See end of chapter for Author's Notes.

"She was a demon, Dean. You are not responsible for her being possessed." Despite Castiel's grave insistence, Dean rubbed his hand over his face in exasperation. "If an exorcism did not work, perhaps the demon bore a mark that locks a demonic form inside its host body." Dean sighed and Castiel squinted at his friend, trying to understand the emotions going on beneath the surface. "Dean, you cannot blame yourself."

"I've seen that mark before, when Meg, possessed Sam. I should have checked her for a mark." Dean seemed determined to put the entire blame for Amelia's death on his own shoulders. It was peculiar, Castiel had seen Dean kill many host bodies along with their demons. While Castiel was strongly inclined to help the trapped human, Dean and Sam since he had known them had gravitated more and more towards simply killing the monster. Perhaps it was millennia of patience that gave Castiel his perspective.

"Regardless of whether or not you killed her, she's alive here and now. She doesn't need you pitying yourself, Dean. She's just jumped forward seventy years into the future. Do you ever think what she needs from you now? That time was a prison." Castiel had learned much about Amelia during their drinking contest. It appeared that when the ginger was under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, she was much more prone to express emotions she previously held under control, such as fear and uncertainty.

"How did you know about Amy?" Dean's posture shifted as he spoke. His arms crossed over his chest and he had a look of suspicion crossed with curiosity. "You knew that was her message, but you didn't remember the arena until you met that Donna chick. Why did you suddenly want to go rescue her?"

Castiel frowned at the question. Amy had made similar accusations. "Both you and Amelia have told me that I was the one to take her from 1940, but I did no such thing." Dean raised an eyebrow and Castiel felt compelled to continue. "When I took the tablet, I had to remain invisible to the eyes of Heaven. I couldn't smite, I couldn't answer prayers, and I most certainly couldn't jump through time. I chose a location with a fixed pattern throughout the world and hid there. It wasn't until I heard about the demon in London that I felt compelled to investigate."

"What location were you hiding at?" Curiosity and disbelief mingled in the hunter's tone.

"The restaurant Biggerson's. I was not the one who rescued Amelia. The creature you were with must have been very powerful to appear as me without the use of my vessel and travel through time."

"Unless Jimmy has a brother?" Castiel was almost sure that Dean was joking, judging by the slight curl of his lip. Perhaps it was best to move beyond that comment.

"Angels are the only beings I know with the power to travel through time and intentionally bring others. However, if our theories of colliding universes is correct, there could be any number of beings with this power now roaming the Earth."

"So you're saying some alien dressed up as you, and had me and Sam ride shot gun while it picked up Amy. Why?"

"I'm not sure."

"I thought the trials would be our biggest problem."

"Trials?"

The heads of both Dean and Castiel turned toward the source of the voice. Amelia stood in the doorway with an apple in hand. Castiel absently noted that a face has been carved into the fruit before she bit off another piece. "You mean that thing Sam is doing to close the gates of Hell?" Castiel remained silent as Dean stepped forward, watching the hunter from the corner of his eye. Something peculiar was going on, even more so than their recently recovered memories.

"Hey, Amy. I was just going to go out." One of her eyebrows raised. Castiel was slightly confused as well but said nothing. "Here." Dean dug into his pocket and handed her a key. "It's for the room. I'm going to crash there for the night. Come and get me if Sam or anyone else in the circus wakes up, okay?" Amelia's expression was puzzled as she swallowed another bit of apple.

"You can stay here, dumbo. The TARDIS has a thousand bedrooms." As the angel looked from the hunter to the time traveler, he guessed there was some subtext he was missing. This wasn't unusual for the angel, but judging by the look on Amelia's face, she was also missing something.

"Just need to clear my head. I'll be back in the morning." When Dean turned from her, there was an expression on his face that Castiel couldn't identify. He grabbed the angel roughly by the arm and hauled him outside the TARDIS door, closing it behind him. When Castiel passed over the threshold once again, he almost felt a shudder in the air around him. Frowning, he glanced behind him at Amelia who gave one last wave, her expression also unreadable.

"Dean, do you think it's wise to leave her alo-"

"Cas, I'm not discussing this." The angel squinted again slightly, trying to muddle through the reactions that the ginger drew out of his friend. "I'm going to go to a bar, get plastered, bang the best chick that comes by, and eat a bacon cheeseburger. You're on your own with the whole demon thing." The hunter gave a few rough pats to the angel's shoulder before walking on, reaching into his pocket for the keys to the Impala.

Even after Dean disappeared from the basement, Castiel remained. He turned his attention to the box as he contemplated humans and their incredibly shifty moods. He ran Jimmy's fingers along the wood, detecting something similar to an angel's senses as a hum would be to a human's senses. This TARDIS, it was alive. Whatever it was, it wasn't a machine as Dean assured him it was. Castiel stored the thought away for later consideration. For the moment, he still had an adversary to track.

His movements would certainly be restricted with Heaven itching to get its fingers on the tablet. The angel passed his fingers over his stomach, inside of which lay the tablet, safe from humans, angels, and demons alike. Briefly, he wondered where Meg was. She had been with the Winchesters when he departed from the scene with the tablet in hand, but clearly she was no longer here. If she needed him, she could pray, though Meg was certainly not the prayer type. He had every confidence that his caretaker could stay well hidden from Crowley.

Collecting his now scattered thoughts, feathers ruffled as he began to fly back to London. It wasn't flying as humans perceived birds flying, but rather his wings were a gateway to a place in which space and distance did not exist. For a brief moment, he existed there, and then he existed in his intentioned place. Perhaps it was the word 'wings' that conjured images of angels flying overhead. He considered the possibility for a moment before continuing to slide through that dimension, searching for one demon in a cesspool of monsters.

"One, Three, Four, Eight, Eleven." The Doctor sighed with boredom as he sat in the control room. So far Clara and the detectives had sent back three of the four life signs they had picked up in the TARDIS. One more and they would come back. Maybe they could all go out and look together then. The Doctor had many parts of his brain that he didn't wish to visit, and many parts of him that he didn't want others to see. Besides, sitting inside and counting which regenerations he had inside of him was incredibly dull.

What could Amy be doing? So far, she had sent back only one regeneration. He would have been more worried about her getting into trouble if he hadn't sent her into the safer parts of his mind. The trees held more good memories than the TARDIS. There was one room in particular that he kept the nastiest of memories locked away in. He trusted Clara to steer clear of that area, mostly because he knew that she would gravitate towards other areas of the TARDIS, parts that were familiar and not fabricated from the dark corridors of an ancient's consciousness.

The situation didn't make a lick of sense to the Doctor. What could possibly hide in his memory that he didn't want himself to see? There was the Doctor who never should have been, but he, the Eleventh, had found him and absorbed him on his own. While he hadn't wanted his memories of the Last Great Time War back in his head, he couldn't risk the others seeing. There were some matters that were better kept to himself, and the Time Wars were not meant to be seen by humans, no matter how strong, clever, or brave.

If he could keep his memories of the Time War, why hide something else? Unless it wasn't his doing. Fracturing regenerations was something that only happened under extreme mental stress. Sherlock was keeping something from him and whatever it was, was somewhere deep in his head. Whatever Sherlock didn't want him to realize, the Doctor knew he needed to find out what it was. No one was allowed to decide what he did or didn't know.

He twirled the sonic around in his hand as he thought. Those Winchester boys he didn't like at all. How did they get access to his head anyways? What kind of monster hunters know how to break into the head of a Time Lord? He shuddered at the word 'hunter.' He couldn't imagine how many innocent creatures they had killed because they had been too pigheaded to give them a chance. He was going to have to keep a very tight leash on them from now on.

Amelia Pond. With the little piece of information about colliding universes, he could see how she had broken through to the future once again. Perhaps the TARDIS couldn't land in 1938 New York, but if Amy had travelled outside of that sphere of influence, weakened by the fact that three worlds were gradually impacting one another and comingling, it was possible that she could have met a time traveler to bring her forward. Angels, however, the Doctor was still skeptical about. Until he saw and scanned one himself, he was still holding out that angels weren't true celestial beings. He had been called one enough not to believe in angels.

When this whole mess was over, if they could straighten it out, would Amy be able to stay with him on the TARDIS, or would she be pulled back to New York? If they could put universes back where they were supposed to be, it was entirely possible that his Pond could be lost to him for a second time. That was a problem to be dealt with. Briefly, he wondered how Clara and Amy would get on together if they were forced to share the same TARDIS.

He'd rather not pit two such strong headed women against each other if he could help it.

I hope you guys enjoyed it! I know these chapters now aren't super exciting but hopefully we'll see some more action in the coming chapters. Interviewed for a job Wednesday and still haven't heard anything back. Kind of being eaten up by worry, so my writing may not be A+ at the moment. In the meantime, please leave a review and tell me what you like, don't like, what you'd like to know/see! With luck, I'll see you all on Tuesday with a new chapter!