Author's Note: I barely know what to say because the response to the last chapter was so overwhelming, and I am having so many feelings about it. Thank you guys so, so much for all of your kind words. I hope this chapter lives up to the promise of the last one.

Also, quick poll: would anybody be super offended if the next story wasn't in chronological order according to the Winchesters' time line? I feel like this story is so angsty that we need something lighter for the next one, and the story in the queue that's the most fun doesn't happen til DW S4, SPN S5/6. (Which I know, weird place for a fun story.) Let me know!

Sam was working really, really hard on not going crazy.

He felt like it was harder than it used to be, and Sam was a connoisseur of not-going-crazy. He'd been working at it consciously since he was twenty-one—although, if he thought about it, he'd been doing it since he was a kid and couldn't describe to Dean what exactly it was that felt off about Jack Harkness.

(In a vague, distant part of his mind, he hoped Jack was okay.)

But he couldn't get away from the frantic murmur of the Doctor's voice in his head, even if he couldn't make out the words, and his body was thrumming with power (in a way that it didn't, normally, and then he remembered that this wasn't Ruby's blood, it was the Doctor's, and he felt so ill that he had to stop walking for a moment). His hands trembled, his head swam, and Harold Saxon wanted an answer.

Sam Winchester was so totally screwed.

"I wanted to discuss your thoughts on my offer," Saxon was saying, his voice casual and his eyes placidly cast ahead on the hall before them, and Sam tried to keep his hands steady but wasn't having much success. "It has, after all, been several days, and honestly, I can't see what there is to consider further. Are there elements of it that are concerning you, Sam?"

Sam blinked hard against the buzzing sound of the Doctor in his head, and inhaled in a shuddery gasp. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Saxon turn to him, alarmed. He turned, too, bracing himself on the wall as he tried not to stumble.

Too many things in his mind. Way too many.

Time Lord blood was very different from demon blood.

"Are you quite all right, Sam?" Saxon asked, and it was all Sam could do not to jump. Instead he contented himself with staring, wide-eyed, at the Time Lord, processing his words very slowly.

"Yes," Sam whispered. He blinked again, shook his head, and started over. "Yeah. I'm, ah. Fine. I'm fine."

Saxon's face split in a gleeful grin, and he clapped Sam on the shoulder. Sam almost cried out at the contact—not because it hurt, but because it was too much sensation. Everything was too much.

"Been a while since you've had that in your system, hasn't it?" asked Saxon, and Sam just kept staring. "Gets your brain moving, your neurons going! Start thinking more like the god you should be, rather than the ape you were born as, eh?"

Sam wanted really badly to be insulted enough by that to do something about it, but his head was starting to hurt enough that it was hard to focus on anything else.

He was pretty sure he heard a murmur of sorry, and then the buzzing in his head faded into a subdued background white noise. He sucked in a breath, steadied himself, and focused on staying upright until he was pretty sure he could do it without thinking about it too much. He wetted his lips with his parched tongue, and said, "I'm. It's different. For sure. Gonna take some...getting used to. I guess." He swallowed hard.

Saxon's hand on his arm was almost comforting, if still a little too much pressure, and way too much closeness. "You'll get accustomed to it," the Time Lord promised. "Your brain will learn how to accept it, how to control it, and, eventually, how to master it." He chuckled a bit, and Sam frowned before he remembered Saxon's Time Lord moniker. Then it was just a bad pun, and the frown became deeper. Saxon noticed and sighed, a long-suffering sound. "Lighten up, Sammy."

"Don't call me that," Sam said, automatic, and his heart sank as he realized who it was he was talking to.

He was hesitant to look at Saxon, but when he did, he saw that the Time Lord's face was painted in a mockery of sympathy. "That's right," he said. "There's only one person who gets to call you that, right? Darling big brother. And I'm glad you brought him up."

"Did you find him?" Sam asked, a little too fast and a little too desperate. A smirk made its way onto Saxon's face, barely there but noticeable to Sam.

It was quickly squashed in favor of more sympathy. "Not yet," he said, "although I have my best agents looking for him. All of my forces are under orders not to harm him, but some of the humans have become...well, a bit savage, if we're being honest. I only hope we can find him before they do."

Sam was about to press him for more information, to make him elaborate on that thinly-veiled threat, but Saxon gripped both of his arms and turned him so that they were facing each other. Sam looked down at him, amazed at how vulnerable he could be made to feel by someone who, by all rights, he could physically overpower so easily. His eyes flicked over the floor and the walls, unwilling to meet Saxon's.

"I need an answer, Sam," the Time Lord said, his voice low. "I'm not your Doctor. I haven't his infinite patience. I need an answer, and I need it now."

His hands pressed into Sam's arms, and his eyes bored into Sam's head, and the fingers that gripped Sam tight enough to hurt could easily run over the communications board and order the Toclaphane to kill Dean. To kill him again, when he'd just now gotten back.

It was halfway in his mind to just say yes and be done with it, but sometimes a Winchester's brain can do things on its own, be stubborn and difficult even when its owner doesn't intend to, so instead he said, "How did you bring Dean back?"

Saxon stared at him for a moment, then released his arms and stalked a few paces away, running his hands through his blond hair. He blew a breath through his teeth in exasperation and said, "Does it matter? Your brother is back! Everything you wanted! You say yes, I keep him safe! You say yes, I give you the power to keep him safe! What more could you want, Sam? Why does it matter how I brought him back? I swear, I don't see what the Doctor sees in your kind. Pathetic primates, scrabbling in the dirt and too ignorant and fearful to accept a hand to elevate them."

"Just tell me what you did," Sam said, his voice soft, ignoring the churning fear in his stomach that rose as Saxon paced, growing more and more agitated by the second. "Please. There's...just tell me why I should believe my brother's okay. Why I should believe you brought him back right. Because...you can't do that. And the Doctor said he couldn't. Just make me understand. Please."

Saxon stopped pacing, and glared up at Sam. "No," he said. "Your brother is back, you ungrateful heap of poorly-evolved carbon, and if that's not enough for you to join me, not enough for you to allow me to give you a place in my empire, then you can join your precious Doctor and your precious Captain where you belong: under my boot."

Before Sam could fully react, Saxon snapped his fingers and Sam's arms were grabbed by two UNIT soldiers. He struggled for a second, but realized that it was futile, and stilled.

Saxon gestured, and one of the soldiers kicked Sam's legs from under him, and he crashed to his knees, barely supported by the soldiers. On purpose, he knew. Saxon approached him, crouched by him, and held his hands out on either side of Sam's head, waggling his fingers with wide eyes as he smiled a cruel smile. "If you won't join me willingly," he said, "then let's see what you have in that head of yours that I can use."

"No," Sam gasped, rearing away, but he was kept in place with a knee against his spine and Saxon's fingers locked onto his temples.

He'd only had his mind delved into once before, and that was when the Doctor gave him the knowledge of the TARDIS to get to the Shadow Proclamation, and it was nothing like this. Sam cried out in agony as Saxon tore through his mind, ripped his way through memories and thoughts and emotions and hopes and dreams. He shuddered and convulsed under Saxon's hands as he was laid bare, stripped to his essence and exposed for Saxon to pick through at his leisure. Every terrible hunt, every precious childhood memory, every time Dad had yelled at Dean and Sam wanted to scream and every time Dean had held Sam through his nightmares and every time Sam dreamed about going to college and every time Sam had relived Jess's death and every time Sam had relived Dean's death (deaths all of his deaths every damned Tuesday) opened under Saxon's demand, and Sam couldn't do anything but weep, but Sam knew the exact moment when Saxon found precisely what it was he was looking for.

Because Saxon didn't care about hurting Sam. Saxon wanted to hurt the Doctor, and he had what he needed now.

He took his hands away from Sam's head, and Sam gasped, a painful, violent, shuddering breath that shook his whole frame. He hung his head and hyperventilated, focusing on his breath and doing his best to meditate the way he knew how to do by now, dammit, and after a while he was able to look up and see that Saxon was smiling.

It was the worst smile he'd ever seen.

"Oh, Sammy," Saxon said, laughing, "we've been getting extracurricular with your poor little deformed brain, haven't we? I can't say I blame you, she's quite the pretty one. But really, Sammy. Demon blood? As if your own biology wasn't perversion enough for your Time Lord neurophysiology to have to bear, you're going to pollute yourself with demon blood? What would your Doctor think?"

"You can't," Sam choked out. "He doesn't-find out. Til later. Please. He can't know."

Saxon sat back on his heels and grinned. "But Sam, sweet little stupid Sam, this entire time line is running on a paradox that I created," he said. "It doesn't matter what happened before or after or since or in any direction. I am the Lord of Time, the Lord of This Time, and it will bend to my will, do you understand? Do you see what you've put yourself up against? Would yes have been such a hard word to say?"

"Please," Sam breathed, but Saxon simply clapped his hands and stood up, motioning for the UNIT soldiers to pull Sam to his feet. They did so, and Sam suppressed a cry of pain with no small amount of difficulty. He felt a few aftershock shudders run through his body, but he was supported, this time, by the soldiers.

"Let's go pay your old friend a visit," Saxon said, his voice saying suggestion but his eyes saying command, and the UNIT soldiers dragged Sam behind him as he took off down the hallway.

"I'm sure he'll be glad to see you," Saxon continued, his back to Sam. "He's been...a bit taciturn these last few months, you see. Perhaps a visit from his most favorite human would lift his spirits a little bit."

"Don't you tell him," Sam tried to shout, but his throat felt raw and he could only manage a sort of half-coughing voice. Saxon didn't even stop his progress, and certainly didn't deign to reply.

"Maybe the Doctor can advise me on how to handle the topic of your refusal," Saxon said, thoughtfully. "After all, I can't just let it slide. I am the supreme ruler of this planet and I can't afford to have that reputation, all the work I've put into my authority tarnished because one stubborn boy can't take a good thing when it's given to him. It's always been your problem, hasn't it, Sam? You and your brother. You can't see a good thing when it's handed to you."

Sam wanted to reply, but the buzzing had started in his head again, as the Doctor, he guessed, felt his panic or something. It was fuzzy and unclear at first, like it had been right after he'd drunk the blood, but it quickly resolved itself into clarity and he could hear him.

Samuel, what's wrong? What's happened? Can you talk to me? Has he hurt you?

And Sam wanted to reply to him, too. But he laughed, a low, broken chuckle, instead, because he was only human and he didn't know what to do. Didn't know if Saxon could hear him if he sent something back to the Doctor. Didn't know if he could push the thing about the demon blood far enough down that the Doctor wouldn't be able to find it, if he talked to him. And it wasn't fair: who thought it was a good idea to put the integrity of the time line into his hands? Who thought it would be safe to give Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood, Azazel's boy-king, screw-up Winchester kid extraordinaire who managed to kill both his mom and his brother, the tools to up-end the Doctor's own time line?

He didn't look up as the UNIT soldiers threw him into the control room. Didn't look up when he heard the Doctor gasp his name in a voice that was too frail and old to be the Doctor's. Didn't look up when Saxon grabbed him roughly by the hair, as though presenting him to the Doctor.

"You've certainly trained him well, Theta," Saxon sneered. "So noble and moral. Look up, Sammy, and see how well that's worked out for your mentor."

Sam didn't look up, and initially struggled against it when Saxon put a hand under his chin and tried to wrench his face up, but gave in after just a moment. He was too tired and hurt too much.

But when he gave in, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open. "Doctor," he whispered.

The creature in front of him looked vanishingly little like the Time Lord he knew. Wrinkled and decrepit, his large brown eyes sunken into his head and dull, his shoulders hunched in defeat. (Or what he wanted Saxon to think was defeat, Sam insisted to himself, although he wasn't convinced that it wasn't real. It looked real. It looked terribly real.) It was a shrunken shell of the Doctor that sat before him, looking small and vulnerable in the wheelchair. Sam felt a lump rise in his throat, and wasn't sure if it was grief or panic.

"This is where clinging to the past leads you," Saxon said, as though lecturing a class of disobedient students. "He is the past, Sam. I am the future. I am your future. His. The Earth's. All of humanity's, including your brother's, for better or for worse. It's for you to decide."

But Sam's eyes were only on the Doctor, and he could barely feel Saxon's hand wrapped tight in his hair, and he said, "I said no, Doctor. I didn't...I said no."

"I know, Samuel," the Doctor breathed.

"Such a touching reunion," said Saxon, releasing Sam's hair and walking between them, hands clasped together. "Oh, Doctor, I can see how proud you are of your little protegé. But I think Sammy has something to tell you, doesn't he?"

"Don't," Sam cried.

"Oh, but the misplaced adulation just rankles," Saxon protested. "Shouldn't he know the truth about you, Sam? What, are you ashamed of something? Do you have something to hide from him? Doesn't the Doctor deserve the truth of you?"

Sam fell silent. His brain screamed at him to say something, to fight it, but there was a part of him that couldn't contest Saxon's words.

The Doctor did deserve to know the truth of him. And maybe, with the paradox machine screwing up the time line good and proper anyway, it wouldn't matter.

So he said nothing, and Saxon smiled.

And the Doctor said, "I do know the truth of Samuel, and whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear."

"Oh, that's funny," Saxon said, "because I don't care what you want, Doctor, have you forgotten? For once in your bloody life this isn't about what you want. This is about what I want, and what I decide you can have. And what I've decided you get now, Doctor, is the truth about this ape you'd throw everything away for. Tell him, Samuel."

Sam said nothing.

Saxon reached out, and one of the UNIT soldiers handed him a pistol, which he cocked and pointed at Sam's head. The Doctor cried out for him to stop, but he didn't move, just glared coldly at Sam and said, "Tell him now or I will shoot you. Not to kill, not at first. I'll kill your brother first and make you watch, and then I'll kill you. Tell him."

Samuel, say yes.

Sam's head jerked up and he stared at the Doctor, who met his eyes with a desperate intensity.

Say yes. Agree to join him. Samuel, please, trust me, say yes.

I can't, Doctor!

You can, Samuel, you have to, trust me. I won't let you down, but you have to trust me right now. Right now, Samuel, you don't have time!

"I'll join you," Sam gasped, still staring at the Doctor, then turning quickly to Saxon, realizing how obvious he was being.

But luckily Saxon looked stunned enough that perhaps he didn't notice, and when he lowered the gun Sam allowed himself to hope that that was true.

Taking the opening, Sam improvised. "Don't hurt my brother, please. I'll join you. Just don't hurt him. Don't hurt Dean."

Saxon stared at Sam for a long moment, then handed the gun back to the UNIT soldier. A smile spread across his face, and Sam winced when he clapped his hands loudly and barked out a laugh. He spun on his heel to face the Doctor, who had donned a mask of horror. "You see, Doctor? My way wins! My way always wins! Your precious hybrid child is going to sit at my side as we burn your favorite planet to cinders, because ultimately, nobody but you cares about it! I keep his brother alive and he says to hell with the rest of it. Your Martha will die, your Sarah Jane will die, but his brother gets to live. Because he said yes, Doctor, because he stopped defying me, just as you will, one day. But not until it's too late. Never until it's too late, eh, Theta? Never."

The UNIT soldiers helped Sam to his feet, where he stood, shaking. He was still watching the Doctor, trying to reassure himself that the look on his face was artifice, when Saxon gripped him by the arm, beaming up at him. "Let's go, my boy," he said briskly. "We have an empire to introduce you to!"

Sam let Saxon lead him out of the room, keeping his eyes on the Doctor until he couldn't anymore.

Tell me it's okay, Doctor, tell me this is right, he begged.

And heard nothing in return.