Author's Note: So I am not super happy about how short this chapter is, but school is kind of eating my lunch right now, so I figured a short chapter was better than no chapter. The next chapter isn't clear in my head yet so it might be four or five days before I get it out. Please do not hate me, and I guarantee I'm not abandoning this story, it's just gonna take a little longer. But I've already got the end figured out and partially written and I almost made myself cry, so it's not something that I can keep myself from sharing, so it will get done.

The next chapter will be longer. I promise!

Sam Winchester had never deluded himself into thinking that he was a normal kid.

Even before he knew about the demon blood (Time Lord blood) stuff, he'd known it wasn't normal for little boys to live out of motel rooms and 60's muscle cars. He knew it wasn't normal for dads to leave their sons alone in a strange town when neither of them was in double digits yet. When he hit eight and he learned the truth of what his dad did, he knew that that wasn't normal, either. He knew it wasn't normal to be raised by your big brother, to never have a home, to be able to strip and clean a sawed-off by nine. He knew none of that was normal, and that, by extension, neither was he.

However, there had been little in life quite as not-normal as having a Time Lord in his head.

Just checking in, Samuel. Are you all right today?

Stay strong, Samuel, he's especially angry today, which must mean that there's some good news on the resistance.

Did you do your meditation today, Samuel? We're getting down to the line and you and I need to be as close as possible to that Network.

Sam had taken to being Saxon's second-in-command like a bird to water, but he'd managed to wrangle a few advantages from it and played off the rest as awkward human ignorance, which Saxon seemed to find frustrating but endearing. He'd been able to get up-close and hands-on with the Archangel Network, and found that with a little effort, he was able to tap into it. Dully at first, vaguely, but eventually with greater clarity and acuity. And as that skill improved, so did his ability to connect to the Doctor.

It was alarming, at first. Naturally. He wasn't used to having another voice in his head. Visions, sure, but they would come and go and he was always third party to them. (Well, except for the one time with the Doctor—and of course it would be the Doctor.) With this, he'd be having a perfectly normal interior monologue, and then suddenly there'd be commentary on it.

You don't have to worry about Dean, Samuel. I promise you he's in the best hands possible. And Martha is going to try to find them; if he's not too well-hidden, they'll have taken up together. If he is too well-hidden, then...well, that takes care of that, doesn't it?

Sam knew by now, had heard from the Doctor, about the truth behind his brother's rescue from Hell. About the angel (the angel, Castiel, his brother's savior) who had descended into the Pit and dragged Dean back to Earth just before the planet was sealed. How it wasn't Saxon at all, which, now that he was thinking straight, how could it have been? How Saxon had only known that that Dean's resurrection was going to happen thanks to invading the Doctor's mind, how he'd used it against Sam to convince him to join him, and that made Sam angrier than anything. Almost angry enough to blow his cover once he learned the truth, but the Doctor's calming voice in his head talked him down from confronting Saxon and ruining everything.

Sam spent a lot of his time calming himself down, lately, and he had to admit that it was getting easier as the days went by. He spent most of his time in meditation, or with the Doctor, when he wasn't giving Saxon deliberately bad advice or listening closely to the snippets of disorganized plan that he revealed. Even then, sometimes he had to have the Doctor whisper in his ear reassurances or a reminder to breathe or a joke about Saxon that Sam only halfway understood but had to suppress a smile at nonetheless. Saxon kept him around as much as possible, but it wasn't hard to beg off due to feeling poorly or something along those lines. He'd built up quite the reputation as a sickly young man, but luckily it was usually Tish who brought him his medication and he just threw it out.

The blood was a different story.

He'd rejected the plan outright at first, insisting that the Doctor didn't know what he was asking. But the Doctor was firm, and apologetic—but mostly firm.

It's the only way, Samuel, he'd said, and I am so, so sorry. If there was another viable avenue I'd explore it, but there's not. If you can connect to Archangel you can rally the troops for us when it comes down to the wire. I can't connect to it like you can; it's designed for a human neurophysiology, and you retain enough of your natural neural makeup to be able to link into it. But you need more power. You can't do it on your own, and I can't do it at all. It won't hurt you, Samuel, and I'll be there with you to take you down from it when this is all over. I won't let you be hurt. I need you to trust me.

And Sam just couldn't bring himself to do anything but trust the Doctor. For all that six months ago he would have shot him full of rock salt as quickly as look at him, then moved on to silver knives and holy water when that failed, Sam couldn't not trust him. He understood Sam, down to the weirdest, freakiest parts of him, and down to the most basic, core, mundane humanity of him, and he didn't judge him or blame him. The Doctor cared about him, and about Dean, and Bobby. That was something he hadn't come across much in his life—strangers who cared.

It wasn't that he didn't have questions, though, and it wasn't that he could leave off his natural Winchester tendency to push a good thing until it inevitably plummetted off a cliff. So once the connection was steady enough, first thing after he'd agreed to the Doctor's insane plan of teaming up with Saxon, he'd said, I did what you wanted. Now tell me why you wouldn't bring Dean back.

Samuel— the Doctor had begun, but Sam wasn't having it.

Saxon brought him back. He's back. He's out of Hell and he's safe, Doctor, and if Saxon can do it, why couldn't you? And was it that you couldn't, or you wouldn't? Because honestly I couldn't give less of a damn about your precious paradoxes when my brother was being tortured in Hell.

Samuel. The Doctor's voice was firm in his head and seemed to echo around his skull, silencing Sam's angry thoughts. Silencing all of his thoughts, really, and Sam marveled at the quiet—it was rare enough in his life. First of all. If I could have saved Dean, I would have. In a heartbeat. No matter what it cost me. And you know that. And I know that you're angry, but let me tell you right now that we are all we have right now, you and I, and this is no time to lash out at each other in anger. We need to stick together.

Big talk from the guy who didn't have a brother in Hell. Sam sounded sullen and he knew it, but couldn't bring himself to care much.

When the Doctor replied, which took a moment, his voice in Sam's head was calm and restrained. Saxon didn't bring your brother back, as I told you. He simply knew that Dean would be back in September of 2008, because he took it from my mind. Why do you think it took him so long to bring you here? Did you think he didn't know where you were?

Sam didn't have an answer for that. He hadn't thought about it, in all honesty.

He waited until he had leverage over you. Until he could dangle Dean in front of you like a prize, because he knows that you'd do anything to keep your brother safe. But he didn't bring Dean back. He couldn't. No Time Lord could.

Then who?

The Doctor sighed deeply, and Sam wondered with amusement why the Time Lord had decided to take the effort to transmit that sound into Sam's head. You're not going to believe me.

Doctor, you know me. I'm pretty gullible.

An angel named Castiel pulled your brother out of Hell. And he is protecting him right now. Dean is safe from Saxon and...well, if I know Castiel, and I do, from everything. He won't let anything happen to him.

Sam wanted to be a little bit tougher about it. A little less one-note, maybe, although he wasn't sure who he was trying to show off for. As if the Doctor didn't already know that the only thing he cared about in this screwed-up version of Earth that Saxon had created was his brother's safety, now that he was back on it.

But safe in the privacy of his room, Sam just started to cry instead.

Everything was a little bit easier after that. This Castiel guy, this angel, was keeping Dean safe, so while Saxon kept making noises about finding Dean for Sam and bringing him to the Valiant and reuniting the brothers, Sam was free to make noises back about how he wasn't going to wait forever and if anything had happened to Dean there'd be hell to pay without having to actually worry about it. Saxon wasn't going to find Dean. He was going to keep wasting resources trying, apparently, which was great in and of itself, but he wouldn't be able to hurt Dean.

Dean was safe.

Which left Sam with a lot of free time that he would have otherwise spent ineffectually agonizing over Dean's safety or lack thereof; time that he spent picking his way into Archangel. He knew he had to be careful, because Saxon was linked into the network, but he quickly realized that it was on a different...psychic wavelength, for lack of a better term. (There wasn't actually a lack of a better term, but the Doctor had spewed some long string of words that Sam had replied to with silence before sighing and describing it as a psychic wavelength.)

He tiptoed around it anyway, metaphorically speaking, brushing against threads of consciousness and testing to see what he could do. He couldn't communicate with anyone, not the way he could communicate with the Doctor, but it seemed that he could suggest things. Push an idea a little bit towards a person. Towards several. Towards a lot, eventually, and after about six months of trying he knew, he was confident, that when the time came, he could push an idea towards everyone on the network.

Everyone in the world.

And the Doctor said that it wasn't going to be complicated. When the countdown happened—because the Doctor said Saxon couldn't do anything but the absolute most dramatic thing possible, so there would be a countdown to his end game—Sam was to act. Sam wanted to do it earlier, to get it over with, but the Doctor insisted that Martha needed more time, and that when she was done she would get back to London and show up on the Valiant to let them know the world had been told.

Sam wondered about Martha, about the Companion the Doctor had sent out on her own, on foot, to spread the Gospel of Gallifrey. (That's how Sam thought of it, and it irritated the Doctor, so whenever the Doctor asked Sam to do an especially heinous meditation practice he would use that phrase as one of his breaths and just grin as the Doctor seethed.) He knew he'd meet her eventually, but did kind of wonder how it was going to work, with her knowing so much more about their friendship. Having to tread so carefully around the issue of his addiction, being the sole keeper of that knowledge (and keeping it out of his mind while connected to the Doctor was no easy feat), he didn't envy her the burden.

He didn't like to think about it. About someone else down in the trenches, doing the heavy lifting and the hard labor while he sat up on the Valiant and ate well and was treated like a prince. He didn't like to think about Dean down there, even with his angelic protector, not knowing whether or not Sam was safe, not knowing what was going on at all.

He especially didn't like to think that Dean had seen any of Saxon's broadcasts with him. He liked to think about that so little that his mind repelled the thought and he couldn't do more than glance at the idea before shutting it down.

The Doctor estimated that Martha would need about a year from the beginning of her journey, which was late May. Sam paced himself accordingly, not stretching his abilities too far, never going full-throttle because he didn't want to attract Saxon's attention and he didn't want to blow out before the time was right. But he knew how much power he was using. And he knew that when the time did come, he'd be ready.

And in the meantime, through his guilt, Sam found himself relaxing a little. Saxon wouldn't do anything to him, and was only growing more and more anxious about being unable to fulfill his end of the bargain—bring Dean back safe to Sam, and keep him out of harm's way. He found himself growing used to the Doctor's running commentary, and sometimes even found it enjoyable.

And on a level that he could barely identify other than feeling slightly of Dean, he felt safe with the Doctor in his head.

Protected. Guarded. Loved, even.

The Doctor rattled on any time that Sam invited him to, and sometimes when he didn't, about anything and everything because the Doctor was as lonely as Sam. He talked to Sam about Gallifrey, about his previous regenerations, about adventures he'd had with other Companions. (Not Rose. Never Rose.) He tried to pry out of Sam what he'd been doing since Sam had last seen the Doctor, but Sam demurred, only offering the vaguest of details. Trying to get Dean out of Hell. Hunting. Comforting Bobby. Or he'd offer particular details, like of a specific hunt or a day he'd spent with Bobby or a book he found while researching. He hated keeping this secret from the Doctor, but he convinced himself that it's what the Doctor would want.

The integrity of Time and all that.

But as the weeks turned into months and the months approached May of 2009, Sam found himself thinking that he'd miss the Doctor in his head when this was all over. He'd never felt so accepted, so understood, in his life.

But as always his thoughts turned to his brother. Dean had been out of Hell since September, and had been traveling with Castiel since then.

Sam hoped that Dean felt as safe and accepted with Castiel as he did with the Doctor.

And when this was all over, when they'd beaten Saxon and made things right, maybe they could stay together. Maybe they could just be a team, all of them, Sam and the Doctor and his Martha and Bobby and Dean and his angel.

And in the meantime Sam meditated, and reached out, and felt power blossom in his chest.

Out, two, three, four.