Soon after River and Sam returned with coffee, the telltale noise that Dean now associated with the TARDIS floated in through the cracked door.
Sam knocked over his coffee in anticipation as he sprang to his feet. River calmly stood, her face revealing a look of a little girl who just got told she was pretty by an innocent little boy. Dean kept his seat on the bed next to Cas, who had been awakened by the noise and was currently looking with wide eyes from Dean to the door.
The door burst open, revealing the Doctor looking harried. He was followed closely by Jack and a girl Dean hadn't seen yet.
The Doctor looked around, and pointed at them all quickly. "Clara. Jack. River. Sam. Dean. Castiel. I'm the Doctor. Now we all know each other's names so we can get down to business."
"Jack," River said, winking.
"River, gorgeous as always," Jack murmured, kissing her hand.
This distracted the Doctor momentarily. "You two know each other?" he said in amazement.
"You don't keep tabs on me all the time, sweetie," River said, and Jack laughed.
The Doctor seemed a little upset by this, but instead he said, "Manhattan?"
"A while ago."
Satisfied by this answer, the Doctor turned his attention back to the motley group before him. "Donna's awake," he said. "Confused, but all in all still very…sassy."
"She's not perfectly okay," Jack said. "Don't forget how she went catatonic when she saw my face."
"Well, that's to be expected, Jack, it was stupid of me to ever let you out there. You're a memory that she doesn't know she has, and we need it to stay that way until this mess blows over," the Doctor said rapidly.
"So she's fine? Doesn't seem, I don't know, Satanic or anything?" Dean said straight-faced.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, and I don't see it being a problem. Donna would never crack if she knew that Lucifer was pressuring her. She's too strong-willed."
"Well, she may not know that Lucifer is pressuring her."
The entire group turned to look at Cas. He was looking better, still having enough angel mojo to gradually heal himself. Cas continued, "Lucifer can take the form of anyone and anything. She could see Lucifer as her mother, her father, anyone. Even…" Cas hesitated, "…even you, Doctor."
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, she wouldn't fall for something like that, I mean, she barely feels like she knows me as it is, I don't think she'd take kindly to me asking her favors, like, I don't know, could I possess her or something?"
"Doctor, you've been a part of her before," Cas said quietly.
It would have been possible to hear a pin drop. No one dared to breathe, not even the Doctor, as the weight of what had just been said hit him.
After a few moments of silence, Cas managed to continue. "It may feel…only natural to her at this point. And besides," Cas said, his eyes now fixed solely on the Doctor, "it may not necessarily be this face of yours that she sees."
The door banged as the Doctor burst his way out. Dean and the others scurried out after him, and all were shocked to see that the place that the Doctor stood in the parking lot, where the TARDIS had been moments ago, was now empty.
Cas came up behind Dean and used him for support. The Doctor's eyes were crazed as he looked wildly around the group, searching for answers.
Cas's gravelly voice is what offered it up. His hand was to his head, tuning into his "angel radio" as Dean called it. He looked grimly around the group before saying one sentence that answered practically every question.
"The angels have the phone box."
"There's only one reason the angels would want the TARDIS," Sam said as the group came back into the motel room, except for the Doctor, who sat on a curb outside.
"Donna said yes to Lucifer," River said, shaking her head.
The discussion raged over the period of a few minutes until Dean cleared his throat and said, "So what are we going to do about it?"
"Well, we need to get the TARDIS back, of course," Jack said.
"And hopefully Donna too…in one piece," Clara murmured. She had immediately taken a liking to the fiery redhead, and the whole situation made Clara feel sick to her stomach.
"She will be in one piece," the Doctor said, and the group jumped because they hadn't noticed he'd re-entered the room. "I'll make sure of it."
"Take the lead, Doctor," Jack said. "What do you need from us?"
"Hold on just a minute," Sam stammered suddenly. He seemed a little put off by having all the eyes on him, but he continued, "I just want to state my completely valid opinion…why should the Doctor take the lead on this?"
Jack and Clara managed to offer up many reasons, and River offered up "Because I trust this man with my life," but Sam raised his hand.
"Please. Just, hear me out. Dean and Cas and I truly barely know him. We don't know how to work with him on this, and well, I just want to make sure that we're not going on a suicide mission."
Clara stepped up to him. Sam was significantly taller than her, but he seemed to back down a little bit under her gaze. "We're just trusting you. That's a good enough reason. Why the sudden lack of faith in the Doctor?"
Sam flushed a little bit, but he mumbled, "I Googled him and nothing came up."
"That's your grand reason?" Jack laughed a little bit. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Well, you'd think a man that shows up everywhere in time and space would have gotten noticed or mentioned, maybe by someone he helped along the way or he would've shown up in two different pictures of two different time periods or something," Sam said defensively. "You can find just about anything on the Internet, I don't see why I can't find him."
"It's because all records of me in all of history were wiped by Oswin Oswald when-" the Doctor began in defense of himself.
"Oswin Oswald," Clara broke in. "Doctor, who's that?"
The Doctor suddenly realized his mistake. "I've been around twelve hundred years, Clara, you run into people with similar names-"
"But Oswin Oswald," Clara said. "I found a headstone, just before I met you, which said Clara Oswin Oswald. Why are our names similar? Are we related or something?" Clara looked at the Doctor with hurt eyes. "Is that the reason you came and found me? Because you knew Oswin Oswald, and Clara Oswin Oswald, and you thought, well, Clara Oswald, she'd be a nice replacement? I knew I reminded you of someone else, but this-"
"Clara!" the Doctor shouted, and Clara fell silent. The Doctor grabbed her shoulders. "Listen, Clara. You all have similar names. You share similarities, too. Soufflés. Being a nanny. Saying the same sentence, 'Run you clever boy and remember.' But Oswin Oswald and Clara Oswin Oswald, they both died. So how can you be here? You impossible girl, the girl who died twice. How can you be here? How can you?"
Clara grabbed the Doctor's hands in her own and moved them off her shoulders. "Because I'm the girl who can," she said softly. "And we figure everything out Doctor, so we'll figure this out. But I was wrong to get us off topic. I'm not the main focus here, no matter how many times I've died. This is about Donna. So let's think of a way to save her. Oh, and stop the apocalypse while we're at it."