But there wasn't as much riding on the other kids' survival, and in some ways, that was worse. If they could rewrite time, if Sammy didn't survive when he was supposed to—or maybe if they saved him instead of letting him die—what could happen? Dean certainly would never be the same without his Sammy, that much was certain. But what kind of Dean would he have to be to save Rose and Jack?

He could usually tell when to interfere, but Dean and his brother . . . there was something different about them. Time was not quite so rigid in their lifetimes. It almost felt like something had already messed with their pasts, somehow.

That was usually how he could tell who he could take with him. Ordinary people whose timelines weren't fixed forever, who didn't have a set destiny. People who could forge their own paths and maybe change the world while they were at it.

If only he wasn't a hunter, he'd be much less dangerous to take in the TARDIS. But the Doctor didn't want Dean killing off the first aliens he met—which he would.

"Well, I think he's going to make it," Rose said, bringing the Doctor out of his thoughts. "You know what else? I think we're going to save him and his brother and the neighborhood girl."

The Doctor couldn't help smiling. He really couldn't. She just looked so sure of herself, so absolutely convinced. But maybe that was the Bad Wolf inside her. She still came out a couple times, just declaring things.

"Of course we are," the Doctor said. He straightened the lapels of his jacket and set to work on the electrodevice Dean had created.

It was a good weapon, to be sure, and that was definitely what Dean intended. But he didn't realize his own potential.

Sonic screwdriver in hand and tongue tucked between his teeth, the Doctor set to work on the device, twisting and turning and changing. Yes. Yes, this was a very good design. Pliable, easy to manipulate. It wouldn't take much. Kid was wasted on hunting.

"What are you up to?" Rose asked. She smiled with her tongue between her teeth, the laughing, playful smile of a girl who knew exactly what her Doctor was up to but wanted the particulars explained so he could show off.

"Creatures like rawheads that are specifically susceptible to electromagnetic waves and electricity have that weakness because they hold their own charge. Dean doesn't know why this device works, but if he did, he'd be proud to realize he's made the perfect tracking device."

"What, so we'll just follow the electrical trail all the way back to the rawhead's lair?"

"Exactly," the Doctor said with a smile. He loved it when she could follow his techno-babble. She was getting better and better at it every day.

It didn't take him very long to reconfigure the device. Dean had already done such a good job designing it—it was logical, flowed well, gave the electricity a place to go. But it wasn't very powerful, and the Doctor knew it was a long shot. He wasn't even sure if the rawhead was in range of his tracker, and he really didn't fancy having to run around the neighborhood waiting for this thing to pick up the slightest trace of their prey.

The device hummed to life, and Rose grinned almost as broadly as he did. "It's working," she breathed.

The Doctor frowned at her, not sure if he was annoyed with how much she seemed to care about Dean—which, well, he really shouldn't have been all that annoyed, since she was always concerned about the safety of everyone they had ever met, but this kind of concern seemed . . . different (he was trying to avoid thoughts of Adam and Mickey)—or if he was just offended that she sounded like she hadn't believed it would work.

But he didn't have time to think about it very long, because the machine whirred and beeped at him, chirping away almost happily.

The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant."