Thanks for all the reviews, Anonymous and Sherlocked! I'm glad you've been enjoying it. Sorry about the lag in updating. I've had some stuff come up, writer's block, and then some extraneous plot bunnies, and then real life keeping me been busy with getting ready to start a new job. lol So again, sorry for the lag but rest assured, I haven't forgotten!
Sam came grudgingly, still in the grips of the telekinesis, which forced him to follow Crowley around the corner, where he saw a few paces ahead of them, settled back into a corner, a tall blue police box.
"Wh—" Sam gasped at seeing it. He was supposed to protect it, hide her, he thought dourly, anger and concern boiling in his blood.
"Oh, really? You have an infinite resource, all in this giant blue box, and what do you do? You bring it here to my doorstep, a gift for me. All it's missing is one of those atrocious big red bows. Really, though. I'm in control of it. And right now, you're going in, for safekeeping."
"What did you do with them?" Sam grunted, trying to keep from moving from the spot.
"Oh, they're indisposed at the moment," Crowley replied.
"No. I deserve an answer. Hell, just tell me. Then I'll do what you ask—"
"Oh, quit whining. Your alien friend is more or less alright. Now. In!" Crowley snapped his clapped so that he door swung open,
forcing Sam through the door telekinetically with a nod of his head.
The door slammed shut behind him, the empty sound echoing in the seemingly dead console room.
He gasped as he felt the telekinetic powers cease to grasp him, leaving him teetering on his feet with exhaustion as he realized he'd been still struggling against them subliminally, tensing everything.
"God," he muttered, leaning against the wall as he caught his balance.
"Hello?" he called into the emptiness of the Tardis.
It seemed to echo.
"Hello?" He turned around, looking about the console room as if to find something, any sign of the Doctor or Canton…
"No, no" he muttered, kicking the doors, which rattled but held fast.
"Open, damn it," he spat the words, trying again to no avail.
"No, of course not. But…The Doctor…I have to find the Doctor," he said to himself quietly.
He peered into the depths, calling out his name again. "Doctor?"
This time, he heard a hoarse sound. An echoing, coughing, from somewhere up the corridor.
He followed it, calling out again, his walk breaking into a jog, which became a sprint as he raced past doorways, footsteps echoing over the metal flooring as he followed the hallway that seemed to stretch on forever, trying to find the source of the reply.
"Doctor?" He called out again.
"Sam." It was hoarse still, but as he neared the source, the reply grew more distinct, so that the words were discernible. "Sam. In here."
He heard it now again as he rounded a corner, sticking his head through a door. He saw the chamber was some sort of brig, chrome surfaces reflecting the pale face of the Doctor where he sat slumped against the wall behind the chrome bars of a cell that cut him off from the rest of the room.
"Doctor?" He asked, approaching.
"Hello, Sam. Good to see you're alright." The Doctor managed a small smile. "Don't worry with me. I'll be fine. But your Crowley fellow, he's breached the psychic fields. He's in control of her corporeal form at the moment. It's how he got me in here-" he reached out, as if to touch the bars, but a blue spark appeared at the tip of his finger, making a loud zap. "He induced her to create a forcefield to contain me. I can feel her fighting him, locking herself away behind her shields so that she can redouble and try to throw him out, but he's putting up quite a fight..." He trailed off, shaking his head.
"So...he's in control?" Sam asked, his expression troubled.
"Not entirely. He has the physical manifestation of her under his control, but she is fighting back, trying to throw him off, but most of all to protect the infinity of reality from his view. She knows he must not see it, must not be allowed to gaze upon the Untempered Schism." The Doctor explained,
"Yeah, but what did he do to you?" Sam pressed, kicking the bars to the Doctor's cell as if it would do any good, to reach toward him. As the toe of his boot slipped off the polished surface of the bars, it hit the forcefield, which crackled loudly as an electric shock seared its way into his foot.
"Ack," he recoiled, grimacing.
"Don't bother, " The Doctor sighed, "It won't do any good. And, to answer your question, as to how he overcame me, well, he induced part of the control modules to electrocute me."
"What?" Sam exclaimed, "But, you're OK now?"
"Don't worry with me, Sam. There are more important things to do right now. For one—"
"More important," A sardonic echoed throughout the chamber, startling Sam and the Doctor to looking up and about for its source.
Yet, he could see none. A thin blip of static as the speaker paused betrayed its origin as electronic. From this, Sam surmised it must be being broadcast via an unseen microphone somewhere in the chamber.
"Crowley," Sam growled, tensing as if to fight. "What the hell do you want? What are you doing—"
"Oh, Moose. Again, with the questions. Answer being, it's for me to know, and you, well, not to. I'm not that stupid, unlike you. And I'm the one in control here, so, really, I'll do the questioning from here on."
"Sure you will," Sam said bitterly, nose wrinkling in disgust. "Keep hiding wherever the hell you are, because you know, when I find you—"
"When you find me? Really? Dimwit, you'll be doing no such thing. Perhaps, though, you'd be interested to know a little more about your alien friend." Crowley said over the speakers.
"What about him?" Sam replied, anger rushing to the surface as he spoke, whirling on the spot to search for something to direct his glare at. "What about him? What about him could possibly concern me when you're here?"
"Well, I suppose such subtlety might be lost on you. But, Doctor, forget Jolly Green's stupidity. Let's not kid ourselves. It's not as if you're innocent, as you tell yourself. So, so very many billions have died at your hands. Oh, and those you called your friends. Like Canton. But why don't you keep up your charade? Keep running from the truth, Time Lord? It's always been what you were best at. Run, run like you always have!" The transmission crackled before switching off.
The Doctor stiffened, gazing at the floor.
"Run, from what?" Sam asked.
"From yourself," he said softly.
A heavy moment of quiet fell.
"The terror of a thousand worlds, the blood of your own people, forever staining your back, and forever on your hands. I run from that. The death of everyone I ever knew, or ever will know. All my friends, they've died, because of me. No one makes it out alive." The Doctor replied slowly, still staring out across the floor.
"So it's true, what he's saying? You killed them? The people who trusted you?" Sam's face contorted with disgust, as he leaned against the bars, clenching them in his fists as if they could absorb some of the frustration that coursed through his veins.
"It doesn't matter. They died because of me. So very many others."
"But—your friends? Your own people?" Sam gaped, his voice a mixture of anger and disbelief.
"No, you don't understand," His tone seemed half snappish, half exhausted as he looked up, eyes burning with an ineffable mixture of rage and grief.
"Whatever," Sam said, sighing, turning away to sit with his back against the bars, "Forget it. It doesn't even matter. We're stuck in here, and the King of Hell is out there somewhere with your Tardis, possibly getting access to god-knows-what..."
"There was a war. A war bigger than you could ever imagine. The darkest of evil, the Daleks, against my people. Neither was going to win, but they were going to destroy the universe rather than fall. So I had to stop them." The Doctor's voice was low, grave.
Sam turned back to look at him slowly, and saw that he wasn't looking at him, but out across the room. He followed his gaze, where his eyes tracing across the empty expanse of wall.
"I...I guess I see what you mean now. You're not the only one who's faced that kind of choice," Sam said quietly. "I had the chance to end all of this. Close the gates of Hell itself, and I didn't. Dean—Dean kept me from it. Only, now, it's too late. I'm not sure what to do, although at one point, I know he would have wanted me to kill him rather than let him live like this. Thing is, I don't know if I can-"
Sam looked up suddenly as a tremendous rumbling noise shook the air. He scrambled aside, away from the cell, where it was coming crashing down between him and the bars of the Doctor's cell, staring as a partition in the ceiling began to descend. The Doctor said something, but Sam couldn't make it out over the commotion—he felt an unseen force fling him to the other side of the room as another partition now crashed into place in a slot in the floor, an immovable steel wall dividing the room so that he was cut off completely from the Doctor.
Sam moaned to himself, his head pounding from the impact against the floor from whatever had sent him sprawling.
"Finally, Moose. You got something right," Crowley growled as he emerged through a door to the next compartment. "You're in for quite a bit of that, actually. Now, come on, there's someone you should see."