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

...

The Doctor kept half an eye on Dean during the entire car ride. He seemed to be taking everything in stride, even though the Doctor had explained to him exactly who the Daleks were and what they were facing.

The Doctor wasn't sure if he Dean was just calm because he already had only a few months to live or because he had faced horrific monsters that, he thought, were just as bad, if not worse. (That was laughable—nothing was as bad as the Daleks.) But either way, the Doctor wasn't sure he liked the look in Dean's eyes.

Still, he babbled to the woman in the driver's seat the entire way there. "We certainly hope you're looking into the mysterious deaths around the properties you own," he said. "There's something going on, and I think you know it's no good."

She pursed her lips at him.

"Then again," he said, peering at her more closely this time, "mind control isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility here, either. Neither is duplication." He was speaking mostly for Dean's benefit at this point, since the woman next to him seemed to have gone suddenly deaf now that she had them both in the car.

"Duplication?" Dean piped up, apparently picking up on the Doctor's need for conversation.

The Doctor waved his hand as if the comment didn't matter, but he couldn't help smiling. He hadn't had this problem in previous incarnations—the talking thing. For some reason, he seemed to do better when he was gabbing.

"Yes, duplication," he said with an exaggerated sigh. "You wouldn't believe the lengths the Daleks have gone to in order to get humans to do their dirty work. They think they're so advanced, you see, but I've yet to see a plan in which humans weren't—"

Vanessa, their driver, slammed on the breaks so that the Doctor was cut off in mid-sentence. She smiled innocently at him, but he knew he'd hit a nerve.

The Doctor returned her smile but didn't let her annoyance stem the tide of his babble. "See, there was this one time—with Tegan and Turlough—"

"Those people names or place names?" Dean asked, cutting in with a look that clearly said he had seen Vanessa try to break in and was jumping in before she got the chance.

"They traveled with me a while ago," he said. He paused just long enough to see Vanessa settle a bit before he said, "A very long time ago. Lifetimes, really."

"Woulda liked to meet that face. It's always weird running into a you that doesn't look like you," Dean said with a wry smile.

The Doctor grinned. "You would've liked him. Not sure I would've liked you, though—but I was a little stuffier back then." He paused, grinned wider, and said, "Not that it mattered. I had a whole posse in the TARDIS to bother me, and I spent half my time trying to keep them from wondering off—not that they listened."

"You had a point, Doc?" Dean asked, his mouth pressed into a thin little smile that was equal parts amused and confused.

The Doctor had fully turned around in his seat by then. He was completely ignoring Vanessa—or at least, he was keeping watch out of the corner of his eye while he pretended to ignore her and gauging her reactions. "Point is," he said with an exaggerated flourish of his hands, "I highly doubt our friend here is actually fully aware of the reality of her new boss. Or if she is, she's been altered so she doesn't care." He leaned forward, fully aware that Vanessa was glaring daggers at the back of his head. "See, that's the thing I like about you humans. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you're faced with pure evil, and even the worst of you can recognize it."

Vanessa took a left turn unnecessarily hard. Her jaw was set, and her eyes were gleaming with some kind of emotion, but the Doctor couldn't quite place what it was just yet.

But Dean seemed to recognize it, because something in his demeanor changed. The tension went out of his shoulders, and the laughter went out of his eyes, and in a second, he had transformed into a hunter about to do his job.

"What've they got on you?" he asked quietly. He had asked it so softly that the Doctor wondered for just a moment if Vanessa had even heard him, but then he saw her hands grip the wheel tighter and her knuckles go white.

Interesting.

Silence filled the car as they continued their ride, and it was not until they came upon a small office building that looked like it was the only store still open in an otherwise deserted strip mall that Dean spoke up again.

"See," he said at last, "the thing I don't get is why anyone would even bother setting up shop why out here." He had a twinkle in his eye, but the Doctor could tell that Dean had only spoken up because he had realized that they had reached their destination, and Dean wasn't quite sure he was ready to face a Dalek.

But then, no one was ever ready to face a Dalek.

"It was . . . convenient," Vanessa said, speaking out loud for the first time since she had bustled them into her car. She sounded quiet, reserved, not at all like the confident woman who had approached them before. It was obvious that Dean's words had shaken her.

"Yeah. It's a regular tourist trap," Dean said dryly as a single bird perched on a burned out lamppost above them. "Plenty of foot traffic for the Daleks to slaughter out here, huh?" He glanced at the Doctor, but the Doctor couldn't quite read that expression.

"This site was acquired for easier access," Vanessa said again. The closer they got to the building, the more some of her old confidence came back. She had squared her shoulders and set her jaw, and the Doctor was pleased to see that she was recovering fast. Even if she was working for the Daleks, it was nice to know that she wasn't one to go down that easily. She could be helpful.

"To what?" Dean asked.

But when Vanessa opened the door, it was suddenly quite obvious exactly what "what" was.

The Doctor could see it more clearly than probably Dean and Vanessa could. The cracks and the sparks and the tears in time and space. Like a lightning show, but much smaller, only about the size of a cherry. But it was there, and it was unstable—shrinking and expanding and flattening at random intervals.

The Doctor wasn't aware that he had taken out his glasses until they were on his face and he was leaning closer, staring at the rip in the fabric of time and space. "That's not good," he said, frowning.

Dean was close behind him, staring over the Doctor's shoulder. "I'm no expert," he said—as usual, trying not to sound like a "nerd"—"but I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing that swallows up reality on Star Trek."

"Close," the Doctor agreed. "It could do that. Or it could just like artron energy into this area. Or it could slowly erase bits and pieces of history from existence entirely." He peered at it closer, studying its movements, before he turned back to Vanessa. "Is this what you brought me here to see?"

Vanessa shook her head. "That's only part of it." She opened a door behind her, motioning the Doctor and Dean through.

The Doctor felt both his hearts drop through the soles of his feet. "Oh no," he whispered, surprised when he had to clutch the door handle harder for support.

There, lying in piece on the floor, was what was left of a Void ship.