A/N: Hello everyone! I know it's been a wee while since I last updated, so sorry about that. I just thought I'd clarify something; for Sam and Dean this is set during season 5, after Lucifer rose from the pit and before Sam jumped in Lucifer's cage. For Amy and Rory... hmmm, a bit trickier! At first I was going to stage it right before Amy leaves the Doctor, but in canon she and Rory have already left (see: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe). I guess if we ignore all that it fits into season six. So! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/added to alerts/faved so far. It really means a lot to me :)
One Heart part 6:
Sam and Dean cock and raise their guns instantly, but Crowley seems unworried by it. He merely chuckles, and steps outside onto the porch, his hands resting in the pockets of his charcoal-black suit pants, and an amused expression on his face. The Doctor notes that the brothers both have tough-guy faces on; Sam's lips are tightly pursed, and Dean's eyes are stone-cold. He remembers that his crossroads demon and his new companions have met before, and he can now make the assumption that they're not the best of friends.
"Ahh, boys, ever trusting..." Crowley says, raising an eyebrow at the guns.
Sam growls, "Only a fool would trust a demon." He stares stonily at the King of Hell, his hands holding the gun steady.
Crowley starts to splutter with laughter. "Oh Sam, you're too cute! I'm guessing you've decided to... conveniently forget that demon bitch that followed you around for months. What was her name again? Ruby?" Sam doesn't reply, but the fury on his face is enough to convince the Doctor that this Ruby is not someone the two of them should be discussing anytime soon.
It's then that Crowley finally realises Amy and the Doctor, standing behind the Winchesters (and the guns, for which Amy is thankful). He calls out, "Come out of hiding, Doctor. I may have your soul, and I may be a demon, but you've no reason to be afraid of little old me."
Sam looks like to choke. "He has... he has your..." he splutters, his eyes leaving Crowley for the first time and landing on the Doctor, wide and... worried? Or is that disbelief? Whatever it is, the expression on his face is almost comical, he looks so surprised. Dean manages to finish for him, "Did you sell your soul to him?"
"I had no choice," the Doctor says. He takes Amy's hand in his. "Amy was gone and I had to bring her back before I forgot her."
Amy brushes her hair out of her eyes and looks down at the ground. Sam can see the sadness in her eyes. She didn't want this. Neither had he. He'd found it so hard to deal with the fact that Dean was going to die for him, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. Every time he'd looked at his brother the words "One year to live" – or some variation of them depending on the time – would run through his head. His hands would shake, and sometimes his eyes would burn with tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. But now his brother was alive and well. They were still hunting. Everything was okay.
"Yes, it's all very touching," Crowley says, taking slow steps down the porch stairs, each footfall a timed emphasis on his words, "but I have business to do here, boys."
"So do we," says Dean, and Crowley raises an eyebrow.
"Whatever it is you think you need to do, you're wrong. I have everything under control."
Sam takes a step toward him, and Crowley raises a hand, stopping him in his tracks and pushing him backwards onto his arse. Dean does the same a second later, and is unceremoniously shoved into a tree. Crowley looks at them and smiles ruefully. "I'm honoured that you think you can help me, boys, really I am, but- excuse my French- piss off now." His tone is suddenly quite angry. He glares at them as they stand, saying not a word, with his eyebrows raised, waiting for them to go. Dean scoffs at him and says, "If you think we're going to just leave, you're either crazy, stupid, or both."
The two of them glare at each other, while the other three watch with bated breath. Amy doesn't quite know what's going on, having never met Crowley before today. She does know, however, that he's the demon who bought her back from oblivion and back into the Doctor's life. He's also the demon who holds the Doctor's soul. She doesn't quite know whether to praise him or curse him.
Even the birds in the trees have quietened. A warm breeze drifts by, and Crowley's gaze drops. His anger is evident as he says, "Fine, you can come in, but I can promise you that you're not going to like what you see." He turns his back on them and stomps up the porch stairs, not looking to see if they're following. Dean walks forward just as the demon disappears through the door, swallowed by the old house. The others move slowly after them, apprehensive. Amy suddenly feels rather afraid, so she holds onto the Doctor's hand. He gives her a squeeze to reassure her. He's glad that she seems to have nothing to say to him, because he wouldn't know how to respond to her; not now, not now that she knows everything. He's grateful for her silence because it allows him time to think about how to tell her she has to leave him once this job is done. He can't imagine her taking the news very well. They reach the door and she releases his hand. He sighs, and treads heavily after her, into the gloom of the house.
Cobwebs adorn the corners of the hallway and the walls are damp and mossy green. The Doctor looks to the end of the narrow corridor just in time to see Crowley disappear through the door at the other end, Dean and Sam and Amy hot on his heels. His hand lingers on the doorknob, remembering the last time he entered a house unknowing of what he would find. The last shaft of light slides away as the door clicks shut, creaking as it goes. Amy looks back briefly, and raises her hand, saying "come on, Doctor." Her voice is soft and lilting in the dark of the house, like happiness breaking into a bad dream.
Through the door is a dirty kitchen, and to the right of that a lounge. Dust coats everything – the floor, the sofa, the air. Amy covers a cough with her hand, and looks back at her footsteps, dark and obvious in the layer of dirt that covers the room from floor to ceiling. She turns around and sees what she failed to see on her entry, what Sam and Dean and her Doctor are already gaping at; a young girl in a embroidered dark green dress, embraced by heavy chains, sitting in a chair with her back to a huge fireplace, just sitting there quietly... and flickering like bad reception on a TV. "What's going on?" Amy says. "Who is she?"
Crowley shrugs. "Oh, she's the one who's been killing those poor women all over town."
"Is she... is she a ghost?"
Crowley claps once, sarcastically, and says, "Well done, points to the red-head! Yes, dear, she's a ghost, and an angry one at that."
Amy takes a closer look. The chains are dark and scratched with strange symbols; no language she's seen before. The moment she looks at them they change, and become English words, though they're still rather hard to understand. She looks back at once and beckons The Doctor, who moves forward and mouths them silently to himself, nodding as he realises that this a binding spell, engineered to keep the spirit from escaping. He looks around and spies a ring of salt around the chair. Sam says, "Those are iron chains etched with a binding spell, am I right?" He doesn't wait for Crowley to reply. "What do you want with a ghost, Crowley?"
"She is, I suppose you could say, a deal gone horribly wrong." Dean and Sam raise their eyebrows simultaneously, adopting the same "So?" face which makes it clearer than ever that they're brothers, and more like each other than the Doctor had thought.
Crowley paces slowly towards the girl, who squirms as he nears her. She doesn't make a sound, only wriggles in her seat like a child in time-out. She looks shameful, abashed, and contrary – a small pale figure with a pale slit in her throat and a swelling to her wrists that Amy has only just noticed, having focused only on her face and pretty dress. "She's been a very naughty girl indeed," Crowley muses. "You see, ten years ago she proposed a deal to me at a dusty little crossroads in Alabama. She wanted to be respected, feared, idolised, as teenagers sometimes do, so she called me up, but when I told her I'd come back for her in ten years she tried to kill me." He shouts the last words, making the girl flinch. Her eyes are wide and scared. Sam and Dean look on without, it seems, a hint of either surprise or confusion, only curiosity. Even their anger has faded away; the girl's performance has convinced them that the demon is not lying.
"She had a knife and a bottle of holy water," Crowley drawls, seemingly calm once again. "I had to stop her, of course. She was young and stupid and it got her killed."
The Doctor catches the girl, who can be no more than sixteen, staring at him, silently pleading with him or simply studying him. Whatever it is, her innocence is striking. He moves forward and attempts to touch her shoulder, his stomach flipping in surprise when he realises that he can. She's a ghost, but she feels like a real person, though the coldness of her skin and the constant flickering of her form gives her away. He speaks softly to her, "Why did you do it?" Her eyes, green like her dirty dress, watch him unblinkingly. She gives a huge shudder and opens her mouth, but only a whisper escapes.
"She can't speak. That's what happens, dear, when you're slit from ear to ear," Crowley says in a sing-song voice.
"You haven't explained everything, Crowley," says the Doctor. He moves away from the girl, towards the demon. "What exactly was it that she wanted?"
Crowley looks at the girl, almost fondly. On a man it would seem fatherly, but on a demon it's quite creepy. "She wanted to be... grown-up," he says. "She wanted me to make her an adult, and I told her I could, so long as she loaned me her soul. She asked me how long it would be for, and I said ten years. She asked what would happen then, and I said she would die. She seemed about to give up... until she pulled out the demon-killing knife."
"Where would she get a knife like that?" says Sam.
"She can't say, with her neck in that state. The dead do that, you know; take secrets to the grave, it's really quite frustrating-"
"Why do you have to keep her chained up like this?" Dean gruffly interrupts. "Why not just burn her bones?"
"I never buried her," Crowley shrugs. "And why should I? I just tossed some gasoline and a match her way and that was that. She burned ten years ago, boys. I don't know what to tell you."
"She must have left something behind, then."
"What do you mean?" Amy says.
"It could be a lock of hair or some other body part – enough to keep her from moving on," Sam says.
"So we have to find it?"
"You don't have to find anything," Sam says, looking at the Doctor. "It's not too late to just go home."
"I can't go home," the Doctor says, staring at Sam. Sam can hardly hold his gaze – a young face and old eyes, wise beyond his imagination and perhaps his ability to comprehend – but he does, and he can see... what? He thinks respect, because the Doctor seems pleased that Sam doesn't look away as so many people must do. Sam doesn't view this man as a monster in the slightest, just something different. Like himself.
Sam nods and The Doctor grins, childlike again. "We'd better get started then!" he says.