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

...

Dean had seen a lot of things. He thought he'd seen it all.

He was wrong.

He took deep, rattling breaths and tried to fight against both the bile and the panic rising in his throat. Panic and selfishness wasn't allowed. He had to count on himself. He couldn't put Sammy in danger by delaying his escape and leaving him at the mercy of the lizard people. He couldn't count on the pansy Doctor who would rather talk and tinker and run than stand and fight and kill.

But he hurt.

Dean leaned back, his eyes closed, and tried to pretend he wasn't on the verge of crying. Crying was beneath him. Instead, he called out to the lizard outside the glass. "So what's the prognosis, Doc? Am I gonna live?"

The lizard doctor didn't answer.

"Hey! Scaly! I'm talking to you!"

That got his attention. The lizard doctor turned to him, tapping his pen—tap, tap, tap; he had been doing that this whole time and it still made Dean shudder—and tilted his head to one side. "Hmm. Interesting." He scribbled on his notebook some more—the guy must have taken notes on everything about Dean, both inside and out. "This ape has intelligence but still retains violent tendencies and employs a territorial aggression display when threatened."

"How many times I gotta tell you? I'm not an ape. My name's Dean."

The lizard man paused, stopped tapping his pencil, and pulled his chair up closer. "Dean," he repeated. "And who gave you that name?"

"My dad, you . . . ." He trailed off and shook his head. "It's like talking to a wall."

The lizard doctor laughed. "You haven't just been trained by some hunter. You have sarcasm, emotional range." He leaned in closer. "I wonder who sped up the process of your evolution. Perhaps we could adapt the technology ourselves for use against the Sea Devils."

But Dean wasn't really paying attention anymore. He was more concerned with what the lizard doctor mentioned earlier: "There are hunters around here?"

"Unfortunately," the lizard doctor frowned.

Dean frowned right back. Oh, so this doctor was just like Rose's doctor. Bigoted, self-righteous pricks, both of them. He could do without that condescension.

"I can see how you'd be a good tool for a hunter. The monsters seem to have taken a liking to you apes, and an intelligent prey like you would be perfect bait."

"I'm not an ape!" Dean would have punched him if he could have moved his arms. And he wasn't bait, either, but he didn't say that out loud.

"Not as we know them, no," the lizard doctor admitted. He leaned back and laughed. "Oh, but I've never talked to an ape before. I've had colleagues who have established some basic sign language communication, but they would die of jealousy if they were to stumble upon a scientific breakthrough like you."

"Hooray for them," Dean muttered, then winced as he growled too deep in his not-yet-fully-healed throat.

"But tell me," the lizard doctor said, unable to hide his glee even through the crystallized glass, "where did you learn our language?"

Not to be outdone, Dean shot back, "Where did you learn about hunters?"

"It's common knowledge," the lizard doctor shrugged. "Since you apes arrived, there have been hundreds of new monsters popping up everywhere. Of course the government would establish a branch to—"

"Government subsidized hunters?" Dean felt even sicker than had had when he'd seen his own gall bladder.

"There are, of course, some rogue elements," the lizard doctor said. "There were bound to be. Revenge is such a motivating factor in these things."

Dean fell silent.

"You may have encountered them, though the advanced science necessary to evolve you so far into the future suggests government funding."

Dean let the lizard doctor drone on and one. He wasn't interested anymore. He was a little too distracted by the thought of lizard hunters wearing government-issue suits and ties and holding legitimate badges that they didn't have to painstakingly slave over.

Whatever this messed up place was, he wanted out of it.

"Look, you're going to have to let me go sooner or later," Dean said, breaking into the long monotone the lizard doctor was giving about the virtues of having a government agency that could take care of the new threats while they focused on the problems at home about some things called Sea Devils who used to be foot soldiers but rose up in rebellion—which, frankly, Dean thought sounded like a hunter problem, Sea Devils and everything, but then again, there were lizard hunters, so . . . . "I've got some pretty powerful friends—"

"That's exactly what we're counting on, isn't it?" the lizard doctor broke in. "Someone had to put a lot of effort into you, and that someone is going to want you back."

Realization sank in. Dean leaned back with a loud, prolonged groan. "You have got to be kidding me." He hated being the bait.

The lizard doctor went back to his notes and his muttering and the pencil tap, tap, tapping. Dean closed his eyes and leaned back and tried to will his body into feeling better so he could get out of this place. No such luck.

Luckily—or maybe unluckily, depending on how you looked at it—Dean didn't have to wait very long for the excitement to kick in. A bunch of other lizards burst into the room, and through the crystallized glass, Dean could see that they'd brought someone with them. Too tall to be Sammy, not blonde enough to be Rose.

"Doc, what did you do?" Dean groaned to himself. Then, straightening up, he shouted, "You call this a rescue mission?"

Dean couldn't quite hear what the Doctor said in response—he was too far away from the glass. The Doctor and the lizard doctor were talking animatedly about something—figures the two of them would be all buddy-buddy being doctors and everything. The Doc probably thought this whole thing was a fun adventure.

Dean hadn't really thought the Doctor was religious, what with his not believing in anything supernatural and everything, but he saw the Doctor make some kind of sign. He pointed to his heart and then to the other side of his chest. He kept doing that while the lizard doctor just kind of stood there staring at him.

Dean couldn't hear the conversation, but he knew the Doctor was getting frustrated when he threw up his hands and ran them through his ridiculous hair.

Things weren't going well; Dean could tell. And it wouldn't hurt to hum "Seek and Destroy" while he waited—it calmed him down. Except when he sang the lyrics in his head about dying a thousand deaths his head hurt even worse than before.

Dean groaned, then decided he'd had enough of watching the two doctors argue with each other. He was just about to shout for attention when he felt something rumbling.

Both the doctors—the human one and the lizard one—grabbed the nearest table to steady themselves. Dean's Doctor said something to the lizard guy with his face really close to his ear, and the lizard doctor motioned for the other lizards to back off.

In three long strides, the Doctor was in front of Dean's little pod. He pulled out his sonic thingamawhatsit and undid the lock, grinning like an idiot. "Hey, Dean. I see you've met the Silurians."

"We don't seem to get along very well," Dean shot right back. "You gonna get me outta this, Doc?"

"Don't call me—"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Just do your magic sonic thing."

The Doctor pressed his lips together in a frown and was about to use the sonic thing on the straps still holding Dean in when the rumbling started again. This time, it was much closer—and much more disruptive. The whole ground shook, things started tumbling off of shelves, and the Doctor listed sideways.

"Umm, Doc?" Dean tried to pretend he wasn't nervous, but since he couldn't move and the lizards had all pulled out their guns, it was hard not to be.

The Doctor turned to see the lizard soldiers on alert and frowned. "Ah," he said simply before he turned back to Dean to let him out of the little pod.

Dean hadn't realized that the straps were holding him in place until he embarrassed himself by collapsing under the weight of his own body. He pushed off the Doctor's attempts to help him to his feet with a grunt, then forced his knees straight and grabbed the nearest table for support.

"The anesthesia hasn't quite worn off," the lizard doctor explained when the Doctor glared at him accusingly.

"I'm fine," Dean assured the Doctor—since the doc looked like he was about to do something ridiculous like try to wrap his arm under Dean's shoulders and hold him up.

"No, you're not," the Doctor said. Something dangerous flashed behind his eyes as he glanced over at the lizard doctor, and to Dean's surprise, the lizard doctor seemed cowed by that something.

Huh. Maybe there was something to this strange doctor after all.

"Well, I will be," Dean said. He straightened his shoulders for good measure, and even though he was still wobbly, the Doctor seemed to accept that—for now.

Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that the rumbling was getting stronger, and Dean could finally recognize the sound for what it was: footsteps.

Dean grimaced. "Sounds big," he said. "What do you think it is? Demons? Poltergeist?"

"Myrka," one of the lizards said. (Dean recognized him as one of the lizards who brought him here in the first place. Oh, now he was worth talking to!) "It was only a matter of time before they started turning our own creations against us."

"Myrka?" Dean repeated, wrinkling his nose. That definitely sounded made up.

But the Doctor didn't seem to think it was made up. In fact, Dean could see the Doctor tensing even more than the usual grabbing-things-to-keep-from-falling kind of tensing everyone else was doing. Dean recognized the symptoms: The Doctor had seen a Myrka before.

"Okay, Doc," Dean said slowly, "how screwed are we?"

The Doctor didn't say anything, but his frown spoke volumes.

...

A/N: For those of you who haven't seen Classic Who, the Myrka is one of my favorite horribly-costumed monsters. In my head, he's been redesigned for New Who in this story, but you're welcome to watch the episode "Warriors of the Deep" for reference. Because Five is in it and he's my favorite Classic Doctor, and because let's be honest, half the fun of Classic Who is the monsters where you can see the people underneath the costumes.