Author's Note: So I've been able so far to keep up the every-other-day posting schedule, and it's one I'd like to do my best to keep up in the future, but fair warning: the next chapter's likely to be a little late. I'm having some work/school related problems, mostly involving my department preventing me from getting a really good job, and I'm pretty down about it so the writing's not coming easily. So if the next chapter is a day or two late, I hope everybody will understand.
I hope you enjoy this chapter (I feel like I'm starting to get Sam's voice better), I promise we'll get more Whovian soon, and if you have a moment to send a poor, sad grad student your thoughts in some lovely reviews it would boost my spirits. :)
The day started off for Sam pretty much like every day started off for Sam, lately.
The blaring of what he was almost positive by this point were air-raid sirens from the Cold War woke him, and he thought, If anybody's listening, let Bobby be alive. Let Dean be brave. Let the Doctor find us.
That prayer delivered, that mantra begun, Sam stood up from his bunk and stretched. It was nearly five, and if he was late, there would be punishment. So he shrugged on his jeans and shirt, both torn and dirty, and looked across the room to his bunk-mate.
He smiled softly and shook his head, leaning over and prodding the sleeping figure, who grunted and curled up tighter. "The wake-up call is going off," he said, keeping his voice low. "You've got to get up before anybody comes in."
He was met with another grunt and the dismissive wave of a hand. He caught the wrist with gentle fingers and sat down on the bed, tugging on the wrist until its owner sat up grudgingly. Her dark hair was tousled, and as her brown eyes blinked open, a pout pulled down the corners of her full lips. "You're no fun," she murmured.
"None," Sam agreed, pulling her up and giving her a kiss on the forehead. "Come on. Seriously, get up."
Ruby threw the thin sheet off petulantly, rolling her shoulder to work out a knot from the uncomfortable bed and throwing her head back in a fit of drama. "I don't want to," she whined.
"News flash, Ruby," Sam said, grabbing his over-shirt from the floor by his bed and pulling it on, "nobody cares what you want anymore." He buttoned his shirt quickly, casting an anxious glance out the window to gauge the light. He still had a few minutes.
"I can leave whenever I want to, you know," she retorted. "I'm not stuck here like you are."
Sam paused in buttoning his cuff, and walked over to the bed. He knelt at the edge of it, taking Ruby's face into his hands and tracing her temple with his thumb. "I know," he said, "and I'm grateful. Don't think I'm not." He let his right hand fall from her face, and gently touched a place on her inner arm, a faint scar, almost healed.
"Oh, I know you're grateful," Ruby said, and there was something in her voice, something a little hard-edged and a little controlling and that Sam didn't entirely like. "Can't get by without me."
Sam pressed his lips together, but didn't say anything, because she wasn't wrong. Instead, he just rubbed his thumb over that scar silently.
The moment passed, and he stood, holding his hands out for her. She sighed and took his hands, standing, then letting him go and pulling on the jeans she'd left pooled by her bed. "I'll be gone before anybody checks the room, don't worry. But I don't know what you're so scared about, Sammy."
"Sam," he corrected her automatically. He saw her stop in the middle of pulling on her shirt, then resume, turning around as she tugged the shirt down around her midriff.
"Sam," she echoed. "I don't know why you're worried. I could take care of anybody who found me here."
"I just don't want to cause trouble," he said. "People get hurt when I cause trouble."
"Sheep," Ruby scoffed.
"Ruby," Sam scolded. "Come on. We just need to keep our heads down until—"
"Until the Doctor comes to save you?" Ruby asked, heat rising in her voice. Sam said nothing. They'd had this argument before, and he knew it pretty much by heart. "Sam, he's not coming. It's been months."
Sam recited his part. "The Doctor's not great at the timely landings."
"He'd make an exception for this," Ruby said. "Sam, you know he would. If he was gonna come, he'd be here. He'd have stopped this." She rolled her eyes and her nose wrinkled just a little bit as she added, "You are his golden boy, after all."
Sam shut his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and rubbing his shoulder where he'd been injured just a few days before. He hated it when Ruby said that kind of thing. She didn't understand. She didn't understand what had happened between him and the Doctor, didn't understand the burdens that they carried for each other. The Doctor had been tortured in Hell for years to save Sam and Dean; it was the Doctor's blood that gave Sam his visions, that was the impetus for his mother's death and the ruin of his family. Golden boy was such a stupid oversimplification for the debts they owed one another, and he was pretty sure that at this point Ruby only did it to make him angry. She seemed to be doing that more, lately—pissing him off just for the hell of it, because she knew he wouldn't do anything back. Couldn't, because he needed her too much. To remind him, maybe, that she had the power here.
So all he did was button the last button on his cuff, say "Sure," and walk out the door before Ruby could say anything else.
The weather was beginning to cool down, and for that small mercy Sam was grateful. Hauling the metal to the camp in the torrid heat of July and August had been a misery, but at least it had meant getting out of the perimeters of the camp for a little while. Since they'd finished bringing the metal, or the bulk of it, the gates had been closed off and no one went in or out. He hadn't seen the outside world in weeks.
If rumors were to be believed, though, there wasn't much to see anymore. The Celebrity Purge and the Great Decimation had occurred really early on—ten percent of the Earth's human population, dead, just like that, along with world leaders and prominent entertainers across the globe. The Celebrity Purge had been when Sam was still with Bobby; the Great Decimation, just days after the last time they'd spoken. Everyone said things had gotten worse since then, although Sam wasn't sure how that was possible.
Information was hard to come by, even about what they themselves were doing. It was obviously weapons manufacturing—obvious to Sam, at least, but maybe he just knew a weapon when he saw it. The people who ran the camp were extremely careful to keep each phase of construction separate from every other phase, to the point where workers in each phase were kept in discrete areas of the camp. Sam worked on Phase 3; he'd never run across a worker from any other Phase, even by accident, even by chance.
His guess was rockets. Rockets of some kind. Harold Saxon needed giant rockets equipped with something, because while he didn't know much about nuclear physics he was pretty sure the camp didn't have the kind of equipment necessary to make a nuke. Whatever was added, it was in Phase 4, and he just had a sinking feeling about it. He couldn't fathom what Saxon was going to do with them, because when they were completed, they were just kind of...planted. Stockpiled. Trucks would come and move them, but there were some that stayed at the camp, stuck in the silos that dotted the perimeter.
All in all it wasn't something Sam really wanted to be a part of, but he didn't have a choice. Nobody did, anymore. The Master had—no, Sam reminded himself firmly, Harold Saxon had taken over, and it was the beginning of a glorious new empire, and human freedom had no place in that empire. More and more, it was appearing that human life had no place in that empire. The whispers that ran through the camp talked about whole countries being exterminated, continents starting to become barren of humanity. There wasn't a place on the planet that hadn't been overcome with Harold Saxon and his Spheres, whatever they were, aside from death machines.
The only whispers that gave anybody hope talked about a woman named Martha, a woman who'd escaped from England when Saxon took over, who was building a weapon to bring him down. Nobody knew what Saxon was, but he wasn't human, and he couldn't be killed by a normal weapon. (Sam wished, so fervently, that he'd been able to get a shot at him—silver bullets, holy water, Devil's traps, rock salt, there were so many things he could try that civilians wouldn't have thought of. But he knew, realistically, that there hadn't been time, and even if he'd been in London he wouldn't have had a chance to try his options.)
Martha, though, Martha Jones, she knew of a weapon that could kill him, the rumors said. Martha was walking the Earth to find the components she needed, and she was going to save the world. Martha had a plan. Martha had found the first of the parts she needed. Martha escaped from London. Martha was going to save them.
Sam didn't believe that Martha Jones existed, frankly.
But Sam still believed in the Doctor, so he wasn't despairing quite yet.
He walked through the work camp, through the ramshackle barracks and the towering gunmetal grey workhouses. He nodded to some of his fellow Phase 3 workers, and they bobbed their heads nervously back. Except for one, who grinned and jogged up to him.
"Rise and shine, Sam!" Matt's grin hadn't died in all these months, and it hadn't stopped being contagious. He was a small man, a little older than Sam (about Dean's age, his mind supplied, and Sam tried to ignore it), with dark, curly hair and a sedentary office worker's physique. He'd been one of the prisoners Sam tried to protect during the load-in period, and Matt had been very grateful. He'd attached himself to Sam since then, in a way, and if he was going to be honest, Sam didn't mind the company. He smiled back at him.
"I don't know about shine," Sam said: his customary reply.
"Long night last night?" Matt asked.
Sam blinked past flashes of the previous night—flashes of blood and pain and power and intimacy—and said, "You could say that."
He and Matt walked into the Phase 3 workhouse together, pausing to be checked in by one of the stone-faced, black-clad supervisors. Once they'd been logged, they walked quietly to their stations, as they did every day.
It was assembly-line work, much preferable to the heavy lifting they'd been doing, but still arduous. Sam and Matt had managed to maneuver themselves into position as partners on the line, so Sam could shoulder a little more of the work until Matt got his strength up. They both picked up the welding helmets they left at their stations and fitted them over their heads, and got to work.
The work was hard but monotonous, and Sam found himself easily lulled into a routine. And at least, he thought, it was keeping him in shape for the inevitable day when the Doctor came and they needed to fight. (Maybe the Doctor wouldn't be happy with it, but he was going to get a couple of swings in to the traitors who'd sided with Saxon against their own species.) Matt did the detail work, the spot-welding and making sure the panels were in the right places, and Sam did the lifting.
Matt's voice was very low, barely audible over the dull roar of the workhouse, as he said, "They say Japan's gone."
Sam stopped for just a moment, then got back to work, hoping no one noticed his lapse. "What do you mean, gone?" he asked.
"Well, not gone," Matt amended, "not like, the whole country is gone. But they say there was an attack, the Spheres attacked, and nobody survived. All of Japan."
"Christ," Sam murmured, shoving a panel into place with unnecessary force. "How many people is that?"
"More than one hundred million," Matt replied, his voice dull. "The attack only lasted a day. A hundred million people in one day." He tilted his welding helmet down, and Sam followed suit. He hit the edges of the panels, his hands trembling only very slightly. He still managed a serviceable line. When he finished, he popped up the visor of his helmet and said, "They're not going to let any of us survive, are they."
"Don't talk like that," Sam said. "We're gonna make it out of this. We are. Just keep your head down."
Matt laughed. "Yeah. Okay, Sam. Whatever you say."
They continued their work, but Sam couldn't get his head wrapped around what Matt had said. One hundred million people. More than that. All dead, all because of Harold Saxon and his Spheres.
Doctor, where the hell are you?
Sometimes Sam wished that his connection to the Doctor, the connection he'd felt since the first time he'd seen him in that vision of Ellen's, would extend so far as to let him deliver a message. The message would be strongly-worded, that's for sure. Where the hell have you been these past months. Why didn't you come back for us. Don't you see what's happening? Do you care? Hundreds of millions of people dead, Doctor, where were you?
But Sam knew. In a small, dark place in his mind, a place that Ruby kept prodding, he knew that if the Doctor knew what was going on, he'd be here. Nothing could keep him from the Earth when it was in danger like this. So what happened?
He slammed his fist down on a panel, and Matt startled, then looked around the workhouse. He grew very still and then turned back around, fiddling with his blowtorch, and said as quietly as he could while still being heard, "Look busy, Sam. The supervisor's heading this way."
Sam took Matt's advice and began to fix the panel into its proper position. He almost had it in place when he heard a crisp, British-accented voice say, "Samuel Winchester."
He stilled, his hands flat against the panel, and took a moment to calm himself before turning. "I'm Sam Winchester," he said softly.
He knew he shouldn't have hit the panel. He knew it would be too loud, draw too much attention. And his shoulder still hurt from the last time he was made an example of. For all that he talked about keeping his head down...he should have taken his own advice more. But Japan. All of Japan. Every man, woman, and child.
"Head of Camp is asking for you," the supervisor said, and Sam could swear he looked nervous. The man fidgeted with his gun, and Sam held out his hands, placating.
"Okay," he said. "That's—okay. I'll come with you."
The man nodded tightly, and Sam turned to Matt. "Don't worry," he said with a tight smile. "I'll be right back."
Matt looked panicked, but Sam was grateful for his composure as he said, "Okay, Sam. Be careful, all right?"
"Yeah," Sam replied. "Yeah, I will be."
He let the supervisor lead him away from Matt, out into the morning that was just starting to show the colors of sunrise. Sam looked up at the sky.
Now would be a great time, Doctor.
The Head of Camp's office was located all the way across the facility, and so Sam was walked through the workhouse area of Phase 4 for the first time. It made his skin prickle. There wasn't as much noise as in Phase 3...just a low sort of humming, an almost warm sound, and an energy that he could feel vibrating in his bones. Something was being built in there that had no business being built by ordinary people.
Ordinary people. He looked to his left at the man leading him through the camp, and he frowned. "Are you from London?" he asked.
The man startled, just a little, and glanced quickly at Sam and then away. He said nothing.
"Is your family okay?" Sam asked. "Have they let you hear from them?"
The man faltered a step, and Sam saw him bite the inside of his cheek. "I can't talk to you," he said quietly.
"Okay," Sam said quickly. "That's okay. You don't have to. I just...I hope your family's okay, that's all."
The man barked out a laugh, and Sam watched him cautiously. "Why," the man began, then broke off and shoved his fist in front of his mouth, stifling another laugh or something else, Sam wasn't sure. "Why do you have to do that?"
"Do..." Sam echoed.
"This job is hard enough," the man said. "Don't make me talk to you. Don't act like you care about my family. Okay? Please."
Sam nodded silently, lowering his eyes.
A moment passed before he asked, "Are you going to kill me?"
The man looked up at him, and said, "No. No, Head of Camp wanted you unharmed. I don't think he's going to kill you."
Sam nodded again, content with that answer, given that it was the best he was likely to get.
They finally arrived at the offices: sterile and unadorned as the rest of camp, with nothing to really mark it as the place where the only free humans in the whole place lived. Maybe that was on purpose. Sam wouldn't have done anything to them, of course—it wasn't in his nature—but there were lots of angry, mostly helpless people in the camp who might have decided that the only way out was though the offices, aided by lots of persuasive violence.
The supervisor led him in, and Sam looked around himself. It looked a lot like the workhouses, actually, and it occurred to him that maybe these people weren't so free, themselves. Maybe it was just a different kind of slavery. Maybe he'd underestimated Saxon's power; maybe the self-proclaimed Master didn't need any human collaborators. Maybe the Spheres were enough.
"I have Samuel Winchester, to see the Head of Camp," the supervisor said to a thin young woman at the desk. She nodded, fast, anxious movements, and picked up a phone. She repeated the message, her voices high and breathy, and then hung up the phone.
"You can go on in," she said, and then looked for the first time at Sam. There was something odd in her eyes, something a little bit frightened and a little bit awed. Sam smiled at her, and she looked away quickly, shuffling papers in the manner of someone pretending to be busy.
He frowned, and followed the supervisor through a set of double doors into another room.
It was a waiting room, and it was furnished with uncomfortable-looking, threadbare chairs and sofas. The supervisor gestured for Sam to sit, and upon doing so, it was confirmed for him that the furniture was, indeed, uncomfortable.
He'd never been here before. Never had the occasion to. He'd known people to be sent here, before; they never came back. No one had seen the Head of Camp, or at least no one Sam had ever spoken to. He was a mysterious figure, and probably on purpose. It referred some of Saxon's power to him. Saxon's feet never touched the Earth; the Head of Camp's face was never seen. So Sam had no idea what to expect.
Another young woman walked into the room. She was less thin than the girl at the desk; she looked like she ate better. Her blonde hair was swept back into a bun, and she wore a skirt and blouse rather than the all-black uniform of the rest of the camp's security and staff. "The Head will see you now," she said, her eyes barely flicking up to catch a glimpse of Sam.
What were they telling people about him?
Sam allowed himself to be led into the room, and seated in front of a desk. The Head of Camp sat in front of him.
He was younger than Sam had expected, maybe in his late thirties, with some grey sprinkling his black hair. He wore the same uniform as everyone else, and his face was severe, if not unattractive. "Samuel Winchester," he said. Unsurprisingly, he, too, was British.
"Yes, sir," Sam said.
The Head pulled out a manila folder that had Sam's name typed on the tab. Sam didn't try too hard to get a look at it. "Evidently the Master has had his eye on you for a while," he said, and Sam felt a shock run through him. "He's quite interested in you. He thinks you have potential."
"Potential for what?" Sam asked, and the Head looked surprised that he'd spoken out of turn. He quieted, and sat back in his chair.
"That's not for me to know," the Head remarked pointedly. "Or you, for that matter, Samuel. Suffice it to say that you are a person of interest, and that you should be glad that you are. You're being transferred."
Sam didn't say anything, but he froze, and his eyes locked onto the Head's. Transferred?
"Away from the camp," he said. "No more hard labor for you. Aren't you glad?"
Sam kept silent for another moment, before he realized that the question was not rhetorical, and that the Head was waiting for an answer. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, very, yes. Thank you. Sir." He felt pretty sure that he managed to twist his features into something that almost looked like gratitude while all he could feel was sick anticipation churning in his stomach.
Evidently almost was good enough for horse-shoes, hand grenades, and the Head of Camp, because the man smiled and stood from his chair. "We will facilitate your transfer immediately," he said, "as the Master is fairly insistent that you arrive posthaste."
The supervisor from his workhouse gripped Sam's arm and guided him standing, while Sam stammered, "Now? Now, as in, now?"
Ruby, his mind screamed, Ruby, Ruby. He couldn't go anywhere. He couldn't leave without her.
"Yes," the Head replied, sounding amused, "now as in now, Mr. Winchester." He turned to two black-clad figures, both wearing berets and carrying rifles, and said, "Prep him for transport."
The two figures strode forward in lock-step and grabbed Sam by the arms. He thought about fighting for a moment, but realized that, for once in his life, he was unarmed, and didn't stand a chance against their weaponry. If he struggled, they'd just shoot him, and that wouldn't do anybody any good.
(That same part of his brain screamed if they take you from Ruby you might as well die it might be preferable, and he did his best to ignore it.)
So he stood still between the two soldiers, controlling his breathing carefully as the man to his right hit some buttons on a device he wore on his wrist. Sam shivered. Something was wrong here. There was something wrong with some part of this, something that shouldn't exist. He'd felt like that once before, he knew, that feeling that something was off, that something was at odds with the rest of the universe, if he could only think...
He couldn't figure it out before the man finished setting his device and gripped Sam's arm. The Head of Camp smiled at him and gave a flippant salute, saying, "Have a safe trip, Mr. Winchester."
And suddenly Sam was no longer at the camp.
Suddenly Sam was somewhere much worse.