"But how did Moriarty get a weeping angel?" the Doctor asked as he paced around the Tardis console, agitated.
"What does it matter how he got it?" Sam asked, "I mean, the thing is in Purgatory, right?"
"No, you don't understand," the Doctor said, walking over to where Sam was leaning, "A weeping angel isn't a weapon or a mindless beast. A weeping angel is an assassin. It's not for hire, it's smart, and there is no way Moriarty could have gotten it to do his bidding."
The Doctor paused and asked Sherlock, "Moriarty is human, correct?"
Sherlock nodded and said, "Yes, he's definitely human. A psychopath but human."
"Good, so like I said, there is no way he could've controlled them," the Doctor said to Sam, "So how did he do it? And where did he even find it?"
Sam asked, "Where would you find them normally?"
The Doctor remembered being in the Byzantium, talking to Angel Bob and trying to protect too many of the Papel Mainframe's clergy. "Not on Earth," he said.
There were the angels in New York, but they created so many paradoxes, he had to lose Amy and Rory. There was no way the angels could've survived that. Even if they had, how could Moriarty have convinced statues to join his fight against Sherlock?
The angels had been on Earth twice. Not just New York. Oh, no.
The Doctor looked up at River.
River looked at him, confused for a moment, before gasping, "Oh, Doctor, tell me you didn't."
"They were staring at each other! They were stone! How was I supposed to know someone would figure it out?" the Doctor said defensively.
"You should've gone back there and done something with them," River said.
The Doctor sighed, "And what would I have done with them, hmm? We didn't know what to do with the one we've been dealing with until very recently."
"We need to go to that house," River said.
"What is going on?" Sam asked, confused.
"There's a house, Wester Drumlins. There were weeping angels there. We had them stare at each other, locking them into their stone form, and left them there," the Doctor explained impatiently. He put in the coordinates to Wester Drumlins as quickly as he could.
As they landed, River headed for the door.
"Oh, no," the Doctor said, "I need you to stay with the Tardis."
"I'm not just letting you walk into a house with possibly loose weeping angels," River argued.
The Doctor sighed, "If the angels get the Tardis, we will have bigger problems."
"We should probably go to John's flat," Sherlock said, "We have the angel out of the way. Moriarty probably won't stay silent for long."
The Doctor clapped his hands together and said, "Great! You can take this lot to John's flat. Sounds lovely."
River fixed the Doctor with a stern gaze. She was always so fierce when she got cross. "You're not going in there alone," she argued.
Sam said quickly, "I'll go with him."
The Doctor grinned at River.
She rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said, "I'll take them to John's. Call me when you're done. Be careful."
"Always am," the Doctor said.
River laughed, "Liar."
Sam followed the Doctor to the door.
"Sammy," Gabriel said, "If you get sent back, I'll sense it and come get you, okay? Don't go talking to random historical figures."
Sam smirked, and Sherlock scowled at the archangel.
The Doctor and Sam quickly walked out the door into the bright light of a cloudy London afternoon.
"If you see a statue, call it out," Sam said.
The Doctor glanced at Sam and asked, "You do know I've been doing this for a long time, correct?"
"That just means you'll be more cocky about it. If you see a statue, tell me," Sam insisted.
"Dean must be really terrible at teamwork," the Doctor said as they approached the front door.
"We can be a great team," Sam said defensively.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows.
Sam sighed, "He used to be better. It's complicated. Just...we have more important things to focus on."
The Doctor completely agreed. He opened the door and walked in the abandoned house.
"I'll take the upstairs," Sam said.
"No, wait," the Doctor said, "They were frozen in the basement."
"Of course they were," Sam said.
It would've been advantageous to have caused a Tardis dematerialization in a well lit area of the house, but on short notice and done by a human with little to no knowledge of time travel, the basement was perfect given the circumstances.
They went down the stairs quickly.
"How many angels were down here?" Sam asked.
"Four," the Doctor said, "There were four."
But there were only two angels standing before them, still staring each other to death for eternity. Not good. Definitely not good.
"Maybe it's still in the house," Sam suggested.
"Maybe. We'll have to send these to Purgatory before we do anything else," the Doctor said.
"How are we going to-" Sam started.
"Stare at that one," the Doctor said, pointing to the angel closest to Sam.
"Wait, what?" Sam asked.
The Doctor put a hand on an angel's shoulder and used River's vortex manipulator to pop into Purgatory. Quickly, he reset the coordinates to point of origin, and went back to the house Sally Sparrow had been so tied to.
"Guess I should've shown Dean how to set the coordinates back, hmm?" the Doctor mused.
"Doctor," Sam said, eyes clearly straining.
"Oh, sorry," the Doctor said. He grabbed the other angel and sent it to Purgatory as well.
When he popped back into the room next to Sam, he said, "It's amazing the simple things you overlook when you use something enough."
"We should check the house," Sam said.
The Doctor nodded and headed up the stairs.
"You're not so great at this whole teamwork thing either, are you?" Sam asked.
The Doctor sighed, "I tend to work alone."
"That's not what River was saying earlier," Sam said.
The Doctor didn't respond.
They looked through the first floor. Each doorway looked heavy with cobwebs, each room laid dusty and unused. The missing weeping angel was not on that floor.
As they made their way upstairs, Sam said, "I know if Dean had been more open with me, and trusted me for a change, he wouldn't be in the mess he's in now."
The Doctor looked at Sam and assumed he was talking about the darkness that kept popping up on Dean's scan. "Is that supposed to be some allegory for how I should trust people more and be more open, because if it is, that's really quite obnoxious," he said.
Sam sighed, "I'm just stating a fact that may or may not help you out with River."
The Doctor closed his eyes and tried to ignore Sam.
On the second floor, the rooms were almost all bare. Only one room had a bed, and it was the sole piece of furniture on the floor.
One of the empty rooms still had the warning the tenth incarnation of the Doctor had written for Sally to warn her of the weeping angels.
Sam looked at the wall and glanced at the Doctor skeptically.
"What?" the Doctor said, "I had to warn her, and I was stuck in the 1960s without the Tardis. What else was I supposed to do?"
Sam shrugged and continued to the next room.
The Doctor said, grinning, "You should've seen the look on the residents' faces when I came in to graffiti that wall."
"There were people here?" Sam asked, checking a room with a balcony.
"Had to stand on their sofa. They were not pleased with me, let me tell you," the Doctor said.
"Doctor, look," Sam said.
An angel statue peered between its fingers up at the room they were in.
"Don't look it in the eye, but don't blink," the Doctor said.
He quickly ran down the stairs and barely heard Sam say, "Doctor! I can't-" before he rushed out into the back garden.
The statue was gone.
Sam leaned over the balcony. "You need to give better warning," he said, "And work as a team."
The Doctor sighed frustratedly.
He heard Sam call someone on the Tardis. "Wait, slow down," he said, "What happened?"
The Doctor almost didn't want to know what had happened, though he suspected it was nothing good. Whatever it was, it would likely have to wait; they now had another weeping angel to worry about.